Authors: David Hewson
No answer. Just those wide, wide eyes.
‘I hate waiting,’ Brix went on. ‘I don’t much appreciate being lied to either. Holst looks like our man. There was a flight going. I managed to rush through the visas and
the authorizations—’
‘I can’t believe you’d do this to me. After all that—’
‘The plane’s gone. They’re in the air. It’s done,’ he said with a shrug. ‘That ’s it.’
Brix got up, made for the door. Madsen was there, holding a phone.
‘It’s the Ministry of Justice,’ he said, looking at Hedeby. ‘They want an update.’
Brix went to see Raben in the interview room. Tired, arm still in a sling, moaning for painkillers, not that he looked as if he needed them.
One of the younger detectives was trying to get him to talk. Raben glanced at Brix as he came in. A look that said: is this the best you’ve got?
‘Tell me about Frederik Holst,’ the young cop said.
Raben yawned.
‘What was your relationship like?’
‘We didn’t have one. He was a doctor. Didn’t mix with the troops unless he had to.’
Brix sat down, said, ‘How’s it going?’
‘It’s not. He just sticks to the same stupid story.’
‘Maybe that’s because the same stupid story’s the truth,’ Raben said wearily.
‘Smart arse,’ the cop replied. ‘You just start coming up with something or you’re here all night.’
‘All the time in the world,’ Raben said with a smile.
‘Leave us,’ Brix ordered and waited for the two of them to be alone.
Raben didn’t look quite so confident then.
Brix sorted through his papers, glanced at him across the desk.
‘I talked to Herstedvester. Frederik Holst wanted to visit you there. Phoned five times. You said no to each one.’
‘I want to see my wife.’
‘We found several letters in Holst’s flat. They were addressed to you.’ He pushed a folder across the table. ‘He posted them to the prison. You sent them back.’
‘Why are you telling me things I already know?’
‘Holst was angry with you. He saw that video. He blamed you for his brother’s death.’
‘Ask Holst about that. Not me.’
‘We plan to. Lund’s on her way to Helmand now.’
Raben’s tired eyes opened.
‘This isn’t going to stop until we get to the bottom of it, Raben. Until we know what happened. It’s in your interests to help us—’
Raben’s free hand thumped on the table.
‘I did help you! I told you the truth!’ His face was stern and fixed. His eyes on Brix. ‘An officer executed that family. He brought the Taliban down on us. Not me.’
‘You said it was one of our men. But we checked. He wasn’t even in Helmand at the time. How can we believe—?’
‘I want to talk to my wife.’
Raben’s eyes were on the table.
‘You need to reconsider the statement you gave us. The one that incriminated Ulrik Strange. Do that and we can try to move things forward. I’m telling you. It can’t have been
him.’
Raben was starting to get mad.
‘Talk to Colonel Jarnvig. He believes me. It’s all there in the files. You just have to look in the right places. You’ve got to ignore their lies.’
‘Whose lies?’ Brix wondered.
‘The special people,’ Raben yelled. ‘The spooks. The ghosts. The guys . . .’ His hand jerked towards the door. ‘The guys who come and go and you never even know
their name. That’s who. Ask Jarnvig.’
‘Jarnvig’s under arrest. The military police are questioning him. They say he helped you get out from under the noses of PET.’
Nothing.
‘You’ve got a preliminary court hearing tomorrow. Do yourself a favour.’
‘You mean do you a favour?’
‘Just come up with a story we can believe, will you?’ Brix looked at the man across from him. ‘Is there anything I can get you? Some medication? A doctor?’
‘I told you already. I want my wife.’
Brix got up from the table.
‘I called her before I came in here. Trouble is . . .’ He sighed. ‘She’s got more than you to worry about now.’
Christian Søgaard was in Jarnvig’s house, going through his papers in the study with Said Bilal.
‘Let me get this straight,’ he said, looking at the young officer squirming in the seat opposite. ‘Jarnvig came to you and wanted details of all the radio traffic from two
years ago?’
‘That’s right,’ Bilal said.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
Bilal blinked.
‘He said no one else was to know.’
‘Why?’ Søgaard asked. ‘What did he think was going on?’
‘I don’t know! The colonel didn’t seem to be himself. He was . . . asking all kinds of things.’
A noise behind. Søgaard glanced and saw Louise Raben, jeans and leather jacket, as if she was ready to go out somewhere.
‘Quiet,’ he said to Bilal and got up from the desk.
