Authors: David Hewson
‘But it seems they have.’
‘May I call you “Thomas”?’ Plough shot a look at Karina. ‘She does.’
‘If you wish.’
The civil servant took a deep breath.
‘You do not have the bearing of a minister. The panache. The guile. The sophistication.’ Plough looked visibly upset. ‘But by God you’re the most honest and decent and
open man I’ve seen hold office in Slotsholmen in all my years here and I will not let those . . .’
His arm shot out towards the Folketinget and the Christianborg Palace.
‘Those . . . those
fuckers
do you down if I can help it. I swear to God I won’t.’
Buch stared at him. Karina too. Plough was shaking with visible fury.
All three of them were grateful when there was a knock on the door and a pale and puzzled Erling Krabbe blundered in.
‘I’m sorry,’ Krabbe stuttered. ‘Was I interrupting something?’
‘Yes,’ Buch said.
‘Do you have a minute?’
Buch eyed Plough and Karina. They both retreated, still shocked.
He went to his desk, put his big weary feet on the polished walnut, leaned back and relaxed. Krabbe fell into the chair by his side, looked round at the portraits on the wall. A century and a
half of Buch’s predecessors.
‘If you’ve come to gloat, Krabbe, you chose the wrong moment.’
‘Do you mind if I smoke?’
‘So long as you don’t bore the arse off me with some stupid demands about the anti-terror package. You’ll get what you want. And my head on a plate too. Don’t expect me
to butter you up . . .’
Krabbe pulled out a packet of cigarettes and lit one.
‘I will get what I want,’ he agreed. ‘And I do want rid of you. I don’t think you’re fit for this job, Buch. You’ve proved it, haven’t you?’
Buch smiled for one brief moment and said nothing.
‘How sure are you about your accusations against Rossing?’ Krabbe asked.
‘Why? I don’t see you losing any sleep over it.’
‘Do you still believe what you said?’
‘What is this?’
Krabbe scowled.
‘I’m not an idiot. I don’t like being fooled with any more than you do.’ He took a drag on the cigarette, blew a cloud of smoke out into Buch’s office.
‘Rossing seemed remarkably well prepared for all this. Too much so. It makes me . . . uneasy.’
‘Of course he was well prepared. He had a reason. I was tipped off about a fax that incriminated him. It looks like he set it up. I walked straight into his trap and he cut off my head in
front of Grue Eriksen and the Security Committee. Satisfied? I was outsmarted, Krabbe. I was not proved wrong.’
‘You told no one about this fax?’
‘Of course not! What do you think? I phoned Rossing to warn him in advance?’
‘So . . .’ Krabbe was thinking, working something out for himself. ‘The only people who knew were your own staff ?’
‘Krabbe! For heaven’s sake, what is this?’
‘Did you outline to the Prime Minister what evidence you were bringing to the meeting?’
‘We had a short conversation. You don’t think I’d park my tank on Rossing’s lawn without giving Grue Eriksen a clue of what I was going to say, do you? He wants . .
.’ Buch stopped. ‘He wants the truth as much as anyone.’
Krabbe drew on his cigarette, stayed silent.
‘You’re not suggesting . . .’ Buch began.
The door opened. Plough came in.
‘We’ve just had a call from the Prime Minister’s office. He’d like to see you later. He suggests nine o’clock.’
‘I should go,’ Krabbe declared, getting to his feet. ‘I won’t disturb you any longer.’
He came and shook Buch’s hand.
‘Thank you for listening. I know you must hate me. I imagine that’s inevitable. I’m sorry. If . . .’ He looked around for somewhere to dump his cigarette. Plough found
him a saucer. ‘If you want to talk again do call.’
The two men watched him go.
Plough emptied the saucer into a waste bin.
‘What was that about?’
‘I honestly don’t know,’ Buch admitted.
Marriages didn’t end with an argument or a dismissive wave of the hand. They were like bereavements. Traces lingered. Physical objects that carried with them memories.
Barriers that needed to be removed so a life could move on.
Louise Raben was in her father’s storeroom, sorting through the detritus of the life she would now abandon.
Practical material: box files of medical reports, guarantees for cars and washing machines, insurance certificates, receipts and invoices.
Personal things: letters in airmail envelopes from parts of the world she’d never see. Photographs that tugged at the heart. An ancient video camera, unused in years.
