The Quiet Girl (20 page)

"You've drifted more than a mile north," he said. "Your fiance in the boat must be in tears now. But with my car, we'll be there in a minute."

She looked at him. As if she wanted to determine his molecular weight.

"I'll take the bus," she said.

He gathered up the gas tanks and the harness backpack; she gave up trying to get the equipment from him. They walked up toward the road.

"It's Sunday," he said. "The buses run only every two hours. One just left."

She didn't say anything; he was sure she would give up. There's no woman alive who would ride six stops along Strand Road in dive socks and a neoprene suit, carrying two five-gallon cylinders and a mask and a snorkel.

The bus came after five minutes.

"I don't have money for the bus ticket," she said.

He gave her a five-hundred-kroner bill. And a bus card.

"This threatens my household budget," he said. "I need to get the money back. Perhaps you could write your address on the envelope."

The bus door slammed; he began to run back to his car.

The bus had been out of sight less than three minutes when he caught up to it. But then he fell behind a semi truck. No one got out at Rungsted Harbor. He began to worry. At the last stop in Klampenborg he got on the bus and walked through it. She was gone. He found where she must have sat; the seat was still wet, the floor too. He put a drop on his finger and tasted salt water; it must have touched her skin. The bus driver stared at him.

* * *

He telephoned the Rungsted Harbor office, but it was closed on Sunday. He telephoned the harbormaster at home; he told Kasper that they did not keep a record of diving outside the harbor basin.  He didn't sleep that night. Monday morning he checked with the Danish Sport Diving Association. They had no record of diving outside the harbor in the last two weeks.

He evoked her image, her sound. The core of her being was E-major. Behind that, the deeper tone of her instincts; people's instincts normally were less nuanced, not yet formed into musical keys, but hers were. He heard A-major, a professional key. She wasn't a sport diver. She had been at work. On a Sunday.

He telephoned the Danish Maritime Authority. He got a trained mermaid on the line. Accommodating, but chilly and smooth. "We keep records of all commercial diving," she said. "But we don't give out that information. To anyone except the proper authorities."  "I'm going to have a mole built," he said. "For my swan. Outside my villa on the coast. I want that firm to do it. I saw them working.

They were marvelous. So could you give me the name of the company?"

"It wasn't a company," she said. "It was divers from an institution. And how did you see them working? In Denmark one can't see more than three yards underwater in any direction because of the mire."

"I was inspired that day," he said.

She hung up.

* * *

He had gone out to the road and picked up his mail. There was a letter with no return address; the envelope contained a five-hundredkroner bill. Nothing else. He had driven in to see Sonja.

* * *

Sonja had brewed tea for him, slowly and carefully, then she stood beside his chair and stirred until all the honey was dissolved. He sank into her loving care. He knew it had a price. A lesson would soon be forthcoming.

"You've seen her only once," she said. "Five minutes at the most. Have we lost our senses?"

"It's her sound," he said.

She stroked his hair; somewhere within him he felt an inkling of tranquillity.

"You reacted to my sound too, after all," she said. "Back then. And you were damn lucky in that. But we can't deny there have been other times when you've made a mistake."

He sipped his tea; it was first-flush, made in a Japanese cast-iron pot. It stood on a hot plate on the table in front of her. Even with milk and honey, it was something entirely different from what he could get out of tea bags at home.

She turned over the envelope that had contained the kroner bills. "It's stamped," she said.

He didn't understand what she meant. She handed him a headset for monitoring phone conversations.

"The franking machines," she said, "leave an identification number."

She telephoned the postal service. Got transferred to the frankingmachines team in Fredericia.

"I'm calling from the law firm of Krone and Krone," she said. "We received our postage machine from you. We think we got someone else's machine. May I give you the number?"

She gave the number.

"Yes, that's a mistake," said the woman's voice at the other end. "That machine should have been one of four. For the Map and Land Registry office. Where did you say you were calling from?"

