‘You’re right. I don’t.’
‘People generally . . . don’t notice me.’
‘How well d’you know Michael Aksden?’
‘Better than he’d like.’
‘What’s his subject?’
‘Economics also. Michael and I . . . started together. But I have my degree. I’m studying for a doctorate. Michael is . . . drifting.’ Burgaard shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter how long you take for a degree – or if you ever get one – when your father is Tolmar Aksden.’ He swivelled the paper round and tapped a headline. Eusden noticed the word Mjollnir. ‘It says “Mjollnir shares break through new barrier”.’
‘Own any?’
‘Some. But not enough. Anyway, I’m not interested in Mjollnir for investment, though maybe I should be. I’m interested in finding out why they do so well.’
‘The secret of their success?’
‘Exactly.’ Burgaard lowered his voice. ‘The secret.’
‘Why don’t you ask Michael?’
‘I have. He tells me nothing. I think he knows nothing. I ask him to arrange for me to meet his father. No. I ask him to arrange for me to meet someone who works with his father. Again, no. This is for my thesis, Mr Eusden. I have worked on this nearly two years. Mjollnir is . . . a phenomenon. But no one understands it. I have tried. But, you see, they do not want anyone to understand. Tolmar Aksden does not give interviews. He does not . . . give anything.’
‘Perhaps he’s just a gifted entrepreneur.’
‘His sort of entrepreneur normally likes to tell everyone how gifted he is. Not Tolmar Aksden. This paper calls him
Den Usynlige Mand
: the Invisible Man. Everyone admires him. But also everyone . . . distrusts him.’
‘Do they?’
‘Oh, yes, Mr Eusden. Just like you and your friend. What was that about last night? Mr Hewitson mentioned his grandfather . . . and Lars Aksden’s arrest in Roskilde. You and Mr Hewitson . . . know something. And I . . .’ Burgaard’s head twitched in a slight but palpable nervous convulsion. This was clearly the stage of their encounter he had been steeling himself for. ‘I would be grateful if you told me what it is.’
Eusden took a sip of coffee to camouflage a tactical pause, then smiled and said, ‘Why would I do that?’
‘Because I know things you don’t.’
‘Maybe we know it all.’
‘No. If you did, you wouldn’t have challenged Michael. And also . . . you wouldn’t have agreed to meet me this morning.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Yes. I think it is.’ Burgaard’s calculations were sound, even though he projected little confidence in them. ‘I propose . . . a trade.’
Another pause; another sip. ‘Propose away.’
‘I guess you’ve come to Århus because Lars is here. Near here, I mean. He has been ever since the . . . incident . . . in Roskilde. You’ve come to see him, haven’t you?’
‘Maybe.’
‘I want to be with you when you do.’
‘And you propose to buy your ringside seat with . . . information.’
‘Yes.’ Burgaard nodded. ‘A lot of information.’
Tolmar Aksden was born at the family farm, Aksdenhøj, in 1939. He trained as an engineer, but worked on the farm for some years before setting up Mjollnir in the early 1970s. Mjollnir’s ostensible business was plant hire, but from the very start, according to Burgaard, it seemed to be more of a general investment vehicle. Aksden began buying up disused industrial land in the Århus area and regenerating it as housing complexes and high-tech business parks. He was always one step ahead of the economic trend. By the 1980s he had taken over a shipyard and an electronics factory, which both appeared defunct but were transformed under Mjollnir into leaders in the fields of containerization and micro-processing. In the 1990s came the big leap for the company: acquisition of a Swedish hotel chain, a large Norwegian fish-farming operation and a Finnish timber producer. Mjollnir’s headquarters moved to Copenhagen and its reign as a pan-Scandinavian economic powerhouse began. Burgaard emphasized the shock element in this development. Aksden kept such a low profile that his competitors never saw him coming. His far-sightedness was envied, his ruthlessness feared. He was considered by many to be positively un-Danish in this regard, although ignorance of his true personality and the rarity of his sightings in public ensured criticism gave way to awe at his achievements and a certain mystique that attached itself to the Invisible Man of the Nordic business world.
