The Library of Shadows Page 2

  Outside it was raining. Jon jogged over to his car, a silver-grey Mercedes SL, and tossed his briefcase onto the passenger seat before he jumped in out of the damp. Through the wet windows the world outside seemed to dissolve; figures wearing colourful rain gear melted into one another until they looked like imaginary creatures in a child's drawing. The windscreen wipers switched on when he started the car and the imaginary creatures vanished along with the water, to be replaced by morose Danes fighting their way through the rain or huddled together under awnings.

  Even taking into consideration the weather, the traffic heading for the Nшrrebro district was moving very slowly, and Jon kept glancing at his watch. Arriving late for a court appearance was never a good way to start, no matter how sound a case he might have, and Jon took pride in always being on time. Finally he was able to turn off Еboulevard and head down Griffenfeldsgade towards Stengade, which was where Mehmet lived. His building was part of a concrete structure covered with red brick, and each flat had its own garden or balcony. There was a large courtyard in between the buildings, complete with frowzy grassy areas, weather-beaten climbing frames and benches faded from the sun.

  Mehmet's ground-floor flat made him the owner of a garden that measured six square metres, surrounded by a woven wooden fence a metre and a half high that was algae-green, though it had probably once been white. Visitors to Mehmet's flat always had to use the door facing the Park, as he liked to call his garden, so Jon cut diagonally across the courtyard and through the creaking garden gate. The Park's grass was littered with empty cardboard boxes, milk containers and wooden pallets, which had all served their purpose and were now just waiting for the caretaker to order Mehmet to remove them. A canopy that ran the width of the flat provided shelter from the rain and also covered a storage area for more boxes, barrels and a pallet of dog biscuits in twenty-kilo sacks.

  Jon knocked on the living-room window and didn't have to wait long for Mehmet to appear behind the pane, wearing boxers, a T-shirt and, most important of all, his mobile phone headset. Like a typical Mehmet happening, it said 'Corner Shop' in big type on his T-shirt. He loved to use the most stereotypical prejudices in his small provocations, a sort of hobby of his to carry out pinprick operations against Tabloid Denmark, as he called it. This didn't stem from the bitterness or anger to which some immigrants succumbed, but rather from pure and simple amusement and self-mockery.

  The door to the living room opened, and with a smile Mehmet motioned for Jon to come in as he continued talking into his headset. As far as Jon could tell, the language was Turkish. The room he entered served three purposes for Mehmet: living room, office and storage room. Occasionally it also seemed as if the space were used as a sauna. At any rate, it was always very hot, possibly so that Mehmet could walk around in boxers and T-shirts year-round.

  Mehmet was a 'contest jockey'. That was the label that he used for himself, and it undeniably gave his work a more romantic tone than it actually deserved. With the universal breakthrough of the Internet, many companies had discovered that a good way to entice visitors to their website was to offer a contest or a lottery that enabled participants to win products, money, trips and much more. Electronic versions of scratch cards and casino games also became effective draws. Since most of these contests were not limited by where the player might be in the world, there was access to countless opportunities, with new ones appearing every second.

  Mehmet lived off, in many cases quite literally, taking part in as many contests and games as he could find, regardless of what he might win. He then re-sold the prizes he couldn't use himself, which was why his home looked like a merchant's warehouse with cardboard boxes everywhere, containing cleaning products, breakfast cereals, bags of crisps, toys, sweets, wine, fizzy drinks, coffee, toiletries and a few larger items such as an Atlas freezer, a Zanussi electric cooker, an exercise bicycle, a rowing machine and two 'Smokey Joe' grills. To an outsider it might look like the well-stocked inventory of a receiver of stolen goods, and that was also the reason why he was regularly accused of using his flat for exactly that purpose.

  'What's up, boss?' exclaimed Mehmet, reaching out to shake hands with Jon. He was apparently done with his phone conversation, though it was never possible to know for sure since he rarely took off his headset.

  Jon shook his hand.

  'Well,I'm ready,' he said, nodding at Mehmet's half-dressed state. 'What about you?'

  'Hey, all I have to do is sit there and look innocent,' said Mehmet, holding up his hands.

