The Serbian Dane (18 page)

‘Oh yes. Over the years the local gangsters have sent a few dead rivals to the bottom well wrapped up in nice cement overcoats,’ Jon laughed.

Lise gave him a little dig. The three men were flirting with her, but in a nice way; Jon and John were showing that they knew she and Per were an item. Lars the deckhand kept to himself. A rather shy young man, he busied himself with making coffee in the pantry. Per wrapped a demonstrative arm around her and gave her a quick kiss. He had never done that in public before. It made her feel very happy, taking it as she did as a sign that he wanted to show the world they belonged together.

‘So where do you know this buccaneer from?’ she asked.

Jon laughed. He wasn’t a tall man but slim and compact, like a good midfield player. The skin of his face was tanned and covered in lots of fine and very becoming lines. His black beard was neatly trimmed.

‘Oh, the
White Whale
and I have been on Her Majesty’s Secret Service on quite a few occasions,’ he said.

‘Meaning?’

‘Ah, I’m not sure James Bond here would let me tell you that,’ John replied, pointing at Per.

‘Hah, what did you ever do, except sit on your butt and get paid a packet by the government for doing sweet bugger-all?’ Per retorted.

‘Easy money, yeah. But if…’

‘Yes, I know…’

Lise had no idea what they were talking about, but Per said oh, it was just that the
White Whale
was often pressed into service during visits by foreign heads of state or individuals whose lives had been threatened by madmen or fanatics. On such occasions the
White Whale
lay at the quay next to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Asiatisk Plads, thus affording the security service an alternative evacuation route if, as Per put it, the balloon should go up.

‘So the
White Whale
will be carrying Sara out to Flakfortet? Right? That is your plan, isn’t it?’

‘Uh-huh. She may look old, but she can do seventeen knots when she has to.’

‘Well, I only hope Sara is a good sailor. Or that we get good weather.’

‘Yeah, it wouldn’t be very funny if she threw up all over the world’s press the first time they got the chance to ask her a couple of questions,’ Per said.

The
White Whale
overtook a lumbering flat-bottomed ship with a wheelhouse in the stern. On the bow was a name in indecipherable Cyrillic script, and Lise recognized the Russian flag fluttering abaft, but in style the boat reminded her more of the barges she had seen on French rivers. The barge was flaking with rust and looked as poor and forlorn as the old Russian women she had seen begging on TV.

‘It looks like an old barge,’ she remarked.

‘It’s a filthy, rotten old shitheap of a Russian river barge,’ Jon said. ‘They’re an accident just waiting to happen, those things. They were built for quiet river waters, not the open sea. They’re flat-bottomed, unstable and don’t have enough engine power. They stink to high heaven, they foul the water, and they’re destroying the last vestiges of Denmark’s small craft traffic.’

‘They have to make a living, I suppose,’ Lise said.

‘So do the Danish seamen,’ Jon rejoined, so curtly that she did not pursue the matter. It was too nice a day to argue about anything, especially politics. She looked back at the barge, butting laboriously through the waves, even though there was only the slightest of swells. She shuddered: it would be no joke if one of those were to go down off the Danish coast with its cargo of oil or coal. Actually, there was quite a good story there – she must remember to mention it to one of the other reporters.

Old Flakfort was looking its best when the
White Whale
nosed its way through the gap in the breakwater and into the harbour. The breakwater ran all the way round the fort. From the air, it looked rather like the ramparts encircling a medieval castle. The harbour entrance was the main gate, and the six-foot wide band between the breakwater and the fort was like a moat, protecting the fortress from the sea. A big break in the clouds allowed the sun’s rays to turn the water blue and glint off the gleaming surfaces of the two sailboats moored in the harbour. The fort itself rose up into a grassy hillock surrounded by low bushes; Lise spotted a restaurant, a circular pavilion with a pointed roof reminiscent of an old-fashioned Chinese coolie hat and a small souvenir shop. Two men sat on a bench, shivering slightly as they tried to hang on to the last shreds of summer. Alongside the jetty lay a large boat that might have been an old, converted fishing boat. It had an open quarterdeck with a green canopy strung over it. A small group of people, mostly dads with young kids, were making their way on board. Jon eased the
White Whale
gently into the quay. Lise had never been out to Flakfortet before, but living in Copenhagen as she did, she knew of course that it was one of three forts designed as a defence against attack from the sea. But it had never seen battle, not even on the 9th of April 1940 when German bombers and troopships passed over and by it unchallenged. Its cannons had failed to function. The fort had been decommissioned after the war; it had fallen into disrepair and been vandalized by weekend sailors landing on the islet illegally and plundered by people on the hunt for stone or copper, of which there was no shortage out here. But the old fortress was now a listed building and a favourite spot for summer outings. Renovation work was currently being carried out on it, but still intact inside – and out of bounds to the general public – were a lot of the old casemates and ammunition stores.

