The Killing 2 (49 page)

Buch nodded at Plough. The civil servant got up, walked round the room, handed out copies of the fax Connie Vemmer had brought.

Rossing laughed.

‘What the hell is this?’

‘It’s a report from the field hospital in Camp Viking. This fax was sent to you on the day of the soldiers’ funeral. Among the body parts was a hand too many. The hand of an
Afghan.’

‘This is a Ministry of Defence document,’ Rossing complained. ‘I’d like to know where you got it.’

‘The doctors’ report concludes the alleged killing of civilians must be investigated. You buried this—’

‘No, no, no. I called a judge advocate’s inquiry. It’s all on the record. The case was investigated and to tell you the truth—’

‘The truth is you did bugger all!’ Buch cried, getting to his feet, a little unsteadily. ‘You knew something was wrong and you were determined it wasn’t going to get out.
You made Monberg keep silent when he found out. And when Anne Dragsholm got wind of it and was murdered for her pains you didn’t do shit!’

‘You’re overwrought, Thomas,’ Rossing said idly.

‘Damned right I am! Five people are dead.’ Buch put up his hand, fingers spread. ‘Five lives that could have been spared if you’d done your duty. It makes
me—’

‘You’ve made your point,’ Grue Eriksen broke in. ‘Take a seat. Calm down if you can.’ The Prime Minister turned to Rossing. ‘Do you have an
explanation?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

He went through the copied fax again.

‘I asked for this to be kept out of the case files because it was inaccurate.’

‘Oh no, Rossing!’ Buch bellowed. ‘You can’t get away with this nonsense. The time and place is on the fax. It all fits.’

‘I’m sorry you force me to go into such macabre details, Buch. It seems I have no alternative. When the medics in Afghanistan looked into the case further they realized the hand was
that of the suicide bomber himself.’

‘Not good enough.’

‘It may not be good enough for you! But it’s in the corrected medical report which was placed on file later.’ Rossing glanced at Grue Eriksen. ‘I really don’t want
to waste any more of your time with this. You’re all welcome to read the documents if you wish. Had Buch asked for it beforehand I would happily have supplied it. Instead he goes off half
cock once more. Really . . .’

Rossing wiped his forehead.

‘What with poor Frode’s death this has been quite an ordeal.’

‘That was all very quick,’ Buch snapped. ‘How did you know I was going to talk about that fax?’

Rossing shook his head.

‘How did you know?’ Buch repeated.

‘You’re prone to conspiracy theories,’ Rossing said. ‘You ignore expert opinion. You force the police and PET to hound our soldiers.’

Voice rising, he leapt to his feet, jabbed his hand in Buch’s face.

‘You put pressure on Frode Monberg when you knew he was unwell. You, Buch! And now you dare to make me responsible for your own stupidity and incompetence! Enough.’

He strode to the door, walked out of the room. Kahn followed. Then Gitta Spalding and finally Carsten Plough.

Grue Eriksen stayed in his seat, staring at the wall.

‘There’s more to this,’ Buch said tentatively. ‘I promise . . .’

The silver-haired man by the window closed his eyes, rolled back his head, said nothing.

Buch left.

Just after six, icy rain on the windscreen, streets covered with a greasy winter sheen. Lund and Strange driving through Copenhagen still trying to find the missing Torben
Skåning.

He lived in one of the old military houses off Store Kongensgade. His wife hadn’t seen him all day. They’d checked the local pubs he liked and got nowhere. His one interest outside
drink seemed to be the nearby Frihedsmuseet in Churchillparken close to the Kastellet garrison and the Amalienborg Palace. It was a museum dedicated to recording Danish resistance to the Nazis, a
small building with a home-built tank from the conflict near the entrance.

Lund stared at the ramshackle vehicle as they drove up outside. It looked like a kid’s toy, a large Christiana trike covered in armour, with the message ‘Frit Danmark’, Free
Denmark, scrawled on the front. There were lights on in the building, figures behind the glass drinking wine. A reception of some kind.

She followed Strange into the entrance, told him to talk to the people there, wandered round the nearest exhibits. Lund hadn’t stepped inside this place since she was a school kid and
barely remembered the stories from those days. War, she recalled once again, was a distant nightmare when she was young. Something that affected other, older people, never her.

