Eva stared at her left hand, her rings nothing more than a subterfuge, an augmented reality, just for the next few minutes.
She flicked off the TV; it was time.
The knock at the neighbouring office door reached into her space, a short sharp one rap of the knuckles. The phone on Eva’s desk rang.
“Ready?” Kristina Ekstrom asked.
“Ready, I’m on mute.” Eva muted her phone.
“I’m putting me on speaker,” the quality of Kristina’s voice changed, more echoey but the system was a good one. Her ‘come in’ was clear.
Eva had replayed this moment, planning how it might go. But none of it had prepared her for the wave of fury that tore through her when Charles’ cut-glass accent came down the phone. She needed to calm herself, this was no good if she couldn’t hear anything through the rushing of blood in her ears, the demand for justice her heart rapped out, the ‘how could you’ she wanted to scream at him.
She relaxed her grip on the handset, slowed her breathing. This was now what she felt for the man who’d been her husband for seven years and her first proper relationship before that when she’d been just eighteen?
When had love turned to hate? Was it in the pumping station or when she stood on the wrong side of a padlocked door in Marrakech?
Had it been an incremental thing, the eroding of what she thought they’d had, as she learned his secrets, or when he’d pulled her in harm’s way? When she’d seen him with Nancy? Or had it been from their second beginning? She could be honest enough to admit she’d always found being a single parent a struggle, too much a mirroring of her own childhood, that she hadn’t looked too hard, just gratefully assumed the Charles that came back to her was the one who’d walked away.
She should have been more wary, she should have been stronger. Ensam är stark. You were right, Daddy.
“Please, call me Kristina.” Kristina’s confidence down the phone handset grounded Eva. “Take a seat. I’m glad you responded to our reaching out. With a new Chairperson we thought it an opportune time to enhance the process by which we consider work for the Nobel. Coffee?”
“Can I meet the new Chairman while I’m here?” Charles asked.
“That’s not how the process will go.”
Eva had to admire Kristina’s coolness. She would have thrown the pot over him, but that wouldn’t avenge Per.
“So, Charles, obviously after what happened in Marrakech and at the water sites in Africa and India, it’s clear that keeping water supplies safe is one of the world’s most urgent needs. I understand that you’ve invented a compound that can do that. Can you explain it to me in layman’s terms?”
“It’s my pleasure.” A cup chinked onto a saucer. “The compound sanitises water from the deadliest of bugs, it uses a lock and key mechanism. If you think of a contaminant as a key, the compound acts as a magnet, if you will, attracting the microbes to it and enclosing them, locking them safely away.”
“But it’s not a biological agent. Please correct me if I’m wrong.”
“No, you’re quite right, it’s more of a chemical agent.”
“Can this system collect any contaminant?” Kristina asked.
“I am confident it will sanitise water regardless of the contaminant involved.”
Eva let his self-congratulatory waffle wash past her, but she knew how important it was for him to spell it out.
If they just kept him away from any water supply, everything would be fine. No agent, no need for the compound.
“The Committee received intelligence that this wasn’t your original—”
“I invented my work while I was still using my birth name. I’ve brought my original birth certificate, together with my legal change of name to Charles Buchanan. I didn’t plagiarise my own work.” And still he surprised her.
“This will need verification.”
“Naturally. In the meantime, I’ve patented it under my current name for any application of my two-part process.”
Kristina probed gently, expertly, trying to tie Charles up, but he was clever. If she got a little too close to his truth, he wielded his scientific armour, long and important sounding words used to bedazzle the blonde he thought was his only audience.
Then Kristina must have believed he’d relaxed, become cocksure enough. “Your statements given in here will go before the Committee to complement your application. Are you happy to give your consent to that?”
“Of course.”
A chair moved over the wooden floor. “Thank you for your time, Charles. Just wait there, someone will be along shortly.”
The door to the room in which Eva waited opened just a few seconds later and Kristina came in. Eva lay the phone handset on the desk for Kristina to listen to now and stood up, smoothing her skirt.
“You were amazing.” She hugged Kristina.
“Lycka till! But you don’t need luck, you’re your father’s daughter after all.”
Eva smiled her thanks at Kristina’s confidence and picked up the bottle of Scotch and two carefully wrapped glasses, one in pink bubble wrap, one in white, from the desk.
She blew out a breath. This wasn’t going to be easy.Her turn now.
Her battle.
60
Eva paused on the outside of Kristina’s office door. It should be fury surging through her, but she just felt an overwhelming urge to cry. She could conjure up one of the many news images she’d seen over the last couple of weeks to arm herself to get through this. Deaths in Morocco, many nations mourning their leaders. The terrible sight of soldiers in Seitu and Tirupudur keeping the people calmer while the agencies tried to deliver on their promise
