The Killing 2 (61 page)

Plough came through the door. Grey suit, tie. Always the civil servant.

‘We need evidence the Prime Minister shelved that first medical report,’ Buch said. ‘And where in God’s name have you been?’

Plough came and stood in front of him, hands in pockets. The surest sign of rebellion he had. He gestured at Buch’s face. Toothpaste on the beard. Karina passed him a napkin and told him
to wipe it away.

‘All the evidence we’ve seen,’ Plough went on, ‘suggests the doctor was happy with the revised report. No one’s suggesting Grue Eriksen’s murdered civilians.
These accusations of yours . . .’

Buch’s mind was wandering.

‘Thomas!’ Plough pleaded. ‘At least fight battles you’ve a hope of winning! We should focus on Rossing. We know he was involved. We know he hid things.’

‘Rossing would never do all this on his own. He doesn’t have the balls. Where is he now?’

Karina checked the government diary on the nearest computer.

‘At the memorial service in Ryvangen. For the dead soldiers.’

Buch went for his jacket, a tie. And, almost as an afterthought, stripped off his shirt from the night before and found a clean one.

‘Get me a car.’

Flowers and four coffins draped in the Danish flag set in a line next to the black stone font. A lone trumpet echoing through Ryvangen’s tiny chapel. The place was cold.
Flemming Rossing shivered next to the biers, staring at the bouquets and the regimental caps by their side.

The service was postponed. The police were searching the barracks. Army personnel had been confined to quarters during the investigation. Only a lone undertaker, black jacket, black tie, white
shirt, joined Rossing and the trumpeter in the chapel. The relatives were in the mess hall. If the search continued no soldiers or officers would be able to take part.

The door opened. A large, heavy figure marched through. Rossing turned, saw, took a deep, pained breath.

Buch sat down in the pew behind him.

‘More fairy stories to throw at me? What are you doing here? Were you invited?’

Buch’s voice was low and croaky.

‘I know you don’t trust me. But we’ve more in common than you think.’

Rossing kept his eyes on the coffins and the red and white flags.

‘I seriously hope that isn’t so. I hear your little adventure in Afghanistan proved fruitless. There’s a surprise. No wonder you’re stressed.’

A low, muttered curse close to Rossing’s ear.

‘Don’t play the pompous ass with me,’ Buch hissed. ‘You think you served a higher purpose.’

‘I have.’

Buch’s heavy arm came up by Rossing’s face and pointed ahead.

‘Do you think they’d agree?’

‘They’re the reason. Every coffin reminds me we’ve got to continue until no death’s in vain.’

‘That’s politician’s claptrap and you know it. This wasn’t about war, about victory. Not for Grue Eriksen. It was about power and money and votes.’

Rossing turned and stared at him, said nothing.

Buch got up, came and stood in front of him.

‘I know you didn’t do this on your own, Rossing. You got your orders and you obeyed them. These men . . .’ His voice was louder than ever, his bearded face contorted with
anger. ‘They died because of what happened.’

‘You don’t know that—’

‘Deny it then!’ Buch roared. ‘You’ve got a responsibility, for fuck’s sake. At least Monberg had a conscience.’

‘And it killed him . . .’

Buch threw up his hands in fury.

‘And who killed them?’

The undertaker strode towards him.

‘You have to leave now. I demand it. This behaviour’s quite inappropriate.’

‘Inappropriate?’ Buch stared at Rossing, shook his head. ‘That’s a good word, isn’t it?’

‘You must leave or I will order the guards!’ the undertaker said more firmly.

‘He’ll load the blame on you,’ Buch yelled, going for the door. ‘Just like he did with Monberg. And me.’

Rossing sat, eyes closed, face stony and grey.

‘We need each other,’ Buch added. ‘If you can find yourself a spine you know where I am.’

Forty minutes into the search, Brix and Madsen were walking through the main officers’ quarters, watching the teams go through desks and lockers and filing cabinets.

They hadn’t found a single thing.

‘Try calling the phone again,’ Brix ordered.

‘Done that,’ Madsen replied. ‘Maybe the battery’s dead.’

‘Have you looked in the basements? The cellars? The . . .’

They went into the entrance hall.

‘Big place,’ Madsen said, admiring the elegant ceiling and the curved staircase. ‘With the men we’ve got this is going to take a couple of days.’

