Trophy (19 page)

Michael frowned and went back to the picture from the unnamed desert. He compared it to one of the hunting pictures taken in front of Pederslund. There was something ceremonious about it. The gun dogs were lined up at the foot of the steps and Mrs Nielsen was holding a silver tray with shot glasses with morning bitters before the hunt. Victor and Henrik Schmidt were standing at the top of the steps and eight younger men were posed in two rows; one standing, the other kneeling.

Kim Andersen. The dead Royal Life Guard who committed suicide. He appeared in both the hunting and the desert photograph. There was no doubt. He was dressed for hunting – oilskin jacket, hunting trousers and wellies; he had a rifle over his shoulder and was smiling at the photographer without a care in the world, exactly like the other men on the steps of Pederslund – and he was standing in the middle of the row of sunburned combat soldiers in the desert; probably somewhere in Afghanistan or Iraq. Michael recognized the tattoos from the newspapers; especially from today’s photograph of him on the bonnet of an armoured personnel carrier outside Baghdad, with a small Danish flag fluttering from the aerial.

He straightened up. He tried to remember the newspapers’ verdict. Suicide or crime victim? The Rigspolitiet’s Homicide Division was involved.

Michael listened to the sleeping house and opened the door to Jakob’s bathroom, which was basic compared to the luxurious bathroom further down the corridor. A white medicine cupboard over the sink contained some paracetamol, a deodorant and an unopened tube of toothpaste. Michael ran a finger across the toothbrush. It was dry as a bone and there was a thin layer of dust at the bottom of the bathtub so it probably hadn’t been used for months.

He took one last look at the photographs in the torchlight. A boys-only club, Monika Schmidt had called it. But that wasn’t what Michael saw in the photographs; he saw a ruthless longing for Arcadia with its own laws, a golden age that had never been. Dreamers, warriors and killers.

Monika Schmidt had turned onto her side, but she was still asleep. Michael tiptoed inside, returned the camera, torch and pick-locks to his jacket pockets and covered her with the bedspread. He smoked a cigarette by the window, had a mouthful of Talisker and wondered who had sent her.

Somebody, someone not very far away, might have worked out that Michael wasn’t there to assist in a paternity case. It was certainly one possible explanation.

He felt someone was looking at him and turned around. Monika Schmidt was lying with her hands folded under her cheek, watching him. She didn’t move a muscle.

‘It’s all right, go back to sleep,’ he said.

Her gaze swept across his naked torso.

‘You look like someone who has been through the wringer, Michael. Where did all those scars and that Homer Simpson tattoo come from?’

‘I’m clumsy. And I got drunk.’

She smiled. ‘Why did you move to England?’

‘A girl.’

‘Why did you come back to Denmark?’

‘Another girl.’

She closed her eyes, rolled onto her back, yawned and stretched out.

‘I probably shouldn’t stay here, Michael, even though it’s a lovely, lovely bed.’

‘I guess not,’ he said.

She moved her arms up and down like a child making snow angels and stared up at the ceiling.

‘Monika?’

‘Yes?’

‘Who is Jakob’s father?’

Her arms were still bent at the elbow and her small hands lay near her dark, smooth hair. Her eyes kept watching the ceiling while her pupils expanded until the black had almost banished the brown. She rose onto her elbows, got down from the bed and gathered the negligee around her, all in one smooth movement. She didn’t look at him.

‘A man, Michael. A real man. Not a two-faced snooper like you.’

Monika Schmidt crossed the floor, steady like a sleepwalker, and left.

*

Michael looked at the closed door. He sighed, hauled one of the chairs in front of it and wedged its back under the handle. If anyone, anyone at all, tried to enter his room tonight, he would wring their necks.

He lay down on top of the bedspread with his hands folded behind his neck. Then he reached over and switched off the bedside lamp. He could feel the heat from her body and he could smell her. He thought about the redheaded superintendent who was investigating Kim Andersen’s suicide … Lene … what? Jensen. He wondered if he should contact her. And say what? That the ex-Royal Life Guard hadn’t hurt his leg during an innocent hunting trip to Sweden in the spring of 2011, but was injured when he took part in a depraved manhunt in the north of Norway? Did he have any evidence? Not really. It was more of a hunch.

