Read The Killing - 01 - The Killing for Free Online Page A

drive?’
    ‘They wouldn’t let me use the car. They said I couldn’t move it.’
    Theis Birk Larsen took his wife in his broad arms, held her, kissed her once, touched her cheek, looked her in the eye and said, ‘Nanna’s fine. I’ll find her. Go home and wait for us.’
    Then he climbed into the van and left.
    ‘I’ll drop you off at Gran’s. You’ve got your key?’
    The weather was closing in, the day ending in mist and drizzle. Lund was driving out to Østerbro, her twelve-year-old son, Mark, in the passenger seat.
    ‘You mean we’re not going to Sweden after all?’
    ‘I’ve got something to do first.’
    ‘Me too.’
    Lund looked at her son. But in truth all she was seeing in her head was the flat yellow grass, a teenager’s bloodstained top. And the photograph of Nanna Birk Larsen, smiling like an older sister proud of her little brothers. Looking too grown-up with all that make-up.
    She hadn’t a clue what Mark was talking about.
    ‘I told you, Mum. Magnus’s birthday party.’
    ‘Mark. Our flight’s tonight. We decided this ages ago.’
    He grunted and turned to stare out of the rain-streaked window.
    ‘You look like a moose with the mumps,’ she said.
    Lund laughed. He didn’t.
    ‘You’ll love it in Sweden. It’s a great school. I’ll have more time for you. We can—’
    ‘He’s not my father.’
    Lund’s phone started ringing. She looked at the number and began fumbling the headset into her ear.
    ‘Of course he’s not. He’s found you a hockey club.’
    ‘I’ve got one.’
    ‘You must be sick of being the youngest at FCK.’
    Silence.
    ‘Aren’t you?’
    ‘It’s called KSF.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said to the phone.
    ‘KSF,’ Mark repeated.
    ‘I’m on my way.’
    Mark began to speak very slowly.
    ‘K . . . S . . . F . . .’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You get it wrong every time.’
    ‘Yes.’
    It wasn’t far now which pleased her on two counts. She wanted to see Meyer. And Mark was . . . in the way.
    ‘Not long now and then we go to the airport,’ she said. ‘You do have your key, don’t you?’
    Beneath a sullen monochrome sky a single line of twenty blue-clad officers moved slowly across the yellow grass, prodding the mud and clumps of vegetation with red and white sticks, search dogs snuffling at the damp earth.
    Lund watched them for a moment then went into the wood. There a second team was working through the lichened trees, examining the ground, putting down markers, following another set of dogs.
    Meyer was in a police jacket, soaked to the skin.
    ‘How clear’s the trail?’ she asked.
    ‘Clear enough. The dogs followed her from where we found the top.’ He looked at his notes and gestured to a thicket ten metres away. ‘We also got some blonde hair caught on a bush.’
    ‘Where does it lead?’
    ‘Here,’ Meyer said, gesturing with the map in his hand. ‘Where we’re standing.’ Another look at his notes. ‘She was running. Zigzagging through the woods. This was where she stopped.’
    Lund came and peered over his shoulder.
    ‘What do we have close by?’
    ‘A logging road. Maybe she was picked up there.’
    ‘What about her mobile phone?’
    ‘Switched off since Friday night.’ He didn’t like these obvious questions. ‘Listen, Lund. We’ve gone over her route with a fine-tooth comb. Twice. She isn’t here. We’re wasting time.’
    She turned and walked away, looked back to the marshland and yellow grass.
    ‘Hello?’ Meyer said with that dry sarcasm she was starting to recognize. ‘Am I invisible?’
    Lund came back and said, ‘Spread out. Go over it all again.’
    ‘Did you hear a word I said?’
    The local intercom on one of the search team’s jackets squawked her name.
    ‘We’ve found something,’ a voice said.
    ‘Where?’
    ‘In the trees.’
    ‘What is it?’
    A pause. It was getting dark. Then, ‘It looks like a grave.’
    The same sluggish twilight crept over the city, damp and dreary, wan and cold. In his campaign office,