He is thinking about the splash. Something like:
DEFENCE
MINISTER’S
SECRET
LOVE
And then a smaller headline underneath:
WEEKENDS OF PASSION IN SCORCHING SPAIN
Defence Minister Edvard Dahlin has been having a secret love affair with a married woman for more than two years. The 55-year-old father of two…
USES EX-WIFE’S HOUSE FOR SECRET LIAISON
The 55-year-old father of two…
The fifty-five-year-old father of two had tried, as they parted, to make a deal with him.
Kristian, already standing, holding his jacket, sweating, thought about it for a moment.
Then he said, ‘That’s nice to know.’
And smiled. And left. Walked down the path. Said, ‘Thanks, lads,’ to the minister’s security detail — two men in sweat-stained polo shirts and wrap-around sunglasses, sitting on white plastic chairs in the shade of a bulge of bougainvillea next to the gate.
It was an offer of sorts, wasn’t it, that Edvard had made him.
Not a serious one.
Not one worthy of serious consideration.
Edvard was not, to be honest, in much of a position to be making offers.
The 55-year-old father of two says he is ‘heartbroken’ that the mystery married woman…
That’s something to think about. The thing about not naming her. She’ll have to be named at some point. Hence his interest in the photos. She’ll be named within forty-eight hours, he thinks, staring at the motorway, overtaking yet another Dutch mobile home. Once people know she exists, she’ll be found and named within forty-eight hours. Will have to let someone else have the honour. Include some hints in the piece tomorrow. Yeah, mention her age.
The 55-year-old father of two says he is ‘heartbroken’ that the mystery married woman, 40,…
Maybe say something about her husband.
How about
The stunning brunette, 40, is refusing to leave her husband, one of Denmark’s richest men…
That might narrow it down too much. Want someone else to name her asap, that’s all, so we can tackle the thing properly. Use the pictures. He’s sure he’s seen a picture of them together, Edvard and Natasha Ohmsen, and maybe Søren Ohmsen too. Would be perfect, a picture of the three of them, with her looking at Edvard. Where was that picture taken that he saw? At some National Gallery event? Does Ohmsen give money to the gallery? Probably.
Does Ohmsen even know about the affair?
What about we just phone him up and say, ‘Good evening, Mr Ohmsen. Do you know that your wife’s having an affair with the defence minister?’ See what he says.
The woman’s husband, one of Denmark’s richest men, said he was ‘shocked’…
‘Are you shocked, Mr Ohmsen? Are you dismayed?’
The woman’s husband, one of Denmark’s richest men, said he was ‘shocked’ and ‘dismayed’ to hear…
Soothed by the billowing cold of the air con, Kristian refocuses on the bright motorway, on the endless caravan of migrating Teutons in the slow lane.
It’s an advantage, actually, to hold the name back for a day or two — extends the life of the story. It’s a major story, and very timely. The next few days they’re doing the monthly audit. That was what Elin was thinking about this morning, more than anything. Her job, it’s about those numbers. If they’re up, she’s winning. If they’re down, she’s not. It actually is that simple. Nothing else matters, in the end. Everything is fairly simple, in the final analysis, he thinks. Seeing the true simplicity of everything, that was important. That was how someone like him, someone who started out in social housing in Sundbyøster, made their way in this world.
It is six o’clock.
He is not far from Málaga. The first ugly signs of the city are appearing on the hillsides.
The thermometer says 34°.
He thinks of the shitty school he went to in Sundbyøster, patched with new paint where the latest graffiti had been obliterated. Barbed wire on the perimeter fence. The awful smell of the kitchen. Doorless stalls in the toilets.
It just happened, is how it sometimes feels, that he has this life. Deputy editor of the top-selling tabloid in Scandinavia, laying down terms to senior ministers. It was always just one step after another. He discovered, when he was eighteen years old, that he loved working on a newspaper — a local paper, that he had delivered as a kid, took him on for work experience after he left school. That was the first step. They liked that he was keen, energetic, willing to do anything. And he had this instinctive understanding of what it was all about. Not until the last few years has he looked further than just the next step. When they made him deputy editor. Yeah, that was when he first looked down and saw how high he was, how he was nearer the top now, much nearer, than the place where he’d started — that flat. Fourth floor. Lift out of order. Hear every sound the neighbours make. His father still lives there, on his own. He drove that lorry all over Europe, his father, from Portugal to Poland he drove it. That was what he did with his life. Now he hardly ever leaves Sundbyøster. Hardly ever leaves the fucking estate. When was Kristian last there? More than a year ago. In spring, smell of pollen on the estate. And in the flat, cigarette smoke. TV on. Sports newspapers. Sit at the tiny table in the kitchen, talking about FC Copenhagen, what a shit season they’re having. Window open. Smell of pollen. Sound of the Øresundmotorvejen, leaking onto the estate.
Shouts of kids.
There’s this feeling he sometimes has that he’s a long way from home. That nobody’s there for him if it all goes wrong.
—
It is still well over thirty degrees when he returns the car at the airport. The heat still takes him by surprise — it’s like opening an oven — when he emerges from the air conditioning and walks across the soft tarmac to the office to hand back the keys and sign the papers. Then he heads for the terminal, where his flight departs in just over an hour.
Departures is a nightmare. Thousands of people are travelling on this evening in August, thousands of sun-scorched northerners on their way home, to Dublin, Manchester, Hamburg, Helsinki. Holidaymakers. He hates holidays, personally. What are you supposed to do on holiday? He doesn’t understand. He would never go on holiday if it weren’t for the wife and kids. Ten days in Dubai, they did, this spring. And even then he was on his phone so much to people in the office, Laura eventually hid it. His phone. So they had a huge row about that. Where is my fucking phone?
Where’s my fucking phone?
He is in the security queue, untying his shoes, when it starts to whistle and throb. His phone. He answers it. It’s Elin.
‘No way,’ he says, when he hears what she has to tell him. ‘You’re joking.’
He indicates to the people behind him in the queue that they should move ahead.
‘You’re sure?’ he says, shuffling out of their way.
And then, putting his shoes back on, ‘Okay. Yes, phone him, tell him I’ll be there in about an hour. Okay.’
A few minutes later he is at Hertz again. He says, frustrated with how slowly they are dealing with him, ‘It doesn’t have to be the same car. Any car.’
It is a different car, a Seat.
And then the same motorway, towards Córdoba, at over 140 kilometres per hour.
It is nearly eight.
29° says the thermometer.