Would she understand? Michael visualized the superintendent’s hard green eyes. Imagined her lips forming the words: ‘Piss off … Next!’

Then he thought about Jakob Schmidt. The imperturbable brown eyes. The intelligence.

And finally, he thought of Sara and their children, smiled in the darkness and fell asleep.

He watched her go through the border between light and shade and stop on the pavement. She glanced around and he let her wait. Her hand tucked some stray hairs behind one ear. She looked up and down Allégade, and directly at him on the other side of the street, but failed to spot him in the shadows. He whistled and she looked up. He waved her over and she ran across the road. Confidently.

Close up, her scent was cool and fresh, and he saw that nothing in her make-up or outfit had been left to chance. The same went for his own appearance and he was aware he was making quite an impression: the rough motorbiking nomad had been replaced with a smooth stockbroker: silk tie in a tight Windsor knot, single-breasted dark suit, shiny black shoes, a crisp white shirt and a dark blue cashmere coat. He was freshly shaven, his hair cut was smart and he smelt discreetly of L’Homme.

‘What happened to the biker boy?’ she asked.

‘It’s his night off.’

She frowned. ‘What a pity. I rather liked him.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes.’

‘He can come back, if you like,’ he said.

She just folded her arms and nodded.

‘Are you cold?’ he asked.

‘A little.’

He pointed to the long, dark BMW parked a few metres away.

‘It has heated seats,’ he said.

She looked at the car, but didn’t stir.

‘Nice,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘I’m glad you came. My name is Adam.’

‘Josefine.’

He fished out a packet of cigarettes from his coat pocket and offered it to her. She took one and he lit both their cigarettes. He coughed and blinked tears away from his eyes.

‘I’m new to this,’ he said.

‘I don’t believe that.’

She looked away and chewed a nail.

‘It’s true. I’ve been travelling for so long that I’ve forgotten what you’re meant to do.’

He flashed her a disarming smile.

‘Where have you been?’ she asked.

‘Everywhere. Nepal, New Zealand, North Africa … South America …’

Josefine’s face lit up.

‘You’ve been to South America?’

He grinned and launched into rapid Spanish.

‘What?’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘What did you say? What?!’

‘That I’m freezing my balls off out here and just what do I have to do to make the beautiful lady get into my car so we can drive somewhere nice and warm and have a drink?’

‘Tell me something about South America and you’re on. I’m going there in a few months.’

‘Of course. Whatever you want to know.’

He opened the door to her, she got in, leaned back in the passenger seat and ran her fingertips across the leather while he stayed outside and took a look around. There was no one nearby. He had stolen a set of number plates in a multi-storey car park at the airport, taking care to stay in the CCTV blind spots. He squashed the cigarette under his shoe, got in, smiled at her, and left his door ajar so that he could see her in the light inside the car. One hand rested casually in her lap, while the other tucked the rebellious lock of hair back behind her ear again. Her nose was straight, her profile young and clean, her upper lip slightly fuller than her lower lip, and her mouth looked permanently on the verge of a smile. Her skin was perfect, practically without pores, and her forehead high and well-shaped. She smelled of girl, perfume and suede jacket.

‘Where did you go?’ she asked.

‘Costa Rica, Honduras, San Salvador, Argentina,’ he muttered, and clenched his right hand inside the leather glove.

‘Did you dance the tango in Buenos Aires?’ she asked.

‘I don’t dance.’

‘An old Chilean man who lives here in Frederiksberg is teaching me Spanish,’ she said. ‘He’s a poet and at least one hundred and twenty years old. He knew Pablo Neruda.’

‘Impressive,’ he said.

He closed the door and looked past her out of the side window. There was no one in the car park. Then he punched her as hard as he could, close to her left ear. Her lower jaw snapped under his knuckles, her head collided with the side window and her eyes widened before they clouded over and closed. Her mouth was half open. Then she opened her eyes again and looked straight ahead.

‘But …’ she said, and he hit her again.

She grew limp, slid down the seat and her face lolled towards him. He pulled her upright and reclined the seat so that she was half sitting, half lying down.

He removed her scarf and jacket. She was smaller than he had expected, and she struggled to breathe through her broken jaw. He put her jacket on the back seat, rolled up her nearest shirtsleeve above the elbow, and opened the glove compartment. The rubber tube was ready and waiting, and he tied it around her upper arm. Then he took a syringe from his inside pocket, removed the plastic cap with his teeth and injected five millilitres of Ketalar into her bloodstream.

