Babylon (16 page)

‘I’m sorry if I sounded a little abrupt just now,’ he said, offering Tell one of the glasses. He took a couple of sips and briefly closed his eyes. ‘To be honest, I’ve been surprised at my reaction over the past few days, Inspector. Naturally I’m shocked that she’s dead, who wouldn’t be? She was an innocuous person – no, that’s the wrong word – but she was a good person. Well-liked, hard-working. I’m sure you’re right; my feelings for Ann-Marie haven’t faded entirely over the years. I haven’t remarried. It took me a couple of years to grasp the fact that we were never going to be together again, that this business with the divorce wasn’t just some whim on Ann-Marie’s part. And by that time I had got used to being alone, I suppose. I’d got used to a different life, where work comes first. And we didn’t have any children.’

Tell nodded; he could empathise. ‘And you knew she’d met someone new?’ he asked gently. ‘The man who was murdered in her flat.’

Karpov was silent.

‘Did you hear the question?’

‘Yes . . .’ he was still reluctant to answer. ‘I sensed it at quite an early stage.’

‘What, that she’d met Henrik Samuelsson? How did you sense that?’

‘Henrik Samuelsson, so that was his name.’

Tell tried to suppress his impatience. ‘You met him?’

‘He came to an event; it was the unveiling of an Egyptian sculpture donated to us by a French collector called . . . Well, that doesn’t really matter – anyway, it wasn’t open to members of the public. Ann-Marie was here at my personal invitation, and she brought this young man as her guest. She mentioned that he was on the foundation course – he was one of her students.’

‘She didn’t give any further explanation of why he’d come?’

‘She said it was some kind of study visit.’

Tell noticed Karpov’s cynical smile.

‘But you didn’t believe that?’

‘For God’s sake, they were staying . . .’

His voice died away. A strand of white hair flopped down over his forehead and his chin sank towards his chest. Tell couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

‘They were staying . . .?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘They were staying together? At a hotel? You checked whether they were staying at the same hotel, or even in the same room?’

Karpov let out a shrill laugh, temporarily robbed of the dignity he had earlier possessed. Now he was just another jealous ex-husband who had spied on his former wife. He pulled himself together. ‘I must admit I did check on where they were staying, and they’d booked a double room. But there was really no need. It was obvious they were together.’

‘Henrik lived with his partner, Rebecca. Their house was broken into three days ago. We believe the burglars were searching for something specific, and that this could be related to the murder in a way we don’t yet understand. What’s your view on that?’

‘I know nothing about it.’

Beneath the comb-over, Alexandr Karpov’s scalp was shining in the glare of the ceiling spotlight.

‘Did you let Ann-Marie and Henrik know what you thought about their affair?’

Tell had overstepped the mark. A chill passed through the room as Karpov peered over the top of his glasses, like a disapproving headmaster.

‘You are talking to me about my ex-wife in order to find out more about what kind of person she was. You said that was the purpose of this conversation. So why do I suddenly feel as though I am being interrogated? Because if you are intending to interrogate me, I insist on being informed of this in advance. And if that is the case, I wish to contact my solicitor.’

‘If I regard you as a suspect, I’ll certainly let you know.’ Tell loosened his tie as discreetly as he could. ‘I apologise if you feel under attack. However, I would still like to know where you were on the night of the second of May. This is a purely routine question.’

‘At home, in my apartment. In bed. Asleep.’

‘Is there anyone who could confirm that?’

‘Of course not.’

Karpov’s rapid change of demeanour had made Tell lose his train of thought. ‘You can’t think of anything else in your ex-wife’s behaviour that struck you as strange?’

‘No. As I said, we had very little contact. The last time I saw her was at the event I just mentioned. That was last winter, about six months ago. And before that . . . we had dinner in Gothenburg after I’d given a lecture, so a year ago. Hos Pelle, that was the name of the restaurant. Good, traditional food.’

Karpov reached across the desk and grabbed a pack of tissues from the windowsill. He wiped his nose carefully, as if he needed something to do with his hands.

It was time to call a halt. Tell tucked his pen into his top pocket, a signal which made Karpov stand up quickly, holding out his hand. ‘I’m here if you think of anything else.’

