Robert Goddard - Found Wanting

He had no choice now but to contact Marty and tell him the worst. Where Vicky might be he had no idea. What had become of the attaché case he did not care to ponder. The situation was about as bad as it could be.

But putting Marty in the calamitous picture was far from straightforward. Århus Kommunehospital did not connect callers with its patients at the caller’s say-so. A message would be passed. Hr Hewitson, if he was well enough and if he wanted to, would phone him back. The urgency of the message was noted. But nothing could be guaranteed. Hr Hewitson was, for the record, ‘reasonably well’.

Nearly an hour passed, during which Eusden raided the mini-bar, flicked through innumerable brain-rotting TV channels and stared out at the slowly darkening roofscape. Then the telephone rang.

‘What gives, Richard?’ Marty asked, sounding disconcertingly chirpy.

‘She’s not here, Marty. I’ve lost her.’

‘I know. Because what you’ve lost I’ve found.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Vicky’s here. With me. Well, not with me at the moment, as it happens. She’s gone to find a hotel. But she’ll be back.’ Marty sighed. ‘I have her word on it.’

‘Vicky’s in Århus?’

‘When neither of us showed up this morning in Copenhagen, she phoned the Royal again. They told her where I was. As I predicted, she reacted by rushing straight to my bedside. Chairside, I should say. I’m feeling – and moving – a lot better today.’

‘You sound better too.’

‘Yeah. Which is quite some achievement, considering I’ve had to worry all day about what the hell you’ve been up to. What kept you?’

‘Burgaard. He slipped me a Mickey Finn and left me to sleep it off at his flat. I assumed he’d planned to drive here and try to persuade Vicky to hand over the case. Hasn’t she seen him?’

‘Nope.’

‘That doesn’t make any sense. He knew she was here and he had a head start on me. What was the point of drugging me otherwise?’

‘I don’t know. But we’ll obviously have to find a new translator. I told you Burgaard was a wrong’un.’

Eusden could not actually recall any such warning, but he was in no mood to argue. He was merely relieved that chance and circumstance had somehow contrived to rescue them. ‘What do we do now, Marty?’

‘We keep our heads, Coningsby, that’s what we do. Everything’s under control, thanks to my powers of foresight. Vicky deposited the case, as per my instructions, with a lawyer in Copenhagen I primed before I left. I’ll phone him and say you’re authorized to collect it on my behalf.’

‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me that before I set off?’

‘Because I reckoned the less there was for you to let slip to Burgaard the better. And I reckoned right, didn’t I? Now, listen. The lawyer’s name is Kjeldsen. Anders Kjeldsen. He’s got an office in Jorcks Passage, off Strøget. Y’know? The main pedestrian street through the centre.’

Eusden sighed. ‘I know it.’

‘Right. Wait till the morning. I might have trouble raising him this afternoon. Then pick up the case and sit tight till I arrive. Book me a room at the Phoenix.’

‘You’re coming here?’

‘Why not? The doc seems to think I should be well enough to leave by tomorrow. Besides, they know there’s nothing they can do for me. I’m a model of mobility for someone thirty years older and I’m back elocuting like a BBC announcer. I’ll get Bernie to order Vicky home and then I’ll train it to Copenhagen. Oh, and I’ll ask Kjeldsen to recommend a translator. We need to make up for lost time.’

‘Aren’t you supposed to be taking it easy?’ Marty’s buoyant tone was beginning to worry Eusden. He sounded positively exuberant, like a man given a second chance – or a last one.

‘Don’t worry about me, Richard. I’ll be fine.’

But Eusden was worried. And not just about Marty. The thrill of the chase was wearing thin. Every step they took to uncover Clem’s secret past seemed to leave them just as far from doing so as they had always been. He could not justify extending his absence from the office beyond a week, even to humour a dying friend. Despite Marty’s disdain of his Civil Service career, there actually were working commitments he had to honour. It was already Thursday and he could not devote more than another couple of days to Marty’s escapade. An end, of some kind, was fast approaching.

Until the next day, however, there was nothing for Eusden to do but wait. He struck out into the Copenhagen dusk on foot, hoping to walk off his fretfulness. He had to maintain a stiff pace just to stay warm. His route took him through the palace square, where Holly had hooted with laughter when he was bawled out by one of the guards for trespassing over the chain round the statue of yet another Danish king on horseback (Frederick V, this time), and out along Amaliegade to the waterside park where the Little Mermaid was to be found, perched on her rock. The fountain at the entrance to the park, where they had lazed in the sun, was frozen solid and the moat round the old citadel further in was iced over. Flecks of snow were drifting down from a darkening sky. It was cold enough to deter all but the hardiest.

A couple of joggers were nonetheless doing circuits of the citadel’s protective earth rampart. Eusden set out to walk a circuit himself before returning to the city centre. As he progressed, he noticed another man walking behind him, keeping pace with him more or less exactly. Casting his mind back, he realized he had seen the same man loitering in the palace square while he had read the plaque on the plinth supporting Frederick V’s statue. He was a stockily built fellow of thirty-five or so, dressed in jeans, leather jacket and woolly hat. Eusden told himself the idea that he was being followed was absurd, but when he stopped to gaze out over the harbour, so did his shadow. When he moved, the shadow also moved.

Disquieted but still keen to believe it amounted to nothing, Eusden cut short his circuit and hurried back out of the park. On his way in he had spotted a ferry heading across the harbour from a nearby jetty, so he took a hopeful turn in that direction as he left and was rewarded by the sight of another ferry easing in towards the jetty. He quickened his pace.

Turnaround was swift on the 901 harbour bus, destination – for Eusden – immaterial. He paid his thirty kroner and took a seat. There were only two other passengers aboard, a couple of tourists in day-glo parkas. But a breathless latecomer joined them at the last minute.

The man pulled off his woolly hat as he sat down and glanced round at Eusden. His hair was short-cropped blond, his face wide, eyes blue and watchful, jaw square. He slid a rolled newspaper out from his jacket and began to study a front-page article. It was the same pink business paper – Børsen – that Burgaard favoured. Eusden glimpsed a familiar name – Mjollnir – in a headline.

The ferry made two stops on the other side of the harbour in Christianshavn, before crossing back again, to Nyhavn. If Eusden stayed on beyond Nyhavn, it meant a longer walk back to the Phoenix. He debated with himself what to do, then yielded to impulse. ‘I’m getting off at the next stop,’ he said, tapping his shadow on the shoulder. ‘What about you?’

The man turned and looked at him with an ironical tilt of one eyebrow. ‘The same,’ he said softly.

‘You’ve been following me.’

‘Have I?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK.’ The admission was casual, as if the fact was self-evident. ‘I have.’

‘Why?’

‘I thought you might be meeting Karsten.’ There was a brittleness in his voice Eusden felt sure he recognized. ‘I’m Henning Norvig, Mr Eusden. We talked earlier. And now we need to talk again.’