Authors: David Hewson
He was big with the face of a boxer: scarred and ugly. Leather jacket. Heavy physique that spoke of body-building and pills.
Raben looked at him and thought about it. Some men learned to fight in jail. Some got better teachers.
The thug opened the back door and unwrapped a roll of old carpet. A tiny arsenal sat there. Small-bore pistols. Service revolvers. Semi-automatics.
Most looked like adapted replicas, dangerous, useless to him.
Raben’s face must have spoken. The thug brushed aside the cheap fakes and pulled out a black Neuhausen. Swiss semi-automatic. Old but good.
‘That came from the army,’ he said. ‘Best weapon I got. I can get four thousand euros for that in Spain.’
Raben felt it. He knew this kind of gun. Had used it in anger.
‘How much are you good for?’
‘About six hundred,’ Raben answered.
The man with the boxer’s face stood over him and grunted.
‘Six hundred? You can’t buy an air pistol for that.’
The magazine was missing. He stuffed the gun into his belt.
‘Did you hear me?’
So much training it came as second nature. The bigger they were, the easier they came down.
Raben jabbed his boot hard into the guy’s shin, pounced when he yelled, took out the leg, jerked him off balance, pushed as he went over. The weight did the rest. Down the man went,
cropped skull hard on the cement floor.
Dazed, bleeding, yelling.
Raben checked he was stunned, kicked him in the head once for good measure, ran his hands over the leather jacket.
The magazine was there. This was his gun. Raben slotted it in place. Kept the weapon on the grunting figure on the ground, ran over his jacket again. Took the phone. Took the wallet, checked it.
A thousand, that was all.
They never carried much. It was a risky profession.
He’d got his head back now. Was staring at Raben from the hard ground in a way that said:
I will remember you.
‘I need it,’ Raben said.
The gun came up. The man looked scared. He was meant to.
‘Get in the van,’ Raben ordered. ‘Drive away. Don’t think about me. Don’t talk about me. Pray we don’t meet again. Because if we do . . .’
He jerked the weapon towards the VW. The thug with the bloody boxer’s face struggled to his feet, waddled to the open door, climbed in, drove off.
When he was outside in the street the phone Torpe had given him rang.
‘Louise?’
‘I think my dad knows about this number.’
‘Did Priest tell him?’
‘They’re worried about you, Jens.’
‘Do the police know you’re talking to me?’
‘I don’t think so. Are you OK? Priest says you’re safer if you give yourself up. He says—’
‘I know what I’m doing. We can’t talk now.’
‘Jens!’ Her voice was close to breaking. ‘For God’s sake . . . we both—’
He cut the call and put the mobile in his pocket. Looked round at the sex shops and the sleazy corners of Vesterbro. A couple of shady men in black were talking surreptitiously by the corner. As
he watched a young and pretty mother pushed a pram past them, along the line of hookers in miniskirts gathering for the day’s trade.
Life went on regardless.
The duty officer at Ryvangen said Søgaard was in the shower after a workout. Lund asked for directions and went straight in.
The place stank of sweat and cheap body cologne. The air was damp and steamy. She walked past a line of red lockers, past naked men clutching towels to themselves.
One finally plucked up the courage to challenge her.
She pulled out her police ID, looked past him.
‘I want Major Søgaard.’
No one spoke. There was laughter from the end, the sound of showers.
Lund walked on, stopped at the very edge.
Some of them were out and shaving, dog tags round their necks. Søgaard was still amidst the steam. He didn’t try to cover himself like the others did. Maybe he thought he had
something to be proud of.
Lund glanced, covered a yawn with her hand.
‘Yes?’ Søgaard asked, coming out to look at her, naked except for the silver dog tag round his neck.
‘We’ve been leaving messages for you all morning.’
‘This is my last full day with all my officers. It’s a busy schedule.’
‘I want to talk to you about what happened in Afghanistan.’
He didn’t move.
‘Do we do it here?’ she asked.
‘I was going to go for a shit,’ he said, pointing to one side. ‘Do you want to come in there for that?’
‘Get your clothes. Or I’ll drag you down to the Politigården right now.’
‘My schedule—’
‘Fuck your schedule,’ Lund snapped, aware that the men around her were starting to watch, amused. ‘Outside now or you’re in my office for the rest of the day. You
choose.’
