The Killing 3 (15 page)

‘The pathologist we saw this morning just called. She says Louise Hjelby’s autopsy was changed. She’s scared. She wants to show us something.’

‘Later.’

Lund took a deep breath.

‘There’s nothing happening here. We’re wasting time. He’s done this for a reason . . .’

‘I’m hanging up now. You stay where you are until Brix says otherwise. Bye.’

Alone on the bridge, shivering, dark hair swept back in a clumsy ponytail. Sick of the heavy body armour.

Lund checked her watch. Gone five thirty.

He wasn’t coming. It was never going to happen.

She threw off the padded jacket, went to the boot, got the bags out, lined them up on the pavement. Sent Borch a short text telling him to collect them. Then climbed in the car, turned the key,
pulled out into the steady night traffic.

‘Private time!’ Morten Weber demanded.

They went outside into the corridor. Weber slapped some pages on Hartmann’s chest.

‘Mogens Rank knew all about that old case. I’ve got the documents out of the Ministry to prove it. The investigation went by his desk.’

Hartmann swore.

‘Can’t this wait a while?’

Weber’s beady eyes lit up with fury.

‘Wait? There’s a time bomb ticking beneath us. Can you really not hear it? Look!’

He pointed to the top page.

‘Mogens signed the papers himself. It’s there in black and white. Yet he said nothing when the sailors were killed. Nothing when Peter Schultz was strung up by the neck in front of
the courthouse. And PET say the kidnapper’s indictment went straight to his government email address in the Ministry. Which isn’t public by the way. Might have mentioned that
too.’

‘What does he say?’ Nebel asked.

‘Won’t return my calls.’

‘This has to wait,’ she insisted. ‘We’ve got a thousand people turning up for this debate. Let’s deal—’

‘I haven’t finished,’ Weber went on. ‘PET think they know who’s been leaking information to Ussing. They’ve found an official in Rank’s ministry with a
motive.’ He looked at Hartmann. ‘His name’s Jens Lebech. Rosa’s ex-husband.’

‘Ex,’ Hartmann said straight out. ‘I never went near Rosa when she was married. They can’t prove that.’

Weber slapped his forehead.

‘Just for once can you try to think with something other than your cock? We need to start managing this right now. You’ve got to go back to Christiansborg and reel Mogens
in.’

‘The debate, Morten,’ Nebel pointed out. ‘People here. The media.’

‘I’ll handle this meeting,’ Hartmann said. ‘Cancel everything after that. And find him for me.’

Under the bridge they heard the sound of Lund’s car banging on the road as she pulled off the pavement.

‘What the hell’s happening?’ Brix asked.

Borch’s phone buzzed. One text message.

‘She says she’ll answer Emilie’s phone if it rings. She left the money where the car was . . .’

A furious Brix turned on Madsen.

‘Get a woman officer up on the bridge. Find out what the hell Lund’s doing.’

The Zeuthens saw all this from their car. Got out.

‘Has he called?’ Maja Zeuthen asked Brix.

‘Not yet. I have to go up on the bridge. Can you please . . .’ He pointed to the Range Rover. ‘Stay out of this?’

The snatch team was in the woods. Madsen got on the phone to them saying Lund had left for some reason. They were to wait for the ambush and get ready to pick up the girl.

Robert Zeuthen stood by him, listening to every word.

He grabbed Madsen as he walked away.

‘What’s that about an ambush?’

‘Not now . . .’ Madsen said brusquely.

Zeuthen was a quiet man but stockily built. One quick move and he had the cop by the arm, dragged him round.

‘I want to know.’

Madsen looked up to the observation team. Waved. Kept quiet.

Zeuthen walked off to his car.

In the trees above the camp Borch kept trying to raise Lund, got nothing but voicemail. A noise behind. He turned, saw Zeuthen’s Range Rover lurching up the muddy
lane.

‘I don’t believe this,’ he murmured and watched Zeuthen and his wife get out and clamber through the ridged tracks towards them.

‘This wasn’t part of the deal,’ Borch said, standing to block their way. ‘You’re putting your daughter at risk.’

Zeuthen walked to the edge of the clearing, looked down at the caravans and trailers. Juncker had his glasses trained on one, was pointing it out to a colleague.

‘Is she down there?’ Zeuthen asked. ‘Is that the van?’

