The Library of Shadows

by Mikkel Birkegaard

  'Fine, thanks.'

  'And what about all that business with your father? Has everything been resolved?'

  'More or less. There are still a couple of loose ends to tie up.'

  Halbech nodded. 'So tie them up, Campelli.' He smiled. 'There's nothing more distracting than loose ends. "One touch" – that's my motto. Finish a task immediately instead of postponing it. Having to deal with the same issue over and over is a waste of time, and it affects the rest of your work.'

  'Right,' Jon remarked.

  'What about Remer?'

  'Things are in full swing,' replied Jon, patting the dossier. 'I've got-'

  'He'll be here at nine o'clock.' Halbech gave Jon a searching look. 'He wants to talk to you.'

  'Okay,' said Jon, astonished, automatically casting a glance at his watch. It was 8:45.

  'Yes, well, undoubtedly he wants to have a look at his new barrister. Grill him a bit,' said Halbech with a glint in his eye.

  Jon shrugged. 'It's his money.'

  'Precisely,' said Halbech, leaning towards Jon. 'But try to make the most of the meeting. It's not often we have access to him, and if I know the man, he's on his way to a skiing holiday or something of that sort.'

  He stood up and began putting on his jacket, which hung from the back of his chair.

  'I can't stay, unfortunately. But it's not me he wants to see, anyway.'

  Jon got up. 'I'll ask Jenny to take notes,' he said.

  'Take them yourself, Campelli,' Halbech commanded. 'Remer doesn't care for having too many extraneous people at his meetings. And after all, it's…'

  'His money,' Jon chimed in.

  They walked through the door together and continued out to the receptionist's area.

  'One touch,' Halbech repeated, giving Jon a parting slap on the back before he made his way out of the front door.

  Jon asked Jenny to arrange for a meeting room and refreshments before he locked himself in the Remer office to collect the things he would need.

  The rumours about Remer were both plentiful and harrowing, but Jon assumed that most of them were probably urban myths intended to scare law students. Remer didn't care for lawyers, that much was certain, and the fact that he often disagreed with how the case should be handled was a recurrent theme of the stories, but from there it was a big step to throwing himself into a fistfight. One of the stories circulating the corridors described how Remer, in a heated moment, had grabbed his barrister by the tie to give him a good shaking. Afterwards he cut off the tie, right below the knot. A real horror story, not so much because of the physical assault but because of the vandalizing of the expensive tie.

  The pile of essential folders and documents grew, and Jon had to use a trolley to transport all of them to the meeting room. As Halbech had emphasized, it was important to make use of his time with Remer, so he didn't want to be missing anything. He had a long list of questions for the main player in the case. There were creative appendices, dates and sequences of events that didn't match up, as well as depositions that later turned out to have been either illegal or improbably lucky. It was a hairline distinction.

  There was a knock on the open door and Jenny appeared with coffee and mineral water, which she set down on the table without saying a word. A moment later she returned, this time accompanied by Remer.

  The man was about fifty, his grey hair in a crew-cut, which made him look like a stern colonel. If it weren't for his lively, genial eyes, the stories about him might have stemmed from his appearance alone, but his eyes softened the harsh face, and a broad smile with strikingly white teeth also had its effect.

  'Remer,' he said, holding out his hand towards Jon.

  'Jon Campelli,' said Jon, grasping his hand.

  Remer had a firm grip, and he kept his eyes fixed on Jon as they shook hands. 'Campelli?' he said. 'Is that Italian?'

  'Correct,' replied Jon. 'My father was Italian. Please have a seat.'

  'I prefer to stand,' said Remer casually. 'Lovely place, Italy. I've just come from there. Or rather from Sicily, to be more precise.'

  'Would you care for something to drink?' asked Jon, gesturing towards the refreshments on the meeting table.

  'No, thanks,' replied Remer. 'I can't stay long.'

  'Then we'd better get down to business…' suggested Jon amiably as he sat down at the table.

  'Campelli,' Remer repeated to himself, glancing up at the ceiling. 'I've heard that name recently.'

