Trophy

by Steffen Jacobsen

‘Elizabeth’s mysterious … what, exactly?’

  ‘Adviser?’

  ‘Michael is helping me,’ she said.

  Victor Schmidt released Michael’s hand. He smiled, but his eyes didn’t join in.

  ‘Welcome anyway.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Michael looked around the hall. He saw a white double staircase opposite the front door with two sections that floated, as if weightless, up through the different floors. There were antlers and centrepieces arranged in fans and rosettes around particularly impressive trophies, but this collection of skeletal remains seemed to belong exclusively to the Danish fauna.

  As Victor Schmidt helped Elizabeth Caspersen out of her trench coat he glanced at Michael, who looked back at him without expression. There was something wrong with Victor Schmidt’s eyes, he thought. The enormous crystal chandelier suspended from the ceiling at the centre of the hall reflected differently in them. It took him another moment to work out that Victor Schmidt’s left eye was prosthetic.

  The businessman flung out his arms as a sign of comic surrender.

  ‘A completely outrageous story, Elizabeth. The old goat. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry … or envy him. You would think that Flemming had heard of condoms, for God’s sake. Your poor mother. Perhaps it’s just as well that she is …’

  ‘Gaga?’ Elizabeth Caspersen suggested.

  ‘Yes. A blessing. Drinks?’

  He led the way through a set of dark double doors and Michael edged closer to Elizabeth Caspersen.

  ‘He has a glass eye?’ he whispered.

  ‘What a brilliant detective you are, Michael.’

  She gave his arm a quick squeeze.

  The estate’s library bore comparison to Flemming Caspersen’s, but Michael got a feeling of stepping onto a stage set, something he hadn’t had in Hellerup. The sense of belonging and ownership which he knew from large English houses, and which only several generations of unchallenged, inherited privilege could create, was missing. The library at Pederslund was simultaneously too much and not quite enough.

  It wanted for nothing: there were comfortable Chesterfield sofas, a fine-looking fireplace where a fire crackled merrily, bookcases from floor to ceiling filled with impressively titled, weighty tomes – he suspected they had been bought at an auction by the yard. There were oil paintings from the Danish romantic golden age, silk lampshades, huge Chinese vases, oriental ivory and wood carvings, and even a varnished college rowing oar above the mantelpiece. But there was no soul.

  A slim, dark-haired woman got up from the sofa and crossed the room. She exchanged Continental kisses and a stiff hug with Elizabeth Caspersen before looking at Michael with large, soulful eyes. She was wearing a tight-fitting beige silk skirt with pearl embroidery, a black silk blouse whose neckline was gathered with a pearl over her décolletage, and a short jacket of the same material as the skirt. She moved beautifully, even though she was wearing very high, thin stilettos. Slim silver bracelets jingled down her forearm when she extended her hand towards him, and he didn’t know whether to shake or kiss it, but chose the former.

  ‘Monika,’ she said in a husky voice.

  ‘Michael.’

  She was a sun worshipper and the skin at her throat had thickened and turned slightly leathery, but her neck was smooth, long and elegant and her face still beautiful. Her black hair was gathered at the nape of her neck in a tight ponytail that made her look like a dressage rider.

  ‘I’m Swedish,’ she said. ‘Victor abducted me from Stockholm.’

  ‘I can see why,’ Michael said gallantly.

  She smiled.

  ‘Thank you. What would you like to drink, Michael? I understand that you’re some kind of private eye, so I guess it has to be whisky?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Ice?’

  ‘If you have it.’

  ‘Come and meet my son Henrik,’ she said, and walked over to the drinks cabinet. She had a beautiful backside and strong, slim legs. When she turned, he noticed large, round breasts that seem to defy both gravity and age. He put her in her mid-fifties, but carefully preserved. Then again, he imagined all that riding must keep her fit.

  A young man with blond, sandy hair and very light blue eyes had got up from the desk. A laptop displayed long, green columns of numbers. Michael recognized the blond boy from the summer picture in Flemming Caspersen’s library. He was still slim like a boy, lanky, and he had his father’s narrow shoulders, but his face was open with an easy smile on his lips. He brushed the fringe from his eyes and extended his hand.

  ‘Hello. Henrik. Welcome.’

  ‘Michael. What a great place.’

