Found Wanting

THIRTY-TWO

‘It’s me.’

‘Richard? I’ve been waiting for you to call all evening. What’s going on? Your hotel said you checked out this afternoon.’

‘That’s true.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘Stockholm.’

‘What?’

‘I can’t explain, Gemma. I had to leave Copenhagen. I will explain, when I’m back in London. But I can’t now. The thing is-’

‘How could you leave Copenhagen just like that? What about Marty?’

‘There’s nothing I can do for him.’

‘Of course there is. There are arrangements to be made. Aunt Lily is desperate for news. She wants to know how and when he’s going to be flown to England. She’s hoping he can be buried on the Isle of Wight.’

‘Maybe he can. I don’t know.’

‘But you’re on the spot, Richard. Or you were. What did you tell the hospital?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Marty died in a cathedral.’

‘I know that. What-’

‘Just like the babushka predicted.’

‘The who?’

‘The babushka. Don’t you remember? The old woman we met at the Orthodox Cathedral in Paris in September seventy-six.’

‘Never mind that. It’s the here and now that matters.’

‘If only it was so simple.’

‘For God’s sake pull yourself together, Richard. Why have you gone to Stockholm?’

‘Orders, I’m afraid.’

‘Orders? What the hell are you-’

‘I can’t talk any more, Gemma. Whatever arrangements need to be made, you’ll have to make them. There’s nothing I can do.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. This is-’

‘Sorry.’

Eusden stared at the telephone for a minute or more after putting it down, then rose and crossed the room. He slid the glass door open and stepped out on to the balcony. The night was still and cold, the lights of Stockholm bright and clear in the motionless air. He knew he should have handled the conversation with Gemma better. But fatigue and grief and anger had fed his reluctance to offer her anything by way of justification for his behaviour. He would make his peace with her in due course. He would have to. Meanwhile…

The cold had done its numbing work. He stepped back into the room and closed the door. He had dozed fitfully on the train and knew he would not sleep if he went to bed now, tired though he was. He decided to head down to the bar. The only way to cope with the night that lay ahead of him, alone in an anonymous hotel, mourning a friend and cursing his misfortune, was to blot it out as best he could.

Sunday dawned cloudless and icily cold. Squinting through the thick double glazing of his hotel room as he nursed a cup of black coffee and a headache that thumped away behind the gash over his eye, Eusden rehearsed all the ways in which he could have avoided the situation he now found himself in. The surest one was never to have left London, of course. But it hardly helped to know it.

Pernille Madsen was due to arrive an hour or so before the Helsinki ferry sailed at 4.45. That left Eusden with half a day to kill. He could have seen the sights if he had been in any mood for sightseeing. Stockholm looked beautiful in the white and gold of a winter Sunday. The harbour was frozen and people were out strolling on the ice. Eusden heard their laughter when he left the Sheraton and crossed the bridge into Gamla Stan. He saw the gilded light falling on the ochre-plastered house fronts of the old town. But sights and sounds barely registered in his mind. He had dreamt of Marty in the night, Marty alive and well and youthful, rejecting the report of his death as a mischievous rumour. But the day contradicted the night. The rumour was true. And the truth of it sat like lead in Eusden’s heart.

After more than an hour of aimless walking, he was cold and tired enough to be glad the bars were open. He went into one that was more Irish than Swedish and sat sipping a Danish beer while an ice hockey match proceeded largely unwatched on a widescreen television. He steeled himself to check his phone for messages, expecting Gemma would have slept on her indignation, woken to find it undiminished and sought to remind him of his responsibilities. Surprisingly in the circumstances, she had not called. But Bernie Shadbolt had, leaving his mobile number and a peremptory demand that Eusden ring it, which he had no intention of doing.

The other message was less easy to shrug off. He had forgotten giving Regina Celeste his number and now regretted it. At the time it had seemed unimportant. But every judgement had become provisional: they could all be overtaken by events.

‘Hi, Richard. This is Regina. As you’ll deduce, I’ve gotten myself a cellphone that actually functions on this continent, so can you call me? I need an update on the Werner situation. Also you might like to know what I’ve accomplished so far on my Hanoverian expedition. If I don’t hear back soon, I’ll try your hotel. So long.’

He slowed down the beer intake and tried to do some cool rational thinking. Maybe it was actually a blessing he had given Regina his number. If she rang the Phoenix and learnt he had checked out, she might hurry back to Copenhagen and start looking for him. Worse still, she might go back into partnership with Straub. The less either of them knew of what he was really up to the better. It was safer by far to keep Regina in ignorance. Less than half an hour had passed since her call, so it was a safe bet she had not yet called the Phoenix. He decided to make sure she did not need to.

‘Hi, Richard. Thanks for calling back.’

‘No problem.’

‘What’s happening your end?’

‘Nothing. There’s been so sign of Werner.’

‘Nor Marty, I take it?’

‘No.’ Eusden steeled himself to speak the words in a casual tone. ‘No sign of Marty either.’