  Jon cleared his throat and leafed through the documents in front of him. 'I have a number of questions, especially regarding the purchase of Vestjysk Piping in '92-'

  'Books!' exclaimed Remer, snapping his fingers. 'It was the man with the books. Luca was his name.' He turned to look at Jon. 'Is Luca someone in your family?'

  'Yes, Luca was my father,' replied Jon. 'He died a week ago.'

  Remer opened his eyes wide. 'I'm sorry to hear that,' he said, sounding sincere. 'What a sad coincidence. He owned a bookshop, didn't he?'

  Jon nodded. 'Libri di Luca in Vesterbro.'

  'I've never been there myself,' Remer admitted as he walked around the room. 'It was one of my business associates who happened to mention your father's name.'

  Jon studied Remer as he moved along the walls, peering at the paintings. He wore a black jacket, a white shirt without a tie and a pair of dark jeans. His attire sent a rather confusing signal for a business meeting, but that was clearly not the reason he was here. Whether he had a genuine interest in Jon's familial relationships or was just testing him, only Remer himself knew for sure.

  'He owns a couple of bookshops, my business associate,' he went on. 'Hugely successful, as I understand it. Something of a book empire, with Internet shops, book clubs and catalogues.' He gave a short laugh. 'Considering the fact that books have frequently been declared dead, there's surprisingly good money to be made.'

  He stopped his roaming and rested his hands on the back of the chair across from Jon. Then he leaned forward.

  'Well, Jon. What do you have in mind?'

  For an instant his expression changed, his eyes shifting from sparkling and friendly to scrutinizing. Jon instinctively reached up to straighten his tie.

  'I'd like to start with-' he began, but Remer once again interrupted him.

  'May I ask you a personal question, Jon?' He didn't wait for an answer but pulled himself upright and crossed his arms before he went on. 'What's going to happen to the shop?'

  'Er, the bookshop?' asked Jon in surprise. 'I haven't decided yet.'

  'But it's yours? Luca left the business to you?'

  'As the sole family member, yes.'

  'Allow me to make a suggestion.' Remer unfolded his arms. 'I can put you in contact with my friend, the bookseller. I'm positive he'd give you a good price for Libri di Luca.' He broke out in a big smile. 'Unless you're planning to set yourself up as a bookmonger, that is?'

  Jon smiled. 'No, that's not exactly what I had in mind. But as I said, I haven't yet decided.'

  'A word of advice, Jon,' Remer admonished him. 'Stick to what you're good at. I'm good at making deals. You're good at helping get someone like me out of difficulties. But we'll never be bookdealers, neither of us.' He laughed. 'Make some good money by selling the shop, and let my friend take Libri di Luca into the twenty-first century. That would have pleased your father, don't you think?'

  'I'm not so sure about that.' Even though he had no idea whether Luca might have made use of computers and the Internet over the past years, Jon found it most unlikely. The very image of a PC in Libri di Luca seemed absurd. It would be like sending a jet back to the Middle Ages.

  'Well, surely he was a businessman too,' Remer insisted. 'He would have loved the idea of a shared warehouse for a whole chain of antiquarian bookshops, of an enormous selection of works and search possibilities so that customers would never look in vain but could order their valuable books directly from their home computers.'

  'I thought the charm of an antiquarian bookshop was
that you spend a whole lot of time poking about and finding surprises.'

  'Oh, sure, by all means. There also has to be opportunity to do that. The shop wouldn't be closed, of course. Just think of it as an expansion.'

  Jon held up his hands defensively. 'I promise I'll think about it, when the time comes. But right now I'm going to wait and see.'

  'Fair enough. But give me a ring when you've made a decision.' He took a business card out of his inside pocket and tossed it onto the table.

  'I'll do that. So, shall we get started?'

  Remer glanced at his watch. 'I'm going to have to leave now, Jon. It was a pleasure meeting you.' He reached across the table towards Jon who, greatly astonished, stood up and shook hands.

  'I'll see myself out,' said Remer over his shoulder, already on his way out of the meeting room.