Per pointed to the fishing boat, the
M/S Langø
it was called:

‘We close off Flakfortet for the day of Simba’s visit. There aren’t so many pleasure boats around at this time of year, and if there should be a couple in the harbour, we’ll check them out. We’ll go over the fort with a fine-tooth comb the evening before and again the next morning.’

The last passengers had climbed aboard the
M/S Langø,
and Lise could see from the water that the propeller had started turning.

Per carried on:

‘We ferry the press across first in that boat there. We simply charter it for the day and close the fort to the general public. Then we bring Simba over in the
White Whale
and hold the press conference in the restaurant…’

‘The television people are going to love this,’ Lise interjected.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, look at the pictures they can get out here.’

‘Yeah, right. Loads,’ Per countered dryly. ‘Because I’ll be putting three or four men with rifles and machine guns on top of the fort. There’s a clear view for miles around. Not so much as a rowboat can get anywhere near without them seeing it. And a couple of men down below, outside the restaurant. Also armed, of course. Screeds of pictures. But it’ll be as secure as anything can be in this world.’

‘Well, well. I’m impressed. You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?’

‘No, that you can never do.’

They went ashore, and Per made the necessary arrangements with the restaurateur, who had not the slightest objection to being closed to the public for a day once he heard that a whole boatload of reporters would have to kick their heels in his restaurant for an hour. He happily provided them with details of his staff: the chef, a waiter, an assistant in the kiosk, a guide and a washer-up. It was off-season, so they didn’t need a lot of staff unless they had to cater for a large party, and they had no big bookings at the moment. The staff worked on a rota. One lot came over on the boat on Tuesday and stayed until Saturday, when a fresh team took over until the following Tuesday. The second team was slightly bigger: they were always busier at weekends. The staff lived in small, well-appointed rooms in the renovated section of the casemates. It was rather like being on a ship at sea. They could see the lights of Copenhagen but couldn’t simply pop over to the city if they felt like it. It was a somewhat unusual working situation, a bit like being on an oil platform in the North Sea, but you could get hooked on it, and most of the staff had been working out at Flakfortet for years, not least because the pay was good. Yes, the police could have a list of their names. No, he was sure they wouldn’t mind. He knew every one of them. There was no strange, Danish-speaking foreigner among them. A boat came over every day with fresh raw ingredients, but it was the same boat as always, and he knew every member of the crew.

Per and Lise walked up onto the top of Flakfortet hand in hand. The Danish and Swedish coastlines stood out sharply in the limpid light. Grass grew over the roof of the fortress. Lise saw that Per was right. From huge container ships to tiny yachts, every craft on the blue waters of the Sound was clearly visible. Nothing would be able to get close to the fort. They wandered past the old gun carriages and down into the bowels of the fortress. Some of the bunker passageways were well lit and clear; others were dank and dark. Some of the casemates lay open; others were blocked off by steel doors or chains and padlocks. It must be pretty cold and damp in the locked rooms, Lise thought. She had visions of rats and all sorts of other creepy-crawlies inhabiting the old ammunition stores – but, Per told her, one thing she certainly wouldn’t have to worry about was spiders: with a constant temperature of ten degrees Celsius down there in the dark, flies and other spider fodder could not survive.

As they walked Per gave her the bare bones of what he had been told by his informant. He also broke his usual rule by telling her that, in keeping with the new spirit of the times, it had been friends in the Russian secret service who had assisted Denmark in this matter. But he didn’t tell her how the information had been obtained. They now had a description of sorts and confirmation that a contract had been taken out, so there would probably not be as much resistance within the system to according him the necessary resources. The politicians still refused to meet Simba, and nothing seemed likely to change that. Even in the Danish political system the financial considerations outweighed the human.

‘They’re a bunch of bloody hypocrites,’ Lise muttered.

Per did not answer.

‘Don’t you think so?’

‘It makes no difference what I think,’ he said and drew her away from the musty gloom into a brightly lit passageway.

She was a little put out by this, but he didn’t appear to notice, had already changed tack.

‘Actually it’s quite comforting to know that the contract has gone to a professional.’

‘You don’t mean that, surely!’

‘Yes, I do. Because there’s a chance this man could infiltrate Flakfortet – always assuming he finds out that this is where the press conference is being
held. And how is he supposed to do that? I mean, so far everybody seems to be keeping their lips sealed about the actual schedule for the visit. But just suppose he did – there’s no way he can get off again. And our man’s a pro. Not some crazy Muslim with his heart set on martyrdom, showing up here with ten pounds of explosive under his shirt.’

