All That Man Is

1

Every morning he takes his daughters to school, or in the summer holidays to their tennis lesson. It is usually the only time he sees them during the day, since he arrives home late, long after they are asleep. So he has promised to take them to school in the morning, or to their tennis lesson. It is a promise he has kept so far.

Their school is on his way to work anyway. The Dansk Tennis Klub involves a detour. To drive there takes twenty minutes at least. The traffic is quite heavy at that time in the morning. He talks to them, his daughters, Tine and Vikki, while he drives — about television and pop music and famous people mostly. Tine is eleven. Vikki is eight. They like to talk about television stars. Pop stars. He knows quite a lot about that, even though it is no longer his area of particular expertise, as it once was.

They arrive at the tennis club at about ten to nine, and the girls spill out with their stuff, their water and tennis equipment, and wave perfunctorily as he turns in his seat to see them off. When they are inside he pulls away, and puts the radio on. Usually he does not put the radio on until he has dropped them off, though sometimes they listen to music together as they drive, and sometimes they sing along to songs they know.

On his own, he listens to the news. It is usually the sport at that time, five to nine, as he drives past Søerne, the lakes.

The Audi is quite new — less than a year — and he still enjoys driving it. An A4, silver, with black leather seats. An unobtrusive executive saloon. Anonymous, almost. When he was deciding what sort of car to get he found a website that said of this model that it was ‘coldly, rationally competent in just about every department’. He immediately liked the sound of it.

From the tennis club, it takes another ten minutes or so, depending on the traffic, to get to his office in town.

Sometimes he is a few minutes late for the morning meeting, and slips in to take the seat nearest the door while Elin is already talking.

—

This morning there is a special meeting. Elin phoned him very late last night and said she had just spoken to Jeppe, the news editor. He’d told her about a story he had. It was about the defence minister, Edvard Dahlin, and an affair he was supposedly having with a married woman.

‘Has Jeppe spoken to you about this?’ Elin asked him.

‘No’, Kristian said.

Jeppe had told her he was sure the story was true because he had access to phone data that left no doubt — highly suggestive metadata, and also, more significantly, the actual words of text messages. Elin wanted to know how Jeppe had got his hands on that information, whether anything illegal had been done. He told her that if it had, no one on the paper’s payroll was directly involved.

After telling all that to Kristian, she asked him what he thought.

He said he would need to see the information first.

This morning they’re meeting to discuss it.

When he arrives, Kristian finds Jeppe and his deputy David Jespersen waiting outside the meeting room. Jeppe, obese, is sitting on the only seat, a plastic cup of water in his hand.

‘Elin here yet?’ Kristian asks.

‘She’s in there with Morten,’ Jeppe says. He must be nearly sixty now. He has been on the paper, has been news editor, since Kristian first started working there as an intern.

‘Talking to him about your dodgy phone data?’ Kristian asks.

Jeppe shrugs. There is something monstrous about his lack of neck. His white hair is cut in a scruffy pudding-bowl.

‘What have you got exactly?’ Kristian asks him.

He knows that Jeppe keeps things from him, has a direct line to Elin and tries to go over his head whenever he can. Jeppe wanted the deputy editor position when it opened up two years ago — instead it went to Kristian, who was then editor of the showbiz and television pages, and is twenty years younger than him. There’s not been much warmth between them since then.

Jeppe says, looking into his plastic cup, ‘I’ll tell you in there. I don’t want to say it all twice.’

‘Fair enough.’ Kristian turns to David Jespersen. ‘Morning, David.’

‘Hello, mate.’

‘You joining us too?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Very exciting,’ Kristian says.

When they are summoned in, they find Elin with Morten, the in-house lawyer. He doesn’t look like a lawyer. He’s wearing a tracksuit.

They all say good morning to each other and take seats at the long table. There are bottles of mineral water. There is a view of Peblinge Lake. It is a hot, still August morning.

Elin says to Jeppe, ‘Okay, tell us what you have.’

‘David,’ Jeppe says.

David Jespersen, with some eagerness, sits forward. He is the same age as Kristian — exactly the same age; they were at school together in Sundbyøster. David went to university, entered journalism that way. Kristian didn’t, and for some time David was the senior of the two of them. He is lean, handsome, slightly yellow as if he has liver trouble. He sits forward. He says, ‘Okay. What have we got. We have hard evidence,’ he says, speaking primarily to Elin, ‘that Edvard Dahlin is having an affair with a married woman. It’s been going on for a few years. We’ve been working on this for some time now, actually. The woman’s called Natasha Ohmsen. She’s married to Søren Ohmsen—’

Elin interrupts. ‘Dahlin’s not married?’

‘No. Divorced,’ David says. ‘Ohmsen’s married.’

Elin nods.

‘Yeah, it’s been going on for a few years,’ David says. ‘Now it seems like it might be ending. She’s ending it. Dahlin’s not happy about that.’

‘He’s heartbroken,’ Jeppe puts in.

‘And you know all this because you have access to phone data?’ Elin asks. ‘What actually do you have? Who did you get it from?’

David looks at Jeppe — nervously, Kristian thinks, watching him.

‘Someone in the phone company,’ Jeppe says. ‘Like I told you, they have access to Dahlin’s phone records, this person. Who he calls. When. His voicemails. Text messages.’

‘And you have that information?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How?’ Elin asks.

‘We were approached.’

‘I assume some form of payment was involved.’

‘Yeah,’ Jeppe says again, looking down at the table.

‘How much?’

Jeppe looks up. ‘Are you sure you want to know?’

Elin looks at Morten, who shakes his head.

‘So what do you have, exactly?’ she asks.

David hands her a flash memory stick, half-standing to lean across the table. ‘All the texts are on there,’ he says. ‘And a summary of the main points.’

‘It’s the texts are important,’ Jeppe points out.

‘Texts from him to her?’

‘And from her to him,’ David says. ‘It’s all there.’

She plugs the memory stick into a laptop and opens a file. For a minute or so she looks at it, while the others look at the wall, or at the lake out of the window, the low skyline of Copenhagen — the houses on the other side of the lake look like expensive toys.

‘You’re sure,’ she says suddenly, ‘these are kosher? Not some kind of hoax?’

‘One hundred per cent sure,’ Jeppe says.

‘How?’

‘We tested the source.’

‘Oh?’

‘Sent some texts ourselves,’ Jeppe says, ‘to Dahlin’s number. They’re in there. Exact times, everything.’

Elin seems satisfied with this, even impressed, and David, in particular, looks pleased with himself.

Elin says, ‘Only problem is, we can’t print any of this. The messages.’

‘No,’ Jeppe tells her. ‘That would expose our source. And what he’s done, it’s not strictly speaking legal, is it. I mean, I don’t know. He’d be opening himself to prosecution, possibly.’

‘Okay.’ Elin turns to Morten, who is looking at the messages on the laptop screen, standing at her shoulder. ‘So we can’t do it?’ she asks, twisting in her seat to look up at him.

‘No,’ Morten says. ‘If Dahlin sues, and you can’t use this material in court, you’ve got nothing else. So no.’

‘So where does that leave us? Jeppe?’

David Jespersen, looking worried, sets his jaw and directs his eyes to the windows. He models himself, to some extent, on David Beckham. The sharply tailored jacket. The 1930s haircut. The groomed blonde stubble.