  ‘It’s a bit off the beaten track, but my father grew up in a tenement block in Vesterbro, he claims, and always wanted to have a castle. Now he has finally got it, he spends most of his time in Copenhagen. It doesn’t make any sense, does it?’

  ‘But your mother lives here?’

  ‘She dotes on her horses.’

  ‘Do you ride?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Never. In my opinion, horses are neurotic reptiles. They’re overrated and unpredictable.’

  Michael’s nostrils caught a hint of Monika Schmidt’s perfume as she touched his shoulder lightly. Over by the fireplace Victor Schmidt and Elizabeth Caspersen were deep in conversation.

  ‘Your drink, Michael,’ Monika Schmidt whispered. She was very close and the scent was overpowering. She looked at her son.

  ‘Have you had the reptile speech?’ she asked.

  ‘Just the headline.’

  ‘The truth is, he’s scared of them,’ she said.

  Henrik Schmidt smiled. ‘Yes, Mother. No, Mother. The horse is a noble animal, I know.’

  ‘It really is,’ she said.

  Michael looked out at the enclosures that glowed strangely white in the last rays of the low evening sun. The horses were dark, calmly grazing silhouettes. He sniffed his whisky and detected notes of saltwater and seaweed. Islay Malt, would be his guess. It was like biting into tarred hemp rope. In a good way. What a shame he couldn’t drink tonight.

  ‘You … have a stud farm?’ he asked.

  ‘I have a wonderful stallion,’ she said, and eyed him up and down. ‘Cavalier of Pederslund. We freeze his semen and sell it across the world. Or we let the mares come to him. A mare from Germany is here at the moment. I think we’ll let him mount her tonight.’

  She raised her glass to her mouth and Michael observed the lipstick on the rim.

  She smiled: ‘I love deckara, Michael … “procedurals” you say in Danish? Are you really a private eye?’

  ‘Not in the literary sense,’ he assured her.

  She sized him up again as though she considered bidding for him at an auction.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she sounded disappointed.

  ‘Quite sure.’

  Michael looked around frantically for Elizabeth Caspersen.

  Henrik Schmidt watched his mother with pale, flat, inexpressive eyes. Then he flashed Michael a boyish smile, made his excuses and returned to his laptop. There was something monastically ascetic and isolated about his slim, hunched figure. Henrik Schmidt looked like someone who was in his element.

  Michael was finally rescued by Victor Schmidt and Elizabeth Caspersen. The financier put his arm around his wife’s shoulders, pulled her close and smiled to Michael.

  ‘I have to warn you, Michael,’ Victor Schmidt said. ‘When my wife spots a fine stud, she’ll stop at nothing to get him.’

  Monika Schmidt blushed and didn’t smile.

  ‘He’s an investigator, Victor,’ she mumbled. ‘He’s his own man.’

  Victor Schmidt squeezed his wife harder and looked at Michael. ‘So what are your qualifications? I’ve tried looking you up. You must be the only person on earth who can’t be googled.’

  ‘Stop it, Victor,’ Elizabeth Caspersen said. ‘I can vouch for Michael.’

  The financier shot him an inquisitorial look with his working eye
, while his glass eye happened to be aimed at his son at the desk.

  ‘Surely I need to know something about the man before I let him into every nook and cranny of my company.’

  ‘Your company?’

  ‘Our company, Elizabeth, for God’s sake.’

  ‘I think Victor is right, Elizabeth,’ Michael said smoothly. ‘I would feel exactly the same.’ He smiled. ‘I worked for Shepherd & Wilkins in London and New York for a decade before I started working for myself. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? Before that I was a military police captain with the Horse Guards and after that I worked for Hvidovre Police’s Serious Crime Unit.’

  Schmidt nodded. ‘How hard was that, Elizabeth?’ He drained his glass and let go of his wife. ‘I’m satisfied. In the circumstances. And you have the letter from this Miss Simpson?’

  He set down his glass on a coffee table as Elizabeth opened her handbag and handed him a pale blue envelope made from good quality paper. He found a pair of reading glasses, put them on his long nose and pulled out a single, densely written sheet. A small photograph fluttered to the floor.

  Michael picked it up and looked at it before passing it on. Elizabeth Caspersen was right. The surly-looking chubby baby in the picture did have a remarkable similarity to the late, eminent British statesman.