‘So, you’re basically twiddling your thumbs, right?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Well, fortunately, one of us has been busy. Werner and Marty have got a nasty surprise coming their way. Thanks to little old me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve gone ahead and bought Hans Grenscher’s collection of Gestapo documents. As soon as the money hits his bank account tomorrow morning, they’ll be in my hands. Which means I’ll have in my possession the only item I’m actually interested in: a record of Anastasia’s fingerprints, taken by the Hanover police in 1938 on orders from Berlin. That’s the magical matching item Werner made such a big thing of. And no wonder, if it really can be matched.’

‘I don’t understand. Matched?’

‘With Anastasia’s pre-1918 fingerprints. Don’t you get it, Richard? That’s what Marty’s grandfather must have got hold of. How, I can’t imagine. But somehow. Her fingerprints must have been taken during the imperial visit to Cowes in 1909. And Clem Hewitson must have hung on to them.’

Was it possible? Clem claimed to have met Anastasia aboard the imperial yacht. He had gone aboard to be thanked by the Tsar and Tsarina for preventing the assassinations of Anastasia’s elder sisters, Olga and Tatiana. Where and how could fingerprinting figure in such an encounter? The science had surely been in its infancy in the Edwardian period. It was probably completely unknown in Russia in 1909 – a point Regina had clearly been pondering.

‘Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Isle of Wight bobby taking a Russian princess’s dabs. I can’t begin to imagine how that could’ve come about. But let’s say it did. Let’s say PC Hewitson was bragging about how scientifically advanced British police methods were, spotted Anastasia with ink on her fingers – she was always said to be a messy girl – and laid on an impromptu demonstration of how to take her prints. And let’s also say he kept them as a memento of his brush with Russian royalty. If they match the 1938 prints… we’ve struck the mother lode.’

If they matched. Unfortunately for Regina, Eusden knew she was never going to have the chance to find out whether they did or not. And a murkier issue still was troubling him. Where did Tolmar Aksden come into this? What connected him to Anastasia? How could Hakon Nydahl’s letters to Clem all those years ago be so damaging to him?

‘So,’ Regina breezed on, ‘Werner can cut any kind of deal with Marty he likes. Sooner or later, they’re going to have to deal with me. We’ll both have what the other needs to make out the case for Anastasia’s recognition. Fingerprints trump DNA any day of the week. But only the matching pair of sets will do the job. We’re going to have to come to some kind of an agreement. Unless, of course, you can prevail on your childhood friend to freeze out Werner altogether. It’s nothing less than the man deserves, after all. What do you say, Richard? Willing to give it a try?’

Eusden could not remember, after Regina had rung off, exactly how he had answered her question. Some prevarication had sufficed, thanks to her blithe assumption that he was now her eager assistant. She would be heading back to Copenhagen, where she believed him to be waiting, as soon as her transaction with Grenscher was complete. Alas for her, another transaction hundreds of miles away was going to render her possession of Anna Anderson’s fingerprints irrelevant. No match was ever going to be made.

Futile though curiosity was bound to be, Eusden could not entirely suppress it. He returned to the Sheraton to wait for Pernille Madsen and retrieved his bag, which he had left with the concierge after checking out. He went into the bar and ordered a coffee, opened the bag and took out Burgaard’s family tree of the Nydahls and Aksdens. He had remembered Anna Anderson’s claim to have given birth to a son in December 1918 and wanted to remind himself that Peder Aksden could not have been that son. It was true. According to Burgaard, who could certainly be trusted to have checked his facts, Peder Aksden was born in 1909. There was no fudging a nine-year age gap. He was not Anastasia’s son. And hence Tolmar was not her grandson. There was no connection between them. And yet there was. There had to be. But what it could possibly be he-

‘Richard Eusden?’

The softly inflected voice belonged to a woman standing beside his chair. He had not heard her approach. She was dressed in a black coat and boots, with a peacock-patterned scarf round her neck. There was nothing of the blonde Scandinavian about her. Her hair and eyes were dark brown, her face pale, her features delicate, her pink-lipsticked mouth opened in a hesitant smile even as her brow furrowed into the slightest of frowns.

‘I’m Pernille Madsen.’

THIRTY-THREE

‘Where did you get that from?’ Pernille asked. She pointed at the sheet of paper in Eusden’s lap. ‘And why is my name on it?’

‘See for yourself.’ Eusden rose and handed her the sheet. ‘Heard of Karsten Burgaard?’

‘Yes.’ She said no more than that. After scrutinizing the family tree for a moment, she returned it. ‘His work?’

Eusden nodded, then, belatedly, offered her his hand. Her smile broadened by a cautious fraction. They shook. ‘Want some coffee?’

‘Yes. It’s been a long drive.’ She took off her coat and scarf to reveal another layer of black – woollen cardigan, jumper, skirt and wide shiny belt. The only colourful note was struck by a peridot necklace that she fingered as they sat down.

The waitress was already approaching with the coffee. Eusden signalled for her to deliver it to Pernille and ordered another for himself.

‘Does it hurt?’ Pernille asked, gesturing with her eyebrows at the wound on his head.

‘Only when I laugh. And I haven’t been laughing much lately.’

‘Birgitte told me about your friend. I’m sorry.’

‘Thanks. What else did she tell you?’

‘Everything I need to know.’

