The gate swings open as Francis approaches. More decorative than protective, the cast-iron, spiked gates lend the place a gothic touch, which in his mind fits well with the austere house that is hidden behind a cluster of old oak trees. The pebbled drive is narrow and winding, and the house itself doesn’t become visible until you are right in front of it. He often thinks that it may have been the hand of a giant that had long ago reached down and pulled up just enough trees to make a clearing for the house.
Once a manor house on a royal estate, in modern real estate evaluation, it would have a been massive investment, and out of reach for most people. But he isn’t most people. He has had a long time to accumulate his wealth. And his most treasured possession is this house. When he took it over, it had been almost a ruin. In the original red-bricked, heavy architectural style of Christian the Fourth, Francis had the stones sanded and cleaned, a new roof put in, and the interior redecorated. The grounds had been restored to the original gardens. Even the small lake at the back of the house had been cleaned, and a pair of black swans added because someone had told him they were the king’s favorite birds. The stone bridge across the lake had been repaired and the stables converted to a garage and workshop.
He has done everything he could with respect to the original style and layout of the house. It had been a massive undertaking. Now it is perfect: a manifestation of a successful marriage between old seriousness and modern comfort. The house may appear friendly and inviting when the sky is blue and the sun is out, but when the northern sky turns dark, the house looks haunted and forbidding. Just like a human, Francis thinks, the house has moods, and it would take quite some courage to approach the house on one of its darker days.
Francis smiles, satisfied, as he pulls up in front of the house and sees Angela standing in the open doorway. It is good to be home. He had been away for far too long this time.
“You really have surpassed yourself, Angela! Again!” Francis leaps up the stairs, still buttoning his smoking jacket. He kisses his longtime personal assistant on the cheek. “It’s, well, it’s really magical.” He looks at the garden, where torches are placed along the driveway and garden wall. Trees and bushes are draped in angel lights. The whole garden is an otherworldly dance of shadow and light. Trees appear to be swaying softly to music unheard by human ears, and the bushes seem alive.
“Let’s hope the guests appreciate it,” said Angela.
“Hmm. A few do, but most of them come here to show off their own glory and compare themselves in status, wealth, and power with the other guests. I can tell you already that you have thrown pearls before pigs, Angela, but thank you for that. I, myself, do appreciate it.”
She smiles indulgently at him, then reaches forward and corrects his bow tie.
They have worked together for more than twenty years. She knows all his habits and most of his secrets. In the beginning of their working relationship, she had been a single mom with a pair of twin boys. Back then, she would arrive in the morning and return home in the afternoon. But when the boys had moved out and were busy with their own lives, Francis suggested that she have permanent homes in his various homes. When they are in Copenhagen, like now, she lives in the apartment in what was once the driver’s residence. This arrangement has worked for both of them.
He’s had her background checked, of course, but he knows little about her inner life. Over the years, he occasionally wondered whether she was in love with him, but if she is, it doesn’t interfere with her work. She is discreet, correct, and treats him with the distanced professionalism that enables close, almost intimate collaboration. As they stand side by side at the top of the stairs, welcoming guests, he feels that he has the second best after a loving wife. And Angela is far less demanding than a wife and yet she performs almost all the jobs a good wife would. With a tick of his heart, he knows he will never have that kind of love.
“Good to see you, Boris! How are things on the other side of the dam?” Francis grasps the hand of a large, ruddy man, who is breathing heavily from the short walk from his chauffeured car.
“Fantastic, Francis!” the large man bellows with a strong Russian accent. “Simply amazing. Of course, we are concerned about the forthcoming presidential election, but we mid-westerners have more interesting things to focus on. Like money. Lots of it, Francis. It flows in the streets like sewage,” he says, laughing uproariously.
Francis joins him in laughing while he gestures toward the hall, “Have a grand time, Boris. I’ll join you soon.”
“I need to hear more about Boris.” He murmurs to Angela when the Russian is out of earshot. “That accent of his is very pronounced. It usually indicates that he is nervous. Get Thomas to do a sweep on him.”
