‘Can you get me that jemmy, sweetie? It’s on the window sill.
A hand reached back. Konrad Simonsen placed a wrench in it.
‘No, that’s not it. It’s blue and looks like… well, a jemmy.’
Simonsen picked up a screwdriver but the man apparently decided to fetch the tool himself and crawled out backwards to get it.
The two men stared at each other. Klavs Arnold glanced around at the mess. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ he said.
The man was in his twenties, tall, with tousled, dark brown hair and bright blue eyes. He was wearing a lumberjack shirt and claimed his name was Oliver.
Simonsen put out a reluctant hand and received a firm handshake in return.
‘Anna Mia’s probably just popped out to the shop. I’m sure she’ll be back in a minute,’ Oliver said, sheepishly.
‘What’s this sweetie business?’ asked Simonsen.
Oliver explained. He was a carpenter by trade, which satisfied Klavs Arnold. He lived in Rødovre and had known Anna Mia, your daughter, since the summer, and together with a friend of his he ran his own little building firm. His words emerged in a nervous stutter, and Konrad Simonsen decided he liked him. He handed over the keys, before cautiously stepping over the pile of broken wood on the floor and making his way out. In the doorway he stopped.
‘Oh, and one last thing. Treat her nicely or I’ll be down on you with all the might of the constabulary. But I suppose you know that already?’
Oliver smiled and nodded. Klavs Arnold chipped in with his Jutland accent:
‘It’s a hiding to nothing. Make sure you do a good job on that kitchen.’
Konrad Simonsen proposed in a flower bed on Sunday afternoon, in a tangle of last year’s perennials. He went down on his knees on the soggy ground before the Countess, who true to weekend habit was out in the garden clearing autumn leaves. At the same instant, he forgot the speech he’d been carefully rehearsing, but realising there was no going back he improvised, eventually popping the question and feeling like time stood still in the split second it took for her to say yes.
‘Simon, I thought you’d never ask. Better late than never, though. Come on, let’s celebrate.’
‘I’ve got you a present as well,’ he mumbled.
He’d placed each of the pictures on a chair and turned them towards the light, presenting them as best he could. Two rubbings of ancient rock carvings from Nordkalotten. Helena Brage Hansen’s deaf friend Kaare had shown him how, by rubbing the roots of a certain kind of moss hard against a sheet of paper, you could make the carvings appear in the loveliest ochre. Subsequently, he’d had them framed.
The Countess enthused about them.
‘What do they depict, do you know?’
‘People celebrating the return of the sun. At least, that’s what Kaare said.’
In the evening they sat and watched TV. Suddenly, with a sense of purpose in his voice, he announced:
‘I’m going to Liverpool on Thursday. I want to be there for Lucy Davison’s funeral. The service is at St Mary’s Church in Walton, I’ve found it on the map. There’s an early flight, so I should be able to make it there and back in one day.’
She didn’t answer, and for a moment he thought she wasn’t pleased with him for wanting to go on his own, though he conceded that would have been unlike her. But then, cryptically, and as if speaking only to herself, she said: ‘You gave me such a lovely present before. Perhaps I can give you one in return, if there are any tickets left. Wait here, Simon, I’ll be back in a tick.’
A tick turned out to be an hour and a half. He was dozing and she had to wake him up.
‘Sorted,’ she said. ‘We’re going on a little getaway together, to celebrate, so your departure’s put forward a day.’
He yawned and shook his head in an effort to dispel sleep.
‘What do you mean?’
‘We’re going to a football match on Wednesday night.’
‘In Liverpool?’
‘Yes, and you can start looking forward to it.’
‘But I don’t like football.’
‘You’ll like this. It’s a lot more than football, believe me.’
However, all was not entirely well. Amid the sweet nothings and tender caresses that abounded in the wake of their engagement, and a newfound belief in a bright and better future, was a single source of irritation that wouldn’t go away. The Countess probed into the Kramer Nielsen case, pointing to little cracks in the logic that she failed to comprehend, forcing him to account for each in turn, only to find that for each satisfactory answer he provided, two new questions arose. He felt like she was interrogating him, which was more or less exactly what she was doing, albeit flippantly and in a tone that indicated to him that she no longer believed a word he was telling her. Eventually, he had to come clean.
‘OK, so Melsing and I haven’t told the whole truth.’
‘You don’t say,’ she said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. ‘I’d never have guessed.’
‘I’ll give you the full story in due course.’
‘And when might that be? I wonder.’
‘Everything comes to she who waits…’
She cut him off with annoyance:
‘Oh, don’t start that again, Simon.’
Konrad Simonsen was not one to be easily impressed but Anfield took his breath away. From the very first, he was fascinated: the swell of the songs he didn’t understand, the supporters’ euphoric pride in their team and the stadium, the sense of belonging in everyone around them. There was no humility about it, and yet it was quite without arrogance or aggression.
‘What do you think?’
‘It’s amazing. Magnificent.’
The Countess swept out an arm as though it all belonged to her:
‘This is Anfield.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘I’ll tell you about that later. All I can say is, I’ve been looking forward to showing you this. I knew you’d like it.’
‘It’s overwhelming. Do they sing all the time?’
‘As good as. Liverpudlians like their songs. There was a band from here once, they got to be quite famous.’
He missed the reference entirely. By now she was pointing to the area behind the goal.
‘That section over there’s called the Kop. They decide what to sing and when.’
‘What’s our bit called?’
‘I’m not sure, to be honest. Oh, yes, we’re the Paddock, but we’re not as famous as the Kop.’
‘How long have you known about this?’
‘It’s not exactly a secret.’
‘No, of course not, stupid question. What I mean is, I wish I’d realised before.’
‘I know how you feel. My dad always said: “You haven’t lived until you’ve seen the Pyramids, made love under a full moon and seen Liverpool play at Anfield Road.”’
Suddenly, she roared with the crowd. Simonsen looked around the stadium: a heaving ocean of red and white scarves raised above tens of thousands of heads in joyous praise. The actual match he found less interesting.
‘It all makes sense when you’re here. Has anyone scored?’
‘Not yet. You won’t be in any doubt when Liverpool do, though.’
He nodded, twisting round again to look up at the packed tiers of the stand above.
‘So, have you seen the Pyramids and made love under a full moon?’ he asked, turning back to look at her with a gleam in his eye.
‘No, but this is the ninth time I’ve been to Anfield.’
Lucy Davison’s funeral failed to stir up much feeling in Konrad Simonsen. He’d already said goodbye to her at the airport in Copenhagen and found it hard to engage in further farewells. Not even when her remains were taken to the grave accompanied by prayers and blessings and once more laid in the ground was he able to summon emotion. The ceremony was tasteful and the church filled with parishioners, but he kept himself apart at the back and made sure he was among the first to leave once it was over, recognised by no one and without awakening the slightest interest in his presence. Afterwards, he stood waiting on the corner across the road, and for the first time in what seemed like an age he wanted a cigarette. A short while passed before he caught sight of the man. He crossed back over, hastening up alongside him.