Authors: David Hewson
‘Come on, Raben. It’s easy.’
He looked at her. Blank, exhausted eyes. A man at the end of the road.
‘Put the gun down,’ she repeated and he did, very slowly, then raised his hands.
A noise from the library below, big shoes on tiles. Raben stayed crouched, close to the weapon.
Lund glanced. Strange was there, staying close to the walls. Gun raised, ready.
‘It’s just my partner. You’re safe with us. Walk away from the gun.’
Strange’s footsteps got closer. His silhouette was emerging from the gloom.
Raben could see the shape of him now. His fingers crept back to the weapon, clutched it, raised it.
‘Leave the gun alone!’ Lund barked at him. ‘Come over here.’
Three more strides and Strange emerged from the darkness, stood on the floor beneath them, Weaver stance, Glock ready, pointing.
‘Put it on the floor,’ he ordered.
She watched so closely. Couldn’t work out why this was going wrong. Raben was getting to his feet, the weapon in his right hand again, a look of astonishment and horror on his haggard,
bearded face.
‘Perk . . .’ he murmured.
‘Put the gun down!’ Strange shouted. ‘Do as I say or I fire. Now!’
Lund wondered if she’d heard right.
‘Do as he says,’ she said. ‘Please—’
‘Perk, you bastard!’ Jens Peter Raben roared, racing to the balustrade, weapon up, at the ready.
She screamed something and wasn’t sure what. Saw the bright light burst out from beneath her, heard the single gunshot burst through the darkness, echoing off the old brick walls.
Jens Peter Raben flew back, thrown hard against the wooden shelving, tumbled to the ground in a sea of falling books.
She was there first, had a hand to his chest, feeling for breath.
Torsten Jarnvig couldn’t get the conversation with Arild out of his head. Ryvangen was his dominion. What happened to the men there mattered. And now he felt he was in
ignorance. Had been kept that way.
Søgaard’s phone was off, the man was nowhere to be seen. Jarnvig pulled in Said Bilal and talked to him instead. Bilal was something of a mystery. A loner who didn’t mix much,
didn’t drink, didn’t do anything except his job.
Jarnvig had the papers from two years ago in front of him.
‘Raben said the officer they were relieving was called Perk. Yet Søgaard had attended Perk’s funeral three months earlier. Didn’t he think this was strange?
There’s nothing in the report . . .’
‘It couldn’t be the same Perk,’ Bilal replied. ‘Why would Søgaard think anything of it?’
‘Because he was in charge.’ Jarnvig knew how he’d have approached such an investigation. There would have been questions. Plenty of them. ‘What about the radio call Raben
said he received? He said it was from a Danish unit in trouble.’
‘We didn’t pick up any radio call.’
‘Would it have been in range from that village?’
‘We’re on a really tight schedule, sir. Could I suggest we postpone these questions—’
‘Do you? Till when? For ever?’
‘But there was no officer!’ It was the loudest he’d ever heard Bilal speak. ‘We had no troops in that area.’
‘True,’ Jarnvig. ‘
We
had no troops. It doesn’t mean there wasn’t someone there. Perk—’
‘Perk was a myth. An excuse.’
‘I want a transcript of all radio communications. Ours. Other Danish units. Any allied logs you can get hold of.’
‘And our schedule, sir?’ Bilal said wearily.
‘Ask Army Operational Command to send it. I want everything on my desk tomorrow.’
The young officer said nothing, went for the door.
‘Oh, and Bilal?’
He stopped.
‘Mum’s the word,’ Jarnvig ordered. ‘This is between the two of us. No one else.’
A corridor in the surgical wing of the Rigshospitalet. Raben on a gurney. Oxygen mask, lines in his arm. Blood. A surgeon dictating to a nurse as they raced him towards the
theatre.
‘Bullet wound, shoulder. If we’re lucky it hasn’t punctured the lung.’
Lund followed, saw the wounded man open his eyes.
‘Has he eaten recently?’ the surgeon asked.
‘We don’t know. He’s been sleeping rough.’
The surgeon wore a green mob cap, mask pulled down over his chin.
‘He’s lost a lot of blood. Do you know if he’s allergic to any drugs?’
‘We’ve sent through his medical records,’ Lund said. ‘The army had them on file.’ She hesitated. ‘He was badly wounded in Afghanistan two years
ago.’
