Trophy (10 page)

While he showered after his workout, he received a text message with Elizabeth Caspersen’s new telephone number.

She didn’t waste time on pleasantries. Michael could hear traffic in the background and presumed that she was in a car.

‘I was redirected to your new number by a female English voice,’ she said. ‘How often do you change your phone?’

‘Every day.’

‘But it’s still you?’

‘I think so,’ he said.

‘What have you found out, Michael, and why did I need a new phone? Who would want to bug my calls? How can that even be done?’

She sounded stressed.

‘Yes – to answer your last question first,’ he said. ‘In fact, it’s frighteningly simple. As for who would benefit, there’s no shortage of candidates. I can easily imagine that someone would want to bug your phone if, say, the DVD had been planted in your father’s safe to blackmail you.’

‘Blackmail me? Why?’

‘The holding company. I presume your mother needs a legally appointed guardian and you’re the obvious choice?’

‘Of course. The lawyers are working on it as we speak. It could go through at any time.’

‘And what will Victor Schmidt say to that?’

‘He’ll suddenly become very, very friendly. Or not.’

He waited for her to continue, but she didn’t say anything else.

‘Sonartek produces extremely valuable technology, Elizabeth. Valuable to several powerful players,’ he said. ‘If anything were to happen to the company, if it becomes the subject of a family power struggle, for example, or it’s broken up and sold, the American Department of Defense will have to get involved. Once you control your parents’ shares as well as your own, you will, at least in theory, become a key player in these considerations because you’ll be Sonartek’s main shareholder.’

‘Why on earth would I do something to harm my father’s company?’ she asked. ‘It makes no sense. I’m not even particularly interested in Sonartek, Michael. I already have a life, just so you know.’

Michael sighed.

‘We can’t be sure that every decision-maker in the arms industry or the American Defense Department share that view. In fact, I think you can assume the opposite.’

He smiled, hoping that his smile would spread to his voice.
He had read somewhere that telephone salespeople were instructed to smile when they tried to talk people into buying whatever they were selling. It was claimed that you could hear them smiling.

‘Like I said, it’s just one explanation, but the DVD would be an excellent blackmail tool.’

‘Brilliant,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘I can’t imagine anything more effective.’

‘Good, so we agree about that,’ Michael said in his business voice. ‘As regards your first question, I’ve found a possible crime scene.’

‘Where?’

‘Northernmost Norway. Finnmark. On the eastern shore of a long, narrow stretch of water called Porsanger Fjord. And I have the date and time.’

He held a rhetorical pause.

‘The man was killed on 24 March at six thirty in the evening,’ he said.

‘Are you sure? Last year, the year before? When?’

She had given him the very answer he had been hoping for. If she had known more than she had told him, she would have been unlikely to ask about the year so quickly and sound so sincere.

‘I’m quite sure about the location, the date and the time,’ he said. ‘And it probably happened within the last three years. We identified the location from the position of the stars at the end of the film.’

‘The stars? Are you quite, quite sure about this?’

‘Yes, actually, I am,’ he said.

‘But that’s shocking. Do you know who he was?’

‘Not yet.’

He didn’t think it was the right time to tell her about the Danish-Norwegian couple. He told himself he needed to turn over the identification in his own mind a few more times. The truth was that he was afraid to tell Elizabeth Caspersen that her father might not have had one, but two young people’s lives on his conscience. The parents of two small children.

‘What do you want me to do?’ she asked, blowing her nose.

‘I want you to find out if your father was away from Denmark in late March during the last three years.’

‘I’ve been more involved in his life in the last three months than I ever was while he was still alive,’ she said. ‘I practically didn’t see him for the last ten years.’

‘Why not?’

‘I think we quite simply didn’t like each other any more. Does that sound strange?’

‘No.’

Michael thought about his own father, the alcoholic vicar, an intolerable, unreliable dreamer who had shagged everything with a pulse and broken his mother’s heart. Michael had worshipped him.

‘He didn’t really get on with my husband,’ she said. ‘Perhaps
they were just too alike. Or perhaps it was a delayed teenage rebellion on my part. I’ve thought about it a great deal recently.’

