For a fleeting moment something happens to him. A light goes on in his face, as if a pinch of humor and humanity flares up behind the lava. The fossilized memory of the pumice stone, of the time when everything was hot and flowing. It's this light that makes me ask the question.

"Who is Tørk Hviid?"

The light goes out, his face becomes expressionless, as if his soul had left his body.

"Is that someone's name?"

I pick up his coat and help him into it. He's a little shorter than me. I brush off a speck of dust from his shoulder. He looks at me.

"My home number is in the book. Think about calling me, Miss Smilla. But from a phone booth, if you wouldn't mind."

"Thanks," I say.

But he's already gone.

The chimes of Our Saviour's Church are ringing. I look at the mechanic. I have my hands behind my back. The room is full of what Ravn brought with him and left behind: candor, bitterness, insinuations, some kind of human warmth. And something else.

"He was lying," I say. "He lied at the end. He knows who Tørk Hviid is."

We look into each other's eyes. Something is wrong.

"I hate lies," I say. "If any lying has to be done, I'll do it myself."

"Then you should have told him that. Instead of coming right out and hugging him."

I can't believe my ears, but I see that I've heard correctly. In his eyes there is the gleam of pure, unadulterated, idiotic jealousy.

"I didn't hug him," I say. "I helped him into his coat. For three reasons. First, because it's a courtesy you ought to show toward a fragile, elderly man. Second, because he presumably risked his position and pension to come here."

"And the third?"

"Third," I say, "because it gave me the chance to steal his wallet."

I put it on the table, under the light, where Isaiah's cigar box once stood, a wallet made of heavy brown leather.

The mechanic stares at me.

"Petty theft," I say. "Considered a minor offense under the law."

I empty its contents onto the table. Credit cards, krone notes. A plastic case with a white card which states, under a black embossed crown, that Ravn has the right to park in the Ministry's parking lots at Slotsholm. A bill from Andersen Brothers tailor shop. To the tune of 8,000 kroner. A small fabric sample of gray wool attached to the bill with a paper clip. "Man's overcoat, Lewis tweed, delivered October 27, 1993." Until now I thought his coats were a mistake. Something he had bought used. Now I see that they're intended to be that way. On the income of an ordinary bureaucrat he spends a fortune for the fragile illusion of an extra foot and a half across his shoulders. For some reason this puts him in a conciliatory light.

There's a pouch for coins. I shake them out. Among them-I find a tooth. The mechanic bends over me. I lean back against him and close my eyes.

"A baby tooth," he says.

In the back there is a bundle of photographs. I lay them out like playing cards in a game of solitaire. On a mahogany buffet there is a samovar. Next to the buffet a shelf full of books. The word "cultivated" is one of those Danish words that I've never been able to regard as anything but a linguistic truncheon to hit people over the head with. But maybe it could be used to describe the woman in the foreground. She has white hair, rimless glasses, a white wool suit. She must be in her mid-sixties. In the other photos she sits surrounded by children. Grandchildren. That explains the baby tooth. She pushes a child on a swing, cuts a cake at a table out in the yard, takes a baby being handed to her by a younger woman who has her jaw but Ravn's gauntness.

These pictures are in color. The next one is black and white. It looks as if it's been overexposed.

"These are Isaiah's footprints in the snow," I say.

"Why does it look like that?"

"Because the police don't know how to photograph snow. If you use a flash or lights at more than a 45° angle everything disappears in the glare. It has to be done with Polaroid filters and lights down at the level of the snow."

The next photo shows a woman on a sidewalk. The woman is me, the sidewalk is in front of Elsa Lübing's building. The picture is blurry, taken from a car window-part of the car door blocked the lens.

They were luckier with the mechanic. His hair seems too short, but otherwise it looks like him. There is both a profile and a full-face photo.

"From the service," he says. "They got out the old pictures from when I was in the service."

The last picture is another color photo; it looks like a vacation shot, with sunshine and green palm trees. "Why t-take pictures of us?"

Ravn doesn't take notes and wouldn't need photographs to prod his memory.

"To show around," I say, "to other people."

I put the papers and the tooth and the coins back. I put everything back. Except the last photo. Palm trees beneath an undoubtedly intolerable sun. Humidity guaranteed close to 100 percent. But the man in the photograph is still wearing a shirt and tie under his lab coat. He looks cool and comfortable. The man is Tørk Hviid.

4

I've chosen a tuxedo jacket with wide lapels of green silk. Black pants that go to just below my knees, green stockings, and small green Daisy Duck shoes, and a little velvet fez over my bald spot.

The problem with a woman wearing a tuxedo is always what to wear over it. I have a thin white Burberry raincoat over my shoulders. But I've also told the mechanic that I want to be driven right inside the building.

We drive along Østerbro Street and then along Strand Drive. He's wearing a tux, too. In a different mood I inight have noticed that it's the largest size you can buy off the rack, and thus five sizes too small, and it also looks like something from the Salvation Army and does more harm than good. But we've gotten too close to each other. Even now, squeezed into his tux, he reminds me of a butterfly on his way out of a black cocoon.

He doesn't look in my direction. He looks in the rearview mirror. His driving is still fluid and relaxed. But his eyes are memorizing the cars behind and in front of us.

We turn down Sund Lane, one of the little side roads off Strand Drive, toward the Sound. At one time the road ended at a garden gate leading out to the beach. Now it ends at a high yellow-brick wall and a white crossing gate with a glass booth. A man in uniform takes our passes and pulls up our names on a screen and opens the gate and lets us drive to the next gate, where a woman in a similar uniform accepts 250 kroner apiece and admits us into a parking lot, where we pay an attendant 75 kroner for him to sneer shamelessly at the Morris, which he now takes care of so that we can walk through a revolving door in a marble faqade, up to a cloakroom where we sacrifice another 50 kroner apiece so that a blonde, who carries herself so that we can look right up her nose, will take our coats.

In front of a mirror that covers an entire wall, I repair a little damage with a lipstick, grateful that I used the bathroom at home. At least I won't have to find out how much it costs to pee.

The mechanic stands next to me, gazing at his own reflection as if it belonged to some stranger. We're in the foyer of Casino Øresund, Denmark's twelfth, newest, and most prestigious casino. A place that I've heard about but never expected to set foot in.

This is where Birgo Lander has summoned us, and now he appears. Dressed in white shoes, white trousers with a light blue stripe down the leg, dark blue blazer, gray turtleneck sweater, silk scarf with little embroidered anchors, and a little, white yachting cap. His eyes are glassy, his walk slightly unsteady, and he's as radiant as the sun. With both hands he carefully straightens my white bow tie.