‘Well he’s badly wounded now,’ the man said in a curt, low voice. Then louder, ‘Get me a suction drain! Let’s get on with this!’
The theatre doors opened. One of the nurses put a hand to Lund’s chest.
‘What do you think you’re doing? You can’t come in here.’
She stood outside, watched the door close, wished she could still the furious thoughts in her head.
Strange was a few steps behind, coming off the phone.
‘We’ve brought Skåning in for questioning,’ he said. ‘They want to know whether to start or wait for us.’
Her wrist was still bandaged from the night before. Her head was starting to hurt. She couldn’t think straight and answer his question.
‘Is he going to be all right?’ Strange asked.
‘They didn’t say. He seemed pretty bad.’
‘I had to shoot. You saw that, didn’t you? He was waving that gun about. Looking crazy.’
She flexed her fingers. They still hurt from the fall.
‘Why the hell didn’t he drop it?’ Strange went on. ‘If he’d done that we wouldn’t be here.’
‘He seemed scared, didn’t he?’
Strange blinked.
‘Of what?’
‘I don’t know. He did put the gun down. Then he saw you approaching. And . . .’ She watched him closely. ‘He seemed to think you were Perk.’
Ulrik Strange didn’t seem the same man at that moment. He looked angry, unpredictable.
‘Oh for God’s sake . . .’ he muttered.
A voice from behind.
‘Where is he?’
Brix in a damp raincoat. Unhappy.
‘In theatre,’ Lund said.
‘What the hell happened?’
The three of them began to walk down the corridor, towards the waiting room. Strange first, silent and angry.
‘He took Skåning hostage,’ Lund said. ‘Beat him up. He had a gun. He took off and wouldn’t put down his weapon.’
‘Who shot him?’
‘I did.’ Strange shrugged. ‘I aimed for his arm as best I could. It was dark. He was upstairs.’ A glance at her. ‘So was Lund. I was worried.’
‘I want armed guards on the room. No one has access to him unless they come through us.’ He stared at Strange. ‘Well?’
‘OK.’
He walked off to make the calls.
‘Is he going to pull through?’ Brix asked.
‘Maybe.’
‘Why the hell didn’t he put the gun down?’
A couple of nurses raced down the corridor pushing some equipment into the theatre. Strange was gone through the double doors. She was glad of that.
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
It had been so long she’d almost forgotten what it was like to have a man, to take him to bed, to get so close she could taste his sweat and feel his strength inside.
Christian Søgaard lay back grunting, eyes closed, face for once suffused with pleasure. Louise was above him, back arched, thrusting, not too quickly, trying to make it last.
To make him happy the way she once did for Jens. He liked it this way too. Liked to give over some of his power, if only for a short time and then life could go back to normal.
But Søgaard wasn’t Jens and it was more curiosity that drove her. Curiosity about herself.
Another man, the first in thirteen years.
How did she feel? Elated? Ashamed? Or just plain dead?
He was getting there. She could sense it, hear it. And she felt nothing at all, but mirrored his growing rhythmic grunts and cries anyway because that was what you did.
Too long? Too short?
She didn’t know. Didn’t care. With Jens there was something else. Beyond the physical. A bond between them, a mutual shared mystery that bore the name of love. With Søgaard .
. . nothing except his desperate need to have her. Which, like the good army woman she was supposed to be, she’d acknowledged, acceded to. Taken him to her lonely bed and given him what he
wanted.
He moaned. He thrust at her. A damp warm feeling.
Louise Raben rolled off him, sweating, head spinning, wondering where the pleasure was and if it turned up whether it would outweigh the pain.
She didn’t feel guilty. Jens had seen to that. But she did feel bad, and that somehow was worse.
Sweating, gasping, his arm around her, clinging to his new possession, Christian Søgaard lay on her crumpled bed sheets, eyes closed, content.
This was one more of his battles, she thought. Another victory. Another piece of the world claimed.
Neither of them spoke. It seemed unnecessary. As she rolled from him there was a rap on the door. Loud and urgent.
She dragged on her nightgown, the one she used to go to Jonas when he had the terrors, went to answer it.
Her father was there. He could see inside she was sure. At that moment though he didn’t seem to care.
‘Something’s happened,’ he said in a nervous, worried voice. ‘The police called. I . . .’
‘What?’
‘You need to go to the hospital now.’
