Authors: David Hewson
‘Not this time,’ Jarnvig told him. ‘You’re staying here.’
Forty minutes later, after eating supper with a silent Louise and a tired Jonas, Jarnvig retreated to his office. Jan Arild was waiting for him.
Jarnvig tried to smile at him. It was obvious what had happened. Søgaard had been on the phone.
‘I’m glad you came,’ he said, taking a seat opposite the general. ‘I was about to call you.’
‘You’ve been unreachable all day, Torsten,’ Arild said, leaning back in his chair, hands behind his head.
‘I was checking out the hunting,’ Jarnvig lied. ‘We ought to pick up on that again. Get out of these uniforms once in a while.’
‘I told you,’ Arild said with a scowl. ‘I don’t have time for that any more. Not your kind anyway.’
‘That’s a shame.’
‘Not really. Those days are long gone. I went somewhere, Torsten. You just . . .’ He looked round the little office. ‘You just served, didn’t you?’
‘Raben could have been right,’ Jarnvig said, ignoring the taunt. ‘There was radio contact with a Danish special forces unit five days before his squad was attacked.’
Arild, in his green uniform, cap on the desk, ginger hair perfectly combed, looked bored.
‘We must tell the police,’ Jarnvig said.
‘Aren’t we putting up with enough shit from them already? Why invite their attention any more?’
‘Because Raben could be telling the truth!’
‘The man’s mad,’ Arild declared. ‘A shame. He was a good soldier once, or so I gather. We’re the army. We don’t need civilians to come and tell us what to do.
I don’t understand why this concerns you so much.’
‘It’s possible Søgaard withheld information. Covered up what went on. I was in Kabul at the time. He was in sole command. He says he never saw the radio traffic. That
can’t be true. It came across my desk every single day.’
‘That’s a very serious accusation.’
‘I know.’
‘And you’re right,’ Arild agreed. ‘Something is amiss.’ He stared at Jarnvig. ‘But it isn’t Søgaard, is it?’
Torsten Jarnvig looked at Arild’s smiling face and knew this was going wrong.
‘You’re a rotten liar,’ the general said with a laugh. ‘Always were. Let me prove it. Look me in the face and tell me. Did you help Raben escape PET the night of the
ball?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s a simple question. So simple I already know the answer. I told you in confidence he was under surveillance. Yet he still got out of the building. Someone saw you go into a side
room. Raben was in there, wasn’t he?’
‘What happened in Helmand is important, Jan. We need to investigate.’
‘Don’t use my name, Colonel. Twenty years ago that might have worked. Not now.’
Arild picked up his cap.
‘You’re a small man. With limited ideas and meagre ambitions. Dammit!’ Arild’s voice rose in sudden fury. ‘You can’t even lie to save your own
skin.’
‘Can’t we leave the personal issues to one side . . . ?’
‘Come on!’ Arild urged. ‘Just answer, will you? Look me in the face and say it. Did you see Raben or not?’
Torsten Jarnvig took off his glasses, stayed silent.
Arild threw back his head and laughed.
Then was serious in an instant.
‘I’ve called the military police. You’ll go with them. Don’t make a fuss.’
‘This . . .’ Jarnvig brandished the documents from Operational Command. ‘. . . will not go away.’
Arild smiled.
‘But it has. And so will you.’
He looked at the down-at-heel office Jarnvig had occupied for the best part of a decade.
‘This place can be Søgaard’s now. It needs a lick of paint if you ask me.’
Lund spent the best part of an hour trying to track down Frederik Holst. It seemed hopeless. Then Brix walked in, something in his hand.
She finished the call, thanked Holst’s father who was playing scared and ignorant again.
‘No one wants to talk about Frederik Holst,’ Lund told Brix. ‘Even his relatives.’
‘Maybe they’ve got good reason. I got through to someone in Operational Command. We just missed him. Holst’s back in Afghanistan. He’s been on home leave in Copenhagen
for a month. It seems he was renting a short-term apartment in Islands Brygge, not far from where Grüner died. Maybe he didn’t tell anyone.’
‘Why would he do that?’
Brix showed her a plastic evidence sleeve. A photograph inside.
‘We found this in the rubbish he left when he cleared out.’
An army picture. Soldiers in a brief moment of relaxation. Raben’s team set against the Danish flag, cans of beer in their hands. Happy. Drunk. Sebastian Holst was at the front shouting,
arm raised in the air. Behind the rest of them. Myg Poulsen. Lisbeth Thomsen. Grüner. The others.