“I’ll do it as soon as the guests are seated for dinner.”
“Thank you, Angela.” With that, Boris is gone from his mind. He knows that Angela will take care of it and bring Boris back to his attention when necessary. She is like a filing system; he can give her any stray thought, and she puts it in exactly the right place.
A young, unsmiling, and undernourished woman in black follows. New Yorker cool, Francis thinks. Not a drop of blood in the body, but possibly sufficient venom to fell a rival. He kisses her, French style, three kisses on alternating cheeks. Then he shakes hands with her sugar daddy who is at least forty years her senior. A glance of mutual understanding passes between the men as if to say, “Yes, she is gorgeous, but how utterly boring.”
A woman of undefinable age puts a jeweled hand on Francis’s arm and offers her lips for a kiss. He bends his head into densely perfumed intimacy, slightly dazed when he resurfaces.
“Elisabeth,” he mumbles close to her ear, “you look wonderful.” The woman smiles thinly, her skin stretched taut across her face, not a single muscle moving, paralyzed as they are by copious amounts of Botox.
“And you, darling, have never looked better. Little shows like this,” she says, waving an elegant hand languidly in all directions, “why, they do suit you so.”
Angela comes to his rescue. “This way, Baroness. Let me show you inside.”
During the next twenty minutes, guests appear at a steady pace. But finally, the last guest has arrived, and Francis can join his guests at the table, including the one he will make redundant.
Chapter 6
Angela has created an intimate and elegant atmosphere. She had covered a long table in white damask and splendid silverware. And toward the back of the hall, a wide staircase leads to the first floor where part of his art collection is displayed on the wall. He has chosen the gloomiest oil paintings from the inheritance of his grandfather. He takes a perverse pleasure in seeing his guests enjoy an exquisite meal in opulent surroundings, while occasionally slipping concerned looks at the paintings, which display human suffering in dark colors, distorted faces, and writhing bodies.
The magnificent crystal chandelier over the table reminds Francis of school holidays at his grandfather’s estate. A myriad of small and large crystals, women’s jewelry, and shining eyes are reflected.
He looks around at his guests. Naked arms and many deep décolleté, as polished as the silverware. Similarly, men’s chests are thrust forward in starched tuxedo shirts. And all their faces are turned to him like flowers to the sun, some smiling, others not, but all attentive. He knows how to exploit attention.
Francis deeply prides himself in being one of the few people working actively toward a new world order. It is his most shameful and deepest motive, the very engine with which he runs. And he can only imagine the gasps and incredulity that might follow in the wake of his announcing to the world, “I do what I do for the greater good.” Obviously, he doesn’t advertise the fact, but he believes strongly that the current way of operating, of doing business, of communicating, and of interacting must go. And somebody has to help that happen. Francis has appointed himself to be one of the people to do that. He realizes the irony of his inner logic: his most public front is that of a wealthy, ja
ded bachelor with a baronet to his name, whereas the persona with which he operates and the one his organization and a few close friends know is selfless and dedicated to making the world a better place.
But at the very core of his being, there is nothing selfless about it. Francis simply needs to see himself as a hero. He needs to feel that he is worth something, that he is not just another ship in the night.
Over the years, he has built a small but impressive organization to that very purpose. By now, it has completed a number of missions to get rid of businesses that operate in greedy, exploiting fashions. Through various means, Francis’s organization has removed the companies from the playing field or, in some cases, eliminated the management and board and put better people in positions of power.
After dinner, Francis pulls Lars Reinwald aside, “How are you, Lars?”
Lars shrugs. “Reasonable. Things are slowly getting back to normal. The board seems convinced that Camilla acted alone. We have moved from the front of the newspapers to the middle. It will be okay.”
“Well handled. But, Lars,” Francis puts his hand on the other man’s shoulder, “I have to ask you to take one for the team.”
