The Serbian Dane

by Leif Davidsen

  The Russian captain couldn’t have cared less. He could retire now anyway. The young man had asked for nothing except clean clothes, vodka, coffee and cigarettes. Despite the wetsuit, he had been chilled to the bone when he climbed over the low rail an hour after some weekend sailor had rammed what had actually been a very pretty motorboat smack into the biggest underwater rubbish dump outside of any busy commercial harbour. The taciturn young man had hauled himself over the rail south of Saltholm just after they had begun their approach to Limhamn in the dark and the pouring rain. The captain’s four drunken crew members had been advised that they had suddenly been struck blind and deaf, as can happen to anyone who has been given a bribe or too much too drink, or a combination of both.

  So only the captain had seen the young man.

  And the captain asked no questions. Some things were none of his business. He knew the guys who had contacted him and paid him: you didn’t fool with them. And he had known other lads like the silent youth who had climbed over his rail, from his time as a submariner in the Soviet navy. Many’s the time when he had set lads like that ashore on one or other of these low-water coastlines. Set them ashore and picked them up again without the imperialists noticing a bloody thing. In the dear old country these boys were called spetznats, and they had climbed and swam as though they had had goats’ hooves and gills. Back then, he had been fired by patriotism. This time round he had been paid twenty-five thousand dollars for being at a specific spot at a specific time. He had had no trouble spotting the buoy and the black figure which had dived overboard in those perilous few seconds before the explosion and come up again just once, nostrils breaking the water on the lee side of the blazing wreck before it disappeared again, and the buoy could be seen starting to drift. The diver had swum into the submarine forest of twisted, algae-coated metal, concrete and crumbling brick, that devil’s reef. The captain knew the story. It would have taken him only a second or so to get the mouthpiece working, and then the rest of his equipment, before bearing towards his old river lass who, for such a sum, would happily pull him quite a way, hanging onto the ring attached to her hull for that very purpose. The captain drank another glass of vodka, thinking fleetingly that he might almost have done it for nothing. Simply to savour once more that old thrill he remembered from his youth.

  But only almost, he thought to himself, watching the young man disappear across the deserted wharf, while he hollered at his lazy drunken sailors to get their fingers out and set course for Kaliningrad before the police came around asking stupid questions, as only the police – in every country and under every regime – can do.

  Chapter 23

  Lise and Per sat, their bodies not touching, on the sofa in her apartment, watching the nine o’clock news. In front of them they each had a glass of red wine and the remains of an almost uneaten Chinese takeaway that Per had picked up. They were on the second bottle of red wine, but the wine had really only left them feeling even more listless and drowsy. Lise had lost weight since the ‘incident’, as she chose to call it, and it did not suit her, but he thought nonetheless that a little colour was returning to her cheeks. Or maybe it was just the wine. She held herself at a distance from him that he could not seem to cross; it was as if a barrier had dropped between them. He knew why, of course, but as yet neither of them had wished to put it into words or talk about it. And maybe there were some things it was better not to talk about. For his own part, he was just so tired. Tired of meetings, tired of statements, tired of bosses, tired of the press’s conjecturing, tired of the thought that he would be made the scapegoat. Filled with anger and grief at John’s death and his inability to do anything for his partner’s wife and children. Tired of the whole damn business, which had left nothing but broken lives in its wake.

  He wasn’t listening to the news. Instead his eyes rested on Lise again. He cared so much about her, but it was as though that first wild infatuation had burned out before it could blossom into full flame. The spark had been extinguished. Maybe it was nerves. Maybe it would be reignited when they made love properly again. The one time when they had tried she had wept as if her heart would break, only afterwards to say that she loved him for not leaving her but would he please sleep on the sofa or maybe it would actually be best if he went home. Or stay if he wanted. As long as she could be by herself, but not alone.

  So now he was half preparing to go back to his own apartment. That had been the pattern over the past few days. They saw one another in the evenings, groped blindly for one another but never made contact, never talked, and then he left with not an angry word spoken, or any other words, for that matter, other than a banal ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye’ and ‘See you tomorrow’. She didn’t want to be alone, but she no longer wanted to sleep with him either. He was supposed to both stay and go away. He felt miserable and exhausted and confused and didn’t know what to do, but still he spun out the time, knowing that soon he would have to say goodnight and go home to his own empty apartment, where his thoughts and feelings of guilt darted around the rooms like demons.

  Lise was watching the news through drooping eyelids, but she straightened up when Peter Sørensen appeared, standing outside the door of the prime minister’s office, and a little ‘live’ logo started flashing in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.

  Speaking to camera, Sørensen said that Prime Minister Carl Bang was now back in Copenhagen after his tour of the Jutland constituencies. It was because of this tour that the prime minister had been unable to spare the time to meet the Iranian-born writer Sara Santanda, who had been the subject of an assassination attempt on Flakfortet in the waters off Copenhagen.

