Authors: David Hewson
Lund sifted through the drawers, opened the three paperback books he owned, all military thrillers, flipped the pages. Went to the wardrobe. Another picture there. Black and white. Raben with
his wife maybe ten years ago. Both of them young, happy, her head on his shoulder, his cheek to her hair. In love. The photo shouted it.
A noise. Lund looked. Strange was at the door.
‘They’re still searching the sewers,’ he said. ‘This one’s smarter than they think.’
‘ “No normal squaddie”. What does that mean?’
‘I checked his record. He’d done some training with the Jægerkorpset.’
Jæger.
Hunter. Lund had heard the term. It was shorthand for a shadowy kind of hero. Special forces. She didn’t really take much interest in military matters. Never found
the need.
‘So?’ she asked.
‘You could drop those guys anywhere and they’d get through. That’s what they’re taught. Ultimate survival. Never stop. Never give up. He’s going to be a bastard to
catch.’
Lund couldn’t take her eyes off the black and white photo. Raben seemed so happy, so young in that. Not innocent. Not quite.
‘Were you a soldier, Strange?’
‘For a while. I did my duty.’
‘You were a
jæger
?’
He threw back his head and laughed. It was so spontaneous and funny she almost did too.
‘Are you kidding? Do I look the hero type? I’m not macho enough for those guys. Even if I wanted to be. Which I don’t.’
She took one last scan of the room.
‘From what I remember,’ Strange added, scratching his crew cut, ‘you never tell anyone you were in special forces. So maybe Raben was.’
Lund looked at him. Waited.
‘And maybe I was too,’ Strange added, catching on. ‘Except I wasn’t.’
She was back going through Raben’s clothes.
‘What are you looking for?’
‘Something that tells me who he is. Why he’d break out.’
‘They turned him down for release.’
‘Yes. And one day we’ll find him. And he’ll be back here for years. For a smart man this seems very stupid. Or desperate.’
So many paintings on the wall and all of them by his young son.
‘Raben’s thrown away everything. Why?’
‘Brix is asking for us.’
‘Is the medical director here?’
‘She is. But Brix wants a report. PET have arrested three—’
‘Brix can wait.’
Director Toft’s file on Jens Peter Raben seemed remarkably slim for a man in open-ended custody.
‘He was considered for parole but the Prison Service turned him down,’ she said. ‘I guess that caused a relapse . . .’
‘Of what?’ Lund asked.
‘Post-traumatic stress. As I said he was involved in an incident in Afghanistan. It’s not uncommon sadly. But Raben’s case was extreme. He could be violent, delusional,
obsessed—’
‘What kind of incident?’
Toft shook her blonde head.
‘There are rules . . .’
‘You just told me we’ve got a very dangerous man at large. He’s probably headed for Copenhagen. If you conceal anything . . .’
Toft sat back in her chair. This was a new experience and she didn’t like it.
‘Some of his comrades died in an attack in Helmand. He held himself responsible. In one way his amnesia spared him some grief. In others, it made it worse.’
Strange asked, ‘How?’
‘Because he didn’t know what really happened. So his mind invented fantasies to fill the vacuum. Sometimes he’d think people here were soldiers. Dead ones. He’d scream at
them. Attack them if he had the chance. I told you. Before he was committed he took a complete stranger hostage. Almost killed him. I’d hoped we were over that phase . . .’
Lund pushed a photo in front of her.
‘Tell me about Myg Poulsen.’
Toft nodded.
‘Raben wanted to call him for some reason. He said he was worried.’
‘Worried about what?’
She thought about this.
‘He said Poulsen might harm himself.’
‘And you didn’t think that was important?’
Toft laughed.
‘Raben was delusional. If I believed everything he said I’d be as sick as him.’
‘What about her?’ Lund placed the woman’s photo on the table. ‘Anne Dragsholm. Lawyer. Adviser to the military.’
Toft shook her head.
‘Raben hadn’t talked about the war for months. He was focused on the future and his family.’
‘Could he have been in touch with this woman?’
‘I don’t think so. I vet all contacts. What is this? Look, I’m sorry he’s escaped. But that’s all this is. Someone who got out of here . . .’ She looked
puzzled, lost for a moment. ‘I should have realized he wasn’t doing as well as I thought. You need to see something.’
