Authors: David Hewson
‘He left me in Sweden while I was talking to Lisbeth Thomsen. He was gone for two hours looking for Raben. We were in his car, not mine. He was at the barracks the night the explosives
were stolen.’
‘And when you found the priest Strange was in Helsingør,’ Brix added.
‘He was there,’ Lund said. ‘No one knows what time he left.’
She got her coat.
‘I’m going to see Sebastian Holst’s father. Raben said he used his camera all the time. It was never found.’
‘And Strange?’ Hedeby said. ‘What do you propose we do with him?’
‘Same as we’d do for anyone else,’ Lund told her. ‘Put him in an interview room and throw some questions his way.’
When she was gone Hedeby turned on him as he knew she would.
‘The people upstairs are asking why you took him on in the first place.’
Brix tried to control his temper.
‘I didn’t appoint him, Ruth. He came with the police reforms. When the Ministry of Defence dumped all those people on us they didn’t want on the payroll any more.’
‘Someone let him in here.’
He pointed at the ceiling.
‘They did,’ Brix said. ‘And they can wash their hands of him if they like.’
The anti-terror bill was in front of the Folketinget. Three readings and then it was through. TV teams stood outside the Parliament building, reporters delivering live to
camera. Someone, from Grue Eriksen’s office Buch assumed, had briefed the media already. They were expecting his resignation once the measure was through.
He walked out for some fresh air during a break in the debate, looked round the lobby.
Grue Eriksen and Flemming Rossing were in a huddle by one of the pillars. Buch hadn’t bothered with a tie. His career as a minister was over. No need for protocol any more.
He walked over, interrupted the two of them, asked Grue Eriksen for a moment of his time.
A public place. The Prime Minister was all charm.
Rossing stayed there, listening in his smart grey suit, checking his phone for messages from time to time.
‘It’s about Plough,’ Buch said. ‘I gather he’s being moved sideways. It must be a mistake—’
‘It’s no mistake. That department was unfit for purpose when Monberg was there. We all know it now. It’s time to signal a new beginning.’
‘He’s a good man!’ Buch said, voice rising. ‘A decent, hard-working civil servant. You shouldn’t punish him for a politician’s errors. Mine and
Monberg’s . . .’
Rossing pushed his way into the conversation. That big beak nose looked triumphant.
‘The Prime Minister tells me you’ve apologized, Buch. I’m glad to hear it. No hard feelings.’
‘Yes, yes. About Plough . . .’
The two of them stared at him. A team, Buch thought. Maybe they had been all along.
‘Did you see our draft for your speech at the press conference?’ Grue Eriksen added. ‘Put in a little personal touch if you want. But don’t change anything substantive. I
mean that. Now . . .’
Buch was flapping, losing him.
‘I’ve got to talk to someone,’ Grue Eriksen said, dashing off. And Rossing was gone just as quickly too.
Buch’s phone rang. Plough.
‘Everything’s ready for the press conference,’ he said. ‘We can do it whenever the package is done with.’
‘Fine . . .’
‘Also your wife’s turned up at the Ministry. Karina’s looking after her.’
‘What?’ Buch exploded. ‘Marie? Who’s looking after the kids? Her mother goes to yoga on Mondays. I mean really . . .’
A long silence on the phone.
‘I said you’d meet her outside,’ Plough responded in an arch, distanced voice. ‘Perhaps you’d better ask her.’
Buch marched out of the Parliament building, through the quiet centre of Slotsholmen, past the statue of Kierkegaard, out into the narrow street in front of the Ministry. It
was a fine bright day for the moment. The weak winter sun made the twisting dragons opposite look sad and comical.
Karina stood by a black official car near the steps. She wore a black coat and looked dressed for a funeral.
Buch stumbled across the steps.
‘Where is she?’ he asked, panting as he turned up. ‘I don’t understand . . .’
He walked up to the big estate. Connie Vemmer was hanging out of the passenger door, long blonde hair blowing in the stiff winter wind, cigarette in hand, coughing smoke out of the window.
‘Oh no,’ Buch groaned, turning on Karina. But she smiled at him, shrugged, walked off.
‘Don’t be an arse,’ Vemmer barked at him from the car. ‘Just listen to me, will you? Get in and let’s go for a drive. We need to talk about those medical
reports.’
