My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time (20 page)

And then from the back store room came the sound of a nose being blown, & with a muffled cry of, ‘Welcome, & do look around!'
in burst Else, dressed in festive scarlet & bottle-green, with jingle-bells in her hair – a happy sight indeed at first glance,
until you beheld her face, whose red nose and eyes belied the cheeriness of her apparel, for it was plain to see that she
had just been weeping. And then immediately I understood why, for my beloved friend was bearing a huge wreath of red roses
in the shape of a heart, that bore the legend:

GOODBYE, DEAREST CHARLOTTE.
MUCH-LOVED FRIEND
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN.

And my heart lurched bootwards, at the thought of all the misery that my beloved, faithful Else must have endured these past
six weeks, not knowing what had become of me but clearly believing the worst.

Not recognising me beneath my veil, she immediately took me & my companions for customers &, mustering a cheerful tone, let
fly a scatter of bright seasonal remarks about how freezing the weather had become, & what madness was all this last-minute
gift-buying, & she supposed that sir & madam & the young master had come for a
Jul
bouquet & luckily for us, over there on that shelf to the left of the pompoms …' But then, sensing something out-of-kilter,
she stopped mid-flow & looked us over, puzzled.

‘Excuse me, madam, but I know that dress,' she faltered, taking me in thoroughly now, from neck to hemline. There was a tiny
indignance in her voice. ‘I've seen it worn by someone else, though it was dirtier then. It … fitted her figure exactly
the same.'

‘Yes, Else,' I said, my voice quiet & most gentlesome. ‘You are not mistaken,' & then I raised my veil & smiled wide, wide,
wide. At which she shrieked & stepped back, for as she told me afterwards, she was convinced she had seen a very pretty ghost.
‘Else,' I laughed, too happy for words, ‘do you not recognize your fellow Østerbro Coquette? For it is I! Dry your tears, for I have returned!' At which I removed my glove & touched her hand with mine, &
when she felt its warmth she knew that I was made of real flesh, & then she was mine again.

O, the happiness of us both! O what lotion, salve, pomade & ointment was then applied to our hearts' wounds in that loving
moment! My dear friend whooped out in joy, & hurling my premature wreath to the floor, leaped over the counter in the most
unladylike fashion, revealing her bottle-green lace bloomers, & threw herself into my arms. How we hugged & kissed! ‘We all
thought you was dead!' she cried tearfully, & embraced me more, while Fergus & Josie looked on in happy bewilderment, until
I stopped & introduced them to her, explaining hurriedly that I had accidentally time-travelled to London where I had found
myself a beau, who came from the future. Who now smilingly shook her hand and uttered the only Danish he knew, to wit, ‘
Du er verdens dejligste kvinde og du har mirakuløse bryster,'
and bade Josie do the same, to the uproarious amusement of us both, for they had unwittingly sweet-talked her bazookas. Then
Else commanded that I must explain this nonsense about London to her before she
expostulated
with curiosity – all this in Danish, you can be sure, so that Fergus missed her quick-fired questions about his abilities
as a lover, my enthusiastic & fulsome answers to which would have made him redden with manly pride.

‘Now tell me, have you seen Fru Krak of late?' I asked her, when I had finished outlining the tale of my sudden disappearance,
& that of Fru Schleswig. ‘For I would much like to discover how the shooting incident affected her nerves, which I know to
be most frayed & jumpy at the best of times.'

Else nodded as she listened, then broke into a grin. ‘That explains why she's been looking so shocking awful of late,' she
said. ‘I've spotted her in the bakery several times, pale as a ghost, buying cakes. Judging from how fat she's got, seems
like she's stuffing her face with them for solace. I spoke to her once, after you disappeared. She couldn't wait to get away,
but I says, excuse me, madam, but I must enquire what happened to your cleaning girl. Coz I was desperate, & couldn't find
you nowhere, nor Fru Schleswig neither. I reckoned something fishy had happened down in that basement of hers.'

‘As indeed it had! So what did she say?'

