But Johan put his hand in his pocket and pulled something out, then he got down on one knee in front of Chris and held both her hands. Something was glinting between his fingers and Faye’s heart started to thud. She glanced at Chris, who looked totally uncomprehending. Her anger faded as quickly as it had arisen, and she broke out in goose bumps all over. Johan only had eyes for Chris as he knelt there on the asphalt of the schoolyard. Some of the children seemed to have realized something was going on, like dogs scenting a treat, and stopped to watch in small groups.

But in Johan’s world there was no one but him and Chris. He cleared his throat, “Chris, you’re the most wonderful person I’ve ever met, you’re the kindest and smartest person I’ve ever encountered. I love you so, so much. Right from the very first time I saw you. If you hadn’t followed me to Farsta I was planning to go back to the salon the next day, to get a Mohawk of my own, or God knows what. This ring . . .” He held out a sparkling engagement ring. “I bought this ring four days after we met. I’ve kept it on me ever since. I didn’t want to look like a lunatic by getting it out too early, but for me there’s never been any such thing as too early with you. So now I’ve kept hold of it for far too long. So I was wondering if you might consent to wear it on your finger? I guess what I’m asking is . . . will you marry me?”

The children around them started to whoop and cheer. A few let out wolf whistles. One girl yelled, “Come on, say yes! Mr. Sj?lander’s the best! Best teacher ever!”

Chris put her hands over her mouth and Johan looked suddenly nervous. Chris swallowed and held out her hand with tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Of course I will,” she whispered. The schoolchildren cheered.

Johan grinned at them and gave them the thumbs-up, which prompted even louder cheering and applause until they slowly dispersed. He fumbled with the ring before he managed to slip it on to Chris’s outstretched finger.

“I love you,” she murmured, pulling him to his feet and kissing him.

Faye found a suitable café on G?tgatan called Muggen, ordered coffee, opened her laptop, and connected to the Wi-Fi. She’d downloaded a VPN app to keep her IP address hidden and impossible to trace. She inserted the USB memory stick where she had arranged everything she had found in Jack’s Gmail account, and looked through the material. She had organized it clearly and logically, a dream haul for any ambitious business reporter.

Faye had picked out a young journalist called Magdalena Jonsson at Dagens Industri. Faye had had her eye on her for a while. She was sharp, thorough, and she wrote well.

There’s more if you’re interested, she typed, and pressed send.

As simple as that. She was getting ready to leave when her inbox pinged.

Can we meet?

Faye thought for a moment. She was aware that reporters were careful to protect their sources, they were their most valuable assets. But at the same time they were only human. One loose word when they were drunk, a mislaid mobile, a confidential conversation with a boyfriend and everything would get out. She couldn’t take the risk. Not yet.

No. Let me know if you’d like more.

The answer came instantly.

Okay, thanks! I need to get our experts to check the authenticity, so it might take a few days, but this is incredible—if it’s true . . .

It is, she typed, then closed her laptop and left the café.

—

The front-page headline in Dagens Industri read: COMPARE CEO JACK ADELHEIM TOLD STAFF TO TARGET THE VULNERABLE AND ELDERLY. The article was accompanied by stills from the video Faye had sent Magdalena Jonsson.

Faye was drinking coffee at the island in the kitchen. The story of how Jack Adelheim, CEO of the recently IPOed Compare, encouraged his staff to lie to elderly customers to get their money was splashed across four pages. It included everything Faye had gathered from his emails and sent to Magdalena Jonsson, divided into juicy headlines. The most incriminating evidence was a video taken with a phone from the early days of Compare’s rise, and showed Jack instructing his staff at an internal sales conference in no uncertain terms to sell anything they could to “oldsters,” using whatever means necessary. Results were the only thing that mattered. The video ran for ten minutes, ten minutes that completely destroyed Jack’s moral credibility as a business leader. The film was the smoking gun that Faye had been hoping to find in his Gmail. The rest was merely the icing on the cake. The video alone would have been enough to sink Jack. And inflict serious damage on Compare. She had seen it before, and had been counting on the fact that he was arrogant enough to have saved it.

