THE SOUND ECHOED like a gunshot through the large interior of the church as Editor-in-Chief Mikkelsen tapped on the microphone with his chubby hand. People jumped in their seats and looked up at the altar.
Mikkelsen cleared his throat and in a melancholy voice welcomed the many who had gathered.
“Dear friends, esteemed colleagues, and—most of all—the lovely Clevin family.”
Heloise glanced over at Kaj Clevin’s family, who occupied the four front rows in the Marble Church nearest the large white casket. The casket containing Kaj’s dead body was adorned with an almost flamboyant sympathy spray featuring English roses, baby’s breath, and lilies, and there were bouquets with silk ribbons and elegiac words of farewell all the way down the aisle.
Heloise’s eyes continued to roam the church as Mikkelsen rattled off a string of platitudes about life and death, that great uncharted adventure. The Marble Church was filled with people who had turned out to send old Clevin off on his final journey. Most of the newspaper’s employees were there, as were a handful of aging jet-setters, businesspeople, and the other papers’ food critics.
“Look,” Heloise whispered to Mogens Bøttger. “The Restaurant Kings.”
She pointed with her thumb to the pew four rows behind theirs, where the city’s leading restaurant owners sat side by side wearing dark suits and sufficiently reverent facial expressions.
None of them had ever received a fair review from Clevin, and the more money they had raked into their tills, the more vicious Clevin’s reviews of their establishments had become. And yet, Heloise thought, they had shown up to pay their final respects to the man.
Mogens chuckled. “Believe me,” he whispered. “They’re only here to make sure the bozo is dead.”
Heloise had to press her lips together to suppress a smile.
The funeral service was painfully long. Halfway through, faces throughout the church began to be illuminated by the bluish white glow of cell phones, and by the time the show was finally over and the coffin driven away, people poured out into the rain as if they were part of an emergency evacuation.
“Are you coming, Hollywood?” Mogens asked, nodding at Heloise’s big sunglasses. “My sources say there’s oysters au gratin and hors d’oeuvres on the menu at AOC, so we’d better hurry over there before Mikkelsen vacuums up the whole buffet.”
Heloise stood up, glanced at the exit, and then froze.
Martin was standing just inside the door. His arms hung limply at his sides. His wet hair was plastered to his forehead, and the fabric on the shoulders of his camel hair jacket was drenched from the rain.
He looked pleadingly at Heloise.
“I just need to take care of something first, Bøttger,” she said without taking her eyes off Martin. “You go on ahead.”
Heloise walked up to the altar and waited as the last of the guests left the church.
Martin walked down the length of the church toward her. His face was crumpled and tormented. He stopped a few feet away from her and waited to speak until they had heard the church door close behind the last of the guests.
“I knew you would be here,” he explained. “I had to see you.”
“What do you want?” Heloise asked. Her voice was cool, but not hostile.
Martin looked around a little. Then he looked at her again and his voice began to shake. “I feel awful, Helo.”
“I know.” She nodded.
“What can I do?” he asked. “What can I …”
“There’s nothing more to be done. It’s over.” She smiled sadly. “It’s actually been over since it began, and I should have told you that.” She pushed her sunglasses up onto the top of her head, revealing her injuries.
Martin cringed at the sight.
He took a step closer to her and Heloise instinctively stepped away.
He shook his head in despair. “I can’t stand knowing that you hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“You don’t?”
Heloise shook her head and smiled briefly, in forgiveness.
It was quiet between them for a long time. They had said what was left to say.
“You should go,” Heloise said.
Martin hesitated, trying to put off the unavoidable.
“Martin …” She nodded toward the exit. “You need to go now.”
Heloise lingered in the Marble Church after he had left. She sat down in one of the pews in the front row and leaned her head back. Her eyes slid over the paintings of the apostles on the inside of the dome above her as she inhaled the scents of old wood, disintegrating tapestries, and divinity. The scent of her childhood.
She closed her eyes, allowing the tranquility to fill her, and the experiences of the last week to sink into her soul.
She had spent the previous night at Gerda’s place.
Gerda had confided in her that she had ended her affair with Kareem, her coworker at the barracks. She had discovered that Kareem was somehow involved in the murder of her former patient. Kareem’s cousin had been charged in the case along with another family member, and Gerda didn’t know yet what his role in the case was. Had he shared confidential information with his family that they had then acted on without his knowledge or consent? Or had he been involved in planning the murder?
Gerda didn’t know, but the police were investigating, and she didn’t want anything more to do with it or with him. She also didn’t know what was going to happen between her and Christian—including whether she was going to tell him about the affair.
For her part, Heloise had told her about her pregnancy, miscarriage, and breaking up with Martin.
Gerda had listened, nodded, and cursed Martin. Then with a look of resolve on her face, she had stood up and fetched a document from her desk drawer.
“Here!” she had said and passed it to Heloise. “Christian and I had agreed that we would ask you together, but I just can’t think of a better time to do it than now, so …”
“What is it?”
“It’s a guardianship plan. Christian had our lawyer draw it up several months ago, but he’s hardly been home since, so … well, now I’m asking.”
Heloise had looked puzzled and skimmed the pages. Then she had looked up at Gerda with her eyes wide.
“Christian’s parents are dead, as you know,” Gerda had said. “I only have my mother, for however many years I get to keep her. And neither of us has any siblings. So if we—God forbid—should get hit by a bus, we want you to raise Lulu, to be her official guardian. We want her to live with you.”
“But …” Heloise had shaken her head, speechless. “Didn’t you hear any of what I just told you? I can’t take care of a child, Gerda. I’m … I’m damaged goods.”
“Oh, for crying out loud, you’re not! That’s my whole point. Do you think I would leave my daughter to you if you were so damaged? You’ve taken some punches in life, yes. But‚ contrary to what you think now, that’s not what defines you as a person. You’ve been lying at the bottom of a silent lake for a few years, but you’re on your way back up to the surface again, Heloise. I can feel it. Plus, you’re one of the best people I know, and I can’t imagine anyone better suited to taking care of Lulu if disaster should strike.”
Heloise had remained silent.
“Okay, let me ask in another way,” Gerda had said. “If Christian and I dropped dead and we hadn’t asked you to sign this document, what would you do when Social Services came to take Lulu away?”
“I would fight tooth and nail for her.”
Gerda had given her a smile that said: I rest my case.
“I know that right now you think your life would be easier if you walled yourself off, that everything would be easier if you never truly needed to care about anyone else. But, sweetie …” Gerda had passed Heloise a pen. “You already do care.”
Heloise opened her eyes and smiled at the apostles on the church ceiling. She decided right there on the spot to draw a line in the sand. From now on she would remember all the good things and put the bad ones behind her. Gerda was right: What had happened did not define her. The life ahead of her was still an open book.
Heloise jumped when a text arrived. She pulled her phone out of her leather jacket and read the message. It was from Mogens, who wrote:
What’s taking you so long? You’re missing all the fun. Mikkelsen is already so drunk he’s started hitting on the waitstaff, and his wife looks REALLY pissed. Come NOW, Kaldan!
Heloise smiled and put her phone back in her pocket. She got up and walked over to the custodian’s office at the very back of the church.
She knocked on the door and poked her head into the office.
“Hi, Bobo. Am I interrupting anything?”
The old man looked up from his armchair and smiled.
“Heloise? No, I always have time for you. Is there anything I can help you with?”
“Do you think I could entice you into unlocking the door to the stairs?”
Bobo got up out of his chair with a groan of effort and pulled his ring of keys out of his coat pocket.
“Are you going up the tower?” he asked.
Heloise smiled.
“Yes.”