The white wooden church stood at the end of the street, with its red roof and rustproof metal panels. Behind it there was a graveyard without statues, just small crosses and stones on a grass lawn. One of them would soon bear the inscription “Linda Stephensen 1961 – 2010”. Louchsky watched from the back of his limousine, where he could not be seen. He knew that the crowd of mourners held him somehow responsible for her death. That made him smile. He leant back against the headrest.
“You were sleeping with her,” he said.
“No!” Rassmussen was startled.
“That wasn’t a question, Jonas.”
“Well, once or twice.”
“More than that, Jonas.”
Silence.
“You can fuck whoever you like but not the banker’s wife. Now the cops are hovering around, they’re going to be asking questions. We didn’t need this!”
He opened the door without waiting for a reply. Rassmussen followed him. Together they walked up the path, quietly approaching Sunleif, who was receiving condolences, with his children beside him, who had rushed back from their American universities. Some people simply nodded, others shook his hand warmly. They were a reticent lot round here. Sunleif thanked them in a hoarse voice, watching the Russian and his lawyer approaching. He thought about the five billion dollars they were demanding.
Louchsky came up to him and gave him a firm handshake. Rassmussen’s hand was sweaty. They went in without saying anything. They were the last. Sunleif closed the church doors and stood for a moment at the back looking at the rows of mourners. He felt as though he was attending his own funeral. The island people, squeezed on benches at the back, had kept their distance. They knew perfectly well that you were more likely to drown in your bathtub than in a Mediterranean port. The ministers avoided his glance, as though they had completely forgotten the dinners at his house, the loans of private jets, and the envelopes full of cash at election time. As for his children, he didn’t recognize them. His son’s suit hung loosely on him and his blonde daughter had a diamond stud in her nose. She had insisted on wearing Chinese costume. Their American schools had removed them from their origins; they had lost all interest in fishing and the sea and seemed to be completely indifferent to all the power they stood to inherit. Eyvin was beside them, silent. He was the same age as them and had known them when they were all children, but they had nothing in common now. Sunleif felt a wave of affection for this young employee whom he tormented. He, at any rate, had not forgotten his origins. His affection was increased by the mad and totally illegal act he had ordered Eyvin to commit the night before: “Get into the system and erase everything.” Eyvin, as he came into the church, had nodded. He had obeyed.
The banker then took his place in the front row. He was going to say a few words after the pastor had spoken. The service began. Sunleif remembered their wedding in this church. It had been a splendid marriage, between the son of the biggest fishing boss on the island and that year’s beauty queen. It had been for better and for worse. And now the worst had happened. He missed Linda, or rather his life with Linda, the beginnings, the rise in their fortune. She spoke English better than him and she had helped him with the early contracts. She even tied his tie. Everything had been so simple then.
And now here she was, stretched out in a flower-decked coffin in the room next door. And while Sunleif was trying to summon up some last words of love, and the pastor spouted impersonal platitudes, as though all lives followed the same course, the dead woman was still talking. Talking too much, far from here, in the office of a French judge and his faithful clerk.
“I live in the middle of nowhere, Doctor, in the Faroe Islands, where they say the gods control the winds. It’s a stormy archipelago, with fog, giant waves and long nights. You’re always better indoors than out there, and you never ask yourself whether or not you’re happy. You just hang on and hope not to get blown away.
“You have no idea how thrilled I was when Sun bought the Falcon! He bought it just like that, for ten million dollars, for me. ‘Linda, you must feel free,’ he said. He gave me Magnus and Alf too, handsome pilots in Grind Bank uniforms. He said to them that he was entrusting them with his most precious possession, me. I thanked him, huddling in his arms; men love to feel that they’re generous and we’re grateful. I knew perfectly well that he couldn’t have cared less about my happiness. He just had some money to get rid of. That’s what happens when there’s too much, well there’s never too much, it just sometimes overflows and has to be moved out of sight. I’m speaking too freely. I can to you, can’t I? Professional discretion, eh?
“Anyway, that day all I saw was one figure: four thousand miles allowed on the Falcon. I just had to ring Magnus and Alf and I could go whenever I wanted. No more timetables, formalities, going through security, other people with their bad breath. With my Falcon I could do what I liked. Sometimes I used to go to Paris or London for two or three days, just to do some shopping, or to go to a sale or an exhibition. I go as far away as I can. I can’t breathe up there.”
“And here?”
“Here I become somebody else. My skin gets darker, I wear different clothes, I speak another language. I no longer have parents or children – they’re all far away. I tell people anything I like about myself. It’s like having a parallel life.”
“And no husband, or only occasionally.”
“It’s true, I did love Sun. I loved his strength. I used it. But now it just weighs on me, it’s so vulgar. I used to be vulgar too, you know. But I’ve changed, or at least I’m trying to change. Since I’ve had the gallery I’ve met new people and heard new things. Odd what artists talk about.”
Two hours later Linda Stephensen was in her grave and the house was full of people. The servants had prepared a huge buffet, wine was poured: they had followed her usual instructions and colour codes. But the guests didn’t linger. They drank one glass and looked at the paintings without for once feeling obliged to exclaim about them. The most beautiful thing here anyway was the view of the sea and the hundreds of inlets through the windows.
The Prime Minister had made a formal appearance, and the Finance Minister was still there, in the office. Voices were raised.
“I’m sorry Sunleif, but there’s never going to be a good time. So, one more time. What’s your plan?”
“Don’t worry…”
“Don’t treat me like an idiot. The London regulators have been onto us: your bank is failing. The markets have sensed it, the cost of credit default swaps on your paper has soared, the shares are going to collapse at any minute. We should have looked into your books ages ago. We’ve supported you for much too long.”
“It seems to me that I’ve supported you too.”
“If that’s your only response, we’ll have to remove your banking licence and call in the administrators; there’s going to be quite a racket when they lift the lid on your business.”
“You’ll go down with me.”
“In any case we’ll all go down if you can’t save the bank. The fishermen, the shipbuilders, the pension funds. The whole island will collapse. And the depositors all over the world will be wanting their money back.”
“I need five hundred million.”
“The government hasn’t got that.”
“Just five hundred million to avoid the receivers.”
“Well, find it yourself, Sunleif! Ask your Russian friends. You’ve got fifteen days. After that you lose your licence.”
The door slammed behind him. Those still in the drawing room pretended not to have heard anything. They soon gathered up their coats and followed the Minister. Quietly they walked away from the fine house that they had so envied in the past, with its splendid gateway whose two columns, with their pediment carved with fish, had once seemed like the entrance to Poseidon’s kingdom.