The girl would be unconscious for at least half an hour, and should it become necessary, he could top up the injection.

He signalled, left the car park and drove east down Allégade. To the casual observer, he would simply be a well-dressed, young man in an expensive car with a sleeping girl in the seat next to him.

*

His mobile rang and he glanced at the display with dismay. Allan Lundkvist.

The beekeeper was hysterical. ‘What are you going about it?’ he demanded to know. ‘Just what the hell are you going to do? That superintendent has just rung me again. She has called me ten times today, at least. And yesterday. She’s not going to go away and she’s never off duty. What the fuck do I tell her? And what are you doing about it?’

‘Have you talked to her?’ he asked.

‘Of course I haven’t! We agreed that I wouldn’t. But if I don’t call her back soon, she’s bound to turn up.’

He looked down the girl’s long thighs in the tight jeans and at the point where they met. He started humming a tune. A song by Bruce. The Boss himself. ‘Call her and say that you’ll meet her tomorrow morning, nine o’clock, okay?’ he said.

‘Nine o’clock! Tell me, do you have a paper round?’

‘No. Or nine thirty. What time do you get up?’

‘Seven o’clock.’

‘Are you alone?’ he asked.

‘Yes! What do I tell her? What does she want?’

He beat out the rhythm on the steering wheel and tried
to remember the lyrics. He wished the other man would shut up for a moment.

‘She wants to talk to you about Kim, obviously,’ he said. ‘She wants to find out how well you knew him and learn something about the rest of us.’

‘Then that’s what I’m going to tell her. Thanks a lot. We’re gonna have a great time.’

‘It’s no harder than some of the other stuff we’ve done, Allan. It’s nothing. This is the Kim you knew: he helped you with odd jobs on the farm and you gave him some honey from your busy little bees. You served together at Camp Viking, but not in the same unit. And he didn’t invite you to his wedding.’

‘But I’m in the pictures. In the videos. From Qala. We all are.’

‘That could be anyone. We all looked the same back then.’

‘And everyone is dead.’

He laughed to calm him down. ‘You’re not dead, Allan, and neither am I. Nor is the photographer.’

‘So what really happened?’ the beekeeper asked.

‘When?’

‘To Kim, damn you.’

‘He hanged himself.’

‘And what am I supposed to do? Stick my head in a gas oven?’

‘Of course not. Why would you want to do that, Allan? And do you even have a gas oven?’

The other voice sounded more distant – reassured, but still distant, as if he were walking away from the telephone and had no intention of coming back.

‘Nine o’clock, did you say?’

‘For example,’ he said.

‘And where will you be?’

‘Nearby, I expect.’

‘You’re not thinking of … of taking her, hurting her while she’s at my place, are you? You’re not going to do that, eh? You don’t work for those crazy companies any more, remember that.’

He took another look at the unconscious girl. ‘Of course I won’t. We’re in Denmark now.’

‘Just remember that. Sometimes I have my doubts.’

The other man grunted. He sounded far from convinced.

‘I know where I am, Allan,’ he said, and tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

‘I bloody well hope so. Are you going to talk to her yourself?’

‘I was planning to. At some point.’

‘So, nine or nine thirty tomorrow morning.’ Allan Lundkvist sounded more remote than ever.

‘Call her now and set up a meeting,’ he said, and hung up.

He pulled the glove off his right hand with his teeth and let the back of his fingers glide across her face. The flesh had started to swell around her jaw and her left eye. In a few minutes her eye would close up. The skin above the eye and
the fractured lower jaw was warm, but cooler where her face was still intact. His fingertips brushed her breast. Young. Fine. Such a shame.

He lifted his hand, drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, smiled to himself in the rear-view mirror, and suddenly remembered the song as if it had never left his mind. He sang Bruce Springsteen’s ‘I’m on Fire’ at the top of his voice and beat his palms steadily against the steering wheel. He reached out and turned her head forwards, so her eyes were no longer staring at him. Her head rolled back. He tried a second time with the same result. It was as if there were no bones in her neck.

‘Bitch,’ he muttered, and gave up.

Great song. Boring girl.