The Serbian Dane

by Leif Davidsen

  Per accompanied Igor all the way to the latter’s car, then shook his hand.

  ‘Thanks, Igor.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. We may still be on opposite sides of the fence where some things are concerned, but we’re also partners now, you know. And it is our duty to alert a partner to the risk of terrorist attacks.’

  ‘Now don’t get started, Igor. Say hello to the wife and kids from me.’

  ‘See you, Per,’ the Russian said with a smile before shutting his car door and driving off.

  ‘Too bloody right, you will. You don’t get off that easy,’ Per muttered under his breath as he pulled out his mobile phone to call his boss and squeeze himself into a slot in that lady’s busy schedule.

  She would see him right away, he was told, once he had outlined the situation.

  He drove down to Bellahøj and was ushered straight in to Jytte Vuldom, who was at her desk, speaking on the phone. She sent him a friendly nod, and he sat down to wait. When she hung up he gave her an account of his conversation with Kammarasov. Vuldom listened quietly and did not interrupt him.

  ‘He knows more than he’s saying, of course,’ Toftlund said.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure he does, good old Igor,’ said Vuldom, lighting yet another cigarette.

  ‘I’m going to need more help. We’ll have to get the undercover guys to ask around. Our hit man is bound to have checked into some hotel in the city.’

  Vuldom blew the cigarette smoke away from him. She was in a considerate frame of mind today.

  ‘We can’t possibly track him down without a description,’ she said.

  ‘I need more help.’

  Vuldom leaned forward slightly. Her make-up was subtle and discreet, and she spoke evenly, without raising her voice:

  ‘Per. I’ll say it again. It is my clear understanding that no official representatives of the Danish government will be meeting Sara Santanda. Her visit is not a government matter.’

  ‘We have a duty to protect her.’

  ‘Indeed we have, but I had a meeting here the other day with the prime minister and the minister of justice, to discuss the security arrangements for the forthcoming EU summit. Now that is a government matter, and a very important one, Per. But perhaps this new information could give cause for a rethink? A breathing space?’

  ‘They’ll never agree,’ Per said, thinking of both Lise and Tagesen. They were determined to go through with the visit, as was Sara Santanda.

  ‘Okay,’ said Vuldom. ‘Well then, we’ll just have to see what we can spare. Because we will of course do all in our power to see that everything goes smoothly.’

  ‘Right. And in the meantime, I’ve got a little plan of my own.’

  ‘And that is, Per?’

  ‘To get the Russians to give us a hand – with your permission. Igor could find out a whole lot more. If he wanted to…’

  Per regarded his boss intently. He could tell by the look in those shrewd eyes that she knew what he was alluding to, but he wanted the suggestion to come from her, in case there should be complications later. You had to cover your back.

  ‘Our old friend Igor,’ she said.

  ‘There’s something he’s not telling us. So I was thinking…’

  ‘I know what you were thinking, Per. All right. Use your sleazy little file if you must. But this is strictly between the two of us.’

  ‘Fine,’ Toftlund said, relieved.

  She stubbed out her cigarette and sat back in her chair.

  ‘And there’ll be no reason to put any of this down on paper, will there?’

  ‘No, let’s play it close to our chests,’ Per said.

  He drove in to the Politiken offices. That had gone well, he thought. He could get in touch with Kammarasov again, with her Ladyship’s blessing, but without having to file a report. This was not one of those cases on which Vuldom felt bound to brief the parliamentary board of control. If all went well, then that was fine. And if anything did go wrong, then officially the matter did not exist. That was how both Toftlund and Vuldom preferred to work when things looked liable to get dirty.

  He spotted Lise. She was standing outside the swing-doors of the Politiken building. She looked so good, he thought, with her fair hair and those blue jeans and a brightly coloured shirt under her short jacket. All of a sudden he just couldn’t wait to be with her. He made a snap decision, noting as he did so on his mental balance sheet that he was now crossing a threshold and taking a step further in a relationship. He stretched an arm across the passenger seat and opened the door. Lise got in and gave him a long lingering kiss, oblivious of the cars tooting their horns behind them.

