Authors: David Hewson
A face there. A young man with a beard and curly hair. He wore a white T-shirt and looked tired and scared. A bare wall in the background, crude plastering and a tourist poster of
Copenhagen.
‘. . . Don’t get worried, Dad,’ Sebastian Holst said in a quiet voice, ‘but something’s not right in our squad.’
Raben watched, caught by the dead man on the screen.
‘Why do I have to see this? He was one of my comrades . . .’
‘. . . Raben’s the worst.’ Holst’s voice was clear and unmistakable in spite of the tinny speaker. He shook his head, blinked, looked terrified for a moment.
‘He’s going crazy. He sees Taliban everywhere. All he thinks of is killing. Like there’s one round every corner and we’ve got to shoot them first. Christ . . .’
The man in the blue prison suit went quiet, eyes locked on the screen.
‘. . . He runs so many risks. We do things we shouldn’t. Sometimes . . .’ Holst’s voice was close to breaking. ‘Sometimes he makes up radio messages just so we can
get out there and kick ass. This morning . . .’ There was shame on Holst’s face, alongside the fear. ‘We crossed the river to raid a village for the third time. Raben thinks one
of the men there’s Taliban.’
Holst’s hand went to his head.
‘They’re farmers or bakers or something. Maybe they’re running dope. Maybe they’re bribing someone. Who isn’t here? We still took the place apart. Raben yelled at
the guy, called him an informer. Poked a gun in his face. I thought he was going to shoot him.’
‘Turn it off,’ Raben said, reaching for the laptop.
‘No,’ Brix said, and pushed back his hand. ‘You need to hear this.’
‘. . . The kids were screaming,’ Holst went on. ‘The mother and the old women were crying. They thought we were going to kill them all. Raben’s running wild, Dad. He
wants to do it all over again tomorrow. It’s like he’s in the Wild West or something. I talked to the others. They say it’s going to be OK. We’re back home in a couple of
weeks.’
Holst didn’t look at the camera.
‘They don’t want to cross him. They’re scared. Me too. But I guess . . .’ A nod of his head. ‘I guess he knows what he’s doing. He’s the boss. Good guy
when the shit hits the fan. Someone gave him that job. We’re just . . .’
A smile. He was trying to pull himself together for home.
‘Anyway,’ Holst said. ‘That’s me done moaning. Raben says I do it all the time. In a couple of weeks we’ll be back in Copenhagen. I can’t wait to see
you.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m not coming back here. That’s a promise.’
A broader smile.
‘I miss you all. I’ll see you soon. I’ll give your love to big brother when I see him. Bye.’
The dead man in the white T-shirt reached out and turned off the camera. Lund closed the laptop lid.
‘Is it true?’
A knock on the door. A call for Brix. He went out to take it.
‘Is it true?’ Lund asked again.
‘Sebastian was only there because his older brother enlisted. It was like a competition between them. He wasn’t up to it.’
‘He said you broke orders. Threatened civilians.’
‘It’s war! Not a game! This isn’t about Sebastian. It’s about Perk.’
‘The family he mentioned. Are they the ones you say Perk killed?’
‘He murdered them all right.’
‘So you and the rest of the squad had been in the house before?’
‘The bastard was a crook. Selling dope. Feeding our movements to the Taliban. Scum . . .’
‘And you were determined to go back until you proved that?’
Raben shook his head wearily.
‘You’re not listening to me. What I think’s irrelevant. We got that radio call. Perk must have been sent there because whoever was running him knew too.’
‘It’s not irrelevant, Raben. There’s no record of any radio traffic calling you to that house. There was no officer called Perk.’
He swore and there was a look in his face she couldn’t quite read. Unless it was defeat.
‘What I’ve told you is the truth. I can’t . . .’
Lund was getting mad. She took out some scene of crime and autopsy photos.
‘Look at these,’ she insisted, spreading the pictures across the table. ‘Five people have been killed.’
Anne Dragsholm. Myg Poulsen. Grüner. Lisbeth Thomsen. The priest. Savagely murdered. Still torn corpses caught for ever.
‘I’ve done everything I can to track down that officer,’ she told him. ‘If you’re lying to me and he doesn’t exist . . .’ Her voice was cracking.
‘For pity’s sake tell me now and let’s bring this nonsense to an end. I’ll do my best to help you. That’s a promise, and it’s more than you deserve.’
He seemed calm. Calmer than her.
