Anna Mia was all ready in her running gear, full of beans. The weather was perfect: chilly, though not too cold, no wind and just a slight drizzle that would keep them feeling fresh. This was the day he was going to run all the way from start to finish. It would be a triumph. He was ready for it, and he wanted to share the moment with his daughter.
They ran. She chatted, while he saved his breath.
‘It’s really nice of you to let me come with you. How close are you now to your goal, do you think? Not having to walk, I mean.’
He pinched his index finger and thumb together, leaving a little gap. She understood and stopped talking. It lasted a hundred metres or so.
‘You don’t need to answer, but I think it’s good you found that girl.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Now they’re all saying you’ll clear up that case about the postman, too.’
‘Really.’
‘But that’s stupid, I know. You’re not a magician.’
‘No.’
He had begun to perspire, and the pleasant sensation of controlled exercise on which he had increasingly become dependent spread through his body and mind. They passed along the well-to-do residential roads at a silent jog, shortly afterwards rounding his midway mark for only the third time without pause. Soon the pain set in, his lungs crying out to him.
‘How are you doing? All right?’ his daughter asked.
He didn’t reply. She took this to be an invitation to carry on talking:
‘If you don’t clear up that murder, it won’t matter. You don’t need to live up to some stupid image other people have of you, you know. Anyway, only a couple of kilometres to go now. Less, maybe. You’re doing really well today.’
It was hard for him to think clearly. He wanted the word kilometre abolished, and outlawing corporal punishment of one’s offspring seemed suddenly to have been too hasty a measure by half, but apart from that he was unable to attain any form of coherence as he gasped and heaved for air. He dragged himself along the next stretch of road, and as he turned left he knew that if he looked up and saw how far he still had to go, he wouldn’t make it. And then he noticed the car come gliding slowly towards him, and he had all the time in the world to stare: a Wartburg Convertible from 1969, fully restored, of course. He halted abruptly.
‘Concentrate, Rita.’
They had got an early start and sat themselves down on a bench next to a bus stop on the city’s Rådhuspladsen, facing Vester Voldgade. It was a good place to practise. She was no good at cars. He knew all the makes and models, but she needed to recognise only one. Nonetheless, it was proving more difficult than it sounded. Not least because he wouldn’t tell her why. She enquired cautiously, sounding cowed as she had done all week:
‘But why is this important, Konrad? I’m useless with cars.’
He snarled at her. It just was, that was all, and if she could swan around Europe delivering cash to suspicious individuals for some cause of which she was utterly oblivious, then she could also damn’ well pull herself together and pick out a single make of car when he asked her to. She indulged him and turned her attention back to the morning rush-hour traffic, though it was obvious her lack of knowledge of the subject curbed her motivation. She was exceptionally poor at this task he had given her, hazarding wayward guesses, picking out Datsuns and Chryslers that looked nothing remotely like a Wartburg Convertible. He threw up his arms in exasperation, turning his eyes to the heavens and the bronze statue of the two Viking lur blowers that looked down on them from their pedestal on the square. She apologised, her voice timid as a little girl’s:
‘I’m doing my best.’
She tried again, and for the first time succeeded. He praised her, issuing words of encouragement: now she was getting the hang of it. And yet two more passed by without her noticing. He had set aside the whole day, but was now beginning to wonder if it would be enough. Gradually, however, she became more practised, and by late morning she was rather good at it. He asked if she was packed and prepared. She nodded. Tomorrow, she’d be saying goodbye to her old friends: they were meeting up in Kongens Have, and she hoped he’d come, too. Then, the day after, she would board the jumbo that would take her from Copenhagen to New York. She nodded in the direction of a Wartburg Convertible as it passed by. Everything was ready: suitcases, tickets, passport and visa. Everything except money.
‘I’m going to miss you.’
She sounded like she meant it. He told her he’d never in all his life met a girl like her. In all his life… what a ridiculous thing to say now in hindsight; he’d been in his early twenties at the time. She tried to sound optimistic.
‘But you’ve got to come over and see me soon. You promise, don’t you?’
Naturally, he promised. She could count on it.
He was less emotional about it than she was. Somewhere inside, he felt relieved to see her go, though at the same time he knew he loved her in a way, enough at least to feel torn apart by the thought of her sinking to the bottom in America without the means – the money – to take care of herself.
He hadn’t for a moment doubted his own plan once the idea had occurred to him. Moreover, he told himself, it was as good as foolproof – though he knew better than most that the country’s prisons were full of people who had believed their crimes to be without risk of detection.
Their rehearsal now took in the parking spaces around Nørreport Station and the streets behind the Grønttorvet in the direction of Nansensgade, where they biked around, and she identified four Wartburg Convertibles without hesitation.
Her baptism of fire came the following day. They waited outside a telephone box at one end of a slumbering street. The location was ideal. A few shoppers idled past, and some children were playing. That’s how he remembered it.
His instructions to her were clear as the car came into sight and passed by. He nodded towards it discreetly, satisfying himself that she’d noticed.
‘Stay in the phone box. If you see the red Wartburg Convertible come back into the street here, you call. Let it ring three times, then put the receiver down and walk home.’
He went into the phone box, dropped a coin into the slot, dialling a number twice, each time allowing it to ring. There was no answer. He hung up and instructed her again:
‘Tell me the phone number.’
She told him.
‘Tell me again.’
She repeated it.
‘Now, remember. The red Wartburg. You call the number. Let it ring three times, hang up and walk home.’
He repeated the words again, and she likewise. Twice more. And then he left.
Thirty-five years later on a residential street in Søllerød, he stoically accepted defeat. His lungs heaved like a pair of bellows, striving to deliver oxygen to his sorry organism as he stood bent double, head down, hands on knees. But there was nothing wrong with his mind.
‘It’s OK, Dad. You did your best, and in a couple of weeks you’ll be running all the way, no problem. You gave your all today, you can’t ask for more than that. It’ll come, believe me.’
Though his body protested, he chose to run the rest of the way home.
On Saturday 29 November 2008, a day of resplendent late-autumnal colour, Denmark bade farewell to Lucy Davison. It was a difficult day for Konrad Simonsen.
The Countess endeavoured to cheer him up and help make him look presentable. The suit was a present she’d bought him, and this was its first outing. She’d dragged him to a tailor’s in the centre of town, a small and exclusive place that looked like a museum exhibition. He had his measurements taken by an elderly gentleman who prodded a stiff digit into his stomach and generally made him feel like a shop dummy. The tailoring process had involved three return visits before the tailor and the Countess were satisfied. No one asked his opinion and the bill was a secret, too, but today he was happy he’d gone to the trouble. The alternative was his uniform, which more than likely fitted him like a tent after he’d lost so much weight.