  Jon sank down on his chair and stared at the door in bewilderment. He felt as if he'd just been visited by a tornado. Remer had done his job and then vanished again like a whirlwind. The question was, what job had he done? Did he merely want to have a look at the 'new guy', and then found himself tempted by a potential deal with the bookshop, or was that his real purpose all along? Jon picked up the card his client had left and studied it. There was nothing more than Remer's name and a couple of phone numbers. No logo, company name or even his first name. Anyone with a computer and a printer could have made something comparable in two minutes.

  He stood up and started packing up his things.

  'How did it go?' asked Jenny, appearing in the doorway.

  'I don't really know,' Jon replied honestly. 'But at least my tie is still intact.'

  Jenny laughed and turned to leave.

  'By the way, Jenny.' The secretary turned to face him. 'Have you ever seen Remer before?'

  She thought for a moment before she shook her head. 'No. I think they usually have their meetings in town.'

  'Okay, thanks,' said Jon as he began pushing the trolley with the folders out of the room and towards his office.

  It had occurred to him that he had never seen Remer either. After locking himself into the Remer office, he went straight over to the filing cabinet which held newspaper clippings. That was where all the media mentions were kept, and he quickly leafed through the folders. A moment later he found what he was looking for. Only a few of the articles were accompanied by photos, but there was one taken outside the court with Remer in profile on his way up the steps.

  It was him, no doubt about it. There was no mistaking that distinctive haircut and the resolute expression. The tornadowas Remer – for Jon that decided the matter. As the files indicated, Remer was a particularly zealous businessman with his fingers deep in everything that smelled of money. It didn't matter what type of business, so why not an antiquarian bookshop, when he just happened to come across it during a meeting with his lawyer?

  For the second time that day Jon shook his head at his own paranoia, and it wasn't even ten o'clock.

  9

  Katherina was about to leave when she happened to glance through the windows of Libri di Luca. There was Luca's son. He was standing at the counter, talking to Iversen, who was repeatedly shaking his head. Because of the darkness, they wouldn't be able to see her, and she could easily disappear without them noticing. Her hand rested on the door handle, and she couldn't decide whether to go in or turn round.

  Acting as a receiver could be quite an intimate experience. In addition to the images conjured up by the text, she could pick up small glimpses of the reader's personality as well, fragments that revealed the person's character traits and frame of mind. Ever since the demonstration she'd felt uncomfortable about being in Jon's presence. She had a feeling she knew something she shouldn't, something even he didn't know. During their little show she was both surprised and startled by what she sensed in Jon, but she had no idea what to do about her discovery. Many people didn't like finding out exactly how much her abilities allowed her to comprehend.

  She took a deep breath and pushed open the door. The two men turned to face her.

  'Hi, Katherina,' Iversen said. Jon merely gave her a brief nod.

  Katherina returned their greetings and closed the door behind her.

  'Maybe you know him, Katherina,' exclaimed Iversen, pointing at a photocopy lying on the counter. 'His name is Remer. Does that ring a bell?'

  She went over to the counter and studied the picture of a man in his forties, making his way up a stairway. Katherina shook her head.

  'No, I've never seen him before. Who is he?'

  'A client,' replied Jon. 'But he seems to know quite a lot about Libri di Luca, and about Luca.'

  'He wants to buy the place,' added Iversen.

  She looked in alarm at Iversen, who instantly raised his hands in a reassuring gesture.

  'Don't worry, the shop hasn't been sold. Not yet, at any rate.'

  'The prospective buyer is actually one of Remer's friends, not him,' explained Jon. 'Apparently he already has a whole chain of stores, as well as an Internet shop. Does that sound familiar?'

  Iversen grumbled affirmatively. 'There are a couple of major players in the market, including a few who have previously made your father an offer to take over Libri di Luca, but he always turned them down. Under no circumstances did he want to leave the shop to that sort.'

  'What's your position?' asked Jon.

  'In my opinion Libri di Luca doesn't belong anywhere near a computer. How can you evaluate the quality of a book without holding it in your own hands?' He shook his head. 'Most of our customers come here for the sake of the atmosphere. We can't leave them in the lurch.'