  'Then you should probably change your T-shirt,' suggested Jon dryly.

  Mehmet nodded. 'I'm on it. In the meantime, take a load off, it'll only take me a nanosecond.'

  Jon's client left the room, and the barrister looked around for a place to sit down. He moved a box filled with tinned goods from a brown leather sofa and sat down with his briefcase on his lap. At one end of the room stood a large dining table that functioned as Mehmet's desk. On the table three flat-screen computer monitors were lined up as if they were headstones. Behind the table stood a desk chair the size of a dentist's chair, and judging by the multiple levers it offered as many possible settings.

  'What about the lawsuit for damages?' called Mehmet from the bedroom.

  'We can't very well sue them before we've won,' Jon shouted in reply.

  Mehmet appeared in the doorway, transformed by a black suit, white shirt and highly polished shoes. He was in the process of tying a grey tie, struggling with the unaccustomed manoeuvres.

  'But it could be a fair amount this time,' Jon went on, pointing at the cut on Mehmet's face.

  Mehmet gave up on the tie and tossed it aside. 'Yeah, they're going to have to cough up plenty of euros,' he said as he touched his eyebrow. 'What's the hourly rate of a punch bag?'

  Jon shrugged in reply.

  At the latest visit the police had shown up with six officers and forced their way into the flat through the front door, not knowing that the hall was filled with cases of tinned tomatoes, Pampers nappies, electric kitchen utensils and wine. Of course they weren't aware that visitors, for that very reason, always entered through the garden door, so they interpreted the mess as an attempt to barricade the entrance and the subsequent arrest was significantly more violent than was necessary. Mehmet ended up with two bruised ribs and a cut over his eyebrow when they flung him to the floor. The situation was not helped when eight of Mehmet's friends from the neighbourhood came storming in and, according to the police, behaved in a threatening manner so that back-up officers had to be called in.

  The next day one of the morning newspapers pronounced the raid a 'successful break-up of a Turkish fence syndicate'. Even though the court ruling later in the day would demonstrate something else entirely, none of them expected an apology or even a retraction in the same paper.

  Mehmet straightened his shirt collar and threw out his arms. 'Okay?'

  'Lovely.' Jon stood up. 'Shall we get going?'

  'Stop,' said Mehmet. 'I can't let you leave without making you a special offer, just between friends.' He went over to a stack of boxes and opened the one on top. 'How about a couple of fantastic books?' he asked. 'I'll give you a good price.'

  Judging by the covers, they were romance novels of the worst kind, so Jon gave him a wan smile and shook his head.

  'Er, no thanks. I don't read much any more.' He tapped his finger against his temple. 'I had an overdose as a child.'

  'Hmm,' grumbled Mehmet. 'I've also got a few detective novels, even a couple of legal mysteries, as far as I recall. Those interest you?' He glanced at Jon, but the barrister wasn't about to change his mind.

  'What about some Tampax?' asked Mehmet. 'For your woman, I mean.' He burst into loud laughter. 'I won a year's supply of Tampax from some women's magazine. First prize was a trip to Tenerife.' He shrugged. 'You can't win them all, but the best part is that when they come over to deliver the prize this afternoon, they're going to take a picture of the lucky winner for the next issue of
the magazine.' He clasped his hands behind his neck and rotated his hips. 'So I'm going to be a model.' He laughed again.

  'Well, at least your annual Tampax budget should be quite low. But thanks anyway. I haven't got a girlfriend at the moment.'

  'I don't understand it,' exclaimed Mehmet. 'With your Latin-lover looks you shouldn't have any problem in that area.'

  Jon shrugged his shoulders. His complexion wasn't as dark as Mehmet's, but it still had a hue unlike that of most Danes, and his hair was jet-black. But since he was only half Italian, he was slightly taller, five foot eleven, and with lighter skin than might be expected; perhaps that was why he had never experienced any sort of racism, especially not from the opposite sex.

  Mehmet snapped his fingers and dashed over to the computer monitors, where he grabbed the mouse in one hand and pressed a couple of keys on the keyboard with the other.

  'But I could get you a woman, boss. There's this contest put on by a Copenhagen nightclub, and you can win a night with… let's see, what was her name?'

