Authors: David Hewson
‘Some?’
‘Some,’ he repeated. ‘It’s Afghanistan. There are no borders, no front lines. They said the call came from a village. When they got there they found one officer, Perk.
He’d been under fire and wanted help.’
‘What else?’
‘They said Perk had taken refuge in a house. They were under siege for forty hours without radio contact. We’d no idea where they were. The helicopter that picked up Thomsen looked
but it was impossible.’
Jarnvig sipped at the coffee Lund had given him.
‘A few of the local tribesmen claimed later something happened to the family in the house. They were looking for money.’
Lund asked, ‘What did they say?’
‘They said the Danish officer killed the family. Father, mother, two, three children, I don’t remember. No one was quite sure. It was ridiculous.’
‘You went to the village and asked?’
‘It’s Afghanistan! We did what we could. We got to the house for a while. There’d been an explosion. We could see that. No one knew anything about a message from a missing
squad.’ His eyes darkened. ‘Except Raben . . . There was no record of any troops in the area. No bodies . . .’
‘Thomsen had heard of someone called Perk,’ Lund pointed out.
Jarnvig leaned forward and slammed his fist on the table.
‘There was no officer called Perk. Do you think I didn’t look? Raben’s my son-in-law. I never liked the man but for my daughter’s sake I wanted to see justice
done.’
Strange shook his head.
‘Why would Raben lie? Why would the others? They told you the same story.’
‘That adventure cost three lives. Raben was always headstrong. Never took orders easily. He was trying to be a hero maybe. Perhaps he wanted to shift the blame.’
‘What about the family?’ Lund asked. ‘Someone lived in the house, didn’t they? Did you find them? What did they say?’
‘No. We were told they’d fled.’
‘Everyone?’
‘Everyone.’
Lund flicked through the papers.
‘You were officer in command. Did you check this all yourself?’
‘Not personally,’ Jarnvig replied, as if this were somehow beneath him. ‘I wasn’t in camp when it happened. But I was briefed fully on my return. It was
clear—’
‘Stop!’ Strange ordered. ‘You weren’t in camp?’
‘No. I was at a security council meeting in Kabul. My second-in-command kept me posted.’
Lund asked, ‘Names?’
‘Captain Søgaard. He’s a major now, of course. I came back two days after they got Raben and his men out of there. Søgaard gave me a full report and I—’
‘That’s all for now,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘That’s all.’ Lund beckoned to the door. ‘You can go.’
Brix was hovering in the corridor as Jarnvig left. Lund watched the two of them pass each other. Not a word spoken, plenty of eye contact.
‘Jarnvig’s going to be stirring it,’ Strange said. ‘We weren’t supposed to rock the boat.’
That stray thought she’d first recalled the day before returned as she watched the man in uniform walk out of the building. The Politigården wasn’t always a stranger to the
military. During the German occupation the Nazis had occupied the place, running the Danish police officers who remained in post. Some of the Danes had crossed the line, brought in partisans for
questioning. She knew the rumours. The stories of a ghost in the basement, close to the rooms where the Germans and their local allies beat and tortured suspects then shipped them off to
Mindelunden to die tied to a stake on the shooting range.
And some of those turncoats died themselves, assassinated by the partisan gangs.
Stikke.
Mown down outside their homes, shot on the bus as they went to work.
War wasn’t always a foreigner. For some it was a familiar, everyday thing, part of the landscape, like bad weather or disease. A shape in the shadows she’d simply been lucky to avoid
until now.
‘Where’s Søgaard?’ she asked.
‘I’ve left four messages. He never gets back.’
‘Is that so?’ Lund said.
Buch got Carsten Plough to check out Monberg’s past the moment Rossing was gone. Then he put on his heavy winter jacket and abandoned Slotsholmen for the pleasures of the
hot dog wagon in the square across the bridge. Copenhagen looked normal here. People going about their lives, unaware of the feverish activity in the grey buildings of government behind them.
Denmark had been run from this small island for centuries, ever since a warrior bishop called Absalon built his castle there. In an idle moment as a new MP Buch had visited the remains of the
fortress deep beneath the Christianborg Palace. Slotsholmen had been a magnet for power for more than a millennium, and with that he guessed came rumour, scandal and scheming.
When he got back he found there was a little progress.
