––––––––
The man was standing still, his hands out of sight in his overcoat pockets, motionless among the steady stream of travellers who filled the station concourse. He was looking towards the table where Jimmy was sitting and Jimmy felt sure the man was watching him. How long had he been there? Jimmy took a slow drink of his Tuborg. If the man was on his own maybe it was nothing, just someone standing, looking, waiting for somebody. But why me, thought Jimmy, why look at me? Then another man arrived and now they were both looking. Jimmy felt his stomach tighten and he stiffened. Should he get up, leave, head for the nearest exit? Then he relaxed. What was the point? They had him spotted and had shown themselves; any chance of getting out of the station building was already gone.
That was the problem with being on the run: you were never actually going anywhere. You moved around and didn’t stop until you thought you were safe. But how could you know you were safe? You couldn’t. You couldn’t know for sure if they were still looking or if they’d stopped because they’d decided you didn’t matter any more. You could never take the risk, all you could do was run. Jimmy took another drink and looked at the two men. Or you could do the other Thing: stop running and wait until they finally came and it was all over.
Now they’d come.
The men exchanged words and began to walk towards him. Jimmy watched them coming. Which ones will it be? But it didn’t really matter, the end result would be the same whichever they were. Then two women walked past the bar. The men smiled and one of the women waved. They met and moved off together and Jimmy, watching them go, realised his mouth was dry and took another drink of his Tuborg.
The bar was a glass affair inside the main concourse of Copenhagen Central Station. He came here because it was convenient, near the shops and the church. The station was always busy, so he could disappear into the crowd. You could come for a drink most days and, if you changed bars, never become a ‘regular’; you could sit and drink and watch the crowds and remain anonymous. He liked the station; a big, florid, Victorian-style building which would have been gloomy except that it had been filled with shops, bars and cafés. They added brightness and colour and stopped it being somewhere just to wait or pass through. They gave it a life of its own. The place seemed to sum up what he had seen of Copenhagen in the months he had been there. Solid and sensible but with plenty of life and style. A happy, well-ordered place for a happy, well-ordered people. A safe place where a tired man could rest.
He took a drink of his beer. The Tuborg had come as a pleasant surprise when he had first tasted it. He knew the name, of course, had seen cans of it in supermarkets at home, but had never been interested in trying it. He felt sure it would be just another gassy lager brewed under license in the UK. When he’d tried it here in Copenhagen he liked it. It was his beer of choice now. He looked at his watch: just gone half past one, time to get back for lunch. He finished the beer, bent down and picked up the carrier bag full of shopping and left the bar.
The main station entrance was a suitably grand affair facing the Tivoli Gardens but Udo’s house was five minutes’ walk away behind the station in the opposite direction, so Jimmy left by a humble rear entrance. He crossed the road, turned left and headed for what was now home. The street was quiet, almost deserted. This was hotel-land – modern, inexpensive hotel-land, where people on package tours and weekend breaks stayed. During the day they were out seeing the sights. It was at night that it lit up and came to life. Jimmy walked on. Beyond the hotels a few girlie bars began to appear and the buildings became older and a little shabby, a sort of grey area made up of big, dark turn-of-the-century apartment blocks with shops, offices and bars at street level. Not totally respectable nor completely sleazy or run-down. A sort of Danish Soho, but on its best behaviour and wearing a Sunday suit.
Holy Redeemer Church with its attached priest’s house was in a side street. It was slotted in between an old office block and a storehouse of some sort. When Jimmy had first seen it, he got the impression that when it was built Catholics in Denmark preferred to keep a low profile. The church matched its two neighbours in style – an ugly, depressing building, certainly not a joyful celebration of the Universal Church.
Jimmy let himself in, went through the house to the kitchen and put away the groceries. Then he went to Udo’s study. He couldn’t hear him talking to anyone so he went in. Udo was doing paperwork at his desk. He was about Jimmy’s age, fifty-something, but where Jimmy was of middle height, thick-set, with a crumpled look, Udo was a big man and looked fit for his age. His short grey hair might have given him a military appearance if he hadn’t been wearing a black shirt and a priest’s Roman collar. Udo looked up from his papers and smiled at Jimmy. He spoke good English but with a strong German accent.
‘Time for lunch already? I lose track of time, though God knows why, I don’t enjoy wading through this stuff.’.
‘I made ham sandwiches before I went out, they’re in the fridge. Do you want me to microwave some soup as well?’
‘Yes.’
‘Which sort do you fancy?’
Udo shrugged. ‘Whatever comes to hand.’ Jimmy turned to go then Udo stopped him. ‘Not mushroom. I don’t like mushroom.’
‘I’ll see what we’ve got. I’ll call you when it’s ready.’
‘Thanks.’
Udo went back to his paperwork and Jimmy went back to the kitchen. He looked in the store cupboard and found they had four tins of mushroom soup and no other kind. Then he heard the phone ring in the study. They lunched late. It was a time of day when people phoned so they ate when everyone else had gone back to work. He went back to the study and waited until Udo’s voice stopped.
‘It has to be mushroom, or I can do beans on toast, if we’ve got any beans.’
‘No, make it the soup, we’ll have to eat it sometime.’ Udo picked something up from his papers and held it out. ‘There’s a letter for you.’
Jimmy didn’t take it.
‘I’ll get it after I’ve sorted lunch.’
‘It’s postmarked Rome.’
‘I see.’
Jimmy took the envelope and went to the living room. He sat down at the table and opened it. There was no address at the head of the unsigned handwritten letter.
I’m afraid I have bad news for you. There have been enquiries made recently concerning your whereabouts. Exactly who was making the enquiries is unclear but from the way they were conducted it seems likely that it was an Intelligence Service. As promised, there is no official record of your time spent in Rome. Everything I have access to was erased. But, as I said to you before, memories cannot be erased so if any of the men you knew when you were here were asked then your presence will have been confirmed. I cannot make enquiries myself as that would certainly arouse suspicion. You should do nothing, you are probably safest where you are. You can put full trust in Fr Mundt. Needless to say if anything further comes to my notice I will endeavour to inform you as soon as possible.
There was no signature but he didn’t need one. He took the letter into the kitchen, found a box of matches and burned it, then crumpled the ashes to dust over the waste bin. He washed his hands and went to the fridge, lifted out the sandwiches, collected a couple of spoons and took them through to the living room. Then he went back and got started on the soup.
So, they haven’t forgotten me, they’re still looking. He wondered which ones it was, but it didn’t really matter, one was as bad as the other. Was he safe here? That didn’t matter either because he had nowhere else to go; he had run out of places to hide. He left the soup and went back to the study and called to Udo, ‘It’s ready. Do you want coffee or beer?’
‘Whatever you’re having.’
Jimmy went back to the kitchen, got two glasses and two bottles of beer and took them to the table.
He thought about the letter – not that there was much to think about. What will happen, will happen, and when it did, it would have to be dealt with as best he could. Just get through one day at a time. He ladled the soup into bowls, took them through and sat down, then poured his beer and waited. Udo came in after a couple of minutes, sat down and poured his beer, said a quiet grace and began his soup. He didn’t refer to the letter. Letters from Rome were none of his business. They ate their lunch in silence. Jimmy was like Udo, he didn’t like mushroom soup either, and the beer was some sort of Pilsner from the supermarket. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t Tuborg. Oh well, sometimes you just had to settle for what you got. Some days it was bad news from Rome, mushroom soup and an indifferent Pilsner. You just had to make the best of it. So Jimmy ate his lunch, drank his beer and made the best of it.