Then Snap picked up the thread. “Some weeks later, by way of a group of ‘investors’ in Curaçao”-Snap formed quotes in the air-“our friends in Yaoundé will as usual transfer the requisite funds to Karrebæk Bank. The rest we place in private equity in our custody account in Curaçao as a buffer against unexpected developments in the bank sector. In that way, Karrebæk Bank’s equity portfolio gradually changes hands, all the while expanding, and yet in reality we maintain total control. Our portfolios grow larger by the year. Which means the three of us have every good reason to be cheerful. Am I right?”
“Indeed. We’re ‘all’ happy.” This time the air quotes were René’s. “All of us, perhaps, apart from Louis Fon, Mbomo, and William…”
Teis Snap broke in. “Look, René, don’t waste your time worrying about Mbomo and Fon. Once things have settled down a bit we’ll donate some cash to their widows so they can get on. The authorities there are used to people disappearing all the time, so no one’s going to make an issue of it. As for Stark, he has no family, does he?”
René shook his head. “No, but he does have a partner and a stepdaughter who’s ill.” He stared intensely into Snap’s eyes, as though expecting some display of sympathy, but they were cold as ice.
“Good,” was Snap’s brief response. “No family, then, just a couple of loosely associated individuals. They’ll mourn a while, no doubt, and then life will go on. After all, he was hardly the sort you’d miss much, was he, René?”
René exhaled with a sigh. What was he supposed to say? Since they were already referring to the man in the past tense, what did it matter how interesting a person Stark had been?
But still…
The loudspeaker interrupted his thoughts. Brage-Schmidt didn’t bother to comment on the last statement, but then why should he?
“As far as the two hundred and fifty million is concerned, we can with some justification claim it to be a form of camouflaged state subsidy from the Baka project to our continued banking activities. Is it not reasonable that the state be protective of Denmark’s lucrative private companies, like Karrebæk Bank? Enterprises that create jobs, enhance the balance of payments and raise living standards. One way or another the wheels would grind to a halt if reputable banks such as ours were allowed to crash. Hardly what we or the government wish to see now, is it?”
René’s thoughts were somewhere else entirely. If anything went wrong, Snap and Brage-Schmidt would distance themselves in no time at all, that much was certain. And he would be left behind alone, with both the responsibility and a prison sentence. He wasn’t going to let it happen.
“I’ll say it again: what you do from now on is without my knowledge, OK? I don’t want to know. But if you do take such drastic measures, make sure I get Stark’s laptop immediately. Who knows what he might have tucked away on it concerning our little project.”
“Sure, of course you’ll get it. And yes, we understand how difficult it is for you to take all this in, René. After all, I know you. You’re an upstanding and decent man. But think of your family, OK?” Snap urged. “Just let Jens and me take care of this, and you stop worrying. We’ll contact someone proficient at dealing with this sort of problem, who can arrange for Stark to be intercepted at the airport. In the meantime you can take pleasure in the thought of your stock rising by the day. The future remains bright, René.”
3
Autumn 2010
The yellow van came and collected Marco in front of the scaffolding on Copenhagen’s Rådhuspladsen at precisely five in the afternoon, as always. This time he had waited twenty minutes in the square outside the town hall to be on the safe side. If he wasn’t there, ready when the van arrived, they would drive on without him. And if he had to join the city’s commuters on the S-train and the bus instead, they would beat him. The very thought was enough, not to mention the possibility of sleeping a whole night in some damp basement passage, for the weather was far too cold.
So Marco was never late. He simply hadn’t the guts.
He nodded to the others in the van who were sitting with their backs against the walls, but no one nodded back. He was used to that. They were all dead tired.
Tired of the days, of life, and of themselves.
Marco studied the group. One or two were still wet from the rain and sat shivering with cold. If he hadn’t known better he might have taken several of them to be ill, skinny and consumptive as they looked. It was no cheerful sight, but then not much was, on a clammy November day in Denmark.
“How’d you do today?” asked Samuel, who was leaning against the wall behind the cab.
Marco counted in his head.
“I made four separate deliveries. The second time alone was over five hundred kroner. I think about thirteen or fourteen hundred in all, with the three hundred I’ve got in my pocket.”
“I did about eight hundred,” said Miryam, the eldest of them. She always drew a sympathetic response with her bad leg. That kind of thing was good at boosting turnover.
“I only got sixty,” said Samuel, in such a quiet voice that everyone heard him. “No one wants to give me anything anymore.”
Ten pairs of eyes looked at him with pity. He was in for a hard time once they got back to Zola.
“Then take this,” Marco said, handing him two hundred-kroner notes. He was the only one to do so, for there was always a risk that one of them would snitch to Zola. As if he didn’t know.
Marco knew what was wrong with Samuel. Begging became a dwindling option once a boy began to look more like a young man. Though Marco himself was fifteen, he still resembled a kid, so things were easier for him. He was small for his age, unusually so, with the wide eyes of a child, his hair fine, skin still smooth. Unlike Samuel, Pico, and Romeo, whose skin had become coarse, facial hair sprouting. And while the others had already indulged in their first adventures with girls, many still envied Marco for his slow development, not to mention the keenness of his wits.
As if he didn’t know all this.
He may have been small for his age, but his eyes and ears were those of an experienced grown-up, and he was skilled at putting them to use. Very skilled indeed.
“Father, can’t I go to school?” he had pleaded since he was seven, back when they lived in Italy. Marco loved his father, but on this issue, like so many others, the man was weak. He told him his brother, Marco’s uncle Zola, insisted on the children working the streets. And so it became, for Zola was the undisputed and tyrannical head of the clan.
But Marco had a desire to learn, and in nearly all the small towns and villages of Umbria was a school where he could stand outside and absorb as though he were blotting paper. So when the sun began to warm the morning air he stood close up at the windows, listening intently, ears cocked for an hour or more before trudging off to scrape together the day’s earnings.
Once in a while a teacher would come out and invite him inside, but Marco would run away and not return. Taking up the offer would mean being beaten black and blue at home. In that respect, moving around the way they did was an advantage because the schools were always new.
Then came the day when one of the teachers nonetheless managed to get a firm grip on him. But instead of dragging him inside he handed him a canvas bag as heavy as the day was long.
“They’re yours, put them to use,” he said, releasing him again.
The bag contained fifteen textbooks, and wherever the clan settled Marco always found a secret hiding place where he could sit and study them without fear of discovery.
And so it was every evening and all the days when the grown-ups had other things to do than keep watch over the children. After two years he learned to do sums and to read both Italian and English, and as a result his curiosity was turned toward everything in the world he had yet to learn or understand.