  ‘Hola mi amor,’ she said.

  ‘Mi amor yourself,’ he retorted and put the car into first gear. ‘Dinner’s on me, so we have to do a bit of shopping.’

  ‘And where are we eating?’

  ‘My place.’

  ‘Is this a special occasion, then?’

  ‘You’ve no idea how special,’ he said and accelerated past a slow-moving bus, so fast that she was pressed back against her seat.

  ‘Hey, easy does it, cop or no cop,’ she cried.

  She thought about him as she wandered around his small apartment. How did she actually feel about him, if she looked at it objectively? She was attracted to him, possibly even in love with him, but with what exactly? Did she like him for his own sake – or because he was Ole’s diametric opposite? Ole was verbal. Per was physical. But that couldn’t be the whole explanation. Maybe there was no explanation. And maybe she should stop looking for one and just go with the flow. The apartment was a clear reflection of Per’s personality. Albertslund wasn’t an area she would have chosen. Although it was nice enough really, for all her preconceived notions about the place. Four-storey blocks of apartments in yellow brick clustered round a neat landscaped courtyard, the province of mothers, prams and young children. There was a nice view: green fields and, in the distance, Vestskoven. Per only rented the apartment. He didn’t like being tied down by a lot of stuff, he had said. Well that he certainly wasn’t. The walls were white and totally bare, except for two exquisite Samurai swords hung crosswise on one wall and a poster advertising a bullfight at Las Ventas in Madrid on another. At first glance she had taken it for one of those ghastly posters on which tourists could have their own names printed, but it was an original with Paco Camino’s name topping the bill. The swords looked like the genuine article too and had probably been bought in Japan. She understood now that Per spent most of his money on travelling abroad. Or had done. There weren’t many books on his bookshelves: a handful of detective novels and some English books on police work and intelligence matters. She roamed the room with a glass of wine in her hand, taking it all in. She could hear Per in the kitchen. He was whistling. Her eye fell on a CD player and tape deck. To her surprise most of the tapes were of classical music by Mozart, Beethoven, Bartok and Vivaldi, as well as opera and some Spanish guitar music. The furniture looked as if it came from a good, but not outrageously expensive, furniture shop. He had a twenty-inch television set and a video recorder. An oval dining table in pale wood with six chairs. A leather sofa with a blond wood coffee table in front of it and two leather armchairs filled the living room. The parquet floors were bare, apart from one richly hued Persian rug. She thought it a rather cold room, but she had been struck right away by how spick and span the apartment was. He had given her a quick tour: the bedroom contained a standard-size double bed and a desk in front of the window on which sat a laptop computer and a small printer. The bed was made, and everything was neat and tidy and very masculine. ‘Could you give me the name of your cleaner?’ she had asked dryly, but he had taken her seriously and replied that he didn’t have one. ‘And I suppose you iron your own shirts, too,’ she had said. ‘Naturally,’ he had said. ‘I was in the Royal Navy for four years.’As if that explained everything.

  The kitchen too was spotlessly clean, and here he appeared to have spent a bit of money on equipment, becau
se above the kitchen worktop hung a battery of gleaming copper pots and pans, which she knew for a fact cost an absolute fortune in Illum’s department store. Suspended from a hook was a string of garlic, which she could see was being used, and ranged on top of the cupboards were wine racks filled with bottles of red and white wine. Simple and functional, like everything else in his apartment. It wasn’t how she and Ole would furnish a home. Had furnished their home, she corrected herself. They bought only the best and were both concerned that their home should look right, and that they should have the right address. There was no way they could live anywhere but in the city – and even then only in a couple of selected areas – or possibly on the coast north of Copenhagen in some really fantastic, architect-designed house. They would never dream of moving to Albertslund or anywhere else west of the city. It just wasn’t on. They had rebelled against the conservative attitudes of their parents, but somewhere along the way her and Ole’s generation seemed to have created a fresh set of values which were every bit as conservative. There were certain things one simply did not do. In a way she rather envied Per. In this apartment lived a man who had exactly what he needed, but no more than that, so that he could, at a moment’s notice, pack his bags and go. She and Ole had accumulated so much in the way of material possessions that the idea of upping sticks was too daunting to even contemplate. Or the idea of divorce, she thought, and promptly dismissed the thought. She walked over to the window and gazed out at the green woods. What the hell was she going to do? She felt a little strange, this wasn’t at all like the hours they had spent together at the safe house. That had been different, and a bit naughty, as befits a secret affair – like checking into a hotel. But this was something else: to be here, in his apartment. He was on home ground; she wasn’t. What would she do once Sara Santanda had been and gone? She couldn’t go on like this. Or could she? Wasn’t that the meaning implicit in the word ‘affair’? That it lasted for a certain length of time, then came to an end? But what if this was more than an affair, for her and for him? What then? Her thoughts kept going round in circles.