  Then came the pictures from Flakfortet they had seen so many times: Vuk’s cold face, which was hard to make out because of the light and the black beard and hair. You could see the pistol on the edge of the shot of Per launching into his flying tackle of Sara, before the picture tipped as the cameraman was hit. John’s body, the body of the television cameraman, the blood and the pale, horror-stricken faces. Per glanced at Lise, but she just went on watching. Maybe she had now seen these sequences so many times that it no longer hurt in quite the same way. The events of that day had been examined from every angle in all the papers and had already been dubbed ‘the Flakfortet massacre’. The same shots had been shown again and again on every channel, on the normal news broadcasts and in one special edition after another.

  Peter Sørensen was saying that Sara Santanda had gone to ground again and was being treated at a secret location in the United Kingdom for shock and for the injuries she sustained when Detective Inspector Per Toftlund all but killed her instead of protecting her life, as was his job. Toftlund, who had been responsible for the security surrounding Santanda’s visit, had declined to comment on the matter, the reporter said.

  ‘Arsehole,’ Per muttered.

  ‘Ssh…’ Lise said as the camera zoomed out to show Prime Minister Carl Bang stepping through the glass door of his office and presenting himself for interview. Carl Bang chose his interviews carefully and always preferred to speak live on the television news so that his words could not be edited. In this case he had issued only a brief statement to the press and left his minister of justice to carry the can. That was often how he worked where matters of policy were concerned. He let his lieutenants spy out the land, debate, argue and get lambasted by the media and then, once a line became clear, he would step in with a couple of fatherly words. He never appeared on television unless he himself had chosen the time and the place. As now, when it had been decided to set up a board of inquiry to look into the whole Flakfortet affair and assign responsibility.

  ‘Prime Minister, you haven’t wanted to make a statement before now,’ Peter Sørensen began, ‘but the minister of justice has said that someone will be held accountable for the fact that things went so terribly wrong at Flakfortet. Is that also how you see it?’

  Carl Bang wanted to look straight at the camera but remembered from his media training course tha
t this made a bad impression on viewers. So instead he looked gravely at Peter Sørensen and answered him in what he himself believed to be an avuncular, authoritative and responsible voice, although others found it preachy and annoyingly didactic:

  ‘First, I would like to say that this was, of course, a highly regrettable and deeply tragic incident. And that it should happen on Danish soil is quite unheard of and totally unacceptable. That cannot be emphasized strongly enough. But at the same time we must be grateful that Ms Santanda survived. We are now in the process of checking whether the relevant authorities had taken adequate security measures to protect this great writer who was visiting our country. And we will find out who is to blame for the fact that this terrorist managed to escape. If that is what happened. Because there seem to be conflicting reports on this point. If there has been any dereliction of duty, those responsible will be called…how can I put it?…to account. Naturally. Nothing will be swept under the rug. Senseless terrorism has now made its presence felt in Denmark. This is something to which we must now adjust.’

  ‘What about Iran? Will this have any effect on Denmark’s relations with the state of Iran?’ Peter Sørensen asked.

  ‘Well, it would appear, from the investigations so far, that the hit man was acting alone. That he was a crazed fanatic, so we ought not to jump to any hasty conclusions about other sovereign nations. We will have to wait for the inquiry to ascertain the exact sequence of events. Everything points to the terrorist having drowned while making his escape. All of this will be looked into, and only once we are in possession of all the relevant facts and have considered them very carefully will we decide whether there are grounds for further deliberation.’

  Peter Sørensen was about to break in, but the prime minister carried on undaunted:

  ‘I would also like to take this opportunity to extend my condolences to the families of those members of the press who died in the course of their work and the police officer who was killed in the line of duty. All honour to their memory!’ He paused for a moment, looked straight at the camera, then turned his head away again: ‘This was a tragic event and, fortunately, a very rare one in our otherwise very safe country. I feel for all the families, both those of the people killed at Flakfortet and those whose loved ones died elsewhere at the hands of this barbaric terrorist. Thank you.’

  Carl Bang made to leave, but Peter Sørensen said quickly:

  ‘Do you regret not having had the time to meet Sara Santanda?’

  Carl Bang permitted himself a weary little smile:

  ‘Of course. I’m sorry my schedule did not allow it. It would have been a great thrill to meet such a great writer. What more can I say? I hope there will be another opportunity.’

  ‘Do you really think she would want to come back to Denmark?’ Sørensen asked, but Carl Bang had turned on his heel and retreated through the glass door to the safety of his office.

  ‘Hypocrites! God, they make me sick!’ Lise exclaimed.

  ‘They’ll fob all the blame off on us as usual,’ Per said.

  ‘On you personally?’

  ‘Yep. I’ll probably wind up taking the rap,’ he remarked matter-of-factly.

  ‘That’s not fair.’

  ‘Fairness doesn’t come in to it.’

