Found Wanting

by Robert Goddard

  ‘Yes. I am.’

  ‘Is your name Coningsby?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘He wanted to send a message to someone called Coningsby. It was the last thing he said, while he was lying there.’ She pointed towards the door into the nave. ‘He had only gone a few steps from here when he stopped and bent his head. He reached out as if he was trying to find something to hold on to. But the wall was too far away. I realized he was not well and went to help him, but he fell on to the floor before I could get to him. Some other visitors came over to help also. We held up his head. I’m not sure he could see us. His eyes were… strange. And it was difficult for him to speak.’

  ‘But he did speak.’

  ‘Yes. He asked us to give a message to Coningsby. Then he… died.’

  ‘I’m Coningsby. It’s not my name. But… it’s what he sometimes called me.’

  ‘Then the message is for you.’

  ‘Yes.’ Eusden nodded. ‘What is it?’

  ‘“Tell Coningsby the babushka was right.” ’

  The babushka. Of course. Eusden had forgotten all about her. Until now.

  ‘Does it mean something?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It certainly does.’

  THIRTY

  September, 1976. The burnt-out end of a blazing summer. Gemma suggested a trip to Paris as an enjoyable way to fill the gap between their holiday jobs and the start of the Michaelmas term at Cambridge. She roped in a schoolfriend of hers called Pamela and made all the arrangements. They were to meet at Portsmouth and catch the ferry to Le Havre.

  The day before setting off, Richard accompanied his mother, for want of anything better to do, on one of her monthly shopping trips to Southampton. Browsing in Gilbert’s Bookshop, a multi-floored repository of literary riches to which he always gravitated, he made, as usual, an impulse buy. The File on the Tsar by Anthony Summers and Tom Mangold, hot off the press.

  Marty picked up the book whenever Richard put it down during the Channel crossing and rail journey to Paris. Soon they were both talking of little else, much to Gemma’s annoyance. Foot-slogging round the Louvre at Pamela’s insistence, they were taken to task for neglecting the artworks in favour of arguing about whether the women of the imperial family could have been secretly evacuated from Ekaterinburg to Perm, as the authors suggested, before the night of the alleged massacre.

  Marty rapidly developed a conspiracy theory fingering Lord Mountbatten as orchestrator of a plot to deny Anastasia her inheritance: millions of pounds supposedly salted away in the Bank of England by the Tsar. He was excited to discover that Mathilde Kschessinska, the elderly ballerina who had been the Tsar’s mistress prior to his marriage and had subsequently married one of his cousins, lived in Paris. She had given an interview on French television in 1967, when she was ninety-five, supporting Anna Anderson’s claim. Gemma, forced to read the relevant passage in the book, pointed out that if Mathilde was still alive she would have to be well over a hundred, but Marty was undaunted in his enthusiasm for tracking down the old lady.

  Gemma had earmarked their last morning in Paris for a visit to Les Invalides, but Marty had other ideas. In the end, the girls went to see Napoleon’s tomb on their own, while he and Richard headed for Little Russia, the area around Alexander Nevsky Orthodox Cathedral where Russian exiles had settled after the Revolution. There was nowhere better, according to him, to ask after surviving Romanovs and gauge opinion.

  The results were disappointing. The haughty proprietor of a Russian bookshop informed them that the ‘Grand Duchess Mathilde’ was dead. He cast a scornful eye over their by now dog-eared copy of The File on the Tsar and said there were ‘many, many lies’ told about the imperial family. Marty had also failed to check the opening times of the cathedral. They had come on a day when visitors were not admitted.

  Recrimination threatened to break out as they stood in front of the cathedral, gazing at its golden domes and firmly closed door. Then Marty noticed an old woman dressed in threadbare clothes pinning up an advertisement on the noticeboard attached to the wall of the diocesan office. She was clad entirely in black. Her face, peering out from a tightly fastened headscarf, was lined like a dried riverbed. Her advert was in Russian and French. It offered her services to the local community as a clairvoyant. Marty tackled her in English to no avail, but he and Richard managed to communicate with her eventually in rudimentary French. Had she known the Grand Duchess Mathilde? Yes. Also Mathilde’s son, her husband and assorted cousins. Did she know anything about the woman who claimed to be Anastasia? Yes again. She knew much, which she was willing to share with them – if they were willing to stand her a meal. She was poor, hungry, neglected – and a fount of information.

