Spirits were therefore high as Carl escorted Assad down to the hospital cafeteria and placed a tray of pastries and coffee on the table in front of him.
“How did it go with the librarians on Dag Hammarskjölds Allé?” Assad asked, pastry cream all over his dusky stubble.
“They’re going to call us as soon as the lad turns up again.”
“Then we shall have to be quick, Carl…”
Assad stopped and placed a hand on Carl’s arm as he nodded discreetly toward a corner of the room.
Seated behind a trolley of dirty dishes was none other than Marcus Jacobsen, staring blankly into space, hands around his coffee cup.
Before the weekend, he had been their superior, bidding farewell to his old life.
The way he looked now, it didn’t seem he was able to visualize his new one.
–
All in all, a more perfect shitty day than most shitty days, Carl decided as he opened his front door and went inside.
“Nice work,” was the first thing he said to Morten as he looked around the house. Amazing what a few hours of scrubbing and vacuuming could do to wipe away the traces of even the booziest of shindigs. Magnolievangen number 73 was pristine as never before.
“How’s our old charmer today?” he asked Mika, who stood in the middle of the living room, hands glistening as he rubbed something into Hardy’s naked back that smelled more effective than pleasant.
“Hardy’s doing great. He’s given us the go-ahead to get started using some forms of assistance. We’ve had a meeting with his case workers today and agreed we want him up in a wheelchair. What do you say, Hardy?” he said, slapping his patient’s milk-white buttock for emphasis.
“I say it’d be nicer with a slap on the ass if I could feel it,” came the hollow reply.
Carl bent down and looked Hardy straight in the eyes. They were moist, so it must have been an emotional day for him.
“Congratulations, mate,” he said, feeling moved, and patted Hardy’s brow.
“Yeah, bit momentous, it is.” Hardy paused to collect himself. “Mika’s really been working hard for this,” he added, with a quiver in his voice.
Carl straightened up and turned to the brawny caregiver pummeling away at Hardy’s muscle fibers, not knowing quite what to say. His feelings of guilt had been eating away at him for such a long time. Were they now about to ease? Was that what they were trying to get him to believe?
He gave a sigh and put his arms around Mika’s sweaty torso as it worked Hardy over.
“Thanks, Mika,” he said. “I don’t quite know how to put it, but thanks a million.”
“Whoa, Carlo!” came a jeering voice from the stairs. “Gone over to the enemy, have you? I knew it! I must be the only one in this house who’s straight, ha, ha!”
Jesper, ever the joker. Like a germ always waiting to strike.
“Mum says to tell you to phone,” he went on. “She says if you don’t go and visit Gran, you owe her hundreds of thousands of kroner. What kind of deal have you got yourself into, Carlo? Sounds like you’ve lost your mind.”
Then he laughed, so no one was in doubt.
“And you better do what she says. She’s a bit off her head at the moment because of Gurkamal.”
“You don’t say! What’s with him?”
“All she’s been on about is that wedding, that it has to be in India and everything, only now it’s all been put off again. If you ask me, it’s never going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“Damned if I know. Mum says it’s because there’s been problems after Gurkamal was attacked in the shop, but she’s not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, either. Do you think he’s going to share his shitty little mini-mart with her? “Course he’s not!”
Carl took a deep breath. Just as long as this didn’t mean she was going to turn up all of a sudden with her suitcases and fifteen cardboard boxes.
“Have you heard the news about Hardy?” Carl asked, eager to change the subject.
“Too right I have. I was here when all those cows from the local authority, or wherever they were from, came piling in. They were here more than three hours, they were. Anyway, don’t forget about Gran.”
“How about you go and visit her instead, Jesper?”
“You must be joking. She’s gone totally cuckoo. She hardly knows who I am anymore.”
“I’m sure she does. I’m asking you to do it.”
“No way.”
“If you won’t do it as a favor, then I’m going to have to tell you to do it.”
“Threatening me now, are we? In that case I reckon you should alert the media and tell them the very important news that Gran’s too bonkers for me to waste my time. Great story. All yours, Carlo.”
He turned on his heel and homed in on the fridge. “Oh, and by the way, Carlo,” he hollered, his head among the dairy products, “I was up in the attic getting my old Action Men out today. What the hell’s that huge chest up there? And why’s it locked?”
Carl shook his head. What on earth was this psycho-infantile lout on about now?
“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,” he hollered back. “I don’t know anything about any chest. It must be something of your mother’s.”
20
This was another of those calls he could do without. Teis Snap had been sitting in the twilight, enjoying a lemon vodka with the palm trees in front of him and his wife indoors in her negligee. A quick shag after a hectic day did them both a world of good, and this evening was no exception. Heads and glands emptied, muscles soft and relaxed. Which was why the voice on the phone had exactly the same effect on him as a cold shower on the nether regions.
Teis put his drink down on the table. “How dare you phone me after what you’ve done, René?” he growled. “The agreement was that you were to inform us if you needed to sell your A shares and, more important, that we were never to sell to anyone outside our own circle.”
“Agreement? To my mind we’ve made so many agreements, it’s impossible to administrate them. For instance, I hear from the bank that you and Lisa happen to be in Curaçao. In which case I have to ask myself what you might be doing there. You wouldn’t be trying to impress upon the bank that the power of attorney you’ve undoubtedly secured by forging my signature is genuine, would you? Or perhaps you’ve already done so? I’m also wondering if it might be a good idea to call the bank as soon as they open and ask what you’re up to. My guess is that the authorities in Willemstad might be interested, too. As far as I know, the jail there is hardly a first-class establishment, but perhaps you won’t mind?”
Teis took his bare feet off the table. “You’re not calling anyone, do you hear me, René? I’m your only friend in this matter, and if I were you I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
“Very well, Teis. That’s all I wanted to know. Now, since you’re still my friend, I suggest you put my share certificates in a plain brown envelope and send them to me by UPS courier as soon as the sun comes up. I expect you to e-mail me a scan of the receipt for the dispatch no later than ten minutes after you’ve handed over the envelope. If I haven’t heard from you by ten fifteen, local time, I shall alert the MCB immediately, do you understand?” And with that he hung up.
Teis was stunned. Of course he knew René was not only unused to bossing people about but that he also possessed the courage necessary to rebel, which was exactly what he had just done.
He sat for a while, staring at his phone as the shrill song of the cicadas pierced the descending darkness, trying to ignore his wife’s contented humming from within. Then he downed his drink in one. It was night in Denmark now, but he didn’t care. He may have been an old man, but Brage-Schmidt was going to have do without his beauty sleep.