“Birgitta,” he yelled, “you goddamn collaborator! I know you’re here somewhere!”
Birgitta Larsén backed out of a room further down the corridor, holding another polystyrene box in her arms.
“Goodness, Lars-Henry,” she said, “what a terrible noise. What do you want?”
Annika recognized the man: he was the professor who had written the confused article in the Evening Post last winter, and who was later dragged out of that rather eventful press conference.
Birgitta Larsén walked past the angry man and came up to Ebba again.
“This one is going to the same place, darling. When do you think you’ll hear back about our claim?”
“Don’t think you’re going to get away with this,” the man shouted, waving a printout as he marched after the red-haired woman. “I want an explanation.”
Ebba took the box with a neutral expression on her face.
“My dear fellow!” Birgitta Larsén said, looking up at the man, who was at least a foot taller than her. “Why are you so upset?”
“I just got an email from PubMed and saw this,” he said. “We got a citation in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and you didn’t think to mention me!”
Annika looked from one to the other in surprise.
“Hmm,” Ebba said quietly, “a case of wounded vanity, and I have a feeling it’s my fault …”
“But Lars-Henry,” Birgitta Larsén said, “things like that aren’t my business, you know that. What’s this about?”
“My doctoral student is listed as the author of the article, but not me, her supervisor! How the hell could something like this happen?”
Ebba passed the polystyrene box to Annika and walked up to the man.
“It was my decision,” she said. “I came to the conclusion that you hadn’t contributed to this research, so there was no reason for you to be listed in the article.”
“And all because I’ve been pushed out of the Assembly!” the man shouted, standing right in front of Ebba. “You all take every opportunity you can to humiliate me, but you ought to watch out!”
“I haven’t pushed you out of any Nobel Assembly,” Ebba said calmly. “I merely concluded that you’ve hardly been here over the past four months.”
The man looked up, and his eyes found Annika’s.
“Are you responsible for this?” he panted.
“She’s a reporter for the Evening Post,” Birgitta Larsén said, without looking at Annika. “I have no idea what she’s doing here, but I intend to find out just as soon as you finish shouting.”
Lars-Henry jabbed the printout toward Annika and Ebba.
“You should watch out,” he said. “You’re ignoring Nemesis, all of you, but remember! Just remember that I’ve warned you!”
And he marched off toward the main door and disappeared.
“What was all that about?” Annika said as the door closed behind him.
She was still holding the large box in her arms. Ebba took it from her.
“I’ll take care of this,” she said, vanishing around the nearest corner.
Birgitta Larsén took a step closer and looked at Annika thoughtfully.
“You thought I didn’t recognize you? Of course I did. What are you doing here?”
Annika looked at the woman, her eyes were bright and clear and extremely serious.
“Caroline wasn’t surprised that she’d been shot,” Annika said. “I was there, on the floor next to her—she was looking at me when she died. I can’t escape it, I keep dreaming about her at night.”
She was surprised at how agitated she sounded.
Birgitta Larsén was standing quite still, her eyes fixed on Annika’s.
“What do you dream?” she asked very quietly.
“Caroline is trying to tell me something,” Annika said, lowering her voice. “She wants to say something, but I can’t understand. What do you think it could be? What?”
She felt tears welling into her eyes and bit her lip. God, she’d become such a crybaby.
“Some food,” Birgitta Larsén said, turning on her heel and heading off down the corridor. “Bring Ebba, and we’ll go over to the Black Fox.”
They left the building by the main entrance and stepped out into hazy sunshine. The lawns around them were an expectant bright green, and scarcely unfurled leaves danced in the treetops. Ebba and Birgitta carried on talking about the missing consignment of antibodies and what to do next in their claim for compensation. Annika was walking behind them, looking at her surroundings.
It was lovely out there, reminding her of films she had seen of Ivy League colleges on the east coast of the US. Narrow roads, heavy buildings, lots of green.
The faculty club, the Black Fox, was on the edge of the campus, at 6A Nobels väg, not far from the Nobel Forum where Annika had been with Bosse.
She felt a flash inside her—she hadn’t replied to suggest a time to meet for coffee the following week.
They had met several times during the spring, quietly in some café or other, all completely innocent, not a single inappropriate word.
Did she want to carry on like that? Did she want to see him at all? Did she want more?
She didn’t know, and was having trouble separating her emotions: expectation, shame, excitement, happiness, anxiety.
“Dear old Lars-Henry,” Birgitta Larsén said. “He’s become quite excitable.”
She walked up the granite steps leading to the heavy copper door of the faculty club and held it open for Ebba and Annika.
“He’s always been a vain man,” she said, “but he wouldn’t have made such a fuss a few years ago, about nothing more than an acknowledgement under a minor piece of research. But why, Ebba dear, didn’t you include him? You put my name on. What would it have cost you to put his name on there too?”
Ebba stretched her neck, making it even straighter than usual.
“It was purely a matter of principle,” she said. “Cilla, the postgrad who has him as her supervisor, has been trying to get hold of him all spring, and he’s never gotten in touch with her. She’s pretty desperate. At some point you have to take responsibility for your behavior, even if you’re a miserable old professor …”
Birgitta beckoned over a neatly dressed waiter.
