They sat in silence after that. Simonsen felt exhausted, and the drive home seemed an overwhelming obstacle. He lit another cigarette with the old one. The new one tasted better; the tiredness left him. Pedersen glanced worriedly at his boss, but turned his eyes away when he encountered a defiant look. Simonsen said a little tartly, “You don’t look too good yourself. Are you stressed?”
“No, I just had a hard time sleeping last night. It happens sometimes. But there is one thing I’ve been thinking about, Simon, and of course you should say no if you don’t agree. I’ve been thinking about . . . I mean, I’ll understand completely if you don’t—”
“Remember to walk carefully when it starts snowing?”
“Okay, I was wondering if you would like to play chess with me.”
Simonsen did not answer right away. Conflicting feelings tore at him, but curiosity won out.
“How well do you play?”
“I don’t know. Pretty well, I think. But it doesn’t have to be now, we can wait until you’re back home again. That is, if you go back home again. That is, what I'm saying is that I don’t want to get mixed up in your—”
“Eight o’clock. Incidentally, the Countess won’t be home. And you maintain that you play well?”
“I think I do. I’ll be there at eight o’clock.”
When Arne Pedersen smiled, he looked like an overgrown schoolboy.
A good six hours later Arne Pedersen resembled a little boy, a little boy who slowly but surely was being crushed at chess. The two men sat opposite each other at the dining table in the Countess’s living room. The game went on for a long time, even though the outcome had long been ordained. Simonsen was on the verge of winning, yet thought for an unfeasibly long time over a rather obvious move. Pedersen could not understand why until suddenly it occurred to him that he had failed to mark on the chess clock between them the fact that he had moved. Annoyingly he stopped his own time for consideration and thereby activated his opponent’s. Simonsen moved immediately and did not forget the clock. After another fifteen minutes of slow torture it was over. Pedersen gave up. Simonsen stretched and said, “Shall we play through the game again?”
“What good would it do? I won’t gain anything from that.”
Simonsen shrugged; it was obvious that chess protocol did not unduly concern his new partner. Nonetheless Pedersen had played well; considering that he had never been in a club or read theory, almost frighteningly well. Albeit mixed with amateurish errors, thank God, which had decided the game. “No, of course you won’t,” he said.
“Do you think I played badly?”
“Yes, you did.”
“So you wouldn’t care to play with me again?”
“Sure, now and then we can have a game.”
They collapsed at either end of the Countess’s sofa. Pedersen opened two mineral waters he had fetched, the one with the other, and then in reverse—in a quick pull, without spilling a drop. Simonsen followed the process with interest. He had seen it before and was equally impressed every time.
Both of them were tired. Pedersen actually looked even more worn out than his boss. He would have preferred to leave immediately after the chess match, but did not feel that was polite. They talked casually about this and that until the Countess came home a little later. By contrast to the two men she seemed energetic. She greeted them cheerily and sat on the armrest next to Simonsen. Then she pointed towards their bottles.
“Have you gentlemen ever heard of coasters?”
Both pretended not to have any idea what she meant. She dropped the subject, the damage was already done. Simonsen said, “How did it go?”
“Terrible, complete waste of time. She’s a power-hungry bitch all right, and to top it off I have to fight with her again tomorrow evening.”
Pedersen was not following this so he asked, “Who’s this? And what have you been doing?”
“Waiting for a self-centred social services and cultural director to condescend to talk to me. I’m supposed to have access to some archives in a museum so I can check a small point about Maryann Nygaard’s stay in Greenland. It’s not even particularly interesting, but I’m digging my heels in about it. Even though it has proved so far to be unreasonably difficult to get her permission, not to mention a little help.”
“Why in the world is that?”
“After the municipal mergers there was a lot of trouble about the old museum administration, so my simple request has now gone up to director level, and, ye gods, what a director. Helle Oldermand Hagensen, she and only she is the one who grants access for third parties to the museum’s non-publicly accessible collections. The latter is unfortunately a quote. So I had to wait three solid hours until she was done with some public meeting or other—and that was after she’d cancelled our first meeting.”
“Couldn’t the museum appointment be made by phone?”
“Well, unfortunately not, the director wanted to see who she was dealing with in person.”
“Did you say that this concerned a serious crime?”