She swam over to him. Apart from a couple sitting half submerged at the far end, they had the pool to themselves. Harry lifted the champagne bottle out of the cooler by the pool, poured a glass and handed it to her.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘Thanks as in we’re even?’ he said, watching as she drank.
‘Far from it,’ she said. ‘After what was in VG, it would be very unfortunate if it came out that I’m running secret DNA analyses for you. So I want you to tell me something secret.’
‘Mm. Like what?’
‘That’s up to you.’ She slipped close to him. ‘But it has to be something from the darkest depths.’
Harry looked at her. She had a look in her eyes not unlike Gert’s when he demanded the ‘Blueman’ lullaby. Alexandra was aware that Harry was Gert’s father, and now he was struck by a crazy thought. That he would tell her the rest. He looked at the champagne bottle. Had already realised when he ordered it — albeit with one glass — that it was a bad idea. Just as it would be a bad idea to tell her what only he and Johan Krohn knew. He cleared his throat.
‘I crushed a guy’s throat in Los Angeles,’ Harry said. ‘I felt it against my knuckles, felt it give. And I liked it.’
Alexandra stared at him wide-eyed. ‘Were you fighting?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
Harry shrugged. ‘A bar brawl. Over a woman. I was drunk.’
‘What about you? Were you OK?’
‘I was fine. I only hit him once, then it was over.’
‘You hit him in the throat?’
‘Yeah. Chisel fist.’ He held up his hand to demonstrate. ‘A specialist in close combat who trained FSK in Afghanistan taught me. The point is to hit your opponent on a specific area of the throat, then all opposition will cease immediately because our brain can only think of one thing, and that’s getting air.’
‘Like this?’ she asked, squeezing the middle joints and the tips of her fingers together.
‘And like this,’ Harry said, straightening her thumb and pushing it in towards her forefinger. ‘And then you aim here, at the larynx.’ He tapped her forefinger against his own throat.
‘Hey!’ he shouted as without any warning she jabbed him.
‘Stand still!’ she laughed, hitting him again.
Harry jinked away. ‘I don’t think you understand. You risk killing someone if you hit them right. Let’s say this is the larynx.’ He pointed to one of his nipples. ‘And then you need to utilise these...’ He took hold of her hips under the water and showed her how to rotate in order to generate power in the punch. ‘Ready?’
‘Ready.’
After four attempts she had landed two punches hard enough to make Harry groan.
The couple at the other end of the pool had gone quiet and were watching them with anxious expressions.
‘How do you know you didn’t kill him?’ Alexandra said, as she got in position to strike again.
‘I don’t know for sure. But if he had died, I don’t think his friends would have let me live afterwards.’
‘Have you also considered that if you had killed him it would put you in the same boat as those you’ve hunted down throughout your entire career?’
Harry wrinkled his nose. ‘Maybe.’
‘Maybe? Arguing over a woman — you think that’s a more noble motive?’
‘Let’s call it self-defence.’
‘There’re a lot of things that can be classed as self-defence, Harry. Honour killings are self-defence. Crimes of passion are self-defence. People kill to defend their self-respect and their dignity. You yourself have experience of people killing in order to save themselves from humiliation, don’t you?’
Harry nodded. Looked at her. Had she understood? Had she realised that it wasn’t just his own life that Bjørn had taken? No, her gaze was inward, this was about her own experience. Harry was about to say something when her hand shot out. He didn’t move. Just stood there as a triumphant smile spread across her face. Her hand — clenched to a chisel — was barely touching the skin on his throat.
‘Could have killed you that time,’ she said.
‘Yeah.’
‘You didn’t have time to react?’
‘No.’
‘Or were you banking on me not crushing your larynx?’
He smiled a little, didn’t answer.
‘Or...’ She frowned. ‘Don’t you give a shit?’
Harry’s smile widened. He gripped the bottle behind him, filled up her glass. Eyed the bottle, pictured bringing the end of it to his mouth, putting his head back and hearing the low gurgling sound as the alcohol filled him, lowering the bottle, now empty, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand while she stared wide-eyed at him. Instead, he placed the almost full bottle back in the cooler. Cleared his throat.
‘What do you say we go into the sauna?’
Instead of Shakespeare’s five acts, the National Theatre’s production of Romeo and Juliet consisted of two long acts with a fifteen-minute interval at around the hour mark.
When the house lights came up for the interval, the audience swarmed out, filling the foyers and the saloon, where light refreshments were available. Helene joined the queue at the bar, while listening with half an ear to the conversations around her. Oddly enough none of them were about the play, as though that would be pretentious or vulgar. She became aware of something, a fragrance that made her think of Markus, and she half turned. A man was standing behind her, and he just managed to give her a smile before she quickly faced forward again. His smile had been... yes, what had it been? Her heart was beating faster in any case. She almost had to laugh; it must be the play, psychological priming that guaranteed it was not only her who suddenly thought they saw their Romeo in every other man’s face. Because the man behind her was by no means attractive. Not downright ugly, perhaps — his smile had revealed he had nice teeth at least — but uninteresting. Still, her heart continued to beat, and she felt a desire — a desire she couldn’t remember having felt in years — to turn around again. Look at him. See what it was that made her want to turn.
She managed to restrain herself, ordered a plastic glass of white wine and took it to one of the small round tables along the walls of the saloon. Watched the man, who was now trying to pay cash for a bottle of water while the woman behind the counter was pointing at a sign which read CARD ONLY. To her surprise she found herself considering going up and paying for him. But he had given up his attempted purchase and turned towards Helene. Their eyes met and he smiled again. Then he began walking in the direction of her table. Her heart pounded. What was this? It wasn’t as if it were her first time experiencing a man being so direct. ‘May I?’ he asked, placing a hand on the empty chair by the table.
She shot him a brief and — she assumed — dismissive smile, as her brain commanded her mouth to say, ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’
‘By all means.’
‘Thank you.’ He sat down and leaned across the table as though they were in the middle of a long conversation.
‘I don’t mean to spoil it,’ he said, almost in a whisper. ‘But she’s drunk poison and is going to die.’
His face was so close she could smell his cologne. No, it was quite different from the one Markus had used, more raw. ‘As far as I’m aware she doesn’t drink the poison before the last act,’ Helene said.
‘That’s what everyone thinks, but she’s already poisoned. Believe me.’ He smiled. White teeth. Predator-like. She was tempted to offer herself, feel them bite through her skin as she buried her nails in his back. Jesus, what was this? Part of her wanted to run, another part to throw herself on him. She recrossed her legs the other way, noticing — was it possible? — that she was wet.