"I spoke incorrectly," said Sonja. "I'm calling from the Registry."

She hung up.

* * *

She had accompanied him down the stairs. Out on the sidewalk she took his arm. She still had a dancer's posture. She led him into a flower shop across from the fire station, where she chose sprays of peonies that hadn't yet burst into full bloom. Large, round, perfect flowers.

She carried the flowers to his car, laid them, carefully on the seat beside him. Her fingers caressed the back of his neck.

"You've been alone for a long time," she said.

He didn't answer. There was nothing to say.

"I don't know the Map and Land Registry office," she said. "But I'm sure the peonies will be a good beginning. Maybe you should wait awhile before telling her where you got them."

* * *

The Map and Land Registry was on Rentemester Road. On the ground floor, a middle-aged woman was selling maps behind thecounter; if she had been a dog there would have been a sign saying,  PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.

He placed the flowers in front of the woman. The bouquet was as big as a tuba.

"It's her birthday," he whispered. "I want so much to surprise her."

She melted, and he got past her. That's how one can measure spiritual progress. The guardians of the threshold become more and more cooperative.

The building had four additional stories, and on each floor there were between ten and twenty offices plus laboratories; he peeredinto all of them. On the top floor was a cafeteria with a roof terrace, where large seagulls waited for a chance to clear the tables. The terrace had a view out to sea, over to Sweden.

She sat alone at a table. He laid the flowers in front of her and sat down. For a while neither of them said anything.

"The first meeting," he said, "is risky. What do we hear--is it anything but what we hope to hear? On the other hand, we have no history together. We haven't put up our guard. Anyway, here are some flowers. Maybe you can put them in water at home. Without hurting the man in the diving boat."

She looked out over the roofs. Over the elevated railway, Harald Street, out over the sea.

"It was a colleague," she said. "A woman."

He stood up. If there was one thing Bach could do, it was leave at a high point.

"You can stay a little longer," she said. "I've just started my lunch break."
 

6

Someone had said something, the memories thinned out, and then they were gone. Franz Fieber's eyes hung on Kasper's lips; Kasper wasn't certain what he had said and what he had only remembered. "They're dead," said Franz Fieber. "We'll never find them."

"Who is the other child?"

"Bastian. He and KlaraMaria disappeared at the same time. From the school yard. In the middle of the day. They went in a car."

"Where are the police in all of this?"

"They've got many officers on the case. All of us were questioned. At the Lyngby police station. And downtown."

"Where downtown?"

"On Blegdam Road. At the jail."

Kasper's temples were throbbing. He had to telephone his father. It's unfortunate. To be forty-two. And the only way out is still to call your father.

* * *

Maximillian answered the phone immediately. His voice was almost
gone.

"If two children have been kidnapped," said Kasper, "and the police are questioning people at the Blegdam Road jail, what's going on?"

"Is the person being questioned a potential suspect?"

Kasper looked over at Franz Fieber.

"No," he said.

"Then they've activated VISAR. The international profiling register for serious criminals. It's administered by the Danish police force. In collaboration with external criminologists, behaviorial psychologists, and court psychiatrists. They have a large advisory panel. Vivian sits on it. She's sitting beside me. She's studying my dying process. I'll call you back in a minute."

He hung up.

* * *

A clip attached to the dashboard held receipts and address slips. Kasper leafed through them, to no effect. Another clip held a thinner bundle; it was consignment notes. Leisemeer had his own imports of wine and delicacies; some notes were for the following week. Kasper found what he was looking for at the bottom of the pile. It was an order from Konon for an Italian lunch on the following Wednesday. The order was attached to a brochure printed on handmade paper. The kind one would give to guests on the Concorde or at the Ritz with a warm welcome and a description of the flight plan and an assurance in four languages that this is simply to comply with the law because we will never die, at least not in this place and at this ticket
price.

