The Killing 3 (26 page)

‘If we act decisively,’ Eggert said, ‘and choose a new candidate now we can at least limit the damage. We’ve fat chance of leading a new coalition but we ought to be able
to play a principal part in it.’

Hartmann nodded, went to the window, kept quiet.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Weber broke in. ‘No serving Prime Minister’s ever stepped down in the middle of an election campaign. We’ll be a laughing stock.’

‘And what will we be if Troels doesn’t quit?’ she cried. ‘The Zeuthen girl’s dead. We’re getting the blame. This case could haunt us for years.’

‘Emilie Zeuthen is nothing to do with Troels!’ Weber yelled.

‘Neither was the Birk Larsen girl,’ Eggert retorted. ‘But that damn near finished him.’

Weber smiled at that. Hartmann was listening.

‘But it didn’t, Birgit. We saw it through. We stuck to our guns. We won. And the people who kept faith are still with us now. In the group here—’

‘You think?’ she said with a quick laugh. ‘I’ve been making calls.’

‘Been doing that since this thing kicked off, haven’t you?’

‘Everyone’s in agreement. Troels is hurting the party.’

‘Bullshit!’

‘Morten! You’re no beginner here. He’s always going to be the Prime Minister who lost Emilie Zeuthen. Who damaged our relationship with Zeeland. Nothing he can do can change
that.’

Hartmann came away from the window, joined them.

‘For God’s sake say something,’ she begged. ‘We’re looking for a way out.’

Hartmann nodded.

‘You deserve one. Get Karen to call a press conference, Morten. Some time this afternoon that suits.’

‘To hell with it,’ Weber said and got his coat. ‘Write your own death notice. I’ve got better things to do.’

Mark was born in the same hospital, a few doors along from the tiny room where Eva now lay, big belly exposed, jelly on her skin, waiting for the ultrasound to begin.

Lund watched, holding her coat. Still trying to push away the memories and images of the night before.

The radiologist, a smiling Indian woman, was gently moving the sensor around.

A picture on the monitor next to the bed. Not much for the uninitiated to see.

‘The little one’s feeling a bit quiet today, Eva.’ She glanced at the visitor. ‘Take a seat. I don’t bite.’

Lund pulled up a chair.

‘I’m really grateful you came,’ Eva told her. ‘Even if it’s more for Mark than me.’

‘The baby’s turned round nicely,’ the doctor said. ‘Won’t be long now. Here. Take a peek . . .’

All the details Lund remembered, wondering at the very idea there might be a new life inside her. A heart, a head, arms, legs.

Eva looked, smiled nervously, reached out and gripped Lund’s hand.

‘Nice little fingers,’ the woman added, pointing at the screen.

‘Mark should have seen this,’ Eva said and sounded as if she was about to cry.

‘Look away now if you don’t want to know if it ‘s a boy or girl!’

Eva did, said she could feel the baby moving.

Her head was turned to Lund’s.

‘Can you see what sex it is, Sarah?’

A blue tarpaulin being pulled over a young girl’s blonde head. The bridge. Two shots. The fabric moving. A black car emerging from the canal near Pinseskoven, water falling everywhere.

Lund was silent. The doctor looked surprised, embarrassed.

‘This all seems fine,’ the woman said. ‘No problems. Nothing you really need worry about.’

Eva gasped and said she’d felt a kick.

‘I’ll wait outside,’ Lund murmured and left them.

There was an empty bench seat. She sat in the middle. People walked past. Pregnant young mothers. Fathers with their children. The elderly. The sick. The pathetic. The dying. The long and
endless procession. Still all Lund could see was that small figure, the blue shroud falling over her.

Two shots. And then the black water.

She liked being alone. Could live for ever in the little red cottage on the edge of the city. Untouched by everything. Going to work in OPA. Coming back in the evening. Watching TV with a beer
and something from the microwave.

Footsteps. They came close. Someone sat down. Lund looked.

Borch, clean-shaven, the smell of shampoo about him. Fresh clothes.

‘Brix said you were here.’

One glance then she refused to look at him.

‘I don’t want to talk right now.’

‘Tough. I do.’

‘Borch—’

‘Last night on the bridge you told him he’d got it wrong. Later we find his boat. He’s gone out of his way to leave a trail for us. To make it look as if he’s
vanished.’

Lund brushed a strand of stray hair from her face.