A big smile for her. Søgaard felt more than a little awkward.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘How’s things? Going somewhere?’
‘Where’s my father? I’ve been looking all around the camp. Isn’t he back yet?’
Søgaard perched on one of the chairs. Jarnvig’s house. Soon it could be his. And all it contained.
‘Your father’s been taken in for questioning. The military police are holding him.’
She blinked, looked at him, said nothing.
‘He talked to Jens at the cadets’ ball. Helped him shake off PET.’
‘That’s a lie,’ she said straight off. ‘I was with him. You were there too.’
‘He went off on his own when we were dancing. Someone saw him.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know,’ Søgaard said. ‘But they told General Arild. Your father confessed immediately. You know what he’s like. He wouldn’t . . .’
His voice trailed off.
‘Wouldn’t what? Lie? Try to hide things?’
‘He wouldn’t do that,’ Søgaard agreed. ‘I’m sorry but . . . it’s serious. He’s been acting strangely ever since this began.’
A shake of his blond head.
‘Tonight he was accusing me of things . . .’
‘What kind of things?’
‘He seems obsessed by the murders.’
‘What kind of things?’ she repeated.
A noise behind. Søgaard could see Bilal in his green uniform trying to stay out of sight.
‘He said I’d been concealing radio traffic from the investigation. It’s ridiculous. As if he believes all that crap Jens made up.’
She hugged herself in the black jacket, stared at the living room with its plaques and photos and memorabilia. The debris of Torsten Jarnvig’s army life.
‘I’ll do what I can to help him,’ Søgaard said, coming to stand behind her. ‘It’s a serious charge. He’s been under a lot of pressure. With a record
like his it won’t come to anything—’
‘So you’re saying he believed Jens? After all this time?’
Søgaard shrugged.
‘Sounds like it. The whole idea’s crazy . . .’ He wasn’t used to this kind of conversation. It felt uncomfortable. ‘What about you? Jonas? Can I get you some food
or something?’
‘We can look after ourselves, thank you. I want to see my father.’
‘They won’t allow that. Not until they’re ready.’
‘He gave everything he had to the army, Søgaard! How can they treat him like this?’
‘Your father talked to Jens. He helped him get away. What do you expect?’
‘If you hear anything I want to know. Do I at least get that?’
‘Of course.’ He touched her arm. She pulled back, glared at him. ‘If you and Jonas—’
‘I told you. We’re fine.’
She was going. He got up, put out a hand to stop her.
‘Louise. You don’t think I’m involved in this, do you?’
‘No,’ she said too easily. ‘Why would I think that?’
Søgaard watched her go then went back to the desk.
‘You should have told me,’ Søgaard said. ‘I don’t give a shit about Jarnvig’s orders. I shouldn’t have to hear it from Arild.’
He put his fist in Bilal’s dark face.
‘You answer to me. You did then. You do now.’
Then he looked at the documents on the desk, radio logs, maps, details of troop movements, and brushed them to the floor with a single violent sweep of his arm.
Bilal sat there in silence.
‘Now pick it all up,’ Søgaard ordered and got to his feet.
Around the time Lund and Strange’s delayed flight lifted off from Kastrup, Thomas Buch found himself watching the Folketinget’s decision on the anti-terror package
hang in the balance.
Krabbe’s sudden demands for more information had led Grue Eriksen to postpone the vote. The Prime Minister had summoned Buch to a brief and ill-tempered meeting in his office. There Buch
revealed that a police team had been despatched to Helmand to investigate the alleged atrocity. Flemming Rossing had shrieked about being kept in the dark once more and threatened Buch with
expulsion from the parliamentary group. Grue Eriksen listened and said little. Slotsholmen was in the midst of a feverish crisis, one Thomas Buch had never witnessed before.
One, he knew only too well, of his own making.
Back in the Ministry afterwards Plough gave him a judgemental stare and said, ‘You’re not a man for cards, are you?’
‘Of course not. Why?’
‘It’s called overplaying your hand. All we know is the police sent a team to Helmand. We’ve no idea what if anything—’
‘Do they have any idea what the doctor might say about the hand?’
‘No!’ Plough replied. ‘If you’d only allow me to brief you before shooting off your mouth. The doctor’s now their prime murder suspect—’
‘I need more ammunition by tomorrow. Grue Eriksen won’t let this run for ever.’ He turned to Karina. ‘See if you can get any communication between the military and the
Ministry of Defence on this.’