‘Can you find out if he went abroad in March around that date?’ he asked.

‘Maybe. The company has a private jet, which was his second home. Along with a house on Mallorca and a flat in New York.’

‘I’m sure you can think of something,’ he said. ‘I’ve got another job for you.’

‘What?’

‘Your father must have had a gunsmith. Look for receipts for adjusting and repairing his weapons or a business card from a gunsmith.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m interested in that Mauser rifle. I want to know when it was bought and if it was customized for your father. The gunsmith might have changed the length of the butt, for example, or maybe they have never heard of it. That in itself could prove useful information.’

‘You’re saying he bought it for this very purpose?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you really have no idea who the young man is?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘But you’ll find out, Michael?’

‘I will. Elizabeth, are you absolutely sure that you want
me to continue? We could very quickly reach the point of no return,’ he said, thinking of Ingrid Sundsbö and her twins.

‘What are you saying?’

‘If I stop now, you can hope that all this will go away of its own accord, but if I carry on I might find a name. He would have a history, a family, relatives, maybe children. Right now, he’s a character on a plastic disc. It’s a terrible film, no doubt about it, but he’s just a character. A stranger. If I were you, I’d take a moment to consider very carefully if this is what I really want.’

‘Somewhere, someone wants to know what happened to him, Michael,’ she responded immediately. ‘If one of my girls disappeared, I’d want to know at any cost.’

‘I understand, and of course you’re in charge,’ he murmured.

‘There’s more,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘The others. The men with my father. Perhaps they have done it before
and
after Norway. Someone has to stop them and I’d like it to be me. I can see no other way of atoning even a little for my father’s insane actions. I’m rich and I’m prepared to spend every krone I have to find those men.’

And you may very well have to, Michael thought.

‘I’ll find the gunsmith and I’ll speak to my father’s pilots,’ she said. ‘So I want you to continue, is that understood?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘By the way, thank you for the recordings from the break-in.’

‘Were they any use?’

‘I’ll go over them again, but like you said, they knew what they were doing. I’ll take another look at the footage.’

Michael rubbed his forehead hard before his next question.

‘Victor Schmidt and his sons. Would it be possible for me to meet them?’

‘I don’t know. It would be difficult. Why do you want to meet Victor?’

‘It’s possible the DVD is what it is. A bizarre hunting trophy, which your father put in that safe himself. But maybe it’s something else, something more. I want to form an impression of anyone who was close to your father. Are they all in Denmark at the moment?’

‘Yes, but it’ll be rather awkward. Victor is no fool. Don’t underestimate him. Who do I tell him you are? A journalist writing my father’s biography?’

She tittered nervously.

Michael had actually considered that option, but rejected it.

‘No. The trick of any good lie is to make it as close to the truth as possible. You said your mother has been ill for quite some time?’

‘Yes, four years.’

‘Did she travel with your father?’

‘Not often. She doesn’t like flying and came to enjoy the social side less and less. She used to say that she had drunk
her last martini. She had plenty of friends. She played bridge and tennis, painted and read, and she was a fantastic grandmother. She had her own life.’

‘Great,’ he said. ‘Was your father fond of women?’

‘Women?’

‘Women.’

‘Yes, I think so, but I’ve never heard any rumours of infidelity, if that’s what you’re implying. If there was someone, he was very discreet. As far as I was aware, my parents got on fine. I’ve never thought of him in that way.’

Michael had a flashback to the naked marble nymphs surrounding the palatial Caspersen home.

‘Let’s pretend that your father had an affair on one of his business trips,’ he said. ‘Or a permanent mistress. On Mallorca, or possibly in New York. Let’s say New York. And I’m not talking about a call girl, but a well-educated woman from a good family … A woman of a certain class.’

‘Go on,’ she said drily.

‘Good. And let’s pretend that their relationship had … consequences.’

‘You’re saying I have a baby brother or sister in the US? That would be wonderful!’

‘It’s just a cover story,’ he said. ‘An introduction to Victor. If you can come up with a better one, that’s fine by me.’

