Director Hugo Hamlin sat in the office, counting his money. He had done a soft launch with a handful of jobs during the first few months. He’d selected them carefully, with an eye towards learning lessons and getting into the swing of things. To sum it all up, he wasn’t satisfied with much beyond all the money streaming in.
Thanks to the contact he’d had with the initial clients and those who might soon be the same, Hugo had come to realize that the degree of legality wasn’t of concern to his clientele. It had been part of Hugo’s original idea to have the law on his side, but that limited his creativity and demanded greater mental effort. Time was money.
To put it sloppily, you might say that legal equalled inferior and more expensive.
The solution was for Hugo to adjust his moral compass. Unlawful but reasonable, more or less. Those who started shit should get equal amounts of shit in return.
Although it turned out that not even this was in line with his clients’ expectations. The proportionality principle, too, was hampered by willingness to pay. People wanted fees to be on par with the amount of damage Hugo could offer, no matter what the law said or how they themselves had suffered previously. It was all about – freely translated from the Bible – eyes for an eye, and teeth for a tooth. People were awfully miserable creatures, the lot of them. Hugo wasn’t sure he was any exception.
Big brother Malte popped by for coffee. Hugo happened to share his thoughts. Malte got all worked up at the notion that not only one eye but two must go kaput in a dispute. Beyond that he had no opinions, except that his brother clearly had a screw loose and should also get himself a better coffeemaker. With that, he left his little brother in favour of the afternoon’s three cataract surgeries.
Hugo was once again alone with his thoughts. Aside from the aspects of legality and proportion, he was dissatisfied with his own efficiency. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to make an addition, in the form of a creative partner. But easier, cheaper, and more immediate would be an office assistant who could answer the phone, reply to emails, and suggest priorities.
His jobs in Madrid, Oslo, Bucharest and Brussels had taken twice as long as was truly necessary, simply because of the need to split his time between the current client and potential future ones. Where could he get hold of suitable reinforcements?
At that moment, two people came in from the street. Up to this point, not a single conceivable customer had arrived by this route; emails and phone calls were the way to go. But there was a first time for everything. These two were a young white woman and an equally young black man. The woman wished him a good day and said that she and her friend had been the victims of a wrong that they wished to right. They had spotted the shop window of Sweet Sweet Revenge Ltd by chance. Now they wondered if this business did indeed provide aid in the form of revenge, or whether she and her friend had misunderstood the name and operations.
Typically, Hugo had to reject two out of every three people who contacted him on the spot. Such as the man who wanted to enact revenge on the United States Senate. Or the woman who wanted help destroying an entire breed of dog. It was easy to break contact with these sorts of folks as long as that contact was electronic. But now there stood two real-life potential clients right in front of him. It wouldn’t be as painless to wave them off, should it prove necessary. And that was the most likely scenario.
In any case, he asked them to have a seat and give him a brief account of where the shoe was pinching, so to speak.
‘Thanks,’ said Jenny.
‘That’s kind of you,’ said Kevin. ‘Would you like to begin, Jenny?’
She would. But a brief account it was not. She told him about her childhood, her teenage years, and about Victor, whom she had married for the sake of her father. And how her husband had swindled her and danced on her father’s grave by stealing her inheritance.
At first, Hugo listened with interest. A high-class art gallery. That had potential. But what was this last bit, about her inheritance?
Well, evil Victor had swindled Jenny so thoroughly that not a single öre was left over for her.
‘I was robbed of everything,’ she concluded. ‘My childhood, my youth, my inheritance, my life. I have nothing left. Nothing!’
Nothing left? Then how did she intend to pay? There was something fundamentally wrong with people. Or did the money belong to the young man beside her?
‘How about you?’ he addressed Kevin. ‘Has the art dealer confiscated what you were to inherit from your father, as well?’
‘I’ve never had a father,’ said Kevin. ‘And I don’t have a mother anymore either, she died of AIDS. But my former guardian – you know who – took me to Kenya and left me for the lions.’
Hugo couldn’t send them away now. He had to know more.
Kevin’s story was absolutely incredible. In the true sense of the word. It was perhaps – perhaps – true that he had been left on the savanna to become lion fodder. But the rest of it! That the boy should have been rescued by a local medicine man, adopted, trained as a Maasai, taught to swim among crocodiles, escaped forced circumcision, and more besides.
‘Thanks, that’ll do,’ said Hugo.
‘But I’m not finished yet. When I got back to Sweden, I met Jenny. It turned out she had been tormented by the same man …’
Hugo had already checked out.
‘Right, you ran into each other on the street. “Hi, I’m Kevin, this guy called Victor was mean to me! Oh, you, too?”’
This was the type of client a future assistant could keep away from him. As if this wasn’t enough, the woman had started to cry.
‘So you can’t help us?’ she said.
Hugo couldn’t have put it better himself.
‘Exactly! I can’t help you. Your stories are heart-breaking. But Sweet Sweet Revenge has a responsibility to its shareholders. Your sorrow won’t make them any happier. What I mean is, we need to get paid for our services, and if you have – as you say – nothing left, that’s not much for the shareholders to split.’
Kevin asked who these shareholders were. Hugo said the share register mainly consisted of Hugo himself, but that he was looking forward to going public in the very near future.
Jenny tried to find a way to move forward.
‘Wouldn’t the principal owner consider working on credit?’
Hugo tried to hide his annoyance. He had three priority jobs on his desk. Two of them seemed very promising: one, a Dutchman who wanted to get revenge on his neighbour; the other, the neighbour, who wanted revenge in return. A fantastic coincidence. Since they remained unaware of one another’s intentions, there was every chance Hugo could help them destroy each other while he took all their money. But instead of being on his way to Amsterdam, he was sitting here coddling Little Miss Destitute and her Crocodile Dundee.
‘No, that’s precisely what he cannot do. I need money in advance in order to sign an agreement. Barring that you may certainly take revenge on whoever you want, however you want, but you’ll have to do so elsewhere and without my help.’
He wanted at least fifty thousand kronor just to open a case.
‘But the money is with Victor Alderheim,’ said Jenny.
‘Bully for him,’ said Hugo.
‘I have a painting to use as payment,’ said Kevin.
‘You do?’ said Jenny.
My God! The art dealer’s protégé wants to pay with a painting! One he made himself?
Kevin had completely forgotten what he took from Papa Ole but had been reminded of it when he opened the backpack to change clothes in the café bathroom.
He took a rolled-up object from the bag; it had been carefully wrapped in paper.
‘My adoptive father Ole Mbatian made it. I think it’s lovely! It seems he has a little expressionist inside him, although he doesn’t know it.’