Jeppe starts to talk about the national security implications of the story.

Elin interrupts him.

‘Yes, okay,’ she says impatiently. ‘If he sues, we have no defence. That’s the point. What do you think?’ she asks Kristian, who has said nothing so far.

He too has left his seat and is leaning over the laptop screen, looking through the texts. There are hundreds of them. It’s embarrassing, in a way, to see them. The language of them. I want you. You’re breaking my heart. All that sort of stuff.

He straightens himself up. ‘It’s a major story,’ he says. ‘He’s a senior minister. It’s got to be a major story.’

‘So you think we should do it?’ Elin asks him.

‘I think we’ve got to.’

‘He’ll sue and you’ll probably lose,’ Morten says, taking a seat again in his tracksuit, knees spread. ‘It’ll be very expensive if you do. I have to tell you that.’

Elin is still looking at Kristian. He has a very serene energy, Kristian. A soft, slightly pudgy face. In his narrow-lapelled suit, his thin blue tie, he might be an unusually elegant accountant, or even a young undertaker. It’s easy to imagine him dealing tactfully with the family of the deceased, knowing what to say, and how to say it. ‘Sure,’ he says to Morten. ‘I understand. We just need something more. Another source.’

‘Like who?’ Elin asks.

‘How about Edvard himself? What if he admits it?’

‘Why would he do that?’ Jeppe says

Kristian ignores him. ‘He doesn’t know this is all we’ve got,’ he says to Elin. ‘He doesn’t know what we know, or how we know it.’ Now he looks at Jeppe. ‘Does he?’

Jeppe just stares at him with open hostility until he looks at Elin again.

‘We make him think we’re going to do the story anyway,’ Kristian says, ‘and say we’re offering him a chance to have his say, to put his side of it…’

‘What if he just denies it?’ Jeppe asks.

‘Then he denies it,’ Kristian says. ‘I don’t think he will.’ He says, to Elin again now, ‘I know him quite well.’

She says quietly, ‘You do, don’t you.’

He shrugs modestly.

‘I mean, that’s the other thing,’ Elin says. ‘We like Dahlin, don’t we?’

‘We can’t ignore the story just because of that,’ Jeppe says.

‘We can’t ignore the story for all sorts of reasons,’ Kristian says. ‘It does mean we should talk to him first. He’d expect that. We want to handle it as sympathetically as possible. That’s what we tell him. If he thinks we’re going to do it anyway, it just wouldn’t make sense for him to deny it.’

‘You should talk to him,’ Elin says to Kristian.

Jeppe sighs petulantly.

‘Has anybody else got this?’ Elin asks him.

Jeppe says, ‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘You don’t think so?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘They don’t.’

‘Still, we should move quickly with it,’ Kristian suggests. ‘We don’t want anyone else stumbling on it. And we want to do it before she dumps him, if she does. I’ll talk to Edvard today?’

Elin says, ‘Okay, talk to him. Let’s see what he has to say for himself. And well done, you two,’ she says to the others. ‘Okay, that’s it.’

As they start to leave, she asks Kristian to stay.

Hanging back, Morten says to her, ‘If you want to do this, I advise you not to name the woman. She’s a private citizen. She’d have some sort of case against you for invasion of privacy, even if your story is a hundred per cent true and not otherwise actionable.’

‘Okay,’ Elin says. ‘I’ll think about it. Thanks, Morten.’

When they are alone, she asks Kristian to set up the meeting with Dahlin and he phones Ulrik Larssen, the defence minister’s media advisor. Kristian knows Ulrik fairly well. They talk, typically, several times a week.

‘Ulrik,’ he says. ‘Kristian.’

A few pleasantries, then he says, ‘Listen, Ulrik, I need a meeting with Edvard. Face to face. Oh.’ He looks at Elin. ‘He’s in Spain, is he?’ he says, for her to hear. ‘Well, can I meet him down there? I can fly out this morning. It is important,’ he says. ‘It’s very important. He’ll want to hear what I have to tell him. No, I can’t tell him over the phone. Okay, let me know what he says. Thanks, Ulrik.’

He hangs up, and says, ‘He’s in Spain for a few days.’

‘Officially?’

‘No, he’s on holiday.’

While they wait for Ulrik to call back Elin says to him, ‘There’s going to be a fairly major shake-up around here, Kristian. Our new proprietor — he wants to take out a lot of costs. He needs to. We need to. You know that.’

He nods at her, smiles.

She says, ‘We’re going to have to lose some people. Quite a few people.’

‘I know,’ he says.

They have taken adjacent seats at the long table. His phone is on the table in front of them, waiting for Ulrik.

‘You’re always so smartly dressed,’ she says, smiling at him admiringly.

‘I try my best.’

‘Jeppe’s a slob.’

He says nothing, just aligns his phone with the edge of the table.

‘What do you think of him?’

‘You thinking of losing him?’ he asks, his eyes still on his phone.

‘He’s hanging by a thread,’ she admits.

‘This might help. If it comes off.’

‘I’m sure David did all the work.’

‘I’m sure,’ he agrees.

‘Can you see David doing Jeppe’s job?’ she asks.

She is looking at him, in that way of hers — as if he is the only thing in the world that interests her. It’s very flattering. ‘I’m not sure,’ he says.

‘I can’t,’ she says. ‘If I’m honest.’

‘Maybe he’d grow into it,’ Kristian suggests.

‘We don’t have the space to experiment.’

‘No,’ he agrees.

‘You get quite a lot of stories from Dahlin, don’t you?’ she asks.

‘A fair few. He’s a decent source. We have a relationship.’

‘Won’t this damage that?’

Kristian knits his soft white hands and frowns thoughtfully. ‘No,’ he says finally. ‘That’s about self-interest, on both sides. That won’t change. And if it does,’ he says, ‘it’s worth it. I think.’

‘I could send someone else.’

A faint smile acknowledges her thoughtfulness. He shakes his head — his haircut is corporate, mouse-coloured. ‘No.’

‘Might this cost him his job?’ she asks.

‘No, I don’t think so.’ He thinks about it some more. ‘No. If he was married, maybe. But he isn’t.’

‘What about Natasha Ohmsen?’ Elin asks.

‘Yeah, I was thinking about that,’ Kristian says, taking off his glasses. ‘We should keep an eye on her. Find out where she lives. We have her number, obviously — we can flip the phone. See what she’s up to. If Edvard tells me to fuck off — which he might, he’s pig-headed when he wants to be — we might get what we need from her.’

‘I’ll put someone on it.’

They sit briefly in silence.

Then she says, with a quiet smile, ‘How’re the girls?’

He is about to answer, to say something vague and positive, when his phone starts. Ulrik.

When they have spoken, he puts the phone in his jacket pocket. He says to Elin, ‘Edvard’s expecting me at his house in Spain this afternoon.’

2

It is forty degrees in Málaga when he arrives in the middle of the afternoon. The sea, from the plane, looked as dark as denim. The mountains looked prehistoric. From Hertz he picks up a white VW Passat, and with the air con shoved up as high as it will go, he enters Edvard’s address into the satnav.

The house is in a village somewhere up the motorway towards Córdoba. About an hour it will take to drive there, apparently.

