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‘The guest bedrooms are well equipped. I think you’ll find everything you need.’

‘And the sons?’

‘Henrik will barely notice you. He’ll be hunched over his mobile phone or his laptop. He works all the time. If he does notice you, he’ll be hospitable, but distracted. Charming, but wise beyond his years.’

‘Is he married?’

‘He’s asexual, I believe. I’ve certainly never heard of a girlfriend, or boyfriend for that matter. He works.’

‘And Jakob, the army officer?’

‘Reserved. Doesn’t take after his mother or his father. He travels all the time. Lives very frugally.’

‘Single?’

‘He finds it hard to fall in love. To my knowledge he has only had one serious relationship in his whole life.’

‘Who with?’

She furrowed her brow. ‘When he was on leave from the army, he travelled around Nepal and met a girl. A girl just like him. An explorer. And worth exploring, clearly.’

‘What happened?’

‘It was five, six years ago. Jakob came back from the army and had lost ten kilos. He locked himself in his room for a month. He refused to talk to anyone and never about her. I don’t remember her name.’

‘She dumped him?’

‘Jakob isn’t the kind of guy you dump. But I don’t know the details. No one ever talks about it.’

‘Did you read the post-mortem report?’ she asked when they had driven for a while in silence.

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘Nothing. Your father just died.’

The hunting lodge was beautiful and enchanting, and there was nothing along the narrow, private sunken road to reveal its existence. Hedges and trees grew together above the road and blocked out the light evening sky.

Elizabeth Caspersen threw the car through a gap between two hedges, an opening that Michael would have missed. He caught sight of a set of red gateposts and black cast-iron gates overgrown with ivy. They drove a few hundred metres on a rust-coloured gravel track before the park opened up with its winding waterways, ponds covered with water lilies, thatched and darkened tenant-farmer buildings, ruler-straight flowerbeds and lawns so smooth you could play snooker on them.

The park and the buildings were just as well kept as the entrance to the hunting lodge had been wild and discreet. The main house was white, harmonious, light and crisp. It had an Italianate feel to it, delicate like pastry. Behind the buildings, the park sloped towards the sea. White enclosures and neat red stable buildings stretched to the right of the
main house. A couple of thoroughbreds with clean, blue blankets were grazing in the enclosures.

‘How marvellous,’ he said.

‘It’s a lovely place,’ she agreed. ‘The horses are Monika’s hobby. She breeds Danish Warmbloods and leaves Victor to his own devices. That’s the deal. Pederslund is a hunting lodge built by King Frederick VI for one of his four illegitimate children by his mistress, Frederikke Dannemand.’

‘More illegitimate children.’ Michael smiled.

‘Yes, and while we’re on the subject,’ she said, ‘the boy – my American half-brother – is called Charles, named after Ms Simpson’s grandfather.’

‘Nice detail,’ Michael said.

She parked between a Volvo estate and a dark BMW. Michael got out and stretched his back.

‘Does Victor work from home?’

‘He has a flat in Copenhagen. It’s mainly Monika who now lives here.’

Elizabeth Caspersen walked around the car to Michael: ‘It’s an open secret that he also has a mistress in Copenhagen, and Monika, well … she takes the occasional lover. An arrangement that suits them both, I believe.’

A pair of large lamps either side of the front door came on automatically as they walked up the main steps and the door was opened by a tall, lean man. Iron-grey hair, well-trimmed moustache and a hawk nose. Light brown Italian loafers, a soft, cinnamon coloured pullover and a pale blue
shirt, rolled up his sinewy forearms. The man’s movements were fast and energetic and he greeted Elizabeth Caspersen profusely, but his dark eyes were busy scanning Michael.

‘Come in! So nice, Elizabeth. So nice to see you. You’re well?’

He didn’t wait for an answer, but pulled her through the doorway so he could concentrate on her companion.

Michael smiled politely. Victor Schmidt’s hand was long, cool and dry. He looked to be in excellent physical shape even though he was in his late sixties.

‘Welcome to Pederslund, I’m Victor Schmidt.’

‘Michael Sander.’

‘Elizabeth’s mysterious … what, exactly?’

‘Adviser?’

‘Michael is helping me,’ she said.

Victor Schmidt released Michael’s hand. He smiled, but his eyes didn’t join in.

‘Welcome anyway.’

‘Thank you.’

Michael looked around the hall. He saw a white double staircase opposite the front door with two sections that floated, as if weightless, up through the different floors. There were antlers and centrepieces arranged in fans and rosettes around particularly impressive trophies, but this collection of skeletal remains seemed to belong exclusively to the Danish fauna.

As Victor Schmidt helped Elizabeth Caspersen out of her
trench coat he glanced at Michael, who looked back at him without expression. There was something wrong with Victor Schmidt’s eyes, he thought. The enormous crystal chandelier suspended from the ceiling at the centre of the hall reflected differently in them. It took him another moment to work out that Victor Schmidt’s left eye was prosthetic.