He unrolled the painting on Hugo’s desk.
‘He calls it Woman with Parasol. Or, I don’t know what he calls it, but he wrote Woman with Parasol on the back.
‘I see,’ said Hugo.
Enough was enough.
‘Now listen here. I don’t care if this painting is called “Rocky 2”. Can’t you two just please go away? Before you arrived I was thinking about hiring an assistant to protect me from people like you, and now I’m wondering if I don’t need two. And a padlock on the door.’
Jenny was surprisingly quiet after Hugo’s dressing-down. Her tears had dried. She looked at the painting she’d never seen before. And looked a little more.
‘That’s an Irma Stern,’ she said, without taking her eyes from the painting.
‘Irma who?’ said Hugo, without actually wanting to know.
‘Stern. One of the greatest expressionists of our time.’
Now these fools were about to take their fantasies to a new level.
‘Worth millions, right?’ said Hugo. ‘Go. Now. Get out.’
A piece of art painted by a medicine man on the savanna and one of the greatest expressionists of all time. Simultaneously.
‘I’m not sure about millions,’ Kevin said. ‘I sold an almost identical one in Mombasa for a thousand dollars so I could afford to fly here. It’s no Irma Stern. It’s an Ole Mbatian the Younger. Maybe he’s got more of them back home. Or back there. Or wherever it is I belong now.’
Hugo said that young Kevin was welcome to belong wherever he liked, as long as it wasn’t in Hugo’s office. And then he repeated his wish – nay, demand! – that they leave.
‘And take your Irma with you!’
‘Not Irma,’ said Kevin. ‘Ole Mbatian.’
‘Him too.’
Jenny stayed put. At last she tore her gaze from the Irma Stern and said that it must be an Ole Mbatian after all, since Irma had died in 1966. But it was a fantastic copy. So precise that it could fool anyone at all.
‘If it were a genuine Irma, it would be worth half a million dollars or more.’
What had that crybaby of a woman just said? A painting that could fool anyone at all. Out of half a million dollars.
Hugo couldn’t help it – his thoughts began to revolve around how best to get this Victor Alderheim to purchase an Ole even as he paid for an Irma. That kind of revenge would certainly cross the line in a legal sense, but it would likely remain within the boundaries of Hugo’s moral framework. Alderheim seemed to be of an extraordinarily unpleasant nature. Perhaps to an extent that was worth half a million dollars. Or more.
Jenny and Kevin noticed that Hugo was weighing an alternative to chasing them back into the street. Jenny, who hadn’t helped herself to anything ever in her life, helped herself.
‘You were saying you needed an assistant? I’m applying for the position. I’m neat and tidy, I’m responsible, and I am always on time to work. I’m good at locking up and opening too. And making coffee. I’m handy with internet connections. I am socially competent, I think. I’ve never really tried. I don’t need much for a salary. Or anything at all, in fact.’
Hugo dropped his sudden thoughts of gross fraud and looked at Jenny.
‘As long as we take down Victor Alderheim?’
There, he had shown his hand.
Jenny smiled.
Even the fact that the man across from her was considering one thing and the next was a terrific development. Jenny felt that she wanted to say more, something that would tip the odds in their favour, but she didn’t know what. Whatever she said next, it had to be the right thing. Kevin felt the same way. They were so close to getting the boss of Sweet Sweet Revenge Ltd on their side, but close wouldn’t cut it.
After a few short but eternal seconds, Hugo Hamlin was done thinking.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Something is off here. I can feel it. Your stories are too good. Not least the last one. Dumped on the savanna, adopted by a medicine man, trained to be a Maasai. The fact that you found one another and then me. And suddenly: a painting worth anywhere from nothing to half a million dollars. I can’t take it. You’re welcome to come back once you’ve got your hands on a five-thousand-kronor advance. Thanks for stopping by. Farewell.’
Jenny felt that she had gone all in. But Kevin stood up. Not to leave, as Hugo had expected.
‘I just had an idea,’ he said.
He walked past the desk behind Hugo and into the kitchenette. Once there, he opened the refrigerator, where he found nothing but a carton of milk and yesterday’s sandwiches. The adjoining pantry was even emptier. Or was it? At the very back were some canned goods.
‘Don’t touch those, no matter how hungry you may be,’ said Hugo. ‘They’ve been there since this office was a toy factory, or whatever it was.’
‘I’m not going to eat anything,’ said Kevin, grabbing a can of corn with his right hand.
He appeared to be judging its heft.
‘I’m just going to clear up some doubts. I think it might move this conversation forward.’
With canned corn in hand, he went back to his side of Hugo’s desk. To the horror of the former adman, he began to undress, removing both pants and shirt.
‘What on earth …’
But before Hugo was finished being fazed, there stood before him a young Maasai warrior, wearing a shúkà and sandals.
‘Please follow me,’ said the Maasai.
Kevin went to the front door, stood on the sidewalk outside, and looked around. He waved Hugo over with his free hand.
‘Can’t this day just be over yet?’ said the adman.
Kevin made up his mind. Fifty or so metres away was a sign proclaiming a parking ban.
‘See that no-parking sign over there?’
‘Yeah, what about it?’ said Hugo. ‘Just try to find a sign that says parking is allowed in central Stockholm. If you can do that, I swear I’ll believe everything you say.’
Kevin’s aim was not to discuss the parking politics of the inner city but – like he’d said – to clear up doubts. And his best idea (his only idea) along those lines was what was about to happen.
He said no more, just aimed the can of corn and threw it. Over the heads of Stockholm pedestrians. Over two passing cars. Between a lamppost and some temporarily hung winter lighting. Fifty metres or more, through the air. And right into the solar plexus of the no-parking sign he’d pointed out.
‘Nice throw!’ said Jenny.
‘Natumaini kuwa alivutiwa,’ said Kevin.
‘Hope that impressed him,’ in Swahili. For dramatic flair.
Hugo stood with his mouth agape, looking at the hateful no-parking sign. It was still shaking.
‘My name is Kevin,’ said Kevin. ‘Adopted son of Ole Mbatian the Younger. Fully trained Maasai warrior by trade, except for a circumcision that never happened. That sign could have been a charging Cape buffalo. The can of corn could have been my throwing club. In which case, I just saved all of our lives. If you still don’t believe me, I ask you to track down a well-balanced spear, for I have more to show you. Otherwise, I too am applying for the advertised position. The two of us, Jenny and I, could share both job and salary.’
