‘I can’t see anything that could jeopardise it,’ Borell replied.
‘Jean.’
‘Yes?’
One of the men at the table leant over towards Borell.
‘Unfortunately there’s been an incident that I think we need to deal with,’ he said.
‘What?’
The man got up and went to the door behind Borell. He opened it and made way for a woman to come in.
Rakel Welin stepped into the room.
The man presented her to the group.
‘Rakel Welin, director of Silvergården.’
He then gave the floor to Welin. She clearly and concisely provided an account of Hilda Högberg’s recent death at the nursing home. Everyone understood the sensitive nature of this incident.
‘Are there any relatives who could cause trouble?’
‘No, no one,’ Welin said. ‘And the carer who was present knows that she’s not covered by whistleblower protection. She won’t be a problem.’
‘So why are we talking about this?’
Borell asked the question, sounding rather impatient, while drawing some abstract figures on the notepad in front of him.
‘Because an unauthorised person witnessed the incident.’
‘Who?’ Olof Block asked.
‘Her name was Olivia Rivera.’
Borell’s pen froze. He stared straight at Welin.
‘What was she doing there?’ he said, trying to maintain a neutral tone.
‘I don’t really know, she claimed that she knew someone who’d died at the home. Unfortunately she was in the room where Hilda Högberg died. I wanted to report this, because she behaved very arrogantly when I asked her to leave the premises.’
‘Arrogant in what way?’
‘She insinuated that we were hiding things, and she asked who was in charge of the nursing home. She was quite unpleasant.’
Welin stopped talking when she saw looks being exchanged across the table, by all except Borell. He’d drawn a big ‘O’ on his notepad with a question mark inside.
At quarter past one he walked into an exclusive restaurant in the Old Town. He’d booked the table more than a month ago, for two, to have a nice long lunch with Carina Bermann, one of the Moderate Party’s big names in the City of Stockholm. They’d discuss the new contract while enjoying a seven-course lunch, he thought to himself. But not now. Straight after his meeting at Albion, he’d called Bermann and explained that there was an emergency he had to deal with. She understood without asking any questions: at Borell’s level, schedules could change in a flash.
‘We’ll do it when you have time,’ she said.
‘Absolutely. How are things looking otherwise? With the contract?’
‘It looks good. I think we have most people on board. Most of the probing has stopped now, so I’m sure we can slip this through without too much trouble.’
‘Good. I want you to know how much I appreciate your efforts.’
‘Thanks.’
‘So what did you think about the Karin Mamma painting?’
‘It’s amazing, thank you! Absolutely amazing! We’ve actually hung it in our dining room, it’s perfect in there. You’ll see when you come over next!’
‘Sounds great. Take care of yourself!’
‘You too. Bye!’
Borell looked up at the waitress. She was just about to launch into a presentation of the menu when Borell interrupted her.
‘I don’t have much of an appetite today. I’ll just have the vendace roe.’
‘Of course. Are you expecting a guest?’
‘Yes.’
The waitress left to give Borell a few minutes before his guest arrived. He was still feeling rather off balance following Rakel Welin’s revelations. Olivia Rivera? At Silvergården? Did her visiting his house have something to do with that? It had to, it couldn’t have been a coincidence. What the hell was she after? Was she a journalist? He mulled it over some more without finding any plausible answers. He’d have to discuss the situation in more detail with his guest.
After another few minutes he appeared.
‘Hi. Sit down.’
Magnus Thorhed nodded, pulled off his short coat and sat down on the chair opposite Borell. He took off his glasses and started polishing them with a grey silk cloth. Borell watched him. He knew that Thorhed followed strict rituals. One of them was to always polish his glasses when he sat down at a restaurant table. Borell didn’t know why, but he didn’t want to interrupt the procedure. When Thorhed had finished, he put on his glasses and looked at Borell.
‘What are you having?’
‘Vendace roe.’
‘Do they have lobster here?’