He and Edvard last met only a week ago. That’s what he is thinking of as he drives away from the airport. The newspaper’s new owner threw a party. Edvard wasn’t the only minister there, but he was the most senior — the deputy leader of the party in power. He turned up as a personal favour to Kristian — Kristian’s own house-warming present for the new proprietor — and he stayed for only half an hour or so, sipping champagne on the lawn of the modest Danish-style stately home that had been hired for the occasion. Kristian made the introduction: Newspaper-owning millionaire, defence minister. Defence minister, newspaper-owning millionaire. He stood there watching with a sort of pride as they exchanged small talk. Afterwards he and Edvard spoke together for a while, at the edge of the gathering near an impeccably clipped hedge. Exchanged some tittle-tattle, discussed Edvard’s own prospects. Politically, the paper was on the minister’s side. He even wrote for them occasionally. Pieces were published under his name, anyway. Kristian sometimes wrote them. Most recently one about the virtues of less onerous labour-market regulation. Slightly odd, that the defence minister should be publishing something on an area of economic policy. He had his eye on the top job, that was an open secret. Which was partly why, as well, he stood on the lawn for half an hour nursing a glass of champagne last week in the pleasant summer weather — somewhat cloudy but no real threat of rain.

The motorway slams through a landscape of dry hills. For long stretches the only vegetation is the olive trees, millions of them, planted in tedious lines.

Near a town called Lucena the satnav instructs him to leave the motorway. The landscape is marginally less arid now. Some trees other than olives, not many, stand in the withering sunlight, shadows at their feet. Thin sheep on a hillside. A village with a white church, bells hanging still in little arches. The streets are empty. Siesta, he supposes. On the edge of the village is a house.

This is it.

The satnav tells him he is there.

A wall around a plot of land, one tree outside the wall, in the limited shade of which he attempts to position the white hire car. Then the gate, squeaking open on its hinges, a frisking from the minister’s close protection officers — two of them, expecting him, sweating in the heat — and the path up to the house.

—

The house is modest. A single-storey, white, with a porch at the front, a few white pillars. Some palmy-type plants of various sizes in pots. Dusty oleander. Some unpretentious furniture on the porch, a table and a few chairs: green-painted metal, with green-and-white striped cushions. On the wall of the house under the porch, some plates hung up for decoration.

The defence minister, in shorts, flip-flops and a short-sleeved shirt, is moving a sprinkler when Kristian arrives. His shirt hangs open to show the whitish hair on his front. He is also wearing a panama hat and sunglasses. He sees his visitor. ‘Oh, hello,’ he says, putting the sprinkler down. A green hose trails across the dry ground to a standpipe with a tap at the side of the house. A spray of water is visible where the hose is attached to the tap, obviously not very well.

The minister walks over to where Kristian is standing, sweating heavily, on the path.

‘Hello, Kristian.’

‘Hello, Minister.’

They shake hands. The minister’s handshake is exaggeratedly firm.

His face is tanned, handsome, tense.

‘Come and sit down,’ he says, gesturing towards the furniture on the porch. ‘You’re not dressed for this weather, are you?’ he laughs as they make their way there. Kristian has only been out of the A/C for a minute or two and already his shirt is sticking extravagantly to his back. Where his suit jacket hangs over his arm, his sleeve is sodden. ‘I didn’t have time to think of that,’ he says.

‘No,’ the minister says. ‘Please, have a seat. Would you like a drink?’

‘Just some water, please.’

Strings of beads hang in the open door of the house and the minister passes through them to fetch the drinks.

A minute later he emerges with another swish of the beads. He hands Kristian a glass of sparkling water with ice and a piece of lemon in it. He has furnished himself with a San Miguel. Heavily he sits down in the chair opposite and says, ‘Cheers.’ He is sweating too, though more lightly than his guest.

‘Cheers,’ Kristian says.

They drink thirstily in the waves of insect noise that assail the hot shade of the porch.

‘This is your house?’ Kristian asks.

‘It’s my ex-wife’s,’ the minister tells him. ‘She lets me use it sometimes. She’s Spanish,’ he adds.

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘Well, now you do.’

Kristian lets his eyes wander nervously over the struggling vegetation.

‘Now,’ the minister says, impatient with the small talk, ‘why are you here, Kristian, and in such a hurry?’ He is plainly eager to know. His toes, having freed themselves from a flip-flop, have taken hold of a metal strut under the table.

Kristian has another sip of sparkling water, then he puts the dripping glass down on the table. He makes himself look the defence minister in the eye. He says, ‘Natasha Ohmsen. We know about you and Natasha Ohmsen.’

The insects, like the teeth of a comb sawing at something.

Finally the minister says, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Kristian smiles unhurriedly and takes off his glasses and wipes the sweat from his face with his sleeve. He puts his glasses back on. ‘You do know her?’ he says.

‘Yes, I know Natasha,’ Edvard says. ‘So?’

‘I have sources,’ Kristian says. ‘People talk.’

‘Who? What sources? What do you mean?’

‘I think you know what I mean.’

‘Well, I don’t know what you’ve heard…’

‘I have total faith,’ Kristian says, ‘in the information I have.’

‘Which is?’

‘Which is that you and Mrs Ohmsen are having an affair.’

‘That’s nonsense.’

Kristian shakes his head. ‘I don’t believe it is.’

‘Well, I’m telling you now — it’s nonsense. We’re friends, yes. Natasha—’

‘You’re more than friends,’ Kristian says, interrupting him. ‘This story isn’t about friendship. This story is about the fact that you and Mrs Ohmsen are, and have been for some time, very much more than friends.’

When Edvard says nothing, Kristian smiles again. It is a friendly smile. ‘Listen,’ he says. ‘I would not have gone to all this trouble today if I didn’t know this was true.’

He takes a sip of his water.

Then he says, ‘I don’t have any photographs to show you or anything like that.’

‘Then what makes you think it’s true?’

‘It’s my job to know what’s true, and this is true. The information I have is from sources I absolutely trust.’

‘Who?’ Edvard demands.

Kristian sighs tolerantly. He says, ‘All I would ask is that you look at what I have done here — I am here, in person, in Spain, to see you, today — and perhaps just admit that the information I have is true.’

The defence minister is picking nervously at the wet San Miguel label. He doesn’t say anything. The sunglasses make it difficult to tell what he’s thinking. His mouth is a hard horizontal line.

Kristian says, tenderly, ‘People know about this affair, Edvard. People are aware of it.’

And when Edvard still does not speak, he says, ‘It’s my opinion that if I don’t do this story, at least one of my sources will take this information to another newspaper. The story is out. You have to accept that now.’

‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ Edvard says at last.

‘And we have no desire at all,’ Kristian tells him, ‘to damage you, politically or otherwise. We would not want to see anything published that would damage you.’

‘Then why publish it?’

‘Edvard,’ Kristian says, ‘the story is out. It will be published. The only question is when and by whom. And as I say, we have no desire to damage you politically…’

‘This will damage me politically.’

‘Maybe not. It depends how it’s presented.’

‘Anyway, politics is one thing,’ Edvard says, angrier, ‘private life is another. I want a private life. I’m young enough to want a private life. You must be able to understand that…’

‘Of course I can.’

‘If you don’t have a private life, you don’t have anything, you have nothing. You are nothing. You’re not a person, you’re just…’

‘I understand…’

‘Do you?’