‘So why is he doing it?’

‘
Quien sabe
? Who knows? Money probably. Isn’t that usually what drives people? That or sex.’

‘What a cynical character you are.’

‘I am?’

‘Yes, you are. There are other people in the world, you know, besides the sort you mix with.’

‘They may have a little more polish, but everybody can be bought. You just have to know their price, sweetheart.’

‘Don’t call me “sweetheart”,’ she snapped, letting go of his hand and walking ahead of him towards the light at the end of the concrete passageway. She was annoyed with him and with herself, and those dark corridors gave her the willies. But she wasn’t going to let him talk down to her as if she were a child. She hated the shallow cynicism that seemed to her to permeate modern society. Through her work for Danish PEN, she had been given detailed insight into the appalling cruelties devised by regimes and, hence, individuals to plague and torment their fellow human beings. She had spoken to lots of authors and journalists who had been imprisoned, tortured and abused. She had learned more than she wanted to know about repression and evil. But she was not going to allow that to discourage her or make her cynical. Because then the torturers would have won. She had to believe in the good, believe that it could win through.

It was good to be back out in the open air. The sky had clouded over again; a sudden shower of rain swept over the Swedish coast, a grey striated curtain masked the horizon, but it rained itself out before it reached the Sound, and only minutes later she beheld a perfect rainbow arching over the mainland. She took it as a good sign and for the first time felt sure that everything would turn out all right in the end. With Ole, with Per, and with Sara.

Like a film with a happy ending. 

O
le Carlsen and Vuk had dinner together in a small French restaurant in the city centre, a place where Ole had dined with Lise a few times when they first met. He had chosen it in a burst of nostalgia, although to be honest he felt the food there was overpriced. But it was highly rated, had become quite trendy again, and he was keen to impress his new young friend. As soon as they stepped through the door Ole noticed one of Danish television’s new light-entertainment hosts sitting with a party at a good table in the corner. ‘Aha, so Carl Ohmann comes here,’ he remarked, but Vuk merely eyed the gentleman in question indifferently, as if he had no idea who his companion was talking about. Although that couldn’t possibly be the case, not after all the coverage the man had received. He had devised a totally new form of Saturday-night entertainment that had been the talk of the country over most of the winter and spring. But there were a number of things about Vuk that Ole found odd and not quite in keeping with his job as a plastic-bag salesman. He was interested in the wrong things.

Vuk was smart but casual in a light-coloured shirt, neatly pressed blue flannels and a grey tweed jacket, but no tie. Several times during the course of the day Ole Carlsen had considered getting out of dinner and plucking up his courage to have it out with Lise instead. He had called the newspaper office only to be told that she was out on a job. No, they couldn’t say where she was. So he had pulled himself together and attended to his clients, listened to their problems and endeavoured to solve them, although increasingly he had the feeling that there was nothing he could say, nothing he could do to cure the neuroses from which more and more Danes seemed to be suffering. If he had had to find one word to describe his state of mind it would have been ‘confused’. Like most of the Danish population apparently.

But he was glad he had kept the date. He enjoyed having dinner with the engaging young Jutlander, who appeared to be quite content with his life and his job selling plastic bags to supermarkets, for people to put their potatoes into and weigh them themselves. The Danish people were now said to be living in a service economy, when the truth was that the one thing of which there was less and less now was service. Back in the days when a petrol station was known as a filling station, it actually provided a service. An attendant filled up your tank, checked your oil, topped up the air in your tyres and washed your windscreen. Then they started calling them ‘service stations’, and the customer had to do everything himself. Ole could see the paradox and found it funny when Carsten – as he thought Vuk was called – pointed this out over dinner, in the course of all their chat about this and that, everything and nothing. Ole felt so at ease with this young man. They had drunk some excellent wine, were onto their second bottle in fact, and going by the way he felt, Ole realized that he must have consumed the lion’s share of it. Although he had to admit that he had had a head start. It was a bad habit, he knew, but he needed a little nip every now and again throughout the day, so he kept a bottle of vodka at the clinic. It was better than pills anyway, and soon, once he had more control over things in his private life, the bottle would be history. But the last few years had been a living hell: following the derout, from the outside as it were; looking on as a marriage crumbled and two people stopped caring about one another. How had this happened? He was a psychologist, but he could not come up with the answer. He could analyse the problem: they did not talk to one another, they meant nothing to one another, they were forever rubbing each other up the wrong way, but he could not put his finger on how or when it had all started to go downhill. When the love they shared had died. Over the past couple of weeks things had gone from bad to worse. He was afraid he was going to lose Lise if he did not get a grip on himself. If he left it any longer, it would be too late. He freely admitted to himself that he was still in love with her and that he would miss her terribly if she left him. But he found it impossible to come out of his shell and talk the whole thing over with her, put his longing and his love for her into words. And this despite the fact that he belonged to a generation which believed implicitly that everything was up for discussion and that there
was nothing that couldn’t be straightened out by a good heart-to-heart. Now, suddenly, words failed him. He was convinced that Lise had taken a lover. He was insanely jealous, although deep down he considered jealousy to be a destructive, immature emotion, not to say a character flaw, which had a part to play in the breakdown of most relationships. That, at any rate, was what he had often told the couples whom he counselled. Was that why he could not bring himself to simply go down on his knees in front of Lise and beg her to take him back, to talk to him so that together they could try to make a fresh start and see if they could rekindle the flame which had once burned between them and was now dying out? There might still be a spark into which they could breathe life. Why didn’t he just beg her to help him? Could it be that he was somehow incapable of begging? Helped along by the wine, he became quite weepy at the thought of a reconciliation.

