The next day one of the morning newspapers pronounced the raid a 'successful break-up of a Turkish fence syndicate'. Even though the court ruling later in the day would demonstrate something else entirely, none of them expected an apology or even a retraction in the same paper.
Mehmet straightened his shirt collar and threw out his arms. 'Okay?'
'Lovely.' Jon stood up. 'Shall we get going?'
'Stop,' said Mehmet. 'I can't let you leave without making you a special offer, just between friends.' He went over to a stack of boxes and opened the one on top. 'How about a couple of fantastic books?' he asked. 'I'll give you a good price.'
Judging by the covers, they were romance novels of the worst kind, so Jon gave him a wan smile and shook his head.
'Er, no thanks. I don't read much any more.' He tapped his finger against his temple. 'I had an overdose as a child.'
'Hmm,' grumbled Mehmet. 'I've also got a few detective novels, even a couple of legal mysteries, as far as I recall. Those interest you?' He glanced at Jon, but the barrister wasn't about to change his mind.
'What about some Tampax?' asked Mehmet. 'For your woman, I mean.' He burst into loud laughter. 'I won a year's supply of Tampax from some women's magazine. First prize was a trip to Tenerife.' He shrugged. 'You can't win them all, but the best part is that when they come over to deliver the prize this afternoon, they're going to take a picture of the lucky winner for the next issue of the magazine.' He clasped his hands behind his neck and rotated his hips. 'So I'm going to be a model.' He laughed again.
'Well, at least your annual Tampax budget should be quite low. But thanks anyway. I haven't got a girlfriend at the moment.'
'I don't understand it,' exclaimed Mehmet. 'With your Latin-lover looks you shouldn't have any problem in that area.'
Jon shrugged his shoulders. His complexion wasn't as dark as Mehmet's, but it still had a hue unlike that of most Danes, and his hair was jet-black. But since he was only half Italian, he was slightly taller, five foot eleven, and with lighter skin than might be expected; perhaps that was why he had never experienced any sort of racism, especially not from the opposite sex.
Mehmet snapped his fingers and dashed over to the computer monitors, where he grabbed the mouse in one hand and pressed a couple of keys on the keyboard with the other.
'But I could get you a woman, boss. There's this contest put on by a Copenhagen nightclub, and you can win a night with… let's see, what was her name?'
'I'm really not that desperate.'
'Just say the word. I've fixed the bot on their website.'
Mehmet was trained as a computer programmer, but like many other second-generation immigrants in Denmark, he hadn't been able to find a job in his field, which was otherwise clamouring for manpower. Even though he was a highly skilled programmer, he had realized that his name played a bigger role than his qualifications, and the best way for him to get ahead was to go into business for himself. Opening a pizzeria was too much of a stereotype even for Mehmet, so he had decided to become a contest jockey, which offered him the necessary freedom as well as the opportunity to make use of his expertise in developing bots. Mehmet's bots were tiny computer programs that could be instructed in filling in the contest forms and applications he found on the Internet. Once he had instructed a bot how to go about things, it would obediently repeat the procedure and pump in the names and addresses from his address file, so increasing his chances of winning. His address file contained his family, friends, acquaintances, neighbours and whoever else he could persuade, including Jon. Consequently, one day Jon received a phone call from an enthusiastic secretary at a big chain toyshop, telling him that he had won a pram with cross-country tyres and a detachable hood.
As payment for agreeing to be included in Mehmet's address file, everyone was offered some of the goods he couldn't sell, or a significant discount on whatever he happened to have on hand.
Mehmet nodded towards the door.
'All right, let's get this over with.'
The two men left Mehmet's flat and jogged through the rain to Jon's car.
'What happened to your Peugeot?' asked Jon as they sat in the Mercedes, on their way to court.
'I finally got rid of it. Unfortunately I had to drop the price to a hundred K, even though it was really worth two hundred.' Mehmet shrugged. 'Not many Danes dare buy a car from a Turk.'
'But that's still an okay hourly wage, isn't it?'
'Sure, it's cool. On the other hand, I had to throw out two pallets of cornflakes that had gone bad. But in the big picture, it all works out.'
'So what do you have to eat?' asked Jon.
'Hey, I've got plenty. Two weeks ago I won fifty frozen dinners, so now I don't have to eat breakfast food at night.'
As expected, the courtroom was packed. Some of Mehmet's friends were present, but there were also many of Jon's colleagues and acquaintances from his law-school days. At this stage of the case, everyone was waiting for the final arguments, which affected the last examinations of witnesses. They were routinely carried out, without a great show of enthusiasm from any of the parties involved. Even the judges seemed to be mentally twiddling their thumbs. The decision was going to be made by a panel of five judges – a method Jon didn't much care for. He was better in front of a whole jury, which wasn't biased by previous cases or Jon's own personality.
The prosecutor, a thin, bald man with a drawling voice, gave quite a sober speech, but by now no one had any doubts about the outcome of the case. There was simply no definitive proof, and any remaining speculations or suspicions about Mehmet's operating as a fence were dubious at best.
It was utterly silent in the courtroom when Jon was asked to begin his summation. Slowly he got up from his chair and stepped in front of the judges. Many of his colleagues improvised their final arguments, but that didn't suit Jon. His presentation was written down word for word on the pages he held in his hand, and it was very seldom that he diverged from his script.
Jon started reading but, for the spectators, it didn't sound as if he were reading aloud from a prepared text, and many didn't even notice that he kept on consulting his notes. The illusion was a combination of various techniques he had developed over time. For instance, the text was divided in such a way that he could make use of natural pauses to turn the pages, and the sections were structured so that he could quickly find his place in the text again after having looked away. He also had methods for looking at the papers discreetly, either with a glance or under the cover of other gestures, like a magician.
The purpose of all this meticulous preparation and constant consulting of the text was that during the speech Jon was able to concentrate on the presentation itself. Even though the content was fixed, he could still change the emphasis, taking his audience into account; he could accentuate certain sections and downplay others, colouring the statements as needed.
The only time he had ever tried to explain his technique to a colleague, he had compared it to the work of an orchestral conductor. Except that in this case he himself was the instrument, and he could turn the effects up or down as needed to fit the situation, precisely the way a conductor can alter the experience of a piece of music. Jon's colleague had looked at him as if he were crazy, and since then Jon hadn't tried to explain or teach anyone his approach, even though it had never yet failed him.
The effect wasn't lost this time either. Before long everyone's attention was directed towards him, and the mood could be read in the satisfied expressions on the faces of Mehmet's friends and in the small nods of acknowledgement from Jon's colleagues. Even with his back turned, Jon could sense their support, as if it were a home game. The judges leaned forward in their chairs, their bored expressions were gone, and their eyes attentively followed Jon's performance. The prosecutor, on the other hand, sank lower and lower in his chair, uncertainly plucking at the papers on the table in front of him. He emanated defeat, and Jon was audacious enough to lend the police officers' report of the case a sarcastic tone that provoked a good deal of amusement in the courtroom.