by Jens Lapidus
Magnus raised his glass as though to give a toast, but none appeared. Instead, he continued to talk. Emelie knew all too well what this was about—buttering up their clients. When the chief counsels at Sweden’s biggest companies needed to bring in outside legal services, Leijon wanted to be the first name to pop into their heads. And what could be a better connection than the chief counsel in question being invited to the party of the year? Still, it was crazy that they had decided to hold it on Midsummer’s Eve.
Magnus continued to hold his glass high, keeping them all on tenterhooks. “That’s why I’m so happy to be able to open our new top floor and roof terrace with you today,” he said. “We don’t just want Leijon to be the number one legal firm in Scandinavia, we want you to be able to feel that with every inch of your being, too.”
On top of the world. The streets down below were empty, as though a deadly plague had struck the city. Midsummer’s Eve: the most desolate day of the year.
* * *
—
They were served lunch outside, on the terrace. Leijon had even raised a modern interpretation of a Midsummer pole out there, made completely of aluminium. Emelie ended up between Anders Henriksson and a guy who had left the firm before she even started there, now a corporate lawyer with ExActor, an IT firm that tracked online traffic. “I’ve got shares in the company, so whenever I leave, I’ve calculated that I’ll become Sweden’s one hundred and twenty-third richest person,” he said, raising his glass to toast with Emelie. Emelie wondered why he hadn’t left yet, despite the fact that the guy had clearly been at his little company for more than eight years.
Jossan was diagonally opposite her, for which she was eternally grateful. When Anders Henriksson started talking about the wild boar hunting season which was about to begin, she launched into a monologue about how she had really wanted all of the food at the party to be vegetarian. “Mathias Dahlgren’s new place, Rutabaga, is completely veggie, so that tells you what’s in right now.” Emelie didn’t know whether she was joking or not, but she loved that Jossan could always bring her to the verge of giggles. But not today.
She couldn’t understand how her friend could dare be so cocky. Though maybe she had been given good news. Josephine had been at the firm for more than seven years now, and everyone knew what the system was like at Leijon. It wasn’t written anywhere in the promotional materials, on their home page, or in the brochures they handed out to the top students at universities, but the principle they abided by was informally known as up or out. If you didn’t move up the pay scale, if the partners didn’t acknowledge that you were still on the right track, you were expected to start looking for another job. You wouldn’t be handed your notice or given the boot; it was more elegant than that. Job ads for corporate firms or positions with the larger state authorities would just start to be forwarded to your in-box, with no comments attached. But Jossan hadn’t mentioned anything about any good news or suggested that it might even be in the works. Her friend had always analyzed, tried to predict what would be said, and worried for weeks ahead of development meetings.
The herring and potatoes they were served as the first course were sublime, and the slow-cooked prime calf ribs for the main were fantastic. Emelie didn’t say much; she mostly smiled and tried to make herself uninteresting.
Anders Henriksson got up and made a speech in honor of the firm, giving an account of Leijon’s history. “When this firm began forty years ago, Swedish lawyers could barely spell the word transaction. Today, we have alumni who teach at both Columbia and Cambridge, in legal English.”
People clapped. When no one was looking, Emelie swapped the glass of schnapps that had arrived after Henriksson’s speech for Jossan’s empty one.
Lunch was coming to an end. Dessert consisted of strawberries and ice cream.
* * *
—
The terrace was almost empty now, with many of the guests having Midsummer plans with family and friends to head off to. The catering staff were cleaning up, and Josephine had said good-bye—she was going home to get ready for the evening.
Emelie could see the goodie bags lined up by the stairs down from the terrace—Leijon didn’t cut any corners. She had shown her respect for her former employers, been polite, talked to both Magnus Hassel and Anders Henriksson. She had to go down—now. She watched Hassel from a distance, and when she saw him turn around to say something to a waitress, she moved toward the steps without saying good-bye. She grabbed one of the bags as she passed, and headed down.
She peered into the goodie bag: inside was a book about Leijon, a bottle of wine that was bound to be expensive and delicious, the latest edition of Legal 500, a copy of Forbes magazine, and an invitation to test-drive some new Volvo Cross Country car.
* * *
—
In front of her was the locked door to the firm’s work space, an area that was out-of-bounds to clients. You needed a code to get inside, but Emelie had already managed to get that from Jossan before lunch.
“What do you need it for?” Josephine had asked.
“It’s best if you don’t know.”
Jossan had studied her. “I don’t like what you’re doing. It goes against my principles to be disloyal to the firm. But, since I’m going to be a godmother, I’ll make an exception.”
Emelie glanced around, punched in the code, quickly opened the door, and stepped inside. The hallway was empty.
She had been there countless times before, but not at all over the past year. It was like going home to Jönköping, to her mother and father’s house, to her old school. Everything was so familiar, so comfortable, and yet it felt alien and threatening all the same.
