Camilla hears the shrill tone in his voice. She hears a slight stutter. In all the years they have worked together, she had never seen Lars as nervous as he was when they met earlier. She has never heard him stammer before. Something snaps in her brain. She sees and hears everything as in slow motion: heads nodding slowly when Lars suggests a break. She sees people getting up slowly, leaving the room, the press pushing through the crowd, journalists coming toward her, camera lenses zooming in on her face. They are coming for her. There is nothing behind her but the wall. In a moment, they will reach her.
A hand clasps her elbow. She turns and looks into a vaguely familiar face. “Come with me. Now!”
She does not consider his demand, allowing her instincts to guide her. A single thought strikes her; he must be from PET, the Danish Fraud Squad. She follows the man with the relief of the condemned. She experiences no danger, no fear, just this disinterested observation of everything that is happening around her. As if she is watching somebody else, somebody she doesn’t even care for.
With the trust of an innocent, she places her life in this stranger’s hands.
Chapter 3
He grasps her hand and pulls her through the crowds until they reach an almost invisible and narrow door. They enter a room stacked with chairs and tables, whiteboards, and cables. Faintly, Camilla smells burned electricity. From here, they move to a smaller conference hall where an older man is talking about the climate. They move along the back wall, and only a few people in the audience turn and see them, but the lecturer picks up the movement and loses his thread. But nobody seems to notice that, nor that two people are running along the back walls. Camilla follows the stranger, her hand in his, through a door along the back wall that opens into a long, dark corridor. They walk into the reception area and through a set of revolving doors. I am being spit out, she thinks, discharged from the elite society of executives. The cold hits her like a slap to the face.
A dark blue Aston Martin, with its engine running and purring powerfully, is parked outside the front doors. Hardly PET, she thinks. Either white knights do indeed exist, or I am in big trouble. Her instincts tell her to trust this man with his calm confidence. A chauffeur in a black suit and cap stands by and opens the door to the back seat. She gets in. The smell of leather and new car greets her. The stranger climbs into the back seat next to her.
“Let’s get away from here, Jens,” the stranger says, then turns and reaches out his hand. “Your phone, Camilla! We need to get rid of it. The press is able to use it to track you.”
Reluctantly she hands him her phone and watches as the window slides down and her phone sails out and into the darkness.
The Munkebjerg Hotel is situated in the forest east of Vejle. Camilla looks out the window, seeing that they are heading down the steep, winding road through the woods. Camilla is acutely aware of the sound of the car’s warning growl and the blurred view of the trees as they pass, trees that are unmoved and untouched by her destiny. They will be here tomorrow just the same, she thinks, as they were here yesterday. There’s something so eternal about the trees, even though they are not. They seem to be witnesses from another time, a final legacy of the country’s primordial plains and deep, dark forests.
“Who is—” she begins.
At the same time, the man who took her from the conference turns his head toward her and stretches out his hand, “I better introduce myself. Francis Scott-Wren. We have met before.” His hand is dry and warm, and he has a firm handshake. She can smell his discreet cologne in the confined space. It must be a Clive Christian. Nothing less would do for him, she thinks, assessing his gray, bespoke suit and crisp white shirt.
And then it strikes her. She recognizes that scent. She met this man at a party Lars threw a couple of years back. And he had ignored her completely, for which she had been slightly huffed at the time. Lars had seemed to dote on him, though.
“Camilla Bang-Henriksen,” she replies. “I have some questions.” She can hear the frost in her own voice. Treat this as a business issue, she thinks, not a personal problem.
The man nods, “Of course!”
She lists her questions on her fingers, “Why are you coming to my rescue if that’s what you are doing? Why were you at Munkebjerg? Are you an investor? Analyst? Where are we going? What do you want?”
He holds up a hand. “Allow me to start with the question of why I’m coming to your rescue—and yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing. Let’s just say that I understand the seriousness of your situation, even if you yourself do not understand the implications yet. As to what I was doing at Munkebjerg, I am a small investor in Asnerock and have had some concern regarding management for a little while. Hence, I decided to drop in on the general assembly and have a closer look at your executive team.”
She inclines her head slowly. So far, so good. He is making sense.
His eyes have not left her since he introduced himself. But there is no emotional concern or male interest in his glance. Just a clinical observation. He is examining me, checking me for shock, she realizes. He is afraid I will become hysterical. She has to suppress a laugh, her—hysterical? If anything, her psychological disposition is to go the opposite way, into darkness and silence. She knows that this calm and clarity she has now will disappear when the immediate danger is over. Then she will take one of her customary journeys down to the underworld’s slimy, melancholic damnation.
She meets his gaze. “Where are you taking me?”
“You decide. Where do you want to go?”
“A train station would be fine. Main Railway Station?”
“Where do you want to go by train?” he asks with an apologizing gesture. “I don’t mean to pry, but you can’t go home. You do realize that, don’t you?”
She looks at him, wide-eyed. The reality finally hits her. What happened tonight is not something that will be forgotten in a few hours. It is not a harmless faux pas. The events of tonight are critical, career-destroying, and life-changing. Her coolness evaporates. She feels vulnerable.
