The badger, p.8
The Badger, page 8
“No. Just this one.” Annika smiled dreamily.
“Exactly. I’ve put your number in as well so we’ll each get a text once offers come in.”
“Great.” Annika stretched and tugged at Martin’s waistband. “Aren’t you going to be ready soon?”
“Just a bit longer. There! That’s our bid in.”
“Were we first?”
Martin shook his head. “No. Somebody else placed a bid before we did.”
“What?” Annika flew off the sofa. “You’re joking. For how much?”
Martin laughed. “300,000 kronor below the starting price. They haven’t got a chance.” He closed the laptop and left it on the coffee table. “You know what this means, love? Soon we’ll own our own house!”
“I know,” said Annika. “A house of our very own, that’s ours and ours alone.”
She wrapped her arms around Martin and kissed him. Her body was brimming with a completely new sensation. Delight, suspense, excitement. Her skin felt electric, her blood was fizzing like champagne. She couldn’t keep her emotions contained, she had to give vent to them.
“Come on,” she said, towing Martin behind her to the bedroom.
16
MONDAY 22 NOVEMBER
She couldn’t look at me anymore. I was a reminder of him, the man who had betrayed us both. She took her hate out on me and in doing so she betrayed me as well. I left her to go away to study and we haven’t spoken to each other since.
Annika walked past Tobias’s office on her way to the coffee room. The door was closed. He would always leave it open, so she curiously peered through the glass panel beside it. He was sitting with his face in his hands and his elbows were propped on the desk. His fingers were sticking up through his hair, splaying his ash-blond tufts in the air. A cold hand was gripping at her heart. She slipped in and closed the door behind her. Tobias didn’t respond. She heard him breathing heavily.
“What is it?” asked Annika, placing her hand cautiously on his shoulder.
He gave a start and looked at her. His eyes glazed over. He quickly wiped away something moist from his red cheeks. “Shit,” he said. “I didn’t hear you coming in.”
Annika pulled the guest chair up to his desk and sat down. She leaned closer. “What’s going on?”
Tobias swallowed. “I don’t know what to say.” He threw his arms wide and sobbed. Fresh tears came to his eyes. He squeezed his palms against them.
“Jesus, what’s up?” Annika placed her hand on his shoulder again. Her body was trembling with concern. She had seen Tobias upset, even angry, many times. But she had never seen him cry. The compassion and concern she was feeling shook her to the core.
Tobias took a deep breath. “We’re screwed. I spoke to Stina von Gryning,” he said, sniffling. “There aren’t going to be any more of The Vargö Murders. She’s signed a publishing contract with Albert Bonniers for a fresh series, so she’s not going to be writing any more for us.”
Annika had to lean back in her chair and focus on her breathing. “Did she say why?”
Tobias shrugged despondently. “They pay better, I guess. It’s not exactly like we can afford to bid alongside them, we couldn’t then, and can’t now.”
Annika blinked a few times as if waking up from a bad dream. Stina von Gryning was their last hope. Now they had nothing left. Her field of vision shrank in size to a narrow tunnel. She had never fainted in her life. Now she almost did. There was a whistling in her ears and the ground was rocking. They were screwed. The company was going to go bust. She was going to lose her job. There was never going to be a house, or children. Her mobile vibrated fiercely in her pocket. She pulled it out and saw that bidder number three had put in a new offer. It forced her to calm herself.
“What is it?” said Tobias, nodding at her telephone.
“We’re bidding on a house,” she said.
“Perfect timing,” said Tobias. “I hope your husband makes a good living.”
The longing in her heart was expanding. She refused to lose the house. Something amorphous, black and oily was floundering adrift within her, diffusing inside her body like ink in water.
“We’re publishing I am the Badger,” said Annika. As she uttered the words, the pressure between her temples eased, making it easier to breathe. For her, it seemed like a moment of epiphany.
Tobias stared at her as if she had taken leave of her senses. “Are you crazy? There’s just no way.”
“It’s too late to be ethical,” said Annika. She could hardly believe herself what she had just said. It felt completely surreal. “We don’t need to say it’s Jan Apelgren’s manuscript. We can come up with a pseudonym.”
“Who’d believe that?” said Tobias. “You said so yourself, he doesn’t write like anyone else. His name is on almost every single page of the manuscript.” He drew his hand through his unruly hair as he shook his head dispiritedly.
“There must be some way,” said Annika.
“Only if Apelgren’s dead.”
“Sorry?”
“There’s one thing about Apelgren that’s not widely known.” Tobias rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. “He made a will.”
Annika’s heart was beating faster. A will? “Have you read it?”
“No. Fredrik told me.”
“So Apelgren told Fredrik about the will?” Annika frowned. “But not me.”
“He probably had his reasons. After all, Fredrik is the CEO. The will grants the company all of the rights to Apelgren’s work in the event of his death. If he didn’t have any children, that is. It was Jan’s way of thanking us for believing in him from the start.”
“And you’re saying this now?”
Tobias held his hands up in defence. “Fredrik had forbidden me from saying anything. I didn’t even know about it until we got the manuscript.”