  Schmidt took the photograph from Michael. His lips moved while he read. He turned over the letter and carried on reading. Then he looked at Elizabeth Caspersen over his reading glasses.

  ‘This is not good, Elizabeth.’

  She nodded calmly.

  ‘I agree. It’s very unfortunate.’

  ‘Unfortunate? It’s a shit storm. If your father wasn’t already dead, I’d happily shoot him myself.’

  He held up the letter to Michael.

  ‘Have you read it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘All of it, damn you! Is it genuine? Does she exist?’

  Monika Schmidt smiled apologetically to Michael from her position behind her husband.

  Michael nodded.

  ‘Miss Janice Simpson lives at the address stated,’ he said calmly. ‘She’s thirty-three years old, works as an editor at a publisher’s near Bryant Park, she almost owns her apartment on 58th Street West outright, and publishes books on modern art. Her mother is a librarian at the New York Public Library and her father is a judge at New York’s Criminal Court. It’s an old family with a fine lineage. They have been New Yorkers for seven generations. That makes them aristocracy in that town.’

  He looked at Victor Schmidt in the hope of fanning a social inferiority complex, but the other man just nodded vaguely.

  ‘I’m waiting for some bank information,’ Michael continued. ‘Simpson Junior’s birth certificate and various photographic evidence.’

  Schmidt looked a little bit impressed, despite himself.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said slowly. He looked at the photograph. ‘Hideous kid.’

  ‘May I see?’

  Monika Schmidt held out her hand. She looked silently at the photograph before handing it back. Her gaze was downcast and her eyes half closed. Michael looked at the large oil painting above the mantelpiece: a happy, younger version of Monika Schmidt in a long, pale silk dress, near an open window with light curtains. Her two sons stood next to her: blond Henrik with the sky-blue eyes who looked like his father, and the stronger, darker and introverted Jakob, who took after his mother. The painting had photographic accuracy and detail. It was the same artist who had painted Flemming Caspersen with the Alaskan bear in the house in Hellerup.

  He sent Elizabeth Caspersen a loaded glance, but she ignored him.

  ‘I think he’s cute,’ she said. ‘Charles …’

  ‘Charles Caspersen?’ Victor Schmidt burst out. ‘What sort of name is that?’

  ‘I don’t think she’ll insist on the surname, Victor,’ Elizabeth Caspersen said. ‘There really would be very little point.’

  ‘The whole thing is pointless,’ he said. ‘What an old fool.’

  ‘I would appreciate your not discussing my father in those terms, Victor. If it weren’t for him, you’d be selling second-hand cars in the suburbs of north-west Copenhagen instead of owning half of Sonartek. Remember that.’

  ‘Less than half, Elizabeth, dear. You and your demented mother now own the rest,’ he said maliciously.

  Monika Schmidt intervened.

  ‘Snällä, ni båda! Victor, you’ll apologize to Elizabeth immediately, and you, Elizabeth, will forgive Victor. As usual.’

  She glowered at her husband until he obeyed orders and mumbled an apology.

  Michael felt a pair of eyes staring at him and turned around. From the chair by the window, Henrik Schmidt was watching him with almost myopic intensity. When he discovered that Michael was looking at him, he smiled broadly, but then he spotted something behind the security consultant. His face brightened and he made to get up.

  ‘Hi, Jakob!’

  Michael turned around, astonished that someone could be that silent. Keith Mallory was fond of saying it: ‘Sooner or later you’ll meet the new talent, Mike, and though you think you’re one hell of a tough guy, you can only hope to God that you’re on the same side or he’ll fuck you up the arse until you can no longer remember your own name.’

  Michael thought that day had just arrived.

  Chapter 23

  ‘Michael Sander,’ he said, and stuck out his hand.

  ‘Jakob.’

  The other man looked at Michael’s hand for a moment before he shook it, almost warily. No pissing contest was required. He didn’t blink and his face was imperturbable and serious. Dark suit, black roll-neck jumper. He was tall, almost a head taller than Michael, broad-shouldered and well-built, with dark blond hair, and an impassive, weathered face, a long hawk nose and dark eyes that didn’t smile.

  Michael watched the faces around him. In Victor Schmidt’s, irritation seemed to do battle with genuine affection.