A sound behind her. Søgaard coming towards them. She moved the door to block the sight of him. A big man, with the officers’ tattoo on his arm.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘Jens has been shot, Louise.’ Her father cast a glance at the tall figure in her room. She couldn’t read it. ‘They need you there now.’
Thomas Buch felt hungry. He needed a drink. There was a late-night reception at the South Korean Embassy that evening. Music, art and food. He loved kimchi even if it did smell
foul.
There was just the meeting with the Prime Minister to get out of the way first.
Grue Eriksen was at his desk going through some papers. He didn’t look up as Buch marched in and apologized for being late.
‘There are developments. The soldier we were searching for has been shot.’
‘I know.’ Grue Eriksen smiled at him. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘No, thank you. I’m anxious to find Rossing so we can talk things over.’
‘Talk about what?’
‘I realize I was a bit rash in what I said. I’m new to government . . . I’m sorry about the misunderstanding. I’ll offer him my apologies.’
Grue Eriksen smiled and shook his head.
‘I hope we can continue our working relationship,’ Buch added. ‘And Krabbe too. The anti-terror package has put us under pressure. But I’m determined . . .’ He
rapped the desk with his knuckles. ‘Absolutely determined to put this right.’
‘Very noble.’
‘If I can just have a talk with Rossing. I’m sure—’
‘Thomas. You’ve been a minister for six days. God created the world in just one more. And you’ve destroyed everything.’
Buch nodded, listened.
‘I was never made for the spotlight, Prime Minister. Never sought it.’
‘All these accusations have left you damaged,’ Grue Eriksen continued. ‘I listened to you. I tried to believe a little of the fantasies you were spinning. But honestly.
They’re incredible. You’ve picked up a tiny thread of rumour and woven it into the most ridiculous of fairy tales.’
Grue Eriksen pushed a piece of paper across the desk.
‘You have to resign. There’s no alternative.’
‘But I’m not ready to resign,’ Buch said as if the idea were ridiculous. ‘There are far too many loose ends for one thing. I defy anyone else to pick them up. How did
Rossing know I’d mention that fax?’
‘The fax?’
Buch laughed. Started to get mad.
‘The fax I briefed you on! About the medical report and the surplus hand.’
‘Don’t shout.’
‘Don’t shout?’ Buch roared. ‘How else do you get someone to listen to you in this damned place? It was so convenient Rossing knew, wasn’t it? And I didn’t
tell him. So who did?’
The Prime Minister seemed more amused by his anger than offended.
‘You want me to call Rossing over here? Would that make you happy? If I indulge you one last time?’
Buch hesitated.
‘No,’ he murmured.
He looked at the sheet of paper in front of him. Times for meetings. Everything set out.
‘This is your final agenda,’ Grue Eriksen said. ‘Tomorrow we pass the anti-terror package. With Krabbe’s amendments. Then you call a press conference to announce your
resignation. Tell them . . .’ He waved a dismissive hand. ‘Say you want to spend more time with your family. No need to be original.’
Buch glared at him.
‘Don’t worry, Thomas. We’ve short memories around here. In a few years you can come back. Not to justice, of course. I’m not sure you have the
temperament—’
‘Did you pick me because you thought I’d be useless?’ Buch asked straight out. ‘Amenable. Pliable. Someone like Monberg who’d do as he’s told?’
The Prime Minister laughed.
‘I picked you because I liked you. I still do. Give it time. You’ll see.’ He pointed to the door. ‘But right now your career’s over. Go home and think of what
you’ll say.’
Grue Eriksen saw him out.
Home.
That was in Jutland, which seemed a million miles away. The invitation to the embassy was in Buch’s pocket. Music. Art. Beer and rice wine.
And kimchi.
Plough and Karina were waiting on a bench seat downstairs. Something on their long faces told him they knew his fate already.
‘Thomas . . .’ Karina began.
‘I need some time to myself,’ Buch said quickly.
Then left the Christianborg Palace, walked out into the chill, open space of Slotsholmen, thinking of the places he used to linger back before he became a minister. When he was free.
Lund waited as close to the operating theatre as the hospital staff would allow. Strange went back to the Politigården to interview the badly beaten Torben Skåning.
Brix stayed to talk to the medical staff.
After an hour Strange called.
‘This doesn’t work. Skåning’s got an alibi. He had a nervous breakdown in Afghanistan. He flew home with Raben and the wounded soldiers. He says Raben recognized him from
the flight but didn’t remember it.’