Briskly she walked through the exhibition areas, followed the murky, awkward story of how Denmark reluctantly allowed an all-powerful German regime to take control in 1940 then steadily found
the courage to resist in the ensuing years.

It was all here. The amateur acts of sabotage by schoolchildren bearing names like the Churchill gang. The more daring and serious attacks by the Communists, aided by secret agents from British
special forces. Then, from 1943 on, the terror. The round-up of Jews. Routine arrests, torture, banishment to concentration camps, the execution of those suspected of working with the
partisans.

And the response. This part she looked at most closely. Not all Danes resisted. Not everyone stayed neutral. Some joined the Nazis, worked with them, benefited from their patronage. By doing so
they risked their lives. When the terror took hold the Resistance formed ruthless assassination groups, published clandestine newsletters with the names and photographs of the collaborators they
intended to murder.

Then shot them dead on the street, in their homes, at work.

War was everywhere, in the basement cells of the Politigården where suspects were tortured before being shipped to concentration camps in Germany or, worse, driven to Mindelunden and a
quick, brutal death.

Stikke.

That word stared at her from almost every exhibition case, on the underground pamphlets the Resistance printed on their home-made presses, in the newspaper reports, the history books.

Informers. Traitors. Danes who’d lost the right to live.

Everything from that time seemed to be recorded here, in old guns, children’s paintings, scraps of newspaper, and score upon score of photos. Dead soldiers in the snow. Home-made pistols
and pipe bombs. Mugshots of informers to be shot. Photos of squads like the Lorentzen gang, Danes trained by the Germans to infiltrate the partisans. Bullet diagrams from the shooting of Resistance
fighters cornered during raids. Lines of men being rounded up by Nazi guards at the Horserød internment camp near Helsingør, a place Lund knew well since it was now an open prison
used for offenders deemed to be of little threat to society.

She’d been an idiot to think that war belonged to history, an accident of the past, something the world had outgrown. Its dark ghost still lurked in the corridors of the
Politigården, in the prisons the state now used, in the minds of those who came after her and grew up in a world less secure, less peaceful than the one she’d enjoyed.

Lund stood in front of a shocking display about an attack on a group of Resistance fighters caught unawares, slaughtered without a second thought. Men who’d delivered a similar fate to a
Danish
stikke
a few days earlier.

Strange came and stood next to her. He didn’t look at the case at all.

‘They haven’t seen Skåning today. But . . .’

‘Is there a picture of your grandfather here?’

Strange shook his head.

‘What?’

‘I always thought it was so distant. For me it was. But it’s not really.’ She looked at him. ‘Is he here? Haven’t you looked?’

‘I never knew him,’ he said, and seemed offended. ‘How could I? My dad didn’t talk of him much either. I’ve only got now. Here. This moment. I don’t have time
for . . .’ He gestured at the display. ‘For this kind of stuff.’

‘That’s what I thought too.’

‘You’re starting to scare me.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t like it when you do reflective.’

‘Doesn’t happen often.’

‘Good. Back to the real world. Skåning’s wife just called. She said someone else has been trying to get in touch with him.’

Lund turned away from the old photos and home-made guns.

‘Who?’

‘He didn’t leave his name. Just said he was an old army colleague.’ He pointed to the door. ‘Skåning’s still not answering his mobile. His wife says
that’s unusual.’

‘What did the wife say to him?’

Strange frowned.

‘Something she never told us. Sunday nights Skåning has a key to use a local library in Nørrebro. He’s studying languages there and locks up.’

Two minutes later they were back in the car. Strange took out the blue light as they pulled away from the museum, placed it on the roof, set it going, hit the siren.

The Yellow polo was the only car outside the little library. Raben had been there the best part of an hour, lights off, slumped in the driver’s seat, gun in his pocket.
Waiting.

The name troubled him. Skåning. He’d heard it before somewhere. There was a face he thought he could attach to it. Troubled, like his own. Tough and relentless.

Someone who might answer to the name Perk.

In the badlands of Helmand identity meant nothing. All armies had men, sometimes women, who roamed the dangerous terrain behind the front, spoke many languages, wore clothes that disguised who
they truly were and where they came from.

