Silver Tears

by Camilla Lackberg

  David swallowed. His face became redder.

  “I…”

  “Shut your mouth,” Faye roared.

  There was a knock on the door and she waved in a dark-haired woman wearing an elegant Chanel dress.

  “Hello, dearest ex-husband,” said Johanna Schiller, pulling out the chair nearest to Faye.

  David’s jaw dropped again.

  He blinked furiously, looking between the two women.

  “She’s trying to trick you, Johanna,” he said. “Don’t believe her lies. She just wants your money. I had an affair, I had a moment of weakness, but it was never more than that for me. Never. It’s you and me, Johanna. I love you.”

  Johanna began to titter.

  “I would never deceive you,” he went on, pointing at Faye. “She came on to me.”

  David suddenly slammed his fist onto the table. His face was transformed with anger. He looked like a furious little boy.

  “Stop it,” said Johanna, shaking her head. “Sign the papers and fuck off. We’ve got a board meeting.”

  David leaned toward her.

  “Are you the new investor?”

  “Yes, you’re broke,” Ylva murmured.

  Johanna nodded cheerfully.

  “Without you and the drama you brought to my life, I’ve got far too much time on my hands. And money. I’m sick of keeping your sinking investments afloat. When Ylva here explained the situation, I said I’d be delighted to invest in Revenge.”

  David turned to Faye. She contemplated him with amusement and folded her arms. He opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it again.

  “Sign the papers and get lost. Now, darling. We’ve got matters to discuss and then we’re going out to celebrate this deal.”

  David grabbed the pen. With his gaze still fixed on Faye, he signed. Then he stood up so violently that the chair almost fell over. He began to back toward the door, his eyes wild.

  “David Schiller,” said a voice behind him.

  David spun around. There were two policemen in the doorway.

  Faye had seen them arrive but hadn’t said anything.

  “Yes?” he answered nervously.

  “We’d like you to come with us.”

  “Why?”

  His body language was defensive.

  “We can discuss that outside.”

  David turned to Faye.

  “What have you done?”

  “Reported you for the crimes you committed against Revenge and against me. Corporate espionage should get you a couple of years’ prison time.”

  The two police officers gripped David’s upper arms and marched him outside. They could hear his loud protests echoing through the open-plan office. Ylva gathered up the papers and put them back in the folder.

  Faye got up and went over to Johanna. She shook her hand.

  “Welcome aboard.”

  “Thanks.”

  Faye took a deep breath. The champagne on ice would have to wait a little longer. She still had one more chauvinist bastard to deal with before she could celebrate.

  Henrik looked up with a big grin when Faye stepped into what had, until recently, been her office. Ylva and Alice followed just behind her, and Alice closed the door.

  “What might three former employees have on their minds? You should be grateful I’m giving you this time—I’ve got an enormous amount to do. We’re in the middle of a major expansion in America and my patience for the complaints of former employees is limited, to say the least. We’re complying with the contracts of employment that were in place to the letter. On the other hand, I must say it’s a delight to see that you’ve apparently acquired a work ethic, Alice. That’s a new side to you.”

  “Shut your face, Henrik,” Alice said cheerfully.

  He frowned.

  “I don’t have all day. Say what you’ve got to say and then get lost. You have no business being here.”

  He leaned back in the chair and linked his hands together behind his head.

  Ylva placed a bundle of papers on his desk. Certain sections were marked with green highlighter.

  “What’s this?”

  Henrik picked up the papers in irritation and began to glance through them.

  “You own Revenge. That’s absolutely clear. But you don’t own the rights to our products,” Faye said. “Here are the papers from the Patent and Registration Office that confirm it. It’s going to be interesting to see what Revenge’s partners in the USA have to say about that. Not to mention your financial partners. Owning a company but not its products means that in practice you don’t own anything of any value whatsoever.”

  She nodded at Alice and Ylva.

  “Together with these two, I’ve already begun to persuade the shareholders to come back to us. And all that stuff your private detective dug up to blackmail the shareholders, including Irene Ahrnell, into selling to you…Well, if you even consider ever using any of that information, we both know that Alice won’t need the services of private detectives to dig up dirt on you…”

  Alice crossed her arms with a smirk and nodded cheerfully.

  “You fucking cunt! You’re just making this up! My lawyers would never miss a key detail like that!”

  Henrik stood up and glowered at Alice, his face bright red.

  “Mmm, but apparently you did,” she said. “Maybe it’s time to change law firms? And I’d counter by calling you a fucking dick, but with that little thing on you it’d probably be more appropriate to call you a ‘micropenis.’ Then again, that doesn’t have quite the same feel to it…”

  “You fucking—”

  Henrik made to lunge for Alice, but Faye stepped forward and fixed her gaze on him. She leaned across the table, pushed the documents toward him, and then spoke in a cool voice: “Without the rights to the products, this company is an empty shell. In other words, it’s a huge financial loss for you. And your investors. So the best decision you can make right now is to sell your shares to me. For the same price you and your decoys bought them at. I hope you understand and appreciate the generosity I’m showing you right now.”