  Lise walked through to the kitchen. It was filled with the aroma of basil, garlic and tomatoes. Per was wearing a blue apron over his shirt. He chopped salad greens and tomatoes and mixed them in a bowl. A crusty Italian loaf had also been sliced, and in a large pot on the stove the water for the pasta was just coming to the boil. He worked quickly and efficiently. He flashed her a big smile and pointed to the bottle of rioja.

  ‘Dinner will be ready soon,’ he said.

  She walked up to him, took the spoon out of his hand and kissed him long and hard.

  ‘It can wait,’ she said.

  ‘But it’s just about there,’ he said.

  ‘It only takes a couple of minutes to cook up a fresh batch of pasta. Switch off the heat and come here,’ she said.

  He looked at her, switched off both the ceramic hotplates and proceeded to unbutton her shirt.

  Afterwards they sat at the table and ate the splendid dinner he had made. He was in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, and she had borrowed one of his shirts. Lise felt warm and contented, and she could tell just by looking at him that he was very happy. It had been better than ever before. They were getting to know each other’s bodies and how they responded. He ogled her with bedroom eyes.

  ‘Stop looking at me like that,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t,’ he said.

  He broke off a piece of bread and mopped up the last of his pasta sauce.

  ‘Are you staying the night, Lise?’

  She wasn’t sure. It was dark outside. They sat in the glow from two lamps, and she didn’t have the slightest desire to get up and go.

  ‘Oh, I’d better go home,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t think I’m ready to leave Ole…not yet.’

  He eyed her again and his next words surprised her:

  ‘I’ve never said this to anyone before, but if you want you can bring your toothbrush next time.’

  He looked as if this statement had surprised him as much as it did her. Her heart swelled, and with it her sense of confusion. She thought she might be about to cry.

  ‘Oh, dammit Per,’ she said. ‘You musn’t say things like that.’

  ‘I’ve said it.’

  ‘Take me back to bed,’ she said. Because she couldn’t stand the thought of going home to look Ole in the eye and sit with him in their living room while the silence and the coldness grew between them, as if they were in the process of building their very own Berlin Wall.