The businessman flung out his arms as a sign of comic surrender.

‘A completely outrageous story, Elizabeth. The old goat. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry … or envy him. You would think that Flemming had heard of condoms, for God’s sake. Your poor mother. Perhaps it’s just as well that she is …’

‘Gaga?’ Elizabeth Caspersen suggested.

‘Yes. A blessing. Drinks?’

He led the way through a set of dark double doors and Michael edged closer to Elizabeth Caspersen.

‘He has a glass eye?’ he whispered.

‘What a brilliant detective you are, Michael.’

She gave his arm a quick squeeze.

The estate’s library bore comparison to Flemming Caspersen’s, but Michael got a feeling of stepping onto a stage set, something he hadn’t had in Hellerup. The sense of belonging and ownership which he knew from large English houses, and which only several generations of unchallenged, inherited privilege could create, was missing. The library at Pederslund was simultaneously too much and not quite enough.

It wanted for nothing: there were comfortable Chesterfield sofas, a fine-looking fireplace where a fire crackled merrily, bookcases from floor to ceiling filled with impressively titled, weighty tomes – he suspected they had been bought at an auction by the yard. There were oil paintings from the Danish romantic golden age, silk lampshades, huge Chinese vases, oriental ivory and wood carvings, and even a varnished college rowing oar above the mantelpiece. But there was no soul.

A slim, dark-haired woman got up from the sofa and crossed the room. She exchanged Continental kisses and a stiff hug with Elizabeth Caspersen before looking at Michael with large, soulful eyes. She was wearing a tight-fitting beige silk skirt with pearl embroidery, a black silk blouse whose neckline was gathered with a pearl over her décolletage, and a short jacket of the same material as the skirt. She moved beautifully, even though she was wearing very high, thin stilettos. Slim silver bracelets jingled down her forearm when she extended her hand towards him, and he didn’t know whether to shake or kiss it, but chose the former.

‘Monika,’ she said in a husky voice.

‘Michael.’

She was a sun worshipper and the skin at her throat had thickened and turned slightly leathery, but her neck was smooth, long and elegant and her face still beautiful. Her black hair was gathered at the nape of her neck in a tight ponytail that made her look like a dressage rider.

‘I’m Swedish,’ she said. ‘Victor abducted me from Stockholm.’

‘I can see why,’ Michael said gallantly.

She smiled.

‘Thank you. What would you like to drink, Michael? I understand that you’re some kind of private eye, so I guess it has to be whisky?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Ice?’

‘If you have it.’

‘Come and meet my son Henrik,’ she said, and walked over to the drinks cabinet. She had a beautiful backside and strong, slim legs. When she turned, he noticed large, round breasts that seem to defy both gravity and age. He put her in her mid-fifties, but carefully preserved. Then again, he imagined all that riding must keep her fit.

A young man with blond, sandy hair and very light blue eyes had got up from the desk. A laptop displayed long, green columns of numbers. Michael recognized the blond boy from the summer picture in Flemming Caspersen’s library. He was still slim like a boy, lanky, and he had his father’s narrow shoulders, but his face was open with an easy smile on his lips. He brushed the fringe from his eyes and extended his hand.

‘Hello. Henrik. Welcome.’

‘Michael. What a great place.’

‘It’s a bit off the beaten track, but my father grew up in a
tenement block in Vesterbro, he claims, and always wanted to have a castle. Now he has finally got it, he spends most of his time in Copenhagen. It doesn’t make any sense, does it?’

‘But your mother lives here?’

‘She dotes on her horses.’

‘Do you ride?’ Michael asked.

‘Never. In my opinion, horses are neurotic reptiles. They’re overrated and unpredictable.’

Michael’s nostrils caught a hint of Monika Schmidt’s perfume as she touched his shoulder lightly. Over by the fireplace Victor Schmidt and Elizabeth Caspersen were deep in conversation.

‘Your drink, Michael,’ Monika Schmidt whispered. She was very close and the scent was overpowering. She looked at her son.

‘Have you had the reptile speech?’ she asked.

‘Just the headline.’

‘The truth is, he’s scared of them,’ she said.

Henrik Schmidt smiled. ‘Yes, Mother. No, Mother. The horse is a noble animal, I know.’

‘It really is,’ she said.

Michael looked out at the enclosures that glowed strangely white in the last rays of the low evening sun. The horses were dark, calmly grazing silhouettes. He sniffed his whisky and detected notes of saltwater and seaweed. Islay Malt, would be his guess. It was like biting into tarred hemp rope. In a good way. What a shame he couldn’t drink tonight.

‘You … have a stud farm?’ he asked.