  “Why would I do that? I’ve got strong investors to back me up, I can afford to litigate against you, and I don’t give a fuck about what you’ve managed to find in the small print of some stupid contract. I’m going to fight you until you haven’t got a penny to your name…”

  Henrik hissed and spluttered, making spittle fly, but Faye merely reached forward, calmly took the handkerchief from his jacket pocket, and wiped his face with it.

  “Given that your biggest investor in the acquisition of Revenge—by far—was Sten Stolpe, I don’t think I’d be so sure about that.”

  “Sten is one of my oldest friends and one of my most loyal clients and business partners. I think I can say with certainty he’ll back me up unconditionally.”

  Henrik’s voice was dripping with contempt. Alice had been studying her nails carefully throughout the discussion, but now she said casually: “You should probably check your phone. Something tells me Sten is trying to get hold of you…”

  “What the hell?”

  Henrik picked up his briefcase and pulled his phone out of it. Faye craned her neck to see the display. Then she turned to Ylva and Alice.

  “Oh my, Henrik has apparently got forty-three missed calls and rather a lot of messages from Sten. I wonder what on earth he can want? He seems very eager to get hold of you…”

  Henrik opened one message after another from Sten and the color drained from his face.

  “What the hell have you done, Alice?”

  Alice looked at him with innocent blue eyes.

  “Me? I haven’t done a thing. By coincidence, my phone was stolen yesterday, and I reported it to the police. You’ve got to do these things properly. And I have no idea what so
meone might have found on it and sent to Sten. Of course, it might just happen to be a video of you fucking his underage daughter—and our au pair—but what do I know? Like I said, my phone was stolen yesterday. Did I mention that I reported it to the police?”

  Henrik roared and lunged toward Alice. But Ylva stuck out a foot and he fell headlong to the floor.

  He lay there shouting and waving his arms at them.

  The three women left, but Faye turned around in the doorway.

  “I’d like your signature by tonight confirming the sale of Revenge back to me. The papers are at the bottom of that stack, under the contracts.”

  After they’d closed the door behind them, they could still hear him cursing.

  FJÄLLBACKA—THEN

  Mom had been easily persuaded. It was as if she were in a fog after Sebastian’s death, and Dad took out all of his grief and frustration on her. With each passing month, his madness became even worse. When I pressed down the front door handle after school, I would hold my breath. The first thing I always did was to call out for Mom, and every day I was terrified I wouldn’t get an answer. I heard the cries and saw the black eyes, and, worse, I was forced to witness Mom fading away more and more. She barely ate any longer. I tried to coax her to eat something. I took over the cooking and learned the dishes that Mom loved. Sometimes she would take a couple of bites, but mostly she would just stare hollow-eyed at the plate.

  I knew she was dying before my very eyes. I had always thought that Mom would die when Dad finally went too far in his desire to hurt her. But as the months passed, I realized she would die from a lack of hope. She could see no end. She could see no way out. I had wanted to free her through Sebastian’s death—to save her from being crushed by the weight of our secrets. Instead, I was killing her, slowly but surely.

  Every day, I pictured that time I had found her after she’d taken the sleeping pills. I pictured how I’d stuck my fingers down her throat and forced her to vomit. I had saved her then. But I was killing her now. I had to do something. I had to give her hope. A way out.

  Once I’d made up my mind, I began to plan.

  It hurt so much having to wait, having to be patient, while I saw Mom bloodied and bruised more and more often. But I knew that if I didn’t help her get away for good, she would soon be dead. And I wouldn’t be able to live with that.

  Dad also needed to take his punishment. For what he had done to us, what he had taught Sebastian, the fear that he had forced us to live through.

  There was only one person I knew could help me. Mom’s brother. Dad didn’t like Uncle Egil. Letting any outsider into the house was always a risk for him. A risk he didn’t want to take. So to me, Uncle Egil was just a distant memory. But Mom often talked about him. And I realized that he would do anything for her.

  Mom had his number in a tatty little contacts book hidden at the bottom of her underwear drawer. I didn’t include her in any aspect of the planning. I looked at her glassy stare and I just wanted to wrap my arms around her and hold her tight, but it also told me that I had to be the grown-up now and take care of her. For the first time in my life, I was the adult and she was the child.

  She was light as a bird, fragile, frail, and with every passing day she grew frailer. I called Uncle Egil in secret from school when the school phone was left unattended for a while in the office. It was important for me not to leave any trace. I told him what I needed and he immediately promised to help. Unconditionally. No questions. His voice was so similar to Mom’s and it made me feel reassured.

  One evening late in summer, I decided that everything was in place. I called Egil again from school and gave him my strict instructions. I knew he would follow them to the letter.

  Once Dad had gone to bed and fallen asleep—with a little help from some sleeping tablets in his evening whiskey—I got to work. Mom was absolutely loose-limbed, like a rag doll. She was so broken, so small, so weak, that she didn’t say anything, didn’t ask any questions, just did everything I told her to and let me lead her. I didn’t dare pack anything for her. Nothing could be missing. It couldn’t look like she’d taken anything with her, as if she had left home voluntarily.

