One May Smile

by Penny Freedman

  ‘Couldn’t you have applied for citizenship yourself?’ Adam asks, ‘Once you were eighteen?’

  ‘Daddy said not. He forbade me to do it.’

  There is a silence and she looks round at us all. ‘All right, so I could have done it anyway, but I didn’t. I was too feeble and now I shall pay for it. Can’t you just see it? If things get really scary, they’ll send the British ambassador to sort you all out, but me? Oh, Armenian – nothing to do with us. And I’ll be the one that gets thrown to the wolves.’

  ‘Hardly to the wolves, Zada,’ Adam says. ‘This is Denmark, after all. EU – Human Rights Act – all that.’

  ‘But where there might actually be wolves,’ I mutter under my breath.

  ‘And you don’t know much about the diplomatic service if you think an ambassador is going to be dealing with a group of students who’ve got themselves into a sticky situation,’ says James. ‘More likely some entry level graduate who’s got no idea what’s going on. And anyway, as you said, I believe, we’re not being arrested. We’re just witnesses. All we have to do is give our statements and that will be that.’

  ‘But somebody did whatever they did to the brakes of that car, didn’t they? And we’re their only suspects. They’re going to keep us here until they find someone to pin it on, aren’t they?’

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ Ray calls from the front, ‘is why they’re so sure it’s murder. It was a bloody hire car, wasn’t it? They’ve always got something wrong with them. I mean, I don’t want to worry anyone but who knows what the brakes are like on this thing? And Conrad knew there was something wrong with it – that’s why he was working on it. Only he was an idiot and didn’t know wh –’ He breaks off. Nil nisi bonum after all.

  ‘Well, I assume the police know what they’re talking about.’ Adam sounds tetchy. ‘If they say the brakes were tampered with they must have a good reason.’

  Clare, who is sitting opposite me, murmurs something to Emma, who says, ‘Yes. Why shouldn’t the person who hired the car before Conrad have done it? I know you’d have to be a lunatic to just randomly make a death trap for the next person who hired the car, but people do kill randomly, don’t they?’

  ‘They kill randomly, yes,’ James says, ‘but they want to be there to see people die. What you suggest would be very odd, wouldn’t it? Because they’d never know what mayhem they’d actually caused, and that would spoil their fun.’ No-one responds and after a moment he goes on, ’And anyway, it’s obvious, isn’t it, that the damage had to be done yesterday afternoon?’

  ‘Why? I don’t see why. The brakes could have been damaged but the car still driveable and then, bang, on the way home they went. Couldn’t they?’ Zada turns to Adam, but it’s James who answers.

  ‘No, they couldn’t, because if there had been anything wrong with them yesterday morning, Conrad would have noticed it when he was tinkering so knowledgeably all morning with me as his faithful tool-bearer. Apply some logic, woman.’

  ’I am – and don’t patronise me. Maybe, like Ray says, Conrad wasn’t the expert he made himself out to be. You know how he was. Sorry, Sophie, but we have to be honest. I mean –’

  ’He knew what he was doing,’ Sophie says very quietly, as though her throat is full of dust. ‘He adored cars. He told me he didn’t go back to LA last summer. He spent the long vac in Oxford. He got a job in a garage. He loved it.’

  Zada, furious, throws herself back in her seat. ‘Well, for fuck’s sake someone else come up with an explanation,’ she growls.

  I summon to mind the pale blue Mustang as I saw it in the castle car park at lunch time yesterday, a sleek and exotic beast among the dusty camper vans and family saloons, attractive prey for thieves and vandals. As if she has read my mind, Clare says, ‘Anyone could have cut the cable while it was parked. It doesn’t have to have been one of us. And they could have hung around to see what happened when the driver came back, which gets over James’s objection that they’d want to see the mayhem.’

  ‘They’d need to jack it up,’ Ray says. It’d be pretty obvious what they were doing. And they’d need to get the jack out of the boot. Are we sure that Conrad locked it?’

  ‘I locked it,’ James says abruptly. ‘I put the tools and the jack away and I locked it. So,’ he looks round us with an unamused smile, ‘we seem rather to have run out of options.’