  Katherina agreed with Iversen on that point. Libri di Luca was a free zone, and she, if anyone, knew the pleasure of wandering among the walls of books, holding a fine-quality volume in her hands. Even though she had great difficulty reading the words herself, she loved to touch the paper they were printed on, and the binding that protected them. Since the contents were inaccessible to her, she had to make do with the medium that held the words, feeling neither bitterness nor sorrow, but rather a fascination with the materials and the craftsmanship.

  'So, what do you think?' asked Jon. 'What's this man's interest in the shop?'

  Iversen and Katherina exchanged looks. She could see that he was burning to tell Jon what he knew, yet at the same time he feared there were limits to what should be revealed to an outsider. In fact, Jon already knew far too much, more than enough to be a security risk for the Society.

  'Well, I think his interest primarily stems from the shop's good reputation,' replied Iversen. 'Your father was much liked and respected in these circles.'

  'Could it have anything to do with the collection downstairs?'

  Iversen shook his head. 'Very few people know about that. I think it just has to do with someone wanting to exploit the void your father's death has left, in one way or another.'

  Jon fixed his gaze first on Iversen, then Katherina. He took a deep breath. 'As I'm sure you know, I'm a lawyer,' he said slowly. 'An important part of my job is the ability to see through people who are lying or holding back information, and I think there's something you're not telling me.'

  Iversen was about to object, but Jon raised his hand to cut him off.

  'I realize that you've initiated me into a situation that is otherwise kept secret. If one chooses to believe you, that is – which I suppose I'll have to do. But I sense there's more. You keep pointing out how important it is for me to understand, but how can I do that if you won't tell me everything?'

  Iversen stared at Jon, who was standing in front of him with both hands on the counter. Katherina saw resignation slip into Iversen's eyes, and he turned away to look out of the window. She surmised that behind his mild expression he was thinking like mad about how he could give Luca's son a satisfactory answer without revealing too much.

  His expression suddenly changed from resignation to astonishment, and then his eyes widened in fear. Iversen opened his mouth but his sh
out was drowned out by the sound of breaking glass.

  Katherina flinched and then turned towards the sound. The windowpane to the right of the door shattered and shards of glass flew into the shop like small projectiles.

  'Get down!' shouted Jon, throwing himself to the floor. Iversen sat as if paralysed in the leather chair with his eyes fixed on the broken window.

  Katherina ducked behind the counter, just in time to avoid the splinters from the other windowpane as it shattered too. She shut her eyes tight, waiting for the sound of glass raining down on her to stop.

  Slowly she opened her eyes. There was glass everywhere, but even worse were the little columns of smoke issuing from some of the pieces of glass that had landed on the carpet.

  'Fire!' she yelled and leaped to her feet.

  Little tongues of fire had taken hold of the carpet in several places, and the display in the left-hand window was in flames. Jon was still lying on the floor, while Iversen was leaning over one of the armrests, away from the window. Quickly Katherina stepped behind the counter and opened the cabinet where the fire extinguisher was kept. In the meantime, Jon got to his feet and looked around in disbelief.

  'Here,' she said, handing him the fire extinguisher. 'I'll get the other one.'

  Jon grabbed the canister, which was no bigger than a thermos, and ran over to the display window, where the flames were biggest. In the meantime Katherina dashed through the shop and downstairs to the kitchen. There she tore the second fire extinguisher loose from its holder, a heavy model at least a metre high, and rushed back up to the shop with it.

  'I'm empty,' shouted Jon when she came over to him. The extinguisher was on the floor and he was stamping out the flames on the carpet as he simultaneously tried to pull off his jacket. The fire in the display window was almost out, but Katherina could see an orange glow outside the window frame, so she tore open the door to attack the flames from outside.

  As the door flew open she was met by a wave of intense heat. The whole outer surface of the door was on fire. The flames gladly accepted the invitation to come inside and began licking their way up the top of the door frame and towards the underside of the balcony.