‘First she looked alarmed, but then she got angry.' At which Else pulled herself up tall & haughty & pouted out her mouth grump-wise, & was at once a parody of Fru Krak.'
I know of no
such little cleaning whore!'
spat Else, mimicking the Krakster's fancy-pants accent perfectly.
‘Nor nothing of her repellent mother
either, & if anyone should insinuate otherwise & thus disrespect me, I
shall speak instantly to my lawyer, who will do all in his power to take
away any rights that anyone might presume to have in relation to me,
& claim damages into the bargain.
And then she simply turned on her heel and buggered off. Leaving me in no doubt that she knew something she wasn't letting
on about, & the few times I spotted her after that, she'd cross the street to avoid me. I went to Sergeant Svendsen but he
said that “without a body, or proof of foul play" there was nothing he could do.'

Quickly I relayed this in English to Fergus (thus most impressing Else) & explained to him that Else's account of Fru Krak's
state of mind cheered me greatly. The fact was, the information it contained gave further fuel to the plan of destabilization
& sabotage that (inspired by the discoveries of a certain detective team headed by a cartoon dog) I had already jingled up
back in the Tin City & refined with her estranged husband. All of which I then relayed to Else in hurried and somewhat squozzakin
fashion whilst Fergus & Josie went out to make a circuit of Sortedams Lake, & buy roast chestnuts from the nine-fingered man
with the charcoal-burner, who does a roaring trade at this time of year then spends the next twelvemonth drinking the proceeds.

‘So can you help us?' I finished, when I had told her the full story of my departure for England, & summarized the cunning
plot in which she was to play such an important role. At which she smiled her biggest smile, threw back her head & laughed,
making all the bells in her hair tinkle.

‘For helvede,
Charlotte, you know me: I'd be downright honoured!' she cried. ‘I can't wait to see the look on that woman's face! What a
Christmas present that'll be!'

Three days later, on December 23rd, all was set. Fergus, Josie & Professor Krak left for the home of Franz, whose indulgent
parents, Herr & Fru Poppersen Muhl, were so grateful to see their Little Prince alive that they were willing to go to hallucinatory
lengths to keep him sweet – including bribing the Grand Master of Tivoli Gardens to open a segment of the amusement park in
his honour. Professor Krak, as already agreed with Franz, would be introduced to the Poppersen Muhls as Franz's ‘saviour,
mentor and guardian angel, who was fortunate enough to be able to persuade the lad to return to his loved ones' – for as the
Professor put it, ‘In a situation like ours, we need all the friends in high places we can get' Fergus, meanwhile, was to
be presented as Franz's English teacher, a man who had grown so fond of his young & brilliant pupil in London that he wished
to visit him in Denmark with his daughter, & combine the trip with a little tourism. Then, whilst the happily reunited Poppersen
Muhl family took ‘the English visitors' on a clandestine tour of Tivoli Gardens (a delight I was right sorry to miss, for
I am as nuts about toffee apples & whirligigs as the next girl), Professor Krak, furnished with a lengthy shopping list &
a thick wad of easily come-by cash, & clad in his balaclava, joined the heady queues at the butcher's, the baker's & the grocer's
to secure the ingredients for our Christmas feast. Fru Schleswig's job, meanwhile, was to remain
in situ
& guard the machine – a task which engendered much grumbling on her part, until I lost my temper with her, & shouted that
she was too fat to leave, & if she ever wanted to, she'd best do as we said or shed half a ton of lard forthwith.

And me? I was to be found crouching behind the juniper bush by Fru Krak's front door, awaiting the imminent arrival of yet
another visitor. I shivered in the chill until the church clock tolled eleven, at which cue up Rosenvængets Allé waddled
a tiny, bulbous, hunchbacked old dame dressed in rags who mounted the steps in far more nimble fashion than her decrepit-looking
body suggested it could, & rang the Krak doorbell.

‘Good luck!' I just had time to whisper from my hiding-place before the thick front door – still unoiled – creaked open and
the now decidedly hefty Fru Krak, her entire visage smeared with pungent cosmetic cream, came face to face with an ancient,
bent, spectacled & heavily veiled fortune-teller who had padded herself so effectively with cushions that should Fru Krak
lash out & push her down the steps (not unthinkable, given
my
former mistress's propensity for violence), she would come to no harm, for she would roll like a
bolle
-bun.

‘Who are you, & what do you want?' snapped Fru Krak, already preparing to slam the door in her visitor's face.

But the fortune-teller played a cool game. ‘The question is, O my Fine Lady – now let me guess, you are an Aquarian if ever
I saw one, or my name is not Tante Clairvoyante! – the question is, what do YOU want? For I see that you have problems of
a domestic nature on the horizon, madam. Which need your urgent attention, if you are to have the wedding that I also see
written though in a much more shaky form, I fear to tell you – in the book of your future.'