There was a cassette next to it. The date on it was a few months before Jonas was born.
The past would not be buried. What happened had happened. It would live with her and carry with it some love, if only in the shape of their son.
And she would not hide from it.
She put the cassette into the video and walked into her empty bedroom, hooked up the cables to the little TV opposite the bed.
Sat down, listened, watched and wondered.
It was Amager Strandpark on a hot summer’s day. So unlike the cold, bleak place where she’d finished with him.
Jens, younger, clean shaven, happy and fit. Grinning into the lens saying, ‘It’s fantastic. Come on! Come on! Get wet, Louise. I dare you . . .’
She blinked. There was a tripod. Still in the storeroom. He liked to set the camera on it and let the film run.
A wavering shot of the beach then it was still. She could see the black shadow the stand made, like that of a stiff mechanical crane.
She was pregnant, wearing the gaudy flowered swimsuit he’d picked for her.
Squealing, ‘No! Don’t film me! I’m too fat. Too ugly.’
She looked so much younger. It seemed as if nothing could possibly go wrong with the world.
He came into the frame, wagging his finger as if cross.
‘Nonsense, young woman,’ he said in that firm sergeant’s voice. ‘You are beautiful, Louise Raben.’ She laughed at him. ‘You are so beautiful.’
He kissed her. She kissed him. Hands round his rough cheeks, fingers in his hair.
The older Louise watched and felt a tear emerge, roll slowly down her cheek.
She looked at the pile of letters. So many. When she thought about it she felt she could remember every last loving word he wrote, week in week out, however hard the fighting, however remote the
place.
A noise behind. She quickly wiped her face with her sleeve. Christian Søgaard was marching in with a box in his arms. More paint. She’d asked for it. He wore combat fatigues. Had
that confident officer’s face. Nothing like Jens. Never would be.
‘I’m sorry I’m late. They kept me at the Politigården all day. Idiots.’
When she wiped away the tears more came. Too many to hide.
‘OK,’ Søgaard said softly. ‘Bad time. I’ll come back later.’
‘No. Stay.’
She froze the video. It captured the two of them in each other’s arms, crackly lines running across the screen as if this love between them was already broken, gone for good.
Søgaard glanced at the picture, looked away.
She removed the cables and the cassette. Placed it in the box with the letters. Turned off the TV. Put the box on the floor then kicked it away with her foot.
‘Is Jonas at home?’ Søgaard asked.
‘No. He’s staying over with someone from kindergarten.’
A friend she wanted to say. Except it wasn’t that. Jonas had none really.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the dead TV.
Søgaard put down the paint, sat next to her, took her hand.
‘Louise. You didn’t let him down. You put up with more than most women would. You held out. You fought. I know. I watched.’
‘Did you?’
‘Every minute.’
He looked ready to leave. She didn’t want that. There was a break to be made. A decision to be faced.
‘What are you going to do now?’ she asked.
Hands in his pockets. He looked embarrassed. Hopeful.
‘Not much.’
She laughed.
‘All alone?’
‘As usual.’
‘Me too,’ she said. ‘You want some wine?’
‘Wine’s good.’
‘And a bonfire?’
He looked at her, baffled.
Louise Raben picked up the box with the letters, the video, all the memories.
‘I want to burn some things. I want a witness.’
She paused, felt a decision closing in on her.
‘I want it to be you.’
The library was at the end of a dark cul-de-sac. Barely a light inside. Lund made Strange turn off the blue light and the siren then stop the car some way from the entrance.
There were two vehicles out the front, both old and battered.
She walked up, shone her torch through the windows of the first. An old Ford. Nothing. Then the second. In the footwell of the yellow Polo was a pile of manila folders. Army logo. Personnel
records with the stamp of the Holmen office.
Lund felt her gun tight against her waist in the holster on her belt.
She called control, got them to run a check on the registration of the Ford. It took a minute.
‘Skåning’s car,’ she said when the operator got back to her. She looked at Strange. ‘Do we go in? Or do we wait?’
He laughed.
‘You’re asking me now?’
‘Yes. I am.’
‘You did bring your weapon?’
Lund slapped her jacket and nodded.
‘Well then you stay back, let me handle the front. We’ll take it from there.’
