Last Will (57 page)

That’ll teach you, bitch, she thought.

Even so, she still couldn’t quite relax.

There wasn’t really any cause for concern. Her Russian documentation was as good as a false passport could be, only used once before. There was no reason to think they could link her Russian identity to her real one.

Don’t get jumpy now, she thought.

Her apartments on the Costa del Sol had been confiscated, along with the villa in Tuscany (but that one didn’t matter, she’d never liked it, the Italians were almost as far up their own backsides as the Swedes). There was no question of ever going home to the family farm outside Boston again. But her Swiss bank accounts were still there, along with the room in the boarding house in the Bekaa Valley. Lebanon was a beautiful little country. In fact she was almost happiest there, really. She had nothing to feel sorry about, nothing at all.

Then it was her turn. She adjusted the glasses on her nose and handed her passport through the hatch of the glass booth, smiling and trying to look bored.

Come on, let’s get it over with.

The police bitch behind the glass inspected her passport, looked a bit closer and touched the photograph, then typed something into her computer and the Kitten felt her pulse rate increase. She licked her lips and swallowed.

Come on, for fuck’s sake!

The woman looked up at her, carefully, intently, then folded the passport back to open it better.
Watch out!
she wanted to say.
It’s new!

“A problem?” the Kitten said in broken English.

The police officer ignored her, the arrogant witch. Instead she picked up a phone, dialed a short number and waited. Then she looked up, and the Kitten felt her gaze pass right through her body, like X-rays, all the way through to the bottomless well containing her soul. The woman said something into the phone in that awful Viking gibberish of theirs, waited a few moments, then hung up. Then she got up, tucked her chair under the desk, and emerged through the door in the side of the cubicle. The Kitten followed the woman intently with her eyes, she was coming straight toward her, and she couldn’t move, felt not the slightest impulse to run.

“Miss Houseman?” the police officer said, stopping in front of her and taking hold of her elbow. “Miss Frances Houseman, would you mind coming with me, please?”

They knew her true identity, they had found her core—Frances, after the first woman in the US cabinet.

The Kitten put her hand in her pocket and opened the little box.

“I should have listened to Dad,” she said.

She found the pill and popped it into her mouth.

I should have married Grant, she thought, then bit down hard on the cyanide capsule.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This is a novel, a work of complete fiction.

But I make use of a large number of facts when I am building the foundations of my imagined story.

The Karolinska Institute, for instance, certainly exists, and is in gratifyingly good health. In 2005 it was ranked in the
Times Higher Education Supplement
(THES) as the fourth-best biomedicinal university in the world, after Harvard, Cambridge, and Oxford.

However neither MEM, the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Molecular Biology, nor FBF, the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, exist within the Karolinska Institute. These departments are entirely the product of the author’s imagination, but the way they work is roughly the same as similar workplaces function around the world in real life.

Even if the Karolinska Institute’s Nobel Assembly and Nobel Committee in purely technical terms function in the way described in this novel, I would like to make it clear that I haven’t followed their working practices and make no claims to have depicted their work in a factually correct way.

Nor is there any modern white building at the end of Berzelius väg in Solna. I have simply relocated a building from the Huddinge campus of the Karolinska Institute to its main site in Solna.

The newsroom of the
Evening Post
does not exist either, although it shares some characteristics with many media organizations I have worked for over the years.

Alfred Nobel, on the other hand, most definitely did exist, along with his brother Emil, Beatrice Cenci, Bertha von Suttner, and Sofie Hess.
Everything I have written about these characters in this novel, about their lives and deaths, is based upon historical fact.

The portrait of Beatrice Cenci painted by Guido Reni, or possibly by his daughter Elisabetta Sirani, also exists, but it belongs not to a private collection in Djursholm in Stockholm but to the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica in Rome.

The whole sad story of the theatrical drama
Nemesis,
a tragedy in four acts written by Alfred Nobel, is accurately depicted. Today just one original copy of the work exists in the National Archives in Stockholm. The whereabouts of the other two copies that Nathan Söderblom spared from the flames remain unknown.

But today Nobel’s spiritual testament can be purchased and read by anyone. In 2003 it was made available to the public in an edition published by Esperantoförlaget in Stockholm.

On December 10, 2005, the anniversary of Nobel’s death, the play finally received its world premiere when it was performed at Strindberg’s Intima Teater in Stockholm.

Both the play and the actors received outstanding reviews.

The poet Alfred Nobel finally received public recognition, albeit 109 years too late.

I could not have written this novel without the help of a number of very patient people. Many thanks to you all!

Cecilia Björkdahl, doctoral student at the Karolinska Institute, for research visits, checking facts, and an introduction into laboratory routines (and for letting Ebba Romanova borrow your research!). I couldn’t have done this without you, Cilla!

Åsa Nilsonne, professor in medicinal psychology and author, for help with contacts, discussions of motives for murder, and the world of scientific research.

Thomas Bodström, former minister of justice in Sweden, for the opportunity to follow the internal work of the Justice Department, as well as checking facts and discussions about the genesis and implementation of legislation.

Brun Ulfhake, professor of Anatomy at the Karolinska Institute, who showed me KI’s animal research facility, its laboratories, and halls.

Alexandra Carlberg, official guide at Stockholm City Hall, who showed me large parts of the building, including lifts and goods entrances.

The staff at the
Expressen
newspaper’s main premises in Stockholm who allowed me to get in their way, among them Kerstin Thornström, assistant editorial head, and Anders Fallenius, crime reporter.

Carolina Ekeus, press secretary for the National Swedish Police Board, for help regarding disclosure bans and legislation covering freedom of speech, according to paragraph ten of chapter twenty-three of the Judicial Procedure Act.

Jan Guillou, author, for help about different sorts of weapons and their areas of use.

Jonas Gummesson, author and producer for TV4, for information about the political decision-making process.

Dan Boija, detective inspector with Stockholm Police’s violent crime unit, for a description of the work involved in putting together photofit pictures.

Anders Sigurdson, police superintendent with Stockholm Police Authority and head of security for the 2005 Nobel banquet, for describing the nature of regular security procedures and the division of responsibilities surrounding the Nobel festivities in Stockholm on December 10 each year.

Margareta Östman, chemist with the National Chemicals Inspectorate, for clarifying the characteristics of various flammable liquids and for discussions about how best to burn down a house.

Erik Marklund, car expert and my brother, for information about how to sabotage car brakes.

Niclas Salomonsson, my literary agent, and his staff at Salomonsson Agency in Stockholm, for all their great work.

Of course: Emily Bestler and Kate Cetrulo at Emily Bestler Books, and Paul Olsewski, David Brown, and everybody else at Atria for all your support and hard work. You guys are the best!

And finally, Tove Alsterdal, dramatist and editor, who always reads whatever I write first of everyone. If you hadn’t set up your cabaret in Nobel’s old laboratory in Vinterviken, this novel would never have been written.

I have also had a great deal of help from the books
Alfred Bernhard Nobel
by Kenne Fant (Norstedts),
Vem älskar Alfred Nobel?
(Who Loves Alfred Nobel?) by Vilgot Sjöman (Natur och Kultur), as well as from hundreds of Internet sites.

Any mistakes or errors which have crept in are, as always, entirely my own.

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