  7

  HOLIDAY

  If you were in a hot air balloon, David Scott thought, they would not look human at all, these prone bodies, turning and shifting down below. It was barely 10.30 but the sun was high and fierce and bodies of all shades, from flawless black to freckled white, were laid out like sacrifices on the sand.

  Holidays, in his view, were just weekends gone viral, the days multiplying to nightmare numbers. A weekend you could dispose of: lie-ins, leisurely breakfasts, domestic chores that couldn’t be put off any longer, a long walk, a good book, a bit of TV, and there was always the option of going into the station and putting in some unpaid overtime. And recently there had been Gina at weekends. They hadn’t been perfect, admittedly, but they weren’t boring either. This two weeks’ leave, though, was driving him up the wall. It was day four now and he had done everything on his mental to-do list, including things like mending the garden fence which he had never intended to get round to. By now he was ready to kill somebody in the hope of being called in to investigate his own crime. He could have been doing something interesting, of course. He could have spent this leave on a dig somewhere, as he had in the past, but by the time plans for the trip to Denmark with Gina had unravelled it had been too late to organise anything. ‘Not going off somewhere with your other half?’ one of his colleagues had asked him and he had failed to come up with a reply, so pole-axed was he by imagining Gina’s response to being called his other half.

  It was a riff she had done more than once – her what are we supposed to call each other? routine, in which he played the stooge. Boyfriend? ‘Absolutely not for anyone over thirty.’ Partner? ‘Requires one to share a home, a child or a bank account – none of which we do or intend to do.’ Lover? ‘Implies a passion we may find it hard to live up to.’ Friend? Too arch – as in just good friends, though it’s the one I use for want of a better.’ Significant other? ‘Well you are certainly other, and I guess you’re significant, but try using that in any normal sentence!’ Other half he hadn’t suggested, but he could supply her answer: ‘I’m forty-eight years old and a complete person, thank you, David. I don’t feel there are bits of me missing.’

  He missed her. That was the truth. She was a hair shirt but he missed the itch. Announcing that he was cutting off email contact had been a tactical error, however furious he had been with her. He had, in fact, checked for messages since and found only the usual spam and scams. One thing to be said for Gina, she could tell a good story and he would have enjoyed her updates. He took out his phone and took a picture of the beach. He tried to think of an appropriate message and phrases from her email were offering themselves to him as ironic possibilities; deciding to have a crap time seemed the most appropriate but, on the principle that a picture was worth however many thousand words, he sent the photo just as it was.

  It hardly constituted an apology, he reflected, as he turned into the town. If she answered at all, it would be to admonish him for sulking still, but at least it would be a response and he could take it from there. He headed for Dyke Road and a walk on the downs up above the town and away from the crowds. It was not a planned walk and he had no hat, no sun block and no water with him. Autorhinectomy Gina would have called it, and he would really have liked to hear her say it.

  8

  MORE FOUR

  There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. 2.2

  The Politistation is in a maze of streets in the middle of the town and is not at all what I envisaged. Cool, modern and shiny with glass was what I had in mind, but it is, instead, old and formidable with a square stone front outside and
a high, echoing reception area inside. ‘It’s the Ministry of Truth,’ Adam mutters as we are led along corridors and up steps, but the room we are taken to is reassuring. True, it has small windows set high in the wall, but it is furnished with decent chairs, magazines, a hot drinks dispenser and a fairly healthy plant in a pot. There is also, blessedly, a small play area with child-sized bean bags to sit on and, since we are in the birthplace of Lego, a plastic crate of the stuff.

  As we settle ourselves to wait and Freda is absorbed in the novelty of the Lego (which won’t last long – Freda is no embryo engineer, but for the moment she is enjoying bashing the pieces randomly together) I contemplate this little company of ours – seventeen of us originally, now reduced to fifteen. Fifteen may still seem too many people for you to take on board, I realise, even with a programme to help you, and in the interests of full disclosure, I should tell you that you have met all the really significant players in this drama already; the others are bit part players you don’t need to worry about.