Lars stiffens. Francis wonders whether this is caused by him touching the other man’s shoulder or the request, what with his dandyish style often confusing men as to his sexual preferences. And tonight, he is looking ever more elegantly dapper than usual in a midnight-blue velvet dinner jacket.
“What do you mean?”
“Take your leave of Asnerock. Retire for six months, play golf, go hunting, read proper books. Then I’ll get you back into the heat. And I’ll make sure it’s interesting to you.”
“Yes, but why? The stock price is slowly on its way up. I have reassured the board and the organization. I have kept my part of our agreement. This does not just sound like a bonus from the biggest shareholder for my work!”
“Trust me; it is actually. If I did not care about you, I would let you keep your job. There is nothing more for you in Asnerock. Now, it’s just operating at an annual 3% growth. What’s the fun in that, Lars? Take one for the team, and I will make sure you become a full member of an even better team. You have repeatedly told me that it’s the team rather than the task or the economy that’s important to you.”
Lars nodded. “Which team?”
“It’s too early to tell you. I have a job to do first. Let me just say that it is not a team membership you can apply for. Invitation only.” By then, Francis knows that he has hooked Lars, whose eyes shine at the thought of joining an exclusive group. Oh, Francis thinks to himself, us men with our oppressed longings to join the group, get father’s recognition, and be good enough. How willing we are to crawl through the dust for acknowledgment.
Lars walks back into the party with no awareness of how easily he has just been played.
Chapter 7
The smell of burning wood, so rich in humans’ collective memories, fills the room as she gets a fire going in the wood-burning stove. The ancient longing of the far north reverberates in the gravelly voice of Ulf Lundell. She flips through the music on her phone, selecting Nick Cave instead. An angry wail hits her like a physical force as Cave’s guttural, quavering voice calls out the forces of hell in Skeleton Tree. She shouts the words into the immaculate flat, the sound bouncing off white, naked concrete walls and naked timber floorboards. She sing-shouts out her anger, her desperate anger and longing to release her pent-up energy.
Later, when she is calmer, she peels off her dirty jeans, blood-stained and splattered with mud, and throws them into the stove. Flames lick at them, playing, teasing until one flame eats into the material and the jeans give up the fight. She stares at the wild, hungry movements of the fire, so indiscriminate. Opening the gates, the heat leaps out at her, burning her face, singeing her eyebrows. She relishes the pain. Pulling her sweatshirt over her head, she feeds it into the hungry flames, watching as the cotton blackens, shrivels, and burns.
She walks into the bathroom and turns the shower on full force until steam envelops the room and obscures the mirror. The water is hot and smarting on her skin. She slips out of her undies and bra and stands naked under the force of the hot water with tears streaming down her face.
Angela opens the door and gives her a gentle kiss on the forehead. The older woman has always acted motherly toward Jo, but tonight she cannot bear any kind of friendliness or caring. She is clinging to her cool mask with the utmost of her powers. A friendly smile or a caring word might unwrap her. In her mind, she sees herself crumple to the floor. A mess. A pile of regrets. A heap of irreparable sadness.
“I am sorry!” is the first sentence he says, greeting her on the stairs. “I seem to have such poor manners when it comes to you.”
“You do, Francis,” she answers flatly. He does. In some ways, he treats her as a possession, and yet nobody has ever respected her more. Theirs is a very complicated and strange relationship.
Her white bias-cut silk dress clings to her like a glove and gives her curves she doesn’t usually have. She knows that, for once, she looks desirable, even sexy, and that the dress has much to do with that. It had been delivered this morning to her flat, together with a pair of white kitten heels and a note she had received the likes of so many times before: “Come as you are. Only wear this. – F.”
She is late, as she deliberately is to these events. Hating them as she does, the only respite she finds is in making a late entrance when everybody is more or less inhibited and caught up in their own affairs of the heart or the purse. These people. How can Francis stand them? She asks herself for the umpteenth time. In her mind, she hears his voice explaining that they are tools and mean nothing more. But still, but still, if you play with mud, you get dirty fingers, as her dad used to say.