‘I have a wonderful stallion,’ she said, and eyed him up and down. ‘Cavalier of Pederslund. We freeze his semen and sell it across the world. Or we let the mares come to him. A mare from Germany is here at the moment. I think we’ll let him mount her tonight.’

She raised her glass to her mouth and Michael observed the lipstick on the rim.

She smiled: ‘I love
deckara
, Michael … “procedurals” you say in Danish? Are you really a private eye?’

‘Not in the literary sense,’ he assured her.

She sized him up again as though she considered bidding for him at an auction.

‘Are you sure?’ she sounded disappointed.

‘Quite sure.’

Michael looked around frantically for Elizabeth Caspersen.

Henrik Schmidt watched his mother with pale, flat, inexpressive eyes. Then he flashed Michael a boyish smile, made his excuses and returned to his laptop. There was something monastically ascetic and isolated about his slim, hunched figure. Henrik Schmidt looked like someone who was in his element.

Michael was finally rescued by Victor Schmidt and Elizabeth Caspersen. The financier put his arm around his wife’s shoulders, pulled her close and smiled to Michael.

‘I have to warn you, Michael,’ Victor Schmidt said. ‘When my wife spots a fine stud, she’ll stop at nothing to get him.’

Monika Schmidt blushed and didn’t smile.

‘He’s an investigator, Victor,’ she mumbled. ‘He’s his own man.’

Victor Schmidt squeezed his wife harder and looked at Michael. ‘So what are your qualifications? I’ve tried looking you up. You must be the only person on earth who can’t be googled.’

‘Stop it, Victor,’ Elizabeth Caspersen said. ‘I can vouch for Michael.’

The financier shot him an inquisitorial look with his working eye, while his glass eye happened to be aimed at his son at the desk.

‘Surely I need to know something about the man before I let him into every nook and cranny of my company.’

‘
Your
company?’

‘Our company, Elizabeth, for God’s sake.’

‘I think Victor is right, Elizabeth,’ Michael said smoothly. ‘I would feel exactly the same.’ He smiled. ‘I worked for Shepherd & Wilkins in London and New York for a decade before I started working for myself. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? Before that I was a military police captain with the Horse Guards and after that I worked for Hvidovre Police’s Serious Crime Unit.’

Schmidt nodded. ‘How hard was that, Elizabeth?’ He drained his glass and let go of his wife. ‘I’m satisfied. In the circumstances. And you have the letter from this Miss Simpson?’

He set down his glass on a coffee table as Elizabeth opened her handbag and handed him a pale blue envelope made from good quality paper. He found a pair of reading glasses, put them on his long nose and pulled out a single, densely written sheet. A small photograph fluttered to the floor.

Michael picked it up and looked at it before passing it on. Elizabeth Caspersen was right. The surly-looking chubby baby in the picture did have a remarkable similarity to the late, eminent British statesman.

Schmidt took the photograph from Michael. His lips moved while he read. He turned over the letter and carried on reading. Then he looked at Elizabeth Caspersen over his reading glasses.

‘This is not good, Elizabeth.’

She nodded calmly.

‘I agree. It’s very unfortunate.’

‘Unfortunate? It’s a shit storm. If your father wasn’t already dead, I’d happily shoot him myself.’

He held up the letter to Michael.

‘Have you read it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘All of it, damn you! Is it genuine? Does she exist?’

Monika Schmidt smiled apologetically to Michael from her position behind her husband.

Michael nodded.

‘Miss Janice Simpson lives at the address stated,’ he said calmly. ‘She’s thirty-three years old, works as an editor at a publisher’s near Bryant Park, she almost owns her apartment on 58th Street West outright, and publishes books on modern art. Her mother is a librarian at the New York Public Library and her father is a judge at New York’s Criminal Court. It’s an old family with a fine lineage. They have been New Yorkers for seven generations. That makes them aristocracy in that town.’

He looked at Victor Schmidt in the hope of fanning a social inferiority complex, but the other man just nodded vaguely.

‘I’m waiting for some bank information,’ Michael continued. ‘Simpson Junior’s birth certificate and various photographic evidence.’

Schmidt looked a little bit impressed, despite himself.

‘Excellent,’ he said slowly. He looked at the photograph. ‘Hideous kid.’

‘May I see?’

Monika Schmidt held out her hand. She looked silently at the photograph before handing it back. Her gaze was downcast and her eyes half closed. Michael looked at the large oil painting above the mantelpiece: a happy, younger version of Monika Schmidt in a long, pale silk dress, near an open window with light curtains. Her two sons stood next to her: blond Henrik with the sky-blue eyes who looked like his father, and the stronger, darker and introverted Jakob, who took after his mother. The painting had photographic
accuracy and detail. It was the same artist who had painted Flemming Caspersen with the Alaskan bear in the house in Hellerup.