Over the years there have been a fair number of times – more than I feel comfortable admitting – when I have been afraid that Lucy was going to leave me for good. Leave me in the sense that she wouldn’t want to go on working with me, or sleeping with me. One such occasion was when I told her I’d shot a teenager and then buried his body in the desert. And another one came when I walked into her office to tell her what conclusion I had reached.
‘I know what Rakel was after,’ I said. ‘It’s not about information. She wanted my fucking sperm. Can you believe that? So fucking gross.’
I assumed she was fairly thick-skinned by then, that she wouldn’t react. That sounds almost imbecilic, but it’s what I thought.
The expression on Lucy’s face didn’t change at all. She just sat there at her desk and stared at me as if she’d suddenly realised that I was actually a Martian.
I shifted position on my chair. Lucy has such small visitors’ chairs in her office, meaning that you’re always worried about slipping off them.
‘How, Martin?’
‘What?’ I said.
‘What did she do to get hold of your sperm? Because I assume you don’t go round with samples in your jacket pocket.’
She leaned back and observed me with a look that could have sunk an aircraft carrier. I found that provocative.
‘I don’t see what the problem is,’ I said. ‘You know I slept with her. I . . .’
‘When?’
‘You know that too. The day I met Didrik at the Press Club. And again a few days later.’
‘That was a while ago,’ Lucy said. ‘Do you think she’s had your sperm in the fridge since then?’
‘Er, yes. How the hell should I know? The main point is that she had access to it.’
Had access to it. A deeply unfortunate choice of wording. And Lucy wasn’t slow to pick up on it.
‘So we’re back where we started,’ she said. ‘How the fuck – if you’ll forgive my bluntness – could she have your sperm, Martin?’
‘I don’t understand what you’re going on about,’ I said angrily. ‘When I fuck, I ejaculate. Is that such a sodding surprise?’
‘Not at all. But the fact that you’re so fucking stupid that you don’t wear a condom is!’
Lucy very rarely shouts at me, but this time she did. Without any justification, I felt.
‘Is that really what you think of me?’ I said. ‘Of course I use condoms.’
Lucy looked taken aback at first. Then it looked as if she was about to start laughing. I couldn’t decide which I found worst.
‘Are you fourteen years old or something?’ she said. ‘Please tell me you don’t just dump your condoms on the floor. Because if you do I shall lose all respect for you.’
I was gratified to hear that she still had some respect for me to lose, but apart from that the situation was grim. I paused to think before replying. Asking what I’d done with the condom was like asking me what I had for breakfast on the first Saturday in September in the year I turned ten. There are plenty of places to get rid of a condom. It was a detail I hadn’t given any thought to. I’m happy to admit that I occasionally behave like a pig, but I’m rarely unhygienic. Had I really left the condom somewhere she could pick it up? That didn’t really sound like me.
‘She told me not to flush it away,’ I said slowly. ‘I mean, I know you’re not supposed to anyway, but sometimes it happens. The first time she was too late, I’d already dropped it in the toilet before she told me not to. But the second time . . . She said she’d had one that got stuck in the pipes and caused a blockage. So I had to put it in a little pedal-bin on the floor. I didn’t react to it at the time.’
Lucy was looking at me in a new way. Her eyes were full of sympathy, the way you look at someone with learning difficulties when they do something silly.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ I said, folding my arms over my chest.
‘I’m looking at you the way you deserve,’ Lucy said.
I sighed.
‘This doesn’t feel good,’ I said.
Lucy reached the same conclusion. She looked deflated.
‘If it really is as bad as you think,’ she said slowly, ‘how are you going to get yourself out of this?’
It was a question I’d been asking myself, and it terrified the life out of me. Because I was fucked if they had DNA.
‘Wasn’t Fredrik gay?’ Lucy said.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Whereas you aren’t,’ Lucy said.
‘If the evidence says I had sex with him right before he died, then I did.’
‘But isn’t it possible to tell if sperm has been frozen or chilled? We ought to be able to find someone who knows.’
My chest felt tight.
‘Lucy, if they pull me in with that evidence, I’m finished. Okay?’
I said it quietly, as if to soften the implications of what I was saying.
She picked at one of her cuticles before she replied.
‘I think we’ve reached the end of the road,’ she said. ‘You won’t be able to wriggle out of this one. You need to go to ground, Martin. Get yourself a good lawyer, someone you trust, and then vanish.’
The thought was dizzying. I’m not the sort of person who goes to ground. I’m far too fond of my comforts, far too lazy. Besides, I’m responsible for Belle. That limits my options.
‘I already have a good lawyer I trust,’ I said.
She shook her head.
‘This isn’t my area, and you know that.’
She was right, but still wrong. I had no desire to find someone new to represent me. Besides, I was starting to think it didn’t really matter who I had representing me. DNA has revolutionised our entire legal system. It offers indisputable evidence, far stronger, for instance, than some feeble witness who says she saw a Porsche at a crime scene. Which got me thinking about something that had previously passed me by.
‘They must have found another fake witness,’ I said. ‘To Fredrik’s murder. Because someone said they saw a Porsche run him down.’
‘Christ,’ Lucy said. ‘You have no idea how happy I am right now about that whole thing with the orange.’
I allowed myself a brief smile. But the incident with the orange brought up other thoughts that lowered my mood again.
‘Belle,’ I said.
‘I can look after her.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘Good. Thank you.’
I should have been in tears. I know that, but I couldn’t. Not just then.
‘We’ve still got one trump card,’ I said. ‘The footage from Wolfgang’s security camera.’
‘Exactly,’ Lucy said. ‘I’ll let the police have a copy when I judge the time is right.’
Neither of us felt like saying anything else. We just sat there in our chairs waiting for time to stop or for the sky to fall in.
‘When are you going to leave?’ Lucy said.
As if I already had a plan.
‘In the next few hours, I suppose,’ I said.
‘Where will you go?’
I did have an answer to that question.
‘I’m going to get hold of a car and then pay someone a visit.’
Lucy looked quizzical.
‘Who?’
‘Didrik. In Denmark.’
And with that it was settled. For the first time in my life I was going to run away. From the forces of law and order, and from an enemy with no name. I thought I had a bit of time. A few hours. But in the middle of my conversation with Lucy, the doorbell rang. I didn’t have hours.
Only a matter of seconds.