Now what? Hugo considered the possibility that two of the world’s biggest mythomaniacs were telling the truth. The crocodile hunter was apparently for real. The young woman’s tears seemed genuine. The medicine man’s Irma-whatever-her-name-was fake certainly had its qualities. What if the rest were true as well?
They still had no money. Only the painting.
On the other hand: two free assistants equalled twenty-five thousand kronor plus twenty-five thousand kronor plus social insurance fees in sheer profit each month. It wasn’t possible to calculate it like that, but that was how Hugo calculated it. Money was delightful even in the form of costs he didn’t have to bear immediately after he’d decided to bear them.
Anyway. He didn’t have enough faith in chance to believe it had led Jenny and Kevin arm-in-arm to his little office in Östermalm. It was as unbelievable as a youngster taking an old can of corn from a pantry and using it to strike the exact point he’d said he would strike, from a distance of over fifty metres. In one try.
Fucking canned corn.
Double assistants at the office, neither of whom drew any salary. Taken strictly on its own, that was world-class business economics. But to keep them long-term, he would have to get involved in the Victor Alderheim project, which was worth zero kronor. Or alternately, half a million dollars, depending on how creative Hugo managed to be. There was no in between.
Time to enter into discreet negotiations.
‘I can’t work on the art dealer full-time,’ he said.
‘That’s okay,’ said Jenny. ‘We’re in no hurry, it’s fine.’
‘Or even half-time.’
The young woman looked more hesitant.
‘How much can you work, then?’
Not the right time to go lower.
‘Maybe half-time. But not right now.’
He bought himself time to think by deciding it was time for the workday to be over. It had already involved more than a single day could withstand. Or a whole week, really. But if Jenny and Kevin liked, they were welcome to come back the next morning at nine sharp. Then Hugo would show them the basics of how the office was run, including how to handle potential clients. Freeloading clients like themselves were sent away on the spot.
What to do about that Victor was something they would deal with later. First Hugo had to make a business trip to Amsterdam and back. He expected to return before the week was out. When he returned he expected a report on Victor Alderheim, his strengths and weaknesses.
‘Once I’ve seen that, I promise to apprise you of the job’s potential. But I want to make one thing very clear from the start: If, against all expectations, any income arises as this project advances, it will go to Sweet Sweet Revenge Ltd. In full. This may be in the form of money, oil paintings, or canned corn – everything goes to me, because I am covering all expenses. Are we in agreement?’
Jenny nodded. But Kevin was hungry and thinking of the future.
‘What do you say to five hundred kronor for a daily allowance? Purely for business reasons, so your assistants don’t starve to death.’
Hugo had already put down double free salaries. He didn’t want to lose them now.
‘Two hundred,’ he said.
‘Four,’ Kevin countered.
Hugo took out his wallet, found four five-hundred-kronor notes and another hundred. He handed them to Kevin.
‘Three hundred per day, this will cover the first week. Time to go our separate ways. Well-rested brains do better thinking.’
Jenny and Kevin were ten minutes late the next morning; to save money they had walked the whole way – eighteen kilometres – which took three hours and forty-five minutes.
‘I’ll overlook it this time,’ said Hugo.
Deducting from their salary was out of the question.
The boss at Sweet Sweet Revenge Ltd looked at his two new colleagues and felt satisfied. Not every small business owner could keep pace with his rate of new hires.
Hugo kicked off the workday by initiating his assistants in the operations.
The first thing they needed to know was that clients who called on the phone must be treated with kindness and respect, as long as they indicated they could pay their way. And that the revenge they were after was somewhat reasonable. Otherwise, the call should be ended as quickly as possible, so it wasn’t tying up the lines for others.
‘What counts as reasonable?’ Kevin wondered.
Hugo searched his memory for some of the most recent proposals.
‘Anyone who is looking for changes in the British line to the throne should look elsewhere.’
Kevin nodded and said he thought he understood.
Hugo went on: Those who made it through the first stage of review should be asked to describe their issue in an email message. In Swedish, if they happened to be from Sweden; otherwise, preferably in English. At a pinch – that is, if the client truly had demonstrated that he or she had money – the firm would accept any language. Now including Swahili and Maa, as far as Hugo understood (the more he thought about it, the more satisfied he was with his two free assistants).
Incoming emails should be printed out and archived in the filing cabinet under the desk, given that they lived up to the standards of reasonableness.
‘I’m extra good at archiving,’ said Jenny. ‘In alphabetical order?’
‘Hell no – by financial upsides.’
The rest of the morning was devoted to coffee breaks and further instructions. Hugo’s flight to Amsterdam was to leave just after two in the afternoon. As a final handover, the young man and woman were given keys to the office; they took over responsibility for the business mobile and were handed one of the company’s two credit cards, plus PIN code.
‘To be used exclusively for work-related items and according to your best judgement.’
They could have a little wiggle room. Leadership was to be trusted, or whatever leadership was. Hugo was excited about what was to come. The thought of revenge had its advantages, but for the first time in several years he truly felt alive.
A few days later, the morning paper The Telegraph ran the story of a neighbourly feud that had gone off the rails. What had begun with a few branches of a cherry tree overhanging a property line had led to the tree in question catching fire at one in the morning, completely out of the blue. What followed was an inexplicably severed fibre optic cable, taking out the internet and TV of the neighbour of the man with the burned-down tree. Twenty-four hours later, the man who no longer had a cherry tree also had no drinking water, for an unfortunate leak on the wrong side of the property line had resulted in two hundred litres of oil in his well.
By the time Hugo took off, the neighbours had learned their lessons well. The first one continued the feud by laying a spike strip in the other’s driveway, in response to which the other set the first one’s tool shed ablaze, after which the first one shot the other one in the arse with a shotgun. When the police arrived, they caught the one who’d been shot red-handed in the kitchen as he was injecting insecticide into plastic bottles of Coca-Cola. He could not explain why.
All this was going on as Hugo landed at Arlanda Airport in Stockholm, 8500 euros richer.
When he got back to the office, nothing was as he had left it. The assistants each had a mobile phone. And a laptop. The large window that faced the street was covered by a tasteful, light curtain. The single desk was now accompanied by a conference corner with a table, chairs, and double whiteboards. The wall to the left of the boss’s spot was decorated with a poster – a portrait of a woman. In addition, Kevin had both built and published a new website that provided the contact information for the boss and his assistants. Who weren’t even assistants anymore. Jenny was chief of financial operations. Kevin was project leader. Fortunately, Hugo himself was still managing director.
Nowadays the firm had a digital client database where potential clients were rated on a scale from one to five, based on the presumed fatness of their wallets. Project Leader was in charge of this assessment.
