‘Karsten’s bøsse, Richard. Gay. I’m surprised you didn’t know that. As a friend of his.’
‘How do you know?’ It was the best retort Eusden could manage.
‘We’ve met a few times. It was obvious.’
‘Maybe you’re just his type and I’m not.’
‘Stop fucking me about, Richard. Where’s Karsten?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, that makes two of us, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes. It does.’
The arrival of the beers imposed a brief truce, which Norvig extended by sitting back in his chair to savour his first swallow and following it with a thoughtful pull on his cigarette. ‘What do you do for a living, Richard?’
‘I’m a civil servant. I work at the Foreign Office in London.’
‘The Foreign Office?’
‘That’s right. What about you?’
‘Freelance journalist.’
‘Were you meeting Karsten… about a story?’
‘Yes. I was.’
‘Did it involve… Tolmar Aksden?’
Norvig smiled. ‘There it is. That name. Tolmar Aksden. The Invisible Man. Yup. He was on the agenda, all right. Are you interested in him… officially?’
‘Officially? No. I’m on leave.’
‘Which you’re spending with your not very close friend Karsten Burgaard in Århus. In the middle of winter. That’s great. That’s so likely.’
Eusden did not react. He was beginning to feel he might actually win out in the trading of points. ‘Have you written about Aksden before?’
‘Most Danish journalists have. Tell me, Richard, do you ride?’
‘What?’
‘Do you ride? Horses, I mean.’
‘No.’
‘Well, I do. And when I was a boy I worked weekends at a stable. It means I know what horseshit smells like. So, stop shovelling it in my direction, OK? Karsten told me two Englishmen had shown up in Århus with access to highly sensitive information about Tolmar Aksden. The sort of stuff that might knock a couple of digits off Mjollnir’s share price for starters. I’m guessing you’re one of those two Englishmen. Let me finish before you deny it. Karsten’s given me titbits about Mjollnir quite a few times. It’s his specialty. He made it clear this was something big, something… shattering. He needed to collect some documents from a woman staying at the Phoenix. Then we were to meet. He never showed. Now, I don’t know what you had going with him and I don’t necessarily care. If you’ve got the documents, I might be in the market for them, no questions asked. You understand?’
Eusden stared Norvig down as calmly as he could before responding. ‘I don’t have the documents.’
‘Do you know where they are?’
‘I-’
A phone began ringing in one of Norvig’s pockets. ‘Skide,’ he said, pulling it out. ‘Unskyld. Hallo?’ His face was a mask during the conversation that followed, to which he contributed little beyond ja, nej, okay and tak, interspersed with sighs suggesting that something other than unalloyed good news was being conveyed to him. He said nothing at first after ringing off, gazing at a point in the middle distance somewhere over Eusden’s shoulder. Then he murmured, ‘Karsten’s dead.’
‘What?’
‘He hit the wall of a flyover on the motorway near Skanderborg early this morning. High-speed crash. No other car involved. Apparently.’
The shock was followed for Eusden by the sickening realization that if Burgaard had not decided to go it alone, they would have been together in his car. ‘What do you mean – “apparently”?’
‘It was around four thirty. Empty road. No witnesses.’
‘You’re suggesting… he was run off the road?’
‘Did I say that? Fuck, this is serious.’ Norvig contemplated just how serious over several nervous drags on his cigarette. ‘No, no. They wouldn’t. It must have been just… an accident. Maybe there was ice. Maybe he was… careless.’
‘But you don’t think so.’
‘I don’t know.’ Norvig grabbed his phone again, as if intending to make a call. Then he thought better of it and clunked it down on the table. ‘You got here safely, didn’t you?’ He glared accusingly at Eusden as he stubbed out his cigarette.
‘Look, I know nothing about this. I came by train.’
‘Who’s the woman at the Phoenix?’
‘She’s gone.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t matter.’
‘The other Englishman, then. Who’s he?’
‘Marty Hewitson. He is a friend.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Århus. But he’ll be here soon. Probably tomorrow.’