‘It was my decision to enter the village. The others didn’t want to go.’ He stared at her. ‘They were right. I should have listened to them.’
‘You should—’
‘But there was an officer. We got that radio message. His name was Perk.’ He paused, made sure she was looking at him. ‘He’s the man I saw. The one who tried to kill
me.’
The door opened. Brix came back, sat down.
‘We just received documentation from the army,’ he said. ‘It shows beyond any doubt that the police officer you accused yesterday . . .’
Brix shuffled the photos on the table, glanced at them.
‘He wasn’t in Afghanistan at the time. He wasn’t Perk. Couldn’t be.’
The man in the prison suit swore and shook his head.
‘What about Sebastian’s older brother?’ Lund asked. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Not really.’ His voice was low and miserable. ‘He was a doctor working out of Camp Viking.’
‘An army surgeon? Frederik?’
‘Why ask me?’ Raben shot back at her, punching his head with his fist. ‘I’m just crazy, aren’t I?’
Then he stamped hard on the pictures of the mangled corpses in front of him.
‘Someone killed these people, didn’t they? And that wasn’t me.’
‘We need to talk to Frederik Holst,’ Brix said. ‘Fix it.’
The debate on the anti-terror package had dragged on into the early evening. Birgitte Agger’s MPs were doing everything they could to stall it. Buch had spent an hour
driving round Copenhagen with Connie Vemmer, watching her smoke, listening all the time.
When he marched back into his office Karina and Plough were waiting for him. In the room outside a desk was set up for the resignation press conference. Microphones in place already.
‘I’m sorry I tricked you,’ Karina told him as he marched to his desk. ‘You needed to see her.’
Buch took his chair. It felt familiar. Comfortable. Right.
‘We know you can’t tell us everything,’ Plough added. ‘But if you felt able . . .’
He had a set of papers inside a yellow document folder. Buch read the top page again, absorbed in what Vemmer had said.
‘Even if you don’t act upon it, Thomas,’ Karina added, ‘I thought you deserved to hear what she had to say.’
Still Buch kept quiet.
‘I’m resigned to going to Skopje,’ Plough added. ‘It’s in Macedonia apparently.’
Buch stared at the microphones.
‘Thomas,’ Karina added quietly. ‘If you’re going to do something you need to do it—’
‘When does the vote start?’
‘Soon.’
‘And Krabbe’s there?’
‘Of course.’
He grabbed the yellow folder from the desk and got up.
‘But Krabbe’s got nothing to do with it!’ she cried as he bustled for the door.
‘He’s a decent man,’ Buch cried as he left. ‘Not my type but . . .’ He waved the papers. ‘Krabbe is all I’ve got.’
The Folketinget before a vote was like a theatre between acts. An interval was in place, men and women in serious business suits conferring in whispers in the anterooms outside
the chamber.
Buch saw Krabbe chatting to one of Grue Eriksen’s aides at the far end of the room. Then he disappeared into the toilets.
No one at the urinals. Buch walked up and down the stall doors, saying, ‘Krabbe? Are you here? You are. I know it. I saw you come in. Krabbe?’
He paced the length of them, looking for the red locked sign and feet underneath the door.
Only one appeared occupied. Yellow folder in hand, Buch hitched up his trousers, got down and placed his bearded face against the cold tiles to peer through.
‘Krabbe? Is that you?’
All Buch could see were two black trouser legs down around skinny ankles, some shiny shoes and a very colourful pair of underpants.
‘Bloody hell,’ said a disgruntled voice inside. ‘This really takes the biscuit. If you want to talk to me, Buch, call my secretary. I’m enjoying a private moment if you
please.’
‘The medical report about the extra hand was faxed in August,’ Buch said, squinting beneath the door. ‘But the revised report didn’t arrive until October!’
‘Is that so?’ Krabbe sighed.
Buch pushed the yellow folder beneath the door.
‘So you see the implication?’ he said, thrusting the documents towards the hidden Krabbe. ‘First there’s one report suggesting civilians have been murdered.’
A hand came down from above and took the folder.
‘What a pathetic attempt to cling to office!’
Buch got up, wondered how hard it would be to force the door open.
‘This is nothing of the kind. All I want is the truth and so do you. You see what I mean? In spite of the initial report nobody did anything for two months. Two whole months!’
His hand was banging on the door. Buch regretted that but he was getting mad again.
‘There was no need for any urgency, was there?’ Krabbe called. ‘It was the hand of the bomber.’
