When Astra tells her of the mess, Evita sits there quietly. She looks pensive and decisive at the same time. Astra observes her to try to ascertain what her reaction is going to be. Angry? Resigned? Will she scrap the project now? Say ‘What was it I said?’ about placing so much responsibility on an old alcoholic like Titus?
But setbacks have never stopped Evita Winchester before. They rather serve as spurs which make life worth living. A determined smile spreads across the Amazon’s face.
‘Now it’s war! This is what we shall do. I’ll put the legal department on it straight away. We’ll protect the title all over the world. The day after tomorrow when the book fair opens we’ll issue a press release in which we present the book, synopsis and the entire campaign for marketing it in Scandinavia. We’ll do a worldwide press release; the press office will fix that. There will certainly be some notices and small articles here and there. That will help to protect us in future copyright actions. We were first, there’s never going to be any doubt about that. The others haven’t got a chance. I’ll stamp Babelfish back into the same earthen floor that they have crept up out of.’
‘Babelfish?’ says Astra, surprised.
‘Yeah, it’s obvious there must be another publishing house behind this. I ought to have thought of it before. And they will be running Eddie X as a poster name.’
‘Poster name…?’
‘Yes. He’s the author. The front man, so to speak. They will have got a whole team of editors to write the actual manuscript, I guess. Eddie X couldn’t put together a book like this, but he’ll look heavenly on the cover, I’m sure that’s what they’re thinking.’
‘But do you really believe…?’
‘That’s how it is. No doubt. Now it’s war. And we’re going to win,’ says Evita and breaks out into a big smile. ‘There’s just one thing you must do, Astra. You must find Titus. You must find out where that abandoned cottage is and go and fetch him. Titus Jensen – he is going to the book fair, dead or alive. Sure, there isn’t much time. But you’ll manage it. You know I rely on you one hundred per cent.’
Evita abruptly gets up from her chair and gives Astra a hug where she is sitting. She looks if anything even happier than when she turned up at the door a little while ago.
‘God, what a fun job we have! Now to work! See you in Gothenburg!’
Astra is relieved by Evita’s reaction. She ought to have told Evita several days earlier. It was incredibly stupid of her to wait so long, but what’s done is done. Now she must look ahead. There was still time to fix this. She feels her energy return. Evita is the best boss one could imagine. Oh, how lovely it feels finally to have told her.
She gets up and paces back and forth in the room, strokes her hair with both hands and massages her scalp. Think, think!
The cottage, the cottage, the cottage. She must find out where that cottage is.
She decides to seek out Malin again. It was admittedly almost impossible to get any sense out of her last time, but she can’t think of anything else at the moment.
She takes the lift down to the garage where she has her large SUV parked. The parking space is a company perk and more often than not the car remains unused for weeks on end. Astra prefers the underground or a taxi when she only has to transport herself short distances in the city, then she can avoid the wretched parking situation in Stockholm. But today she is going to travel a bit further. She really hopes so, anyway.
She drives the short stretch across the Old Town, past Nationalmuseum and across the bridge to the Skeppsholmen Island and Moderna Museet. There aren’t many visitors today so it is easy enough to find a space below the museum.
In the restaurant there are just a few mothers with small children and the odd pensioner sitting beside the panorama windows, enjoying one of Stockholm’s most beautiful views. Calm has once again settled in Stockholm. The cries from the attractions at the Gröna Lund amusement park have died away and the queues to the children’s Junibacken have disappeared. Across the water at the Vasa Musuem some guys in colourful protective clothing are rigging up scaffolding. A couple of green-clad museum pedants are standing behind Nordiska Museet, busily raking even though only a few leaves have fallen so far. It is autumn, so one uses the rakes.
Malin is sitting with nothing to do in her black-and-white waitress-style uniform behind a cash register. Her long hair is deliberately matted and she has put it up into a loose bun round a fork. Bored, she barely manages to hide a yawn with her hand when Astra approaches her.
‘Oops, excuse me.’
‘Hello, do you recognise me?’
‘Yes, you’re Astra, aren’t you?’
‘Exactly, we’ve met a few times in the crush. And we talked on the phone the other day…’
‘Yeah…’
Astra looks around to be sure nobody can hear her. She lowers her voice and whispers.
‘Malin, I’ve been thinking about that cottage. I think that Eddie and Lenny have gone there together with Titus Jensen. And I must get hold of Titus. So now I must find out where the cottage is situated. Are you absolutely certain you don’t know where it is?’
‘Well, I know where it is,’ says Malin gesticulating with her hands as if to defend herself.
Astra notices the tattoos on Malin’s forearms. Strange entwining letters. Quite attractive, but Astra can’t recognise the alphabet. She thinks Malin is a bit weird.
‘What? You know where the cottage is? Why didn’t you say so?’
‘Listen. I don’t know where it is. But I know what it looks like there, I mean. I don’t know how to get there. I’ve been there for parties several times but I’ve always been in the back seat when we’ve driven there.’
‘Would you be able to find it if I drove?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. Perhaps, perhaps not.’
Astra feels herself becoming irritated by Malin, but it would be daft to get angry at this juncture. Now she must play her cards right. Malin can’t know how serious the situation is. Astra decides instead to get Malin to cooperate by quickly confiding to her selected portions of the story.
Malin listens, all ears, and nods, as Astra tells how Lenny and Eddie might have some dirty business in the offing. At any rate Eddie, she thinks, and perhaps he has lured Lenny into trouble too.
‘I knew it!’ says Malin. ‘Lenny hasn’t been himself at all this summer. He has ground his teeth every single time we have slept together, and several times he’s said that Eddie is so fucking weird and a pain. What on earth, I thought. Eddie isn’t weird in the slightest, is he? He is always the nicest guy in the world. But Lenny says that he is different sometimes.’
‘Different in what way?’ Astra wonders.
‘Yeah, well, he’s become sort of jealous. He doesn’t think that anybody likes him any more, that everybody thinks his poems are ridiculous, that when he says something funny then they laugh at him instead of with him, if you get what I mean. And that he’s started drinking rather a lot. All the time.’