‘How much did all of this cost?’ Hugo asked.
‘Just a moment,’ said Jenny, bringing up Excel. ‘Seventy-four thousand two hundred and twenty kronor, more or less.’
‘More or less?’
‘Well, okay, that much exactly. I was trying not to sound too self-important.’
Hugo sank into his office chair. Heavily.
‘Any other news? Have we purchased Astra Zeneca? Applied for membership on the UN Security Council?’
No, nothing like that.
‘But we did get engaged,’ said Jenny.
‘What the hell are you talking about? You haven’t even known each other for a week yet, have you?’
‘Eight days.’
Hugo muttered something about how this would have to be it for expenses.
‘We need engagement rings, though,’ said Kevin. ‘Nothing too spendy, but … well, even the cheap ones aren’t exactly cheap. Could we maybe get an advance on our salary?’
‘You don’t draw a salary! Or did you change that, too?’
Jenny and Kevin didn’t reply.
‘How much do you need?’
Kevin smiled. They had bought their extra mattress from a second-hand store in Bollmora, and the owner there stocked everything under the sun. What he had above all were two rings of almost genuine gold for which he was asking two hundred kronor apiece. Not much, but more than the couple’s budget allowed. After weekly commuter passes and food in the fridge and pantry, their allowance was gone.
‘The two of you sure are expensive, for being free,’ said Hugo, taking out his wallet.
Jenny said the second-hand store owner had offered a receipt; he was otherwise receiptless by nature. If they wanted, they could call the rings office supplies.
‘We do want. Congrats on your engagement, by the way, in case I didn’t say that already.’
Now, what was leadership again? To be trusted? Well, howdy-do! But there was still something beautiful about the initiative the CFO and Project Leader had taken. The only truly unnecessary investment Hugo could identify was the poster on the wall. It depicted a woman with red hair, blue lips, and big, dark, almost mean eyes.
‘Who is she?’ he asked.
The painting was called Head of a Woman; the original hung in the National Gallery in Edinburgh. The artist was Alexei von Jawlensky. Jenny had found the redhead at the second-hand shop and couldn’t help herself.
‘A masterpiece, if you ask me. The owner wanted a tenner for her, but I gave him twenty.’
Paying double what was necessary was not what Hugo liked to hear. Also, a masterpiece? The redhead was looking at him with her dark gaze. He got the sense that she refused to take her eyes off him.
‘Don’t you have anything else to stare at?’
Jenny was pleased. Now all three of them talked to works of art.
CFO Jenny praised Hugo for his work in Amsterdam and said that the company’s finances were looking very healthy. So healthy, in fact, that the firm could afford to spend a few weeks on jobs less certain to result in financial gains.
‘And you have one of these in the database?’
‘Yes, as it happens,’ said Project Leader Kevin. ‘I just found one about an evil art dealer here in Östermalm.’
Hugo didn’t like the idea of working for free. But he couldn’t help taking a liking to his new colleagues.
‘Where is that report you promised to write up?’
Hugo had been picturing a sheet of A4 with a few bullet points to glance through. But Kevin pulled up what he and Jenny had put together from the digital archive and began to print it out.
Page after page fed out. It seemed like it would never end, and Hugo wondered if the printer was acting up.
‘Twenty-six pages,’ Kevin proudly stated.
‘Are you two quite right?’
It had taken the couple two long nights in a row to compile their report. Hugo had never intended to do more than skim through it, no matter how long it was. He had mostly just asked them to write it up so he could head off to Amsterdam in peace and quiet.
‘What is there, in these twenty-six pages, that I haven’t already heard from you?’ he said, feeling as if he had just saved himself an hour’s work.
Jenny and Kevin exchanged glances.
‘Just the essentials?’
‘Just the essentials is great.’
‘Then I would say we have the key to both art gallery and apartment. When I said he stole everything from me, that was only almost true. I still had the keys in the pocket of my jacket.’
This fact was to Hugo’s liking.
‘So he hasn’t changed the locks?’
There was no way of knowing, of course, but Jenny didn’t think her ex-husband had the good sense to do that, any more than he did in most other ways.
‘Tell me, who is Victor, and what is his greatest interest? His money or his reputation?’
‘It says right here,’ Kevin attempted. ‘Starting on page eight, we …’
‘Great, so you know the answer.’
Jenny said that the most important factor was not who Victor was, but what. In short, a pig. A rat. A snake—
Hugo cut her off before she managed to drag further innocent species through the mud.
‘Money or reputation?’
‘Can’t we shoot for both?’
Hugo was on the verge of saying that he would then have to double the price, before he realized what project he was dealing with at the moment. Ugh! Where would it end?
He shook off his negative thoughts. Forward!
‘This Irma Stern … what relationship does Alderheim have to her?’
‘Not Irma Stern,’ said Kevin. ‘Ole Mbatian the Younger.’
Hugo was aware. But as long as the same wasn’t true of Victor Alderheim, they had a potential way in.
Jenny said what she’d already said, that Ole Mbatian’s Woman with Parasol was a first-class painting and it was amazingly similar to a typical Irma Stern. When Victor was new to the industry, and Jenny was still a child, he had at most been able to point out a Monet, and then only if given a few guesses and if it had enough water lilies in it.
‘But now? After twenty years in the industry?’ Jenny pondered.
She was loath to give the pig, rat and snake any sort of credit.
‘We should probably assume he’ll see that this is an Irma Stern if we put it in front of him.’
Then she realized what she’d said.
‘I’m sorry, Kevin. That this looks like an Irma Stern.’
‘Thank you,’ said Kevin.
Hugo was immediately back to top form. Was Jenny saying that the only way you could tell an Irma Stern from the Ole Mbatian painting was the lack of a signature?
She was.
Was she also saying that the price of a genuine Woman with Parasol ought to come in around half a million dollars? Or was he misremembering?
He was not. But Jenny had had time to do some more research since then. The least a genuine Irma Stern of this type would fetch was more like a million dollars.
‘Or more,’ she said.
What had Kevin said? Was there a fake Irma in Mombasa as well?
‘It’s all in the report,’ said Kevin.
‘Just answer the question, please.’
Kevin grabbed the twenty-six pages and read aloud from page twenty-one. So, he had brought with him two paintings from his adoptive father’s art collection, the ones he could find. If Kevin hadn’t succeeded in selling the other one to an art dealer along the way, he wouldn’t have been able to afford to get back to Sweden.
This was shaping up to be a good day. First there were the keys, and now this. One piece of the puzzle after the next! There were two Ole Mbatians out there, and one could only assume that both were equally likely to be mistaken for Irma Sterns. Ole Mbatian plus Ole Mbatian equalled two thousand dollars. Irma Stern plus Irma Stern equalled two million.