Before Buch could reply the door opened and the man inside walked out, marching for the sink.
‘Why did no one say anything in all that time?’ Buch asked. ‘What were they up to?’
He followed, watched Krabbe wash his hands in a very precise and punctilious fashion, plenty of soap and hot water.
‘When the first report arrived Grue Eriksen was proposing additional funding to get more troops in Afghanistan.’ Buch jabbed at the papers in Krabbe’s hands. ‘Here and
here. See for yourself. The money was promptly approved when the Folketinget came back from recess in October.’
Krabbe was reading the sheets in front of him.
‘You and your party voted for that,’ Buch went on. ‘So did I. Would we have been so keen if we’d known our troops had been accused of a civilian massacre?’
‘This proves nothing. It’s just speculation.’ Krabbe passed the folder back to Buch. ‘I can’t believe Grue Eriksen would manipulate things—’
‘That’s what happened, dammit! See for yourself.’
Krabbe looked at his hands and thrust them under the dryer.
‘Go ahead and push for a stricter anti-terror package if you like. But you’ll be picking on an innocent party. Those pathetic immigrants didn’t kill our people. It was
someone—’
‘Who?’ Krabbe asked.
‘I don’t know. Someone closer to home. I’m asking for your help. I think—’
‘We’ve worked so hard for this . . .’
‘Krabbe!’ Buch’s voice was high and hard. ‘Let’s be candid. What you believe in mostly I abhor. You feel the same about me I’m sure. But this I know . .
.’ His fat forefinger waved in Krabbe’s narrow pale face. ‘You don’t like being lied to. And you don’t like being used.’
Buch took the yellow folder and waved it in front of him.
‘There,’ he said. ‘We’ve something in common. Now the question is . . .’
Krabbe was listening intently.
‘What are we going to do about it?’
The farewell ceremony for the new detachment was over. Torsten Jarnvig stood outside the Ryvangen Barracks hall watching the men and their families saying goodbye.
Søgaard was there too.
‘I think they’re going off in a good mood,’ he said as Jarnvig approached.
‘You never told me we’d got radio traffic five days before Raben started shrieking.’ Jarnvig threw the documents on the bonnet of Søgaard’s G-Wagen.
‘I’ve been through every last one of the traffic logs. I saw this . . .’
He was still mad. The bitter look on Søgaard’s face didn’t help.
‘What?’ he asked.
Jarnvig slammed his hand on the papers.
‘We got a message. August, two years ago. When I was in Kabul.’
Søgaard picked up the logs.
‘Five days before the incident.’
‘So you said,’ Søgaard muttered. He flicked through the pages.
‘It was from a special forces unit. No ID in the records. No names.’
Søgaard shook his head.
‘I don’t understand. What are you implying?’
‘Implying?’ Jarnvig bellowed. ‘It’s here in black and white. We had a unit operating just thirty kilometres from the village where Raben’s squad ended
up.’
‘I never saw any of this.’
He put the papers back on the bonnet.
‘You were officer in command in my absence. Every message comes through the office—’
‘I’m telling you. I never saw it.’
Jarnvig’s fist pummelled the vehicle.
‘It’s in the file, Søgaard. Even if you were half asleep on duty, which I doubt, you investigated Raben’s claims. He said someone from special forces was in the
vicinity. We didn’t believe him because you . . .’ Jarnvig’s hand went out. ‘You told us no one was there.’
Nothing. Not a word.
‘You said they were seeing ghosts.’
‘They were. This doesn’t prove he wasn’t lying.’
‘It proves he could be right! And you never mentioned it.’ Jarnvig took a step closer to the tall precise man in the neat dress uniform. ‘Why was that? Come on. Out with
it.’
‘I’ve no knowledge of this. I never saw the message. I never knew special forces were in the area.’
‘It’s here!’ Jarnvig roared, waving the papers in his face.
‘If there’s an official complaint being filed I’d like to see the details. I want Operational Command informed. General Arild’s team was involved in the investigation
too.’
Jarnvig stared at him, waited.
‘Look,’ Søgaard pleaded. ‘I don’t have time for this now. I’ve got to go to the airport. We’re due to fly in five hours.’
‘You’re going nowhere. I’m suspending you from duty as of now. I’ve got someone to take your place on that plane. You’re confined to barracks until I know what the
hell went on there.’
‘I’m due in Helmand!’ Søgaard shouted.