  Information the babushka, as Marty later dubbed her, undeniably possessed. And she purveyed a great deal of it while slurping soup and sipping vodka in a nearby bar, where she was clearly viewed with well-entrenched suspicion by the staff. Unfortunately for Marty and Richard, the portion they could actually understand of what she said added little to the sum of their knowledge. Mathilde’s husband, the Grand Duke Andrei, had also expressed his belief in Anna Anderson and that was good enough for the babushka, who had once shaken his hand and held it long enough to sense, as she had informed him, that his son would betray him. Sure enough, the son, Vladimir – ‘la vipère Vova’, as she called him – had gone over to the other side and denounced Anna as an impostor. Why? ‘Pour l’argent. Toujours pour l’argent.’ It was, she flatly declared, the real ruin of the Romanovs. ‘La cupidité.’ Greed. ‘Thanks for the startling insight,’ murmured Marty as she downed another vodka.

  Sensing perhaps that she had inadequately repaid their generosity, the babushka concluded by offering to read their palms. Richard declined, but Marty submitted gleefully. He was rewarded with vague predictions of good fortune and wealth which so dissatisfied him that he demanded to be told how long he was going to live. Longer than her, the babushka cutely replied, adding, almost as an afterthought: ‘Vous mourrez dans un endroit sacré.’

  Marty laughed at the idea that he would die in a holy place. Gemma, when told the story later, remarked that he would be lucky to be buried in a holy place, let alone die in one. They were at the top of the Eiffel Tower at the time, admiring a smudge on the horizon that Pamela insisted was Chartres Cathedral. ‘I hate cathedrals,’ Marty whispered to Richard, ‘and now I’ve got the perfect excuse to avoid them.’

  Eusden walked out of Roskilde Cathedral into the cold grey Danish afternoon. But his mind lingered in the dazzling sunshine of Paris thirty years ago. He saw Marty smiling at him across a café table in Montmartre. He felt the heat flung back at him from the stone wall above the quay on the Île St-Louis. He heard the past calling to him. And he could not answer.

  ‘Mr Eusden?’

  A chubby, shaven-headed man in a grey suit, white shirt and navy-blue tie was standing in his path. Behind him, a gleaming black Mercedes was parked at the roadside. Eusden’s thoughts were suddenly wrenched back to the present. ‘Yes,’ he said weakly.

  ‘I have instructions to drive you to Mjollnir HQ.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mjollnir. Birgitte Grøn wants to see you.’

  ‘Who?’

  The chauffeur smiled wanly. ‘My boss.’

  ‘I don’t know her. And I don’t think I want to meet her.’

  ‘Hold on, please.’ The chauffeur took out his phone and made a call. He spoke a few words in Danish, then passed the phone to Eusden. ‘It’s her.’

  ‘Hello?’ said Eusden cautiously.

  ‘Richard Eusden?’ The voice was clipped and brittle enough to hint at impatience.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I am Birgitte Grøn, CFO of Mjollnir. We need to talk.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Things that cannot be discussed on the phone. Jørgen will bring you to my office.’

  ‘Maybe I don’t want to be brought.’

  ‘And maybe I don’t want to be here on a Saturda
y afternoon, Mr Eusden. But I am. And you’ll come and talk to me. Because, if you don’t, the police will get a name to put to the description they have of a man they wish to question about the murders last night of a lawyer called Anders Kjeldsen and a journalist called Henning Norvig. My office is much more comfortable than an interview room at police headquarters. And nobody will be recording what you say. So, I suggest you get in the car. I’ll expect you shortly.’

  THIRTY-ONE

  An entire second city appeared to be under construction south of Copenhagen. Eusden gazed out through the tinted window of the Mercedes at the office complexes and apartment blocks rearing up between clusters of cranes and mountains of earth where their neighbours were soon to be. This was the future. And at its heart, raised like a finger pointed to the sky, was what Jørgen informed him was called Det Blå Tryllestav – the Blue Wand: an ultramarine-louvred tower of glass housing Mjollnir AS.

