Page 142 of All I Want for Christmas

‘Remember, they were only learning all this forty years later. Who, by then, could say with any real certainty what other works had been in the studio at the same time?’

‘Wow,’ she murmured. ‘Revenge really is a dish best served cold.’ For the past sixty years, the family that had covered up Lilja’s death had been scrabbling to keep their tracks hidden. They’d spent tens of millions on the hunt for the portrait, only to have to stand on the sidelines as it was finally found and she, of all people, was drafted in.

Had they underestimated her? Darcy remembered Helle’s cold, assessing stare at the National Gallery drinks reception – clearly trying to decide whether Darcy was a threat. She remembered how Max, too, had hung back, holding back his personal inclinations as he realized the role she was about to play in his life. She remembered the stunned look on his face as they had found the necklace and first uttered Lilja’s name. He must have realized that from there it was a game of dominoes...It was why they’d come in so hard, so fast, on the threats of legal action. Desperate bullying in the hopes of a quick surrender.

‘And so now we’re here for the unsealing of Johan Trier’s bequest,’ she said. ‘Is it a letter admitting what he did and where he hid the portrait?’

Viggo shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

She was quiet for a moment. ‘It’s strange, isn’t it, that Trier helped Arne that night?...Don’t you think it’s slightly curious that he chose helping the Saalbachs over his patrons?’

‘Yes. I think it’s very curious. I’ve often wondered about it.’

Darcy looked back at him, the keeper of secrets. For fourgenerations, the Madsens had been bracing for a bomb to go off, the family forced into a waiting game, counting down the years, hours and minutes for this bequest to be unsealed. It was finally happening – and yet Max had invited her to watch?

‘Apologies for the wait,’ the librarian said, drawing her from her thoughts as he came back in with a black folio box and wearing white protection gloves. ‘...So here were are.’

He opened the box and lifted out a brown package, wrapped and sealed with fine steel straps. Beneath it was a small cream envelope, with handwriting in black ink:Bequest of Johan Trier, January 1923. Darcy recognized his sloppy cursive, but this looked especially dashed and urgent.

Darcy watched, her breath held as the librarian opened the letter. She thought he might read it out loud, but after glancing at it, he simply laid it flat on the table.

Viggo and Darcy immediately leaned in to read.

Enclosed here the diary of Johan Trier. I swear on my honour that everything written in these pages is a true and honest account of events as I witnessed and experienced them. Strictly not to be opened till fifty years to the day of my death.

Witnessed?

Viggo and Darcy swapped glances as the librarian clipped off the security straps with wire clippers. Darcy had to remind herself to breathe as he slipped the diary out of the envelope onto his palm: it was burgundy tooled leather, like all the others.

Innocuous. For a bomb.

For several moments everyone just looked at it as it was set down on the table. Johan Trier’s 1922 diary. The one she hadn’t been able to find in the archives.

‘May we...?’ Viggo asked.

‘By all means,’ the librarian shrugged, oblivious to the significance of what he had handled. ‘I’ll be just outside if you require assistance.’

They watched him go in silence.

Viggo touched the cover lightly before thumbing through into January. He began to read aloud: ‘The first day of the year, and already I am made melancholy by the northern light...’

He looked up at Darcy. They were both far too familiar with the artist’s grumblings, and it wasn’t his life they were interested in.

‘Go straight to August,’ Darcy urged.

Carefully, Viggo flicked through the pages to September, then leafed back carefully towards the date Lilja had died – but even at a high-level glance, they could see the artist’s distinctive sloping scrawl had, in these entries, become smaller, denser, more tightly bunched.

Panic.

Trauma.

‘Ready?’ Viggo asked, smoothing the page flat.

Darcy nodded, taking a deep breath, as together they leaned forward and began to read.

Chapter Thirty-One

‘Well, given you only had three days to pull this together, it’s nottooshabby,’ Darcy said as she and Freja looked out at the sea of glamorous guests. The two-storey space was filled with people mingling around small tree-planted islands, subterranean gardens and a blonde ceiling that was speckled like shagreen. The Opera Park was set on a man-made island in the harbour and was an oasis in the city with six parks around it; there wasn’t a right angle to be found anywhere, the 360-degree curved glass walls set beneath a huge overhanging flower-shaped grass roof. Beyond, the lights of the city glittered across the water – so many lives being lived alongside one another, all with different plans, different hopes.

---