  'I'm really not that desperate.'

  'Just say the word. I've fixed the bot on their website.'

  Mehmet was trained as a computer programmer, but like many other second-generation immigrants in Denmark, he hadn't been able to find a job in his field, which was otherwise clamouring for manpower. Even though he was a highly skilled programmer, he had realized that his name played a bigger role than his qualifications, and the best way for him to get ahead was to go into business for himself. Opening a pizzeria was too much of a stereotype even for Mehmet, so he had decided to become a contest jockey, which offered him the necessary freedom as well as the opportunity to make use of his expertise in developing bots. Mehmet's bots were tiny computer programs that could be instructed in filling in the contest forms and applications he found on the Internet. Once he had instructed a bot how to go about things, it would obediently repeat the procedure and pump in the names and addresses from his address file, so increasing his chances of winning. His address file contained his family, friends, acquaintances, neighbours and whoever else he could persuade, including Jon. Consequently, one day Jon received a phone call from an enthusiastic secretary at a big chain toyshop, telling him that he had won a pram with cross-country tyres and a detachable hood.

  As payment for agreeing to be included in Mehmet's address file, everyone was offered some of the goods he couldn't sell, or a significant discount on whatever he happened to have on hand.

  Mehmet nodded towards the door.

  'All right, let's get this over with.'

  The two men left Mehmet's flat and jogged through the rain to Jon's car.

  'What happened to your Peugeot?' asked Jon as they sat in the Mercedes, on their way to court.

  'I finally got rid of it. Unfortunately I had to drop the price to a hundred K, even though it was really worth two hundred.' Mehmet shrugged. 'Not many Danes dare buy a car from a Turk.'

  'But that's still an okay hourly wage, isn't it?'

  'Sure, it's cool. On the other hand, I had to throw out two pallets of cornflakes that had gone bad. But in the big picture, it all works out.'

  'So what do you have to eat?' asked Jon.

  'Hey, I've got plenty. Two weeks ago I won fifty frozen dinners, so now I don't have to eat breakfast food at night.'

  As expected, the courtroom was packed. Some of Mehmet's friends were present, but there were also many of Jon's colleagues and acquaintances from his law-school days. At this stage of the case, everyone was waiting for the final arguments, which affected the last examinations of witnesses. They were routinely carried out, without a great show of enthusiasm from any of the parties involved. Even the judges seemed to be mentally twiddling their thumbs. The decision was going to be made by a panel of five judges – a method Jon didn't much care for. He was better in front of a whole jury, which wasn't biased by previous cases or Jon's own personality.

  The prosecutor, a thin, bald man with a drawling voice, gave quite a sober speech, but by now no one had any doubts about the outcome of the case. There was simply no definitive proof, and any remaining speculations or suspicions about Mehmet's operating as a fence were dubious at best.

  It was utterly silent in the courtroom when Jon was asked to begin his summation. Slowly he got up from his chair and stepped in front of the judges. Many of his colleagues improvised their final arguments, but that didn't suit Jon. His presentation was written down word for word on the pages he held in his hand, and it was very seldom that he diverged from his script.

  Jon started reading but, for the spectators, it didn't sound as if he were reading aloud from a prepared text, and many didn't even notice that he kept on consulting his notes. The illusion was a combination of various techniques he had developed over time. For instance, the text was divided in such a way that he could make use of natural pauses to turn the pages, and the sections were structured so that he could quickly find his place in the text again after having looked away. He also had methods for looking at the papers discreetly, either with a glance or under the cover of other gestures, like a magician.

  The purpose of all this meticulous preparation and constant consulting of the text was that during the speech Jon was able to concentrate on the presentation itself. Even though the content was fixed, he could still change the emphasis, taking his audience into account; he could accentuate certain sections and downplay others, colouring the statements as needed.

  The only time he had ever tried to explain his technique to a colleague, he had compared it to the work of an orchestral conductor. Except that in this case he himself was the instrument, and he could turn the effects up or down as needed to fit the situation, precisely the way a conductor can alter the experience of a piece of music. Jon's colleague had looked at him as if he were crazy, and since then Jon hadn't tried to explain or teach anyone his approach, even though it had never yet failed him.