The minister’s face is flushed, and shiny with indignant sweat.

Kristian waits for a few moments. Then he says, technocratically, ‘My view is that there are some matters, some stories, that have to be dealt with.’

‘That’s your view, is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘What stories? Stories like this one?’ Edvard asks.

‘Like this one, yes…’

‘Why? This is my private life. I’m not married. I’ve always kept my private life private. I don’t tell other people how they should live their lives. You know I don’t. I’m entitled to a private life.’

Kristian says, ‘In an ideal world, that’s perhaps how it should be.’

An incredulous laugh from Edvard. ‘In an ideal world? Why? Why not in this world?’

Kristian says, after a few moments, ‘You are a senior minister and I don’t think you can use arguments about privacy to swat away an accusation that you have had an affair with a married woman.’

‘An accusation? That’s an interesting word.’

‘Allegation, then…’

‘I’m not married.’

‘I know that…’

‘I haven’t lied to anyone…’

‘I’m not suggesting that you have.’

‘What have I done wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Then why must I be punished?’

‘This isn’t about punishment.’

‘What is it about?’

‘It’s about the public’s right to know…’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Edvard mutters.

‘With respect, you are an elected public official.’

‘Does that mean I have no right to a private life?’

‘It means your right to one has to be balanced against other considerations.’

Edvard’s thumbnail has shredded part of the San Miguel label.

‘Other rights,’ Kristian says.

‘And Natasha? Is she an elected public official?’

‘No.’

‘Does she have no right to privacy then?’

Kristian frowns thoughtfully.

‘If this is published,’ Edvard says, finger jabbing, ‘it’s going to be open season on my private life and hers. You know that.’

Kristian wipes the sweat from his face again. He looks at his watch. It is quarter to five. He doesn’t have much time, if they’re to splash with this in the morning. He says, ‘I’ll tell you what. We won’t name Mrs Ohmsen. Okay? We won’t mention her name — if you work with us on this.’ He is sitting forward now. He feels his shirt adhering to his back. He says, ‘The story is out there, Edvard. It will come out. We want to help you on this. We want to do this as sympathetically as possible. So work with us. Okay?’

Edvard stands up. He looks out at the patchy lawn, his hand on one of the white pillars of the porch. ‘It’s not true that it won’t damage me politically,’ he says.

‘Why? As you say, you’re not married…’

‘And anyway,’ he says, ‘I think it’s over. With Natasha.’

Kristian feigns surprise.

‘Yes,’ Edvard says. ‘She’s ending it.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘How would you know?’ A hollow laugh. ‘Unless your source is Natasha herself.’

‘It isn’t.’

‘It’s not what I want,’ Edvard says. ‘I mean, to end it.’

‘How long has it been going on?’ Kristian asks.

‘Two years. More or less. I was hoping,’ Edvard says, still looking out to where the sprinkler has succeeded in making a muddy patch in the middle of the lawn, ‘I was hoping she’d leave her husband. No,’ he says. ‘She doesn’t want to do that.’ He sighs, pained. He is in his mid-fifties. Still in decent shape. Only a slight paunch, leathery with sunlight, with Spanish weekends. Long thin legs.

He turns to Kristian and takes off his sunglasses. His eyebrows are thick and fair. His eyes pale blue.

‘I feel like a fool, at my age, Kristian, feeling like this,’ he says. ‘About a woman.’

‘You shouldn’t.’

‘Well, I do.’ He has turned from the garden, the dry field of scraping insects, and is looking at Kristian, who is still in his seat, sweating. ‘When they said you wanted to see me, I hoped it wouldn’t be about this.’

Kristian smiles sadly. ‘C’est la guerre,’ he says.

‘You know I’ll never be prime minister now?’

‘No, I don’t know that…’

‘Oh, you do. This isn’t France, Kristian.’

‘And thank God for that.’

Ignoring the flippancy, the minister says, ‘It will make me seem unsound, won’t it. Not so much morally as emotionally…Unserious…’

Kristian says, ‘I think you should tell me what happened, from the start, just to make sure we have everything straight.’

‘You expect me to tell you everything?’

‘Not everything: just the main points. When did it start? How did you meet?’

3

In the parked Passat, with the air conditioning screaming, he phones Elin.

‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘He didn’t put up much of a fight. He’ll work with us on it. I’ll try and knock something out at the airport and send it to you. One thing,’ he says, thinking ahead, ‘see if you can’t find any photos of them together. They’ve met at social events. Her husband was there too, Søren Ohmsen. Maybe there’s a photo of them together. The three of them. That would be perfect.’

He says, ‘My plane’s at seven something. I should be in the office by elevenish. I’ll see you there.’

It is half past five. The sun is starting to leave its seat in the top of the sky, to lose some of its force. The thermometer on the dash says 37°. The steering wheel, for a few minutes, is too hot for him to hold. He has to keep moving his hands on it as the satnav directs him back through the village and towards the motorway, south to Málaga.

He is thinking about the splash. Something like:

DEFENCE

MINISTER’S

SECRET

LOVE

And then a smaller headline underneath:

WEEKENDS OF PASSION IN SCORCHING SPAIN

Defence Minister Edvard Dahlin has been having a secret love affair with a married woman for more than two years. The 55-year-old father of two…

USES EX-WIFE’S HOUSE FOR SECRET LIAISON

The 55-year-old father of two…

The fifty-five-year-old father of two had tried, as they parted, to make a deal with him.

Kristian, already standing, holding his jacket, sweating, thought about it for a moment.

Then he said, ‘That’s nice to know.’

And smiled. And left. Walked down the path. Said, ‘Thanks, lads,’ to the minister’s security detail — two men in sweat-stained polo shirts and wrap-around sunglasses, sitting on white plastic chairs in the shade of a bulge of bougainvillea next to the gate.

It was an offer of sorts, wasn’t it, that Edvard had made him.

Not a serious one.

Not one worthy of serious consideration.

Edvard was not, to be honest, in much of a position to be making offers.

The 55-year-old father of two says he is ‘heartbroken’ that the mystery married woman…

That’s something to think about. The thing about not naming her. She’ll have to be named at some point. Hence his interest in the photos. She’ll be named within forty-eight hours, he thinks, staring at the motorway, overtaking yet another Dutch mobile home. Once people know she exists, she’ll be found and named within forty-eight hours. Will have to let someone else have the honour. Include some hints in the piece tomorrow. Yeah, mention her age.

The 55-year-old father of two says he is ‘heartbroken’ that the mystery married woman, 40,…

Maybe say something about her husband.

How about

The stunning brunette, 40, is refusing to leave her husband, one of Denmark’s richest men…

That might narrow it down too much. Want someone else to name her asap, that’s all, so we can tackle the thing properly. Use the pictures. He’s sure he’s seen a picture of them together, Edvard and Natasha Ohmsen, and maybe Søren Ohmsen too. Would be perfect, a picture of the three of them, with her looking at Edvard. Where was that picture taken that he saw? At some National Gallery event? Does Ohmsen give money to the gallery? Probably.

Does Ohmsen even know about the affair?

What about we just phone him up and say, ‘Good evening, Mr Ohmsen. Do you know that your wife’s having an affair with the defence minister?’ See what he says.

