Seven
She walked in the door with a smile, nodded to Ann-Charlotte, entered in the code, and took the elevator to her division. Barbro looked up from her desk in surprise.
“Oh my, Laura, how is everything?”
Barbro loved tragedies, which is why she smiled a little more widely when she discovered who the visitor was.
“How are things?”
“Fine, thank you,” Laura said.
She heard Stig and Lennart’s voices from the conference room. They were bickering as usual.
“Nothing new about your father?”
Laura shook her head.
“How awful for you,” Barbro said sympathetically. She had stood up, walked over to Laura, and placed a hand on her arm.
Let go of me, Laura thought. Barbro’s breath settled like a sticky membrane over Laura’s face.
“How awful,” Barbro repeated and her grip on Laura’s arm hardened.
“I just want to talk a little with Stig,” she said and smiled, disengaging herself.
“Of course, Stickan has been wondering…”
Laura left Barbro without listening to the rest, heading toward the open door of the conference room. She hated it when people called Stig “Stickan.”
She stopped outside the door and listened. They were talking about the German affair. Lennart was dissatisfied with their approach, which Laura already knew. Stig’s voice was calm as usual.
She opened the door completely and stepped into the room. Her colleagues looked up.
“But Laura, there you are! I have sent you three thousand e-mails.”
“I’ve been having some problems with e-mail,” Laura said.
“And you haven’t been answering the phone. We were getting worried. But I’m glad you came by,” Stig Franklin said and got to his feet.
He was wearing the sweater vest. It didn’t suit him, looking-like most of his clothes-out of place, but that was Stig. His scent and his hand gripped her. Lennart remained seated and stared at Laura with a vacant expression.
“We’re talking about our plans in Essen,” he said.
He dropped her hand.
“I took the revised offer with me. I have added some of the missing information,” Laura said. “It makes sense to attach a copy of a calculation for the second year. It will give them a better overview, and Hausmann likes that.”
“Marvellous,” Stig said enthusiastically.
She looked at him. Every day she thought she saw something new in Stig. His beard was freshly trimmed, which she liked. She had an urge to caress his cheek. The messy hair made him look boyish.
“Jessica ran a calculation on the second year,” Lennart said, “and she thought the figures for education and training were on the low side.”
Laura shot him a quick glance.
“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” she said.
At that moment a woman walked into the room.
“Laura!”
“We were just talking about you,” Lennart said.
“How are you? I’ve been thinking so much about you.”
Laura didn’t answer, just sat down and started digging around in her purse.
“Here is the new one,” she said and threw a folder on the table.
“Have you been working while you’ve been at home?” Jessica Franklin said. “You certainly didn’t need to.”
Lennart snorted.
“But do tell, have the police said anything else about your father?”
Jessica’s voice was pleasant, not at all as shrill as Barbro’s, but it nonetheless made Laura shiver. She saw how Jessica’s red lips moved and how her tongue ran over her lower lip. Her speech was well-groomed, just as her appearance. She was wearing a red dress that Laura would never have worn to work but on Jessica it looked completely natural and it fit her perfectly. She had a little ornament on a thin silver chain around her neck. Laura knew it depicted the love goddess from Bali, a woman who had given birth to twelve children.
Jessica’s hair was bobbed, very blond, and rested on her shoulders. Sometimes she threw her head back and ran her hands through her hair, gathering it into a ponytail, especially when she was excited, and it was a gesture that Laura understood that men liked. She probably did not do it consciously, but the sensual movement revealed her beautiful throat. Laura glanced at Stig. He smiled.
Barbro had once called Jessica a slut. Laura had asked what she meant and Barbro had explained that the gesture with her hair was an invitation. She didn’t say anything else. An invitation. Laura looked at Jessica’s throat. It was shapely.
Jessica kept talking but Laura only looked at her with confusion and Jessica broke off.
“But here I am going on,” she said.
Stig put his arm around Jessica.
“You believe in Essen, don’t you?”
He smiled even more widely and squeezed her shoulders.
“If we get this, then the Dutch will come on board, too,” Jessica said. “Won’t they, Lennart?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t believe in your model for B-One,” Laura said.
Stig’s smile froze.
“But my dear, we’ve talked about that,” he said.
B1 was Jessica’s part of the project. Stig had also been critical in the beginning but had changed his mind. Now B1 was included in the offer, with exactly the presentation that Jessica had suggested.
“We talked it through while you were on sick leave,” Jessica said. “They’ll lap it up, you’ll see.”
And then came the head toss. Laura wanted to stab her pencil into Jessica’s throat, drive it in deep, and twist it.
“Maybe,” she said.
“Which we should celebrate,” Jessica continued with unperturbed enthusiasm, adding, “Torbjörnsson certainly won’t be.”
Torbjörnsson & Son Inc. were their greatest competitors. Jessica had worked there for four years before she joined the company. Most of them assumed there was a desire for revenge in her eagerness to land the Essen account. Apparently something had happened at her old workplace. No one knew what but there was talk of Jessica having had an affair with Torbjörnsson junior.
When you die we will celebrate even more, Laura thought and smiled at her colleague. She looked at the pencil in her hand. It was freshly sharpened. She looked at Jessica’s throat. Right there, in that hollow, is where I want to put it and let out all the poisoned blood.
“How are you, Laura?”
Stig bent down and looked at her.
“Everything is fine,” she said. “I’m fine.”
She tested the point of the pencil against her index finger.
Stig put his hand on her knee. She gave him a searching gaze as if to ensnare him in her sphere. He smiled unsurely and tried to take the pencil out of her hand.
“You might cut yourself,” he said.
“Perhaps you want a glass of water?” Jessica said and leaned over Laura. “You look pale.”
Laura held up the pencil with the point vibrating only a few centimeters from Jessica’s neck.
“You can hurt yourself,” she said and smiled. “Wouldn’t it be a pity to get blood on your pretty dress.”
Jessica straightened up and looked anxiously at Lennart. Stig’s smile had become a grimace.
“Would you like a ride home?”
Laura nodded. Stig got up, glanced swiftly at Jessica, and made a dismissive gesture with his head.
“I’m going home soon,” Jessica said, and turned to Stig. “The tile layer is coming at three. Dinner’s at six thirty.”
“Okay,” said Stig, and helped Laura to her feet.
“Do you have your car?”
Laura nodded again. She wanted to stay close to him, feel his hand under her arm, almost so it nudged her left breast.
“We can take two cars, but I want you to come home with me.”
Lennart stood up, gathered some papers together, and left.
Laura placed her hand on Stig’s shoulder. For a split second they stood there like a dance couple. Laura moistened her cracked lips with her tongue. Slowly, as if she was on the verge of losing consciousness, she leaned in toward Stig and rested her chin against his bristly beard.