She went to a filing cabinet, retrieved a disk, slotted it into her laptop.
‘This was what he was like when he first came. He spent three weeks in solitary before we could even consider treatment.’
Lund and Strange walked behind her desk. It didn’t look like the man she’d met here only the day before. Raben was thinner, with a full beard and greasy, unkempt hair. Dressed in a
sweatshirt and tracksuit bottoms. Cursing, screaming. Right arm in a cast but he still tried to hammer the walls with his bare fists until they bled.
Then he picked up the one chair in the bare room and began to beat at the lens, bellowing with fury.
‘Most of them don’t even notice the camera,’ Toft said. ‘It’s supposed to be hidden. Raben . . .’
The video came to an end. She closed the screen.
‘I think he saw through everything. Me included. If anyone was going to escape it was him.’
They were outside again by nine. Just as many officers and dogs around.
‘We need the area searched,’ Lund ordered. ‘I want visits to his family and friends. Keep them under surveillance. He got out because he wants to talk to someone.’
‘He’s a missing convict, not a suspect,’ Strange said. ‘Let’s not get this out of proportion.’
‘Listen—’
‘No, Lund. You listen. Raben was photographed with the two victims, but there’s nothing to tie him to their murders. He was locked up in this place when they happened. He can’t
have—’
‘He knows something. He lied about Anne Dragsholm and then clawed his way out of here.’
He opened the car door, signalled for her to get in.
‘There’s not a phone call or a visit from anyone who looks remotely suspicious. Brix says they’ve got more on Kodmani. We have to question him again. Just get in, will
you?’
She stayed by the door, furious.
‘Raben could have escaped from here a long time ago. He’s smart enough. He was a
jæger,
wasn’t he?’
Strange groaned.
‘I wish I’d never said all that.’
‘He could have got out whenever he wanted. So why now? Why this moment? Will you at least admit it’s worthy of investigation? I’m trying to help you here.’
‘Help me?’ His passive face lit up with astonishment. ‘I’ve got rank, Lund. They didn’t give me that as a favour.’
She held out her hand.
‘Give me the keys. I’m driving.’
‘It’s my car . . .’
She came and stood next to him, hand out, like a mother demanding something from a disobedient child.
‘Give me the keys.’
He shoved his hands in his pockets, wouldn’t move.
‘We can stand here all night if you like,’ Lund said.
Nothing.
‘All night. I promise—’
‘Dammit,’ he swore, then walked round and climbed into the passenger seat.
It took six phone calls before Louise Raben found a lawyer willing to listen. Most didn’t take on hopeless cases. This one at least seemed willing to consider it.
‘He hasn’t any previous convictions,’ she said, listening to him wriggle on the line.
‘Let me think about it,’ the man said.
‘He’s a good husband. A loving father. They treated him terribly. I don’t know—’
‘I said I’ll think about it. Call me next Monday . . .’
‘I can call you tomorrow.’
‘I’m busy for the rest of the week. Get me the papers. We’ll talk on Monday. I don’t normally take on soldiers’ cases. I don’t think they should be over
there.’
Another time she’d have bitten his head off. Jens didn’t start that war. He was a soldier. He went where they sent him. But now . . .
‘Jens didn’t like it either.’
On that fragile lie she ended the call, closed her eyes, said a small prayer.
When she looked up her father was in the living-room doorway.
‘Dad.’ She ran to him. ‘I think I’ve got us a new lawyer. A good one this time. We’ve got grounds for appeal.’
He didn’t look his usual self.
‘I promised to send him all the papers.’
‘Louise . . . there are some people here.’
Two men had moved behind him. Police in their blue uniforms.
She was an army wife. Could scent bad news on the wind, in people’s eyes.
‘What is it?’ she whispered.
Then sat at the kitchen table and listened.
One cop spoke for both of them.
‘He’d been planning this for some time,’ he concluded.
‘When did he escape?’ her father asked.
The man nodded at her.
‘Just after your daughter’s visit.’
All three of them stared at her.
‘I didn’t know. That’s the truth.’
‘Louise . . .’
She ran to the sink, stared at the black night, tears blurring her vision.
‘Dad! Don’t you believe me?’
‘There was no one waiting for him outside,’ the cop added. ‘We don’t think he had help. But if you’ve got any idea where he’s heading you should tell us.
