The Killing 3 (39 page)

The shrug again. Borch asked how to move the video forward. Switched to Hartmann’s section of the building.

After a bit of searching he found a figure there, back to the camera, baseball cap, company jacket.

They watched.

‘He’s limping,’ Lund said. ‘He’s hurt.’ A thought. ‘He’s not carrying a bag or anything. Where does that corridor go?’

‘The Prime Minister’s private office,’ the security man said.

Borch was up and asking directions before she could say a word.

Two floors up the security men with Hartmann butted into the conversation he was having with Morten Weber.

‘We need you in the safe room now,’ one said.

‘Oh for God’s sake . . .’

‘Best do it, Troels,’ Weber broke in. ‘No moaning. Where’s Karen?’

‘She went off looking for something. The transport report Lund asked for. It’s missing. She thinks there’s a backup—’

‘Sir . . .’

Strong hand on Hartmann’s arm. They walked to the secure room next to the office. Went in. No windows. Just a few chairs. A desk. A computer. A fridge.

The security men closed the metal door. A fan in the ceiling whirred.

Weber went to the fridge, opened the door.

Whistled.

‘Water?’ he asked.

Karen Nebel was four rooms away, in the general office, hunting for things on her computer. It was late now. Everyone had gone home. So she worked by the light of a desk lamp
and the screen.

Went searching in the archives.

A sudden noise made her jump. Next to the office was the server room for the department. Humming computers and disk drives.

The light was on. Someone was in there.

Nebel walked to the door, saw a man crouching in the dark, shining a torch on the racks.

Uniform. Baseball cap.

‘Hello?’

No answer. He moved along the line of servers. Seemed to find something he wanted.

‘Excuse me,’ Nebel said more loudly. ‘This office is supposed to be closed.’

She could just see him pull a hard drive out of the housing, stuff it into his bag. Then he got up and made for the door, hand on his cap, pulling it down. Limping.

‘I’m talking to you . . .’

Nebel didn’t get closer. Didn’t dare somehow.

When he was gone she sat down. Got her breath back. Felt she’d been close to something she didn’t understand.

Another noise. Two shapes at the door. Weapons up.

Nebel let out a brief yelp.

Lund and Borch looked round.

‘A man was here,’ Nebel murmured. ‘I think he took something.’

A series of quick questions. Then Lund was on the phone to security.

The briefest description.

A uniform.

A baseball cap.

A limp.

One camera had caught him heading for the service stairs leading down to the ground floor, then the basement.

Borch and Lund ran together. Winding stone steps. After a while they were in darkness. No sign of light switches; nothing to do but take out their torches again.

At the ground floor, nothing. She told Borch to look round. He hesitated.

‘Just do it,’ Lund whispered, then went for the stairs again, down into the basement.

Alone now. Just a torch and a gun. She walked slowly, carefully. One long cold corridor, white walls, stone floor.

A stain to the right. She looked: blood.

Another five steps. Another stain. The slam of a door in the shadows ahead.

Lund followed. Heating pipes murmuring. The sound of tiny animal feet scurrying close by.

She walked on. The corridor shrank until it was scarcely wide enough for two people next to the rumbling pipe by her side.

Finally a shape, caught in a security light.

‘Stop now!’ Lund yelled.

A face turned. She couldn’t quite see it.

He had a piece of paper in his hands. Was lighting it with a match, raising the flame to the ceiling.

Smoke detector.

A bell rang somewhere. The flaming paper floated on a strong breeze.

Cold winter air.

When she looked again he was gone.

Lund ran round the corner, saw an open window, climbed through.

Rain on her face. Heart pumping. Ahead was the Christiansborg courtyard, cobblestones gleaming in the damp night.

She dashed across it, stood in the centre, turned on her heels, scanned every way there was.

Dark buildings behind. Ahead the city. Lights and traffic.

Someone joined her and she knew who it was. Didn’t need to look.

Borch took a kick at an empty beer can left on the ground. Booted it over the cobbles and yelled a few obscenities into the night.

‘Did that help?’ Lund asked when he was done.

Karen Nebel hadn’t seen much. Just a man in a blue uniform, baseball cap down over his face. He stole a hard drive from the server room.

‘You let the man go?’ she asked when there was a break in the questioning.

