‘He knows everything, Mr. Craig. It is his business. He is making an investigation now for somebody connected with the Nobel Prize-Dr. Krantz-a bad man, Daranyi says, because he is always liking the Germans-and now he wants to know all about you and the other winners, and Daranyi helps and finds out everything-’

‘I don’t give a damn about Krantz,’ said Craig. ‘I want to know about this thing you heard about me.’

‘It is because Daranyi is like my father-always protecting me-and that is why he told me about you and about Emily Stratman.’

‘You even know her name.’

‘Emily Stratman. Her uncle is Professor Stratman. She is born in Germany. She is now American. She is beautiful and strange and not married. You met her at the Royal Palace. You took her on a tour of the city. You were with her at Mr. Hammarlund’s dinner. And Daranyi says maybe you love her like you did your wife.’

‘And that’s why you won’t marry me?’

‘No, Mr. Craig, I assure you. It is for all the reasons I give. You do love her, do you not?’

He hesitated. Her face was so open, her honesty and strength so plain, that he could not lie to her. ‘Yes, I do, Lilly. And do you hate me?’

‘Hate you? How foolish you are, Mr. Craig. Of course not. It is as always with us.’

‘Well, she hates me-because of you.’

‘I cannot believe it.’

‘All women are not like you, Lilly, and all are not Swedish.’

And then he recited to her, as briefly as possible, sobering all the while, some of what had transpired with Emily several hours ago in her bedroom. Lilly listened enrapt, sometimes clucking with incredulity. When he had finished, he awaited her comment.

‘She is most strange indeed,’ said Lilly.

‘All women are different, different problems and neuroses, different heredity and upbringing, and many women are like Emily.’

‘No, I do not like it. I think she loves you and commits suicide. It is terrible wrong.’

Craig shrugged. ‘There’s nothing to be done.’

‘I am sad for her,’ said Lilly. ‘But you are the main one I worry about. It is no good for you alone. You can be so much and enjoy so much, but you cannot because you are alone. Emily Stratman pushes you away. Now, Lilly Hedqvist will not marry you. I am worried about you, Mr. Craig. Maybe I must marry you.’

‘Will you?’

‘No. Still, I worry in my heart. What will happen to you when you leave us?’

‘What will happen?’ Craig snorted. ‘I think we both know. It was fated. I’ll go back to Miller’s Dam and answer fan mail when I’m not drunk-that’ll be the writing I’ll do-and I’ll wind up with the inevitable-marrying my warden, Lee-the omnipresent Lee.’

‘Lee?’

‘Leah Decker, my sister-in-law.’

‘The awful one we hid from on the ferry to Malmö? Oh, no, Mr. Craig, you must not-’

‘There are worse things. At least, all my debts will be paid.’

Lilly stood up. ‘Do not make deep decisions on an empty stomach. I will cook your eggs and heat coffee. After that, we will see how you feel.’

‘How do you feel?’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘Like my bed is too big for one person alone. And I want to remember the fun-because I do not think you will be here again, Mr. Craig, and I want to remember.’

11

FOR important business occasions, Nicholas Daranyi always wore the single-breasted, metallic-grey suit, of best English fabric, made for him via mail order by a Chinese tailor in Hong Kong. It was a suit which, had it been fashioned in London for one like the Duke of Windsor, might have cost between seventy and eighty pounds. By sending halfway around the world, and trusting the post, Daranyi had obtained the suit for twelve pounds, plus duty, plus the expense of a minor alteration across the shoulders.

Tonight, standing outside Carl Adolf Krantz’s apartment door on the fourth floor of the fashionable orange building with white balconies and white flower boxes, located on the Norr Mälarstrand, Daranyi wore his Hong Kong suit. He had groomed himself carefully for the occasion, applying his favourite imported oil to his sparse, flat hair, and talcum and cologne to his smooth jowls. The suit draped beautifully, except for the right jacket pocket which held his folded sheaf of memoranda. He had taken care to look prosperous because, after tonight, he intended to be prosperous. Tonight, he reassured himself, would be his night of liberation from want.

Krantz had required the information by the evening of December the ninth, and now it was seven o’clock of the evening of December the ninth, and Daranyi had kept his pledge and met his deadline.

The door opened, and Krantz’s maid, Ilsa, a broad peasant woman from Westphalia, a woman of indeterminate years but many, whose face had the appearance of a dried prune and whose upper lip bore down, bowed respectfully from the waist and admitted Daranyi to the vestibule. Daranyi gave her his hat, and the overcoat that he had been carrying on his arm since leaving the elevator, and then followed her through the parlour, with its embroidered lace doilies on every dark heavy mahogany piece, to the door of Krantz’s study.

Ilsa pushed in this door, and stood back until Daranyi had entered, and then she closed it, and Daranyi was alone in the study. Only once before, during his long but erratic relationship with Krantz, had Daranyi ever been inside this study. He recalled that against one wall there had been a sixteenth-century German oak cupboard with ornate locks and hinges of iron that had once belonged to Krantz’s father, and that over the oak cupboard had been a perfect square of framed photographs of Pope Pius XI, Fritz Thyssen, Franz von Papen, Paul von Hindenburg, Dr. Max Planck, and Hermann Göring, all autographed to Krantz. As if to prove his memory, Daranyi glanced at the right wall and was pleased to see the oak cupboard and the square of photographs above it.

He heard a rustling movement to his left, and realized that he was not alone, after all. Carl Adolf Krantz, more dwarfed than ever by his furniture, had turned from the lace curtains and potted palms before the glass doors of the balcony, and, hands clasped behind him, had spoken.

‘I see you are on time, Daranyi.’

‘As I promised you, Dr. Krantz.’ Daranyi hastily went to his patron and took the perfunctory handshake. He observed that Krantz’s mouth, wet between the moustache and goatee, was nervous, and this reinforced Daranyi’s deduction that whatever he had obtained for the physicist was valuable and worth what he would eventually demand.

‘I was looking out on the water,’ said Krantz. ‘It is pleasant at this hour.’

Daranyi joined him, peering across the balcony at the Mälaren. The lights and silhouette of a freighter, going sluggishly towards the Baltic, could be seen, and then the reflection of a white ferryboat.

‘You are fortunate to own an apartment with such a view,’ said Daranyi.

‘Yes,’ said Krantz, but he did not seem happy. Suddenly, with effort, he brought himself away from the window. ‘Well, we must not waste our precious time with aesthetics. You said on the telephone that you have the dossier on each of our subjects?’

‘I have.’

‘But did not have time to typewrite them for me?’

‘That is correct, Dr. Krantz. With so much research to do and so little time-’

‘Never mind,’ said Krantz. ‘I am prepared to register on my pad what you have to say. You will sit there.’

He gestured to a squat leather chair that faced the great circumference of black coffee table. Daranyi sat down and admired the thick and lush green fern planted in a long iron antique basin, that dominated the far end of the table and all but obscured Krantz when he took the chair behind it.

‘I trust you do not require alcoholic beverage before dinner,’ said Krantz. ‘I prefer you to keep a clear head. Ilsa has left a pot of tea.’