Borch came to his side.

‘We can’t be sure. Even if she is there we don’t know he’ll give her up willingly. He hasn’t called. The money’s still—’

‘Something’s coming,’ Juncker cried. ‘It’s headed for the mobile home.’

Zeuthen and his wife tried to get closer, to see.

‘I want you to go back to your car,’ Borch insisted.

He told two of the officers to keep them away. Got his glasses to his face. Scanned the camp.

It was an old Fiat estate. A figure in heavy clothes at the wheel. The car pulled up outside the motorhome. The driver went to the door, unlocked it. Walked in. A flicker of gas lights
inside.

It was the end of the day in the Department of Forensic Medicine. Most people were going home. Lund found herself walking down line upon line of deserted white-tiled corridors
looking for the Vissenbjerg woman.

She didn’t want to think about what was happening at the bridge. Brix would stick it out until the bitter end. That was his nature. Unimaginative.

But there was no ransom handover. It was never in the plan.

Her phone rang. She looked at the screen.
Borch
.

‘Before you start yelling at me understand this: it’s nothing to do with money. This is about the old case. The girl, Louise Hjelby. The pathologist knows something. I’m more
use here—’

‘We can have that discussion later,’ he cut in. ‘Just now we need to know you’ll answer the phone.’

‘Of course I will! If it rings . . .’

‘Someone’s just entered the camper van, Sarah. It’s happening.’

‘You’re in the wrong place. He sent you there for a reason. Listen . . .’

A noise. Movement in her jacket pocket.

Emilie’s phone.

‘I’ve got the call,’ she said.

‘Get him to talk for as long as possible,’ Borch ordered. ‘If we see it’s coming from here we’re going in.’

She left him. Answered.

‘I’m sorry I’m late. Are you ready?’

‘Yes,’ she said, trying not to sound nervous. ‘The money’s all here.’

Hesitation.

‘I can’t hear any traffic, Lund. And that’s a busy place.’

‘We didn’t know what was happening. I had to talk to my boss. I can be back really soon.’

‘Forget it. I’ve changed my mind.’

‘What do you mean you’ve changed your mind? I’ve got all this money—’

‘The deal’s off. I can get more out of him than this.’

‘Meaning what?’

Lund looked round. She was close to the lecture theatre where they’d found Vissenbjerg neatly slicing a dead man apart that morning.

The line was dead.

She called Borch. He was trying to locate the source of the call, make sure it was from the motorhome.

‘Well?’ she asked.

‘We’re working on it.’

‘Doing what exactly?’

No answer. He wasn’t listening. Borch was shouting, shrieking. Something about Robert Zeuthen, one word over and over:
stop, stop, stop.

Down the hill he ran, business shoes slipping in the mud, tumbling through thorn bushes, falling face first into the filthy ground, hands scrabbling, desperate.

Robert Zeuthen was a calm man with an ordered mind. But it had retreated then, couldn’t take Maja’s accusing glances in the car. And so a sudden mindless fury sent him racing towards
the grubby white van the police were watching, no idea what to do when he got there. None at all.

He dragged himself to his feet. Bleeding, aching, hurting, he careered into the clearing, raced to the door, jerked it open.

Flashing lights coming down the hill. Voices and bellowed orders behind him.

Zeuthen ignored them, climbed inside. The stink of cigarettes and booze, of sweat and stark humanity. A figure in cheap dark clothes rising from a seat, shouting something in a foreign
tongue.

They wrestled, fought, fell back through the door, lunged and punched and yelled and shrieked, tumbled to the grubby earth.

Fists flying. No words.

Then the creature found new strength, fought back. Caught Zeuthen hard on the chin with a bony fist, jumped on his chest, began to pummel.

Lights. More blows, not hard but painful.

Barrels gleaming in the dark.

They stood around in a circle. Heaved the shape off him.

Not so heavy, Zeuthen thought. Dark-blue jacket and a black wool hat. Two assault rifles poked their short barrels towards them. Arms back and raised.

Borch walked up, pulled off the hat.

Long blonde hair fell down. A mannish face. But not a man.

Zeuthen limped into the caravan. Borch followed. There was a phone on the table. Pizza boxes all around.

That was all.

The PET man walked outside, picked up the woman they’d found. Held her against the white camper van wall. Made her talk.