The soldiers of Jægerkorpset weren’t the only shadows around. There were spooks like the phantom Perk, seemingly beyond the usual command structure, allowed to move freely,
unhindered by convention, by rules of battle and engagement, the inflexible norms of the military.

If his head would only work right he’d see this man and know. If . . .

Lights behind. A car drew up. Parked next to his own. Raben stayed low, let his eyes stray to the window.

A bearded man with a hard, unforgiving face. A black beret. Army fatigues.

Raben’s mind reeled. He was back in Helmand in that instant, listening to the bombs and the screams, men and women, children too.

Gunfire and flames. Agony and blood.

All these memories raged through his head and he’d no idea what was real, what was imaginary.

The man got out. He was big and muscular. Walked to the library door. Pressed the bell. Shouted, ‘Hello. Anyone at home?’

A loud, firm voice. That of an officer.

‘Hi, Skåning,’ said the man who came out to answer. ‘I didn’t know if you were coming or not.’

A brief exchange. Raben watched Skåning walk in then climbed out of the yellow Polo.

Felt the gun. Felt something else in his other pocket. Took it out. Jonas’s toy, the one he’d left when he got angry at the beach. A toy soldier. Raised sword. Furious face.

Such a small thing. All that was left.

Raben looked at the library, walked to the door. Found it open.

Footsteps ahead inside. Heavy military boots on wooden tiles. He walked through into the main room. Lines of bookshelves, the smell of damp and old wood. A figure just visible in the low
security lights, heading for the desks at the end.

He looked even bigger now. Broad and strong. A full head of hair that needed combing. Some heavy hardbacks under one arm. A paper cup in the other.

Torben Skåning placed the books on the last desk, turned on the light above it. Shuffled the titles, took a sip of his drink. Screwed up his lined, haggard features. Yawned.

Arms behind his head. A face like a church gargoyle. Ugly, exaggerated, unkind, with a full ginger beard and wolf-like white teeth.

When he opened his eyes Raben was there.

Buch made the mistake of going back to the Ministry by the public roads. Couldn’t face the maze of corridors any more. The briefers had been at work. A mob of reporters
and TV cameras hung around the door of the Ministry, under the gaze of the Børsen’s dragons.

He strode through them without speaking, eyes ahead, trying to think about everything in his life that was not in Copenhagen. About Marie and the kids. The farms and the cooperative’s
finances.

It wasn’t easy. Wasn’t possible.

‘Buch,’ barked one of the TV hacks. ‘The Defence Minister denies all your accusations. Will you apologize?’

On, past the security guards who brought the rabble to a halt at the front door, and let him walk upstairs to his office.

There he sat on the sofa and turned on the TV news. No surprise to see the lead item.

‘After only one week in office, the Minister of Justice Thomas Buch faces an uncertain future after what observers describe as an unprecedented political blunder.’ Buch sat down and
listened. ‘The People’s Party is likely to move a vote of no confidence in him tomorrow which, if passed, would seal his departure from government.’

Karina was on her phone again, whispering to someone. He didn’t much care who.

‘The party expects to press for a more draconian anti-terror package as a result . . .’

Plough marched in, turned on her.

‘Have you managed to contact this journalist of yours?’

‘She’s not answering. I left a message.’

‘Brilliant! You realize this was all a set-up. Rossing fed her to us and by God we took the bait.’

She didn’t answer. Flemming Rossing came on the screen. All three of them watched.

The Minister of Defence was in ebullient mood, smiling, neatly dressed, grey suit, white shirt, scarlet tie.

‘No one likes to be smeared,’ he said to the interviewer. ‘So I’m relieved to hear the Minister of Justice has been asked to withdraw these unfounded and appalling
accusations.’

Buch turned off the set.

‘This is all my fault. I don’t want either of you to think you’re to blame. Rossing was right. I pushed Monberg too far. I kept on at him without thinking for a moment about
his health. Not for a second.’

‘You had good reason to ask him those questions!’

It was Plough who spoke, which surprised Buch.

‘I did, but . . .’

‘As far as you knew Monberg was recovering,’ Plough went on. ‘There were serious issues he needed to address. They haven’t gone away.’