Red Wolf: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

him much better.
    The library was still open. He stopped in the middle of the lobby to let the memories come. And they came, overwhelmed him, took his breath away. The years were erased, he was twenty again, it was summer, hot, his girl was beside him, his beloved Red Wolf who was to succeed in ways no one could have dared to imagine. He held her to him and smelled the henna in her copper-coloured hair—
    A sudden draught hit his legs and pulled him back to the present.
    ‘Are you all right? Do you need help?’
    An old man was looking amiably at him.
    The standard phrase
, he thought, shaking his head and swallowing his French reply.
    The hall came back into focus. The other man went into the warmth and left him alone with the notices on the board: a storyteller session, a carol service, a concert by Håkan Hagegård, and a festival of feminism. Hewaited until his breathing had calmed down, ran his hands over his hair and took a cautious step towards the internal door, checking discreetly behind the glass. Then he quickly crossed the hall and went down the backstairs.
    Good grief
, he thought,
I’m here. I’m actually here
.
    He looked at the closed doors, one after the other, conjuring up the images behind them. He knew all of them. The cheap oak-coloured plywood panels, the stone steps, the folding tables, the bad lighting. He smiled at his shadow, the young man who booked rooms in the name of the Fly Fishing Association, then held Maoist meetings until long into the night.
    He was right to have come.

Wednesday 11 November

6
    Anders Schyman pulled on his jacket and drank the dregs of his coffee. The lingering darkness made the windows look like mirrors. He adjusted his collar against the image of the Russian embassy, stopping to stare at the holes where his eyes ought to be.
    Finally
, he thought.
Not just a useful idiot, but the driving force
. At the board meeting that would begin in quarter of an hour he would not only be accepted, but respected. So where was the euphoria? The twitchy happiness he felt when he looked over the graphs and diagrams?
    His eyes didn’t answer.
    ‘Anders . . .’ His secretary sounded nervous over the intercom. ‘Herman Wennergren is on his way up.’
    He didn’t move. Daylight crept closer as he waited for the chairman of the board of the newspaper.
    ‘I’m impressed,’ Wennergren said in his characteristically deep voice as he sauntered in and grasped Schyman’s hand in both of his. ‘Have you found a magic wand?’
    Over the years the chairman had rarely commented on the paper’s journalism. But when the quarterly report was fourteen per cent over budget, official circulation figures showed steady growth and the gap betweenthem and their competition was shrinking, he assumed it had to be magic.
    Anders Schyman smiled, offering Wennergren one of the chairs and sitting down opposite him.
    ‘The structural changes have settled down and are now working,’ Schyman said simply, careful not to mention Torstensson, his predecessor and a close friend of Wennergren. ‘Coffee? Some breakfast, perhaps?’
    The chairman waved the offer away. ‘Today’s meeting will be short because I have other business to attend to afterwards,’ he said, glancing at his watch. ‘But I’ve got a plan I wanted to discuss with you first, and it feels rather urgent.’
    Schyman sat up, checking that the cushion was supporting the small of his back, and fixed a neutral expression on his face.
    ‘How active have you been in the Newspaper Publishers’ Association?’ Wennergren asked, looking at his fingernails.
    Schyman was taken aback. He had never really had anything to do with it. ‘I’m a deputy member of the committee, but no more than that.’
    ‘But you know how it works? Gauging the mood in the corridors, that sort of thing? How the different interest groups fit together?’ Wennergren rubbed his fingernails on the right leg of his trousers, looking at Schyman under his bushy