The Killing 3 Read Online Free Page B

I missed the ceremony. You told Borch I was on the case.’
    ‘True.’
    ‘So will you explain to the OPA people why I wasn’t around?’
    ‘When I see them. Go along with whatever PET want.’
    That makes a change, she thought, and ended the call.
    Borch and Asbjørn Juncker were marching round with clipboards.
    ‘We need every vessel in the vicinity searched,’ the PET man said.
    ‘There’s only one off this dock,’ Juncker replied. ‘It’s been done.’
    He had a folder of pictures. Lund always relished photographs. She took them off him and started to flick through the set one by one. Stocky dead man. Middle-aged. One of the tattoos had a
woman’s name, east European forensic thought. Another on his right arm was indecipherable. What looked like a knife wound had taken out the middle letters.
    A black Mercedes drew up and a tall, straight-backed man got out, balding with neatly trimmed grey hair. He introduced himself as Niels Reinhardt, Zeeland’s link man for the case.
    ‘Robert Zeuthen’s taken a personal interest,’ the newcomer insisted in a quiet, polite voice. ‘He wants you to know we’ll help all we can.’
    ‘Is the security system back in place?’ Borch asked.
    ‘We think so.’ Reinhardt looked uncertain. ‘One of our IT subsidiaries runs it. They cover everything from office surveillance to some private properties.’
    Lund ran through the obvious questions. Reinhardt said there were no labour problems since the last layoffs. No unusual ship movements.
    ‘They must have been around here before they took down the security,’ Juncker said.
    ‘No. We would have seen any intruders,’ Reinhardt insisted. He looked down the dockside, towards an abandoned area at the end. ‘Unless they came in through the old Stubben
facility. That’s been dead for years.’
    ‘I have to go back . . .’ Lund began, but Borch was pointing to his car already.
    It was a few minutes away, a desolate wasteland, rubble and abandoned containers by the grimy waterfront.
    ‘We were going to build a hotel here,’ Reinhardt said as he joined them. ‘No money for it now . . .’
    ‘Who comes here?’ Borch asked as Lund wandered round the gravel lane, hands in pockets, tie to one side, kicking at pebbles and rubbish on the ground.
    ‘Fishermen,’ Reinhardt said. ‘Birdwatchers.’ A pause. ‘Lovey-dovey couples sometimes I guess.’
    ‘You said there were no ships.’ Juncker was scanning the grey horizon. An ancient rusting hulk sat there looking as if it hadn’t moved in years.
    The Zeeland man scowled.
    ‘No working ships. That’s
Medea
. One of our old freighters. She’s mothballed for scrap. We sold her to a Latvian broker but he went bankrupt.’
    Borch took Juncker’s binoculars. The vessel was a good half a kilometre offshore. He scanned it, offered the glasses to Lund. She shook her head.
    ‘Is there anyone on there?’ she asked.
    ‘It’s the law,’ Reinhardt said straight away. ‘Even an old hulk like that needs a minimum three-man crew. We talked to them last night. And this morning too. They said
they didn’t see anything.’
    He looked round at the empty ground, the sluggish Øresund.
    ‘They wouldn’t here, would they?’
    Lund stepped towards the water’s edge, swore as her best boots went into a muddy puddle. A single cigarette butt lay in the dirt. Fresh. Unmarked by rain.
    Borch was on the phone.
    ‘If you want to go out there,’ Reinhardt said, ‘I can call a boat.’
    Asbjørn Juncker couldn’t wait. Borch came off the call.
    ‘According to the coastguard a Russian coaster sailed along here last night. It’s going to St Petersburg. We’re talking to the authorities there.’
    ‘Thanks for the offer,’ she said to the Zeeland man. ‘We don’t need it.’
    Juncker started squawking. She walked to the car. Borch and the young cop followed.
    ‘We’ve got to go and look at that freighter,’ Borch said.
    ‘You can if you want.’
    ‘I don’t have time!