‘I’m sure they do. You don’t want the set lunch?’
‘No.’
So Borell had to trouble the poor waitress with another special order. This was very much not in line with the Michelin-starred restaurant’s routines, but considering the number of times Borell and his business associates had frequented the restaurant and paid staggering bills, they were flexible. It was in everyone’s interests.
When they were alone again Borell got straight to the point.
‘We have a problem.’
‘OK, what?’
‘Olivia Rivera.’
‘Her surname is Rönning, not Rivera,’ Thorhed said. ‘And she’s renting a flat on Skånegatan from a relative. One of her female friends works in a video shop.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I followed her the other day from her flat and saw them meet up in the shop.’
Borell looked at Thorhed and was reminded why he’d chosen him as his closest colleague. It wasn’t just because of his financial skills, but a number of others too, such as this. They’d discussed Olivia Rivera’s visit to Värmdö after she’d left, and decided that they needed to follow up on it. Thorhed clearly had, in his way. Borell rarely needed to tell him what he wanted done: Thorhed was always one step ahead. A strange man, Borell thought, recalling the time that Thorhed had intervened when some drunk guy was about to launch an unprovoked attack on Borell’s Jaguar. The man was large and violent, but he was lying bundled up on the floor just a few seconds later. In the car on the way back Thorhed had mentioned his black belt in karate. Now he was looking at Borell with his calm Asian eyes.
‘In what way is Rivera Rönning a problem?’ he asked. ‘Except for the fact that she’s lying about writing a dissertation?’
Borell waited until they had been served. A large, egg-shaped dollop of vendace roe on a stone slab and a boiled lobster. He took a teaspoon of the salty roe and directed it into his mouth, without polluting it with lemon or the like. Once he’d swallowed it he told him what Olivia had witnessed at Silvergården. Thorhed immediately understood the situation. He was well aware of Silvergården’s importance as a flagship for Albion in the ongoing contract negotiations with the City of Stockholm. And consequently he realised the potentially devastating consequences if Rivera Rönning decided to contact the media about what she’d seen.
‘So how are we going to prevent it?’ he said.
‘She’s hardly the type to be muted.’
‘No.’
Thorhed broke off one of the thick lobster claws.
‘Do you want me to speak to her?’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘OK, I will.’
Thorhed cracked the lobster claw with his teeth.
* * *
Olivia had almost reached Skånegatan when her mother Maria called. She was sitting on the commuter train in from Rotebro.
‘Has Sandra moved back home again?’ she asked.
‘No, not as far as I know. Why?’
‘I thought I saw her at the station.’
Olivia starting running towards her car, which was parked around the corner. She managed to knock over a young guy wearing headphones and apologised as she scurried on. When she reached it she couldn’t find her keys. Fuck! Had they dropped out of her jacket at Ale
x’s? She started looking around for a taxi when she suddenly felt her keys in the wrong pocket. She pulled open the car door.
Normally Sandra took the bus from the train station, but this time she wanted to walk. She wasn’t properly dressed for the time of year, but the raw November chill didn’t bother her, she was totally absorbed in herself. She walked quickly with her gaze rooted in the ground. She was clutching a small, flat tin in her hand which was planted in her jacket pocket.
When she reached her old school, Gillboskolan, where she’d spent nine years, she slowed down and decided to go through the school grounds. She didn’t know why, it wasn’t a shortcut, but it was part of the ceremony. She’d spent both happy and unhappy years here. Happy as long as her mum was alive and unhappy after she’d died. But they’d got through it, her and her dad.
Together.
He’d been there and supported her even though he was out of his mind with grief himself. They’d had each other in this worst of worlds. Now she was alone in it. No one she loved was left. She didn’t have anyone to fight for her, no one to cheer her on at volleyball matches, no one who got excited over an ‘A’ in an exam, no one who cared the way her father had. How could life be so horrendously unfair? All of her friends still had both their parents and they took it for granted. Their lives were focused on trivialities typical of a seventeen-year-old, things that her life should have been focused on too. But it wasn’t.
