Found Wanting by Robert Goddard Page B

shoulder of land close to the crest of the hill, sheltered by the forest.
    Burgaard beeped his horn as he drove into the cobbled yard. Smoke was climbing from a chimney in one of the buildings, next to which was parked an old Volvo estate. Someone was at home. And Burgaard evidently wished to give them ample warning of their arrival.
    ‘How well do you know Lars?’ asked Eusden.
    ‘As well as he’ll let me,’ Burgaard replied with measured ambiguity. He pulled up behind the Volvo and climbed out.
    The chill of the hilly air hit Eusden as he emerged from the car. It was colder up here than in Århus and the snow had blanketed the world in silence. The farmhouse itself looked to be shut up. The smoking chimney was on one of the barns that formed the rest of the quadrangle. It clearly no longer served as a barn: high dormer windows had been added to its steeply sloping roof; lights, blurred by condensation, glimmered within.
    One of the windows opened as Eusden gazed up at them. A man peered out: grey-haired, balding, ruddy-faced. He shouted something in Danish. Burgaard replied in kind. A shepherding gesture appeared to constitute an invitation to enter. They headed for the door.
    The barn had been converted into a dwelling, disconcertingly modern in design and layout. A lobby opened into a large, well-appointed kitchen. Burgaard led the way straight up the wide stairs ahead of them to Lars Aksden’s studio.
    It covered the length and breadth of the building beneath the exposed thatch. A gigantic, rhythmically ticking radiator warmed the air, bringing out the pungent smells of oil paint and turpentine. Dozens of paintings – Expressionist nudes and vibrantly hued landscapes – were hung or easelled in view. Dozens more were stacked against the walls. There was an area set aside for relaxation, with couches and rugs, and at the far end, beyond a half-drawn curtain, an unmade bed. A voice from Eusden’s past was singing softly on a hi-fi somewhere in the jumble: Françoise Hardy. As music will, it plunged him into a memory: a trip to Paris with Gemma and Marty in the long hot summer of 1976. He saw a shadow of the same memory cross Marty’s face. Then someone pressed the off-switch.
    The floorboards creaked as Lars Aksden moved towards them. He was a big, heavy-footed bear of a man, clad in paint-flecked maroon, with a face like one of his own portraits: deeply scored and passionate. His voice, as he and Burgaard swapped a few more words in Danish, was a fractured growl; his laugh, when it unexpectedly followed, as loud as a roar.
    ‘Karsten, you are a scheming little bastard.’ Lars pinched Burgaard’s cheek as if he were a naughty child. ‘Introduce us.’
    Burgaard did the honours. Handshakes were exchanged, a lingering one in Marty’s case, as Lars murmured his surname and stared thoughtfully at him.
    ‘Where do you come from, Marty?’
    ‘England. The Isle of Wight. We both do.’
    ‘And what’s brought you here?’
    ‘Family history. I’ve always wanted to know how my grandfather came to have a Danish friend: Hakon Nydahl. Richard’s helping me . . . look into it.’
    ‘Well, I tell you: I’ve always wanted to know that too.’
    ‘Did you know Clem?’ asked Eusden.
    ‘I met him twice. He came to see us here when I was a child, with Great-Uncle Hakon. And again, when I was older, on his own. That would have been around . . .’
    ‘Spring of 1960?’ suggested Marty.
    Lars cocked his head and frowned at him. ‘ Ja . Around then.’
    ‘We know he . . . was abroad at that time.’
    ‘But I’m not going to be able to tell you how he met my great-uncle. That was never explained to me. Nor were his visits. My grandparents were expecting him, though. It was all . . . arranged beforehand.’
    ‘Your grandparents? What about your parents?’
    ‘They were dead by then. My mother died giving birth to my sister. My father was killed in an accident on the farm. Hard times, Marty. Did you have