Combat fatigues. A table full of food and drink. A moment off-duty.
There were cross marks in black felt pen through all the faces except one: Jens Peter Raben.
Lund walked to the desk, checked her calls, her papers. The idea had been nagging her for a while.
‘You can get us on the soldiers’ flight tonight.’ She thought for a moment. ‘If I need my passport I’ll have to go home first.’ Lund looked at him.
‘Will I need my passport? It’s Danish territory, isn’t it? We’ve got jurisdiction.’
Brix was so surprised he couldn’t help but laugh.
‘What the hell are you saying?’
‘We’ve been running round in circles.’ Lund pulled out some files she thought she might need. ‘Frederik Holst saw his brother’s video diary. He sent the camera
back. The father confirmed it.’
‘Lund—’
‘Frederik was at the field hospital when they brought in his brother’s body. If he was here we’d be bringing him in for questioning right now. We can’t let it go just
because he’s in Helmand . . .’
‘I need to talk to Hedeby. There are avenues to go through. The permission . . .’
It was her turn to laugh.
‘Come on. That’ll take days. We can’t wait on paperwork.’
‘There are procedures.’
‘Don’t give me that.’ She kept her eyes on him, wouldn’t let go. ‘You pulled that information about Holst out of Operational Command when I couldn’t. You know
the people to talk to.’
She picked up the files, asked one of the desk officers to check some medical reports.
‘I can’t get you on the army flight,’ Brix told her. ‘It’s too late.’
‘There’s nowhere else left to look.’
‘It’s a war zone!’
She gazed at him and knew it had to be said.
‘If this was Ruth Hedeby’s show I’d be back in Gedser already. I don’t know what you’ve got over her and I don’t care. Just do it, will you?’
He was wavering.
‘You can’t go into Afghanistan on your own.’
‘I know that.’
‘So what . . . ?’ Brix went quiet for a moment. Knew what she was thinking. ‘Is that a good idea?’
‘Fix the flights and the paperwork. Leave the rest to me.’
Brix was on the phone straight away. This would happen, she thought. There’d be a brief chance to see the distant, enclosed world of Helmand. Then home, with answers.
The last stamp in her passport was for a holiday in Mallorca with Mark two years before. Her son had moped most of the time. Lund had hated it.
She walked down the black marble corridor, found the interview room, kicked out the uniform man deputed to watch Strange.
When he was gone she sat next to him on the bench seat. Jeans and a T-shirt. Tattoo just visible on his shoulder. Strange looked like the kind of man who could go anywhere at the drop of a
hat.
He puffed out his cheeks, sighed, said nothing.
‘My old partner . . . Jan Meyer,’ Lund said. ‘We got to this warehouse.’
Strange stopped staring at the floor, looked at her instead.
‘It was dark. I went inside. I didn’t think there was anyone in the building.’ Lund’s hands wouldn’t keep still. This was so hard to say. ‘Then Meyer came in
too. He knew someone was in there with me.’
Strange’s eyes wouldn’t leave her.
‘I shouldn’t have gone in on my own. It was all my fault. We found the man who shot Meyer.’ She wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her black and white Faroese jumper for no
reason. ‘What good does that do? He’s still stuck in a wheelchair.’
A pause. She didn’t know whether to say it or not.
‘Sometimes I wonder if he wishes he was dead. He looked that way when I saw him in hospital. But—’
‘People can change. Get better,’ Strange said.
‘Sometimes,’ she agreed. ‘Sometimes they’re who they are for ever.’ Another moment of hesitation. ‘Like me.’
He watched her, hands on knees, that odd, calm, angular face interested as usual.
‘I shut myself down. I got that job in Gedser and I told myself . . .’ Her voice was firm and unwavering. ‘If you can’t feel anything then it can’t hurt you. Gedser
suited me fine.’
Strange raised an eyebrow.
‘I wanted to stay buried there for ever. If you hadn’t turned up I would have done too.’ She fidgeted a little closer to him, looked into his eyes. ‘Not happy. Not sad.
Not anything.’
The eyebrow went down. A ghost of a smile on Strange’s stubbly face.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, staring directly into his grey-blue eyes. ‘It’s hard to trust people if you can’t trust yourself sometimes. Do you
understand?’
A moment of indecision. It could go any way.
Then he laughed, that low, self-deprecating chuckle she’d come to like.