  They sat for a while watching the television, although their minds weren’t really on it.

  ‘But what happened to him?’ she asked.

  Per shrugged.

  ‘Quien sabe?’ he said in Spanish. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘I have a feeling he got away,’ Lise said.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Then why haven’t you found his body? And why did two Russian ships just happen to be in the area? They could have been owned by the Mafia. Why was his rented car found at the Stockholm-Helsinki ferry terminal? Did it drive itself to Stockholm? Did it swim across the Sound, maybe? Answer me that!’

  Most of this he had heard before. It was the press’s favourite sport: painting scenarios, speculating, conjecturing. Per couldn’t take it anymore, not least because he simply did not understand how Vuk had got away, if he had got away. But he would find out, that was for sure. If he was allowed to. He thought about what Lise had just said. Swim across the Sound maybe? Was there a lead there? Might Vuk have trained as a frogman? If he had, then that opened up a whole new channel of investigation. Because he would be able to do things that ordinary mortals could not do. Things one could only learn at the Special Forces Schools around the world, skills Per himself had been taught. But in order to find out they would need the Serbs in Belgrade to give them some information, and that could only be achieved by dint of diplomatic pressure, so the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would have to get to work on the Germans, the Russians and the Americans. What if they could get hold of his service papers? Well, if nothing else, he could start by ringing round the diving shops in Copenhagen. He brightened up a little. There were avenues here that could be explored – assuming, that is, that he could get the go-ahead. Which wasn’t likely. Ten seconds ago he had been sick of the whole business, now his head was buzzing with ideas again. Although it was probably a big waste of time. He fully expected to be suspended for the duration of the inquiry.

  But all he said was:

  ‘He’s in the water, trapped under a sleeper. His bones are being picked clean by those big fat eels down there. They’re going be particularly tasty this year.’

  She dug her elbow into his side, snorting in disgust. It made him so happy. It was the first time she had been able to joke with him just a little.

  ‘Ugh, you’re horrible,’ she said, but he could tell by her voice that she didn’t mean it.

  ‘If he did get away – and I say if – then we’ll get him eventually. We have his name, pictures of him and masses of fingerprints. He’s on wanted lists all over the world, and one of these days he’s going to get caught, you can bet your life on it. If the bloody Iranians don’t knock him off themselves for not fulfilling the contract. He’ll have to spend the rest of his life on the run. He’ll never be able to go to bed at night without looking over his shoulder. He’ll have to watch his every step, spend all his money on protecting himself. He won’t be able to trust a soul. He’ll have to stay on the move all the time. It’ll drive him out of his mind. He’ll make mistakes. And in the end he’ll die, if we don’t catch him first. If he’s alive.’

  ‘I wonder who he really was. Or is. Vuk, or Janos, or Carsten or whatever the hell he’s called.’

  ‘The product of a new world order,’ Per sighed, and she heard the note of weariness in his voice. They were both very far down, but perhaps they could help each other to climb up to the surface again. Did she have that much more to lose? Could she ever hope to find love again? Wasn’t she surrounded, day in day out, by lonely people who scanned the lonely-hearts ads on the sly? What did she have to lose?

  Per leaned back in the sofa. Lise turned down the sound with the remote control, took his hand and snuggled up against him. She felt the surprise with which his body welcomed hers.

  ‘You scared the hell out of me, Per,’ she whispered.

  ‘I know I did.’

  ‘I felt so betrayed, so abandoned.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I was scared shitless.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll ever really forget it.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘No matter what happens.’

  ‘I realize that.’

  ‘But I’m willing to try,’ she said, turning her face up to his. He stroked her cheek as if she were a little child.

  ‘I’ll probably be suspended,’ he said, placing a finger on her lips as he added: ‘I might go to Spain for a while…’

  ‘I’d like to come with you, if you’ll have me. And after that we’ll just have to see what happens.’

  ‘I can’t ask for more than that. As long as I don’t lose you,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think that’s liable to hap
pen any time soon,’ she said and closed her eyes.

  About the Author

  Leif Davidsen is a Danish journalist and the author of a number of best-selling suspense novels. He has worked for many years for Danish radio and television as a foreign correspondent and editor of foreign news, specialising in Russian, East and Central European affairs.

  Barbara J. Haveland was born in Scotland, and now lives in Denmark with her Norwegian husband and teenage son. She has translated works by several leading Danish and Norwegian authors, including Peter Høeg, Linn Ullmann and Jan Kjærstad.

  Copyright

  First published in 2007

  by Arcadia Books Books, 15–16 Nassau Street, London, W1W 7AB

  This ebook edition first published in 2011

  All rights reserved

  Originally published by Lindhardt og Ringhof as Den serbiske dansker

  Copyright © Leif Davidsen, 1996

  Translation from Danish © Barbara Haveland, 2007

  The right of Leif Davidsen to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–1–90812–928–4