The Killing 3 by David Hewson Read Free Book Online

had nothing to do with that girl.’
    ‘Oh,’ Weber said, with a nod. ‘It’s love, is it?’ He waited. No answer. ‘In the middle of an election campaign? Which we may well lose anyway. With all this
Zeeland crap, Lund hanging around . . . and you shagging the leader of the party we need to save our skin.’
    Hartmann groaned.
    ‘Show some faith, Morten. I’m on top of this. Rosa’s bringing the Centre Party to the table. They’ll back me as Prime Minister. Zeeland’s fixed. And you’re
going to make sure Lund comes nowhere near.’
    He put a hand to Weber’s back and propelled him towards the palace.
    ‘Aren’t you?’
    Maja Zeuthen had never liked Drekar. Before Robert’s father died they lived in a former workman’s cottage in the grounds, had the joy of bringing two beautiful
children into the world in a small, tidy home meant for a lucky gardener.
    There they’d loved one another deeply.
    Then the weight of the company fell on his shoulders, and with it a growing sense of crisis. Not just Zeeland’s. The world’s. They moved into Drekar. Lived beneath the dragon. Got
lost in its sprawling floors and cavernous, empty rooms.
    Being the Zeuthen who ran Zeeland was a burden too heavy for him to share. She’d offered. Lost the battle. With that defeat love waned. The arguments began. As she drifted away he spent
longer and longer in the black glass offices down at the harbour.
    And when he was home they rowed. Two little faces watching from the door sometimes.
    It was almost eight. The servants had put dinner on the table. She’d eaten with Emilie and Carl, trying to make small talk. Noticing the way they went quiet whenever she tried to introduce
Carsten into the conversation.
    He was younger. Struggling a little with his medical career. As Robert said they weren’t his kids either and sometimes that showed in an uncharacteristic coldness and ill temper.
    They cleared away the dishes themselves. Told Reinhardt to go home. He had a wife. Grown-up children. A house near the Zeeland offices by the waterside. But still he stayed around the mansion,
watching, worrying. Robert almost saw him as an uncle, a fixture in the house when he was a boy.
    Emilie and Carl went upstairs. To play. To watch TV. Mess with their gadgets.
    She sat alone on the gigantic sofa, staring at the huge painting on the wall: a grey, miserable canvas of the ocean in a deadly gale. When they were splitting up Emilie said she hated it. The
thing made her think of where grandpa had gone. Had Maja stayed it would have vanished before long.
    Emilie came down, dressed in her blue raincoat, pink wellies and a small rucksack with childish pony designs on it.
    ‘Where are you going?’
    She didn’t blink, looked straight at her mother.
    ‘To feed the hedgehog.’
    ‘The hedgehog? Now?’
    ‘Dad says it’s all right.’
    ‘Dad’s not here.’
    ‘I won’t be long.’
    ‘I’ll go and get Carl,’ Maja said. ‘He can come with us.’
    Emilie sat down on the stairs. She was gone by the time Maja was back with her brother.
    ‘Emilie!’
    She tried not to sound too cross.
    Then Robert phoned.
    ‘Emilie’s gone off somewhere. She said to feed a baby hedgehog.’
    He laughed and she liked that sound.
    ‘She’s been doing that every night lately. We’ve got to work out what kind of pet to give her. I don’t think she’ll settle for a stick insect.’
    ‘No.’
    Did he realize he’d made her laugh too? Did she mind?
    ‘Reinhardt found out about the cat,’ she said. ‘The gardener said he’d seen one outside the fence. Near a brook somewhere. Emilie was hanging around there one
time.’
    ‘Outside the fence?’
    There was a brittle tension back in his voice then.
    ‘That’s what he thought. It’s no big deal, Robert. Carsten said if we keep using the cream she’ll be fine in a few days. I’m sorry I flew off the handle.’
    ‘She shouldn’t go out like that. We’ve got security for a reason.’
    A short