The woman’s husband, one of Denmark’s richest men, said he was ‘shocked’…

‘Are you shocked, Mr Ohmsen? Are you dismayed?’

The woman’s husband, one of Denmark’s richest men, said he was ‘shocked’ and ‘dismayed’ to hear…

Soothed by the billowing cold of the air con, Kristian refocuses on the bright motorway, on the endless caravan of migrating Teutons in the slow lane.

It’s an advantage, actually, to hold the name back for a day or two — extends the life of the story. It’s a major story, and very timely. The next few days they’re doing the monthly audit. That was what Elin was thinking about this morning, more than anything. Her job, it’s about those numbers. If they’re up, she’s winning. If they’re down, she’s not. It actually is that simple. Nothing else matters, in the end. Everything is fairly simple, in the final analysis, he thinks. Seeing the true simplicity of everything, that was important. That was how someone like him, someone who started out in social housing in Sundbyøster, made their way in this world.

It is six o’clock.

He is not far from Málaga. The first ugly signs of the city are appearing on the hillsides.

The thermometer says 34°.

He thinks of the shitty school he went to in Sundbyøster, patched with new paint where the latest graffiti had been obliterated. Barbed wire on the perimeter fence. The awful smell of the kitchen. Doorless stalls in the toilets.

It just happened, is how it sometimes feels, that he has this life. Deputy editor of the top-selling tabloid in Scandinavia, laying down terms to senior ministers. It was always just one step after another. He discovered, when he was eighteen years old, that he loved working on a newspaper — a local paper, that he had delivered as a kid, took him on for work experience after he left school. That was the first step. They liked that he was keen, energetic, willing to do anything. And he had this instinctive understanding of what it was all about. Not until the last few years has he looked further than just the next step. When they made him deputy editor. Yeah, that was when he first looked down and saw how high he was, how he was nearer the top now, much nearer, than the place where he’d started — that flat. Fourth floor. Lift out of order. Hear every sound the neighbours make. His father still lives there, on his own. He drove that lorry all over Europe, his father, from Portugal to Poland he drove it. That was what he did with his life. Now he hardly ever leaves Sundbyøster. Hardly ever leaves the fucking estate. When was Kristian last there? More than a year ago. In spring, smell of pollen on the estate. And in the flat, cigarette smoke. TV on. Sports newspapers. Sit at the tiny table in the kitchen, talking about FC Copenhagen, what a shit season they’re having. Window open. Smell of pollen. Sound of the Øresundmotorvejen, leaking onto the estate.

Shouts of kids.

There’s this feeling he sometimes has that he’s a long way from home. That nobody’s there for him if it all goes wrong.

—

It is still well over thirty degrees when he returns the car at the airport. The heat still takes him by surprise — it’s like opening an oven — when he emerges from the air conditioning and walks across the soft tarmac to the office to hand back the keys and sign the papers. Then he heads for the terminal, where his flight departs in just over an hour.

Departures is a nightmare. Thousands of people are travelling on this evening in August, thousands of sun-scorched northerners on their way home, to Dublin, Manchester, Hamburg, Helsinki. Holidaymakers. He hates holidays, personally. What are you supposed to do on holiday? He doesn’t understand. He would never go on holiday if it weren’t for the wife and kids. Ten days in Dubai, they did, this spring. And even then he was on his phone so much to people in the office, Laura eventually hid it. His phone. So they had a huge row about that. Where is my fucking phone?

Where’s my fucking phone?

He is in the security queue, untying his shoes, when it starts to whistle and throb. His phone. He answers it. It’s Elin.

‘No way,’ he says, when he hears what she has to tell him. ‘You’re joking.’

He indicates to the people behind him in the queue that they should move ahead.

‘You’re sure?’ he says, shuffling out of their way.

And then, putting his shoes back on, ‘Okay. Yes, phone him, tell him I’ll be there in about an hour. Okay.’

A few minutes later he is at Hertz again. He says, frustrated with how slowly they are dealing with him, ‘It doesn’t have to be the same car. Any car.’

It is a different car, a Seat.

And then the same motorway, towards Córdoba, at over 140 kilometres per hour.

It is nearly eight.

29° says the thermometer.

—

He leaves the motorway, again, at Lucena. It is dusk. Exhausted, lurid hues in the west. There are people about now. Strip malls, the shops all still open, and supermarkets on the outskirts of the town, sitting lit up in darkening scrubland. Some sort of stadium. Football, he assumes at first. A match this evening. Floodlights. A traffic jam outside. Then he sees, from signs and posters, that it’s not football that happens there. And then he has passed it, is driving away into the dark evening, away from the lights of the town, towards the village where Edvard is.

It seems strange to him, somehow, that bullfighting actually exists. He knows about it, obviously. It’s just that to actually see it like that seems strange. That something so savage, to his Nordic sensibility, takes place with all the trappings of modernity — the floodlights, the ticketing systems, the parking facilities. And in the middle of it all, slaughter. Slaughter. Slaughter as a spectator sport, as entertainment.

What is sadder than the furious exhaustion of the bull? Than the bull’s failure to understand, even at the very end, that his death is inevitable, and always has been? Is just part of a show.

The village is quiet in the deep dusk. Some sort of bar is open in the square where the church is.

It is still oppressively hot.

—

‘What are you doing here again?’ Edvard says, standing on the steps of the porch. ‘What do you want?’ He is still in his shorts, his flip-flops.

‘There’s something important you didn’t tell me, Edvard.’

‘What?’

‘She’s pregnant, isn’t she.’

Edvard looks amazed.

‘You didn’t know?’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m telling you — she’s pregnant. Is it yours?’

‘For fuck’s sake,’ Edvard says in a loud voice. He has been drinking. His lips are stained with red wine. ‘What are you talking about? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Kristian is at the steps now. Looking up at Edvard, who is a head taller than him even without the advantage of the two steps, he says, more quietly, ‘Mrs Ohmsen is pregnant. If you didn’t know, I’m sorry it has to be me who tells you that.’

‘How the fuck do you know?’

Elin had Mrs Ohmsen followed, and Mrs Ohmsen led two journalists to a private antenatal clinic where she spent more than an hour. That was what Elin told him on the phone.

‘I just know,’ Kristian says. ‘You didn’t?’

‘No,’ Edvard says, pathetically.

‘Do you think it’s yours?’ Kristian asks him.

‘Will you just fuck off,’ Edvard says. ‘I don’t know what you’re doing here. This is my life we’re talking about.’

‘Yes, it is…’

‘It’s my life. Not yours.’

‘I know…’

Edvard says, ‘Why don’t we talk about your life? Would you like that?’

‘I’m not here to talk about my life…’

‘There are some things I know about your life.’

‘I’m sure you do…’

‘I know about you and Elin Møllgaard,’ Edvard says, speaking more quietly, ‘your editor.’

After a momentary hesitation, Kristian says, ‘I’m not interested in that.’

‘You and Elin,’ Edvard says, sensing that he has, if only very slightly, unsettled Kristian, and liking it. ‘Does your wife know about that?’

‘Edvard…’

‘Does she?’

