Now there’s been a postponement. When Harald tells his secretary he will not be in that afternoon everyone in the company knows this must be the day of visiting hours at the prison. If his absence has to be remarked among his peers—apologies from absentees are read out in the routine formalities of a board meeting—there are solemn faces as if a moment’s silence is being respectfully observed; secretaries at their computers and clerks at their files exchange among themselves the country’s lingua franca of sympathy: Shame. The utterance has exactly the opposite of its dictionary meaning, nobody knows how this came about. And in this particular circumstance the reversal is curiously marked: no-one is casting opprobrium at Mr Lindgard for his son’s criminal act; what they are expressing is a mixture of pity and a whine against the injustice that such things should be allowed to happen to a nice high-up gentleman like him. Harald arid Claudia had close friends, before. Although these are eager to be of use, of support, they cannot be.
