12

Ditlev Pram quickly updated Aalbæk on the situation, ignoring the fool’s complaints about late nights and lack of manpower. So long as they paid his price, he better just keep his trap shut.

Then he swivelled his office chair and nodded pleasantly at his trusted colleagues around the conference table.

‘Excuse me,’ he said in English. ‘I have a problem with an old aunt who’s always straying from home. This time of year, we obviously need to find her before nightfall.’

They smiled agreeably, understanding what he meant. Family comes first. That’s how it was where they came from, too.

‘Thank you for a good briefing.’ He smiled broadly. ‘I’m very pleased that this team has become a reality. Northern Europe’s best doctors congregated in one place – could one wish for anything more?’ He smacked his palms on the tabletop. ‘Let’s get started, shall we? Will you begin, Stanislav?’

His head of plastic surgery nodded, flicking on the overhead projector. Stanislav showed them a man’s face on which lines had been drawn. ‘We will make incisions here, here and here,’ he said. He’d done the procedure before. Five times in Romania and twice in the Ukraine. In every case but one the feeling in the facial nerves had returned startlingly fast. He made it sound uncomplicated. A facelift, he claimed, could now be done with just half the incisions doctors typically used.

‘Take a look here,’ he said, ‘right at the top of the sideburns. A triangular area is removed and the skin is pulled up and sewn together with only a few stitches. Simple and straightforward.’

At this point Ditlev’s hospital director interrupted. ‘We have submitted descriptions of the operation to the journals.’ He pulled out one American and three European journals. Not the most prestigious, but they were good enough. ‘It will be published before Christmas. We call the treatment “The Stanislav Facial Correction”.’

Ditlev nodded. There was bound to be a great deal of money in this, and they were smart, these people. Ultra-professional scalpel technicians. Each earned a salary equal to that of ten doctors in their homeland. It didn’t make them feel guilty, and in that way all those present were equals: Ditlev, who made money from their labour; and the doctors, who made money from everyone else. An unusually advantageous hierarchy, especially since he was the one at the top. And right now he was objectively calculating that one failed operation out of seven was completely unacceptable. Ditlev avoided unnecessary risk. His time at boarding school had taught him that. If you were headed into a shitty situation, you steered clear of it. For that reason he was about to reject the entire project and fire his director for having submitted the articles for publication without his approval, and it was for the same reason that, deep down, he couldn’t think of anything else but Torsten’s telephone call.

The intercom behind him beeped. He arched backwards to push the button. ‘Yes, Birgitte?’

‘Your wife is on her way.’

Ditlev glanced round at the others. The dressing-down would have to wait, and the secretary would have to put a stop to the articles.

‘Ask Thelma to stay where she is,’ he said. ‘I’m coming over. We’re finished here.’

A glass walkway snaked from the clinic a hundred yards across the landscape to the villa, so you could walk through the garden without getting your feet wet and still enjoy the view of the sea and the beech trees. He got the idea from the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. But at his house, no art adorned the walls.

Thelma was prepared to make a big scene. Just the kind of thing he wouldn’t want others to be witness to in his office. Her eyes were full of hate.

‘I spoke to Lissan Hjorth,’ she said bitingly.

‘Hmm, that took a while. Weren’t you supposed to be with your sister in Aalborg by now?’

‘I didn’t go to Aalborg, I was in Gothenburg, and not with my sister. You shot her dog, Lissan says.’

‘What do you mean, “you”? I assure you, it was an accident. The dog was utterly unmanageable and ran in among the quarry. I’d warned Hjorth. What were you doing in Gothenburg, by the way?’

‘It was Torsten who shot the dog.’

‘Yes, it was Torsten, and he’s very sorry. Should we buy a new pup for Lissan? Is that what this is all about? Now tell me, what were you doing in Gothenburg?’

Shadows fell across her forehead. Only an unusually heated temperament was capable of creating wrinkles in her ridiculously tight facial skin, the result of five facelifts, but Thelma Pram succeeded. ‘You gave my apartment in Berlin away to that little nobody, Saxenholdt. My apartment, Ditlev.’ She aimed a finger at him. ‘That was your last hunt, do you hear me?’

He approached her. It was the only way he could get her to step back. ‘You never used that apartment anyway, did you? You couldn’t get your lover to go with you, could you?’ He smiled. ‘Aren’t you getting a little old for him, Thelma?’

She raised her head, admirably adept at taking insults. ‘You’ve no idea what you’re saying, you realize that? Did you forget to sic Aalbæk on me this time, since you don’t know who he is? Did you, Ditlev, since you don’t know who I was in Gothenburg with?’ Then she laughed.

Ditlev was stopped in his tracks by the unexpected question.

‘It’ll be an expensive divorce, Ditlev. You do bizarre things – the kind of things that will cost you when lawyers enter the picture. Your perverse games with Ulrik and the others. How long do you think I’ll keep them secret for nothing?’

He smiled. It was a bluff.

‘Don’t you think I know what’s on your mind right now, Ditlev? She doesn’t dare, you’re thinking. She has it too good with me. But no, Ditlev, I’ve grown away from you. I don’t care about you. You can rot in prison for all I care. And you’d have to do without your slaves down in the laundry in the meantime. Do you think you can handle that, Ditlev?’

He stared at her throat. He was well aware how hard he could strike. And he knew where.

Like a civet cat, she sensed it and retreated.

If he were going to strike, he’d have to do it from behind. No one was invincible.

‘You’re sick in the head, Ditlev,’ she said. ‘I’ve always known that. You used to be sick in a fun way, but not any more.’

‘Then get a lawyer, Thelma.’

Her smile was like Salome’s when she requested that Herod bring John the Baptist’s head on a platter.

‘And face Bent Krum on the other side of the table? No way, Ditlev. I’ve got other plans. I’m just waiting for the right opportunity.’

‘Are you threatening me?’

Her hair was slipping out of her hairband. She thrust her head back and flashed her bare neck, showing him she wasn’t afraid of him. Mocking him.

‘You think I’m threatening you?’ There was fire in her eyes. ‘I’m not. When I’m ready, I’ll pack my clothes and leave. The man I’ve found is waiting for me. A mature man. You had no idea, did you, Ditlev? But he’s older than you. I know my appetites. A boy cannot satisfy them.’

‘I see. And who is he?’

She smiled haughtily. ‘Frank Helmond. Quite a surprise, isn’t it?’

Several thoughts collided in Ditlev’s head.

Kimmie, the police, Thelma, and now Frank Helmond.

Be careful what you’re getting involved in, he told himself, and considered for a moment going down to see which of the Filipinas was working the evening shift.

A new cloud of loathing sank over him. Frank Helmond, she’d said. How degrading! A chubby local politician. A member of the underclass. A complete nobody.

He searched for Helmond in Krak’s directory and found the address, even though he already knew it. Helmond wasn’t one to hide his light under a bushel, as was evident from the address. But that’s how the man was, and everyone knew it. Lived in a villa he couldn’t afford, in a neighbourhood where no one would ever dream of voting for his worthless party.