‘You cost me my job. What in God’s name . . . ?’
He turned and started to walk back towards the door.
‘Buch! Buch!’ She moved more quickly than he expected, was by his side, tugging at his sleeve. ‘Do you think I was running errands for that bastard Rossing? He’s the man
who fired me.’
Still he kept walking. She hung on his arm like an importunate beggar.
‘If Rossing knew about that fax in advance someone must have tipped him off.’
Buch marched on.
‘OK. Let’s leave that for now,’ Vemmer suggested. ‘Here’s the truth. The evidence you wanted was sitting right under your nose all along.’
They were at the door. Buch was opening it.
She let go, swore at him.
‘Hey, genius! Why didn’t you check the dates on those two medical reports? Why—’
Buch slammed the heavy wooden door behind him.
Connie Vemmer stood out in the bright cold street, finished her cigarette, threw the butt into the gutter along with a few coarse epithets.
The door opened. Buch came out, eyed her.
‘What dates?’ he asked.
Sebastian Holst’s father lived in a half-finished apartment not far from the Amalienborg Palace. Modern paintings everywhere, on the walls, on the floor. Suitcases and
building materials. An old building on the way up. Still some distance to go. Walls to be plastered, ceilings to be painted.
He made Lund a coffee and sat next to her at a table by the window.
‘I believe Sebastian always had his camera with him,’ she began.
He was a hefty man not much older than she was. Bright-blue shirt, hair long and unkempt.
An artist, she guessed. Or an architect. He never said.
‘He was always taking pictures. That kind of thing runs in the family. We see the world through our eyes. Why not try to record it?’
‘Everything?’
‘Everything he could. He took lots of pictures in Afghanistan. The army kept them. They said they were theirs.’ Holst frowned. ‘You mean you haven’t seen them?’
‘Did the army tell you why his camera was missing?’
‘Who told you that? He sent it home a couple of weeks before he was killed. He’d broken it. Sebastian was always a bit clumsy. I was going to get it repaired. Or buy him a new
one.’ Holst sighed. ‘Probably the latter.’
He got up, went to some boxes beneath a line of gaudy paintings. Took out an old-looking camera.
‘Film only,’ Holst said. ‘He was very fastidious about some things.’
‘Were there more pictures?’
‘No. Only the ones the army have as far as I know. They wouldn’t let him post stuff like that back here, would they?’
It was a slender hope and now he’d dashed it.
‘I guess not. I’m sorry I bothered you,’ Lund said, picking up her bag.
‘I heard you’d found his squad leader, Raben. I suppose that whole business is going to get dragged up again.’
‘What business?’
Holst stared at her. He was no fool.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘I never believed all that bullshit. About there being an officer. Raben made that up as an excuse. He wanted to go into that village anyway. It was his
fault Sebastian and the others got killed.’
He was turning the old camera in his hands. A Leica, she saw. Expensive. Marked and worn. His mild, plain face was suddenly wreathed in anger.
‘Sebastian said something was going to happen.’
He walked back to the table unsteadily and Lund saw now that everything was a mask, an act of subterfuge. Inside Holst was breaking, weeping.
‘I’ve lost both my sons to a war I don’t understand,’ he whispered, falling heavily onto a chair near the door. ‘One came home in a coffin. The other’s not
the same.’
He rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands.
‘What did we do wrong? Why did they deserve this?’
The room was quiet except for the low murmur of traffic beyond the window. These walls would stay unplastered, unfinished for a long time. This man was lost in a limbo created by a distant
conflict that was beyond him.
His hands played fondly with the old, battered Leica. His mind seemed somewhere else.
‘I’m looking for answers,’ Lund said.
Holst snapped awake. His sad, dark eyes fixed on her.
‘Answers,’ she repeated. ‘And it’s hard.’
‘No one asked me any questions before. They just came here to tell me things. What to do. What to say. How to feel.’
‘I’m struggling, Holst. People don’t talk to me. They want to bury things . . .’
He was frightened. She could see that.
‘If there’s something you haven’t told us—’
‘This stops with me,’ he said quickly. ‘Don’t blame anyone else. Not Sebastian. Frederik.’
‘Frederik?’
His eyes went to one of two photos on a nearby rollup desk. Two young men in uniform.