‘The painting in Mombasa, is it also a woman with a parasol?’
‘No, it was called Boy by Stream.’
‘Is the boy of the same quality as the woman with the parasol?’
Yes, Kevin expected he was. An Ole Mbatian was an Ole Mbatian.
The more Hugo thought about it, the more he wished they also had access to painting number two. What if they could get both into Victor’s hands? He could have a friends-and-family discount at half a million apiece. At which point he would sell them as genuine, at which point Sweet Sweet Revenge Ltd – or, even better, Ole Mbatian the Younger – would pop up to let everyone know what was really going on.
Then the art dealer would be labelled a criminal, or at least an incompetent. While Hugo enjoyed his money.
Once all was said and done, he would treat Jenny and Kevin to a lavish café visit. And maybe even raise their allowance.
‘That’s all for today,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow I’m flying to Mombasa to buy the second of Ole Mbatian’s Irma Stern paintings. While I’m gone, promise me you won’t splash out more than usual. And preferably less.’
All he needed from them now was the name and address of the African art dealer.
‘Don’t tell me it’s in the report,’ he said to Kevin, who was about to say just that.
Jenny understood that the boss had a plan and wondered if he would share it with the staff. Hugo informed her that she shouldn’t bother a creative while he was working.
‘I’ll tell you when I get home. Now run off and get married or something, in the meantime, you’ve already been engaged for days.’
Mombasa is a city of a million people on an island of the same name. The city has been a popular place throughout the centuries. Not so much for its great beauty as for what its surroundings could bring to those who were sufficiently enterprising. Like the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. They conquered the region with violence and began to trade in ivory and gold. Only to watch the Arabs come in and destroy their fortune. The Portuguese and the Arabs spent a few centuries arguing over dominion before the British swooped in and put their foot down. The tea-drinking Englishmen identified Mombasa as the perfect place to grow coffee beans. They seized the island in an afternoon and shipped down British farmers, not so much to do work as to put Indians and Africans to work. But the coffee was good.
For reasons both logistical and political, Mombasa was annexed to British East Africa and the whole package was promoted, becoming the colony of Kenya. This all happened without seeking the input of the local population; anyway, they were ungrateful in every way. Instead of seeing potential in an agrarian future, they began to organize in protest against the fact that British settlers were staking a claim on land they didn’t own, both in Mombasa and in the Kenyan highlands. Even though the former owners were placed in newly built huts in the bush and offered jobs on the white gentlemen’s plantations as compensation, they weren’t satisfied. To be sure, the salaries they were offered were non-existent. But what kinds of expenses could someone who lived in a hut possibly have?
The parties had different views on customs and fashions. This led to arguments that led to uprisings that led to bloody war. Two hundred British soldiers and settlers paid with their lives. In the background, twenty thousand members of the native population perished as well.
The British both won and lost. Back home in London, some began to spread the message that it was ridiculous for the Empire to travel around the world, seizing other people’s land and basically enslaving those who were there from the start. According to others, these warm, fuzzy feelings for the black people was communism plain and simple, but the controversial question started to take hold in popular opinion. To the extent that one day, the British had no choice but to allow the Kenyans to rule themselves. On 12 December 1963, the country – Mombasa included – became independent.
In Kenya’s second-biggest city you will find history, culture, languages, flavours and scents from all over the world. And exciting people. Including an art dealer not far from the massive harbour of Kilindini, with a Somali mother and British soldier-slash-rapist father. The art dealer understandably had little patience for whites, but in the name of commerce he hid it well.
Therefore he gave a friendly smile when the first customer of the day, a white, a mzungu, entered. Hugo nodded in greeting and immediately spotted what he was looking for on the wall.
The oil painting Boy by Stream reached – as far as Hugo could ascertain – artistic heights easily matching those of Woman with Parasol. Ole Mbatian definitely had qualities beyond the typical.
‘What do you want for that one there?’ Hugo asked, possibly sounding a little too eager.
Eagerness is not what you want to demonstrate while bargaining in any context. In Mombasa, it’s downright stupid.
A mzungu with money who knows what he wants, thought the art dealer. This might turn into a lovely afternoon.
‘A very good choice, sir. But I’m so enchanted by that painting that I think I want to keep it.’
This was not the truth. Just a few weeks earlier, a youngster had come into the store with a rolled-up, unsigned oil painting. Normally the art dealer would never offer more than fifty dollars for something like that. And that was assuming conditions were favourable. Otherwise, more like five.
But this youngster gave a lovely speech about his father’s painting and generally conducted himself in a likeable way. Plus, Boy by Stream looked tremendously similar to an Irma Stern! If he were to scribble on a signature and sell the painting honestly as ‘a wonderful forgery of one of the great daughters of the continent’, the art dealer might get one, two, three or maybe even four thousand dollars for it. Of course, he didn’t mention this to the youngster. He did, however, surprise himself by paying the young man the thousand-dollar bill he had pleaded for. Perhaps he was getting soft.
The art dealer intended to deal with the signature bit when he had a chance. In the meantime he hung the painting in the store; after all, it was very nice.
And now this mzungu was standing here asking for that very item and none other.
‘Why do you have it on display in the store if you don’t want to sell it?’
The art dealer answered by not answering, but painted a vivid picture (fittingly enough) of his difficult upbringing, about his mother, about her arthritis and how expensive it was to buy medicine in Mombasa. It was a different story in Mozambique, but of course that was very far away.
‘The painting is not for sale, like I said, but five thousand dollars would buy a lot of medicine.’
Hugo sighed, sensing shades of Workplace Safety Inspector Broman, but thought it was just as pointless to argue now as it had been back then. Best to pay before the price went up.
The negotiations over, the art dealer was in good spirits. His anxiety about his mother was gone. As he rolled and packaged the painting, he hummed a melody she’d once taught him. He apologized to the client for not knowing all the words, but it so happened that the leading Somali language had neither alphabet nor dictionary. His memory was all he could consult, and as everyone knew, that started to let you down once you were past thirty-five.
The client who had just paid five thousand dollars for a thousand-dollar painting that really shouldn’t have cost more than a hundred was not in the mood to discuss Somali linguistics.
‘Hurry up, if you please.’
Well, well, the mzungu was a sore loser. Still, bad winners were worse. Now it was time to show some generosity. The art dealer had a special glass jar under the counter for that very purpose.
‘May I offer you a chocolate cream in celebration of sealing the deal?’