Annika stood up. “I have to read this will. Who’s got it?” Her excitement was giving her butterflies. She didn’t recognise herself. Where was she going with this?
“Jan’s lawyer, I guess. Emma Sieverts. Have you met her? Really nice, actually. For a lawyer.”
Annika propped herself against Tobias’s desk. She locked his gaze in a vice. “You do realise this is the last chance we have? If we are to keep our jobs, you and me, we have to publish I am the Badger.”
Tobias looked at her for some time, his eyes red-rimmed. Annika didn’t deflect her gaze away from him. In the end, Tobias nodded in response. “I’ll call Fredrik and explain. What are you going to do?”
Annika squared her shoulders. It felt like she had added ten centimetres to her usual height.
“I’m off for a meeting with the lawyer. Now, as we speak.”
17
MONDAY 22 NOVEMBER
My student days were insufferable. The big city was an unforgiving creature of concrete and tarmac. I was intoxicated more often than I care to admit, but so were all of my friends. There were women around me, but all attempts at love ended in various scales of betrayal.
The office belonging to Emma Sieverts was in an old building of drab yellow brick in the Vasastan quarter, along one of the side streets that branch out of Vasaplatsen. The stairwell was decorated in subtle natural colours, with red accents and stucco on the ceiling. Annika looked around wide-eyed as she walked in through the front entrance. It felt as if she had been transported a century back in time. Even the ceiling lamps were producing a lambent glow of orange, as if they were running on a weaker current.
A dark haired woman with thick rimmed glasses greeted Annika in the doorway as she came up the stairs.
“Annika Granlund?” she said, taking Annika’s hand.
“I am,” said Annika. “You must be Emma Sieverts?”
“Her very self,” said Emma with an effervescent laugh. “Come in, I’m making tea.”
Emma didn’t look like Annika had imagined. When she thought about it, she had never met a lawyer before, so she didn’t really know what to have expected. Emma had her hair done up in a bun at the top of her head which swayed as she moved. Annika had anticipated more formal clothes, maybe a pussy-bow blouse and pencil skirt. Emma was wearing black jeans and a knitted sweater with an enormous turtleneck which went all the way up to her chin and flowed over her shoulders.
The office didn’t look as Annika would have guessed, either. Her entire mental image of legal offices was born of American television series. Theirs was a land of make-believe, of polished glass everywhere, and the suites had a view across Manhattan. For a start, Emma Sieverts’s office was a small one. There was no reception or a view to speak of. It was rather like stepping into someone’s living room.
The parquet flooring creaked beneath her feet. Piles of books and documents in brown cardboard sleeves were all over the place, not only in the bookshelves which covered the walls but on the floor as well. Through an open panel door, she caught a glimpse of a desk with an old laptop on it.
While Annika was looking around, Emma was moving back and forth to a clinking of crockery in a simple galley kitchen behind another door. She was pouring hot water into two mugs. Mismatched mugs, Annika noticed when Emma returned. One was made of off-white porcelain, short and with flowers painted around the edge. The other, of shiny blue ceramic, was missing a handle.
“Please take a seat,” said Emma, indicating a chestnut leather sofa by the window facing the courtyard. Annika sat down while Emma placed the mugs on the table and lifted a snoozing grey tabby cat off some cushions from the other end of the sofa. “I hope you’re not allergic.”
“No, I’m not. What’s the cat called?”
“She’s called Sugar. She lives here. I’d have liked to have had her at home but I’m hardly there since the divorce. The house is a building site, it’s all got to be sorted out and I’ve far too much work on.” Emma demonstrated with a sweep of her hands. “My life’s here right now, so the cat gets to be here too.”
Annika nodded. “My husband and I are house hunting. But you’ve got a lovely office anyway.”
“I like it,” said Emma with an infectious smile. “Everything I need is here. But what brings you along with such urgency?”
“Jan Apelgren,” said Annika. “Or rather, his will does.”
“Ah,” said Emma. She put her cup down and crossed her legs. “Eklund Press. I should have realised as soon as you called.”
“Is it a problem?”
“Yes. And no. I have a duty of confidentiality to my client. But Apelgren was a special case, not just in matters of his legal affairs with me but in much else as well. You see, I helped Apelgren over many years. It was no big deal, but even so. Normally I couldn’t tell you anything, but on this issue I am at liberty to talk to you. He seems to have thought very highly of you all.”
“I hope so,” said Annika. “He was a debut author when he came to us. I was his publisher. We got to know each other quite well – or so I thought. No one could have guessed that he would just disappear. Him and his wife.”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, yes. He thought very highly of all of you, less highly of her.” Emma met Annika’s gaze. “He excluded her from the will, so he can’t have liked her all that much.”
“Are you even allowed to do that?”
Emma smiled, winking with some amusement. “Absolutely, there’s no problem whatsoever. Only one’s own children are afforded any protection.”
Annika nodded pensively. She sipped her tea. It tasted good. Mild but rich. “Somebody at the company said that he bequeathed his works to the company,” she said. “Is that usual?”