‘I don’t think my imagination stretches that far. All right, my father had an affair with a woman from a good family in New York, and then … what?’

‘The woman in question wants to claim her rights for herself and her son. She’s one hundred per cent sure that he’s the fruit of Flemming Caspersen’s loins.’

He heard a door slam shut and the traffic noise grew louder.

‘I’ve started smoking again,’ she said. ‘I quit ten years ago, but now I’m standing in some godforsaken lay-by off a motorway smoking cigarettes by the packet; I blame you entirely.’

Suddenly she giggled – a little nervously, but she sounded liberated.

‘The fruit of his loins? Christ … Is your father a vicar, Michael?’

He laughed in surprise.

‘Actually, he was. Please don’t tell anyone. He drank himself to death.’

‘And you? Do you drink?’

‘I’ve retired Jack Daniels. More or less. He stops by every now and then.’

‘I’m glad to hear that. The retirement, I mean,’ she said. ‘It’s such a waste.’

‘It usually is,’ he said, without quite believing it.

‘Do you know what I’m thinking right now? No, of course you don’t. I’m imagining Victor’s face when I present him with an unknown heir to Sonartek.’

Michael laughed with her. Briefly.

‘How old is the little tyke?’ she asked, and tittered like a schoolgirl again.

Michael interpreted her reaction as the beginning of a big, beautiful and classic nervous breakdown.

‘Let’s make him six months,’ he said. ‘You’ve received a letter from a … a Miss Janice Simpson …’

‘Simpson?’

Elizabeth Caspersen laughed out loud this time, but her laughter was drowned out by the roar from a truck. It sounded as if she were standing in the middle of the motorway.

‘Or whatever. You choose. A nice, handwritten letter. Write it your way. She expresses her condolences on your loss, which is also hers and junior’s loss, she’s empathetic, but still manages to include several, highly personal details about your father, Sonartek and you. Information known to only a few people. She has even included a photograph of the baby, who looks like any other baby, of course. She’s heartbroken at your father’s … and her lover’s death, but obviously has to consider her son’s future in every sense of the word.’

‘Of course,’ she said.

‘She believes your father would have wanted him to have an appropriate upbringing. Miss Simpson isn’t going to be unreasonable, not at all. On the other hand, she would like to give you the opportunity to respond before she involves
her lawyers. She’s prepared to provide you with every DNA test imaginable.’

‘Michael, that’s brilliant,’ she said.

‘It’s just a cover story.’

‘But it could be true.’

Neither of them spoke for a moment.

‘Where do you fit into the picture?’ she then said.

‘I play myself. A private investigator recommended to you by a Dutchman. You’re distraught. First your father dies, your mother is ill and now this. What will Miss Simpson want? Money? Your father’s name? A seat on the board? Official recognition of her son? Obviously you want to discuss various scenarios with Victor and his family who were so close to your father and with me as a kind of expert investigator. As a lawyer, you understand the legal implications for the estate, but you’ve asked me to establish if Miss Simpson is just some con artist or if she’s the real deal. You want to know more about Miss Simpson’s background, family … Who she is and where she comes from.’

‘You’re right,’ Elizabeth Caspersen said. ‘I really would. If the story were true, I would have found someone like you.’

‘There you are,’ Michael said. ‘And I bet Victor Schmidt will want to know if he needs to heat feeding bottles for the next board meeting.’

She giggled again for a long time until Michael interrupted her.

‘One last thing, Elizabeth.’

The laughter died away.

‘What?’

‘Your father’s hospital records. Where did he actually die?’

‘At Victor’s estate where he had been hunting. He spent a lot of time doing that. He practically lived there when he wasn’t travelling. They found him dead in his bed one Sunday morning. Why?’

‘No reason in particular. I presume he was taken to the nearest hospital.’

‘Where he was declared dead on arrival,’ she said.

‘Of course, but there must be a hospital record or a casualty note, a death certificate, and you’ve already told me that a post-mortem was carried out, so there must be a post-mortem report. You’re his next of kin and you’re entitled to see his medical record. I’d like a look.’