Now all she had to do was wait to see how much damage she had done. She was worried it wasn’t going to be enough. The world was a cynical place. The media, the public, the business community—they were all very fickle. And self-interest was always the guiding principle. All she had been able to do was lay out the evidence.

Faye read on. Hungrily, greedily, full of schadenfreude. With a flutter of happiness in her chest at the realization that Jack was now the prey, the vulnerable one.

To her relief, the media were merciless. The angle Dagens Industri had taken was clear and consistent. Politicians, local councillors, relatives of the elderly customers who had been tricked—they all spoke out in the article. One of DI’s columnists called it the worst scandal of the past decade and declared that it was now impossible for Jack Adelheim to remain in his position. Faye read on eagerly. When she had finished she checked Aftonbladet, Expressen, and Dagens Nyheter. All three had the story as the lead article on their websites, with clips from the film. Aftonbladet even devoted its morning broadcast to a discussion of what the revelations might mean for Compare and its share value. They were competing with one another to seek out the harshest condemnation from the most heavyweight names. And the public joined in. How dare Jack? How dare Compare?

Faye tried to visualize Jack. What was he doing now? How would he react? Would he follow the advice of his critics and resign to save Compare and stop the share price from sinking any lower?

Maybe. If he felt sufficiently panicky, sufficiently skewered. With his background, he was more sensitive to public approbation than anything else. The heavy, damp burden of shame from his childhood might make him simply drop everything and run. That mustn’t happen. That would go against everything she had planned. She had to encourage him to go into battle, to fight to the last to cling on. Massage his ego, tell him no one was better able to save and lead Compare than he was. She didn’t think it would be particularly difficult. She knew exactly which buttons she needed to press.

She called Kerstin, who had gone in to the office early.

“Have you seen?”

“I’m reading it now. It’s incredible. They’re really going for it. Better than expected.”

“I know. What . . . what do you think I should do?”

“Lie low. He’ll come to you.”

“You think so?”

“No, sweetheart, I know. In times of crisis we turn to people who can validate us. When Jack needs validation he comes to you. He’ll ask for your advice. He’s always needed you. He just hasn’t had the sense to realize it.”

“What’s happened to the shares?”

Faye heard Kerstin tap at her computer.

“They’re down from ninety-seven kronor to eighty-two since the market opened.”

She cleared her throat. It was a big fall, but still a long way from her target. If they fell below fifty kronor she would instruct her stockbroker on the Isle of Man to buy every share he could get his hands on. That would probably be enough to give her a majority.

Jack and Henrik owned forty percent of Compare. They had needed a lot of investors at the start, and the investors had bought shares in the company. Jack and Henrik had made a big deal of the fact the people buying shares had the same vision for the business as them. But the fact that the two of them didn’t have a majority made them vulnerable. As she had pointed out on many occasions. In vain.

“There’s a way to go yet,” she said.

“Don’t worry. It’s going to work. It might take a few days, but the more unhappy everyone gets with Jack, and the worse he handles it, the lower the share price will sink. All you have to do is persuade him to cling on, that it will all blow over.”

“I’ll try,” Faye said.

A brief silence followed.

“When are you coming into the office?” Kerstin asked.

“I’m probably not coming in today, Chris needs me.”

“Go to Chris,” Kerstin said. “I’ll hold the fort here.”

—

Chris’s doorbell echoed shrilly in the stairwell. Faye hadn’t called ahead to say she’d be coming—she hardly ever did. Chris’s door was always open for her, she still had her own key. She waited and listened. After a while she heard slow footsteps inside the apartment, the lock clicked, and the door swung open.

Chris looked tired. Her face was gray and she had big, dark bags under her eyes. When she saw it was Faye her face cracked into a weary smile.

“Oh, it’s you. I thought it was a burglar.”

“And yet you opened the door.”

“I needed someone to take my frustration out on,” Chris said as she bent down to unlock the white metal grille.