‘I think he’s right,’ Plough said. ‘Monberg was a visiting professor when Dragsholm was at university. They could have had an affair. Afterwards she did some work
overseas then applied for a job in the army.’
‘Do we know they had an affair?’
The civil servant shrugged.
‘We don’t bug bedrooms. Do we? Well, not a minister’s. I hope you weren’t too rude to Flemming Rossing. He’s not a man to cross.’
Karina was walking into the office carrying her daughter in her arms. The little girl was wrapped up for the cold in an all-white wool coat and pretty hat.
Buch bowed and said very grandly, ‘Merle Jørgensen. Thomas Buch and his dragons welcome you.’
She chuckled and said, ‘What dragons?’
Buch gestured to the window and the spire of the Børsen.
‘They’re not real,’ the girl announced in that sparky kid’s voice that denoted a playful argument.
‘Who knows what’s real and what’s not?’ Buch asked.
‘Grown-ups do . . .’
‘If only . . . I have to phone someone.’ He looked at Karina. ‘Can we talk afterwards?’
He called Rossing.
‘If this is another argument,’ the Defence Minister said when Buch got through.
‘No arguments. I’ve been thinking about what you said. I’m new to this kind of responsibility. You should forgive my naivety at times.’
Rossing said nothing.
‘I lost perspective,’ Buch continued. ‘You’re right. We need to think of the bigger picture. I’ll tell the Prime Minister we must let sleeping dogs lie. The murder
investigation will continue its course. But Monberg need be no part of it.’
‘I’m pleased we see eye-to-eye finally. You’re a good man and you’ll make a fine minister. We should talk more often. Frankly, as we have.’
Plough was waving at him from the door.
‘Dinner,’ Rossing went on. ‘That’s the thing. There’s a French restaurant I know. Why not tonight?’
‘I’ve plans, thank you,’ Buch lied.
‘Not another bloody hot dog I hope.’
‘Another night. I promise.’
Plough was waving desperately. Buch said goodbye to Rossing then went into his office. Karina was in a chair, her daughter by the window waving to the entwined dragons.
‘Monberg is connected to the military case, Thomas.’ She looked apologetic at saying this. ‘Dragsholm contacted him to complain about errors in procedure.’
Plough stood by the door, listening. She took some documents out of her bag.
‘The investigation ignored the statements made by the soldiers. Monberg knew this was the case—’
‘Karina,’ Plough interjected. ‘We know all this. If you’ve come back to try to reclaim your job—’
‘Give her a chance,’ Buch ordered.
‘At first I found nothing,’ she said, pointing to the documents. ‘Then I looked in the system and cross-checked the soldiers’ names with the files we keep
here.’
‘You no longer have access to the computers!’ Plough complained.
Buch stared him into silence.
‘The case went through the Ministry of Defence,’ she carried on. ‘But Monberg attended a meeting about an individual soldier.’ She found the sheet. ‘Jens Peter
Raben, after he was committed to Herstedvester.’
‘The one who’s on the run?’ Plough looked shocked.
‘Him,’ she said. ‘There are no minutes of the meeting. If it wasn’t for the line in Monberg’s diary I wouldn’t even know Raben was involved.’
‘Karina,’ Buch began. ‘This is all very well . . .’
‘Defence Minister Rossing instigated that meeting. I remember taking the call. He was very insistent.’ She shrugged. ‘Monberg wasn’t looking forward to it.’
Buch rubbed his chin.
‘Rossing assured me it was nothing more than an affair. He
assured
me.’
‘Then he lied to you.’
Plough was tut-tutting.
‘He lied!’ she repeated. ‘What else explains it?’
The two men looked at her in silence.
‘What else?’
‘You’ve told Rossing you won’t pursue this,’ Plough said. ‘It would be unseemly if you went back on your word.’
‘Unseemly?’ Thomas Buch roared. ‘I was buying time, you fool!’
The quiet civil servant cowered at the volume of his voice.
Karina’s little girl wasn’t giggling at the dragons any more. She was staring at him and she looked scared.
‘I’m sorry,’ Buch said, more quietly. ‘I’m really very sorry indeed.’
The police drove Louise Raben home after they finished the interview. It wasn’t generosity. The two detectives then set about searching her rooms in Jarnvig’s
barracks house, taking what they wanted. She sat at the kitchen table. It was the last room they looked at. One man went through the drawers. The other had her diary and her bag.