‘OK, Richard. Let’s be cool. Accidents happen. Business is business. You get these… documents. You have them in your hand. They deliver what Karsten promised. Then I’m interested. Anything less – any more horseshit – forget it.’ Norvig scribbled a number on a corner of the front page of Børsen, tore it off and passed it to Eusden. ‘Call me. If there’s something to talk about. If not, we never met. Understood?’
‘Understood.’
They left separately, at Norvig’s insistence. Eusden would actually have been glad of his company, rattled as he was by the news of Burgaard’s death. An accident was credible enough. He had probably been speeding, his head full of plans to smooth talk Vicky into handing over the case. Or maybe he had just fallen asleep at the wheel. Oh, yes, an accident was the obvious explanation. And yet… And yet.
Eusden walked up Nyhavn to Kongens Nytorv, the broad square at the eastern end of Strøget. He was in no hurry to return to his cramped room at the Phoenix. He knew he ought to eat something but had no appetite. His senses were alert, his nerves jangling. He felt exposed and helpless and foolish for feeling so. Marty needed to be told what had happened, but there was no way Århus Kommunehospital was going to put a call through to him at this hour. Eusden was trapped between the urge to act and the certainty that for the moment there was nothing he could do.
He remembered there was a quaint old bar on the square where he had passed a carefree hour one summer’s night back in 1989: Hviids Vinstue. He went in, found it reassuringly unaltered and drank several glasses of the house schnapps. Alcohol soon began to take the edge off his anxiety. Burgaard had killed himself in a car crash. That was all there was to it. There was no second car, no van speeding past, then swerving in, causing Burgaard to swerve and skid. It was-
A van. Marty had nearly been run over by one before collapsing at the bus stop. Maybe there really was a plot. And maybe the plotters had banked on Eusden being in the car as well. Maybe they had only just – or still not – learnt that Burgaard had left him behind. His mouth dried as he found himself actually crediting the possibility.
He decided to go back to the Phoenix. Cramped or not, his room promised safety if nothing else. He finished his schnapps and left.
A short distance round the square was Copenhagen’s grand hotel, the d’Angleterre, where he and Gemma had taken Holly for tea one afternoon, earning the girl’s highest accolade: ‘Ace.’ Eusden paused to gaze in at the hotel’s warmly lit windows. It was to occur to him later in the evening that if he had lingered at Hviids just a little longer or alternatively pressed straight on in that instant, he would not have been standing there when a couple emerged from the d’Angleterre into the chill night air.
The woman was fur-coated and -hatted, amply proportioned in height and girth, dark-skinned and statuesquely poised. She stopped, instantly aware of Eusden’s astonished gaze and that the cause of his astonishment was not her, but her companion, a tall, middle-aged man in a dark-green overcoat. ‘Do you know this gentleman, Werner?’ she asked in a lilting American accent. ‘He certainly seems to know you.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Straub gave Eusden a wintry smile. ‘We know each other.’
TWENTY-ONE
‘Richard Eusden. Regina Celeste.’ Straub managed the introductions with m
easured aplomb. Eusden had already guessed that the lady was the moneybags from Virginia Straub had been planning to sell the contents of the case to. What he could not guess was who he planned to say Eusden was. But he did not have to wait long to find out. ‘Richard’s a friend of Marty Hewitson’s.’ This was a surprise. Did he propose to continue by explaining how he had treated Marty? No, of course not. ‘Is he here with you in Copenhagen, Richard?’
‘It would be so convenient if he was,’ said Regina as Eusden hesitated over an answer. ‘The man’s been leading us quite a dance.’
‘Has he really?’
‘I’m afraid it’s the kind of thing I’ve gotten used to since I became an Anastasian.’
‘A what?’
‘A true believer in the Grand Duchess. Anastasia Manahan. Maybe you don’t call yourself that over here. But I guess you must be one if you’re a friend of Mr Hewitson’s. So, where’s he hiding himself?’
‘I… don’t really know.’
‘What has brought you to Copenhagen, then?’ asked Straub.
‘The same as you, perhaps.’
‘Why don’t you join us for dinner, Mr Eusden?’ Regina trilled. ‘We were on our way to a restaurant. Close by, you said, Werner?’