She wondered how she was going to find whatever had been in the Samsonite case. Her heart was racing like she had just finished a workout session. Her stomach felt uncomfortable, even bigger than it already was, like she was at risk of bumping into the artwork on the walls. She knew where she had to begin. The majority of the firm’s cases were electronic now, which meant that the amount of filing they did had dropped. But that didn’t mean a paper-free office—far from it. Many of the employees still preferred to print out draft agreements, summons applications, and so on. Many of them also thought it was more comfortable to have physical documents in due diligence folders than to scroll back and forth on a computer. The older partners in particular preferred working on paper rather than on-screen. In other words, almost all the lawyers working at the firm still had plenty of physical documents and papers in their rooms, but it was only the older members of staff who kept locked document cupboards.
To begin with, Emelie had planned to look in each of the firm’s shared document rooms, or archive rooms, as they were known. That was where up to ten years’ worth of old cases were kept—all in line with the Bar Association’s rules for archiving documents.
The carpet in the hallway was soft and quiet; it was calm in here. Emelie’s back ached; her stomach wasn’t too heavy yet, but it still affected her posture. She opened the fireproof door to the archive room, stepped inside, and turned on the light.
The door swung shut with a thud. The air inside felt dry and old-fashioned: it smelled of paper, and it was silent. She glanced around: shelves from floor to ceiling, all full of cardboard boxes and folders, each marked with the codes the firm used to file their documents. She knew where she wanted to begin—she had seen the codes on the document relating to the company that owned Hallenbro Storgården: the documents Leijon had been involved in producing.
She found the shelf after a moment or two, and spotted the box at the very top. There was a small step stool, and she dragged it over. The stool felt like it was wobbling as she climbed up. Maybe there was something moving in her stomach, too.
She placed the box on a rickety table, folded back the lid, and looked down at the stacks of paper: shareholders’ and board meeting records, ac
counts opened, foundation documents for trusts in Hong Kong, correspondence with various legal firms and management companies. The documents related to around ten different companies, among them Nordic Light Investment Group. She already knew about the link to the estate, but these papers weren’t especially dangerous—they weren’t criminal in any sense. Plus, there had been a thin layer of dust on the top documents: that kind of thing took longer than a few weeks to build up in a closed archive box. She was sure: these couldn’t be the documents that were taken away from the estate.
Suddenly she heard a noise. She paused. Listened. It sounded like it had come from the hallway. She flipped the lid of the box closed, pushed it away, and glanced around. Was there anywhere for her to hide?
It was too late: she heard the door open. She pressed herself against one of the bookcases and hoped no one would come any farther into the room.
But they did. She saw who it was: Magnus Hassel.
“Emelie,” he said in a shrill voice. “I thought you’d gone home?” He didn’t look as surprised as he should have. Not angry, either. He was just waiting for an answer of some kind.
She should have come up with a reason for sneaking around in there. Now she couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
Magnus said: “Who let you in here?”
Emelie shook her head. She had to say something. “I’m here on my own. But Jossan wanted me to fetch something for her.”
It almost looked like Magnus thought she was funny. “Why couldn’t Josephine fetch whatever it was herself?”
“What are you doing in here?” Emelie countered.
“Confidentiality prevents me from telling you that.”
Emelie didn’t understand. Magnus should be agitated, angry. He should be throwing her out, possibly getting help from some of the others if they were still around, or calling security. And yet all he said was: “But what are you doing here?”
For a brief second, she thought about telling him everything. Laying her cards on the table. But at the same time: why had he just come in here, of all places? She tried to remember the person she had seen coming into the office with the Samsonite case on the 7-Eleven surveillance film. Could it have been Magnus?
He moved closer to her. She could smell schnapps on his breath; the shots on the terrace had clearly done their work. “Emelie,” he said, in a darker voice this time. “I just thought that you shouldn’t go without saying good-bye.”
What was he doing? She knew she should feign indifference and leave, but she felt guilty at having forced her way in like this. “I have to go,” she said. “I was just fetching something for Josephine, like I said.”
Magnus was almost leaning over her now. “Yes, you said that, but I still don’t understand. You can’t just come barging in here. You don’t work here anymore.”
“I really have to go,” she said again, turning away from Magnus. She knew she wasn’t done here yet—she still had to find the contents of the suitcase. But with Magnus in the way, it was going to be difficult.
He was standing very close to her. A faint, possibly uncertain smile was playing on his lips. “Things got a bit weird when we met in the restaurant last time, I agree with you there. I’ve been wanting to apologize, but I didn’t really know what to say. Maybe we can just start over from where we left off last time.”
Emelie knew she should punch him in the face and run out of the room, but with the little one inside her, she didn’t know if she would manage it.
The room was warm and cramped, and she noticed that her breathing was quicker than usual. It felt like the walls were about to close in on her.
“It’s fantastic, isn’t it?” said Magnus. “I love working on days like this, when everyone else is so unproductive. Now that everyone’s gone home, I was going to sit down with an old case and get some work done. But then I find you here, which leaves me both confused and happy.”