This was enough to scare Fru Krak, & although I thought for a moment that she would simply retreat into the ostrich position,
it seemed that Else had addressed directly her deepest fears, & got her hooked.

‘Domestic problems?' faltered Fru Krak. ‘Can you elaborate?'

‘Concerning a dark place what is part of your home. Now let me see,' said Tante Clairvoyante, squinting up into the squally-looking
sky as though the answer lay amidst the gathering clouds, ‘could it be a cellar, or a basement?' At this, Fru Krak gasped
and clutched the door: I saw her knuckles turn a gooky white. ‘Something tells me you have a terrible secret hidden there,'
whispered Tante Clairvoyante with deep concern. ‘And that you won't be free of it till you take action,' she continued, rootling
in her huge tapestry bag for a crystal ball, which she dusted off with her glove and pretended to squiz into with increasing
alarm.

‘I see nothing,' said Fru Krak, leaning over to look. But I could picture her
créme
-slathered face retreating to an even paler shade.

‘Come closer, then, madam,' replied the fortune-teller. ‘And tell me what you spy through the mystic fog.'

Fru Krak bent forward, peered deeply in, & jumped back with just the kind of sharp & squeaky cry I imagine a hyena making
when a half-chewed carcass unexpectedly fights back. For there, deep within the ball, & so vividly & horribly disganglified
by its contours as to seem like a three-dimensional
tableau vivant,
was a digitally taken & creepily distorted photograph of the Little Cleaning Girl Charlotte, dressed in black, lying in a
coffin, stone dead.

‘Cross my palm with silver, & I'll give you some advice,' whispered Else in her most menacing croak. Fru Krak's flabby jawline
slumped further into the wattles of her pallid neck. ‘If someone you've wronged comes looking for vengeance,' Else warned
as she stepped over the threshold, for Fru Krak had by now reluctantly gestured her to enter, ‘you'll have to appease her,
coz otherwise you'll be disgraced for ever. Shunned by the fine society of Copenhagen, you'll be. Posh ladies'll turn their
backs on you at the haberdasher's. And forget about being invited to any more of them balls.'

And the door closed behind them.

Half an hour later Else emerged a richer woman, and we embraced. The scene was set.

Later that day the Pastor came to call, wearing a frock coat & bearing a heavy Bible: Fru Krak led him into the parlour where
they sat for an hour. From the basement below, we listened as best we could with the aid of a surveillance device called a
baby alarm obtained by the Professor in London, which enabled one to eavesdrop through walls & floors, but all we could distinguish
were verses from Leviticus. Fru Krak was not ready to confess her secret, & if the Pastor suspected his bride-to-be was hiding
something, he showed it not.

But after he had left, we had ample evidence of her state of mind. That night, courtesy of the three yellow amphetamine pills
the salesman of ladies' restorative products had bade her take as a ‘kick-starter' with a swig of cod-liver oil on the twenty-third
day of every month, Fru Krak slept not one millisecond. All night we heard her in the house above us, kicking up an almighty
shindig of self-pity: a veritable hullabaloo-fest of weeping, screaming, ranting aloud, pacing of floors, & what seemed like
furniture removal, for every now & then we would hear a thundacion or a crash.

‘She is packing her trunks,' assessed Professor Krak, rubbing his hands in glee. ‘And preparing to leave. Mark my words, dear
friends, the thing is working! How long have I waited for this!'

Then, at five o'clock, just as the first cock was crowing, the second phase of the Østerbro master-plan swings into action.
This is my moment, dear reader, & I will admit to you in confidence that I feel a little nervous, if you can forgive me a
moment of weakness – for to be honest, much as I find her ridiculous, Fru Krak always gives me something of the creeps. Now,
however, is the time to turn the tables, so behold me there, my face ghostified with white powder, and clad in a wispy gauze
apparel purchased in a horror shop near Covent Garden, as I slither out of the ventilation shaft, don roller-blades beneath
my long dress, & glide in wobblesome fashion to the front of the house, where I carefully mount the steps in the sideways
motion my footwear demands, make some final adjustments to my attire, & then bang thrice, slowly and threateningly, on the
heavy wooden door.