Mikkel Birkegaard - The Library of Shadows

Jon took a deep breath. With his hands on the steering wheel and his eyes staring at the darkness beyond the windscreen, he replied, 'I've been asked to undertake an investigation into the circumstances surrounding my father's… death. Kortmann thinks that Luca was murdered.' He paused for a second before turning to face her. 'I'm going to need your help, Katherina.'

She lowered her gaze and nodded. 'Of course.'

Her worries were suddenly gone and she had to make an effort not to show her relief. After an hour of misgivings and uncertainty, she could now relax. Because didn't this mean that she was still welcome at Libri di Luca? And that there was still hope of a reconciliation between the transmitters and receivers? She hardly dared believe it.

'You don't look surprised,' said Jon. 'Did you realize he'd been killed?'

'There are plenty of indications,' replied Katherina evasively. She could understand it if Jon was feeling left out. 'We can't be a hundred per cent positive, but Iversen is absolutely sure of it.'

'It sounds like everyone except me knew about this.' Jon started the car. 'There also seems to be agreement that a receiver was behind it,' he went on as the car rolled towards the gate which, as if by a secret signal, had begun to open. 'Everybody has warned me against you receivers. Your powers seem to make people nervous, and if that's really how Luca was murdered, then their fears are certainly justified. So the question is whether I can trust you.'

Katherina sensed that Jon was looking at her as they waited for the gate in front of them to open all the way so that they could leave Kortmann's property. If she'd known what to say in order to reassure Jon, she would have said it, but the only thing she could think of was that she felt safe with him.

From the back seat Pau began snoring loudly. Katherina didn't say a word.

'I think I can,' Jon concluded. 'Since the man whose death we're going to investigate trusted you. I suppose that's the best recommendation.'

'What about the others?' asked Katherina. 'Not many people trust a receiver these days.'

'They're going to have to accept it, if I have anything to say about the matter. I'm going to need someone the receivers know and trust. Someone who can decipher the signals coming from both sides. And as I understand it, you've had contact with both receivers and transmitters by virtue of your connection with my father and Libri di Luca.'

Katherina nodded. Suddenly it seemed to her that the time she'd spent with Luca, as well as his efforts to reunite the two factions, had actually prepared her for investigating his murder. As if the whole thing had been planned from the start, and she could now step into the role. She hoped she had the strength for it.

'I wish Iversen were here,' she said quietly.

'We're going to need him,' Jon acknowledged, then paused for a moment. 'He's the one who knew Luca best, after all.'

The undertone of this last remark made Katherina give him a sidelong glance. For the first time she seemed to detect a touch of regret in Jon's voice. His eyes were fixed on the road ahead, but they seemed to be looking further. When his face was lit up by the headlamps of oncoming cars, she could see the muscles of his jaw moving slightly, and if she listened closely the sound of his teeth grinding was audible. There was anger and sorrow in his expression, and she wished she could make these feelings vanish. Maybe he noticed she was looking at him because he turned his face towards her. She immediately looked away.

'There's a lot I need to catch up on with regard to my father,' he said. 'It's been years since I last had any contact with him, and things didn't go very well on that occasion, to put it mildly.'

It was strange to be sitting there talking about Luca with his own son. In many situations Luca had been like a father to Katherina, and in that sense Jon was like a brother, but they had both known him for only part of their lives. Jon for the first part of his, and Katherina for a later part of hers. Together they might be able to form a more complete picture of the man to whom they both, each in different ways, owed their life.

'What happened the last time you saw Luca?' she asked cautiously.

'He rejected me,' said Jon. 'I had just turned eighteen at the time and was no doubt surly and irritating, but we didn't talk long enough for him even to find that out.' He cleared his throat before he went on. 'First I called the bookshop. I'd never understood why he had sent me away when I was in my early teens. Now that I was all grown up, in my opinion, I thought I had a right to an explanation. So I rang him up, with my heart pounding, my hands sweaty, the whole business. At first there was a long silence on the other end of the line, and for a moment I thought we'd been cut off. But then he said there must be some mistake because he didn't have a son. Then he slammed down the receiver.'

Pau grunted drowsily from the back seat, but a more regular snoring soon started up again.

'It had taken me months to muster enough courage to make that phone call,' Jon continued. 'So when I heard the dial tone on the other end, I went berserk. I took the next bus to Vesterbro and crashed open the door to the shop. Iversen was there that day. He was standing behind the counter, helping a customer, but when he saw me, his whole face lit up with a big smile and he gave me a friendly greeting. That made me calm down a bit, and when the customer left the shop, Iversen patted me on the shoulder and said that he'd go and get my father. Then he disappeared downstairs. It took a long time for Luca to appear. He came walking slowly towards me with a kind, inquisitive look in his eyes. For a second I thought that everything was going to be all right again, but then his expression changed and he asked me what I was doing there. I had no reason to be there, he said, and I should never come back.'

Katherina shifted position uneasily. This description of the man whom she had considered her foster father for so long was light-years from her own experience. It sounded like two totally different people.

'I can't understand that at all,' she said, shaking her head.

'Me neither. It made me stubborn and I wanted to know why. After all, he couldn't deny that he was my father, since Marianne was my mother. I suppose I said a number of stupid things and hurled a lot of accusations at him, but he remained utterly calm and just let me vent my rage before he played his trump card.'

They had reached the bookshop. Jon parked the car at the kerb and turned off the engine. He sat there with his eyes fixed on the shop.

'What did he do?' asked Katherina.

Jon grimaced.

'He said he couldn't stand the sight of me. I reminded him too much of my mother. Every time he looked at me, he was reminded of how she died, and that he hadn't been able to prevent it.'

Katherina had heard about Marianne's suicide from Iversen, but Luca himself had never said a word about it.

'Whew,' she exclaimed. 'What can you say to that?'

'As an eighteen-year-old, nothing,' said Jon, taking a deep breath. 'I shut up and walked out of the shop – and out of his life.'

They sat there for a moment, listening to Pau's snoring. As if on cue, it became erratic and he woke up, uttering a grunt, followed by a loud yawn.

'So, are we there yet?' he asked, stretching as best he could in the cramped space.

'We're back,' Jon confirmed.

Pau leaned forward between the seats and looked first at Jon, then at Katherina.

'So aren't we going to get out?'

Katherina opened the door and climbed out, followed by Pau.

'I'll drop by tomorrow,' said Jon before they said goodbye and slammed the doors shut.

Pau shivered in the cold, while Katherina watched Jon's car drive away.