  The interviews start slowly; James is away for a long time, and while he is out, the second group from the villa arrives, so the room is full when he comes back from his grilling. He looks superficially as cool as ever. His default expression is something close to a George Osborne smirk and that is still in place; I notice, though, that when he goes to get himself a coffee from the machine, his hand is shaking. No-one asks him how it went. Adam goes out to be interviewed after James and returns from his session looking furious – which is becoming his default mode at the moment. ‘I’m out of here,’ he says, picking up his jacket. ‘Coming, James?’

  ‘Did they say you could go?’

  ‘Yes. Didn’t they say that to you?’

  James gives a bark of a laugh. ‘No, they asked me to stick around.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Well, I’m off anyway.’

  Zada turns as if to protest but Adam stops behind her chair to pat her on the shoulder, as one might a nervous horse, and disappears. Zada jumps up and paces round the room. ‘I need a ciggie,’ she moans, ‘and I can’t even open a window and puff out of it.’ She looks round the room. ‘How many people are before me?’ she demands. A few hands are waved at her. She counts them. ‘Emma, Clare, Sophie, Marianne, Gina, Kelly, Alan. Six. And James and Adam were each in – what – half an hour? That’s three hours. Aagh.’ She throws herself back down on her chair. ‘Three hours without a ciggie. That’s just cruel. I shall be a nervous wreck by then. I’ll be ready to confess to anything.’

  If she was expecting a response, she’ll be disappointed, and if she is wanting to be the centre of attention she’s got competition from Freda, who has tired of the Lego and has devised a better game which involves crawling under people’s chairs and tickling their legs. When reprimanded, she insists that she is ‘just being a cat’ and refuses to stop.

  Emma and Clare are both in and out of their interviews quite rapidly but by the time Sophie goes in, Freda is rolling on the floor with boredom and no-one, not even Zada, has the will to distract her. I look across the room at Annie. ‘Why don’t I go in next?’ I say. ‘Then I can take Freda away. It doesn’t matter which Gray goes first, does it?’ She gives a non-commital shrug but when Sophie returns and the policewoman calls, ‘Marianne Gray,’ she’s off, leaving me to pacify Freda as best I can by sitting her on my lap and playing This is the Way the Lady Rides, which is probably even more annoying to my fellow murder suspects than Freda’s solo wrigglings.

  When Annie gets back, I thrust Freda at her and hiss savagely, ‘You look after her. I’m not taking her in with me. Don’t go anywhere.’ As I go out, I hear Freda set up a wail behind me, and Annie is, no doubt, sticking knives in my back.

  By comparison with the waiting room, the room where I’m interviewed feels calm and airy. It’s not one of those threatening, windowless places you see in TV crime dramas; it’s more of an office, really, with a window open to the summer breeze. Because I experience life almost entirely through the medium of fiction, The Killing has been in my mind all morning and I have, of course, been half expecting to see Sarah Lund. And even when I don’t find her here, I don’t immediately think Of course not, she’s not real but rather, Of course not, she works in Copenhagen. I’m admitting this to you though I wouldn’t to anyone else because I know it makes me sound stupid.

  Instead of Sarah, with her scruffy ponytail and laser eyes – and the jumper, of course – there is a man of fiftyish, tall and thin – almost cadaverous – with receding blond hair and small, humorous blue eyes. ‘Anders Mortensen,’ he says, shaking my hand, and I make a note to tell David that the Danish police really do introduce themselves by their first names; there’s no intimidation by rank here. Mortensen has a young woman officer there with him but she is not Sarah either. She is square and solid, with red hair cut unattractively short. She introduces herself as Ingrid Larsen.

  Mortensen starts with the expected questions: first, what I’m doing here in Elsinore, which takes a bit of explaining even to myself at the moment, and then when I last saw Conrad – or Wagner, as he refers to him. Had I seen anyone near his car? Was I aware of anyone having a grudge against him? When I give a breezy ‘no’ to this last question, he leans forward and looks at me over the top of his rimless half moon specs. ‘But he himself had a grudge, I understand.’

  ‘A grudge? Well, I suppose – yes. He just thought he should have been playing Hamlet.’

  ‘And instead James Asquith plays Hamlet. How did he show it – this grudge?’

  ‘Childishly, to be honest. Sniping.’

  ‘Sniping? As with a gun?’

  ‘No, no. As with words. Just nasty remarks. Nothing really. And then they seemed to have made it up, anyway.’

