The Best Book in the World

CHAPTER 34

Renewed Efforts


‘Hello dear, everything under control?’

Evita is radiantly happy and drums with her long nails on Astra’s doorpost when she looks into her room. Her hair is even more jet black than ever. She pouts her red lips at the little mirror just inside the door and gives herself an appreciative wink. There is always plenty of room for humour and self-mockery in Evita’s life. Presumably that is why people feel so comfortable in her presence.

Astra twirls around on her office chair. She looks rather concerned.

‘What? Oh, hi Evita. Under control… Yes, yeah. I suppose it is,’ says Astra in a more tired voice than she usually has.

Evita goes in and sits on the chair opposite Astra’s desk. She crosses her legs and supports one arm on the back-rest. She is one of those women who always look just as relaxed regardless of whether she is sitting in an armchair or hanging from a trapeze. Nothing can dent her self-confidence.

‘The book fair will be starting soon. It is going to be really great.’

‘Yes, well…’

‘I’ve just been to Micha’s and got my hair done. Did you know that it’s his niece who does the shampooing? She can’t be very old. Fourteen at the most. It can hardly be okay to work full-time when you’re so young.’

‘You look really lovely. Have you had some colour added? There’s a nice glow.’

Evita stretches her head back and gently shakes her hair over her neck.

‘Thanks. I’ve just done the usual. I don’t really know what’s in those dyes but I don’t suppose they are particularly organic,’ Evita laughs and goes on. ‘Did you get Titus’ manuscript? Did he get it finished on time? He must be very pleased with himself now, don’t you think?’

Astra avoids looking Evita in the eye when she formulates her vague answer.

‘I’ve got it. It looks really good. I’ve sent some selected chapters to be translated too. The printers at the book fair will arrange everything. All the sales materials will be waiting when we get down there on Thursday morning. So, yes, it should all be ready…’

Evita is a tough lady. But she hasn’t reached her position because she is thick skinned. On the contrary, she is extremely receptive and considerate. She immediately cottons on that something isn’t quite right and fastens her green eyes on Astra.


‘But…? I can feel that there is a big “but” here…’

Astra takes a deep breath. She looks at Evita. Take the bull by the horns, she thinks. Sink or swim.

‘Evita, I don’t know where Titus is. He’s disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘I don’t know where he is…’

‘What do you mean? A grown-up man can’t just go up in smoke. Have you tried the Association Bar? Perhaps he’s “had a relapse” now that he’s finished the book,’ says Evita, adding quotation marks with her fingers as she borrows the alcoholics’ own terminology.

‘No, it isn’t like that. Titus has disappeared. For real…’

Astra’s eyes shine all shiny when her tear ducts can’t withstand the pressure any longer. But they never overflow.

‘Astra, my friend. Tell me what’s happened. I’ll help you of course.’

Astra takes a deep breath and recapitulates the events and non-events of the last few days. She tells how Titus has all the time had an inexplicable worry that Eddie was going to steal his book idea. That she had come to the conclusion that it must be that Titus hasn’t told her everything about how he got the idea for the book because every time Eddie’s name is mentioned then Titus adopts an extremely defensive position. There is something fishy about Eddie and The Best Book in the World, that’s all there is to it. Titus has not been completely candid. She also tells how Titus has accused Tourette’s-Lenny of a break-in at his flat, instigated by Eddie, and how all three of them have disappeared. None of them answers the phone. Nobody has heard from them for days. Perhaps they are in an abandoned cottage somewhere, but nobody knows where it is situated.

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 Gr?na 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 f*cking 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.’

Malin goes on to say that Lenny doesn’t want to talk about Eddie any longer. The week before they went off to the cottage, he didn’t say much at all. As soon as she tried to ask him what was wrong, he just wanted to change the subject, became irritated and swore even more than usual. It was as if his tics got worse as soon as she entered the room.

Now she has tried to phone him loads of times the last few days, but he doesn’t answer. And nor does Eddie X.


Astra and Malin talk for a while. They are agreed that everything is not as it should be and that they must do somthing. Now. The question is – what? Perhaps they can try to find the cottage by just driving around. It ought to be somewhere in S?rmland, because Malin is pretty certain they passed S?dert?lje when they drove there. And then they sort of went off to the right. What would that be? West? There was a lake somewhere near. Perhaps Malin could find the way if they just set off in that direction. But probably not. No, it wouldn’t work.

‘But Astra!’ Malin suddenly exclaims.

‘Yes…?’

‘We’ll talk to Lenny’s dad. I know where he hangs out. We’ll go there!’

‘Why?’ Astra wonders.

‘Yeah, well listen. It’s Lenny’s dad who owns the cottage. He is there in the summer.’

‘What? Does somebody own it? You said it was an abandoned cottage.’

‘Well nobody lives there… it’s, like, an abandoned cottage,’ Malin says defensively.

‘It might not be permanently inhabited, but that doesn’t make it an abandoned cottage! An abandoned cottage is a house that has been forgotten, that just stands there. It isn’t an abandoned cottage if somebody owns it and goes there in the summer. It isn’t abandoned just because it’s in the middle of nowhere. Oh, why didn’t you say so from the start? Then I would have been able to find it immediately!’

‘Well, I’m very f*cking sorry then,’ says Malin and rolls her eyes. ‘Hello, how should I know…’

‘But isn’t Lenny’s dad dead?’ Astra breaks in when her brain has worked out what Malin has actually told her. ‘Eddie said he was dead.’

‘No, he isn’t dead! Did Eddie say that? He and Lenny don’t keep in touch any longer. He is alive and well from what I’ve heard, but I’ve never met him. Lenny knows where his dad hides the key to the cottage, above the outdoor lamp in the porch. It’s the same place as when he was little. So he has, like, done a break-in at his dad’s house. But then we have always cleaned up after us. His dad has no idea we’ve been there. It has always been at weird times, like in the middle of the week or a weekend when it’s been pissing with rain all the time, when no normal person would ever think of going off to the country, like. Shall we go and find the old guy? I know where he is.’

Astra puts her hand on Malin’s.

‘Come along, let’s go. Can you take time off?’

‘Of course,’ says Malin gravely. ‘It is up to us now.’