  The effect wasn't lost this time either. Before long everyone's attention was directed towards him, and the mood could be read in the satisfied expressions on the faces of Mehmet's friends and in the small nods of acknowledgement from Jon's colleagues. Even with his back turned, Jon could sense their support, as if it were a home game. The judges leaned forward in their chairs, their bored expressions were gone, and their eyes attentively followed Jon's performance. The prosecutor, on the other hand, sank lower and lower in his chair, uncertainly plucking at the papers on the table in front of him. He emanated defeat, and Jon was audacious enough to lend the police officers' report of the case a sarcastic tone that provoked a good deal of amusement in the courtroom.

  It was over. Jon read the last sentence of his speech and stood in silence for a moment before he folded up the pages of his text and returned to his place, accompanied by spontaneous applause from the spectators as the judges called for order.

  His client slapped him on the shoulder. 'Pure Perry Mason,' whispered Mehmet with a smile. Jon replied with a wink but maintained a neutral expression.

  The judges withdrew to deliberate while everyone else in the courtroom dispersed, slowly and reluctantly like a group of school kids after an outing. The prosecutor approached his opponent and shook hands, giving Jon a smile of acknowledgement. As Mehmet joined his friends, who loudly greeted him, Jon gathered his papers into two neat stacks.

  'Congratulations, Campelli,' said a hoarse voice behind him. He turned round and stood face to face with Frank Halbech, one of his law firm's three partners.

  Like Jon he wore a dark suit, a Valentino as far as Jon could tell, but it was his manicured hands that revealed that this man was not encumbered with work; he had people for that. He'd become a partner in the law firm five years ago at the age of forty-five, and judging by his appearance, he now spent his time at hair salons, tanning spas and fitness centres.

  'Open-and-shut case, but good argument,' said Halbech, offering his hand. Jon took it. Halbech leaned forward without releasing Jon's hand. 'He's losing his grip, Steiner
,' he whispered, motioning with his head towards the prosecutor.

  Jon nodded. 'The case should never have gone to court,' he whispered in reply.

  Halbech straightened up, released Jon's hand and took a small step back to give him the once-over. His grey-blue eyes scrutinized Jon, while a little smile formed on his lips.

  'What would you say to a real challenge, Campelli? A case that will put hair on your chest?'

  'Of course,' said Jon.

  Halbech nodded with satisfaction. 'That's what I figured. You seem like a man who dares take up the gauntlet, someone who will come through when it counts.' He formed his fingers into a pistol and aimed them at Jon. 'The Remer case. It's yours.' He broke out in a big smile. 'Drop by my office tomorrow and we'll talk about it.'

  Before Jon had time to react, Halbech turned on his heel and strode towards the exit. Astonished, Jon watched his boss go until a short, stout man wearing a light-grey suit stepped in front of him and blocked his view.

  'Wow, was that Halbech?' asked the man, alternating his gaze between Jon and the disappearing Halbech. The short man was Jon's colleague, Anders Hellstrшm, whose speciality was traffic cases and who had a penchant for Irish pubs and Guinness.

  'None other,' replied Jon distractedly.

  'Incredible. I can't remember when I last saw him inside a courtroom,' said Hellstrшm, sounding impressed. 'What in the world did he want?'

  'I'm not really sure,' said Jon pensively. 'But I've got the Remer case.'

  Hellstrшm gawked at him in disbelief.

  'Remer?' He gave a low whistle. 'Either he wants to gild you, or else he wants to murder you.'

  'Thanks for the support,' said Jon with a crooked smile.

  'Wait until the others hear about this.' Hellstrшm rubbed his hands and glanced around. 'But that was a hell of a good closing argument, Jon,' he added before he turned and set off for the far end of the room where some of their colleagues had gathered.

  Jon needed some fresh air. He felt as if everyone's eyes were directed at him, even though his performance was over. He made his way towards the exit, accompanied by congratulations and slaps on the back. A moment later he was outside on the courtroom steps. It had stopped raining and gaps in the light-grey clouds revealed patches of blue sky. He stuck his hands in his pockets and took a deep breath.