'Take it easy, Iversen, or you're going to bring the whole hospital running.'
The next day was the first time Katherina opened the bookshop with the knowledge that the contents of the numerous shelves were not always used for a good purpose. Until then she had regarded the job of selling books as honourable – an occupation whose intention was to enlighten people and provide them with valuable experiences. Now she had the feeling that she might as well be working in a gun shop. There were individuals who would use the books she sold them to hurt others. She'd known for a long time, of course, that the risk existed, but this was the first day that she realized it was being done deliberately, and in an organized manner.
Her new insight made her involuntarily study the customers who turned up, and she caught herself slinking after some of them in order not to let them out of her sight. She also used her powers to gather all the impressions that she could, and if she found any of the customers to be suspect, she made sure that they lost any desire to read and then quickly left the shop.
In mid-afternoon, Jon rang. In her hypersensitive state, Katherina could hear at once that something was wrong.
'How's Iversen?' he asked.
'He's going to be discharged today or tomorrow,' said Katherina, and then went on to tell him about her visit to the hospital the previous evening. But judging from Jon's brief comments, she gathered his thoughts were elsewhere.
'Is anything wrong?' she asked after a pause in which neither of them said a word.
Jon gave a curt laugh on the other end of the line.
'Yes and no,' he replied. 'I've come to… or rather I should say that I've been forced to make a decision.'
'Yes?' Katherina held her breath. Her brain was swiftly summoning up one horror scenario after another. A decision about what? Libri di Luca? Was he going to sell the shop after all when faced with the prospect of landing in the middle of a battle with the Shadow Organization? Had he been threatened? Bought?
Jon cleared his throat before he went on.
'How does a person go about getting activated?'
20
After Tom Nшrreskov told them about the Shadow Organization and Luca's involvement, Jon had tried to reprogram his brain with the new information. After spending twenty years feeding it with speculations, allegations and anger, it felt as if he now had to switch the two halves of his brain around in order to find the true meaning. It was something he had to do alone, and after dropping Katherina off in front of Libri di Luca, he went straight home to his flat.
He unlocked the door, took off his jacket and went into the living room. The cleaning woman had been there, judging by the scent and the way the lifestyle magazines were stacked neatly on the black coffee table. The afternoon sun was shining through the newly washed windows, making him squint as the light reflected off the white floorboards and white walls. He went over to the black leather sofa and sat down with a sigh. The only other piece of furniture in the living room was a low grey bookcase along the opposite wall. On top stood a wide-screen TV and surround-sound system, taking up most of that wall. The wall behind him and the spaces between the windows were dominated by small black banners printed with Chinese characters in silver and red.
Jon leaned forward, picked up the stacks of magazines and set them on the floor. He then shoved them under the sofa without looking at them. The last thing he wanted to do right now was read.
As Jon sat on the sofa with his eyes fixed on the blank TV screen, the sun sank behind the rooftops and softer light filled the room. He found himself immersed in a swirl of questions and theories that refused to let him go. He went back and forth endlessly between his own childhood experiences and Tom Nшrreskov's story. Hunger finally made him get up from the sofa and go out to the kitchen, where he threw together a meal from food he found in the cupboards. Then he dragged himself off to bed.
After a sleepless night Jon decided to go to the office. Partly so he could think about other things, and partly to re-establish contact with his former life, which now seemed so distant that he needed to see whether it really existed or was just a dream.
Jenny gave him a friendly nod when he arrived, but she didn't say anything, and Jon thought he glimpsed a mixture of relief and concern in her eyes. He found out the reason for her concern an hour later when he was summoned to Halbech's office.
'Hello, Campelli,' said Frank Halbech in a businesslike tone after Jon had closed the door behind him and sat down on a chair in front of his boss. 'Nice of you to show up.'
Jon, who was prepared to defend himself for taking time off, nodded. 'Yes, there were still some things to take care of following my father's death, and since the Remer case can't move forward as long as the main player won't give us the information we need, I thought it would be okay.'
Halbech's expression didn't change, but he gave Jon a searching glance.
'I've tried to get him to answer my queries,' Jon went on. 'But he's always either unavailable or he keeps mixing up other things in the case that have nothing to do with the charges.'
'That doesn't match up with what he told me,' said Halbech, leaning back in his office chair with his arms crossed. 'I spoke to him yesterday, since you weren't here. He wants you off the case.'
Jon did his best to hide his surprise.
'Remer claims that you seem uninterested, lazy, that you're not taking the case seriously. According to him, he's been available the whole time, and he was the one who had to contact you to get some sense of what was going on.'
Jon shook his head. 'That's not at all what happened. Remer's the one who's been impossible to reach. He doesn't even answer his emails.'
'Well, you've done something to piss him off, Campelli,' said Halbech, leaning forward. 'Remer puts a lot of money into this firm. So much that we can't afford to lose him because of the family matters of one of our co-workers. Of course it's regrettable that your father died, but you can't let that affect your work.'
'And I don't think I have,' said Jon. 'I can show you the correspondence that-'
'Right,' Halbech cut him off. 'I'm familiar with the correspondence. Remer read some of it to me, and I have to admit that I had expected you to use a more professional tone with our best client.'
Jon looked at him wide-eyed.
'Heread it to you?' he asked.
'Yes,' Halbech confirmed, sounding annoyed.
'On the phone?'
'No,' replied Halbech, clearly annoyed now. 'I told you that he was here yesterday. He had copies of your correspondence, and he gave me a few examples, and I must say that…'
Jon was no longer listening; a shocking realization forming in his mind. He pictured Remer sitting in the same chair where he now sat, reading aloud to Halbech, the co-owner of the law firm, who would have listened carefully and receptively to what the firm's notorious cash-cow had to say. Jon could guess how the tone of the text might seem, given his absences from work this last week, but what if Remer was a transmitter? Halbech wouldn't have had a chance.
As he sat there explaining how Remer had reviewed the material for him, Halbech seemed genuinely convinced that he was spouting his own appraisal, as if he had in fact formed an opinion about the material and had independently drawn his own conclusions.
'… and so we've decided to take you off the case,' Halbech finished saying.
'Okay,' said Jon with resignation. He started to get up.
'In fact,' said Halbech, raising his voice, which made Jon stay in his chair. 'In fact, we've had to take another look at your employment with the firm.'
Jon stared in shock at the man behind the desk.
'This office has no use for individuals who don't take our clients seriously,' Halbech elaborated without blinking. 'The clients come to us because they're in a bind, in one way or another, and it's our bloody obligation to treat them professionally. If word gets around that we're not serious about our work, whether it's true or not, we're finished in this business.'