“Not really. Especially considering that he was dealing with that matter just a few weeks before he disappeared. Almost as if he knew…” Emma’s voice faded away and she looked lost in thought through the window. When she returned her gaze to Annika, she pointed to the sofa where Annika was sitting. “He was sitting just there when he signed it.”
All of a sudden the sofa felt uncomfortable. The thought of Jan signing his will just where she was sitting now made it sticky under her arms. She couldn’t help but think it was some kind of omen.
Emma tilted her head. Her bun slipped to the left and she smiled while waiting for Annika to say something.
Annika brushed off her discomfort. She was here to solve a problem. It was too late for second thoughts. “The company wants to release a previously unpublished work by Jan Apelgren. We really believe in it but we don’t own the publishing rights. Can you help us?”
Emma shook her head. “No, afraid not. It’s perfectly true that he bequeathed the rights to all of his works to the company in the event of his death. But that’s academic, isn’t it? Jan isn’t dead, as far as we know. Until such a time, the company is going to have to speak to him.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“I’m afraid not. I haven’t heard from him since he signed the will.”
“We must be able to do something?”
“Until he’s legally dead, there’s nothing I can do,” said Emma, shrugging.
Annika’s disappointment weighed heavily on her and she had to force herself to her feet. “Then there’s no point in me taking up any more of your time.”
“I am really sorry. If I could, I’d have only been too happy to help.”
Something clicked inside Annika’s mind. She paused and looked at Emma sitting on the sofa. The cat jumped up and sat down where Annika sat. It turned its back on her.
“How long has he been missing, in fact?” she said.
“Hard to say exactly. But nobody has heard from him since the end of November six years ago. How come?”
Annika’s cheeks flushed with nervousness. “Can’t he be considered dead now?”
Emma tilted her head again. “By all means there’s an official process of claiming for a declaration of presumed death. But an heir would have to submit that application. There weren’t any heirs.”
“Though he does have a will saying that the company inherits the rights to his books. Doesn’t that make Eklund Press an heir in that case?”
“Strictly speaking, no.” Emma shook her head slowly. “But maybe… In the absence of other heirs, I suppose that might be the case. If nothing else, then by analogy.”
“What does that mean?”
“Sorry. It’s just my way of saying you may be right.”
“Can you help me?”
Emma smiled again. “No. I’m the executor of the will. When Jan is found dead, or if you can obtain an official declaration of presumed death, I will dispose of his estate. But the matter of his death is out of my jurisdiction.”
“But you can at least tell us how we’re supposed to go about it?”
“Of course. You submit an application with the Tax Authority. I can send you a copy of the will as a basis for your request. If they accept the application it takes six months, following the Authority’s official notification online, for him to be considered dead, at least in the legal sense.”
“Thank you for your help. I appreciate it more than you might think.”
“Don’t mention it.” Emma stood up and took Annika’s hand. She looked seriously into Annika’s eyes, her easy-going manner had all but blown away. “Are you sure you want to go ahead with this?”
The shadows in the room were growing darker. The heavy bookshelves were encroaching above Annika and her stomach was slowly twisting in discomfort. Their presence was there, the creatures with the claws. Perhaps Apelgren had also been tormented by them. Was this what she really wanted?
Did she have any choice?
“Why do you ask?” she said eventually.
“Because it means that the company’s killing him, even if it’s just on paper.” Emma raised an eyebrow and grasped Annika’s hand a little harder. “It is going to raise… issues.”
Thick saliva was sticking to the roof of Annika’s mouth. She tried to swallow but couldn’t. “I know,” she said. “But I have to. For the company’s own survival.” For my job. My house.
“I understand,” said Emma. In the blink of an eye, things returned back to normal. She smiled, letting go of Annika’s hand. The bookshelves were upright against the walls, just as crammed as before.
“Goodbye then, Mrs Granlund. It was lovely meeting you. Good luck with the application.”
18
MONDAY 22 NOVEMBER
I felt an even greater loathing for my peers, as well as for my pathetic attempts at romance. Despite all those around me on the streets, I became more and more alone. But I got through my education and finally got a job. You couldn’t tell by looking at me but my life was grey, making it difficult to breathe. Do you recognise yourself?
“There is a way,” said Annika. Her cheeks were still blazing red from the cold and the excitement after her walk back to the office. “I just met with the lawyer and we concluded that there is a way.”
“I don’t know if it matters anymore,” said Tobias. He sighed and placed his reading glasses on his keyboard, rattling the metal frames.
“Of course it does,” said Annika, swallowing a lump in her throat. “What is it with you? This book can save the company, Tobias. You know it can. It’s got the lot. Just the right amount of gore, a bit of terror, a copper who we can actually believe. And it’s a topical subject.”
“Yes, so far you’re right. But did you read the email?”
“Which email?”
“Fredrik’s. Read that first.”
Annika’s mobile buzzed in her jeans pocket. She pulled it out and read it while she tried to brush off the glances from Tobias which were crawling over her like stubborn ants. “Bloody hell,” she said.
“Do you understand now?”
Annika looked at him. “No. There’s been a new bid on the house. They’re not giving in. Do you have any idea how infuriating it is with bidders constantly only going up by five thousand?”
