“You wanted to talk to me about the meeting at Christiansborg on February 20, 2002. I have it here,” Antvorskov said, typing on the computer keyboard. “Well, look at that: it’s a palindrome. How funny.”
“Say what?”
“The date: 20.02.2002. It’s the same whether you read it backward or forward. I can also see that I was visiting my ex-wife at precisely 8:02. We celebrated with a glass of champagne.” And then he added in English, “Once in a lifetime!” After which he smiled, and that part of the entertainment was over.
“I take it you wanted to know what the meeting with Merete Lynggaard was about?” he went on.
“Yes, that’s right. But first I’d like to hear something about Daniel Hale. What was his role at the meeting?”
“Hmm. It’s funny that you should mention it, but he didn’t actually have a role there. Daniel Hale was one of our most important developers of laboratory techniques. Without his lab and his excellent coworkers, a great number of our projects would have just hobbled along.”
“So he didn’t participate in project development?”
“Not the political or financial side of development, no. Only the technical side.”
“Then why was he at the meeting?”
Antvorskov bit his cheek for a moment, a conciliatory habit. “As far as I remember, he phoned and asked to attend. I no longer recall the reason, but apparently he was planning to invest a lot of money in new equipment, and he needed to keep up to date with political developments. He was a very diligent man; that may have been why we worked so well together.”
Carl caught the man’s self-admiration. Some businessmen made it a virtue to hide their light under a bushel. Bille Antvorskov was of a different breed.
“What was Hale like as a person, in your opinion?”
“As a person?” Antvorskov shook his head. “I have no idea. Reliable and conscientious as a subcontractor. But as a person? I have no idea.”
“So you didn’t have anything to do with him privately?”
This provoked the famous Bille Antvorskov growl that was supposed to pass for laughter. “Privately? I never set eyes on him until the meeting at Christiansborg. Neither he nor I had time for that. And besides, Daniel Hale was never at home. He would fly from Herod to Pilate in an instant. One day in Connecticut, the next day in Aalborg. Back and forth, constantly. I’ve probably scraped together a few free miles myself, but Daniel Hale must have left behind enough to fly a class of schoolkids around the world at least a dozen times.”
“So you’d never met him before that meeting?”
“No, never.”
“But there must have been meetings, discussions, price negotiations. Things like that?”
“You know what? I have staff to handle those things. I knew Daniel Hale by reputation, we had a few phone conversations, and then we were in business. The rest of the collaborative work was handled by Hale’s people and mine.”
“OK. I’d like to talk to someone here at the company who worked with Hale. Is that possible?”
Bille Antvorskov sighed so heavily that the tightly upholstered leather chair he was sitting on creaked. “I don’t know who’s still here. That was five years ago, after all. There’s a lot of turnover in our business. Everyone’s always looking for new challenges.”
“I see.” Was the idiot really admitting that he couldn’t hold on to employees? He couldn’t be. “Could you possibly give me the address of his company?”
Antvorskov frowned. He had staff to handle that.
Even though the buildings were six years old, they looked as if they’d been constructed only a week ago. “InterLab A/S” it said in three-foot-tall letters on the sign in the middle of the landscape of fountains in front of the garage. Apparently the business was doing just fine without its helmsman.
In the reception area Carl’s police badge was scrutinized as if it were something he’d bought in a practical- joke shop, but after a ten-minute wait a secretary arrived to speak with him. He told her that he had questions of a private nature, and with that he was immediately escorted out of the lobby and into a room with leather chairs, birchwood tables, and several glass cabinets full of beverages. Presumably it was here that foreign guests first encountered InterLab’s efficiency. Proof of the laboratory’s high status was everywhere. Awards and certificates from all over the world covered one whole wall, while another two displayed diagrams and photographs of various projects. Only the wall facing the Japanese-inspired driveway leading up to the building had any windows, and the sun was blazing in.
Apparently it was Daniel Hale’s father who founded the firm, but this was long ago, judging by the photos on the wall. Daniel had successfully followed in his father’s footsteps in the short time that he’d been boss, and clearly he’d done so with pleasure. There was also no doubt that he’d been loved and given plenty of incentives in the right direction. A single photo showed father and son standing close together, smiling happily. The father wore a jacket and waistcoat, symbolizing the old days that were on their way out. The son had not yet come of age, which was obvious from his smooth cheeks and big smile. But he was ready to make his mark.
Carl heard footsteps approaching.
“What was it you wanted to know, sir?” said a plump woman wearing flats.
The woman introduced herself as the public relations manager. The name on her ID badge, which was clipped to her lapel, was “Aino Huurinainen.” Finns had such funny-sounding names.
“I’d like to talk to someone who worked closely with Daniel Hale in the time before he died. Someone who knew him well privately. Someone who knew what his thoughts and dreams were.”
She looked at him as if he’d assaulted her.
“Could you put me in touch with someone like that?”
“I don’t think anyone knew him better than our sales director, Niels Bach Nielsen. But I’m afraid he doesn’t wish to speak with you about Mr. Hale’s personal life.”
“And why not? Does he have something to hide?”
She gave him another look as if he were making a serious attempt to provoke her. “Neither Niels nor Daniel had anything to hide. But Niels has never recovered from Daniel’s death.”
He caught the undertone. “You mean they were a couple?”
“Yes. Niels and Daniel were together through thick and thin, both in private and at work.”
For a moment Carl stared into her pale blue eyes. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she suddenly doubled over with laughter. But that didn’t happen. What she had just said was no joke.
“I didn’t know that,” he said.
“I see,” she replied.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a photograph of Daniel Hale, would you? One that you could spare?”
She stretched out her arm a few inches to the right and grabbed a brochure lying on the glass counter next to half a dozen bottles of Ramlosa mineral water.
“Here,” she said. “There ought to be at least ten of them.”
He didn’t get through to Bille Antvorskov on the phone until he’d had a lengthy discussion with the billionaire’s grumpy secretary.
“I’ve scanned a picture that I’d like to e-mail to you. Have you got a couple of minutes to take a look at it?” he said, after identifying himself.
Antvorskov acquiesced and gave Carl his e-mail address. Carl clicked the mouse and looked at the computer screen as he transferred the file.
It was an excellent picture of Daniel Hale that he’d scanned from the brochure the public relations woman had given him. A slender blond man, quite tall, suntanned and well dressed, as everyone had noticed over in the MPs’ restaurant. There was nothing about his appearance to indicate he was gay. Apparently he had other sexual inclinations. About to come out of the closet as a heterosexual, thought Carl, as he pictured the man, crushed and burned to death on the Kappelev highway.
“OK, the e-mail has arrived,” said Bille Antvorskov on the other end of the line. “I’m opening the attachment now.” There was a pause that seemed to go on for a very long time. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Can you confirm that it’s a photo of Daniel Hale? Was this the man who took part in the meeting at