Dad. Oh, Dad! Only last night had she had that horrible nightmare again. Perhaps that’s why she was so unraveled? A figure hangs in the backlight of the hall in their old house. She’d go closer and realize it is her father. She tries to lift him off the rope—but he’s too heavy for her childhood powers. The rope breaks and the heavy figure falls over her like a house that collapses from an earthquake. She had then woken up, gasping and sweating before an important assignment that had become more violent than she had expected. The difference between then and now, between the feel of the silk against her naked skin and the sight of blood stains on her jeans is greater than her mind can comprehend. She who can be anything to anybody can never straddle two personas at the same time. Perhaps it is just as well, she concedes to herself.
“Jo! Beautiful Jo.” A large man with the pale, fleshy face of money grabs her by her shoulders as if she were a pound of meat. He plants wet kisses on her cheeks, left, right, then left again.
She cringes on the inside but keeps the smile on her face. At that moment, she is all Francis’s product. “Oh, your old charmer,” she says, stroking a fleshy cheek, cold to the touch as dead meat. She longs so violently to be seen. But not by men like him. She only wants to hide from such people, hide behind one of her many adopted characters.
“Sorry, old boy. You can’t have her all to yourself.” Francis guides her by the elbow away to the next hungry, mean, leeching man. She feels like a whore being shown around to potential customers, while the ladies, the hungry, mean, leeching ladies of the party, assess her. They estimate the value of her dress, the amount of plastic-work done to her face, the number of gym hours she’s invested in her body—ultimately, the monetary value of being on the arm of Francis. That is, Francis the desirable, the eternal bachelor, the one every woman in the room wants for herself or her daughters or both.
Jo smiles.
“I need you to comfort Lars Reinwald,” Francis whispers to her as they move around the dining room.
“Who and why?” she whispers back. A professional note in her voice. An inner sigh of relief.
“Lars Reinwald is…was the CEO of Asnerock.”
She sends him a sharp glance, “Wa
s? That was quick, even for you, Francis.”
He shrugs. “I need it to look as if Camilla was not the only culprit of that spectacular mess.”
“Why?”
“To confuse the one who outed her. Let him—or her—know we are off the scent.”
“How does Mr. Reinwald feel about being put out to grass?”
“Ah, well, a bit put off, I guess. That’s why I need you to take care of him tonight.”
“Is that all?”
“Is what all?” he asks, his left eyebrow raised in surprise.
“Is that all you want from me tonight, Francis?”
He pulls her closer. “You know it is not, Jo. You know perfectly well that I always want more from you than I can have.”
“I’ll take care of Lars Reinwald, and then I will go home.” Her voice is professional as if she has not heard his last sentence. “Work was a bit messy today.”
“I know; I know,” he murmurs. “You need your quiet solitude after a job. But just an hour with Lars, okay? Then Jens will take you home.”
She finds Lars Reinwald at the bar, his bow tie askance and a glassy look in his eyes.
“Lars! Is that you? God, it has been a long time.” She snuggles into him, kissing him enthusiastically.
Lars Reinwald looks surprised; then his face relaxes into a stupid grin. “Hey, I’m not sure who you are, but you are very welcome.”
Chapter 8
“And here, Sir, we have a forty-two-inch Bang & Olufsen LED TV, the best in design and technology on the market. And with free movies, of course, Sir. Of all kinds.” A delicate wink.
The bellboy had opened the door to a junior suite on Hotel D’Angleterre’s top floor and placed the guest’s Gladstone bag on a mahogany rack before enthusiastically pointing out the suite’s features, such as the balcony overlooking the famous Kings Nytorv and Copenhagen Royal Theatre, the Italian espresso machine, the free bar, the safe, even the hairdryer with 2200 watts. He goes on to praise the bath products from Amazing Space—so delicate and purely natural, Sir! —a bidet for “our delicate cleanliness,” and the bed with individual temperature control for “our bodily comfort, Sir.”
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