‘Yeah,’ Strange said. ‘I always pick the difficult ones. Now what?’
Closeness.
It frightened her. Always would.
‘We have to leave.’
‘Where to?’ Strange looked at his T-shirt and jeans. ‘They didn’t even let me get my jacket when they dragged me in here.’
She slapped his leg, got up.
‘We’ll pick it up along the way. And your passport too.’
Ulrik Strange sat on the bench seat, mouth wide open.
‘Are you coming or not?’ she asked. ‘We’ve a plane to catch.’
One hour later. Kastrup airport. Brix had organized for the scheduled flight to be held for fifteen minutes so they could make it. He walked with them down the gangway. Passed
over a folder.
‘There’s Frederik Holst’s personnel details and a warrant for his arrest. Some contact phone numbers in Afghanistan. Here . . .’
A satellite phone in a case with some instructions.
‘This should work anywhere you’re going. If the army give you trouble call me. Strange?’
He had his jacket back, and his swagger.
‘Yeah?’
‘According to your file you speak Pashto.’
Strange laughed.
‘Don’t shoot. Where’s the toilet? Can you get a beer round here? That good enough?’
Brix wasn’t in the mood.
‘You’ve got military experience. Lund hasn’t. I want you to take the lead on the ground.’ The chief looked at her. ‘You hear that? You do what he says.’
Strange laughed again and shook his head.
‘It’s three hours to Istanbul,’ Brix said. ‘The visas and authorities have been sent ahead by fax. When you get to Turkey the army will meet you and put you on board one
of their flights to Camp Bastion. Five hours. You’ll be there in the morning our time. Midday theirs. Try to get some sleep.’
‘You haven’t been on an army plane,’ Strange told him.
The door was open. The flight attendant was beckoning them on board.
‘You’re under military control for the duration,’ Brix added. ‘Don’t go wandering off. You’ve got one day there only. You come back the same way. The flights
are fixed. You’ll be in Kastrup thirty-six hours from now. Any questions?’
Neither of them spoke.
Brix sighed.
‘For God’s sake take care,’ he said.
Then watched as they got on the plane.
When Brix got back to his office there was a string of messages from the army. Operational Command, Ryvangen and more distant branches too.
He ignored them, called together the team, told them to dig up everything they could on Frederik Holst. Phone records, credit card activity while he was on leave. A full profile.
‘I want his movements day by day, from the moment he got off the plane to when he got back on it. Where was he at the time of the murders? What does his father know?’
Hedeby was standing in the shadows at the end of the room, close to the corridor that led to her office. She didn’t need to beckon him. The summons was in her face.
Brix read through some notes Madsen had made after talking to Holst’s neighbours in the rented flat in Islands Brygge. They didn’t amount to much but he took his time over them.
Then, when he was ready, he followed Hedeby into her room, took a chair, watched as she closed the door behind her.
She was furious. She often was since Lund had returned to the Politigården. Hedeby was once a reliable detective. Promotion had turned her into a civil servant, a manager of budgets and
resources and she never even noticed.
‘I’ve had a call from the Ministry asking for an explanation,’ she said.
‘Understandable,’ Brix agreed.
‘Along with half the army.’ She stood by the window, looked down at him.
Brix shrugged.
‘It happened very quickly. Strange was cleared and Lund picked up this lead . . .’
She walked to the filing cabinet, slammed her fist on it. Brix tried not to laugh.
‘I don’t give a shit about Lund and Strange! What the hell—?’
‘We found a suspect. He’s just returned to Helmand. His brother was in Raben’s squad. One of the men who died.’
‘And no one told me?’
‘The brother, the one we’re looking at, is called Frederik Holst. He’d been tracking the members of Raben’s squad.’ Brix offered her some of the papers Madsen had
given him. ‘He’s a doctor at one of the field hospitals in Lashkar Gah.’
She seized the sheet, looked at it.
‘Holst has a motive. He was here in Copenhagen when the murders occurred, so he had the opportunity too. We couldn’t ignore—’
‘Dammit, Lennart,’ she bawled at him. ‘You know this has to go through me.’
Brix leaned back in the chair, put his long arms behind his head, thought about his answer.
‘But you’d have said no, Ruth. So what was the point?’
For once she seemed speechless.
‘You’d have pushed some papers around the desk,’ he went on. ‘Called someone in the Ministry who wasn’t there. Waited until morning.’