Copenhagen Noir - Bo Tao Michaelis [93]
Nonetheless, there was a shined-up look to the street that hadn’t been there in 1985, and when I got to the address Christian Mogensen had given me, a side street to Sønder Boulevard, the building proved to be newly renovated, the stairway nice and clean, and the list of tenants in the vestibule indicated that it was an apartment building. The left-hand apartment on the fourth floor—the one Mogensen had told me to go to—was apparently unoccupied. At least there was no name on the list.
On the way up I met a couple descending the stairs. The woman was blond, with hair pulled back severely and gathered in a knot. She wore an elegant dark-blue coat and carried a small black envelope purse in her gloved hand. She stared straight ahead, not looking in my direction. Her companion did, however: a broad-shouldered man with short dark hair, in a black winter coat and dark pants. The look he sent me was angry and hostile, as if he were saying: Try taking her away from me, if you dare …
For a moment or two I considered whether the building might be something other than what it seemed, perhaps a refuge for sadomasochists or some other crazy group. Then they passed by me, leaving behind only the reek of her strong perfume. I assumed it was hers, but you can never be sure. Not nowadays.
No one opened when I rang at the fourth-floor door that had no tenant name. I tried several times, and the doorbell could be heard all the way out in the hall, but there was no reaction from inside. I studied the door. It was made of solid, heavy wood, and the lock seemed secure, not one you could work open with a hairpin and a credit card.
I grabbed my phone, called Mogensen again, and gave him my sob story.
“Well, she’s just out somewhere,” he said.
“Then I’ll pay you a visit instead.”
“No, no. Wait right there, Veum, I’ll come to you.”
“And how long will that take?”
“Less than a half hour. Get a cup of coffee in the meantime.”
I walked back to Istedgade, found a café on a corner, noticed the woman with the encouraging look at one of the tables but didn’t accept the invitation this time, either. I sat at the bar on a stool high enough to keep an eye on the entrance to the building I had just left, and I ordered a cup of black coffee and a Brøndums aquavit, the closest I could come to a Simers Taffel south of the Skagerrak.
After twenty-five minutes a black Mercedes pulled up and a man got out. He was tall and somewhat rangy, with red-blond hair and a beard. He looked around before crossing the street and entering the building.
I emptied my glass, nodded at the waitress, and followed him.
I stood in the hallway and listened. At first I heard nothing. Then a door slammed, followed by hurried footsteps down the stairs.
When he reached bottom he met my gaze. Now I recognized him. His hair was shorter, beard neat and well-trimmed, and he was distinctly better-dressed than the last time we’d met. But it was the same man I had found her with in Christiania twenty-three years earlier.
His voice shook when he said, “Veum?”
“That’s me. What’s going on?”
Before he could answer, his phone rang. He put it to his ear, and as he listened he gradually grew paler. “But … but you can’t …” He glanced up the stairway, as if he expected someone to come after him any second. “Yeah … all right, I’m coming. Track seven.”
Then he lowered the phone and looked at me again. His expression was darker than the night, it was as if someone had poured poison in his ear. “I have to go.”
“I’m going with you.”
He looked like he was going to object, but just shrugged his shoulders. We went out to the sidewalk. He walked past his car without a glance.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Central Station. Track seven.”
“And what’s going to happen?”
“We’re going to meet them.”
“Who?” Impatient, I grabbed his arm. “Heidi?”
He jerked loose from my grip and looked at me, his despair about to flow over. The darkness surrounding