  ‘You went down to the sea?’ his father asked.

  ‘My usual walk.’

  ‘The boy’s name is Charles,’ Victor Schmidt said. ‘Try to get used to it.’

  ‘Charles?’

  ‘Yes, God help us. Charles Simpson-Caspersen.’

  ‘Stop it, Victor.’

  Monika Schmidt’s voice was sharp and long-suffering.

  Elizabeth Caspersen was almost as tall as Jakob Schmidt. They embraced warmly.

  Michael jumped when a woman’s voice right behind him announced that dinner was ready in the kitchen. The woman shook hands with him and introduced herself as Mrs Nielsen. She looked after the family. Or at least made sure that they got enough to eat. She had a pasty face, wore a dark, simple dress and was strangely devoid of personality.

  ‘Lovely, Mrs Nielsen,’ Monika Schmidt said. ‘Henrik, Jakob, are you coming? Victor?’

  Michael passed Jakob Schmidt at a distance of only a few centimetres. The man smelled of cold air and grass.

  ‘You work for Elizabeth?’ he asked as they headed for the door.

  ‘Yes,’ Michael said.

  ‘As a …?’

  ‘Consultant.’

  ‘That’s not a protected title, is it?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll be able to do it?’

  ‘Do what?’

  Jakob Schmidt smiled, and something fast and lethal swam across his eyes.

  ‘Get to the bottom of things?’

  ‘We’re talking about Flemming Caspersen and his son Charles?’

  ‘Of course. That’s what we’re talking about.’

  ‘I sincerely hope so,’ Michael said steadily.

  The tall young man held open the door for Michael, who again passed him at very close quarters. Jakob Schmidt moved with the economy of an athlete and Michael wondered if he could take him, one on one.

  He doubted it.

  *

  Michael was seated opposite Monika Schmidt at
the long table in the kitchen. There was no tablecloth, but the stoneware and the glasses were exquisite and you needed strong muscles to lift the heavy silver cutlery. There were rustic Italian bread baskets, brown Spanish wine jugs and blue, hand-painted Portuguese plates.

  He spread his starched linen napkin across his lap, realized how hungry he was and smiled at his hostess.

  Behind him pots were bubbling on the vast Aga.

  ‘It smells fantastic,’ he said.

  A bowl of bouillabaisse was placed in front of him, large chunks of lobster and fish floating in the soup, and Michael inhaled the aromas expectantly. Monika Schmidt poured him some white wine, and Victor Schmidt raised his glass and looked around the table. He put his hand on his younger son’s shoulder.

  ‘A toast to heirs. Old and new.’

  ‘I understand that Pederslund is a hunting lodge,’ Michael said, making conversation. ‘Do you still hunt or …?’

  ‘Frequently,’ Victor Schmidt said. ‘We have pheasants, snipe, some wild boar – vicious bastards – ducks and geese on the coast, roe deer, obviously, and a few red deer. Do you hunt?’

  ‘No.’

  Michael was tempted to add that he was still sexually active, but stopped himself.

  ‘It’s a good business,’ his host said after giving the matter some consideration. ‘We have some syndicates down here and a gamekeeper who deals with most of the feeding, releasing the pheasants, minding the dogs and so on. He’s an old friend of Jakob’s. Quite a few ex-soldiers come here.’

  Michael broke off a chunk of bread. ‘And he lives on the estate?’

  ‘Of course. When he’s not travelling. He’s away a lot, isn’t he, Jakob?’

  Michael couldn’t interpret Victor Schmidt’s face.

  ‘I suppose he is,’ Jakob Schmidt said. ‘Thomas co-owns a safari company. He arranges hunting trips to Africa, Canada and the Himalayas. When he’s not here, he gets one of his friends to look after the dogs and the game. Peter is covering for him at the moment.’

  ‘It’s an excellent arrangement,’ Victor Schmidt declared, and Michael realized that the matter was closed.

  He smiled to Jakob Schmidt instead. ‘Elizabeth told me you were an officer?’

  The young man merely nodded, but Victor Schmidt glowed with pride. ‘Captain in the Royal Life Guards, First Armoured Infantry Company. Jakob was in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq and Afghanistan, and these days he’s usually anywhere but home, isn’t that right, Jakob?’