“Your apartment in Frederiksberg will by now be besieged by the press, and they will camp out there until you show up—or until something bigger and more sensational turns up. Whichever comes first. And I have to tell you; it’s got to be pretty big to top your story. I am sorry, but I do not think you’re ready to meet the press just yet.” He raises an eyebrow at her.
She shakes her head. No, she is so not ready. She has to master her story first. And in order to do that, she needs to know what happened.
“Can you explain what happened?” she asks him.
He shakes his head almost sadly, “No, not yet. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself.”
He knows, but will not tell me, she thinks. Damn him! “Why can’t you just tell me? Is this a game?”
His gaze is tender, almost sad. “No, Camilla, it’s definitely not a game. But you have to find your own explanation. Otherwise, your healing won’t work. I will help you understand the actual circumstances, but you need to figure out for yourself how you arrived in this situation, Camilla.”
Don’t use my bloody name, she thinks, her anger rising. It’s as if he were trying to talk down a deranged person from jumping off a bridge.
Francis turns his gaze back to the front of the car. Time passes. The powerful engine eats up mile after mile.
Her fighting spirit evaporates. She is done. She is exhausted. She leaves it to him.
She must have dozed off and slept for a while, for the light has changed to the paleness of early winter night. She checks her watch: 4:00 p.m. and the sun is already down. She is startled to see that he is looking at her. Had he been watching her while she slept? She shudders.
“Where are we going?” she asks, noting that they are still on the highway.
“To my mother’s house in Brejning until you decide where you want to be. Nobody will look for you there. She is alone in the house with her housekeeper, and you can stay as long as you like. N
o pressure, no expectations. Take your time to recoup.”
“I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Don’t,” he says. “Just sort out the mess.” His unspoken words, “Or your life as you know it will be over,” linger in the air between them.
Chapter 4
The car pulls up in front of a large white house with dark window frames. Garden lamps throw warm light on their immediate surroundings, but Camilla can’t see anything except the front of the house and a bit of the garden. There is a scent of salt in the air and the lapping noises of quiet water hitting the beach. She wonders how close they are to Vejle Fjord.
In the open doorway, a tall, older woman is waiting. Her black silk dress reaches almost to the ground. The silk is so heavy it falls like water around her slender frame. She wears her mass of white hair in an elaborate coiffure high on her head. She looks like something from another time. A mix between an ancient queen and a witch, Camilla thinks.
“Mother!” Francis kisses her on both cheeks.
“Francis, darling, so good to see you. And this is your friend.” She turns, grasping Camilla’s hand in both of hers.
Camilla feels the smooth softness of her hands that is so peculiar to old ladies, and she allows her shoulders to relax.
“Welcome, Camilla. I hope you will find our house like a home. We will do everything to make you comfortable.”
Another woman appears. Camilla guesses her to be in her late fifties. She is the complete opposite of Francis’s mother. This woman is low and stocky with spidery red veins on her cheeks and lively blue eyes that dart here and there. She is dressed in a black dress, white apron, and a small white cap on her colorless hair. Nobody wears the traditional maid dress today, thinks Camilla. Not in Denmark, they don’t. And to her great astonishment and a fair amount of embarrassment, the woman curtsies. Not a full curtsy, but the indication of one. Camilla inclines her head. What else could she do? She wonders. A bad taste is left in her mouth, reminding her of how her grandparents treated their staff.
“Ms. Nielsen will take care of you. You can trust her.” His voice requests to be trusted.
Camilla stiffens as she always does when she is invited to trust. Her life has not been an excessive feast of trust. But she was exhausted, so she followed Ms. Nielsen meekly across the shiny, dark timber floor of the hall and up two sets of stairs.
The white walls seem newly painted, the banisters recently polished, and the runner on the stairs hardly worn. On the walls hang gold-framed sepia and black and white photos from another time, with women in cloche hats, mustached men in white linen suits, small girls wearing pinafores, and a beautiful boy in a sailor’s outfit. Camilla feels a sense of chastity sweep through her as she follows the heels of Ms. Nielsen.
At the top of the stairs, they meet a landing with corridors running on both the left and right sides. Ms. Nielsen turns left and walks to the end of the corridor and opens a door in front of her. She stands aside and, smiling, invites Camilla to come inside.
It is a large, beautiful room with exposed beams. A large wrought-iron, four-poster bed with flimsy white curtain tied back with silk ribbons dominates the room. A desk sits in front of one of the two bay windows facing the fjord—delicate pink camellias nest in a ceramic bowl. A large easy chair covered in a white rug is in front of the other window. It is a beautiful room, filled with that feminine, peaceful energy that Camilla feels comes from Mrs. Scott-Wren. Light, aesthetic, and timeless.
“Now, why don’t you settle in, Miss, and then I’ll bring up a tray with a little something for you to eat. Mrs. Scott-Wren doesn’t eat much, nor often. And you probably want to be alone and rest, don’t you?”
Camilla nods gratefully.