Hugo was grumpy. Deep down, this was because he had bungled the negotiations, but he wouldn’t admit it even to himself.
‘You can keep your chocolates. Or give them to your mother. Maybe they’re good for arthritis. But please, speed it up. And call me a taxi. I’m going to the airport.’
With that, the art dealer in turn lost patience with his client.
‘Call it yourself,’ he said, putting the glass jar back in its place.
‘Very well. Do you know the number?’
‘No. But I think it starts with a four.’
Boy by Stream lived up to all of Jenny’s expectations. It was singularly profound; it depicted a lone black boy with a lustre that took her breath away. The boy was holding a dry stick, about to dip it in the water. His loneliness, coupled with his happiness over such a small thing. The thoughtfulness in the boy’s eyes, the fire in his forehead like a mirror reflecting the entire dramatic continent of Africa.
‘My father-in-law-to-be is a genius,’ she said.
‘Thanks,’ said Kevin.
At last it was time for the director to tell them his plan. The project leader was eager to learn how the project would unfold, as was the one who was ultimately responsible for all the financial details.
Hugo had got over being swindled in Mombasa. Once again, all he saw were possibilities. But he might as well leave the young ’uns in a state of suspense for a little while longer.
‘First let’s get some food in our bellies,’ he said, feeling pleased with himself.
After lunch, the trio were back in the office. Hugo asked Jenny and Kevin to have a seat around the conference table. Then he cleared his throat and launched into his explanation.
It was true that Hugo didn’t know much about the art world, but he was fully versed in the machinations of the human soul. Thus the trio could rest assured that no art dealer had yet been born who wouldn’t jump to pay at least five hundred thousand dollars for a million-dollar painting. Furthermore, now that they had two, the amount could only double.
‘We will, however, be best served by pitching them to Alderheim via messenger. All we need is the signature. You’ll have to be in charge of that, Jenny.’
The CFO looked at Hugo and asked if what they’d just heard was his plan.
A million dollars in the bank. For a plan, that would do. Hugo would have been happy to leave the Victor Alderheim affair behind him once the money came in, but he could tell by Jenny’s tepid reaction that she and Kevin needed to see the conned man tortured a little more. That was just the way people were made.
‘Was that the whole plan? No sir. Once we’ve got the money, we’ll wait for him to sell the forgeries on, and then we’ll reveal the truth. We’re filthy rich, or that’s mostly just me actually, and Victor’s reputation is ruined. I get mine; you get yours. Everyone’s happy. Except Victor. And whoever’s stuck with the fake paintings, but every war has its victims.’
Jenny wasn’t as enthusiastic as Hugo had expected. Not at all. Had all his delightful revenge jobs made him too cynical, or was something else going on? Kevin was paging through that damned report.
There had been a few, sporadic occasions in the past in which the great creative mind had been blinded by its own achievements. These all occurred during his first, and extremely successful, years. When enough of what he touched turned to gold, it was as if all humility took a back seat. As if he were invincible. To this day, he shuddered at the memory of how he had forced through a multimillion-dollar campaign for a mobile phone manufacturer that then launched its cute little device, early in the smartphone era, under the motto ‘Not too smart’. That was precisely the problem with the device. That manufacturer no longer existed.
Why was Hugo thinking of this now? Should he have looped in the woman who actually knew something about art at a slightly earlier stage?
‘Have you ever, in any context, heard the word “authentication”?’ asked Jenny.
‘It’s in the report,’ said Kevin.
‘If you had kept your damn report shorter than the freaking Old Testament, maybe I could have managed to read it, but by all means. Enlighten me!’
To put it simply, you could say that various authorities all over the world specialized in different artists and became considered trustworthy enough to issue certificates of authenticity.
‘To put it simply, that is,’ said Jenny.
‘Let’s stick to the simple things. Go on.’
It would not be simple to get Ole Mbatian classified as an Irma Stern. It wouldn’t even be difficult. It would be impossible.
‘The plan falls apart at its provenance.’
‘Please speak plain Swedish.’
‘Page twenty-four,’ said Kevin.
A genuine painting must have a crystal-clear and spotless history, from the artist’s hands all the way to the wall in the home of the current owner, with documentation for each change of ownership and the associated receipts in between. Sure, they could sit around thinking up an exciting backstory for the Ole paintings, but who would believe it?
Hugo went cold. Not too smart.
‘Are you saying that half a million dollars just slipped through my fingers? Our fingers.’
‘If that’s how you’d like to look at it,’ said the CFO. ‘Plus the round trip to Mombasa, one night at a hotel, and the cost of Boy by Stream.’
Hugo didn’t want to hear any more.
‘You flew business class, so that’s about eighty-two thousand kronor for the trip, lodging, and the painting. It is my unfortunate duty to inform you that this burdens our profits for the current month.’
He had embarrassed himself but he was not going to give up. Not yet.
‘But if paintings can be forged, can’t we just do the same with the provenance?’
Jenny didn’t think so. But say they could. Then it would fall apart during brushstroke analysis. This more than anything would reveal Ole Mbatian, unless he didn’t just paint like Irma Stern – which of course he did – but also used the exact same brushstrokes as Irma had in her day. Over the years, the inventor of brushstroke analysis had made many a forger unhappy.
‘Damn him to hell,’ said Hugo.
‘That’s all said and done,’ said Jenny. ‘He died in 1890-something.’
Hugo said he’d read about the Carbon 14 method. Could that be a feasible way?
He was getting desperate.
Kevin wondered how chemical dating of their Ole could prove it was an Irma.
Hugo had no idea.
Jenny advised him to let it go. Carbon dating could determine the age of a painting within about fifty years, nothing more. In this case, it would prove that their Irma Stern artworks had been painted by anyone at any time during the twentieth century or later. Which, of course, they were.
‘Ole Mbatian isn’t just anyone,’ said his adopted son.
Hugo was so angry with himself that he took it out on Kevin.
‘Can we just agree that Ole Mbatian, in all his glory, is not Irma Stern? And that she is not him?’
Hugo fell silent. He withdrew into himself. He was full of very dark thoughts.
But inside Jenny was a glimmer of hope; she had learned that a brooding Hugo was a thinking Hugo.
And she was right about that. Hugo was thinking that the Victor Alderheim project had two purposes: one was to trick the art dealer out of money for Hugo’s sake; the other was to destroy Alderheim’s life more generally, after which the firm’s staff could sleep easy at night. Or whatever it was they did at night, newly engaged as they were.
Now all that was left was purpose number two. Hugo would need to work for free, but then again that had been a condition from the start. His failure in Mombasa was entirely his own fault; he could feel the frustration.