‘Yes,’ Lund agreed. ‘That’s what we do.’

A commotion at the door. A tall, familiar handsome figure. Troels Hartmann marched into the room, looked her up and down.

‘You’re never good news, are you, Lund? What the hell was this man doing here?’

Borch stayed back. She didn’t.

‘He’s trying to find out where your car went on April the twentieth two years ago. Any clues?’

Hartmann glared at her.

‘I sent through the transport details,’ Weber cut in. ‘After we talked—’

‘But we didn’t!’ Nebel cried. ‘Something’s missing . . .’

‘The campaign car’s tracked, morning to night . . .’ he continued.

‘We’re not talking about the campaign car,’ Borch said. He looked Hartmann in the eye. ‘It’s yours. Your own car he’s interested in. So are we.’

Weber got between them.

‘OK. That’s enough. We don’t use personal transport during election campaigns. There’s no point—’

‘It was there,’ Lund told him. ‘A young boy saw it. Noted down the number. The day Louise Hjelby disappeared . . .’

‘What the hell has this got to do with me?’ Hartmann asked. ‘Are you pulling your old tricks again?’

‘You should be looking at Ussing,’ Weber said. ‘Not wasting your time here.’

‘Ussing’s in the clear. He had nothing to do with the girl’s murder.’

Weber kept quiet. So did Hartmann.

‘Emilie Zeuthen was kidnapped because we never got to the bottom of this case,’ she went on. ‘We have to follow every lead . . .’

Hartmann smiled. The old look, handsome and infuriating.

‘Because this criminal demands it, Lund? Are you seriously saying you think we’re involved somehow?’

‘I didn’t suggest—’

‘The fact is,’ Borch snapped, ‘your fucking car was there. We know that. So just tell us who was driving, will you?’

‘I don’t like your tone—’

‘I don’t give a shit whether you like it or not, Hartmann!’

He jerked a thumb back to the server room.

‘The drive he took had all the backup GPS records attached to this office. Official cars. Private ones. He’s going to know who drove it. Where. When. Would be really nice if we knew
that too.’

‘I won’t take this from the likes of you!’ Hartmann yelled. ‘Or her. You’re accusing someone here of murder . . .’

‘We’d like to sit down and talk about this calmly,’ Lund suggested.

Weber crossed his arms.

‘Forget it, Lund. The circus stops here. No one from this place was driving the car that day . . .’

Borch elbowed him out of the way, got in Hartmann’s face.

‘Someone ripped out the page with your number on it. We’re being screwed around, Hartmann. I swear to God if it’s you . . .’

‘Don’t talk to the Prime Minister like that,’ Weber began.

Hartmann turned, started to leave. They followed, Borch dogging him, the security officers trying to get in the way.

One of them tried to put him in an armlock. Borch threw him off.

‘Tell us who drove it. Tell us who got Schultz to close down the case.’

His hand went out, took hold of Hartmann’s jacket. Borch had just about dragged him round when the bodyguards pounced and pulled him off.

Face red, hand jabbing at the tall man in the smart suit.

‘We’re going to find out. Don’t think you can run from this one, Hartmann. She’s not a teenage girl from Vesterbro this time . . .’

Silence.

Hartmann marched into the room ahead, then Nebel and Weber. The doors shut behind them.

Lund closed her eyes. Opened them.

‘Oh. You’re still here.’

‘Maybe I went a bit too far . . .’

‘No, no. You? Too far?’

She turned on her heels, went for the stairs.

‘It was just terrific. Truly terrific.’

Robert Zeuthen hadn’t listened. After Reinhardt reported back on what the police had found at the kidnapper’s lair he ordered the search to spread out into
international waters.

The Zeeland security people were back in the boardroom, briefing him and Maja, with Reinhardt adding in details he’d gleaned from Brix in the Politigården.

A map on a giant presentation screen showed the shipping lanes around the city. Brix had told Reinhardt that Emilie might be trapped inside a container taken as cargo. The logs showed
twenty-three freighters in the Øresund on the night the kidnapper faked her death.

‘The problem is, that’s three days ago,’ the team leader said. He hit a key on the computer. The dots started to fan out, all over Europe. ‘The ships have moved,
they’ve reloaded. The number Emilie could be on might have doubled. More. It’s difficult—’

‘I want every one checked,’ Zeuthen insisted. ‘Every ship. Every terminal.’