‘Very.’
‘We could talk there. And from what Werner tells me, we have plenty to talk about.’
‘Indeed,’ said Straub. His guarded expression revealed some scanty hints of alarm mixed with determined opportunism. He obviously did not want Eusden to tell Regina what he had done to Marty, though it was equally obvious he would merely utter a horrified and doubtless credible denial. But nor did he want Eusden to melt away into the night. Happenstance had given him the chance to probe his opponent’s defences, albeit vicariously. But it was a chance that cut both ways.
‘I’d be delighted to join you,’ said Eusden.
The Restaurant Els was indeed close by, only a short step away across the square, a candle-lit haven of mirrors and murals presided over by the prominently mounted head of the eponymous elk. Or, as Regina described him, ‘My Lord, a moose.’
They were settled at a table and supplied with menus. Aperitifs were declined on the grounds that champagne had already been quaffed at the d’Angleterre. Eusden was happy to go along with this. His head was clear despite the amount he had already drunk, but he needed to keep it that way. He and Straub had embarked on a battle of wits, with Regina as unwitting referee. Predictably, Straub sought to seize the initiative, by creatively refashioning the circumstances of their acquaintance for Regina’s benefit.
In this version of events, Eusden had been visiting Marty in Amsterdam after hearing of his friend’s illness, and had accompanied him to Hamburg at the time of Marty’s initial discussions with Straub about selling his grandfather’s archive of Anastasia-related documents. ‘I had intended we would both meet you in Frankfurt, Regina,’ Straub continued, ‘but Marty was too ill to travel. Then came our great surprise, Richard. When we arrived at the Vier Jahreszeiten yesterday, we found you and Marty had left.’
‘Destination unknown,’ put in Regina, who had discarded her furs to reveal a helmet of tightly curled gold-grey hair, a dramatically cut purple dress and an extravagant amount of cleavage. With her huge eyes and vast, ever-present smile, she seemed cast as cheerleader for Straub’s artfully ad-libbed cover story. He had clearly done a lot of thinking on his feet over the past couple of days. And now it was Eusden’s turn to do the same.
Supplied with extra thinking time by the taking of food orders and Straub’s theatrical agonizing over the wine list, Eusden embarked on what he reckoned was the least implausible of many improbable explanations for his presence in Copenhagen. ‘Marty persuaded me to go home on Tuesday. He said he was feeling a lot better and I had work commitments to deal with in London, so it seemed to make sense. I booked a flight and set off for the airport. But I had the impression Marty was trying to get rid of me. I don’t know why. It worried me. In the end, I couldn’t go. I thought he might be sicker than he was letting on. So, I doubled back to the hotel. To my surprise, they said he’d just booked out. The porter said he’d put him in a taxi to the central train station. I headed off there. It’s a big place, as you know, Werner. Logically, I stood no chance of finding him. But, as it happened, I did spot him, boarding a train to Copenhagen. It pulled out before I could make it to the platform. I had no idea what he was up to. I still haven’t. I followed by the next train. I’ve been trawling the hotels since I arrived, trying to track him down. So far, without any luck.’
‘You’ve rung him, of course,’ Straub prompted.
‘No answer. It’s very strange. I’m seriously concerned about him.’
‘Of course.’ Straub nodded sympathetically. ‘I was annoyed, I must admit, that he left Hamburg without warning, but from what you say he may be in some… difficulty.’
‘What kinda difficulty might that be?’ asked Regina. It was undeniably a good question.
‘Who can say, my dear?’ Straub took on an air of stoic puzzlement. ‘We must be grateful, however, that chance has come to our aid so… remarkably. Perhaps we will be able to reach an agreement with Marty after all.’
‘It’s certainly remarkable that you decided to come to Copenhagen,’ Eusden observed.
‘I insisted,’ said Regina, sailing once more in her full-rigged fashion to Straub’s rescue. ‘I couldn’t pass up the chance of taking a look at Hvidøre.’
‘The Dowager Empress’s home in Klampenborg.’ Straub shot Eusden a triumphant little smile. ‘We plan to visit it tomorrow.’