She waited by the front door of the building, watching the soldiers go to and fro in their armoured vehicles.
Søgaard didn’t rush. Twenty minutes later he was there, immaculate in dress uniform, blond hair dried and perfect beneath a dark beret.
‘This is a waste of my time,’ he said before she could speak. ‘I know no more than Colonel Jarnvig.’
‘Well, that can’t be right, can it?’
He didn’t like being questioned. Especially by her.
‘Why’s that?’
‘Jarnvig was in Kabul. You were in the camp. You must have witnessed the soldiers’ statements.’
He laughed at her.
‘Civilians. You really have no idea what it’s like, do you?’
He started walking towards a Mercedes troop carrier. Lund went with him.
‘Enlighten me.’
‘I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know.’
‘The soldiers mentioned an officer called Perk.’
That stopped him. Søgaard looked her up and down.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘They did. They’d been under fire. Three of their comrades were dead. Raben and Grüner were so badly wounded we didn’t know if they’d
live. They rambled on about lots of things—’
‘Perk?’
‘There was no officer out there. No squad under fire. Nobody called Perk.’
He leaned against the vehicle and peered into her eyes.
‘No distress call either. Raben should have confirmed with the camp before going in. He broke procedures. It wasn’t the first time—’
‘You don’t like him, do you?’
Søgaard hesitated.
‘He used to be a good soldier. Maybe he got promoted above his temperament.’
‘How do you know they didn’t kill this Afghan family?’
‘Because I went there. I led the operation that got Raben’s squad out of the shit.’
He wanted to leave it at that.
‘You were the first to get to this village?’ she asked.
‘The first from our side. Correct.’
‘And you saw nothing significant?’
‘I guess it depends what you mean by significant. We picked up three dead soldiers and the rest of them wounded or shell-shocked. Does that count?’
‘Civilians—’
‘There were no civilians. Dead or alive. There were maybe six or seven houses in the place. All empty. One had taken some kind of hit. The Afghans walk away if there’s trouble.
Usually they never come back.’
Someone was shouting for him from across the road.
‘And a few months later they pinned some more medals on you and made you a major?’
He didn’t like that at all.
‘Was that a reward for the mission?’
‘We saved them, didn’t we? The ones who were still alive.’
An open-top G-Wagen turned up. Søgaard climbed in.
‘If something happened in that village it was your responsibility, wasn’t it?’
‘
If
something happened. But it didn’t. War’s a dirty business. We die. The enemy die. People who get caught in the middle die. We’re out there to get blood on
our hands so you don’t see any on yours. End of story.’
‘This is about four murders, Søgaard.’
‘Good luck with it,’ he muttered then made a circular waving gesture with his hand and the vehicle lurched off.
Lund stood in the road and watched, ignoring the procession of vehicles behind Søgaard’s, all honking at her to get out of the way.
She took out her phone and called Strange in the Politigården.
‘I want Søgaard’s alibi checked. Where was he? Who did see? What did he do around the time of the killings?’
‘OK,’ he agreed. ‘Brix has got some records from the army. All officers stationed abroad in the last ten years. There’s no one called Perk.’
‘There’s got to be.’
‘Let me finish. Some recruits were trained by a lieutenant they used to call Perk.’
‘And?’
‘His real name’s Per Kristian Møller. He was with Ægir.’
The line of army vehicles was getting frantic. Lund could barely hear in the cacophony of horns. Slowly she stepped out of the road and walked to her car.
‘Any idea where he is now?’ she asked.
A moment’s silence.
‘Working on it,’ Strange said. ‘Give me an hour.’
By late afternoon they’d traced Per Kristian Møller to a house in an expensive tree-lined street in Frederiksberg, west of the city, not far from the cemetery
where Anne Dragsholm was interred two days before. His mother Hanne was home on her own. The light was gone. A log fire was blazing in the living room as she took them through her son’s army
career, sifting through a few of the belongings he’d left behind.
‘These,’ she said, showing them a holiday photo, mother, father, strong young son, by the beach, ‘were Per Kristian’s favourite sunglasses. Won’t you sit down? My
husband’s abroad but I’ll do all I can to help.’