‘Edvard, nobody’s interested in that. They’re interested in you. They’re not interested in me. You are the defence minister of Denmark. You have been having an affair with a married woman, Mrs Ohmsen. Mrs Ohmsen is pregnant. It might be yours. That is a matter of public interest…’

‘It is not a matter of public interest,’ Edvard says from the step, a silhouette against the dim light which is on in the porch. ‘There’s no public interest there.’

Kristian says, ‘It’s my opinion that there is.’

‘No, there isn’t. That’s just a pretence. It’s just a way for people like you to have power over people like me.’

‘People like me?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean by that.’

From the step, Edvard eyes him furiously, woundedly.

‘You’re upset, Edvard,’ Kristian says. ‘I understand that. And I’m truly sorry to have dropped this on you like this. I assumed you knew. You probably want to phone Mrs Ohmsen, don’t you, and find out what’s going on. Why don’t you do that? Okay? I’ll wait here.’

Edvard stands there for a few seconds. Then he turns and enters the dark house, and Kristian waits on the path in the hot twilight. He does not sit down on the porch. There is, he notices, the debris of a solitary meal on the table there. He is hungry, suddenly. He hasn’t had anything to eat himself since a sandwich on the plane this morning. He often forgets to eat when things are moving fast.

—

It is dark when Edvard emerges from the house again, into the shadowy electric light of the porch. Kristian, left waiting for nearly half an hour, has finally sat down.

Now he stands. Edvard, he thinks, has shed a few tears. Something about his discoloured nose, the evident fragility of his self-possession.

‘Did you speak to her?’ Kristian asks.

‘Yes, I did.’

‘And?’

‘She doesn’t know how you could know about it. She hasn’t told anybody. She thinks you must have bribed somebody at the clinic where she went.’

‘We didn’t.’

‘You say that.’

‘Is it yours?’

‘I don’t have to answer that.’

‘No, you don’t. The question will be asked. You will have to address it at some point.’

‘Maybe.’

‘It would better for you,’ Kristian says, ‘to put everything out there now, rather than have it trickle out over a longer period of time. It will be less damaging that way, and less painful.’

‘Are you my media advisor now?’

‘I’m trying to help you, Edvard.’

‘No, you’re not.’

There is a prolonged silence, only the implacable throbbing of the insects. Then Edvard says, ‘It’s mine, she says. She isn’t keeping it.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Now please leave.’

—

‘This,’ he says to Elin, travelling south again on the dark motorway, the air conditioning still purring, ‘is a sensational story now.’

‘It is,’ she says. ‘Well done.’

‘I’m thinking,’ he says, ‘do the basic story tomorrow, without naming her, without saying she’s pregnant. Then hope someone else names her during the day. Then Friday we do the full story, with names, pictures, everything. Don’t do the pregnancy, though — save that for Saturday.’

‘Sounds fine,’ she says. ‘Unless someone scoops us on it.’

‘They won’t.’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘Should help with the audit,’ he suggests.

She laughs. ‘That is the furthest thing from my mind at this point.’

He laughs too. ‘If you say so.’ He says, ‘I’m hoping I haven’t missed the last flight. I should get to the airport at tenish. So office some time after two.’

‘We’ll be waiting for you,’ she says.

—

He has missed the last flight. When he phones Elin to tell her, she suggests he stay in a hotel and take the first flight in the morning.

‘No,’ he says. ‘There’s an Air France flight to Paris in about half an hour, and then one to Copenhagen at fourish. It gets in at five forty-five.’

‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ she says. ‘It sounds totally exhausting. Everything’s okay here.’

‘Yeah, I need to do that,’ he says.

‘Why?’

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘Okay. If that’s what you want. How long do you have to spend at the airport in Paris?’ she asks.

‘Two or three hours.’

‘That sounds fun.’

‘I’m going to love every minute of it,’ he says.

And indeed the exhilaration he is feeling — the thrill of feeling that he is smack in the middle of things, major news events, things that everybody is talking about — takes him through the flight to Paris and the hours at Charles de Gaulle, the hours from one to four in the morning, when more people start to arrive in the huge lounge where he has been sitting and looking at the stuff Elin sent him. The first edition:

DEFENCE

MINISTER’S

SECRET

LOVE

A picture of the minister looking shocked that they found somewhere, archive. Another, on the inside pages, of him looking sad.

The stunning brunette, 40, is refusing to leave her husband, one of Denmark’s richest men…

He finally falls asleep on the flight to Copenhagen.

It is already light. Paris, familiar, in the little oval window.

He does not see it. He is asleep.

And then, mild Danish air.

He is aware, taking his seat in the Audi, that he stinks. He literally stinks.

4

Every morning he takes his daughters to school, or in the summer holidays to their tennis lesson. It is something he has promised to do. It is a promise he has kept so far.

When he parks in front of the house in Hellerup it is just after seven. He has time to shower and shave, to eat a bowl of Alpen, to drink two Nespressos: a Ristretto and then a Linizio Lungo with some skimmed milk in it.

‘You look shit,’ his wife says.

‘I feel wonderful,’ he tells her.

‘Have you slept?’

‘An hour on the plane from Paris.’

‘You were in Spain?’

It seems strange now. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Málaga, place near there.’

Tine and Vikki are looking at the paper’s iPad app, the front page:

DEFENCE

MINISTER’S

SECRET

LOVE

And the minister, open-mouthed with shock.

The TV news have picked it up. The TV is on in the kitchen, as usual, and there it is, the same picture, as the newsreader talks about the ‘allegations’ that have been made.

‘Who is she?’ Tine, eleven, asks.

Her father, eating Alpen, shrugs. ‘It’s a secret,’ he says.

‘Who is she? Tell us! Who is she?’

‘I’ll tell you tomorrow,’ he says, with a jolly wink.

‘Tell us now! Tell us!’

‘Tomorrow,’ he says.

On the Internet, the story is proliferating. Speculation about who the minister’s ‘secret love’ might be is spreading on social media. Among the many names mentioned so far is that of Natasha Ohmsen.

They leave the house at the usual time, he and his daughters with their tennis stuff. Though he looks pale, he feels eerily fine.

Hellerup is serene in the morning sunlight, chestnut trees full and green in quiet streets of detached houses. Tall beech hedges against prying eyes. No shops. He is one of the youngest householders in the area, not yet forty. Most of the neighbours are older than that, well into middle age.

Somewhere, in an even more exclusive part of the suburb, where tennis courts and swimming pools are standard, the Ohmsens have their house.

—

Once, two years ago, when Kristian was still the showbiz and TV editor, he went with David Jespersen, the deputy news editor and his erstwhile schoolmate from Sundbyøster, to a pub in town to watch FC Copenhagen on the telly. It was a Sunday afternoon. They had been in the office, working. David was spending more time in the office than he usually did, especially at weekends. His wife had thrown him out of their flat after one ‘indiscretion’ too many and David was staying with friends and didn’t want to be there all the time at the weekend. Kristian was in the office every Sunday anyway, so they were seeing more of each other than they had done for a while.

They arrived at the pub with about ten minutes until kick-off.

David had a Carlsberg. Kristian a tomato juice — he was going back to work after the match.

They talked a bit about David’s situation, about the thrills and spills of his private life — the nannies he’d showered with, the hurried unions in nightclub toilets.

Then David said, ‘What about you? You don’t play away sometimes?’

‘I don’t have time, mate,’ Kristian said.