‘I want every inch searched. I don’t care how long it takes. There’s something here. There has to be . . .’

He stopped. A man was walking down the stairs, blue uniform, ginger hair, sharp, intelligent face hard with anger. General Arild had a phone to his ear and was speaking in a whisper.

‘Stop!’ Arild said in a voice so full of authority he barely needed to raise it.

He’d put the call on hold, not finished it.

‘I know what you’re going to say,’ Brix told him. ‘Don’t waste your breath. This is an official police investigation. We’re here for the duration. Live with
it.’

Arild’s bleak eyes fixed on him. He held out the phone.

‘For you.’

Brix snatched the mobile from his hand. He knew who’d be on the other end.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Hedeby shrieked down the line.

‘This isn’t a good time.’

‘Pack your things and get out of there. That’s an order. How dare you . . .?’

Søgaard had come to join Arild. The two soldiers stood next to one another, arms folded, faces calm and confident.

‘I’m in charge here,’ Brix said. ‘I take full responsibility for the situation. Once the search is finished I’ll get back to you.’

‘Not this time. I’ve talked to the commissioner. You’ve no authority any more. Get out of there.’

He took the phone away from his ear. Heard her ask quietly, ‘Lennart . . . ?’

Arild reached out and removed it from his fingers.

‘If you’re not gone in five minutes,’ he said, ‘God help you.’

The coldest of smiles then Arild turned on his heel and left, with Søgaard walking obediently behind.

Brix stood in the chilly hall, unable to think for a moment. He’d suspended officers himself in the past. It was never easy.

His own phone rang.

‘Yes?’

‘We’ve got something in the basement. You need to come now.’

Two floors down beneath the officers’ hall. Central heating pipes, low lights, dusty and cold. Brix and Madsen put on latex gloves, walked to the team of men huddled by
the door at the end of the corridor.

A locker room. Rows and rows of wooden doors, all of them open now. A woman forensic officer was shining a torch into the space of one in the middle. The man with her reached inside.

A phone with a flashing green light.

‘It’s the number,’ the officer said. ‘The same SIM used to trigger the call that killed Grüner.’

There was a long red metal box on the shelf below the phone. A small brass padlock keeping it secure.

Brix pointed at it.

‘Let’s have a look.’

The woman got a pair of bolt cutters and removed the padlock. Brix walked in front of them, bent down, opened the lid with his gloved hands. Someone shone a torch.

He picked up the first thing he found. A glittering piece of metal. Dog tags on a single chain, severed in half, one of them covered in dried blood.

Brix stood up, closed the door. Looked at the name on the locker.

Søgaard.

Called Ruth Hedeby.

‘Just listen for once, will you?’ he said as she began to squawk.

It was barely a village at all. Just a collection of wrecked buildings inside a low perimeter wall breached by force and weather. A few houses made of mud and brick, every one
reduced to broken shells. A boy of ten or so was feeding a small flock of goats outside what was once a gate. He fled the moment the Land Rover appeared.

Lund got out with Strange. The driver picked up his assault rifle and joined them. The place lay in a long valley surrounded by barren fields. A burnt-out pickup stood by the nearest house. The
marks on it, black and ugly, could have been a bomb blast.

Beyond stood a white truck with a blue lamp on the roof. A stocky man in a blue police uniform leaned on the side smoking a cigarette. Two others in long robes, turbans round their heads, sat in
the back, rifles slung round their shoulders.

‘Salam Alaikum,’ the soldier said as he approached them.

The policeman threw his cigarette to the ground, stamped it out, looked into their eyes and shook their hands, Lund last.

He didn’t say a word, just grabbed his rifle out of the back then led them inside the compound, with the two men making up the rear.

Strange had the file. It was hard to connect what it contained with the wrecked house the cop showed them. Black smoke stained the front from the suicide attack. The windows were broken and open
to the bitter winter blasts. Most of the furniture was gone. Just a few broken chairs and a tiny table in the living room.

Strange led the way upstairs.

‘According to the investigation Raben’s people got the family up here.’

Three rooms, only one of any size. More trashed furniture. A grubby cooking pot. On the floor broken glass and bullet casings. She picked one up. Strange came and looked at it.

