Eusden walked out of Roskilde Cathedral into the cold grey Danish afternoon. But his mind lingered in the dazzling sunshine of Paris thirty years ago. He saw Marty smiling at him across a café table in Montmartre. He felt the heat flung back at him from the stone wall above the quay on the Île St-Louis. He heard the past calling to him. And he could not answer.

‘Mr Eusden?’

A chubby, shaven-headed man in a grey suit, white shirt and navy-blue tie was standing in his path. Behind him, a gleaming black Mercedes was parked at the roadside. Eusden’s thoughts were suddenly wrenched back to the present. ‘Yes,’ he said weakly.

‘I have instructions to drive you to Mjollnir HQ.’

‘What?’

‘Mjollnir. Birgitte Grøn wants to see you.’

‘Who?’

The chauffeur smiled wanly. ‘My boss.’

‘I don’t know her. And I don’t think I want to meet her.’

‘Hold on, please.’ The chauffeur took out his phone and made a call. He spoke a few words in Danish, then passed the phone to Eusden. ‘It’s her.’

‘Hello?’ said Eusden cautiously.

‘Richard Eusden?’ The voice was clipped and brittle enough to hint at impatience.

‘Yes.’

‘I am Birgitte Grøn, CFO of Mjollnir. We need to talk.’

‘What about?’

‘Things that cannot be discussed on the phone. Jørgen will bring you to my office.’

‘Maybe I don’t want to be brought.’

‘And maybe I don’t want to be here on a Saturday afternoon, Mr Eusden. But I am. And you’ll come and talk to me. Because, if you don’t, the police will get a name to put to the description they have of a man they wish to question about the murders last night of a lawyer called Anders Kjeldsen and a journalist called Henning Norvig. My office is much more comfortable than an interview room at police headquarters. And nobody will be recording what you say. So, I suggest you get in the car. I’ll expect you shortly.’

THIRTY-ONE

An entire second city appeared to be under construction south of Copenhagen. Eusden gazed out through the tinted window of the Mercedes at the office complexes and apartment blocks rearing up between clusters of cranes and mountains of earth where their neighbours were soon to be. This was the future. And at its heart, raised like a finger pointed to the sky, was what Jørgen informed him was called Det Blå Tryllestav – the Blue Wand: an ultramarine-louvred tower of glass housing Mjollnir AS.

Jørgen drove straight into the underground car park and escorted Eusden to the lift. An ear-poppingly high-speed ascent took him to the top of the tower. The lift doors opened to a scene of deserted open-plan workstations through which strode a snappily trouser-suited woman who greeted him as she approached. ‘Mr Eusden. I’m Birgitte Grøn.’

She was small and slightly built, about forty-five, with shortish blonde hair, a sharp-featured face and slender letterbox-framed glasses. Beneath her pink shirt she wore an austerely wrought platinum necklace. She looked brisk and business like and spoke in a tone that suggested their meeting was no different from half a dozen others she might expect to manage in an average day.

‘Come through to my office,’ she said after a perfunctory handshake. ‘We have the place to ourselves this afternoon. Mjollnir doesn’t encourage weekend working. But this is an emergency.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes. For us as well as you.’ She marched back the way she had come and Eusden followed. ‘I wouldn’t be here otherwise.’

They entered a large glass-walled office carpeted and furnished in restful pastels and pale wood. A man was waiting there for them, dressed in a black suit and open-necked white shirt. He looked about fifty, balding and neatly bearded, with a melancholic blue-eyed gaze.

‘Erik Lund, CSO,’ said Birgitte.

Eusden shook the man’s hand. Lund’s grip was strong, his expression unsmiling.

‘What does the S stand for?’

‘Security,’ said Lund.

‘Ah.’

‘Would you like tea or coffee, Mr Eusden?’ asked Birgitte.

‘Coffee would be nice. Black. No sugar.’

‘A man of your own tastes, Erik,’ said Birgitte. ‘Pour him a cup, would you? Nothing for me. Let’s sit.’

They sat at a broad maple conference table angled towards a corner of the building and commanding a chevroned view of the vast construction site that stretched away towards the centre of Copenhagen.

‘Please accept my condolences for the death of your friend.’

‘Am I supposed to take that seriously?’

‘I said it seriously.’

‘You’ll be telling me next Karsten Burgaard’s death really was an accident.’

‘As far as I know, it was.’ Birgitte gave him a faintly sympathetic smile that hinted at a vivacious persona she left at home every morning. ‘You’ve had twenty-four rough hours, I think. That looks nasty.’ She acknowledged with a nod the combined effect of the plastered gash on his forehead and the black eye below it. ‘You look tired. And a little desperate. If you don’t mind me saying.’ Lund delivered the coffee and sat down next to her. ‘Maybe that’ll help.’

‘Maybe.’ Eusden took a sip. And it did help – a little.

‘If you have any questions…’

‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me why I’m here soon enough.’

‘I am.’

‘Then this’ll do to be going on with: where’s Tolmar Aksden?’

‘Helsinki.’

‘Saukko Bank taking up a lot of his time, is it?’

‘No more than he expected.’

‘But he’s… authorized this meeting?’

‘He trusts me, Mr Eusden. I act with his authority.’

‘Is that a yes or a no?’

Lund muttered something in Danish which Birgitte appeared to ignore. ‘This is what you need to know,’ she proceeded. ‘The police have already matched the bullets found in Kjeldsen and Norvig with the gun found near the bodies of two motorcyclists killed in a collision with a lorry on Østbanegade late last night. The motorcyclists themselves haven’t been identified yet. They were carrying millions of kroner in cash. The lorry driver thinks they were chasing a man who ran across the road in front of him. Earlier, a caretaker was locked in Kjeldsen’s office at Jorcks Passage by a man he thinks was English and who said he was going to Marmorvej – the quay where Kjeldsen and Norvig were shot dead. The police don’t have a very good description of this man. Their chances of finding him are poor. He probably left his fingerprints in numerous locations. But I doubt they’re held in the Europol database, so, unless they’re given a name…’

‘You’ve made your point.’

‘Good.’

‘What do you want from me?’

‘Help.’

‘My help?’

‘Yes. We have a… situation… we need to deal with.’

‘What kind of situation?’

‘We’ve been contacted by the people we believe employed those two motorcyclists to kill Kjeldsen and Norvig and take back the money they’d been paid. We don’t know who these people are. Let’s call them… the Opposition. They have material that could damage our CEO and therefore the company… quite severely. They’re willing to sell it to us. And we’re willing to buy it. Frankly speaking, we have no choice. We face… a potential disaster.’

‘What is the material?’

‘Don’t you know, Mr Eusden?’

‘Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t.’

Another Danish mutter from Lund elicited a tight frown of irritation from Birgitte. ‘We’re not here to discuss the nature or detail of the material. We believe it originated from your late friend’s grandfather, Clement Hewitson. Is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘Marty Hewitson left it with Kjeldsen for safekeeping. Kjeldsen stole it and contacted Norvig, a journalist who has written several articles hostile to this company. Between them, they set up a deal with the Opposition, who then double-crossed them. Is that how it was?’

‘More or less.’

‘You were lucky to survive, Mr Eusden.’

‘I know.’

‘And that’s lucky for us. Because you’ve seen the material. You know what it looks like in its original form. Yes?’