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He sent Elizabeth Caspersen a loaded glance, but she ignored him.

‘I think he’s cute,’ she said. ‘Charles …’

‘Charles Caspersen?’ Victor Schmidt burst out. ‘What sort of name is that?’

‘I don’t think she’ll insist on the surname, Victor,’ Elizabeth Caspersen said. ‘There really would be very little point.’

‘The whole thing is pointless,’ he said. ‘What an old fool.’

‘I would appreciate your not discussing my father in those terms, Victor. If it weren’t for him, you’d be selling second-hand cars in the suburbs of north-west Copenhagen instead of owning half of Sonartek. Remember that.’

‘Less than half, Elizabeth, dear. You and your demented mother now own the rest,’ he said maliciously.

Monika Schmidt intervened.

‘
Snällä, ni båda!
Victor, you’ll apologize to Elizabeth immediately, and you, Elizabeth, will forgive Victor. As usual.’

She glowered at her husband until he obeyed orders and mumbled an apology.

Michael felt a pair of eyes staring at him and turned around. From the chair by the window, Henrik Schmidt was watching him with almost myopic intensity. When he discovered that Michael was looking at him, he smiled broadly,
but then he spotted something behind the security consultant. His face brightened and he made to get up.

‘Hi, Jakob!’

Michael turned around, astonished that someone could be that silent. Keith Mallory was fond of saying it: ‘Sooner or later you’ll meet the new talent, Mike, and though you think you’re one hell of a tough guy, you can only hope to God that you’re on the same side or he’ll fuck you up the arse until you can no longer remember your own name.’

Michael thought that day had just arrived.

‘Michael Sander,’ he said, and stuck out his hand.

‘Jakob.’

The other man looked at Michael’s hand for a moment before he shook it, almost warily. No pissing contest was required. He didn’t blink and his face was imperturbable and serious. Dark suit, black roll-neck jumper. He was tall, almost a head taller than Michael, broad-shouldered and well-built, with dark blond hair, and an impassive, weathered face, a long hawk nose and dark eyes that didn’t smile.

Michael watched the faces around him. In Victor Schmidt’s, irritation seemed to do battle with genuine affection.

‘You went down to the sea?’ his father asked.

‘My usual walk.’

‘The boy’s name is Charles,’ Victor Schmidt said. ‘Try to get used to it.’

‘Charles?’

‘Yes, God help us. Charles Simpson-Caspersen.’

‘Stop it, Victor.’

Monika Schmidt’s voice was sharp and long-suffering.

Elizabeth Caspersen was almost as tall as Jakob Schmidt. They embraced warmly.

Michael jumped when a woman’s voice right behind him announced that dinner was ready in the kitchen. The woman shook hands with him and introduced herself as Mrs Nielsen. She looked after the family. Or at least made sure that they got enough to eat. She had a pasty face, wore a dark, simple dress and was strangely devoid of personality.

‘Lovely, Mrs Nielsen,’ Monika Schmidt said. ‘Henrik, Jakob, are you coming? Victor?’

Michael passed Jakob Schmidt at a distance of only a few centimetres. The man smelled of cold air and grass.

‘You work for Elizabeth?’ he asked as they headed for the door.

‘Yes,’ Michael said.

‘As a …?’

‘Consultant.’

‘That’s not a protected title, is it?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Do you think you’ll be able to do it?’

‘Do what?’

Jakob Schmidt smiled, and something fast and lethal swam across his eyes.

‘Get to the bottom of things?’

‘We’re talking about Flemming Caspersen and his son Charles?’

‘Of course. That’s what we’re talking about.’

‘I sincerely hope so,’ Michael said steadily.

The tall young man held open the door for Michael, who again passed him at very close quarters. Jakob Schmidt moved with the economy of an athlete and Michael wondered if he could take him, one on one.

He doubted it.

*

Michael was seated opposite Monika Schmidt at the long table in the kitchen. There was no tablecloth, but the stoneware and the glasses were exquisite and you needed strong muscles to lift the heavy silver cutlery. There were rustic Italian bread baskets, brown Spanish wine jugs and blue, hand-painted Portuguese plates.

He spread his starched linen napkin across his lap, realized how hungry he was and smiled at his hostess.

Behind him pots were bubbling on the vast Aga.

‘It smells fantastic,’ he said.

A bowl of bouillabaisse was placed in front of him, large chunks of lobster and fish floating in the soup, and Michael inhaled the aromas expectantly. Monika Schmidt poured him some white wine, and Victor Schmidt raised his glass and looked around the table. He put his hand on his younger son’s shoulder.

‘A toast to heirs. Old and new.’

‘I understand that Pederslund is a hunting lodge,’ Michael said, making conversation. ‘Do you still hunt or …?’

‘Frequently,’ Victor Schmidt said. ‘We have pheasants,
snipe, some wild boar – vicious bastards – ducks and geese on the coast, roe deer, obviously, and a few red deer. Do you hunt?’

‘No.’

Michael was tempted to add that he was still sexually active, but stopped himself.