‘Most of them are at sea,’ Reinhardt said.

‘Tell them to call into the nearest port. We’ll foot the bill.’

The security men didn’t say anything. It was left to Reinhardt.

‘Even if the owners agree we can’t cover every possibility. She could be ashore already. We have to leave this to the authorities . . .’

‘What about the appeal?’ Maja asked. ‘Has anyone come up with something useful?’

Reinhardt shook his head.

‘We’ve been inundated with calls. So have the police. Nothing of substance. Not yet.’

Zeuthen nodded and said, ‘Notify the freighters as I asked. Keep answering the calls. I’ll be in my office.’

He left the room. The men there didn’t want to talk to her. A shape at the door. Carsten. She wondered how long he’d been listening.

He came in and asked if there was any news.

She asked him to wait. Walked to the office. A place she’d come to hate.

He stood by the window, phone in hand. Black jumper now. Jeans. An ordinary man, out of uniform.

‘I’m calling Carl to say goodnight,’ Zeuthen said.

He’d been crying. Eyes pink and watery.

‘I just felt like hearing his voice,’ he said with a shrug and the briefest moment of embarrassed laughter.

Then the tears came again, and so did hers.

‘It’s not your fault, Robert.’

‘I didn’t know about the iPad. That place in the attic where she was talking to him. About the cat. The hole in the fence. I let her down. Let you down. Everyone . . .’

Her hand tightened on his arm.

‘Emilie was mad at both of us. You were . . . you are a good father.’ She took a deep breath. Tried to form the words. ‘You told me we’d find her. So we will.’

It happened so naturally. Her arms wound round him, his round her. A long, slow, warm embrace.

She was reluctant to let go. So was he. But there was Carsten Lassen, a sad reflection in the rain-soaked window, watching.

They didn’t speak when they went to Lassen’s car. Didn’t speak as he drove her back into the city. A call from the office. More responses to the appeal. Nothing concrete. Just
bounty-hunters.

She listened, said thanks, stared out of the passenger window at the damp night beyond.

The security people had set up a link on her iPad. Names, numbers, comments left by callers to the hotline. She ran through them on her lap.

‘So many,’ she murmured, mostly to herself. ‘I don’t know where we can—’

‘If you dangle a hundred million kroner in front of people you can guarantee you’re going to attract a bunch of lunatics.’

There was a hard, hurt tone to his voice.

He turned out of the docks, onto the main road.

‘You can see what he’s doing, can’t you?’ Lassen asked.

‘He’s trying to find our daughter.’

At that he snorted.

‘Robert’s the same man he always was. Controlling. Unreasonable. Uncaring . . .’

‘Not now.’

‘If he’d been a proper father this would never have happened. Maybe Zeeland are to blame anyway. They covered something up.’

The iPad updated. More names. More numbers.

‘Robert and Zeeland aren’t to blame for anything. The police said so . . .’

‘Those idiots? What do they know?’

She kept looking at the iPad. Not him.

‘He’s using this to get you back,’ Lassen said. ‘I don’t want to lose you. I’d do anything.’

His hand strayed from the wheel, brushed her leg.

‘Just drive,’ she whispered. ‘I’d like to see my son.’

Juncker called from the factory. There were no signs that Emilie had left any clues, a scratch in the wall, a hidden number plate. Juncker thought she couldn’t have been
in the place long. The toilet hadn’t been used. There was no trace of food.

They’d found fingerprints. Nothing on file. No new information from the homeless people living close by. But they had a photograph of Louise Hjelby’s mother taken before she fell
ill: a smiling woman in a bikini on a Spanish beach.

‘He stole a hard drive,’ Lund said. ‘He’s going to need a computer to see what’s on it. You think that place was his main base?’

‘He had everything here. Power. Light. Internet. I think so.’

‘Let’s assume he’s on his own now. Start with the libraries and Internet cafes. I’ll call you later . . .’

Brix was in the adjoining room. Dyhring had turned up. Borch was still livid about the row in Christiansborg. The two PET men had been arguing already.

When she went back they sat round the table, PET one side, police the other.

One piece of news from Dyhring: the kidnapper had broken into the van of the photocopier company and stolen the uniform and the ID.