‘Here’s what we’re going to do,’ he said. ‘Instead of making the paintings as authentic as possible, we’ll do the opposite.’
‘As inauthentic as possible?’ Jenny wondered, thinking that this sounded peculiar.
‘Yes. We’ll make them as goddamn fake as we possibly can.’
There was no longer any money to be made on this project. Only expenses. That pig, rat, snake Alderheim would pay for that.
Sweet Sweet Re-fucking-venge Ltd.
It felt good to swear. Shit!
Together they hammered out the details. After all, it had proven suboptimal to keep the assistants in the dark about the plan.
Intended target Victor seldom or never went down to the archive in the cellar. Jenny could swear it would look just as it had when she was there before Christmas. Besides the files about works bought and sold, there were easels and other items necessary for the production of one’s own oil paintings. This was Jenny’s doing or fault. Once, as a teenager, she had gathered her courage and tried to depict her lostness in shapes and colours. Nothing had come of it, as with life in general. Until recently.
Step one of Hugo’s plan was for the trio to sneak in at night and rig the Ole Mbatian paintings on easels, so they seemed to be works in progress. Next to them, painted on paper, a number of attempts at imitating Irma Stern’s signature. This was, of course, the only thing still left to do before the paintings were complete. Any uninitiated onlooker would come to the immediate conclusion that the cellar was actually a forger’s studio.
Kevin wasn’t happy about giving away Papa Ole’s paintings in this manner, and to the very man on earth who deserved them least of all. But he came to terms with the operation given that it would serve a higher purpose.
Jenny had a few matter-of-fact objections. Creating paintings as good as a real artist was not a crime. Nor was imitating an artist’s signature on a piece of paper. It was only when a fake signature ended up on an equally fake artwork that things got dicey.
Hugo had also considered this. But in the days of social networks, there was this thing called the court of popular opinion. If Sweet Sweet Revenge’s proud staffers would simply do their jobs right, Victor Alderheim would be sentenced to life by both the people and the global art-dealer industry. Surely this was worth more than a few years in prison for attempted fraud.
‘Why not try for both?’ said Kevin. ‘If the part with Papa Ole’s paintings is only half illegal, couldn’t we throw in something more?’
‘Drugs!’ said Jenny.
This was the most illegal thing she could think of.
‘Porn,’ Kevin suggested.
Hugo was proud of his colleagues. Naturally they would place a few bags of heroin on the table next to the paintings. Porn was not necessarily equally illegal, but even clear signs of ‘kinky sex’ would aid their cause.
Neither Jenny nor Kevin felt comfortable with the concept of ‘kinky sex’. They themselves had come no further in their development than leaving the ceiling light on one time when they did it. But as a teenager in Bollmora, Kevin had surfed around on various gaming sites, and the step from those to who knows what was never a long one. He therefore had a certain amount of theoretical knowledge concerning items such as remote-controlled vibrating eggs, butt plugs for beginners, and that old standby, the penis pump. Plus things he didn’t quite understand, such as chains, canes, masks, and just about anything you could imagine made of leather.
‘I can be in charge of getting suitable sex toys,’ he said.
‘You can?’ said Jenny.
‘Very good, Kevin,’ said Hugo. ‘You can have seven thousand kronor for a toy budget, but that must include a blow-up doll.’
Which left the drugs. Opiates would be very of-the-day. Hugo had read that the United States was in the process of killing itself by that route. Physicians far and wide were prescribing painkillers for body and mind at a rate never before seen, eagerly cheered on by the manufacturers and their marketing teams. The average life expectancy for men was falling at such a pace that if nothing changed, there would no longer be any men left in 380 years.
‘That’s sad for the men,’ said Kevin.
‘Almost as sad for the women too, I imagine,’ said Jenny.
Hugo asked them to stick to the topic at hand. Even better, they should be quiet for a moment, for he was about to call his brother.
Big brother Malte, the now reasonably renowned eye doctor, had always done as his little brother had asked. He also put everything else aside whenever Hugo called.
‘Hello, dear brother,’ said Hugo.
‘Hello yourself. How are things? I’ve got an operation in a few minutes, but tell me what I can do for you.’
Hugo had originally planned to pad his request with niceties, but there wasn’t time for that now.
‘I’d like you to prescribe me a kilo of Oxycodone. And a kilo of Fentanyl.’
The eye doctor couldn’t believe his ears.
‘Have you lost your mind? I mean, for real, lost your mind? Beyond the usual Hugo Hamlin style of mind-losing.’
‘But it’s not for me.’
‘And you thought that would make it better?’
‘Half a kilo, then? Four hectograms, that’s my final offer. Three?’
Malte was out of time to talk. He was on the threshold of performing cataract surgery. But in short, his objections were grounded in the fact that the medical licence he’d put in so much energy to receive would end up in a paper shredder at the National Board of Health and Welfare if he did what his brother asked.
Fortunately, Malte hung up before his little brother had time to get caught up in arguing that medical licences could be falsified.
So they would have to get hold of the narcotics some other way. Since Hugo had never hung around central Stockholm at night, he had no idea how. Time to involve his staff once again.
‘Either of you know how to buy drugs and stuff?’
‘Not me,’ said Jenny, whose history with drugs was limited to the time when she was offered a cigarette at sixteen. She had declined.
‘There’s an exciting leaf on the savanna you can chew if you need to run a little further than you already have and can actually manage,’ said Kevin.
The problem was that this leaf was on the savanna, and Hugo had no intention of making another trip to Kenya. He wondered if they thought the owner of the second-hand shop in Bollmora might be of help. Perhaps someone who sold everything from used mattresses to fool’s gold engagement rings had some heroin sitting around in a drawer?
He heard for himself how silly he sounded.
‘Forget it,’ he said.
In the absence of what they couldn’t get their hands on they would have to use a few bags of flour, with rubber gloves nearby to suggest … something. A link to the sex toys, somehow.
When it came to Victor Alderheim’s destroyed reputation, the group felt they’d already made it. One important problem to solve was how the long arm of the law would reach all the way down to the Alderheimian cellar. None of the three colleagues could call and tip them off; all calls were recorded. Nor did it seem like a good idea to hire a proxy off a random park bench. The tipster needed to have gravitas and credibility.