“Have you got a table for three? Splendid! By the window? Oh well, never mind. Then let’s take this table in the corner, what do you say, girls … ?”
She sat down with a sigh and spread the napkin on her lap.
“Being excluded in the way that Lars-Henry has been shouldn’t actually be possible,” she said, “but the Assembly did it anyway. I can understand that he feels bitter about it. I would too, in his position.”
She rubbed her hands together.
“But I don’t have to wonder about that, seeing as I got promoted instead of kicked out. Let’s see, I’ll have the trout—it is always good. And a large low-alcohol beer, please!”
“What’s this business about Nemesis that he keeps going on about?” Annika asked, choosing the trout as well.
“It’s from Greek mythology,” Ebba said. “The Greek religion was an endless maze of ideas about crime and punishment, cause and effect, injustice and retribution. Fundamentally, I think Lars-Henry’s reaction is based on skepticism about Darwin’s theory of evolution. He belongs to the minority who think we should have greater respect for God in science, the so-called creationists.”
“Yes, dear me,” Birgitta said with a sigh.
Annika stared at Ebba for a few seconds. More God in science?
“Supporters of creationism claim that the universe arose in line with the description at the beginning of the book of Genesis. They want the story of the creation to be seen as a parallel to and an equally valid frame of reference as Darwin’s theory of evolution, in both education and science.”
“As you can appreciate, it’s hard to take them seriously,” Birgitta said, raising her eyebrows.
“You said you’d been promoted
?” Annika said.
“Moved from Assembly to the Committee, to fill the gap after Caroline,” Birgitta Larsén said. “You understand what that means?”
Annika shook her head.
“The Assembly’s task each year is to choose the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Medicine. It consists of fifty members, all professors here at the Karolinska Institute. The Committee is the executive board of the Assembly, five members plus a chairperson and vice-chair. Everyone knows that the real decisions are taken by the Committee.”
“Wasn’t there some trouble about who was going to succeed Caroline as chair?” Annika asked, remembering Peter No-Tail’s post on the Internet.
Their food and drinks arrived, and Birgitta took a deep swig of her beer.
“We wanted someone who would carry on in the spirit of both Caroline and Nobel,” she said. “And not an opportunist who would bend with the wind depending on whoever was offering most money.”
“Strong words,” Ebba said, taking the bones out of her fish.
“True words,” Birgitta said. “Sören Hammarsten simply isn’t made of the right stuff to give moral leadership. It was a great relief that Ernst was able to take over. But tell me, Annika Bengtzon, what was it you were saying about Caroline? That she speaks to you at night?”
Annika put down her knife and fork and looked down at her plate.
“I know it sounds silly,” she said, “but I can’t stop thinking about the look in Caroline’s eyes. She was looking at me, right at me, and I was looking into her eyes when she died, and it was as if she knew, as if she understood, and it was just so awful having to watch and not be able to do …”
She felt tears welling up, overflowing, and to her surprise she noticed that Birgitta Larsén was also crying. The professor sniffed loudly and wiped her nose with her napkin.
“I wish I knew,” she said. “If Caroline was going to confide in anyone, it would have been me.”
She looked at Ebba and Annika as she wiped her nose.
“I’m not saying that out of any sort of arrogance,” she said. “I was the one she talked to, but she didn’t say anything about this. I’ve got no idea what she could have meant.”
Birgitta shuffled slightly and scratched her hair, took a sip of her beer and looked at Annika.
“She didn’t actually say anything?” Birgitta said. “Not a word? Nothing that you might have heard but not understood?”
She looked hard at Annika with her bright eyes, chewing intently on a piece of fish.
“No,” Annika said. “Caroline was dead in a matter of seconds. She didn’t even have time to gasp.”
Annika picked up her cutlery and looked down at her plate.
Birgitta Larsén was a bad liar.
Ebba and Annika sat quietly beside each other in the car on the way home. Birgitta Larsén was with them somehow, indefinably present in the backseat.
“Where did she recognize you from?” Ebba eventually asked.
Annika pushed her hair back.
“I interviewed her about Caroline the day after she died,” she said. “She was fairly disturbed, which was really only natural, and it ended with her getting quite aggressive.”
“Birgitta’s a very unusual person,” Ebba said. “You never really know what she thinks. She can seem confused and nonchalant one moment, only to be sharp and focused the next.”
Annika nodded, that was what she had noticed too.
“Did she really know Caroline von Behring as well as she makes out?”
Ebba indicated right and turned off the motorway at Danderyd Church.
“I think so—you’d see them together at JJ fairly often. There aren’t many women at that level, so I suppose it was natural for them to stick together.”
“JJ?”
“Jöns Jakob, the staff cafeteria. And they used to arrange seminars together that were slightly outside the area of medicine, about things like leadership, equality, and so on, so they probably were quite close.”
Ebba glanced at Annika.
“So what do you think? Is there anything worth writing about in the world of scientific research?”