His family life was similarly low-key. He married Pernille Madsen, a Mjollnir employee nineteen years his junior, when he was forty-two. Their only child, Michael, was born in 1983. They had subsequently divorced. His sister, Elsa, married a neighbouring landowner in Jutland, and seldom stirred from rural obscurity. His brother, Lars, was the odd one out, cultivating a larger-than-life image as an artist, womanizer and dabbler in politics. As a young man, he had participated in the establishment of the Christiania hippy commune in Copenhagen and had sedulously maintained his anti-Establishment credentials ever since. About the only thing he had in common with Tolmar was that they were both divorced.
In Norse mythology, Mjollnir was Thor’s magical hammer, an instrument of destruction
and
creation. Tolmar Aksden had chosen the name for his company well. He had specialized in eliminating competitors and turning their failures into his successes. Nor was he finished yet. At sixty-eight, he gave no sign of slowing down. The consensus was that he had a strategy for further expansion, though where, and into what, was, as ever with the man, an open question. And it would remain so, until he chose to reveal the answer.
‘What did you tell the guy?’ Marty demanded as soon as Eusden had finished relaying what he had learnt from Burgaard about the life and times of Tolmar Aksden. They were in the hotel restaurant, where Eusden had found Marty having breakfast when he returned from the coffee bar.
‘I told him I was helping you research your grandfather’s mysterious dealings with Aksden’s great-uncle, Hakon Nydahl. That was it. I said nothing about Anastasia – or Clem’s attaché case.’
‘How did he react?’
‘I think he suspected I wasn’t giving him the full story. But I think he also sensed I suspected the same of him.’
‘What’s he after?’
‘Something to spice up his analysis of Mjollnir’s success.’
‘Which he reckons we can deliver?’
‘He’s betting on it. And I’m happy to let him. He knows where Lars is hanging out and he’s willing to take us to see him. Today.’
‘Mmm.’ Marty frowned sceptically. ‘How can we be sure he’s not getting more out of us than we’re getting out of him?’
‘We can’t. You think I should’ve turned him down?’
‘I’m not saying that.’
‘What
are
you saying, then?’
‘Why did he insist on meeting you alone?’
‘He’s the shy, retiring type. He described you as “rather loud”.’
‘Bloody nerve.’
‘I promised him you’d be on your best behaviour when we went to see Lars.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘It means don’t pick a fight with the man.’
‘As if I would.’
‘As if.’
‘All right, all right. I’ll be nice. But don’t forget’ – Marty pointed his fork at Eusden for emphasis – ‘I’m in charge.’
FOURTEEN
Burgaard called for them at eleven o’clock, as agreed. He was clearly wary of Marty and the feeling was just as clearly mutual. They set off in Burgaard’s battered old Skoda and little was said until they had left the city and were driving south through a snow-veiled landscape of farms and forests and empty roads.
‘How many generations of Aksdens have farmed here?’ Eusden asked, as much to break the silence as out of genuine curiosity.
‘Many, I guess,’ Burgaard replied. ‘But Aksdenhøj was never a rich farm. Høj means hill. The ones with names ending in
dal
– valley – are where the best land is. So, we know why Tolmar did not stay on the farm.’
‘But his sister stuck with it,’ said Marty.
‘Not exactly. She married Henrik Støvring. He owns Marskedal, one of the largest manor farms in east Jutland.’
‘So, what’s happened to Aksdenhøj?’
‘They say Tolmar stays there occasionally. And Lars uses it as a studio.’
‘Is that where we’re going, then?’
‘Yes. With luck, we’ll find Lars there.’
After about ten miles on a main road, they turned off on to a narrower, winding side road. The going was rougher over compacted ice, the snowbanks at the fields’ edges higher as they entered rolling, hillier countryside. Off to one side, down a tree-lined drive, a large, half-timbered, terracotta-roofed manor house came into view.
‘Marskedal,’ Burgaard announced. ‘Nice, yes?’
‘Looks like Elsa Aksden married money,’ said Marty.
‘Or Henrik Støvring did. They say Tolmar’s pumped a lot of cash into the estate.’
‘What do they farm?’
‘Pigs. Bacon’s big business.’ Burgaard pointed to a plain, blank-windowed structure on the other side of the road. ‘There are probably several hundred pigs in there. Aksdenhøj used to be a sheep farm. Not so profitable.’
Another turn-off took them on to a lane that hugged the edge of a birch forest as it climbed into the hills. Aksdenhøj appeared ahead of them at the lane’s end, a quadrangle of thatch-roofed stone buildings on a shoulder of land close to the crest of the hill, sheltered by the forest.