  ‘Seemed?’

  ‘Well, did. Only then –’ I stop. I suppose I should tell him about the row by the car. ‘Some of us went down to the car park to fetch Conrad and James for lunch. They seemed fine then, but the others went off for lunch and I was delayed – I’ve got a toddler with me on this trip – and I saw Conrad apparently lose his temper.’

  ‘What exactly did you see?’

  ‘Well, I thought for a moment that he was going to hit James with the jack he was holding, but actually he just threw it down and walked off.’

  ‘And Asquith, what did he do?’

  ‘Tidied up, put things back in the boot, locked the car, walked away.’

  ‘In which direction?’

  ‘Towards the castle.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Disconcertingly, he leans back in his chair and beams at me. He picks up a typed sheet from among the papers on his desk. ‘An excellent witness. Your account matches exactly what the gatekeeper at the castle saw.’

  ‘Is it his job to watch the car park?’

  ‘He is not, I think, happy that your company is here. He was expecting trouble. And it seems he was right.’

  I’m not sure I like the way this is going and while I’m in his good books as an excellent witness I decide to try and put him straight a bit. ‘Look,’ I say, ‘they’re not criminals. They’re just young – twenty-one or twenty-two, stressed out after exams, hormones rampant, relationships in flux, egos a bit inflated – but I can’t believe any one of them is a murderer.’

  He looks at me for a bit and then says, ‘But this is a case of murder. The damage to the car was not accidental and a young man died. Another young man was injured and could have been killed as well. If none of these young people are responsible, then what is your explanation?’

  ‘Well, we talked about it this morning as we were driving in here, and it seems the damage to the car must have been done in the afternoon because otherwise Conrad would have seen it in the morning. He really did know about cars apparently – but I expect Sophie Forrester told you that?’

  He says nothing and I plough on. ‘So, somebody vandalised the car in the afternoon, but it wasn’t one of us because we were all together, rehearsing.’

  ‘And before that you were all eating lunch t
ogether?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And James Asquith joined you for lunch?’

  ‘No, he went back into the castle, but – well, I’m sure Ray Porter was with him – they were together when the rest of us got back.‘

  He makes a note. ‘Well, we shall be talking to Porter later on.’

  He sits looking at me in a way that is making me feel uncomfortable, but it is Ingrid Larsen who rouses herself from her stolid silence and says, ‘Virginia?’ I open my mouth to say Oh, Gina, please but she is pressing on. ‘I was surprised that you are so anxious to defend Asquith. No-one else we have spoken to this morning was interested to defend him, not even, I may say –’ and here she glances at Mortensen, ‘ – Asquith himself.’

  I don’t think this deserves more than a shrug but just as I’m brushing it off she says, ‘I am wondering what is your relationship with Asquith. Your daughter told us something interesting. She said you were happy to be here because you like being with young people.’ She glances at her notes, but I think it’s only for show. ‘She said you have a boyfriend who was your student before.’

  I am speechless for a moment as outrage at Annie’s thoughtlessness and this woman’s stupidity fight with one another. Then I laugh. It’s not all that convincing as laughs go because it has to force its way past all the rage that’s clogging my throat up, but it’s good enough. ‘Oh, language is such a trap, isn’t it?’ I say, addressing myself firmly to Anders Mortensen. ‘Boyfriend. Really, age thirty is the absolute upper limit for boyfriend and girlfriend, don’t you think? We really don’t have an appropriate term in English for later life companions. Do you have anything better in Danish? Well, anyway, I don’t know what kind of theory Ingrid here is dreaming up about my hanging around with these students because I’m some sort of predatory cradle-snatcher, but when my daughter spoke of my boyfriend, she will have been referring to a good friend of mine who is forty-three years old and –’ I am about to say that he’s a detective chief inspector in the British police force, but something warns me off; it might just alienate them ‘– and is a respected professional man,’ I finish rather lamely. Mortensen smiles; Ingrid shrugs sullenly and busies herself with her notes. I turn to her. ‘And if you were wondering about the three-year-old child I have with me, she’s not a love-child of my hormonal middle age. I’m her grandmother. And that’s a role I’m very happy with.’