He was a cheery, bald man of forty or so. Persistent. Not in a hurry.
‘Is this your address book?’ he said, taking it out from the bag.
‘Yes. You won’t find anything in there.’
He put it in his case anyway.
‘You’ll get it back.’
Jonas walked through the door and stood by the table, staring at them balefully.
A forced smile broke on Louise Raben’s face. This was what mothers were meant to do. Stay bright and cheerful.
‘Hi, darling.’ She stroked his brown hair. He didn’t smile. ‘Did you have fun?’
The tall cop with the address book winked. Jonas stared at him, then the other one.
‘They’re helping Mummy clear up,’ Louise said. ‘Nearly done. They’re leaving now.’
‘Sign here,’ the man said and gave her a form.
While she was doing that he bent down and looked at Jonas’s rucksack.
‘Nice bag. Did your daddy give you that?’
‘No he didn’t,’ Louise snapped, close to breaking.
The second cop had got hold of the laptop and was putting it in a plastic bag.
‘Why are they taking our computer?’ Jonas asked.
‘They’re going now. Aren’t you?’
‘I want the computer,’ Jonas whined.
‘It’s all right, darling.’ She stroked his hair. Again no smile. ‘They just want to borrow it. We’ll get you a PlayStation soon. OK?’
They went not long after. She got Jonas some food. He didn’t say much, however hard she tried. She’d always thought families fell apart in a flood of screams and shouted accusations.
But they didn’t. It happened like this, in silence and unspoken fears.
After a while he walked away from the food, went to the living room and turned on the TV.
The buzzing noise of a phone near the cooker. She looked around, made sure no one was looking.
The police had taken her mobile. She knew they’d do that so she’d slipped the sim into a spare handset and hid it in the stove hood. They weren’t having everything.
‘Louise? Hello?’
‘It’s me,’ her father said. ‘I think you’d better come over to my office right away.’
The grey-faced priest, Gunnar Torpe, was in Jarnvig’s office when she got there. Louise Raben had not met him much. Never liked him when she did. She could never work out
which he truly was: a man of God or a man of war. Torpe was a bachelor, almost too covetous of his role with the troops. When they went to war he was there. When they left he always seemed a touch
resentful at seeing them return to their families. Jealous. That was probably unfair, but true, she thought. It was there in his restless, angry eyes.
‘Jens is sick,’ Torpe said, getting to his feet. ‘Terribly sick.’
She didn’t take the seat he offered. Just stood and watched him, arms folded, under the observant gaze of her father.
The army was run by men like these. They always knew best.
‘We need to get him some help,’ Torpe went on in his sing-song priest’s voice. ‘We have to get him out of harm’s way before he does something really
stupid.’
‘Did you visit him in jail?’ she asked, not kindly.
No answer. She knew he’d never been to Herstedvester. Jens had mentioned it.
‘I did,’ Louise told him. ‘Week in, week out. I saw him getting better and better. And still they wouldn’t let him go.’
‘He needs help now,’ her father said. ‘Call him. Say you want to see him. Let the police do the rest.’
‘Just hand him over?’ she cried. ‘Send him back to jail?’
‘He’s not right in the head,’ Torpe pleaded. ‘The things he says . . . don’t make sense.’
‘Myg dead,’ she said. ‘Grüner. Now Lisbeth Thomsen. This lawyer woman. What does make sense?’
‘He’s the last one, Louise . . .’
Torpe had a soldier’s hands, but he used them like a priest. Now they were pressed together as if in prayer.
‘I did try to call him,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t answer.’
‘Try again,’ her father demanded.
She left them in the office. Stood outside in the corridor, watching the activity in the yard beyond. Men in green combat gear lugging equipment, mortars, rifles. Another tour of duty on the
way.
‘Where are you, Jens?’ she whispered. And then, so softly she barely heard herself, ‘Where am I?’
Torpe’s church wasn’t far from the rough quarter of Vesterbro. Sex shops, half-hidden brothels. Drug dens. Hookers on the street.
It wasn’t hard to find the kind of business Raben wanted. A couple of conversations with men near the meat-packing halls. A phone call. A nod. An address.
The place turned out to be an abandoned garage not far from the Dybbølsbro bridge. Scaffolding held up the interior walls. There was a stink of open drains. A rusty green VW camper van
was parked by the half-arch windows at the end.