‘You might like to come along,’ said Regina. Eusden was beginning to sense she thought he could prove a more agreeable companion than Straub. ‘How’d that be, Werner?’
‘It’s up to Richard. He may have… other plans.’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Eusden, thinking rapidly ahead. ‘Could I let you know?’
‘It’d be great if you could make it,’ said Regina. ‘I’ve read such a lot about the place. There’s a tower on the roof where they say Dagmar used to sit and look out to sea – east, towards Russia. So much scheming and intriguing went on there. It’s where all those grand dukes and duchesses put their treacherous heads together and signed the Copenhagen Statement denying Anastasia her birthright. I see the month of Dagmar’s death – October 1928 – as the turning point in the whole conspiracy against my cousin. Wouldn’t you agree, Werner?’
‘I would,’ Straub replied, breaking off from a carefully considered appraisal of the wine.
‘By your cousin,’ Eusden began, ‘you mean…’
‘Anastasia. Well, cousin-in-law, I guess I oughta say.’
Regina set off without the need of further encouragement on an animated but not always coherent account of the intertwined genealogies of the Bonaventures of North Carolina (Celeste was merely her married name) and the Manahans of Virginia that carried them through their starters and some of the way into their main courses. Eusden eventually deduced that much of her vagueness about assorted aunts, uncles and cousins once, twice or thrice removed was designed to obscure the year, indeed the decade, of her birth. The impression she gave of her age fluctuated bewilderingly. Sometimes she seemed no older than forty, sometimes no younger than sixty. Exactly when she had married her late husband, Louis Celeste, of Celeste Ice Cream Parlors fame, was far from clear. What was clear was that she had applied her well-funded widowhood to a pursuit of proof positive that Anna Anderson, late-life bride of her distant cousin Jack Manahan, was in truth Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaievna.
‘I had the pleasure and honour of attending her eightieth birthday party, in June 1981, and her very last birthday party, two years later. There never was a doubt in my mind she was who she said she was. You know true royalty when you meet it.’ (Eusden idly wondered how extensive Regina’s experience of true royalty actually was.) ‘I had my suspicions about the whole DNA thing right from the start, let me tell you. The Martha
Jefferson Hospital finds a sample in a jar of Anastasia’s intestine they’d supposedly had standing on a shelf in a cupboard since an operation back in 1979. We don’t have any way of knowing how securely it’d been stored over the intervening decade and then some, but there surely were strange things going on in Charlottesville in the fall of 1992, when the hospital came out and said they had no sample, then changed their mind and said they did after all. I dug out a report in the Daily Progress of a janitor at the hospital being knocked cold by an intruder one night in November of that year, a few weeks before the change of mind. Now, what do you make of that, Richard?’
‘That’s the Charlottesville Daily Progress,’ Straub smilingly clarified.
‘Poor cousin Jack was dead by then, thank the Good Lord,’ Regina proceeded, sparing Eusden the need to say what he made of anything. ‘If he hadn’t been, I reckon the rank injustice of that whole proceeding would have finished him. The Romanovs saw their chance to foist that Polish peasant identity on Anastasia and they grabbed it. You can’t deny their thoroughness. They must have thought they had her right where they wanted her for all time. But now we might be able to turn the tables on them. If we can find your friend Marty Hewitson, Richard.’
‘You’ve no idea where he is?’ pressed Straub.
‘None at all, I’m afraid. I’ll just have to… keep looking.’
‘He didn’t happen to open the case in front of you, did he?’ asked Regina.
‘No such luck. I actually know less about the contents of the case than I imagine you two do.’
‘There will come a time to put that right if you can locate it,’ said Straub, holding Eusden’s gaze.
‘Amen to that,’ said Regina, gulping some wine. ‘It could be the answer to our prayers.’
Regina ordered a dessert after the main courses were cleared, then adjourned to powder her nose. It was a moment Eusden had been preparing himself for, when he and Straub could drop the pretences they had both been maintaining. And Straub had obviously been preparing for it as well. The second the door leading to the loo had closed behind her, he launched in.
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