‘And now you’re going to tell me everything I need to know.’

She sipped her coffee, then gave him a long, strangely soothing look of scrutiny. ‘We’ll be met in Helsinki by a former Mjollnir employee, now retired: Osmo Koskinen. He’s arranging the handover. That’s as much as I know.’

‘Surely not.’

He knew from Burgaard’s family tree that she was in her late forties, but already she had looked both younger and older than that. There was vulnerability as well as strength in her, insecurity as well as self-control. Marriage to Tolmar Aksden had been an experience that had left its mark.

‘I’ve no idea what Hakon Nydahl’s letters to Clem Hewitson reveal about your ex-husband, but you must have. It’s why you’re here.’

‘Not exactly.’

She broke off as the second coffee was delivered. Eusden studied her skittering glance around the room as the waitress came between them. She was frightened, though precisely what of he sensed he would not discover. Perhaps, it occurred to him, she had been frightened for a long time.

The waitress departed. She compressed her lips, then looked back at him. ‘All I know is that the… material we’re to collect… would ruin Tolmar if it reached the media. I don’t know how. I don’t want to know. Michael, our son, matters to me more than… all my troubles with Tolmar. Do you have children, Richard?’

‘No.’

‘Maybe you’re lucky. Maybe it’s best not to… care so much, so very, very much… about this person who… grows and changes and… sometimes seems to hate you. But that’s how it is to be a mother. I worry about Michael all the time. He isn’t strong like his father. He couldn’t cope with… pressure. He plans to join Mjollnir. He thinks Tolmar is… a great man. He wants to be like him, even though he can’t be. If Tolmar is ruined, I don’t know what would happen to Michael. And I don’t want to find out.’

‘Perhaps it would be the making of him.’

‘No. It wouldn’t. I’m sure of that.’

‘You’re taking quite a risk for his sake.’

‘For my sake as well. Tolmar ruined… would be a dangerous man. Besides, Birgitte said there’s no serious risk. These people… just want money. And Mjollnir have plenty of that.’

‘How much are they paying?’

‘That’s something else I don’t know and don’t want to know. Koskinen will deliver the money to us and we’ll deliver it to the people Birgitte calls the Opposition in a safe, secure setting. They’ll deliver the attaché case, you’ll check the contents and the exchange will be complete. Then we’ll go our separate ways. And you and I can get on with our lives.’

‘Sounds simple.’

‘Why shouldn’t it be?’

‘Doesn’t it worry you that Tolmar doesn’t know about any of this?’

‘Birgitte Grøn is a better judge of his interests than he is himself. She’s calm and calculating. Tolmar… gets angry if he’s threatened. And then…’ Pernille took another sip of coffee and fingered her necklace again. ‘It’s better this way,’ she said softly, as if addressing herself rather than Eusden. ‘Much better.’

It was a short drive to the Viking Line terminal at Stadsgården. The sinking sun was casting long shadows across the harbour ice as they crossed to Gamla Stan. When Pernille lowered her visor, Eusden noticed a photograph of a fair-haired, smiling boy of twelve or thirteen taped to the back of it: Michael, as his mother preferred to remember him, waiting to greet her whenever the sun shone.

Pernille brought her BMW to a gentle halt in the queue for the ferry. The bluey greyness of dusk was creeping over the harbour. She took a folder containing their tickets out ofthe door pocket and checked the contents, then dropped it back into place. She seemed nervous now their departure was drawing closer.

‘I’ll stop here on the way back and do some shopping,’ she said. ‘Treat myself… to some normality.’

‘Good idea.’

‘You’ll be back in London by then. Your life will be normal again as well.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘You sound doubtful.’

‘To be honest, I’m finding it difficult to remember what normal life is like.’

‘How did they persuade you to help them? Mjollnir, I mean. I’m here for my son. Why did you come?’

‘They left me no choice.’

‘I thought they couldn’t have.’ She ran her hands round the steering-wheel. ‘I used to work for Mjollnir. That’s how I met Tolmar. On the surface, they’re a… perfect employer. Good pay and conditions. Health insurance. Childcare. Pension. Everything you could ask for.’

‘And beneath the surface?’

‘They organize things so that… people have no choice… except to do what Mjollnir wants.’

‘Or what Tolmar wants.’

‘It’s the same thing.’

‘Not this time.’

‘Apparently not.’

‘Why did you marry him?’

‘I was young. He was… powerful and wealthy and attractive. Very attractive, actually. I loved him. And I persuaded myself he loved me.’

‘When did you find out he didn’t?’

‘When Michael was born. That’s what Tolmar wanted from me. A son and heir. Once he’d got it, he… blanked me out of his life.’

‘Well, you’re back in it now. Even if he doesn’t know it.’

The sun had set, but its glow was still lighting the western sky when the M/S Gabriella eased away from the pier and headed out into the shipping lane that curved ahead of it like a dark grey snake through the matt white expanse of ice. Eusden lingered among the hardy souls on deck, watching the cityscape slowly change as the ship moved across the harbour. Pernille had gone to her cabin. They were to meet later for dinner. He wondered if she felt as he did: that it was better to be two than one on the journey they were taking; better by far.