Last Will by Liza Marklund

Author:Liza Marklund [Marklund, Liza]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2012-10-02T04:00:00+00:00

20

They left the building by the main entrance and stepped out into hazy sunshine. The lawns around them were bright green, and newly unfurled leaves danced on the trees. Ebba and Birgitta carried on talking about the missing consignment of antibodies and what to do next in their claim for compensation. Annika was walking behind them, admiring her surroundings.

It was lovely out there. It reminded her of films she had seen of Ivy League colleges on the east coast of the US. Narrow roads, big buildings, lots of green.

The faculty club, the Black Fox, was on the edge of the campus, at 6A Nobels Väg, not far from the Nobel Forum where Annika had been with Bosse. She realized she hadn’t replied to his email with a time when they could have coffee the following week.

They had met several times during the spring, quietly in some café, all completely innocent, not a single inappropriate word spoken.

Did she want to carry on like that? Did she want to see him at all? Did she want more?

She didn’t know, and was having trouble separating her emotions: expectation, shame, excitement, happiness, anxiety.

‘Dear old Lars-Henry,’ Birgitta said. ‘He’s become quite excitable.’ She skipped up the granite steps leading to the heavy copper door of the faculty club and held it open for Ebba and Annika. ‘He’s always been vain,’ she said, ‘but he wouldn’t have made such a fuss a few years ago about nothing more than an acknowledgement under a minor piece of research. But why, Ebba dear, didn’t you include him? You put my name in. What would it have cost you to add his?’

Ebba held her head high. ‘It was purely a matter of principle,’ she said. ‘Cilla, the post-grad who has him as her supervisor, has been trying to get hold of him all spring, and he’s never responded. She’s pretty desperate. At some point you have to take responsibility for your behaviour, even if you’re a miserable old professor.’

Birgitta beckoned a neatly dressed waiter. ‘Have you got a table for three? Splendid! By the window? Never mind. We’ll take this one in the corner – is that all right with you, girls?’ She sat down with a sigh and spread the napkin on her lap. ‘Being excluded in the way that Lars-Henry has been shouldn’t be possible,’ she said, ‘but the assembly did it anyway. I can understand that he feels bitter about it. I would, too, in his position.’ She rubbed her hands together. ‘But I don’t have to wonder about that – I was promoted rather than being kicked out. I’ll have the trout, that’s always good. And a large low-alcohol beer, please.’

‘What’s this business about Nemesis that he keeps going on about?’ Annika asked, choosing the trout as well.

‘It’s from Greek myth,’ Ebba said, ‘an endless maze of ideas about crime and punishment, cause and effect, injustice and retribution. Fundamentally, I think Lars-Henry’s reaction is based on scepticism about Darwin’s theory of evolution. He belongs to

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