‘Thank you.’

Tell ran down the stairs, and was soon out in the street. The siren of a passing ambulance mirrored his growing sense of urgency.

The demonstration was slowly disbanding as Seja and Tell arrived. The drum still echoed rhythmically, but the cluttered trucks that had made up the procession were rumbling slowly down towards Nyhavn and protestors were drifting away. A banner had been left behind, propped up against the statue of Kristian V in Kongens Nytorv:
Don’t panic – it’s organic
.

‘I’m perfectly happy doing touristy things. But I feel no compulsion whatsoever to go to Christiana,’ Tell said firmly, keeping one eye out for the Italian restaurant he had visited on his last trip.

Seja burst out laughing. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! You sound like a retired bureaucrat . . . a Social Democrat.’

‘Because I want to sit and have a beer in the peace and quiet of Strøget instead of racing off to rub shoulders with drug addicts and losers? I get enough of that at work. I do vote Social Democrat, if you really want to know. And I’m not ashamed of that.’

Tell’s smile was strained; he certainly wasn’t feeling cheerful. Something about Seja’s naive, woolly liberalism bothered him a great deal. And now they were standing in Rådhuspladsen with an entire afternoon and evening at their disposal. Well on the way to wasting it all in petty bickering.

‘I don’t know why you’ve got such a problem!’ Seja crossly began to follow the stream of people heading for Strøget, even though she had just made it clear she had no intention of allowing herself to be carried into the commercial heart of the city along with thousands of other tourists. ‘Why have you got such a thing about Christiania – we don’t have to go there! I was just curious about what had happened there after all that talk of evictions. When I was seventeen or eighteen, my friends and I often went there. We used to sit in Månefiskeren, drinking Hof and eating chocolate pastries.’

‘That thought doesn’t exactly fill me with pleasure.’

‘You’re so uptight, Christian!’

Seja stopped to look at a jewellery stall, so abruptly that he almost walked into her.

‘How much is this?’

She picked up a ring with a large, transparent stone and held it up to the light, but put it down when she heard the price.

‘Listen. I know your job makes you look at things in a certain way, and I respect that. But sometimes you’re not very good at seeing things from different perspectives. There is more than one truth.’

‘Is there?’

‘My friends and I didn’t go to Christiana to smoke weed. We went to gigs. There was a terrific music scene back then. The father of one of my friends lived there.’

‘If you run, you might catch up with the demo,’ Tell snapped, suddenly tired of pointless arguments.

Irritation gave way to resignation. Seja noticed his change of mood, took his wrist and drew him close.

‘Hey. Let’s not quarrel. We’ve got the whole day ahead of us for once. And night.’

He squeezed her hand in return. ‘You’re right. Let’s drop it.’

‘Can’t we go up here? There are lots of lovely little shops and cafés.’

She chose a winding street at random, and she was right: the atmosphere was very different just a few metres away from the main street. Brightly coloured paint was flaking off the roughly plastered walls. In places it looked as if the buildings were leaning over the narrow pavements. The shops offered everything from macrobiotic food to office supplies and vinyl records, all competing for the limited space.

When Seja disappeared down a flight of steps to look at skin creams in a health shop, Tell sat down on a bench outside a tobacconist’s and inhaled the aroma of a cigar being smoked by a bearded man. He went inside and bought himself one too – treating himself to a cigar while on a trip wasn’t the same thing as starting smoking again – and tucked the slender packet into his jacket pocket.

He longed for a cold beer.

They continued along narrow streets towards Gråbrødretorv, where Tell was intent on sitting down with his cigar. They found a spot near the square in the cool shade of a tree and bought beer.

Seja stretched out her legs and took a deep draught of her Hof.

‘This the kind of place I was talking about. Something outside the mainstream; you can walk past an H&M just as easily in Gothenburg. And as for Christiana, I think it’s simply glorious out there in the summer. There’s such a contrast to the frantic tempo of city life, sitting on the grass by the river and . . .’