Gravitas and credibility, indeed. At the prestigious Bukowskis Auction House in Stockholm there was a department called Private Sales. This was where you could turn if, for instance, you had become too poor for your own way of life and didn’t want to admit it to those around you, or even to yourself. To keep from being forced to move into a caravan to die of shame, it was common to take down a family heirloom from the wall – a piece that reached extra great artistic heights and had a price tag to match – and turn to Private Sales. Works of art and money changed hands and the buyer would never know who the seller was. Once the deal was done, of course, a blank spot was left on the seller’s wall, but that could be remedied with a white lie or two. ‘What happened to my Renoir? Oh, I got tired of it, it’s down in the basement somewhere. Flowers don’t belong on the wall; they look best in a vase.’
For this illusion to work, of course, it was crucial for the middleman, Bukowskis, to maintain the utmost discretion. And they did. The firm’s entire business idea depended on excessive aplomb and well-maintained credibility. Hugo knew this for certain, because a decade or so earlier, Great & Even Greater Communications had tried to win Bukowskis as a client. Since Hugo hadn’t been in charge of this effort, another firm won, but there had been enough talk about this failure around the office that he had effectively done plenty of homework.
Hugo’s plan was for Bukowskis to call the police on their behalf. There could be no better tipster.
Jenny thought this idea seemed smart but tricky.
‘If they’re as discreet as you say, then won’t they be afraid of getting a reputation as police tipsters?’
Hugo nodded. But his time as CEO of Sweet Sweet Revenge Ltd had brought him fresh insight into the human soul.
‘I think I know what it will take,’ he said. ‘But one thing at a time.’
First they had to fill the cellar with everything that would destroy Victor Alderheim’s reputation forevermore. The oil paintings were only the beginning. When the police made their move, Victor would be forced to explain both art forgery and suspected narcotics violations. The evidence of an expert-level sex life wouldn’t challenge the criminal code, but the friends’ goal was for all of Stockholm to learn about it. And why not the nation? And Europe, while they were at it. Fuck it – the world.
The project still wouldn’t bring in any money. But Sweden’s leading adman had his pride.
‘Victor will never recover from this, if we play all our cards right.’
‘You’re the best!’ said Jenny.
‘It’s not over yet,’ said Hugo.
He was certainly right about that.
Kevin took the company car for his shopping trip. Besides the sex toys, he was under orders to purchase a kilo of flour and a roll of small plastic baggies. He was so eager to be of service that he hadn’t bothered to mention that he didn’t have a driver’s licence. He could, however, drive a car. At least, he could drive the World Wildlife Fund’s Range Rover. At least, on the savanna. There was nothing like right-hand or left-hand traffic there, although that was a factor he had to consider now. Right-hand in Kenya and left-hand in Sweden. Or was it the other way around?
After just four blocks and one roundabout in the wrong direction, things were flowing smoothly. And this car shifted all by itself.
After flour, baggies and toys, Kevin got an idea.
A really good one, he told himself. It would mean his breakthrough in the group.
Or eternal rejection.
Kevin made up his mind, parked the car at a bus stop, and took out his new phone. He searched online and found what he was looking for. Only two thousand kronor? He could get that from an ATM.
This would require a couple hours’ detour, but Hugo and Jenny would be so proud of him. Right?
‘You’re a genius, you goddamn idiot,’ said the adman.
This was just about the finest praise Kevin had ever heard.
What he had done was travel to a farm outside Sigtuna to buy a goat.
‘Nanny or billy?’ asked the farmer, to avoid any misunderstandings.
‘What’s the difference?’
‘Girl or boy?’
‘A girl is fine,’ said Kevin.
There had to be a limit somewhere.
Sweet Sweet Revenge Ltd executed their break-in that night. Or whatever it was they were doing – they did have a key.
The next morning, Hugo waited for everyone to gather before making the crucial phone call.
‘Are you ready?’
They were. The phone rang on the other end. Once. Twice. Then, an answer.
‘Private Sales, Gustav Jansson speaking.’
‘Hello. My name is Victor Alderheim, of the Alderheim Art Gallery.’
‘An illustrious firm. How may I help you?’
‘Well, I have a couple of Irma Sterns in storage over here. Or whatever you want to call them, heh heh. I thought you could help me hawk them for a massive amount of money. If you do a good job, I promise you’ll get a cut.’
Gustav Jansson had twenty years’ experience, four of them in his current position. He’d never heard the like.
‘Pardon me, but I’m not sure I quite understand. Are we dealing with Irma Stern, or someone else?’
‘Irma Stern, definitely. All that’s left is the signature, but I’m going to work that out. They’re damn good, Jansson, you can rest assured. Maybe we can meet up in my cellar tonight, and I’ll show you. How about eleven o’clock, to be on the safe side? I put complete trust in your discretion, Jansson.’
Gustav Jansson, who had not wanted to understand what he thought he had grasped right away, now understood completely.
‘Mr Alderheim, you have called the wrong establishment. At this firm we adhere to ethical rules of a different level of dignity than those you seem to represent. I am deeply shocked and I ask you to refrain from bothering us henceforth.’
Gustav Jansson had both seen and heard the occasional dubious matter over the years. It wasn’t common, but it happened. Up to this point he had managed each time to distance himself before it evolved into something with which he and Bukowskis could come to be associated, even as innocent witnesses.
Hugo knew that Private Sales Representative Jansson was trying to back his way out of this conversation. But he was ready. Now he had to rile him up before it was too late.
In the second that followed, Hugo declared – in the guise of Art Dealer Alderheim – that money does not stink, that Jansson should know this, and that if he didn’t he must surely have done things with his mother that no son ought to do, not to mention that in either case his mother had presumably been employed in a very particular line of work. Now, Jansson must toddle on over to the Alderheimian art gallery this very night, where the works by Irma Stern would be completed, with signatures and everything. And also he would be given fifty thousand kronor in cash, in advance, if he promised not to run off and tattle.
‘Come on over, you whiny little knob,’ Hugo concluded.
With that, what had first been doubtful had now become direct knowledge of a premeditated crime. One half of Gustav Jansson was feverishly debating whether there was a way out of this incident after all. The other half wished Victor Alderheim nothing but ill for time eternal.
‘Or would you like me to deposit the hush money straight into your bank account?’ said Hugo.
That was the last straw. And what if someone was listening in on this call? Jansson knew he had no choice but to call the police.
‘What’s it gonna be, you fucking twat?’
Within the span of ten seconds, Jansson had been unflatteringly addressed as both the male and female sex organs. It was no longer a matter of what he knew he was obligated to do, but what he would do with pleasure.
The tipster was highly credible. As a result, the raid on Alderheim’s art gallery took place that very afternoon. The police seized two suspected forgeries, eight bags of suspected narcotics, a number of fancy sex toys that both glowed and clattered, an inflatable naked rubber woman – and one goat.