Then got a call himself. Listened. Finished it. Before he could do anything the phone rang again.

Looked at the name on the screen.

‘Sarah . . .’

‘Have you got the girl?’

‘No. It was the right camper van. The phone he used earlier. He gave it away to an immigrant woman at a petrol station four hours ago. She didn’t ask any questions. Why would
she?’

‘I tried to tell you . . .’

‘Here’s the thing. I just got a message back from the tracing team. That last call you received from him . . .’

Back in the city Lund stared down the gloomy corridor. The place smelled the way it did that morning. Of chemicals with the faint tang of blood beneath.

‘Yes?’

‘It came from a landline in the hospital. They think it was the forensic wing.’

Silence.

‘If you’re still in the building I want you out of there now.’

Borch waved frantically for a car.

‘Sarah? Can you hear me?’

Lund didn’t leave. She walked down the empty tiled corridor, boots clacking on the floor. Didn’t know where to look. Could only follow her instincts and they led
one place only: back to the lecture theatre where the silver table was the stage.

She found it down a dark corridor. Pushed open the double doors, fumbled for a light switch. Couldn’t find one so she walked forward, reached for the torch in her pocket, turned it on.

Empty semicircular ranks of seats ahead. Borch’s voice echoing in her head, going on about the baby and Mark.

But there was no one here and gradually as her eyes acclimatized to the dark she knew it. Just a pile of papers on the desk by the side of the table where Lis Vissenbjerg had been working.

She turned the beam on the wall. Located the bank of light switches and brought the theatre to life. Went back to the table and the desk, looked at the documents there. Notes for another autopsy
report, one that was never delivered.

A brief read through the pages. Work to do here.

One of the fluorescent tubes flickered noisily above her head. It left half of the benches in darkness.

Lund glanced up at the thing. Cursed. Was about to go back to the autopsy report when it came to life and flooded the left side of the seats with a bright cold light.

A scream. She couldn’t help it.

Lis Vissenbjerg was there at the end of the row, still in her white gown, slumped back against the pale wood. Blood round her throat. Blood down her front. Blood leaking onto the steps, dripping
slowly down towards the silver table. Arms by her side. Eyes wide open. Dead as the man she’d been working on that morning.

Fingers shaking Lund scrabbled for her phone. Fumbled it. Saw the thing tumble slowly to the floor, bounce and clatter towards the woman’s blood.

Heard something else too. Footsteps outside, hard, determined, diminishing.

She had her gun. The body armour was gone.

Lund retrieved her phone, went to the door and walked out into the long and gloomy passageway.

She tried to picture the place. First floor for business. Ground floor for offices. Basement . . .

Lund had been there once. Couldn’t remember.

She was working along the passageway next to the lecture theatre. Empty clinical rooms, bare tables. Cabinets for bodies. Gun out, standard stance, she edged out working on the dim ambient
lighting, afraid to turn on the main tubes in the ceiling for fear of revealing herself.

The footsteps were gone. Maybe he was too. She could hear her own breathing. The gentle workings of the air conditioning. Traffic outside. Sirens after a while, getting closer.

Thinking back she realized he’d read the same initial autopsy notes too. That was another reason why he came.

In the last room, next to what looked like a table waiting to be washed down, the phone rang, hers.

‘We’re outside,’ Borch said anxiously. ‘Where are you?’

‘Going through the rooms.’

‘Jesus Christ! Do you listen to a word I say?’

‘He’s killed the pathologist. I’ve got what she wanted to show us. There’s a draft autopsy report here. Not the one we saw. She never submitted it. Schultz stopped her
and . . .’

A sound behind.

A white-coated figure caught in the mirror of a shiny cabinet, dashing down the hall.

‘Sarah?’ Borch said. ‘Hello?’

Gun out again she went to the door. Heard fading footsteps. A man fleeing.

‘He’s still here,’ Lund said quietly. ‘Going down to the ground floor. Maybe the basement.’

Didn’t wait for an answer. Pocketed the phone and began to run.

Down the narrow stairs, in her head Borch’s voice still asking about babies.

Down to the basement. A long corridor, ninety degrees either side. Just caught sight of a figure turning round the right-hand corner. Flying white doctor’s coat. Back of head, dark
hair.

Black shoes.

Lund kept on, past vast heating pipes, past electrical installations.