He’s dangerous—’
‘No he’s not!’ she cried, turning on them. ‘That’s the point. If you’d let him out. Let him come to me and Jonas—’
‘Your husband’s an escaped felon,’ the cop said. ‘We’re treating him as a risk to the public and himself. If you know where he is—’
‘She’s no idea,’ her father broke in. ‘They didn’t let my daughter see him much. When she did get in he wasn’t exactly . . . communicative.’
Louise Raben wiped her eyes and glared at him.
‘We need a list of his friends. Relatives. Places he liked to go.’
‘I’ll talk to my daughter. We’ll be in touch.’
The man in blue got up, came and stood next to her.
‘If you hide anything you’re breaking the law. You could go to jail too.’
‘She knows nothing!’ Jarnvig yelled at him. ‘Just go, will you? Can’t you see we’re shaken up by this? We thought Jens was coming home.’
The second cop, the silent one, got up and shuffled over.
‘We’ll be back for that list in an hour,’ he said. ‘If you don’t have it I’ll wait.’
Then they left.
Dishes in the sink. Washing to do. Jonas had broken his lunch box. She couldn’t get it back together again.
‘Want me to help with that?’ her father asked.
‘No.’
She went and sat at the table again, struggled to put the plastic fastenings in place.
‘This is all wrong.’
‘Louise . . .’
‘He said he’d resumed the treatment. All he wanted to do was come home.’
Her father took the lunch box from her, snapped the lid back in. She couldn’t begin to make sense of what she’d heard.
‘Whatever he’s done, there must be a reason. Jens wouldn’t just run off . . .’
He took her hand.
‘But he did.’
A bright spark of anger.
‘Just like that? No reason? The way Mum did? That’s what you said then, didn’t you? And that wasn’t true? Was it?’
He didn’t like it when someone answered back.
‘No. She left me. She hated . . .’ He nodded towards the barracks outside. ‘. . . this. The army life. So I suppose she came to hate me too.’
‘She had her reasons.’
‘They were her reasons, not mine. I never understood them. How she could leave me, yes. But not you. Never you. I can’t begin . . .’
The words failed him. Torsten Jarnvig was staring at the door. She turned. Jonas was there. He looked tired, close to tears.
‘Mum?’ the boy said in a clear, hurt voice. ‘What’s happened?’
She was there in an instant, scooping up his little body in her arms, holding him, feeling his warm cheek against hers.
‘Nothing, darling,’ she whispered. ‘Nothing.’
‘They were talking about—’
‘Nothing,’ she murmured and hugged him so tight he couldn’t say anything at all.
A cold damp night. Frost on the ground, on the trees of this dead land at the edge of Copenhagen. Jens Peter Raben was finally free.
After he’d emerged from the remote disposal plant he’d broken into the staff offices, stolen some clean clothes, jeans, a sweater, a khaki hooded jacket, dashed into the woods,
washing himself with the frosty dew on the trees, trying to get rid of the stink, then changed.
The plant was empty. No car to hotwire. Not even a bike.
So he ran down the track, a steady jogging pace for twenty minutes or more, until he found a main road busy with night traffic, trucks and cars.
Soon it started to rain. Then the rain turned to sleet. Two hours after he’d slipped out of Herstedvester he found himself approaching a petrol station surrounded by woodland.
He stopped in a clump of conifers by the edge, tried to fix in his head what he was doing.
Training.
It didn’t all happen abroad. Often they’d run manoeuvres in Denmark, on terrain much like this. Hide and hunt sorties. Stay out of sight, cover tens, hundreds of kilometres with no
money, no obvious form of transport. Emerge at the other end, carry out the assignment.
He didn’t fail then. Didn’t intend to now. But that was practice, for a purpose. One the army supplied. Now he was on his own. A solitary man with a mission he’d yet to
discover.
Even in Afghanistan, on the odd lone assignment, he’d never been completely alone. The army came with you. Whispered comforting promises in your ear.
Not now, by this deserted petrol station on the icy outskirts of Copenhagen.
Raben checked for the positions of the CCTV cameras, pulled the hood down as far as it would go, then walked over to the toilets. Got some water to drink. Broke open the lock, jammed the door,
stripped off, washed again. Sniffed. Tried to believe the smell of the sewer was gone.