  Chapter 14

  Vuk switched hotels to avoid arousing suspicion by paying for a longer stay in cash. He called from the one he was in and booked a room in a similar, modest-sized family hotel a couple of streets further up. There were scores of small hotels in the Vesterbro area. Again he was able to check in without showing any form of identification. After breakfast he walked over, as usual, to the post office in Købmagergade. He wore dark glasses and stepped out smartly in the crisp morning air. Summer was gradually giving way to autumn. He wondered what he would do if he happened to meet anyone he knew from the old days. Would he have to kill them? Or would he be able to talk his way out of trouble? He would have to play it by ear. The odds of him bumping into an old acquaintance were slight. He didn’t venture out more than was absolutely necessary, but he had to admit that he could feel his old love for Copenhagen blossoming again. He had the urge just to stroll, to soak up the city. It had its own easy tempo, as slow and easy as the traffic. It amused him that the Danes thought the traffic here was so bad and so chaotic. Compared to that of any other big city, it flowed smoothly and steadily. Cars were parked within the bays reserved for them and not simply abandoned any old where, up on pavements and in all sorts of odd corners as they were in other cities. There was possibly a bit more litter than he remembered. There were potholes in the roads and a strange air of immutability about this town, which never seemed to grow up the way. It was clean, though, and well cared for, and the old Nørrebro area was teeming with new cafés and restaurants. Other cities had changed very fast, but Copenhagen still had a provincial, small-town feel to it; it didn’t seem like a city at all. In the newspaper he read reports of murders and killings, but he also noted the statistics: in Copenhagen there were fourteen to fifteen murders a year. Where he came from, that many were killed in a village an hour. In another life he could happily have made his home in Copenhagen. The light falling over the city was clear and opalescent, reflected off the sea, and at night, when it rained, the raindrops glittered like crystal beads on the cobbles and tarmac. It was a strangely hushed town, where all sounds were muffled, especially at nightfall – as if the people and buildings were wrapped in cotton wool. The occasional voices one heard seemed to come from a long way off, and the engines of the few cars on the road purred gently and smoothly.

  Vuk took a number at the post office in Købmagergade, waited his turn, then asked for poste restante. He spoke English and showed his British passport. He glanced round about, but no one was paying any attention to the handsome young man waiting patiently at the counter. Kravtjov had at long last delivered the goods: the female assistant handed him a white envelope bearing Danish stamps, but no sender’s address. The letter was correctly addressed to John Thatcher, poste restante, Købmagergade Post Office, Købmagergade 33, 1000 Copenhagen K. The address had been typed.

  Vuk stepped out onto the street. The sun peeped from behind high, light-grey clouds, a cool wind was blowing from the west. He unsealed the envelope. Inside were two pieces of cardboard between which some Iranian diplomat had sellotaped a suitcase key. There too he found a small laminated keycard for a left-luggage locker at Copenhagen Central Station. From the date on the card, printed under an advert for Gourmet Food, Vuk could tell that the suitcase had been deposited there the day before. Three days’ storage had been paid for. Vuk assumed the Iranians had had his weapons sent by diplomatic bag to the embassy, thus avoiding all border
checks. Vuk hoped they had found some nondescript man or woman to deposit the suitcase in the locker. He had great respect for PET, or any other intelligence service for that matter. He knew they kept a close eye on Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians, Sudanese, Libyans and anybody else whom they suspected of supporting terrorists or Muslim fundamentalists. The moment when he went to pick up the goods from that locker would, without doubt, be the riskiest so far, if PET happened to be keeping an eye on it, or if the drugs squad suspected it was being used as a letter box. Or he could be unlucky enough to walk right into a stakeout – he had no way of knowing. The good thing about the Central Station was that it was so busy, with people coming and going all the time. The downside was that it was often under surveillance by one police unit or another. Vuk had checked out the Central Station and committed its new layout to memory. It had changed a lot. The left-luggage lockers were in the basement now. The area was monitored by closed-circuit TV, but there was also an exit giving onto the platforms, so he wasn’t venturing into a complete dead-end. The problem was that it was so easy to oversee and to seal off.

  Vuk headed towards the Central Station. He stayed off Strøget and walked along the canal side instead. He thought about Ole. He had finally made contact with him two days before.

  It had happened at the pub across from the couple’s apartment. Vuk was sitting at a table just inside the door when Ole walked in and shouted:

  ‘Oi, Erna! A beer and a chaser!’

  Erna was a stout woman in a blue dress. She had slammed the glasses down in front of Ole as if she were mad at him.

  ‘You’d be better off going home to that lovely wife of yours,’ the woman he called Erna had remarked.

  ‘She’s never bloody well home,’ Ole had said.

  Vuk had grinned and said he’d have the same. To begin with Ole had eyed him with sullen suspicion, but eventually they had got chatting. Vuk introduced himself as a sales rep from Jylland, and after a while he bought a round. It was always easy to strike up a conversation in a pub, in surroundings that were both anonymous and cosy. Words were not as binding here as elsewhere.