anymore. Their differences stretched like a barren desert between them.
Lise got herself another glass of milk. Then there was Per Toftlund: a pain in the neck but a very attractive one. Handsome in a rugged sort of a way. He wasn’t really her type at all. What she looked for in a man was depth. He was bossy too and a right know-it-all, always harping on about the arrangements for Santanda’s visit: the press conference, safe houses, escape routes, security corridors and the easiest ways in and out of the airport, not to mention angles of elevation and the life stories of the best known snipers and contract killers. He had a fund of horrendous stories about the Iranian security service’s liquidation of political rivals. She had learned that its people were more ruthless and every bit as professional as the hit men of the old KGB. She hadalso discovered that PET kept detailed files on both Danish citizens and foreign nationals. And although she could see that these were bound to be of great help in this particular situation, she was also shocked. The sheer extent of it!
But Per was also fun to be with.
The other day he had treated her to a hotdog, and they had sat on a bench overlooking the Sound, munching companionably. It was as if he already knew that she loved to eat. The weather was still glorious, the air not quite as close. Sweden was hidden by a heat haze, and she had the sudden urge to go off somewhere. It didn’t matter where. All she wanted was to be on the move. To just get into a car and drive south, head for Spain. To drive and drive, for so long that the car wrapped itself around you and you became a part of it, came to smell of it, and your scent rubbed off on it. To climb out and stretch, feast your eyes on the red soil of Spain and decide to drive inland to where the country was vast and deserted.
‘Hey, where did you go?’ Per Toftlund asked. He was wearing a thin windcheater over a short-sleeved, open-necked shirt. She was slowly getting used to the gun at his belt, but it still made her feel a mite uneasy. She had never spent hours in the company of a man who wore a gun as if it was the most natural thing in the world. She knew nothing about his world.
‘Out travelling.’
‘Sounds good. Where to?’
‘Spain,’ she said and took a bite of her hotdog. ‘Umm…this is so disgustingly delicious.’
‘ España sea muy buena ,’ he said.
She carried on chewing. They seemed to be warming to one another. Sitting on a bench, eating hotdogs and talking with your mouth full: that’s the sort of thing you only do when you feel comfortable with someone, she thought.
‘Where did you learn to speak Spanish?’ she asked.
‘In South America. I spent some time hitchhiking around out there after I left the service – I’d made good money there. And at evening classes. And in Spain.’
Toftlund’s jaws were working too.
‘Macho man,’ she said, with no note of disparagement in her voice. ‘I bet you were in the commandos or something daft like that.’
‘Nearly right. I was a frogman.’
‘Ooh, like the Crown Prince. Not bad.’
‘Hm, well I was there first. What about you? And Spain, I mean.’
‘Where I learned to speak Spanish? In Spain. A long, long time ago.’
‘It’s a great country, isn’t it?’
He got up, turned to face her and did a little sashay. He looked a bit silly, and a couple of passers-by stared at him. A big man doing a really quite elegant imitation of a bullfighter, dodging the bull with a flourish of an imaginary red cape. It would have been very effective, if he hadn’t been clutching a half-eaten hotdog in one hand. He let the bull pass to his right and then to his left, crying out in Spanish as he did so: ‘ Andalucia. Estremadura. Euskadi. Madrid. Valencia. Sol y sombra. Toros. Vino. Señoritas. Olé! ’ He would never have made an actor.
She laughed at his clowning and choked on her hotdog. He plonked himself down on the bench and thumped her
Lise got herself another glass of milk. Then there was Per Toftlund: a pain in the neck but a very attractive one. Handsome in a rugged sort of a way. He wasn’t really her type at all. What she looked for in a man was depth. He was bossy too and a right know-it-all, always harping on about the arrangements for Santanda’s visit: the press conference, safe houses, escape routes, security corridors and the easiest ways in and out of the airport, not to mention angles of elevation and the life stories of the best known snipers and contract killers. He had a fund of horrendous stories about the Iranian security service’s liquidation of political rivals. She had learned that its people were more ruthless and every bit as professional as the hit men of the old KGB. She hadalso discovered that PET kept detailed files on both Danish citizens and foreign nationals. And although she could see that these were bound to be of great help in this particular situation, she was also shocked. The sheer extent of it!
But Per was also fun to be with.
The other day he had treated her to a hotdog, and they had sat on a bench overlooking the Sound, munching companionably. It was as if he already knew that she loved to eat. The weather was still glorious, the air not quite as close. Sweden was hidden by a heat haze, and she had the sudden urge to go off somewhere. It didn’t matter where. All she wanted was to be on the move. To just get into a car and drive south, head for Spain. To drive and drive, for so long that the car wrapped itself around you and you became a part of it, came to smell of it, and your scent rubbed off on it. To climb out and stretch, feast your eyes on the red soil of Spain and decide to drive inland to where the country was vast and deserted.
‘Hey, where did you go?’ Per Toftlund asked. He was wearing a thin windcheater over a short-sleeved, open-necked shirt. She was slowly getting used to the gun at his belt, but it still made her feel a mite uneasy. She had never spent hours in the company of a man who wore a gun as if it was the most natural thing in the world. She knew nothing about his world.
‘Out travelling.’
‘Sounds good. Where to?’
‘Spain,’ she said and took a bite of her hotdog. ‘Umm…this is so disgustingly delicious.’
‘ España sea muy buena ,’ he said.
She carried on chewing. They seemed to be warming to one another. Sitting on a bench, eating hotdogs and talking with your mouth full: that’s the sort of thing you only do when you feel comfortable with someone, she thought.
‘Where did you learn to speak Spanish?’ she asked.
‘In South America. I spent some time hitchhiking around out there after I left the service – I’d made good money there. And at evening classes. And in Spain.’
Toftlund’s jaws were working too.
‘Macho man,’ she said, with no note of disparagement in her voice. ‘I bet you were in the commandos or something daft like that.’
‘Nearly right. I was a frogman.’
‘Ooh, like the Crown Prince. Not bad.’
‘Hm, well I was there first. What about you? And Spain, I mean.’
‘Where I learned to speak Spanish? In Spain. A long, long time ago.’
‘It’s a great country, isn’t it?’
He got up, turned to face her and did a little sashay. He looked a bit silly, and a couple of passers-by stared at him. A big man doing a really quite elegant imitation of a bullfighter, dodging the bull with a flourish of an imaginary red cape. It would have been very effective, if he hadn’t been clutching a half-eaten hotdog in one hand. He let the bull pass to his right and then to his left, crying out in Spanish as he did so: ‘ Andalucia. Estremadura. Euskadi. Madrid. Valencia. Sol y sombra. Toros. Vino. Señoritas. Olé! ’ He would never have made an actor.
She laughed at his clowning and choked on her hotdog. He plonked himself down on the bench and thumped her
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