Burgaard beeped his horn as he drove into the cobbled yard. Smoke was climbing from a chimney in one of the buildings, next to which was parked an old Volvo estate. Someone was at home. And Burgaard evidently wished to give them ample warning of their arrival.
‘How well do you know Lars?’ asked Eusden.
‘As well as he’ll let me,’ Burgaard replied with measured ambiguity. He pulled up behind the Volvo and climbed out.
The chill of the hilly air hit Eusden as he emerged from the car. It was colder up here than in Århus and the snow had blanketed the world in silence. The farmhouse itself looked to be shut up. The smoking chimney was on one of the barns that formed the rest of the quadrangle. It clearly no longer served as a barn: high dormer windows had been added to its steeply sloping roof; lights, blurred by condensation, glimmered within.
One of the windows opened as Eusden gazed up at them. A man peered out: grey-haired, balding, ruddy-faced. He shouted something in Danish. Burgaard replied in kind. A shepherding gesture appeared to constitute an invitation to enter. They headed for the door.
The barn had been converted into a dwelling, disconcertingly modern in design and layout. A lobby opened into a large, well-appointed kitchen. Burgaard led the way straight up the wide stairs ahead of them to Lars Aksden’s studio.
It covered the length and breadth of the building beneath the exposed thatch. A gigantic, rhythmically ticking radiator warmed the air, bringing out the pungent smells of oil paint and turpentine. Dozens of paintings – Expressionist nudes and vibrantly hued landscapes – were hung or easelled in view. Dozens more were stacked against the walls. There was an area set aside for relaxation, with couches and rugs, and at the far end, beyond a half-drawn curtain, an unmade bed. A voice from Eusden’s past was singing softly on a hi-fi somewhere in the jumble: Françoise Hardy. As music will, it plunged him into a memory: a trip to Paris with Gemma and Marty in the long hot summer of 1976. He saw a shadow of the same memory cross Marty’s face. Then someone pressed the off-switch.
The floorboards creaked as Lars Aksden moved towards them. He was a big, heavy-footed bear of a man, clad in paint-flecked maroon, with a face like one of his own portraits: deeply scored and passionate. His voice, as he and Burgaard swapped a few more words in Danish, was a fractured growl; his laugh, when it unexpectedly followed, as loud as a roar.
‘Karsten, you are a scheming little bastard.’ Lars pinched Burgaard’s cheek as if he were a naughty child. ‘Introduce us.’
Burgaard did the honours. Handshakes were exchanged, a lingering one in Marty’s case, as Lars murmured his surname and stared thoughtfully at him.
‘Where do you come from, Marty?’
‘England. The Isle of Wight. We both do.’
‘And what’s brought you here?’
‘Family history. I’ve always wanted to know how my grandfather came to have a Danish friend: Hakon Nydahl. Richard’s helping me . . . look into it.’
‘Well, I tell you: I’ve always wanted to know that too.’
‘Did you know Clem?’ asked Eusden.
‘I met him twice. He came to see us here when I was a child, with Great-Uncle Hakon. And again, when I was older, on his own. That would have been around . . .’
‘Spring of 1960?’ suggested Marty.
Lars cocked his head and frowned at him. ‘
Ja
. Around then.’
‘We know he . . . was abroad at that time.’
‘But I’m not going to be able to tell you how he met my great-uncle. That was never explained to me. Nor were his visits. My grandparents were expecting him, though. It was all . . . arranged beforehand.’
‘Your grandparents? What about your parents?’
‘They were dead by then. My mother died giving birth to my sister. My father was killed in an accident on the farm. Hard times, Marty. Did you have them?’
‘Not as a child.’
‘Lucky for you.’
‘You really have no idea what Clem’s connection with your great-uncle was?’ asked Eusden.
‘Idea? Oh, I’ve got several of those. But that’s all they are. Ideas. Theories. Dreams.’ And a dreamlike state was indeed what Lars seemed briefly to descend into. He moved across to one of the windows and gazed out for a moment, then rounded on them. ‘You want a drink? Beer? Schnapps?’
‘Why not?’ said Marty. And Eusden saw no point in arguing. Beer all round was agreed. At a word from Lars, Burgaard headed down to the kitchen to fetch them.
‘Karsten’s a clever boy,’ Lars confided in an undertone while he was downstairs. ‘But not as clever as he thinks he is.’