Frozen researchers, shouting matches in the corridors, grants worth billions of kronor.
Annika nodded.
“Absolutely.”
They were back in Djursholm and the sun was shining brighter; the colors were clearer. Annika looked in amazement at the palatial villas as they drove past them—imagine, her living out here!
“Do you ever think about how lucky you are?” she asked Ebba.
Ebba indicated and turned, evidently considering her answer.
“Sometimes,” she said. “Some things have turned out well for me, but sometimes they’ve gone against me. Mom left me nothing but furniture and books, so I’ve had to work for everything I’ve got. Nothing ever comes for free, and the price gets higher the further up you get.”
The Volvo swung into Vinterviksvägen. Annika’s house was sitting there, white and sparkling in the afternoon sun.
“There’s something I’ve been wondering about a lot,” she said, turning to look at Ebba again. “Can you think of any reason why Caroline might have been killed? Who could have had a reason for wanting her dead? Can you think of any explanation, any reason at all?”
Ebba turned into her drive and switched off the engine. Silence filled the car.
“Maybe,” she said, “the price gets so high that it can no longer be paid. Maybe that’s what happened to Caroline.”
She opened the car door and got out onto the gravel.
Francesco started barking from his kennel over by the lilac hedge.
Annika crossed the road toward her own house with a peculiar swaying sensation in her body. Caroline was with her, Birgitta was drifting above her, Ebba was walking silently behind her.
What happened to women in the academic world? The space available to them seemed more limited, the boundaries more sharply drawn, their territory more important than anywhere else.
Only 4 percent of women who finish their doctorates become professors, compared with 8 percent of men. Both Birgitta and Caroline had made it, all the way to the top, and Caroline got right to the very summit.
That had to have something to do with it.
It had to be important.
Annika evaded the troughs of water in the grass and headed for the door.
A movement in the corner of her eye made her look over toward the rocky outcrop.
And there stood Wilhelm Hopkins, digging a hole in her lawn. His back was toward her, an iron spike stuck in the ground beside him. He was pressing his whole weight onto the spade as the blade sank into the wet ground.
Annika stopped midstride, unable to believe her eyes at first.
Her neighbor, digging a hole in her garden?
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” she said, and her feet started moving again, automatically, flying toward the thickset man with his luxurious head of hair.
The man ignored her, driving the spade into the grass beside him and pulling out the iron spike.
“Are you mad?” Annika shouted, grabbing hold of the iron spike. “You’re standing here digging on my land?”
The man yanked the spike toward him with such force that he had to take a couple of steps back, his face bright red and his eyes flashing.
“We’ve always had our Midsummer pole here,” he said hoarsely. “Every year since I was a child we’ve held our celebrations here, right here, and now you’re saying that the tradition has to be abandoned!”
“But the council sold this land a long time ago,” Annika implored, throwing out her arms. “We live here now, this is our home! You can’t come and dig up the grass just because you used to when you were a child. That’s completely insane!”
Her neighbor took a long stride toward her, so quickly and aggressively that Annika stepped aside and came close to stumbling into the hole.
“We celebrate Midsummer here,” he said, stressing
every word hard. “All of us, whether you like it or not. No one asked us if they could sell our common land.” He picked up his spade and iron spike and turned his back on her to leave.
“So why didn’t you buy it, then, if you want it so much?” Annika said.
The old man spun around again.
“It was mine!” he shouted. “Why should I have to pay for it?”
He turned away again and lumbered away across her lawn.
Annika stood where she was, staring after him. Only when he had disappeared from view behind the house did she realize that she was trembling. Her pulse was throbbing so hard in her neck that she was having difficulty breathing. Mutely she took a couple of steps after him, her head completely blank.
How was this possible? How could anyone behave like that?
She carried on to the corner of the house, then stopped and looked along the rutted tire tracks, to where they disappeared through the gap in the hedge into the neighbor’s garden.
At that moment a car engine started up and two semicircular lights shone right into her eyes.
Wilhelm Hopkins put his big Mercedes in gear, accelerated, and drove right out across her lawn. The water in the ruts splashed up from his wheels, cascading away from the tires.
Without taking any notice of Annika he drove so close to her that the muddy water splashed halfway up her thighs.
I’m going to kill him, Annika thought as the rear lights disappeared through her gateposts and out into the road.
SUBJECT: Disappointment
TO: Andrietta Ahlsell
In the summer of 1889 Alfred Nobel drafted his first will. He told Sophie Hess about his plan:
I doubt anyone will miss me. Not even a dog named Bella will shed a tear over me. Nonetheless, she would probably be the most honest of all, because she would not be able to sniff around for any remaining gold. But those beloved individuals are likely to be disappointed on that score. I take pleasure in the anticipation of all the wide eyes and all the swearing that the absence of money is likely to occasion.
Alfred, Alfred—Sofie isn’t the right person to confide in! When will you realize this?
Because Sofie complains, lamenting the will several times while Alfred is still alive.
Three times he revises his last will and testament. Three times, and he writes it himself. He doesn’t like lawyers, calling them niggling parasites.
Last Will Page 24
