‘Officially? No. I’m on leave.’

‘Which you’re spending with your not very close friend Karsten Burgaard in Århus. In the middle of winter. That’s great. That’s so likely.’

Eusden did not react. He was beginning to feel he might actually win out in the trading of points. ‘Have you written about Aksden before?’

‘Most Danish journalists have. Tell me, Richard, do you ride?’

‘What?’

‘Do you ride? Horses, I mean.’

‘No.’

‘Well, I do. And when I was a boy I worked weekends at a stable. It means I know what horseshit smells like. So, stop shovelling it in my direction, OK? Karsten told me two Englishmen had shown up in Århus with access to highly sensitive information about Tolmar Aksden. The sort of stuff that might knock a couple of digits off Mjollnir’s share price for starters. I’m guessing you’re one of those two Englishmen. Let me finish before you deny it. Karsten’s given me titbits about Mjollnir quite a few times. It’s his specialty. He made it clear this was something big, something… shattering. He needed to collect some documents from a woman staying at the Phoenix. Then we were to meet. He never showed. Now, I don’t know what you had going with him and I don’t necessarily care. If you’ve got the documents, I might be in the market for them, no questions asked. You understand?’

Eusden stared Norvig down as calmly as he could before responding. ‘I don’t have the documents.’

‘Do you know where they are?’

‘I-’

A phone began ringing in one of Norvig’s pockets. ‘Skide,’ he said, pulling it out. ‘Unskyld. Hallo?’ His face was a mask during the conversation that followed, to which he contributed little beyond ja, nej, okay and tak, interspersed with sighs suggesting that something other than unalloyed good news was being conveyed to him. He said nothing at first after ringing off, gazing at a point in the middle distance somewhere over Eusden’s shoulder. Then he murmured, ‘Karsten’s dead.’

‘What?’

‘He hit the wall of a flyover on the motorway near Skanderborg early this morning. High-speed crash. No other car involved. Apparently.’

The shock was followed for Eusden by the sickening realization that if Burgaard had not decided to go it alone, they would have been together in his car. ‘What do you mean – “apparently”?’

‘It was around four thirty. Empty road. No witnesses.’

‘You’re suggesting… he was run off the road?’

‘Did I say that? Fuck, this is serious.’ Norvig contemplated just how serious over several nervous drags on his cigarette. ‘No, no. They wouldn’t. It must have been just… an accident. Maybe there was ice. Maybe he was… careless.’

‘But you don’t think so.’

‘I don’t know.’ Norvig grabbed his phone again, as if intending to make a call. Then he thought better of it and clunked it down on the table. ‘You got here safely, didn’t you?’ He glared accusingly at Eusden as he stubbed out his cigarette.

‘Look, I know nothing about this. I came by train.’

‘Who’s the woman at the Phoenix?’

‘She’s gone.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t matter.’

‘The other Englishman, then. Who’s he?’

‘Marty Hewitson. He is a friend.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Århus. But he’ll be here soon. Probably tomorrow.’

‘OK, Richard. Let’s be cool. Accidents happen. Business is business. You get these… documents. You have them in your hand. They deliver what Karsten promised. Then I’m interested. Anything less – any more horseshit – forget it.’ Norvig scribbled a number on a corner of the front page of Børsen, tore it off and passed it to Eusden. ‘Call me. If there’s something to talk about. If not, we never met. Understood?’

‘Understood.’

They left separately, at Norvig’s insistence. Eusden would actually have been glad of his company, rattled as he was by the news of Burgaard’s death. An accident was credible enough. He had probably been speeding, his head full of plans to smooth talk Vicky into handing over the case. Or maybe he had just fallen asleep at the wheel. Oh, yes, an accident was the obvious explanation. And yet… And yet.

Eusden walked up Nyhavn to Kongens Nytorv, the broad square at the eastern end of Strøget. He was in no hurry to return to his cramped room at the Phoenix. He knew he ought to eat something but had no appetite. His senses were alert, his nerves jangling. He felt exposed and helpless and foolish for feeling so. Marty needed to be told what had happened, but there was no way Århus Kommunehospital was going to put a call through to him at this hour. Eusden was trapped between the urge to act and the certainty that for the moment there was nothing he could do.

He remembered there was a quaint old bar on the square where he had passed a carefree hour one summer’s night back in 1989: Hviids Vinstue. He went in, found it reassuringly unaltered and drank several glasses of the house schnapps. Alcohol soon began to take the edge off his anxiety. Burgaard had killed himself in a car crash. That was all there was to it. There was no second car, no van speeding past, then swerving in, causing Burgaard to swerve and skid. It was-

A van. Marty had nearly been run over by one before collapsing at the bus stop. Maybe there really was a plot. And maybe the plotters had banked on Eusden being in the car as well. Maybe they had only just – or still not – learnt that Burgaard had left him behind. His mouth dried as he found himself actually crediting the possibility.

He decided to go back to the Phoenix. Cramped or not, his room promised safety if nothing else. He finished his schnapps and left.

A short distance round the square was Copenhagen’s grand hotel, the d’Angleterre, where he and Gemma had taken Holly for tea one afternoon, earning the girl’s highest accolade: ‘Ace.’ Eusden paused to gaze in at the hotel’s warmly lit windows. It was to occur to him later in the evening that if he had lingered at Hviids just a little longer or alternatively pressed straight on in that instant, he would not have been standing there when a couple emerged from the d’Angleterre into the chill night air.

The woman was fur-coated and -hatted, amply proportioned in height and girth, dark-skinned and statuesquely poised. She stopped, instantly aware of Eusden’s astonished gaze and that the cause of his astonishment was not her, but her companion, a tall, middle-aged man in a dark-green overcoat. ‘Do you know this gentleman, Werner?’ she asked in a lilting American accent. ‘He certainly seems to know you.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Straub gave Eusden a wintry smile. ‘We know each other.’

TWENTY-ONE

‘Richard Eusden. Regina Celeste.’ Straub managed the introductions with measured aplomb. Eusden had already guessed that the lady was the moneybags from Virginia Straub had been planning to sell the contents of the case to. What he could not guess was who he planned to say Eusden was. But he did not have to wait long to find out. ‘Richard’s a friend of Marty Hewitson’s.’ This was a surprise. Did he propose to continue by explaining how he had treated Marty? No, of course not. ‘Is he here with you in Copenhagen, Richard?’

‘It would be so convenient if he was,’ said Regina as Eusden hesitated over an answer. ‘The man’s been leading us quite a dance.’

‘Has he really?’

‘I’m afraid it’s the kind of thing I’ve gotten used to since I became an Anastasian.’

‘A what?’

‘A true believer in the Grand Duchess. Anastasia Manahan. Maybe you don’t call yourself that over here. But I guess you must be one if you’re a friend of Mr Hewitson’s. So, where’s he hiding himself?’

‘I… don’t really know.’

‘What has brought you to Copenhagen, then?’ asked Straub.

‘The same as you, perhaps.’

‘Why don’t you join us for dinner, Mr Eusden?’ Regina trilled. ‘We were on our way to a restaurant. Close by, you said, Werner?’