‘What about Elin? Any truth in that?’

Kristian just trickled some peanuts into his mouth and turned to the TV, up near the ceiling in a corner of the room. The team sheets.

David was smiling. ‘I know it’s true,’ he said. ‘Lucky you, mate. She’s sexy, Elin.’

‘It was nothing,’ Kristian admitted, taking a gulp of tomato juice. Then he said, holding his glass out to the barman, ‘Oi, Torben — put some vodka in that, will you?’

‘I thought you were going back to work after.’

‘I am.’

‘So it was nothing?’

‘It was short and sweet,’ Kristian said, taking back his fortified drink. ‘And now it’s over. That’s it.’

‘You could make time for her then?’

‘It happened in the office, mate. That’s the point. We didn’t have to make time. We were there all the time anyway.’

‘Where’d you do it?’ David asked through a scurrilous smile. Nicotine-stained teeth. ‘Stationary cupboard?’

‘In her office mostly.’

‘In her orifice.’

Kristian swivelled on his stool more squarely to face the TV. He said, ‘It’s starting.’

A more serious question — ‘Did Laura know about it?’

‘No, she didn’t,’ Kristian said. ‘And she won’t. And it’s not going to happen again.’ He took a swig of his drink, winced at the vodka, and said, ‘It was a mistake.’ And then, his attention already on the starting match, ‘We both lost focus for a bit.’

—

‘How did he take it?’ Elin asks him.

‘Not great,’ he says.

Elin makes a pained face.

Kristian says, ‘There were a few tears.’

‘I’m sorry you had to do that, Kristian.’

‘C’est la guerre,’ he says. ‘I felt sorry for him, though.’

‘Well, again,’ Elin says, ‘I’m sorry you had to do it.’

He smiles — quietly, sadly maybe. Just for a moment. ‘So how are we looking?’ he asks.

‘Oh, she’s been named,’ Elin says. ‘Natasha has.’

‘What, already?’ He thought it would be quick — not this quick. It’s not even ten in the morning.

‘It’s all over the Internet,’ Elin says.

‘Are any other papers naming her? We can’t be the first…’

‘Not yet. We’re watching.’

He says, ‘I think we can give Søren Ohmsen a call at this point, don’t you? He might not know yet. I’ll get David to call him, okay?’

‘What’s he going to say to him?’

Kristian says in a sunny voice, ‘ “Good morning, Mr Ohmsen. Did you know your wife is having an affair with the defence minister?” ’

She sniggers. ‘We are terrible, aren’t we.’

‘C’est la guerre.’

‘Is that your catchphrase or something?’

‘Seems to be, yeah,’ he says. ‘Did you get that picture? Of the three of them. I’m sure there is one.’

‘Mikkel will be here in a minute,’ she says, ‘with what he’s got.’

They are in the secret office — the one used for sensitive stories. It’s not actually secret, just away from the hustle of the newsroom, on another floor.

She says, ‘Do you want to take a few hours, go home, get some sleep?’

‘Do I look that bad?’ he smiles. ‘Laura said I looked like shit.’

‘How is Laura?’ Elin asks.

There’s a knock on the door. They expect it to be Mikkel. It’s not. It’s Elin’s PA, Pernille. She says, ‘I’ve got Ulrik Larssen on the phone. From Dahlin’s office. He’s angry.’

‘I’ll talk to him,’ Kristian says. ‘Okay?’

Elin says, ‘I don’t mind talking to him.’

‘I think it’s better if I do.’

‘Okay,’ she says, ‘fine.’

To Pernille he says, ‘Tell him I’ll call him back in a minute. Thanks.’

‘What are you going to say to him?’ Elin asks, when Pernille has left them alone again.

‘That we’re going to handle this as sympathetically as possible. That we don’t want to damage Edvard, etcetera, etcetera. Same as what I told Edvard. It’s even true. Ish. I’ll ask him if Edvard wants to do an interview.’

‘You’re shameless,’ Elin says, smiling at him in a way he likes.

‘I’ve got a thick skin,’ he tells her. ‘You know,’ he says, ‘Edvard said to me last night if he’d have become prime minister, he’d have offered me Ulrik’s job?’

‘Yeah, yeah. Do you think he was serious?’

‘Who knows. It’s a hypothetical situation, isn’t it. Now.’

‘I suppose we’ll have to increase your salary,’ she says, still smiling at him. ‘Again.’

‘You know I’m not in it for the money.’

‘I thought you said this wouldn’t damage him. Edvard.’

‘Well, it depends what you mean by damage. He’s safe in his current job, I’d say. I’d better call Ulrik.’

—

‘What,’ Ulrik says, ‘the fuck do you think you’re doing?’

‘Morning, Ulrik…’ Kristian is standing on the fire stairs, in a patch of sunlight.

—

When he has finished with Ulrik, about ten minutes later, and spoken to David Jespersen, he finds Mikkel, the pictures editor, in the secret office with Elin. Mikkel has laid a load of photos out on the table and they are looking at them. Elin looks up. ‘What did Ulrik say?’

‘He feels we shouldn’t be running this story.’

‘Did he threaten us?’

‘Not with legal action. It’s fine,’ Kristian says, touching her on the elbow. ‘Hi, Mikkel.’

‘Alright,’ Mikkel says, hardly looking up from the images on the table, whose positions he is minutely, and frequently, and pointlessly, adjusting with trembling fingers. Edvard is in most of the pictures — a wide variety of settings and expressions. Natasha Ohmsen is in a few. There are one or two of Søren Ohmsen. And…

‘That’s the one!’ Kristian shouts, stabbing it with his index finger. He hardly ever shouts. It feels strange. ‘That’s the one,’ he says.

The three of them. And yes, she is looking not at her diminutive husband, on whose arm she is — she is looking at the defence minister, tall and handsome and himself looking straight into the lens with a wonderfully sly smile. ‘That,’ Kristian says, ‘is fucking perfect. Tomorrow’s front page, yeah?’

‘I think so,’ Elin says.

Mikkel silently moves it apart from the others.

They are still looking at the pictures, trying to pick one of Natasha on her own, when Jeppe, the news editor, waddles in without knocking and says, ‘What’s going on here?’

Kristian says, ‘We’re just having a look at these pictures, mate.’

Ignoring him, Jeppe talks to Elin. ‘This is my story,’ he says, obviously outraged. ‘It’s my fucking story. You didn’t even want it at first.’

‘Yes,’ Elin says, turning to him, ‘it is, Jeppe, and you should be proud of it.’

‘So why you excluding me from it now?’

‘What I need from you this morning, Jeppe,’ Elin says, sort of taking him aside, ‘is to stay on top of all the other news. There is some other news, isn’t there?’ she laughs.

‘Why are you excluding me?’ Jeppe still wants to know.

‘Did you hear me, Jeppe?’ Elin asks, not laughing now. ‘I need you to stay on top of everything else this morning. I’m dealing with this. Okay?’

‘Isn’t that the deputy editor’s job?’ Jeppe says. ‘To stay on top of everything else.’

Elin lets a few seconds pass, then says, ‘It’s what I need you to do. Okay? So go and do it.’

Jeppe doesn’t move.

You are so dead, mate, Kristian is thinking, still leaning over the photos.

