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the feeling that she was lying.
    “Unfortunately I can’t say for sure how long I’ll be away,” said Rebecka, looking him calmly in the eye. “I’ve got quite a bit of holiday owing and—”
    She broke off.
    “And what?” continued her boss. “I hope you’re not about to start talking to me about overtime, Rebecka, because I’d be very disappointed in you. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if you lot feel you can’t cope with the work during normal hours, then by all means resign. Any overtime is voluntary and unpaid. Otherwise I might just as well let you disappear on a year’s sabbatical with pay.”
    He added the last sentence with a conciliatory laugh, but quickly resumed his censorious expression when she didn’t even give a hint of a smile in return.
    Rebecka regarded her boss in silence before she replied. He had started to read some papers lying in front of him, but in a preoccupied manner, as if to indicate that her audience was now at an end. The day’s post lay in a neat pile. A few bits and pieces from Georg Jensen stood to attention along the edge of the desk. No photos. She knew that he had been married and had two grown-up sons. But that was all. He never mentioned them. No one else talked about them either. You found out about things slowly in the office. The senior partners loved to gossip, it was true, but they were sensible enough to gossip only with each other, not with the juniors or associates. The secretaries were far too timid to dare to reveal any secrets. But now and again somebody got a bit too drunk at a party and said something they shouldn’t, and gradually you became one of those in the know. She knew that Måns drank too much, but then practically everybody who met him in the street knew that. He actually looked quite good, with his dark curly hair and his blue husky-dog eyes. Although he was starting to look a bit frayed at the edges. Bags under his eyes and a bit overweight. He was still one of the very best in the country when it came to taxation cases, both criminal and civil. And as long as he brought in the cash, his colleagues were happy to let him drink in peace. It was the money that mattered. Presumably it would be too expensive for the firm to help somebody to stop drinking. A rehab clinic and sick pay, that would cost money, then on top of that there was the loss of income for the firm. His situation was probably the same as many others’. When you drank, your private life was the first thing to fall apart.
    She still felt the prickle of humiliation when she thought about last year’s office Christmas party. Måns had danced and flirted with all the other female lawyers during the evening. Toward the end of the party he had come over to her. Crumpled, drunk and full of self-pity, he had put his hand round the back of her neck and made a rambling speech that had ended in a pathetic attempt to get her to go home with him, or maybe just into his. office, who knows. After that she was at least clear about what she was in his eyes. The last resort. The one you have a go at when you’ve tried everybody else and you’re half a millimeter from unconsciousness. Since then relations between Rebecka and Måns had been frosty. He never laughed or chatted in a natural way with her as he did with the others. She communicated with him mostly via e-mail and notes placed on his desk when he wasn’t in. This year she hadn’t gone to the Christmas party.
    “We’ll call it holiday, then,” she said without a hint of a smile. “And I’ll take the laptop and do some work from up there.”
    “Fine, it’s all the same to me,” said Måns, his voice heavy with regret. “After all, it’s your colleagues who’ll have a heavier workload. I’ll give Wickman’s to somebody else.”
    Rebecka forced herself not to clench her fists. Bastard. He was punishing her. Wickman’s was her client. She had brought in the business, she had developed an excellent relationship