The brochure showed a cross section of Konon's buildings, plus a ground plan. He put on his glasses. Everything was labeled: stairs, emergency exit, library and archives, meeting rooms, administrative offices, two cafeterias, four restrooms on each floor, technical buildings, company boathouse and jetty. Someone had also added directions, in red India ink, about how the Italian lunch should be served.

The telephone rang.

"You know about the children," said Vivian. "That hasn't been made public. Perhaps to protect them. Perhaps to conceal the investigation. The one child, the girl, it must have been she who drew the map?"

She was silent for a moment.

"I was asked to sit on the advisory panel," she said. "But I declined. Usually we get all the information the police have, but in this case it was on a need-to-know basis. Far too little information. I said no. But one of my girlfriends is in on it. A child cardiologist. One of the children had surgery. I've telephoned my friend. The police are trying to link the two children with four or six others. Who have disappeared other places in the world. Boys and girls. Seven to fourteen  years old. Two from a Buddhist convent school in Nepal. One in Thailand. A Senegalese girl from a Catholic girls' school in France. No reported connection among the children. Now comes the bad news. One child has been found. She was strangled. No sign of sexual molestation. But tortured. The second joint of the fingers on her left hand had been cut off. While she was alive."

They were both quiet for a moment. Maximillian took the phone.  "You wouldn't believe it. But I still have a friend or two. I asked them to take a look at Kain. I've got a report on him. He's about the same age as you. We don't know anything about his childhood. He first comes to light in the navy. Merchant marine, seamen's school, coxswain candidate, navigation school, and shipmaster. After that, he gets a shipping trade certificate and passes the military shipmaster exam. Then joins IMO, the International Maritime Organization. And studies economics. Youngest flag skipper ever in the Royal Danish Navigation and Hydrography Administration. Leaves the government. Suspected of smuggling. He's been able to draw on his knowledge of international radar and report systems. Wanted since '95 for illegal shipping operations outside international security regulations. Probably involved in illegal financial activities too. Hasn't been seen, identified, or photographed since '95. He's thought to be living in England. And to be carrying on illegal trade through a front organization in Denmark."

"What might the name of that organization be?"

"Konon."

Kasper closed his eyes.

"The occult," he said. "If it has ever existed. In the circus. Who would know that?"

"The genuine article doesn't exist."

Kasper didn't say anything.

"Have you tried the Amusement Museum archives in Frederiksberg? Barley's collection? Boomhoff 's circus agency?"

"The woman," said Kasper. "Who you and Mother talked about. Something to do with birds."

Maximillian was silent. Somewhere in the silence there was anxiety.

"Feodora," he said. "Jensen. The world's greatest bird act. The world's greatest circus collection. The world's greatest memory. But in the first place, she won't talk with you. And in the second place, it's a blind alley."

Kasper didn't say anything.

"The Artists Association apartments," said Maximillian, "in Christianshavn."

"Christianshavn has been evacuated."

"On a voluntary basis. She's no longer able to leave her home. She's there. If she's alive."

Vivian was back on the line.

"Lona Bohrfeldt," said Kasper. "Where was she employed? What organization did she work with?"

"It's a long time ago. As far as I recall it was a collaboration. Between the university's Panum Institute for Social Medicine and the Mind Institute."

Kasper heard a motorboat going through the Stokke Channel. He heard reflections from the thousand IV sets around him. If all the screens around us are hard and unfeeling and powerfully reflect sound, the strength of the sound is essentially independent of distance. So the unmerciful world presses in on us at full volume.

"I've sat on the VISAR panel," said Vivian. "Perhaps twenty times. I know the crime folks. From both the Intelligence Service and Department A. They are level-headed people. But not this time. They're afraid. Big, tall police folks. So whatever you do, be careful."

She hung up. He sat there looking at the receiver. Then he took out his lottery ticket. He turned it over. On the back was Lona Bohrfeldt's home address.

* * *

They passed Charlottenlund Fort; beyond the public swimming pool they turned inland and drove past Deer Park toward the cliffs behind Raadvad.