Vuk filled Ole’s glass and raised his own.

‘Cheers, mate. Let me get this, will you? It’s been a really nice evening. You get tired of always eating alone.’

Ole also raised his full glass.

‘No, it’s me who should thank you. I needed the company too.’

They put the glasses to their lips. Vuk sipped his wine, Ole gulped down half a glassful. He couldn’t really taste it anymore. Vuk noticed that his speech was also becoming a bit slurred. Not much. He carried it well, but he hissed his ‘s’s.

‘So…what does your wife say to you being on the road so much with your plastic bags?’ Ole asked.

‘I’m not married, Ole, remember?’

‘Oh, that’s right. You’re not. Lucky man, eh?’

‘Well, I’m not that old, you know. I hope some day I’ll find the right girl for me. Have kids. Settle down. Right now, though, I’m happy playing the field. This way of life suits me fine right now.’

‘But selling plastic bags for a living.’ Ole said. ‘What kind of a life is that?’

‘Solving other people’s problems day in, day out – what kind of a life is that?’

‘Well, it’s easier than solving one’s own,’ Ole said.

Vuk flashed him a warm smile. He knew he had a nice sympathetic smile, that he inspired confidence, that he was a good listener. He could play that
part to perfection. So Vuk bided his time. Ole drained his glass and allowed Vuk to refill it before saying:

‘The thing is that you invest everything you’ve got in a marriage… And somewhere along the way you lose touch with your mates. The guys who were such an important part of your life when you were younger. And you get scared. Of suddenly finding yourself all alone in the world.’

‘You can always make new friends.’

‘It’s not so easy. As you get older you become more distanced from other people. It creeps up on you like the dark of winter.’

Ole Carlsen smiled wryly at his own metaphor. Vuk smiled too and said:

‘I’m still young.’

‘Well, I feel very lucky and very happy to have met you, young man.’

Vuk lifted his glass and watched Ole drink.

‘Same here,’ he said. He wondered briefly whether the time had come to make his play. Ole’s eyes were moist, his vision as blurred as his speech, and he was getting maudlin, so Vuk continued:

‘I’d really like to invite you back for a drink, but I don’t think my hotel room is the ideal place for entertaining…’

‘Why don’t you come back to my place?’

‘What’s your wife going to say to that?’

‘Lise? She’s never bloody there.’

‘It’s up to you, you know, if you want to talk about it…’

Ole tipped the last of the bottle into his glass.

‘Oh, what the hell, let’s have a brandy with our coffee. On me. You’ll let me do that, at least.’

He beckoned to the waitress. Like the staff of most Copenhagen restaurants she was young and, hence, cheap labour. Ole ordered coffee and two brandies.

‘I don’t think there’s much chance of saving our marriage,’ he said once the waitress had gone off with their order. She hadn’t asked which make of brandy they wanted, which was typical. She probably didn’t drink anything but Coke anyway, but Ole really couldn’t have cared one way or the other. He went on: ‘But we’d like to have a go at it. I mean, we are grownups, right?’

Vuk nodded. Ole had said more or less the same thing earlier in the evening, but he was starting to repeat himself. Which was good. Vuk let him ramble on:

‘We’ll have more time together in a week or so. Then we’ll have to talk things through. It might even be easier then. Now that I’ve discussed it with you, Carsten. You’re such a good listener. I feel I’ve managed to get things straight in my head.’

‘Thanks. But why should it be easier in a week’s time?’