‘It’s a good business,’ his host said after giving the matter some consideration. ‘We have some syndicates down here and a gamekeeper who deals with most of the feeding, releasing the pheasants, minding the dogs and so on. He’s an old friend of Jakob’s. Quite a few ex-soldiers come here.’

Michael broke off a chunk of bread. ‘And he lives on the estate?’

‘Of course. When he’s not travelling. He’s away a lot, isn’t he, Jakob?’

Michael couldn’t interpret Victor Schmidt’s face.

‘I suppose he is,’ Jakob Schmidt said. ‘Thomas co-owns a safari company. He arranges hunting trips to Africa, Canada and the Himalayas. When he’s not here, he gets one of his friends to look after the dogs and the game. Peter is covering for him at the moment.’

‘It’s an excellent arrangement,’ Victor Schmidt declared, and Michael realized that the matter was closed.

He smiled to Jakob Schmidt instead. ‘Elizabeth told me you were an officer?’

The young man merely nodded, but Victor Schmidt glowed with pride. ‘Captain in the Royal Life Guards, First Armoured
Infantry Company. Jakob was in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq and Afghanistan, and these days he’s usually anywhere but home, isn’t that right, Jakob?’

The son stared into his bowl.

‘He’s a ghost,’ Monika Schmidt declared.

Henrik Schmidt looked from one to the other and smiled to Michael: ‘We played at Scarlet Pimpernel all the time when we were boys. Jakob was the Scarlet Pimpernel, of course. He was older and he could beat me, so he was in charge. I was either an aristocratic oppressor who must be guillotined or a revolutionary trying to catch him. Do you remember, Mum?’

Henrik Schmidt was the family peacemaker, Michael thought. Wedged in like an airbag between his father and big brother’s unyielding, potentially explosive egos.

Monika Schmidt moistened her lips.

‘You bet I do, darling.
They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven? Is he in hell? That damned, elusive Pimpernel!
’ she quoted, while gazing lovingly at her older son.

‘And he still is,’ Victor Schmidt said. ‘A quite useless ghost.’

‘Jakob has never been interested in business, Victor,’ his wife said, to mollify him. ‘You have Henrik and you should count yourself lucky. Jakob would hate every minute in the boardroom. He can’t stand being indoors. You know that.’

‘And of course I am – grateful for Henrik, I mean,’ Victor Schmidt said. ‘I think we all are.’

‘And, anyway, you have a new heir now,’ Elizabeth Caspersen quipped sweetly.

‘And so close to Wall Street,’ Jakob Schmidt said with a smile.

‘Have you seen her, Henrik?’ his father asked. ‘She said that she used to visit Flemming in the apartment on 3rd Avenue. You practically lived there. Did you ever meet her?’

‘It’s a big apartment,’ Henrik Schmidt pointed out.

‘Surely it’s not so big that you wouldn’t notice a frantically copulating couple? Not to mention the pallet-loads of Viagra?’ He looked at Elizabeth Caspersen. ‘I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but really …’

‘It’s all right, Victor,’ she said with a sigh, as she, too, turned her attention to the younger son.

‘Have you met her, Henrik?’

‘Of course not. Flemming was always out, usually with me. We had meetings all the time. We
did
work when we were there, just so you know. I find it hard to believe that he could have had an affair without my knowledge. And, no, I’ve never seen her in the apartment or anywhere else.’

And you’re right, Michael thought. He almost felt sorry for Henrik Schmidt.

‘She writes that they met at an exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum,’ Victor Schmidt said. ‘The Guggenheim? Since when was Flemming interested in modern art? Unless someone had painted a dead animal, he would never –’

‘I think there was a Congress Defense Committee event
the summer before last,’ Henrik Schmidt said. ‘We weren’t the only ones to seize the opportunity to do some lobbying. Flemming was there.’

Michael looked at Elizabeth Caspersen. It was an excellent detail she had included in her letter. Highly plausible. He was impressed.

‘So what does she want?’ Victor Schmidt said to no one in particular while the soup bowls were cleared away and a dish of roast pigeons was placed on the table.

‘She wants a secure future for herself and her son,’ Elizabeth said. ‘And if my father really got her pregnant with … with Charles, if he really is the child’s father, then I can see her point. She writes that she’s not going to be unreasonable.’

‘Unreasonable? A New Yorker? What the hell does that mean? A couple of billion dollars?’

‘At least,’ Henrik said. ‘Her father is a judge. Oh, what fun.’

Victor Schmidt exploded.

‘This is no joke! It has taken thirty years of bloody hard graft to build Sonartek, and now Flemming is dead, and then some … some …’

‘Calm down, Dad,’ Jakob said. ‘Perhaps it won’t be so bad.’

His father pulled himself together with considerable effort and turned his attention to his older son.

‘Tell me, for how long do we have the pleasure of your company this time?’

Jakob Schmidt pushed the sleeve of his jacket away from
his wristwatch with a twisting motion, as if he wanted to strangle his own wrist or didn’t quite trust it. A scratched Rolex on a steel strap slipped up his wrist and Michael noticed white skin underneath.

