Mikkel Birkegaard - The Library of Shadows

It was only when he was sitting in his car, rolling along with the morning traffic slowly flowing through the city, that he noticed how many people around him were reading. Passengers on the buses were reading books, people sitting on benches were immersed in the morning paper, schoolchildren on the pavement were reading through their lessons as they moved cautiously along like tightrope walkers, placing one foot in front of the other. Signs in the shop windows were read by passers-by, bus adverts were glimpsed by drivers, flyers were scanned and tossed aside by mothers with prams. It seemed to him that everywhere words and sentences had invaded the facades, windows, signs and buses for the purpose of enticing him to decipher their messages, a decoding process he could no longer be sure he controlled.

Jon drove the rest of the way to the office with his eyes fixed straight ahead on the road in front of him.

He had barely opened the glass doors to the reception area before Jenny, the secretary, came running towards him with a newspaper in her hand. She was a blonde and what might be called a cheerful, plump young woman.

'Listen to this,' she said merrily, waving the newspaper.

Jenny arrived at the office significantly earlier than he did, and they had worked out a routine: she found articles in the daily papers that were either relevant to their work or were simply funny. Then she would present what she'd found to him, often reading them aloud over a first cup of coffee. Frequently he didn't even need to bother looking through the papers himself.

Jon glanced at the newspaper and then at Jenny. He saw how her eyes, full of anticipation, looked down at the paper as her lips began forming the first sentence.

'I'll read it later.' Jon abruptly cut her off and continued on towards his office.

'Okay,' murmured Jenny, clearly disappointed, letting her arms fall to her sides.

Jon stopped and turned around. 'Sorry, but I didn't sleep well last night. Give me half an hour.'

Jenny nodded and slowly folded up the paper.

'Nice tie,' she said and retreated to her desk.

Jon waved his hand in thanks as he continued through the open-plan room towards the Remer office. At the door he fished out the keys with the Smurf figure and let himself in. Safe inside, he leaned his back against the closed door.

He took a couple of deep breaths before an annoyed grimace appeared on his face. It wouldn't do him any good to go about in a constant state of paranoia. It was impossible to do his job without reading, and it wasn't realistic to think he could move around freely without anyone else reading in his presence. He shook his head. If Lectors had ever used him before, he hadn't noticed it, and considering his present position, they couldn't very well have put obstacles in his way – on the contrary.

There was a knock on the door, and he hastily took a few steps forward before it opened.

Jenny stuck her head inside. 'Halbech wants to talk to you,' she said in a businesslike tone. 'In his office in ten minutes.'

Jon nodded. 'Okay. Thanks, Jenny.'

She closed the door without making a sound.

'Of all days,' he muttered to himself.

He'd been expecting this conversation. A week had passed since the Remer case had been transferred to him, and he knew that at some point he would have to present his plan as to how the defence should be carried out. Even though one week was an inhumanly short amount of time to familiarize himself with the extensive case files, he really hadn't expected to be given much more time before he was tested.

Jon opened his briefcase and took out a thin dossier containing five or six typed pages, which he hurriedly skimmed. The pages held his proposal for a strategy regarding the Remer case in accordance with all the rules. But he knew that Halbech wanted creative solutions which, without being directly illegal, would simplify the defence. The short cut in this instance was to win a two-month postponement, which would mean that two of the initial charges in the case would fall outside the statute of limitations. Not a particularly brilliant solution, but it would spare them from the most vulnerable sections in the defence, which was the status of the first companies that Remer had purchased. On the other hand, they would have to find a reason for having the case postponed, or even better, persuade the prosecutor himself to request a postponement. But that meant they needed to toss new information onto the table.

Jon put the documents back in the dossier and left his office with the plan under his arm.

'Campelli,' said Halbech from his chair as Jon entered his office. 'Have a seat.' He pointed towards one of the Chesterfield armchairs that stood in front of his desk.

Jon nodded and sat down with the dossier in his lap.

'Things going well?' asked Halbech routinely.

'Fine, thanks.'

'And what about all that business with your father? Has everything been resolved?'

'More or less. There are still a couple of loose ends to tie up.'

Halbech nodded. 'So tie them up, Campelli.' He smiled. 'There's nothing more distracting than loose ends. "One touch" – that's my motto. Finish a task immediately instead of postponing it. Having to deal with the same issue over and over is a waste of time, and it affects the rest of your work.'

'Right,' Jon remarked.

'What about Remer?'

'Things are in full swing,' replied Jon, patting the dossier. 'I've got-'

'He'll be here at nine o'clock.' Halbech gave Jon a searching look. 'He wants to talk to you.'

'Okay,' said Jon, astonished, automatically casting a glance at his watch. It was 8:45.

'Yes, well, undoubtedly he wants to have a look at his new barrister. Grill him a bit,' said Halbech with a glint in his eye.

Jon shrugged. 'It's his money.'

'Precisely,' said Halbech, leaning towards Jon. 'But try to make the most of the meeting. It's not often we have access to him, and if I know the man, he's on his way to a skiing holiday or something of that sort.'

He stood up and began putting on his jacket, which hung from the back of his chair.

'I can't stay, unfortunately. But it's not me he wants to see, anyway.'

Jon got up. 'I'll ask Jenny to take notes,' he said.

'Take them yourself, Campelli,' Halbech commanded. 'Remer doesn't care for having too many extraneous people at his meetings. And after all, it's…'

'His money,' Jon chimed in.

They walked through the door together and continued out to the receptionist's area.

'One touch,' Halbech repeated, giving Jon a parting slap on the back before he made his way out of the front door.

Jon asked Jenny to arrange for a meeting room and refreshments before he locked himself in the Remer office to collect the things he would need.

The rumours about Remer were both plentiful and harrowing, but Jon assumed that most of them were probably urban myths intended to scare law students. Remer didn't care for lawyers, that much was certain, and the fact that he often disagreed with how the case should be handled was a recurrent theme of the stories, but from there it was a big step to throwing himself into a fistfight. One of the stories circulating the corridors described how Remer, in a heated moment, had grabbed his barrister by the tie to give him a good shaking. Afterwards he cut off the tie, right below the knot. A real horror story, not so much because of the physical assault but because of the vandalizing of the expensive tie.

The pile of essential folders and documents grew, and Jon had to use a trolley to transport all of them to the meeting room. As Halbech had emphasized, it was important to make use of his time with Remer, so he didn't want to be missing anything. He had a long list of questions for the main player in the case. There were creative appendices, dates and sequences of events that didn't match up, as well as depositions that later turned out to have been either illegal or improbably lucky. It was a hairline distinction.