And then David Jespersen arrives excitedly, saying, ‘Just spoke to Ohmsen. The husband.’

‘And?’ Elin asks him, turning away from Jeppe, who is still standing there.

‘He told me to fuck off.’

‘That’s it?’

‘No,’ David says. ‘He said I was scum.’

‘The man knows what he’s talking about,’ Kristian jokes, turning from the photos. ‘Did he already know about the affair?’

‘What I reckon happened,’ David says. ‘I think he did. What I reckon happened is yesterday night Dahlin told Natasha it was all coming out this morning, and she should tell her husband. So she told him.’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ Kristian says.

‘And you know what makes it worse?’ David says. ‘It’s his fucking birthday today. Søren Ohmsen’s.’

Kristian laughs. ‘You’re joking.’

‘I was looking at his Wikipedia entry. August fifth, nineteen fifty-eight. It is his birthday.’

‘No way.’

‘Happy birthday, Mr Ohmsen,’ David says, enjoying himself.

‘Have a look at these,’ Kristian says, meaning the photos.

‘Ah, the pics, brilliant,’ says David, taking a place at the table. ‘Alright, Mikkel.’

Mikkel, a man of few words, just nods, and with his quaking middle finger moves one of the pictures a millimetre to the left.

‘So nothing we can use from Ohmsen?’ Kristian asks. ‘No quotable quotes?’

David says, ‘Are you shocked, Mr Ohmsen? Eff off. Are you dismayed? You, sir, are scum. Is there anything you would like to say, Mr Ohmsen? Mr Ohmsen? Not there. Hung up on me.’ David is looking at one particular picture of Natasha Ohmsen — the one where she looks really tasty. ‘Actually,’ he says, ‘he did say something else.’

‘What?’

‘How did you get this number?’

‘How did we get it?’

‘From his wife’s phone records.’

‘Keep quiet about that,’ Elin says, finally joining them. She has been standing apart, in thought, since Jeppe left a few moments earlier. ‘So,’ she says, ‘which ones we going to use then?’

While she and Kristian discuss that question, Mikkel wordlessly shows David some unusable pap shots — he just starts handing them to him, they speak for themselves — of a famous actress sunbathing naked. ‘Fuckinell,’ David says.

‘When you’ve finished looking at those,’ Elin says to him, ‘I want you to get on to the antenatal clinic. I want more information about that before we do anything on it. At the moment all we’ve got is Edvard’s word.’

‘That’s right,’ Kristian says. It was something he discussed with Elin earlier, something that had occurred to him in the middle of the night, waiting for his flight at Charles de Gaulle: that Edvard might have been lying to him when he said, ‘It’s mine, she says. She isn’t keeping it.’ There was something weird about the way he said that. And if they printed it and it wasn’t true — if it wasn’t his, or she was keeping it, or she wasn’t even pregnant — he would have his opening to sue the shit out of them.

‘What, you think he might be lying?’ David asks, still taking pictures from Mikkel. ‘Fuckinell,’ he says again, even more impressed.

‘Who knows?’

‘That would be pretty devious, wouldn’t it?’

‘I want something more than just what he said to Kristian.’

‘Fair enough. I have been in all night, though,’ David points out.

‘I’ll take care of it,’ Kristian tells her.

‘Yeah?’ she says. ‘Okay.’

‘I’ll get Katrine onto it,’ he says, surveying their final selection of photos. ‘It’s her sort of thing.’

‘Does that mean I can go home and get some kip?’ David asks.

‘I suppose it does,’ Elin says kindly. ‘Off you go then, fuck off.’

—

When he has sent Katrine to the antenatal clinic, with some money, to try and find out exactly why Natasha Ohmsen spent an hour there yesterday, Kristian takes the lift down to Starbucks. There are some franchises at street level, and sometimes he spends ten minutes in the Starbucks, having a small latte and letting his head clear.

He finds David Jespersen in there, eating a sandwich. ‘I thought you were going home, mate,’ Kristian says, joining him.

‘I am, after this,’ David says. ‘Did you see those shots Mikkel had of what’s-her-name?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Muff on display and everything.’

Kristian, unsmilingly, is taking the lid off his latte.

‘We okay to use them?’ David asks.

‘Maybe one of the topless ones. Next week, when things are quieter. They’re with Morten.’

‘Was it just me,’ David asks, ‘or was there some sort of vibe this morning? I mean with Jeppe, when I came in.’

‘It wasn’t just you.’

‘What’s up?’

Kristian shrugs. ‘I don’t know. There’s going to be a shake-up soon. Maybe something to do with that.’

‘What sort of shake-up?’

‘The sort where people get sacked.’

‘Seriously?’

‘That’s what I’m told.’

‘We don’t have enough people as it is,’ David says.

‘I know.’

‘The work each of us is doing, it used to be done by two, three people.’

‘Those days aren’t coming back,’ Kristian says.

They are sitting on tall stools at the counter in the window. Outside, people pass by. Suits, office workers. The still surface of Peblinge Lake is blackish, full of clouds. It is one of those fresh northern summer days. Leaves moving languidly in mild wind.

‘What about me?’ David asks.

‘What about you?’

‘Am I safe?’

Kristian tips latte into his mouth. ‘You’ll be okay,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘I need this job,’ David says. ‘Two years’ time, I’ll be forty.’

‘Me too, mate.’

‘I’ve got two kids to pay for.’

‘I said don’t worry about it. You can still go home now, if that’s what you’re wondering.’

‘Nothing’s going to stop me doing that,’ David says. ‘I’m a fucking zombie. What about you? You alright?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You did an all-nighter as well, yeah?’

‘Yeah. I suppose.’

‘You don’t want to go home, get some kip?’

‘No.’

‘What,’ David says, trying to understand, ‘you’re worried about this shake-up?’

‘Not at all.’

‘So why don’t you take a few hours off?’

Kristian, tired, is staring at the surface of the lake.

Then he says, ‘You don’t understand, mate. There’s nowhere else I want to be. This is where I want to be.’

A moment passes.

David is looking at him, trying to understand.

‘This is what I live for,’ Kristian says. ‘This. What happens here.’

And that’s the truth, he thinks, finishing his latte, when David has left.

David Jespersen has left.

Headed home to the flat in Nørrebro he lives in now. The flat with not a lot of furniture in it. Empty fridge — a few lagers, not much else. Monochrome bedroom. Not unlike the place the two of them shared…

What?

Nearly twenty years ago.

Went out on the pull together then, sometimes. Saturday afternoon, watched football together. IKEA sofa. Empty fridge — a few lagers, not much else. Weird that that’s Dave’s life again now. Out on the pull.

He has finished his latte. Is still staring at the unperturbed surface of the lake.

Must be tired, to sit here staring like that.

Out on the pull.

Seems like another world, that.

He thinks for a moment, with something that threatens to turn into pain, of Elin, and the times they had. Two years ago.

Two and a half.

Very professional they were about it.

Lost focus. In the office. Orifice. Office. Office. Is what I live for. And that’s the truth. He has left the Starbucks and is in the lobby — modern marble — waiting for the lift. Thinking of Edvard now, Natasha Ohmsen. The story. The dangerous information detonating, tearing through the fabric of public life. He feels the adrenalin start to move in him. The lift doors shut. Yeah, this is what it’s about now. This. The guerre.