‘I’m leaving around eight thirty.’

‘Eight thirty?’ His father scowled at him. ‘Listen, boy. Flemming, my business partner, whom you may vaguely remember, has screwed around and fathered a child – not in the hereafter, but in New York. Now. “Charles”. We’re facing a massive crisis here. His mother could sue us for millions. She’s an American, Jakob! Her father is a judge. Do you have any idea what that means?’

Jakob Schmidt calmly returned his father’s gaze and shrugged his shoulders.

There didn’t seem to be much love lost between them, thought Michael, who was following the exchange. In fact, there was a strange alienation in Jakob’s eyes when he looked at his father. Perhaps he just didn’t like him; after all, his father beat his mother. Or maybe it was something else. Michael had seen it before: one child plays by the rules, while the other, usually the more loved, can’t or won’t, and recklessly breaks away so as not to go under. Elizabeth Caspersen had done it as well. The two of them seemed to understand each other.

‘Define “us”,’ the son responded flatly.

Victor Schmidt drained his glass and filled it up again. The wine spilled across the table. Mrs Nielsen got busy with a cloth, but the financier didn’t even sense her presence.

‘
Us
, God damn you! Your family. Your mother, brother and me. And Elizabeth. What could you possibly be doing tonight that’s more important than this?’

‘Meeting someone,’ the son said.

‘Could you give me a lift to Copenhagen?’ his brother asked.

‘Sure.’

Victor Schmidt looked exasperatedly from one to the other. Betrayed.

‘As for Flemming’s American offspring, surely it’s only fair that the mother receives some form of maintenance?’ Jakob said.

He looked at Michael. ‘Are you going to talk to her?’

‘I believe that’s the plan.’

‘But Jakob, you’ll be back later, won’t you?’ his mother asked.

‘Of course, I’ll be back before you know it.’

‘Promise?’

He reached out a big hand and squeezed one of his mother’s small ones.

But his father hadn’t finished.

‘Fair? You think so? And what does that entail? A seat on the board? Just what exactly do you mean by “fair”?’

The son smiled.

‘Isn’t there some sort of lower-age limit, Elizabeth? When it comes to board members of a quoted company, I mean. You’re the corporate lawyer.’

‘It’s seventy, I believe,’ she said. ‘But you also have to be a member of Club 300, the Danish branch, and be the CEO of a company where every board member is one of the boys. Or that’s how it seems. Inbred. After all, Victor is also on the board of TDC, Carlsberg and Brødrene Hartmann. They make a living out of telling each other how brilliant and clever they are, and how they would have been headhunted as CEOs of Pfizer or Morgan Stanley long ago if they hadn’t been so damned patriotic.’

Her cheekbones were glowing.

Monika Schmidt placed a calming hand on her husband’s forearm, but he snatched it back angrily. He seemed to jump at the chance to vent his fury on his son and Elizabeth Caspersen – as if anyone had any doubts – but then his glance swept across Michael, the outsider, and he shut his mouth hard as if an insect had flown into it.

‘Come on, Dad,’ Jakob Schmidt said, trying to appease him. ‘Let’s wait and see how bad it is. Send Michael to New York. Find out what the woman really wants. May I see the letter?’

Elizabeth Caspersen passed it across the table.

Jakob Schmidt began by looking at the little photograph. He smiled and put it to one side. His dark eyes jumped from line to line. Then he carefully put the letter back in the envelope, slipped in the photograph and handed it to her.

‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ he asked.

The housekeeper didn’t wait for him to be granted permission, but pushed a silver ashtray across to his elbow.
Jakob Schmidt lit a long, brown cheroot, blew the smoke up to the ceiling and watched it drift towards the doorway.

‘Henrik said that Miss Simpson is an editor,’ he said.

‘Michael has already found that out,’ Elizabeth Caspersen said. ‘Why?’

The older son gave her an inscrutable look.

‘Nothing. She’s probably okay. Seventh-generation New Yorker? Give her our best wishes.’

‘I will,’ Michael said.

‘Don’t include me,’ Victor Schmidt said in a thick voice.

‘I can have a DNA test analysed by a forensic laboratory in Berne,’ Michael said. ‘I understand from Elizabeth that Miss Simpson is willing to supply a sample of the child’s DNA. Perhaps we should await the result of the DNA test before we get ahead of ourselves.’

Monika Schmidt smiled warmly around the whole table.

‘Listen to what Michael is saying, Victor, before you blow a gasket,’ she said. ‘That seems reasonable, doesn’t it, Elizabeth? The whole thing might turn out to be a storm in a teacup.’

‘Good advice,’ she replied. ‘I suggest we send Michael to New York for an initial interview with Miss Simpson. He can form an opinion of her, see the child and gain a sense of where we stand. And get a DNA sample.’

Victor Schmidt stared at Michael with his working eye while the false one randomly looked at a plate of grapes. He ran both palms across his face.