‘I don’t have the time now.’

She got up to leave. He followed her down the long corridor.

‘This morning there’s a break-in at the Maritime Authority archives. Same pattern. Security goes down, just like Zeeland’s. He’s in.’

She walked more quickly. Borch kept up.

‘Here are copies of the stolen papers.’ A sheaf of documents in front of her. ‘They’re routes and port calls for the
Medea
. He was checking what you told him,
Sarah!’

Lund turned round, desperate to lose him.

‘I don’t care. I’m finished—’

‘No!’

Borch was loud. A passing doctor glared at them, put a finger to his lips.

She turned on him.

‘What the matter with you?’ Lund shrieked. ‘She’s dead.’

‘He listened to you. You made him think twice. That means something. Maybe he planned to go abroad and changed his mind. I don’t know but you made him stop and think about what he
was doing.’

The tears were back. Lund put a finger to her head.

‘But we saw. I can’t stop . . .’

He was ready for that. Anxious for it.

‘Saw what?

‘Saw him shoot her.’

Mathias Borch folded his arms.

‘Did you?’ he asked.

Nebel was in her car by the sea in Dragør when Hartmann called. She made an excuse. A real one. She was about to talk to Mogens Rank. Didn’t have the resources to
fix anything just then.

It was a small place for a minister of the state. A bachelor’s cottage at the end of a terrace. Gulls hung in the air. Waves crashed noisily on the shore. Winter had arrived: short days,
long nights, cold and wet for months ahead.

Rank was a quiet, self-effacing man. If he had vices no one knew. He did his job, went home afterwards, was a polite, efficient servant of the party.

She wondered if he’d turn her back at the door. The way he’d been spoken to . . . perhaps she deserved that. But Mogens Rank simply smiled, asked her inside, made her a cup of good
coffee, sat her down in a tidy living room that smelled of polish and a lively log fire.

‘I’m sorry this case has hurt Troels,’ he said before she could begin. ‘It’s not done a lot for me either.’

So many books on the wall. They looked read too. Rank didn’t have a life outside politics. It was so obvious.

‘I’ve taken the phone off the hook. Turned off my mobile. The press keep hounding me. I can’t sleep.’

‘Refer them to me,’ she said.

A weak smile.

‘But I’d have to answer if I did that, Karen.’

He wasn’t wearing a tie. She couldn’t remember seeing that before.

‘It’s best to come clean, Mogens. Everything’s going to come out in the end. Admit you put pressure on Peter Schultz . . .’

‘But I didn’t,’ he cried.

‘So what did you do? All I want is a clear and incontrovertible statement that Troels knew nothing of this. That he’s innocent—’

‘Like me?’ Rank cut in. ‘All I did was ask Schultz what was going on. Whether it was something we needed to worry about. Oh God . . .’

He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes.

‘I’ve had enough of this. I feel dreadful. I’m sorry. I need to go to bed.’

‘Was anyone else present? Can someone back this up?’

Rank took a deep breath and shook his head.

‘It was a brief chat in the corridor at the end of a meeting about something entirely different. Of course there were no witnesses.’

Nebel pulled out her file.

‘You have to cut out the lies, Mogens. If you don’t do that I can’t save you.’

Glasses back on he glared at her.

‘What lies?’

She showed him the PET report.

‘The security system shows he was in the ministry for two hours. You don’t chat in the corridor all that time.’

Mogens Rank folded his arms.

‘I accept I should have told you I met Schultz before. I’m no more happy with that than you. But I assure you all that happened was a brief conversation. I asked Schultz if we had
anything to worry about over Zeeland in the case of that girl’s death. He assured me we didn’t. That was it.’

She passed him the papers.

‘The guard has him coming into the building at 13.54. He left through the ministry exit at 16.10.’

‘He could have gone anywhere,’ Rank pointed out. ‘He might have walked all the way to Christiansborg for all I know.’

‘But he didn’t! We’d have seen. It . . .’ Her mind was racing. ‘It would have been on the internal CCTV somewhere.’

‘I’m not mistaken,’ Rank insisted. ‘Not this time.’

Outside Hartmann called again, asking her to start the arrangements for his resignation.

‘Let’s talk about this when I get back,’ Nebel said.

Early evening in Drekar. A subtle, nagging sense of guilt had played on Maja Zeuthen, persuaded her to remain close to her husband as the search for Emilie’s body
continued. The grief was theirs to share however much Carsten Lassen hated the idea.