She still wasn’t sure. The night Meyer got shot was rattling round in the back of her head.
‘We could wait for backup—’
There was a sound from inside the library. A yell. A shout. A scream.
‘No,’ Strange said, and got out his Glock, checked it, went for the door.
Raben had Skåning strapped to a chair, shirt dragged down to show the officer’s tattoo on his left shoulder. He’d punched the bearded man in the gut a couple
of times, was getting madder with each failed blow.
This ugly face was familiar. The bent, exaggerated features, the low brow, the broken nose.
‘Jesus . . .’ Skåning muttered through bleeding lips. ‘What do I have to do . . . ?’
‘Shut up and listen!’ Raben shouted, his voice echoing through the dark empty belly of the library. ‘You said your name was Perk. You stole his identity. You were with us in
that house . . .’
He whacked his fist into Skåning’s face again.
‘You had that dog tag. I saw it. I was there, remember? It was you.’
‘No, Raben! You didn’t—’
Another punch. Blood spattered the blue tattoo on Skåning’s arm.
‘Admit it, dammit!’
The man in the chair fell forward, retched blood and broken teeth onto his army trousers.
‘I know it was you,’ Raben snarled. ‘We came to your rescue.’ He brought up his knee, fetched it hard beneath Skåning’s chin.
Another screech. Another howl.
‘Leave me alone, for fuck’s sake. I never fought in Helmand. I went crazy there. They discharged me.’
A hand whipped round his cheeks.
‘I had a breakdown.’
‘I saw you—’
‘Yeah!’ Skåning cried in a high, pained voice close to falsetto. ‘And I saw you. On the plane home, with all the other wounded soldiers.’
Raben stood back, felt a sudden, agonizing pang of doubt. A flash of unwanted memory.
‘What soldiers?’
‘
Your
soldiers! The men who were with you. Grüner and those other guys. They told me what happened. They said you were under siege in a village for two days.’
‘You were on that plane?’
‘With all of you! I remember seeing you strapped to a stretcher. You were awake, just. But you couldn’t talk. They didn’t think you’d live. I tried to speak to you. The
others told the same story. About some guy called Perk . . .’
One stride closer.
‘No!’ The bearded man looked terrified. ‘No more!’
Raben sat on a chair. Looked at what he’d done. Put his head in his hands. Wanted to weep.
A sound at the back of the library. He turned, reached automatically for the gun in his pocket.
‘Raben?’ Lund said, walking through the cold, dark hall of the library, seeing two figures silhouetted in the dim light ahead. Two men on chairs, both head down.
One strapped, breathing heavily. The other . . .
She wasn’t sure.
‘Raben!’
She had the gun on him. Held it the way they taught on the range.
‘Just come with us. It’s all going to be fine.’
Strange had disappeared the moment they came into the library, fallen into the shadows. She’d no idea where he was now.
‘You think?’ Raben asked, head cocked, beard rough and straggly, next to Skåning, wounded and bleeding.
‘Just get your hands up and walk towards . . .’
He dashed for the stairs that rose at the end of the hall. Something in his right hand. A gun. No doubt about that.
‘Raben!’ Lund shouted again and followed him up the wooden staircase.
It was an old library. Had the smell, the feel of a church. At the far end, beyond the tall bookcases, was a circular stained-glass window. Blue with pale figures, scriveners at their desks.
Another shape there. A bedraggled man beneath its soft light, erect by the wall, holding a gun firmly beneath his chin, both hands to the grip.
She put her own weapon back in the holster. Walked on. He was rocking backwards and forwards, eyes closed.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Lund shouted. ‘You’ve got a wife and a kid. You’ve got a future.’
A noise came from him and she wondered if it was wry laughter.
‘I need your help. We know Perk’s real. He’s behind this. We know you got framed.’
Still the same motion, to and fro, the gun hard to his throat.
‘You’re so close to winning,’ she said, taking another step closer. ‘Do you give up now? You didn’t in the army.’
No words.
‘Put the gun down,’ she ordered. ‘Drop it to the floor. Kick it towards me.’
Eyes tight, face wracked with pain.
‘You’re the only one left! Think about it. If you’re dead he’s won. If you’re dead Louise and Jonas . . .’
The weapon came away. Raben fell to his knees, stumbled forward gasping for breath.