  Jørgen drove straight into the underground car park and escorted Eusden to the lift. An ear-poppingly high-speed ascent took him to the top of the tower. The lift doors opened to a scene of deserted open-plan workstations through which strode a snappily trouser-suited woman who greeted him as she approached. ‘Mr Eusden. I’m Birgitte Grøn.’

  She was small and slightly built, about forty-five, with shortish blonde hair, a sharp-featured face and slender letterbox-framed glasses. Beneath her pink shirt she wore an austerely wrought platinum necklace. She looked brisk and business like and spoke in a tone that suggested their meeting was no different from half a dozen others she might expect to manage in an average day.

  ‘Come through to my office,’ she said after a perfunctory handshake. ‘We have the place to ourselves this afternoon. Mjollnir doesn’t encourage weekend working. But this is an emergency.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yes. For us as well as you.’ She marched back the way she had come and Eusden followed. ‘I wouldn’t be here otherwise.’

  They entered a large glass-walled office carpeted and furnished in restful pastels and pale wood. A man was waiting there for them, dressed in a black suit and open-necked white shirt. He looked about fifty, balding and neatly bearded, with a melancholic blue-eyed gaze.

  ‘Erik Lund, CSO,’ said Birgitte.

  Eusden shook the man’s hand. Lund’s grip was strong, his expression unsmiling.

  ‘What does the S stand for?’

  ‘Security,’ said Lund.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Would you like tea or coffee, Mr Eusden?’ asked Birgitte.

  ‘Coffee would be nice. Black. No sugar.’

  ‘A man of your own tastes, Erik,’ said Birgitte. ‘Pour him a cup, would you? Nothing for me. Let’s sit.’

  They sat at a broad maple conference table angled towards a corner of the building and commanding a chevroned view of the vast construction site that stretched away towards the centre of Copenhagen.

  ‘Please accept my condolences for the death of your friend.’

  ‘Am I supposed to take that seriously?’

  ‘I said it seriously.’

  ‘You’ll be telling me next Karsten Burgaard’s death really was an accident.’

  ‘As far as I know, it was.’ Birgitte gave him a faintly sympathetic smile that hinted at a vivacious persona she left at home every morning. ‘You’ve had twenty-four rough hours, I think. That looks nasty.’ She acknowledged with a nod the combined effect of the plastered gash on his forehead and the black eye below it. ‘You look tired. And a little desperate. If you don’t mind me saying.’ Lund delivered the coffee and sat down next to her. ‘Maybe that’ll help.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Eusden took a sip. And it did help – a little.

  ‘If you have any questions…’

  ‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me why I’m here soon enough.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Then this’ll do to be going on with: where’s Tolmar Aksden?’

  ‘Helsinki.’

  ‘Saukko Bank taking up a lot of his time, is it?’

  ‘No more than he expected.’

  ‘But he’s… authorized this meeting?’

  ‘He trusts me, Mr Eusden. I act with his authority.’

  ‘Is that a yes or a no?’

  Lund muttered something in Danish which Birgitte appeared to ignore. ‘This is what you need to know,’ she proceeded. ‘The police have already matched the bullets found in Kjeldsen and Norvig with the gun found near the bodies of two motorcyclists killed in a collision with a lorry on Østbanegade late last night. The motorcyclists themselves haven’t been identified yet. They were carrying millions of kroner in cash. The lorry driver thinks they were chasing a man who ran across the road in front of him. Earlier, a caretaker was locked in Kjeldsen’s office at Jorcks Passage by a man he thinks was English and who said he was going to Marmorvej – the quay where Kjeldsen and Norvig were shot dead. The police don’t have a very good description of this man. Their chances of finding him are poor. He probably left his fingerprints in numerous locations. But I doubt they’re held in the Europol database, so, unless they’re given a name…’

  ‘You’ve made your point.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’

  ‘Help.’

  ‘My help?’

  ‘Yes. We have a… situation… we need to deal with.’