  It was a fairly chilly evening. There was no sun to warm the skin as we slowly made our way down to the water. I had Dad’s boots on my feet. In one hand, I was holding his hammer. I was using my free arm to lead my mother to the water’s edge. Dad’s gloves were big, so I had to keep pulling them up over my far smaller hands. Mom slipped and I caught her, and I took the opportunity to smell the scent of her hair as she leaned against me. I was going to miss her. Dear God, I was going to miss her. But to love someone was to set them free. And I was releasing Mom right now.

  Down by the water, Uncle Egil was waiting in a boat with the lights extinguished. He knew exactly what I was going to do. I hadn’t excluded him from any part of the plan. He hadn’t protested, even if the silence at the other end of the line had been heavy with unspoken words. But he knew I was right.

  I hadn’t said anything to Mom. I considered it more compassionate to wait until this moment to seek her approval. But I knew she would agree to what I wanted to do. She was used to pain.

  “Mom, I have to hit you. I have to hit you hard. With the hammer. It’s Dad’s hammer. He’s going to pay for what he’s done. We have to get him out of our lives. Do you understand, Mom?”

  Mom didn’t even hesitate. She nodded. I had greeted Uncle Egil when we got down to the boat, but now I didn’t even dare look at him. I hugged Mom. I felt her thin, brittle shoulders pressed against my rib cage.

  I was so scared of hitting her too hard. Scared to see her shatter like a crystal bowl. But there was no going back now. I took the hammer. Raised it. Shut my eyes. And brought it down. I took aim for a soft area where there was nothing to be broken. But not a drop of blood ended up on Dad’s hammer. I needed blood. I realized I would have to strike a harder area of the body. Something would have to break and pierce the skin so that blood was smeared on the hammer.

  I took aim at her shin. I raised the hammer high above my head and swung it, hard. All that came out of Mom’s lips was a quiet groan. I saw out of the corner of my eye that Egil had turned away. I looked at the hammer. Blood. Mom’s blood.

  I put the hammer down three feet or so from the water’s edge. Far enough from the water that it wouldn’t reach the hammer if it rose before the police found it. I tenderly led Mom to Egil’s boat. She couldn’t support herself on the leg I had hit. But her body against mine was warm and soft. I reluctantly handed her over to Uncle Egil, taking the last of her scent into my nostrils. I knew it would be many years before I saw her again.

  After seeing them disappear across the water into the pitch-dark moonless night, I slowly turned around and returned to the house again. From the corner of my eye, I saw the bloodied hammer.

  When I got back to the house, I carefully left Dad’s boots in the hall. There were drops of blood on them. I took off the gloves—they too had drops of blood on them—and carefully put them on the hat rack.

  The house was silent. Now it was just me and Dad left.

  After tomorrow, it would just be me. I could hardly wait.

  I went to bed. I thought about Mom. I remembered the sound of the hammer smashing into the bone.

  I loved her. And she loved me. We loved each other. That was my final thought before sleep took over.

  Beside the circular table at Riche there was a bottle of Bollinger peeking out of a silver ice bucket. Alice, Ylva, and Faye raised their glasses in a toast. This was their second bottle of the evening. They had told the waiter they would order food later, but they had long since forgotten that. Faye felt intoxicated, but decided that it might be worth flying to Italy a little hungover in the morning, given this was the last time for three months that she would see Alice and Ylva.

  They had planned together how to divide
the work in the future. In early October, they would all meet again at the new office in New York for the launch of Revenge in the USA. Johanna would also be joining them. She was recently divorced, happy, and apparently enjoying regular sex with her personal trainer. Given how quickly she’d ended up in bed with him, Faye strongly suspected it was no new relationship. But that wasn’t something for her to be bothered about.

  David was on remand, waiting for the prosecutor to charge him for corporate espionage. The last they’d heard of Henrik was that his company was on the verge of bankruptcy. Rumor was that there had been a schism between Henrik and Sten Stolpe and that Sten was now doing everything he could to crush Henrik.

  The waiter, a handsome guy of about twenty-five, with broad cheekbones, ice-gray eyes, and the body of a Greek god, cleared his throat.

  “Would you like anything else, or are you all happy?”

  He smiled at Faye, and she felt a shiver run through her body. She was free and happy. Ready to move on. A brief but intense little adventure as a mark of farewell to Sweden wouldn’t be amiss.

  “It could be better,” she said gravely.

  He looked taken aback. Ylva and Alice looked at her in surprise.

  “Yes,” said Faye, signaling that he should come closer.

  He bent forward.

  “It would be perfect if you told me what time you get off, so that I can have a car waiting outside to bring you to my hotel room,” she whispered.

  His facial expression switched from surprise to amusement.

  He straightened his back and said with feigned seriousness: “One o’clock, madam.”

  Alice and Ylva now realized what Faye had asked, and laughed. The waiter adjusted his shirt and disappeared with a wink.

  They raised their glasses in another toast.

  A movement from the corner of her eye made Faye look out of the window facing toward Birger Jarlsgatan. Through the pane of glass, she saw a familiar face. A face that filled her with horror. Her hand shaking, she set down the glass.