Page 19 of All I Want for Christmas

The Madsen Collection was housed in a large single-storey white villa and set on the shore of the lake in the Ørstedsparken. Single-storey in height, it boasted two wings that spread from a central oval folly. The gallery sat elegantly in the landscape with large opaque windows in the walls and skylights in the roof. It was partially eclipsed from the street by what were currently bare-fingered trees, ducks sitting on the steps in the weak winter light.

Darcy wheeled her bike along the path – cycling was prohibited in the park – and slotted it into one of the racks along the back. Her fingers were clumsy with cold. The clouds had come in as part of the northern winter’s relentless march, and the grey sky was woolly and slung low like schoolboys’ socks.

According to the timings on the door, the gallery would not open to the public for another twenty minutes, but as Darcy peered in, she saw the place was already buzzing with tour guides and cashiers getting ready for the day ahead.

‘Hi,’ she said, approaching a woman behind a desk who was installing a fresh roll of receipt paper into her till. ‘I’m Darcy Cotterell, here to see Viggo Rask?’

‘Ah yes, he said you would be coming,’ the lady replied, reaching for a laminated barcoded pass on a lanyard and handing it to her. ‘Through the door over there, down the stairs. He’s expecting you.’

‘Thank you.’ Darcy headed for the door in the oppositecorner, pressing her card to the scanner pad and hearing a beep. Immediately beyond, a narrow staircase spiralled down to the basement archives and as she went down, she saw Viggo working at an old wooden desk at the back of the oval-shaped room. Several reading tables were set end to end in the space in front of him and covered with papers and folios. He looked up as her footsteps carried through the silence.

‘Darcy.’ He put down his pen, seeming pleased to see her.

‘Morning, Viggo,’ she smiled. ‘Apologies – I did intend to set my alarm for six in the hopes of joining you here bright and early, but...’ She gave a grimace, knowing he wouldn’t have any interest in hearing about her failed date and pointlessly late night.

‘If it’s any consolation, it’s never bright down here – which makes the early starts a little more bearable.’ He rose and she saw he was wearing a white coat, similar to those worn by the Academy conservators. ‘Welcome to my world,’ he said, holding out his arms.

He gestured to the long, dimly lit spaces that ran either side of where they stood, beneath the length of the two galleries above. In contrast to the cool grey northern light upstairs, down here had a warm, soft-amber glow. Old-fashioned reading lamps were set in the walls every few metres, with a long perpendicular run of antique oak shelving stacks set down the centre of each wing. At the end of every fourth stack was a small reading table with its own lamp and chair. Darcy thought all it needed was a dog, a rug and a fireplace – although it was comfortably warm down there; the temperature no doubt strictly controlled – and she would never have cause to leave. The smell of old papers and old books was her favourite scent, but she could glean wood polish and coffee too, and...apple pie?

‘I call this my oval office.’

‘It’s heavenly down here,’ she smiled.

‘Some find it a little claustrophobic.’

‘Not me. It’s perfect.’

He smiled too, looking pleased by her response; they were birds of a feather, clearly. ‘I’ve just boiled the kettle. Would you like a cup of coffee?’

‘Thank you.’

She watched as he turned to a small table set beside a sink, copper pipes exposed against the old brick wall. He heaped some instant – but organic – coffee onto a spoon and poured the boiled water into two large mugs, one with a chip in the rim. He handed her the unchipped one. ‘Come. I’ll give you the tour.’

They headed into what he called the east wing first. ‘As you can probably tell, the temperature is climate controlled at seventy degrees for humidity stability purposes. This side houses all Madsen Collection artists with surnames from A to K – so, Anna Ancher all the way through to P. S. Krøyer. You’ll see there’s a reference volume on this desk here –’ he pointed to a tall red leather book – ‘which lists the artists alphabetically, and then chronological search references in the stacks. Obviously, some have more material than others. Krøyer, for instance, has his own stack entirely, whereas Carl Bille has only a single box file.’

‘Ah, so you don’t only hold Johan Trier?’

‘Not at all. The Foundation was begun with the intention of becoming the permanent home of Trier’s work – as far as possible, when some pieces, of course, remain in private collections or public institutions – but our remit has expanded over the years to include his contemporaries as well. We specialize in Danish artists from 1920 onwards.’

‘Hm,’ Darcy mused, biting her lip thoughtfully. ‘So then you may not have the material I need. I specifically want to look at Trier’s source material pre-1922. I’m hoping the search period will be 1920–22, but it could end up being before that.’

‘Not to worry on that score. Trier is our exception. You probably know our founders, the Madsen family, were his patrons?’

‘Yes.’

‘So we hold more comprehensive records on him than any other institution in the world. We cover his whole working life until his death in 1974. If we don’t have it, then it probably doesn’t exist.’

‘Phew. That’s a relief.’

‘Everyone else is a side dish. Trier’s the main event here.’

‘Good to know,’ Darcy nodded, her eyes scanning the space and noticing an absence of something. ‘Um...I’m not seeing any computers anywhere...’

‘There’s only one, at the end there, just around the corner,’ Viggo said, pointing to the furthest stack. She headed towards it. ‘I’m in the process of scanning and putting everything online, but it’s slow going.’

‘Can’t they bring anyone in to help you?’

‘They could,’ Viggo smiled. ‘But since my wife died eight years ago, this place has become my world, and I like having a reason to get up in the mornings. If I were to do a nine to five, with no pressure on me, I think I’d be dead within the month.’

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