Carlsen regarded him. For a moment Vuk was afraid he had been too direct. The waitress appeared and placed two glasses of brandy, cups and a pot of coffee on their table. Vuk poured coffee for them both and avoided looking at Ole as the latter resumed.

‘Why should it be easier? Well, I shouldn’t really be telling you this…but honestly, all this secrecy’s a bit much. Does the name Sara Santanda mean anything to you?’

Vuk shook his head.

‘No, of course not,’ Ole corrected himself. ‘You’re in plastic bags, right? She’s this writer whom the Iranians want dead. She’s coming to Denmark in a week’s time, Lise’s in charge of organizing the visit. She’s collaborating with PET on the security arrangements and is probably being screwed rigid by some brainless cop
as we speak
.’

Ole lifted his brandy glass and drained it. His voice had been close to breaking by the end of the sentence.

‘That’s not necessarily the case,’ Vuk said.

Ole steadied himself.

‘I’m rather afraid that that is
exactly
the case.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘Thanks, Carsten. You’re a good man, so you are, but if it hadn’t been this one, it would probably have been someone else. In any case, she’s not at home, and to tell the truth I don’t really feel like sitting there all alone or going on to a pub, so if you would like…’

‘I’d love to,’ Vuk said, smiling. But Ole did not see the triumph in that smile.

They took a taxi to the Carlsens’ apartment. Ole had some trouble with his balance as he unlocked the door. Vuk made a round of the apartment when Ole took himself off to the toilet. The open-plan kitchen was neat and tidy. The living room was furnished with modern pieces in pale soft colours. Books covered the whole of one wall and in a corner a cream-coloured leather sofa
and two leather chairs, all nicely worn-in, were arranged round a coffee table. You could sit there and drink coffee or swivel the chairs round to watch TV. On a sideboard which looked as though it might be an antique, stood framed photographs of Ole and Lise: happy snaps in which they had their arms around one another. And pictures of each of them on their own, taken on holidays abroad. A hallway led to the bathroom and toilet, from which Vuk could hear the sound of running water, and beyond them three rooms: the bedroom with its double bed, a room containing a computer and books on psychology, and another room with yet another computer, Vuk noted, when he quickly switched on the light and popped his head round the door, still listening out for the splash of water. The larger of the two rooms was obviously Lise’s. There were newspapers, magazines, books and floppy disks scattered all over the place. A telephone and an answering machine stood on a modern desk. Apart from these and a pile of papers, the desk was completely clear. On the wall hung a poster from Expo ’92 in Seville and a beautiful picture of a flamenco dancer. Vuk returned to the living room and gazed down at the street below. There was no traffic on the road, only an elderly man walking past with his dog. The glow from the sign on the pub opposite fell softly on a rain puddle.

Ole came in and urged him to take a seat. He fetched a bottle of whisky, two glasses and a bowl of ice and poured two generous measures. It was almost as if he had made up his mind to drink himself out of, or into, oblivion, because in no time flat he had finished his drink and was refilling his glass. Vuk was full of compliments for the apartment, the furniture and all the laden bookshelves. He could see that Ole was very drunk now, so he wasn’t surprised by the sudden change of mood when Ole peered at him and said:

‘Christ, you’re a strange one, Carsten. In some ways, I mean. You know just about everything there is to know about me. I don’t know the first thing about you. Who are you, really?’

‘A dumb Jutlander,’ said Vuk, on his guard now. He didn’t want to have to resort to violence unless absolutely necessary. He lit a cigarette and held the pack of Prince out to Ole, but instead the other man took one of his own Kings, from a yellow pack that was new to Vuk.

‘Nah! There’s a lot more to you than meets the eye,’ Ole drawled.

‘I suppose the same could be said of anybody.’

‘No, I mean…you’re Danish, but somehow you’re different.’

‘How do you mean?’ Vuk asked warily.

‘I don’t know. I can’t quite put my finger on it. But take Carl Ohmann, for instance. Most people would have made some comment about him sitting in that corner having dinner. But anyone would have thought you didn’t know who he was.’

‘And?’

‘It’s just odd, that’s all, when you live in this country. And you do live here, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do!’

‘Maybe you just don’t watch much television?’

‘No, I don’t suppose I do.’

Vuk rose and walked across to the sideboard. He picked up one of the photographs – of Lise, somewhere down south. She was dressed in a little top and shorts, smiling and squinting at the camera. Her skin was tanned, and just visible in the background were some mountains and a patch of blue sea.

‘You’ve got a lovely wife, you know,’ Vuk said, but Ole was not about to be sidetracked:

‘Where did you go to school? Did you graduate from high school? Do you have a girlfriend?’