  ‘What kind of situation?’

  ‘We’ve been contacted by the people we believe employed those two motorcyclists to kill Kjeldsen and Norvig and take back the money they’d been paid. We don’t know who these people are. Let’s call them… the Opposition. They have material that could damage our CEO and therefore the company… quite severely. They’re willing to sell it to us. And we’re willing to buy it. Frankly speaking, we have no choice. We face… a potential disaster.’

  ‘What is the material?’

  ‘Don’t you know, Mr Eusden?’

  ‘Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t.’

  Another Danish mutter from Lund elicited a tight frown of irritation from Birgitte. ‘We’re not here to discuss the nature or detail of the material. We believe it originated from your late friend’s grandfather, Clement Hewitson. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Marty Hewitson left it with Kjeldsen for safekeeping. Kjeldsen stole it and contacted Norvig, a journalist who has written several articles hostile to this company. Between them, they set up a deal with the Opposition, who then double-crossed them. Is that how it was?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘You were lucky to survive, Mr Eusden.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And that’s lucky for us. Because you’ve seen the material. You know what it looks like in its original form. Yes?’

  ‘Yes. So?’

  ‘The Opposition may try to sell us fakes. They’ve already demonstrated they can’t be relied on to deal fairly. We need someone who can authenticate the material. We need you.’

  ‘I may have seen it, but I haven’t studied it. I wouldn’t necessarily know whether it was all there.’

  ‘You’ll have to do the best you can. We have no one else we can use.’

  ‘You mean you have no one else you can blackmail into taking the risk that these people may do what they did to Kjeldsen and Norvig all over again.’

  ‘That’s unlikely. Kjeldsen and Norvig were selling. We’re buying.’

  ‘Nice distinction.’

  ‘An important one. Besides, the Opposition won’t want to lose any more men. I doubt last night’s… exposure… will have pleased them.’

  ‘It didn’t exactly please me.’

  ‘We appreciate that, Mr Eusden. You have my personal apology for involving you. I regret there’s no alternative.’

  ‘There is for me. Maybe I’d rather take my chances with the police than a faceless bunch of hoodlums from who knows where.’

  ‘I wouldn’t advise it. Think of your career, Mr Eusden. Think of your pension. Think of the months of uncertaint
y about what charge you’d face – or what sentence if convicted. We’re offering you a much better deal.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound like it.’

  ‘That’s because I haven’t finished. We’re not asking you to pick up the material on a deserted quayside in the middle of the night. Everything will be done in controlled surroundings. There’ll be no danger.’

  ‘So you say.’

  ‘To prove it, we’re sending someone with you.’ Eusden looked doubtfully at Lund. ‘Who?’

  ‘Not me,’ growled Lund.

  ‘Mjollnir can’t be linked with this, Mr Eusden,’ said Birgitte. ‘We have to have… deniability.’

  Did Tolmar Aksden know what his subordinate was doing? Eusden was still uncertain on the point. Birgitte Grøn had been at pains to emphasize that it was Mjollnir’s interests she was serving. Maybe she saw a crucial distinction between them and those of the company’s founder. ‘I suppose this conversation isn’t actually taking place.’

  ‘You suppose correctly.’

  ‘Who are you sending with me, then?’

  ‘Pernille Madsen.’

  ‘Tolmar’s ex-wife?’

  ‘Yes.’

  This was a surprise, to put it mildly. And one which only heightened Eusden’s suspicion that Tolmar Aksden himself had been left out of the loop. ‘Why her?’

  ‘Interesting question. It suggests you really haven’t studied the material. The damage would be to all members of our CEO’s family, particularly his son. Pernille is a loving mother. She wants to protect her child.’ Birgitte delicately cleared her throat. ‘I would do the same in her position.’

  ‘And what exactly is it you expect her – expect us – to do?’

  ‘Pernille has been fully briefed. She’ll tell you all you need to know when you need to know it.’

  ‘Marvellous.’

  ‘Erik has pointed out to me that we need to minimize the possibility of third-party involvement.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Straub,’ said Lund, in a tone that suggested it was Danish for a drain blockage.