Her reply was sharp. “Whatever makes you say that?”
“Our discussion about Jews.”
“Oh, that.” She shrugged it off. “You were right, weren’t you? You proved it. We raided the synagogue and it led us to Gammel.”
“Then, I wondered if the death of Kirke might have been too gruesome. .”
“My husband died,” she said crisply. “I don’t mind seeing criminals die.”
She was even tougher than he had thought. He hid a pleased smile. “So you’ll stay in the police.”
“I don’t see any other future. Besides, I might be the first woman to get promotion to sergeant.”
Peter doubted that would ever happen. It would involve men taking orders from a woman, and that seemed beyond the bounds of possibility. But he did not say so. “Braun virtually promised me promotion if I can round up this spy ring.”
“Promotion to what?”
“Head of the department. Juel’s job.” And a man who was head of the Security Department at thirty could well end up chief of the entire Copenhagen police, he thought. His heart beat faster as he envisioned the crackdown he would impose, with the backing of the Nazis.
Tilde smiled warmly. Putting a hand on his arm, she said, “Then we’d better make sure we catch them all.”
The ship docked and the passengers began to disembark. As they watched, Tilde said, “You’ve known Arne since childhood-is he the type for espionage?”
“I’d have to say no,” Peter replied thoughtfully. “He’s too happy-go-lucky.”
“Oh.” Tilde looked glum.
“In fact, I might have dismissed him as a suspect, but for his English fiancee.”
She brightened. “That puts him right in the frame.”
“I don’t know whether they’re still engaged. She went back to England hot-foot when the Germans came. But the possibility is enough.”
A hundred or so passengers got off, some on foot, a handful in cars, many with bicycles. The island was only twenty miles from end to end, and cycling was the easiest way to get around.
“There,” said Tilde, pointing.
Peter saw Arne Olufsen disembarking, wearing his army uniform, pushing his bicycle. “But where’s Dresler?”
“Four people behind.”
“I see him.” Peter put on sunglasses and pulled his hat low, then started the engine. Arne cycled up the cobbled street toward the town center, and Dresler did the same. Peter and Tilde followed slowly in the car.
Arne headed out of town to the north. Peter began to feel conspicuous. There were few other cars on the roads, and he had to drive slowly to stay with the bikes. Soon he was obliged to fall behind and drop out of sight for fear of being noticed. After a few minutes, he speeded up until he caught sight of Dresler, then slowed again. Two German soldiers on a motorcycle with a sidecar passed them, and Peter wished he had borrowed a motorbike instead of a car.
A few miles out of town, they were the only people on the road. “This is impossible,” Tilde said in a high, anxious voice. “He’s bound to spot us.”
Peter nodded. She was right, but now a new thought occurred to him. “And when he does, his reaction will be highly revealing.”
She gave him an inquiring look, but he did not explain.
He increased speed. Rounding a bend, he saw Dresler crouching in the woods at the side of the road and, a hundred yards ahead, Arne sitting on a wall, smoking a cigarette. Peter had no option but to drive past. He continued another mile then reversed down a farm track.
“Was he checking on us, or just taking a rest?” Tilde said.
Peter shrugged.
A few minutes later Arne cycled past, followed by Dresler. Peter pulled onto the road again.
The daylight was fading. Three miles farther on, they came to a crossroads. Dresler had stopped there and was looking perplexed.
There was no sign of Arne.
Dresler came up to the car window, looking distraught. “I’m sorry, Boss. He put on a burst of speed and got ahead of me. I lost sight of him, and I don’t know which way he went at this crossroads.”
Tilde said, “Hell. He must have planned it. He obviously knows the road.”
“I’m sorry,” Dresler said again.
Tilde said quietly, “There goes your promotion-and mine.”
“Don’t be so gloomy,” Peter said. “This is good news.”
Tilde was bewildered. “What do you mean?”
“If an innocent man thinks he’s being followed, what does he do? He stops, turns around, and says, ‘Who the hell do you think you are, following me around?’ Only a guilty man deliberately shakes off a surveillance team. Don’t you see? This means we were right: Arne Olufsen is a spy.”
“But we’ve lost him.”
“Oh, don’t worry. We’ll find him again.”
They spent the night at a seaside hotel with a bathroom at the end of each corridor. At midnight, Peter put a robe over his pajamas and knocked on the door of Tilde’s room. She called, “Come in.”
He stepped inside. She was sitting up in the single bed, wearing a light blue silk nightdress, reading an American novel called Gone with the Wind. He said, “You didn’t ask who it was at the door.”
“I knew.”
His detective’s mind noticed that she wore lipstick, her hair was carefully brushed, and the flowery perfume was in the air, as if she had dressed for a date. He kissed her lips, and she stroked the back of his head. After a moment he looked back to the door, to make sure he had closed it.
“She’s not there,” Tilde said.
“Who?”
“Inge.”
He kissed her again, but after a few moments he realized he was not getting excited. He broke the kiss and sat on the edge of the bed.
“It’s the same for me,” Tilde said.
“What?”
“I keep thinking about Oskar.”
“He’s dead.”
“Inge might as well be.”
He winced.
She said, “I’m sorry. But it’s true. I’m thinking about my husband, and you’re thinking about your wife, and neither of them cares.”
“It wasn’t like this last night, at my apartment.”
“We didn’t give ourselves time to think then.”
This was ridiculous, he thought. In his youth he had been a confident seducer, able to persuade many women to yield to him, and leaving most of them well satisfied. Was he just out of practice?
He shrugged off his robe and slipped into bed beside her. She was warm and welcoming, and her round body under the nightdress was soft to his touch. She turned off the light. He kissed her, but he could not rekindle last night’s passion.
They lay side by side in the dark. “It’s all right,” she said. “You have to leave the past behind. It’s difficult for you.”
He kissed her again, briefly, then he got up and returned to his own room.
13
Harald’s life was in ruins. All his plans were canceled and he had no future. Yet, instead of agonizing over his fate, he was looking forward to renewing his acquaintance with Karen Duchwitz. He recalled her white skin and vivid red hair, and the way she walked across the room as if she were dancing, and nothing seemed as important as seeing her again.
Denmark was a small, pretty country, but at twenty miles per hour it seemed like the endless desert. Harald’s peat-burning motorcycle took a day and a half to get from his home on Sande across the width of the country to Kirstenslot.
The bike’s progress over the monotonous undulating landscape was further slowed by breakdowns. He suffered a puncture before he was thirty miles from home. Next, on the long bridge that linked the Jutland peninsula with the central island of Fyn, his chain broke. The Nimbus motorcycle originally had a shaft drive, but that was difficult to connect to a steam engine, so Harald had taken a chain and sprockets from an old lawn mower. Now he had to push the bike miles to a garage and have a new link inserted. By the time he had crossed Fyn, he had missed the last ferry to the main island of Zealand. He parked the bike, ate the food his mother had given him-three thick slices of ham and a slab of cake-and spent a chill night waiting on the dockside. When he relit the boiler the next morning, the safety valve had developed a leak, but he managed to plug it with chewing gum and sticking plaster.