She was a plump woman, forties. Not much older than Lund herself. Long hair, fashionable clothes, a young face though lined.
‘When did your son die?’ Lund asked.
‘In the month of May. Two years and six months ago.’
‘In May?’
‘Yes. May the 13th. In an explosion.’
She ran a hand through her long brown locks.
‘I wouldn’t forget that, would I?’
Then she walked to the wall and put the picture back in its place, next to a portrait of him in uniform, smiling for the camera.
‘Let’s leave her in peace,’ Strange whispered. ‘This guy was dead three months before Raben’s squad got hit.’
Lund looked at him and shook her head.
‘I tried to talk him into doing something else,’ Hanne Møller said, arms folded, eyes on the wall. ‘He was an only child. I never wanted to let go. It was ridiculous.
The army was his life. It was all he ever wanted. To do his duty. To be a good citizen.’
A weak smile.
‘Then they made him a lieutenant and we hardly ever heard from him after that. Until they phoned and told us what had happened. We buried him in the church down the road. He sang in the
choir when he was little. He’s still close to us. He’s still ours.’
‘I think we should go,’ Strange whispered.
Lund struggled for something to say.
‘It must be a comfort,’ was all she could manage.
Hanne Møller tried to keep smiling.
‘Is this about the investigation? That lawyer who was here. A woman. She was asking the same questions you did.’
‘Was she called—’
‘Dragsholm. Anne Dragsholm. I saw the dreadful news about her. So . . . horrible.’
She went to a line of keys on the wall by the refrigerator.
‘I showed her his belongings. I suppose you’ll want to see them too.’
They followed her into a wooden shed at the back of the house. A jumble of boxes and cases, shelves and bags under three harsh fluorescent tubes.
‘We kept all his things. I insisted on it.’ She opened a box and took out a football and a pair of boots. Probably for a kid of twelve. ‘Everything.’
Then she walked up to some suitcases.
‘Every time we’re about to throw something out we have second thoughts. I know it’s silly.’
‘What did Dragsholm ask for?’ Lund asked.
‘The documents concerning his death. In case we were entitled to compensation.’ The smile left her face. ‘I had to go to the kitchen to take a call. When I came back she was
just going through his things. Very rude if you ask me . . .’
Lund had picked up a school satchel. It was empty save for dust.
‘Like you,’ Hanne Møller said with an edge.
‘Why was she doing that?’ Strange asked.
‘She wouldn’t say. She asked me a lot of questions. Funny questions. About the funeral and all . . .’
‘What about the funeral?’
‘She seemed concerned that we hadn’t seen him.’
‘Seen him where?’
‘In his coffin.’ She glanced around the shed as if she regretted bringing them here, starting this conversation. ‘We wanted to. We asked. But they told us we’d better
not. For our own sake. He died in an explosion . . .’
‘They never let you see your own son?’
‘No.’
‘Whose decision was that?’
‘Captain Søgaard. And the priest. They were polite . . . But very insistent. I don’t think they would have let us even if we’d pleaded. It was as if . . .’ She
looked ready to cry and Lund didn’t want that. ‘It was as if he belonged to them. Not to us any more. But it was a beautiful funeral. They were very kind. Do you want to see a photo of
the grave? We put fresh flowers there every week.’
‘Please,’ Lund said.
She walked back to the house and left them.
‘No.’ Strange wagged a finger at her. ‘I’m not going along with this. She’s upset. Let’s not make it worse—’
‘Dragsholm was here. Are you asleep?’
‘He died three months before the incident happened!’
‘And Søgaard swore he never knew an officer called Perk. He’s covering up—’
‘Perk’s dead. He was in the ground before any of this started.’
She liked Ulrik Strange but he could drive her mad sometimes.
‘When will you learn to ask questions?’ she demanded. ‘They wouldn’t let his own parents see the body.’
‘Because he’d been blown to bits!’
Lund was thinking.
‘We need permission to dig up the coffin and see what’s inside. That bastard Søgaard might have put rocks in it for all we know.’
‘You’re kidding?’ Strange said, too loudly. ‘This is madness.’
‘We have to exhume the coffin. If you can’t see that, Strange, what are you doing in this job? I mean . . .’