Any more.
She looked at the dark school buildings, there were still lights on in some of the windows, but everywhere else the school day had come to an end. All the children were at home with their parents and would be having dinner soon. The tears welling up in her eyes blurred her vision, she blinked, pulled her open jacket shut and increased her pace again.
As she approached the house she stopped. Just a month ago, she and her father had picked apples in the garden and made apple sauce together for the first time. They’d had a lot of fun. The whole kitchen was sticky afterwards. Now the scraggy apple trees were just standing there, naked and lifeless, framing the yellow wooden house. The beautiful old house adorned with gingerbread-style carvings. She’d lived there her whole life. It was her home. Now all she saw was a large empty shell. She took a few quick steps across the road and went in through the gate. She shut it firmly, as she had always done, and carried on up the gravelled path towards the front door. Before she reached the steps, she saw that one side of the tarpaulin covering the large outdoor barbeque had become unfastened. She went over and covered it up again. Her father had always taken great care of that barbeque. It was some fancy brand and had cost a fortune.
When she put the key in the lock she suddenly felt sick. She quickly opened the door, went into the hallway and sat down on a stool. She remained seated there, in the dark, with her head in her hands, looking down at the floor. She didn’t want to look up at the ceiling.
Definitely not.
After a while, the gagging feeling subsided, she stood up and took a few steps into the living room. She sank down into the sofa. She kicked off her shoes and saw that she’d made a real mess on the living room floor, her shoes were terribly muddy. But it didn’t matter! And why had she even bothered to cover up the barbeque? Nothing mattered.
Any more.
Her eyes scanned the room. The floor lamp was still standing where it always had, the soft rug looked no different. Everything looked the same, even though nothing was. She put her hands in her jacket pocket and pulled out the little tin – she’d been clasping it tightly the whole way. She opened it and took out a small object. Carefully she unwrapped the paper and looked at the blank, grey razor blade. She held it in her hand as she went over to close the curtains. Suddenly it was completely dark in the room and she had to put on one of the lamps by the sofa. She saw that one of her father’s DVDs had fallen down on the floor. She went over and picked it up: Wings of Desire. One of her father’s favourite films. It was about angels. Why had that been the one to fall on the floor? She opened the case, took out the DVD and put it in the player. She moved the razor blade from one hand to the other as the film started. The beginning was very strange: someone writing on a piece of paper: ‘Als das Kind Kind war…’ ‘When the child was a child…’ As the gentle voice in the film alternately read and sung the text, Sandra’s thoughts turned inwards. When she looked up at the television again she saw a winged man, standing at the top of some kind of church, looking down at the people below. He could hear all their thoughts. But only the children looked up and saw him. She turned it off. She didn’t want to imagine that her father could see her now. It just complicated things. She wanted to remain in her emotional state to be able to do what she’d intended. What she’d decided to do. Then she saw some blood seeping from her hand. She hadn’t felt the blade cutting her. Strange. Was it the case that when you feel such tremendous pain inside you, you don’t feel normal physical pain? There’s something soothing about that. She got up from the sofa and went over to the bookshelf. The photograph was there where it had always been, the photograph of her family. Her and her dad and her mum. It was taken on her seventh birthday and they all looked very happy. ‘Als das Kind Kind war…’ Sandra took the photograph and headed towards the bathroom. She wanted to be in the bath, so as not to bleed all over the place. After she went in, she threw off her jacket and took off all her clothes except her vest top and pants. Then she looked at the white bathtub for a while. She put the photograph on the edge and climbed in. At one point she thought about filling it with water.
She decided against it.
Olivia exceeded all imaginable speed limits. As she approached the house, she almost hit a fat Rottweiler. The owner came running out behind it shouting something Olivia couldn’t hear. Keep your bloody dog on the lead then, she thought, and turned in towards the Sahlmanns’ house. She slammed on the brakes outside the gate and ran towards the house without even closing her car door. When she approached the front door she hesitated for a second. Should she ring the bell? She felt the handle. The door wasn’t locked. She went into the hallway.