‘If he doesn’t come back God knows . . .’
‘It won’t go any further,’ Lund told him.
Holst got up, shambled back to the boxes, picked up a tiny pocket video camera.
‘He had this too. He used to sneak off and keep a diary. It came back hidden inside the Leica.’
He pressed some buttons. Nothing happened. Her heart was in her mouth. Holst rifled through the boxes, found some batteries, put them in the thing.
Flicked a switch. A face came on the tiny screen.
It didn’t take long. When she’d finished Lund called Madsen.
‘Is Raben fit for questioning?’ she asked.
‘He’s in hospital. How hard can it be?’
‘I mean,’ she said patiently, ‘is he fit to be brought into the Politigården?’
‘Wait a minute.’
She did.
He came back.
‘The hospital says we can bring him in here for an hour or two. He’ll need to go back afterwards. His wife was coming to see him. I guess we can tell her to come here now.’
‘She can see him first. Then it’s a full interview. I want Brix there as well.’
‘That’s generous of you.’
She watched the tiny picture on the screen.
‘Not really,’ Lund said.
They put Raben in a secure waiting room with a uniformed guard. When Louise arrived, mad with the police and fearful about the meeting, she found him waiting for her, standing,
arm in a sling. No blood, no visible sign of hurt.
She stayed at the door, didn’t know what to say.
‘Can we get a bit of privacy?’ Raben asked the officer in the room.
‘Sorry,’ the man said. ‘I have to stay.’
‘For God’s sake . . .’ he pleaded.
The officer stared at him, leaned against the wall, watched.
‘Let’s sit down, Jens,’ she said, and they took two chairs at the far end of the room.
He didn’t look bad at all. There was something dogged, relentless about this man. The more they threw at him, the harder he came back.
His fingers reached over, took hers. She was cold from waiting outside and didn’t respond.
‘It was just . . .’ He was staring at her in that importunate way he had. The one that said:
forgive everything.
‘I was beside myself.’
He held her more tightly. The familiar smell of hospital soap and medication.
‘It won’t happen again,’ he promised.
She didn’t speak.
‘I know I said that before. This time—’
‘Let’s not talk about it now.’
His eyes were on her, pleading, insistent.
‘I let you down. You and Jonas. I know that. I was a rotten husband. A rotten father. If I could turn back the clock I would.’
She saw the previous night in her head. Søgaard beneath her. A physical act, nothing more. But one that haunted her.
His voice rose, a note of hope in it.
‘Things are looking up. They’re listening to me now. They know I was telling the truth. You and Jonas . . .’
‘Two years,’ she whispered. ‘All that time on my own. Even when I came to see you. Even when they left us together in Herstedvester. You scarcely touched me. You just talked
about yourself. About the army. About what happened . . .’
‘We can put this back together.’
It had to be said. She couldn’t bear it any more.
Eyes on his, words forming already in her head.
‘No we can’t. I slept with Søgaard.’
The shock on his face hurt her. He looked like a child who’d seen something real, something terrible for the first time.
He didn’t speak. She slipped her fingers out of his.
‘I’m sorry. It didn’t mean anything. I was just . . . lonely. I missed you, every single day. I knew you weren’t coming back. Not after all this. I just couldn’t
stand it any longer. Being alone.’ She wouldn’t cry. That wasn’t right. ‘Can’t you see? It’s no use. It’s never going to happen for us now. They
won’t let it.’
His eyes fell to the floor.
‘You won’t let it, Jens.’
The door opened. The detective she knew as Madsen strode in.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but this meeting’s at an end.’
‘We’re talking,’ Raben shot at him.
The uniform cop came and stood next to them. Ready for trouble.
‘This is important,’ Madsen insisted. ‘We need you now.’
Lund had Holst’s video on her laptop. Raben opposite her, Brix next to him.
‘Do you want to see a lawyer?’ she asked as she worked the keyboard, finding the file.
‘No.’ A surly, juvenile tone in his voice. ‘I want to see my wife.’
‘Sebastian Holst sent his father a video diary not long before he was killed. Did you know about that?’
Raben shook his head.
‘He shouldn’t have done. Against regulations.’
‘Lots of things are against regulations,’ Lund said, turning the laptop round so he could see the screen. ‘But he sent it all the same.’