‘By tomorrow?’ she asked, wide-eyed.
‘Don’t we have the right of access?’
‘Up to a point. It would normally take a week—’
‘We don’t have a week! Oh for pity’s sake . . .’
He marched into his room, sat at his desk, stared at the growing mountain of papers.
Karina pulled up a chair.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Here’s a thought. We stop shouting at people. Instead let’s try persuading them it’s in their own interest they talk.’
Buch pulled out a drawer, found a chocolate bar, bit on it.
‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said, mouth half full.
‘The only one who can deliver you Grue Eriksen’s head is Flemming Rossing.’
Plough groaned.
‘Even if that’s true, Karina, why on earth would he talk to us?’
‘To save himself?’ Buch suggested. ‘If we make Rossing feel he’s more to lose by sticking with Grue Eriksen than coming clean . . .’
He scratched his straggly beard.
‘If Rossing knows it’s all going to come out anyway he’s going to want to limit the damage. When will we hear from Lund?’
‘They land in the morning,’ Plough said. ‘They’ve only got one day. It seems a lot to ask—’
His phone rang. Without thinking he answered it.
Home. Jutland. His wife, Marie, going on about the kids, about how he hadn’t called.
She was mad. So was he. The dam burst. All the suppressed rage and misery came out at that moment, engulfing the wrong person, the last one he would have blamed for anything. Thomas Buch shouted
at her, called his wife bad names, used words he never liked.
When he finished he put down his mobile and stared at it on his desk as if the phone was responsible somehow. Karina and Plough stared at him, embarrassed, silent.
‘No more family calls for now,’ Buch ordered in a meek and miserable voice. ‘Not until I say.’
It was close to midnight. He wondered what the time was in Afghanistan. How the curious and persistent woman he’d met just once, in a banqueting hall kitchen beneath a wedding, would fare
in such a distant, hostile land.
Tuesday 22nd November
Lund slept on the passenger jet to Istanbul. Slept after they got on the basic, uncomfortable military transport plane from Atatürk airport to Camp Bastion. Halfway
through she woke up, opened her eyes, found her head on Strange’s shoulder. He didn’t know she was watching him. His placid, ordinary face was staring ahead, at nothing at all.
Memories, she thought. He was recalling the army. Perhaps they never lost it. There was nothing to say. So she shuffled her head from him, slumped in the seat, tried to sleep again, was unsure
whether she managed it on the long, boring flight into a place she couldn’t imagine, let alone picture.
At Bastion airfield they were driven to Viking, the Danish quarter. It looked like a shanty town of mobile accommodation blocks and tents, with constant traffic, the to and fro of men and
equipment.
After their documents had been checked a bored, taciturn officer gave them a soldier as a driver then pointed them to some equipment in the corner of the office. Strange helped her. A hard
helmet, covered in khaki material. A jacket so heavy and uncomfortable she hated it the moment he started putting it on her.
‘Why do I need a bulletproof vest?’ Lund asked. ‘We’re just going to interview a doctor, aren’t we?’
The soldier and the officer stared at her.
‘Are we going behind the front line?’ she asked, shrugging off the thick, heavy vest.
‘This is Helmand,’ the officer said. ‘There is no front line. Put it on or you can go back to Copenhagen right now.’
Strange was gently pulling it over her arms.
‘It’s called body armour,’ he said. ‘It isn’t magic. But it can stop an AK47 round from distance. Keep you alive if we hit an IED. Block a knife—’
‘Not much use if they shoot you in the head. Or blow your legs off.’
‘Dammit, Lund. We’ve got these back in headquarters. You’re supposed to wear them whenever you go out on an armed incident. Don’t you even bother then?’
She didn’t want to tell him: usually a gun was too much trouble.
‘Not much need in Gedser,’ she said, then let him drag the khaki vest over her slender frame, tried to shuffle to a position that chafed the least.
‘Very fetching,’ the officer said. ‘Your flight out of here is at seven this evening. You will be on it. Even if I have to strap you in myself.’
Twenty minutes later the Land Rover was bouncing along a rough stony track that seemed to lead to nowhere. The terrain was dry and bare and mountainous, the air cold and dusty.
Snow covered the peaks of the surrounding hills. No villages. No other traffic. The driver, twenty-five at the most, with sunglasses and a skimpy moustache, seemed to know the way by heart. Travel
had never interested Lund much. Helmand wasn’t going to change that.