FOURTEEN

Burgaard called for them at eleven o’clock, as agreed. He was clearly wary of Marty and the feeling was just as clearly mutual. They set off in Burgaard’s battered old Skoda and little was said until they had left the city and were driving south through a snow-veiled landscape of farms and forests and empty roads.

‘How many generations of Aksdens have farmed here?’ Eusden asked, as much to break the silence as out of genuine curiosity.

‘Many, I guess,’ Burgaard replied. ‘But Aksdenhøj was never a rich farm. Høj means hill. The ones with names ending in dal – valley – are where the best land is. So, we know why Tolmar did not stay on the farm.’

‘But his sister stuck with it,’ said Marty.

‘Not exactly. She married Henrik Støvring. He owns Marskedal, one of the largest manor farms in east Jutland.’

‘So, what’s happened to Aksdenhøj?’

‘They say Tolmar stays there occasionally. And Lars uses it as a studio.’

‘Is that where we’re going, then?’

‘Yes. With luck, we’ll find Lars there.’

After about ten miles on a main road, they turned off on to a narrower, winding side road. The going was rougher over compacted ice, the snowbanks at the fields’ edges higher as they entered rolling, hillier countryside. Off to one side, down a tree-lined drive, a large, half-timbered, terracotta-roofed manor house came into view.

‘Marskedal,’ Burgaard announced. ‘Nice, yes?’

‘Looks like Elsa Aksden married money,’ said Marty.

‘Or Henrik Støvring did. They say Tolmar’s pumped a lot of cash into the estate.’

‘What do they farm?’

‘Pigs. Bacon’s big business.’ Burgaard pointed to a plain, blank-windowed structure on the other side of the road. ‘There are probably several hundred pigs in there. Aksdenhøj used to be a sheep farm. Not so profitable.’

Another turn-off took them on to a lane that hugged the edge of a birch forest as it climbed into the hills. Aksdenhøj appeared ahead of them at the lane’s end, a quadrangle of thatch-roofed stone buildings on a shoulder of land close to the crest of the hill, sheltered by the forest.

Burgaard beeped his horn as he drove into the cobbled yard. Smoke was climbing from a chimney in one of the buildings, next to which was parked an old Volvo estate. Someone was at home. And Burgaard evidently wished to give them ample warning of their arrival.

‘How well do you know Lars?’ asked Eusden.

‘As well as he’ll let me,’ Burgaard replied with measured ambiguity. He pulled up behind the Volvo and climbed out.

The chill of the hilly air hit Eusden as he emerged from the car. It was colder up here than in Århus and the snow had blanketed the world in silence. The farmhouse itself looked to be shut up. The smoking chimney was on one of the barns that formed the rest of the quadrangle. It clearly no longer served as a barn: high dormer windows had been added to its steeply sloping roof; lights, blurred by condensation, glimmered within.

One of the windows opened as Eusden gazed up at them. A man peered out: grey-haired, balding, ruddy-faced. He shouted something in Danish. Burgaard replied in kind. A shepherding gesture appeared to constitute an invitation to enter. They headed for the door.

The barn had been converted into a dwelling, disconcertingly modern in design and layout. A lobby opened into a large, well-appointed kitchen. Burgaard led the way straight up the wide stairs ahead of them to Lars Aksden’s studio.

It covered the length and breadth of the building beneath the exposed thatch. A gigantic, rhythmically ticking radiator warmed the air, bringing out the pungent smells of oil paint and turpentine. Dozens of paintings – Expressionist nudes and vibrantly hued landscapes – were hung or easelled in view. Dozens more were stacked against the walls. There was an area set aside for relaxation, with couches and rugs, and at the far end, beyond a half-drawn curtain, an unmade bed. A voice from Eusden’s past was singing softly on a hi-fi somewhere in the jumble: Françoise Hardy. As music will, it plunged him into a memory: a trip to Paris with Gemma and Marty in the long hot summer of 1976. He saw a shadow of the same memory cross Marty’s face. Then someone pressed the off-switch.

The floorboards creaked as Lars Aksden moved towards them. He was a big, heavy-footed bear of a man, clad in paint-flecked maroon, with a face like one of his own portraits: deeply scored and passionate. His voice, as he and Burgaard swapped a few more words in Danish, was a fractured growl; his laugh, when it unexpectedly followed, as loud as a roar.

‘Karsten, you are a scheming little bastard.’ Lars pinched Burgaard’s cheek as if he were a naughty child. ‘Introduce us.’

Burgaard did the honours. Handshakes were exchanged, a lingering one in Marty’s case, as Lars murmured his surname and stared thoughtfully at him.

‘Where do you come from, Marty?’

‘England. The Isle of Wight. We both do.’

‘And what’s brought you here?’

‘Family history. I’ve always wanted to know how my grandfather came to have a Danish friend: Hakon Nydahl. Richard’s helping me… look into it.’

‘Well, I tell you: I’ve always wanted to know that too.’

‘Did you know Clem?’ asked Eusden.

‘I met him twice. He came to see us here when I was a child, with Great-Uncle Hakon. And again, when I was older, on his own. That would have been around…’

‘Spring of 1960?’ suggested Marty.

Lars cocked his head and frowned at him. ‘Ja. Around then.’

‘We know he… was abroad at that time.’

‘But I’m not going to be able to tell you how he met my great-uncle. That was never explained to me. Nor were his visits. My grandparents were expecting him, though. It was all… arranged beforehand.’

‘Your grandparents? What about your parents?’

‘They were dead by then. My mother died giving birth to my sister. My father was killed in an accident on the farm. Hard times, Marty. Did you have them?’

‘Not as a child.’

‘Lucky for you.’

‘You really have no idea what Clem’s connection with your great-uncle was?’ asked Eusden.

‘Idea? Oh, I’ve got several of those. But that’s all they are. Ideas. Theories. Dreams.’ And a dreamlike state was indeed what Lars seemed briefly to descend into. He moved across to one of the windows and gazed out for a moment, then rounded on them. ‘You want a drink? Beer? Schnapps?’

‘Why not?’ said Marty. And Eusden saw no point in arguing. Beer all round was agreed. At a word from Lars, Burgaard headed down to the kitchen to fetch them.

‘Karsten’s a clever boy,’ Lars confided in an undertone while he was downstairs. ‘But not as clever as he thinks he is.’

‘Who is?’ Marty murmured reflectively.

‘Ja. Exactly. Who is? Not me, for sure. Karsten first came to me saying he wanted my memories of Christiania. Y’know? Our little – well, not so little – flower-power utopia in Copenhagen. There’s a famous photograph – you see it often – of some hairy guys putting a plank through the fence round the disused barracks. Day One of the commune. November thirteenth, 1971. I’m the one whose face you can’t see. Tolmar says that’s the only good turn I’ve ever done him: looking away from the camera that day.’ He grinned.

‘Your brother’s a remarkable man,’ said Eusden.

‘Remarkably successful, for sure. And my brother’ – Lars raised his voice as Burgaard rejoined them – ‘is the Aksden my young friend really wants to know about. Isn’t that right, Karsten? Tolmar. Not Lars and his paintings and his girlfriends and his dopehead memories.’

Burgaard looked sheepish as he handed round the bottles. Glasses were evidently not part of the deal. He said something in Danish.

‘Speak English,’ Lars growled, raising his bottle in a toast. ‘Skål.’ They all joined in. ‘Go on, Karsten. Tell them how it is.’