‘Sandra!’
She carried on into the living room. The lamp next to the sofa was on.
‘Sandra! It’s Olivia! Are you here?’
Silence.
Olivia rushed between the office and the kitchen and on to the bedrooms. As she came into the dark hallway she saw that there was light coming from the bathroom. Maybe she’s having a bath? Like she did last time she went missing? Olivia felt her throat tighten as she approached the bathroom door. It was slightly ajar.
‘Sandra?’
Olivia pushed the door open. Sandra was lying in the bath, virtually naked. Her forearms were covered in blood, there was blood streaming across her thighs, and the white bath tiles were covered in trickles of red. Olivia screamed. Then Sandra turned her head and looked at her. Slowly she held up a bloody razor blade in her right hand.
Olivia rode in the ambulance to A&E. She sat and watched the ambulance staff take care of Sandra. When they arrived at A&E, other staff stepped in and wheeled her in on a stretcher. Olivia followed them. A little way down the hospital corridor they disappeared into a room with the stretcher. A nurse told Olivia to stay put and wait. She sat down on a chair, leant against the green wall and closed her eyes. She saw the bathroom in front of her, the white tiles, the red lines, the bloody young girl in the bath, her eyes looking for Olivia’s, it was horrible.
‘Hi, Olivia.’
It was Charlotte’s voice. Olivia opened her eyes. She’d called Charlotte from the ambulance and explained what had happened. Charlotte had actually been sitting at home with Tomas Welander talking about Sandra. Now both of them were standing in front of her in the corridor. Olivia got up just as a nurse came out through the door that Sandra had disappeared behind. Everyone turned to face her.
‘She’s cut herself badly,’ the nurse said. ‘But she’s conscious and she probably needs someone to talk to. Are any of you relatives?’
/> ‘Yes,’ Charlotte said. ‘I’m her aunt.’
Olivia and Welander left the hospital together. They hadn’t had the chance to see Sandra: she was very drained and Charlotte was going to stay with her. A female doctor had spoken to them about the ‘next step’, as she put it. The patient had actively attempted to commit suicide and almost succeeded. She would be transferred to a juvenile psychiatric unit where they would decide on a course of treatment. The doctor had expressed herself as empathetically as she could in relation to the clinical circumstances. The doctor had gained Olivia’s trust.
Welander’s too.
Both of them were upset and tired as they walked down towards the bus stop. There wasn’t much to say. Both of them had suspected that this might happen. Both of them knew how fragile Sandra was.
Both of them felt inadequate.
‘At least she’ll be getting help from people who are a little more knowledgeable about this than us,’ Welander said.
‘Yes, I hope so.’
Olivia felt saddened. She knew that she’d burst into Sandra’s world in a way that she hadn’t intended to. In a way that she hadn’t been able to deal with. She’d extended her hand and a very broken young girl had landed in her lap.
‘You’ve done your best,’ Welander said, as though he’d read her thoughts. ‘So have Charlotte and I. Sometimes you just don’t have the right tools. You want to, but you’re not able to.’
‘Yes, that’s probably how it is.’
They stood in silence waiting for the bus. Olivia felt that she wanted to talk about something else, something that could release the pressure on her eyes. She started talking about the funeral, about Alex Popovic’s unexpected outburst against Jean Borell.
‘It didn’t come as much of a surprise to me,’ Welander said.
‘No?’
‘Alex has really disliked Jean for many years.’
‘Generally a bit of an arsehole, then?’
‘Well, there are other things too. He and Jean and Bengt were very – how do you say – close for a while, as I understood it. Then something happened, I don’t know what, they never talked about it, but after that Alex’s attitude towards Jean completely changed. He could get very aggressive at the mention of Jean’s name, as you heard.’
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