Yet the source of that nagging anguish took so long to arrive. At four Reinhardt drove to the Politigården to find out what was happening. At five he had no news. At six he was told the
diving teams were still struggling with the current and had yet to free the concrete block from debris under the water.

Carl would stay with her for the foreseeable future. She’d demanded that, not knowing why, and Robert hadn’t argued. Sick of waiting for another call she went upstairs, looked in
Emilie’s room, toys and books and clothes scattered everywhere. Tidied a few away for no good reason. Then went to Carl’s room, looked for some familiar things to take to the little
apartment in the city.

When she came down Zeuthen was in the study, dressed for work as always.

‘I can’t find Carl’s bedtime book,’ she said. ‘The one with the car. I looked—’

‘Maybe it’s in his room.’

‘I’ve already looked there, Robert!’

The sudden savage anger in her voice was unwanted, not aimed at him. Not really.

She went for the door.

‘Her hair was under a black hat . . .’ Zeuthen said and that stopped her.

She stayed at the door, looking at the grand entrance hall, the black and white tiles. This place seemed so empty without the children. Not hostile. Just dead.

‘He must have bought the hat,’ he said.

Maja turned, looked into his eyes.

‘I keep . . .’ He tapped his head, too hard, was shaking in front of her. ‘Keep seeing her in here. She cried out to me and I shouted back. Except—’

‘Robert . . .’

‘When she first called out I couldn’t see her. Then I realized she was looking up at me from the boat and . . .’ Voice cracking, fighting to keep some semblance of control.
‘I knew she was scared. I saw it. I so . . . so . . . wanted . . .’ His head, the neat and serious hair, turned from side to side. ‘There wasn’t time. She was there and I
couldn’t save her.’

Maja Zeuthen picked up the bag with the few things of Carl’s she’d chosen, walked away.

He followed, didn’t come near her. As if he no longer dared.

‘If you think it’s my fault for God’s sake say so. I can’t bear to think . . .’

Tears. His. Hers.

‘If you think there’s something I could have done . . . somehow . . . please . . .’

Married eleven years. Lovers a brief ten months before. They’d shared a bed, two children. Lives once fused together in a happy union.

But when she looked at him then, mouth open, eyes damp, lines on his face that were never there before, she’d no idea what to say.

They might have been strangers. So like a stranger she walked out of the front door, went to her car, never said a word.

Karen Nebel wasn’t answering her phone. In the end Hartmann ordered one of the junior media staff to assemble a press conference.

He was about to go to the meeting when Weber came back, tried one last time to talk him out of resigning.

‘My mind’s made up. I’ll make sure you and Karen get employed by the new team.’

‘Thanks a bundle,’ Weber snapped. ‘Do you honestly think I’d work for that old boot?’

‘It’s an open election,’ Hartmann pointed out. ‘There’s no guarantee Birgit’s the next leader.’

Weber closed his eyes, made a steeple with his fingers. A schoolmaster’s gesture, deliberate too.

‘In many ways you’re a child, Troels. It’s one of your redeeming qualities. Doesn’t matter much usually. We’re used to it. But you have to listen to me now. This is
premature. You’re making a terrible mistake.’

A knock on the door. Ussing was there. He looked hesitant for once.

‘May I?’

Weber sat down and watched.

‘I don’t take any pleasure in this,’ Ussing insisted, uncomfortable they weren’t alone.

‘You worked hard enough for it, Anders.’

A laugh. A shrug.

‘That’s the game, isn’t it? Politics. It’s not chess.’

‘But it is,’ Weber interrupted. ‘And this is check. Not checkmate.’

An awkward smile then Ussing said, ‘You did your best, Troels. I’m sure this is the right decision. It’s never easy to hide skeletons in the cupboard.’ He held out his
hand. ‘No hard feelings.’

Hartmann didn’t move.

‘Skeletons?’ he asked.

‘I don’t want to push it.’

‘I look forward to watching you do better.’

‘Got to win the election first.’ Ussing thrust his hands into his pockets. ‘Rosa’s asked for a meeting. So maybe it won’t be so hard. I won’t . . .’

He stopped for a moment, as if considering something.

‘I won’t pursue this when we’re in power.’ The hand came out again. ‘This is a time to be magnanimous. Shake on it?’