‘That’s a 5.56,’ he said. ‘Danish army M-95. This is the place.’

She went into the small room next door. Kicked open an old chest. Tried to rifle through the broken doors and cabinets. The place looked as if a deadly hurricane had hit it.

Back downstairs. A big fireplace, sooty and damp. A rickety kitchen table.

‘The soldiers slept in shifts in here,’ Strange said, going through the notes.

A single mattress. She picked it up, looked. No sign of blood.

Next to it the entrance hall, behind a door off its hinges.

‘This is where the family were killed?’ Lund asked.

‘According to Raben,’ Strange agreed. ‘He said the corpses were moved one room along.’

He took out a torch, opened another rickety door. One more empty space.

‘So they didn’t dare go outside?’

Raben shook his head.

‘Not if there were Taliban out there. How could they?’

‘But there’s nothing here! Just some casings. No blood. No sign of rations. You wouldn’t . . .’ It felt so wrong. ‘You wouldn’t think anyone lived
here.’ She opened the ragged, grubby curtain and looked at the bleak parched countryside. ‘Died here either.’

The driver was getting worried.

‘Are we done yet?’ he asked.

‘We’ve plenty of time,’ Lund said. ‘I want to talk to the policeman. Can you translate?’

They went back into the big room. The cop was seated on a chair, the two men he came with stood over him like guards. They were all smoking. The man in the blue uniform looked bored and
surly.

‘Who lived here?’ Lund asked.

Waited for the translation.

‘A family of five. Some people thought the father was a drug lord who gave money to the Taliban,’ the soldier said eventually.

‘Does he think they were killed by Danish soldiers?’

The cop yawned, got up, brushed the dirt from his cap, picked up his rifle. Said something slowly.

‘No,’ the soldier translated. ‘He said there was no sign of the family.’

Lund kept her eyes on the man.

‘So they just disappeared?’

‘People do,’ the soldier said. ‘Don’t push it.’

There was something on the floor. It looked like a big wooden paddle with a handle. Lund picked it up.

‘What’s this?’

The cop made an eating gesture, said something.

‘It’s for bread,’ the soldier said. ‘The family ran a bakery.’

‘As well as selling dope for the Taliban?’ Lund asked.

‘It happens.’

‘Where’s the oven?’

A long stream of Pashto.

‘He says everything was destroyed.’

‘In that case show me where the oven was.’

‘Lund,’ Strange whispered.

‘What?’

‘We’re not welcome here. We need to get back.’

There was a back yard. Some low buildings in it.

‘I’m not done yet,’ she said.

Buch sat at his desk, watching the boxes move out of the office, listening to Plough whining about the confrontation in the Ryvangen chapel.

‘Thomas . . .’ Plough began. It was always first-name terms now. ‘What could you possibly hope to gain?’

‘Rossing’s no fool,’ Buch said. ‘He knows Grue Eriksen may come gunning for him next. I gave him a chance. He didn’t take it. I’ve called in some private
lawyers to discuss our options. I want you to sit in with them—’

‘We’ve got bigger things to worry about!’ Plough cried.

‘Such as?’

‘Lund’s investigation in Afghanistan.’

‘So what?’ Buch replied, shaking his head. ‘If she’s going to go all that way—’

‘She’s left the military zone without authorization.’

‘Then send her some.’

‘You’ve no idea how these things work. Afghanistan’s a NATO operation. There are international rules. We’ve broken them. Operational Command are furious. The British are
pissed off—’

‘When aren’t they?’

Karina rapped on the door. She was dressing down these days, as if her time was numbered too. Red shirt, tight jeans.

‘I’ve got the Minister of Defence outside,’ she said, looking more than a little surprised. ‘He wants to see you in private. Shall I . . . ?’

Buch clapped his hands, was out of his seat in a moment. Rossing walked in, waited for Karina and Plough to leave.

‘If you’ve come about some trivial clearance issue for the police in Helmand, forget it,’ Buch said.

‘No,’ Rossing said with a wry smile. ‘I’ve given up trying to guess what you’ll do next there.’

‘Then what can I do for you?’

Rossing took a seat by the window. He looked different. Defeated maybe.

‘I’ve always been loyal to Grue Eriksen. Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Congratulations.’

Rossing’s hooded eyes looked him up and down.