Emelie glared at him. She was sure of one thing now, at the very least: Magnus Hassel wasn’t all there.
56
Technically, it was too late for breakfast, but she was still standing in front of the fridge searching for something edible. It didn’t take long, because the only option was some drinking yogurt Z had left behind.
She was thinking about the phone conversation she’d had with Nikola a few hours earlier.
“What are you doing?” she had asked. “Why can’t we meet again?”
“I can’t tell you everything, Roksy, even if I want to.”
“Is it your war? Is that what’s stopping you from wanting to see me?”
“There are just some things I have to do if I’m going to be able to live with myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ve got to fix certain things if I’m going to be able to look myself in the eye.”
“But you’ve already tried to do what you can, haven’t you?”
“You don’t know everything. I’ve tried, and kinda ended up with blood on my hands. But it went wrong.”
“You’ll be able to live with yourself no matter what happens. And Chamon isn’t coming back, no matter what you do.”
“Makes no difference,” he said. “All those bastards are whores, even the ones I thought were my heroes. My uncle’s not there anymore. My mom doesn’t get a thing. The guy I thought stood for honor is the one who got Chamon killed. So when everyone else betrays you, you might as well betray them back.”
Roksana had readied herself: she had to say this. “Nikola, I didn’t know Chamon, but I know he wouldn’t have liked you going after innocent people. You think you can get something back by hurting the people who’ve hurt you, but I think you’ll just sink deeper into the shit. Because you know that with everything you do, you’re really just abandoning the person you once were, the one Chamon liked. Do you get what I mean? Just because other people have betrayed you, you don’t have to betray yourself.”
Nikola hadn’t replied. All she heard was a click. He had hung up.
He had left her. Again.
* * *
—
The drinking yogurt was too sweet for Roksana’s tastes, but she drank it anyway. She got dressed and stood in the hallway, trying to get a handle on her thoughts: the anger, the confusion, the fear. The psychos wanted to be paid today.
A sound: her phone beeped. It was an email. Test Result University and Higher Education Council. Click this link for your test result.
2.0.
Oh my G.
Two point oh. She had actually gotten top marks. Herself, on her own. She would get into the psychology course now. She would get an elite education. And yet, what difference did it make—the psychos were going to do whatever it was they were going to do.
Maybe Nikola could help her somehow. She started searching the web on her phone. Nikola, she wrote, and then: Maksumic. There wasn’t much information other than a picture from someone’s Facebook profile, a few pages that seemed to be about his mother and plenty of things about his uncle, who had apparently escaped from prison. She tried a different search. Chamon Hanna. Murder. Revenge. That brought up different pages. Some kind of racist news site wrote about the fighting between Syrian factions in Södertälje. An article from Aftonbladet wrote about the growing violence in the Stockholm area and the increased use of firearms. Above all: flashback threads speculating about who had killed Chamon. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the gossip site’s discussions. They speculated, guessed, thought they were on top of everything. But still: there were claims she couldn’t let go. That the disappearance of another man, Yusuf, was linked to what had happened to Chamon. Her eyes latched on to one post in particular:
We are Yusuf’s family. We promise a reward of 500,000 kronor to anyone who can give us or the police information about who took our beloved partner, son, and friend from us. / Magdalena and family.
Beneath the message was a picture. This is the last photograph taken of Yusuf.
The fire in Nikola’s eyes. She heard his words from their phone call. “I’ve tried, and kinda ended up with blood on my hands. But it went wrong.”
There was a reward waiting for anyone who could give information about what happened to Yusuf. A reward that could pay off the psychos’ demands.
Maybe she should have realized. Nikola was who he was—he wasn’t right for her. He was an egotistical idiot. He was some kind of fascist. And now she was convinced that there was a price on his head, that reward. Mixed messages: give up Nikola—and Dad could live. A guy she barely knew—against Baba.
She couldn’t stop thinking about it.
She had heard Nikola mention names in passing, had met his friend when they were doing security for Our Land Club. She Googled like a madwoman, but she couldn’t find much. The guy she had fallen for and his friends clearly didn’t like being visible on social media. She went back to the page where the reward was mentioned. Read the text over and over again. Studied the photo of Yusuf: the last picture of a missing man. His face seemed relaxed, his eyes half-closed, as though he was about to fall asleep. Roksana could find only one other picture online: an old Instagram photo someone else had uploaded. There was something different about the new picture, but it was nothing to do with his appearance, expression, or hairstyle. It was his accessories: in the newer photo, Yusuf was wearing an enormous gold chain and a cross around his neck. She tried to zoom in. There was something about the chain and the cross. She had seen them before. She zoomed in further.
In that instant, she understood. She reached for the bedside table and picked up the gold chain and cross that Nikola had left behind after their night together. She held it in front of her—it was heavy—and studied the picture of Yusuf again. It was the exact same chain and the exact same cross that Yusuf had been wearing in the last picture ever taken of him.