When Ms. Nielson has left, Camilla opens the windows on the approaching evening sky. At this time, the crows rule. She grew up with crows and water in another part of the country. The most constant sound in her childhood had been the hoarse cries of circling crows. Occasionally, the water made itself known, and at other times the fjord was quiet. Sometimes, the wind sang in the trees, sometimes not. But the crows were always there. Crying, yelling, screaming, debating, nagging, and very rarely, singing the universal song of longing. She feels oddly at home here in the white room.
In the first of many mornings, Camilla wakes up slowly. Bit by bit, memory creeps into her mind, and the reality of her situation becomes clear—frighteningly clear.
When she wakes in the morning, the hours before she can go back to sleep seems endless, and yet they disappear in a mist of nothingness. She seeks sleep as a parched throat seeks water, with a desire bordering on obsessional.
But it is an irrational and hopeless quest for peace as the night invariably brings more mental and emotional labor than during the day. Her dreams are violent and disturbing, throwing her into an abyss of despair and fear. She can no longer separate the dreams of the night from her waking consciousness. She is everything in these dreams: hunter and the hunted, fearful and vicious. The only thing not happening is peace.
There is a light knock on the door, announcing Ms. Nielsen with a breakfast tray, which is a welcome sign that the night is over. A sense of control and normalcy is restored, Camilla realizes.
Ms. Nielsen puts the tray down on the bedside table with a soft, “Good morning, my dear.” While Camilla gratefully sips the hot, strong coffee that has an extra bitter note of something she can’t quite place, Ms. Nielsen moves about the room, straitening a pillow here, picking up a piece of clothing there. Camilla feels watched and observed as an invalid but accepts it as part of her new reality. In some ways, she is indeed an invalid.
She does not meet Ms. Scott-Wren for several days, and she has plenty of time to try to understand what has happened to her. Her days now are so different than the long, busy days filled with meetings and decisions, travel and tactics, discussions, and hotel rooms. Hers had been a life in high gear, without time for anything other than an all-consuming job.
When younger, she had on a daily basis been reminded that few women are given a position like hers at such a young age—a reminder that reinforced her own desire for success. She worked toward an ever-expanding ambition as her stock options rose and the cars, she was picked up in became larger. When she started in the role of CFO for Asnerock, she had done so with a stated goal that the company should have branches in all the large western financial cities.
They had been exciting years. Even during the short periods when plans hadn’t developed as she wanted them to, she had no doubts about her position as the darling of the board of directors and the main shareholders. Even when some of the younger men, in typical men’s fashion, had tried to tackle her, she never took the threat seriously. She felt safe, competent, and in control, especially with the unwavering support from the few men in the company who actually ran it: the chairman of the board, the majority shareholder, and Lars Reinwald.
That is, until a week and a half ago. There had been signs earlier, but she had overlooked them. Now, however, she could identify certain events dating back to the start of her employment, which look different in light of the developments that have taken place over the last ten days. Seemingly innocent details, such as overheard conversations, a lack of space for her on the business jet for a conference, somebody’s hand on the shoulder of one of the young lions hastily removed when she appeared, a clearing of the throat, and a glance. Many glances, actually, now that she thinks about it.
And so, it is that insight can be a long time coming, even if it seems sudden when it occurs. A careful but unconscious collection of data until a pattern slowly starts to manifest itself and the mind finally clocks into something being not quite right. First, just a kind of unease and feeling of being on the outside looking in—but within, being able to identify what is wrong.
Then the night when she bolted upright, sitting in bed, wide awake, her stomach clutched and, in her mind, a certainty that she was a pawn in a game she could not figure out. She had known
, of course, that the business world is a game, but she had reckoned herself a serious and important player. Her ambitious naivety had landed her in the oldest of all traps: the belief in the flattery she received. Somebody had played her, and she had proved perfect in the role. But who had played her? And why?
Her mind is foggy, and she cannot think. Her sorrow is massive. A totally enveloping, heavy cloud of sadness…shaped and created by the night’s dreams of loss and failure, of the daily isolation and the feeling of being forgotten by the world, of the hopelessness of the future, of the idea that there is no one to call, no one to ask for help.
Camilla is a typical woman of the twenty-first century: independent, capable, lean, and hungry. Like all women who have learned to fend for themselves, who have been driven by the desire to succeed and show their worth, she is a strong woman. A woman capable of suppressing her fears and longings to make it in a man’s world. A woman who has paid the highest price anyone can pay…paid with loneliness, barrenness, and an insatiable hunger. And for what? A few years of glitter and success? Her name written in glowing terms in national newspapers? Invitations to speak at prestigious conferences? The subservient attitude of waiters in first-class hotels? How shallow it all seems now.
Now, she’s just tired. Worn out. Disillusioned. There is a sadness in her soul as heavy as death. Her body seems to need so much more sleep that she is used to. She doesn’t have the strength to leave the house, nor does she want to. Her mind is slowly deserting her, her thinking becoming still more muddled…too muddled to be just the result of a nervous breakdown.
It almost feels as if she were drugged.
Chapter 5
Game of Revenge Page 2