Just leave it, for God’s sake
. Tell didn’t want to let their differences of opinion spoil the moment as he took big gulps of the cold beer, snipped the end of his cigar and lit it. It tasted wonderful; he inhaled deeply, even though he should have known better. He coughed and offered it to Seja.

‘Sadly it’s not hallucinogenic.’ He couldn’t stop himself. She kicked him hard on the shin under the table.

‘You’re being absurd. You know perfectly well that I’m not interested in smoking hash – that’s not what this is about. But to be perfectly honest, a joint would do you good. You’re just so uptight and narrow-minded.’

He couldn’t help being bothered by that comment; he wasn’t sure to what extent she was joking.

‘Narrow-minded?’ he said in the same casual tone of voice.

‘Don’t you think you should at least have tried things before you decide you’re dead set against them? Then you’d know what you were talking about.’

‘I think that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘So, by the same token, you could say I ought to take heroin just to be sure it’s not a good idea, or chuck myself off a roof, or shoot someone in the stomach, to earn the right to think it’s wrong?’

‘Have you ever shot someone? As part of your job, I mean.’

‘That’s not what we were talking about.’

He knocked back the rest of his Pilsner and waved to the waitress. Seja gazed at him, deep in thought.

At times like this she almost found his indignation amusing. ‘So when we have kids you’ll be telling them that one single puff will send them psychotic and kill them, just like we were told in school? And you think that’ll keep them off it?’

‘Speak for yourself. I’m much older than you. We didn’t learn anything about hash in school. And besides . . .’

He lost the thread as a chill ran through him. Kids? He suddenly felt raw, worn down by this never-ending discussion about drugs. And the fact that the word kids came so naturally to Seja’s lips frightened the shit out of him.

Not
if. When
we have kids. As if he had no say on the subject. They’d never even talked about having kids. He had no desire whatsoever to have kids, although he was bright enough to realise that if he kept hooking up with childless women, the subject was bound to come up.

He just hadn’t thought it would come up so early. They’d only been together for a year or so. They didn’t even live together.

‘You know what Åke and Kristina asked me the other day?’ said Seja, changing the subject; Christian thought she sounded irritatingly blasé. ‘When we went round for dinner – after you left. They offered me – well, us really – the chance to buy their house. At a reduced price, on the understanding that Åke could keep some of his stuff in the cellar. What do you think about that? They’ve decided it’s time for you and me to put our relationship on a more serious footing, start living together.’ She imitated Kristina’s voice. ‘And when we do, their house is
much more modern and practical, of course
.’ She waved away a man selling roses.

Christian shook his head, feeling as if his brain had come away from his skull. When the waitress arrived with his beer, he dug out a couple of notes and placed them on the table.

‘Shall we go?’

Already on the move.

‘But we’ve just sat down. I thought we were going to eat?’

She got up and ran after him, grabbing his sleeve.

‘What the fuck’s the matter with you? You’re the one who’s been going on all day about just sitting down and chilling. If something’s bothering you, then let’s have it out. I’ve got no desire to sit around second guessing you, for fuck’s sake.’

Seja had raised her voice rather more than he would have liked on the crowded street. A passing group of men in suits grinned at them.

‘Could you tone it down a bit?’

‘Do you know what this is? It’s a fucking power game, that’s what this is!’

‘What are you talking about? Could you calm down, please?’

‘What you did, what you’re doing right now! We’re chatting, I think everything’s fine. Suddenly I happen to say the wrong thing. I tread on one of your fucking sore toes, and bang! You’re sulky, you’re angry. The switch flicks and you clam up! You’re punishing me for something I don’t even know I’ve done.’

‘I am not sulking! Look! Here we are, walking along together, everything’s absolutely fine! I just didn’t want to sit there any more, we could . . . we could . . .’

He spread his arms wide.

She stopped. ‘Yes, what shall we do? What do
you
want to do?’

His brain stopped working. ‘We could . . . Shall we go to Tivoli?’

Seja set off, but he didn’t move. He gazed after her as she stomped off, heading back down towards Strøget against the flow of the crowds. Part of him wanted to see her disappear into the crowd. He wanted these pointless discussions to go away, along with the suffocating feeling that was overwhelming him.