Peter Stjernström - The Best Book in the World

What if he was right? What would that mean in Lenny’s case?

When he steps out of the lift and in through the door to his flat, Titus immediately gets an unpleasant sensation of somebody having been there. Hard to say why. Does it smell funny? Or is it simply that a neighbour is making weird food and the smell is spreading through the ventilation system?

No, somebody has definitely been here. Titus looks around. Since it is a one-room flat with a kitchen alcove he doesn’t even have to leave the hall to see everything. Besides, nowadays it is well cleaned. He bends down to look under the sofa-bed. No uninvited guest there, anyway.

He opens the flat door again to check the stairs, and hears someone running down them. The entrance door slams shut with a smothered heavy sound and silence falls again. Who the hell was that? Titus rushes to the window to try to see. Not a soul outside the front door. A long and shambling figure is just going round the corner. Black jeans. A studded belt glistens. Lenny? Gone. Titus could have sworn it was Lenny.

He jerks the window open and shouts out:

‘Lenny! Lenny! Come back, damn it! What the hell are you playing at?’

A white-haired lady on a balcony shakes her head and takes a slurp from a dainty coffee cup. Oh, it’s him again. That drunken writer. All he can do is booze and take drugs. But keep the laundry room in the cellar clean? Not a chance! Yes, that’s him.

Titus charges down the stairs to try to catch up with Lenny. When he gets round the corner where Lenny disappeared, he sees a completely empty street before him. He has disappeared into thin air.

Although he has started to feel that he is in fairly good condition from all the spinning at the gym, Titus is seriously out of breath after that short sprint. He leans against the wall and pants heavily.

What the hell…? Was it Lenny? Or was he seeing things? But surely it had been Lenny? Fuck! What was he after?

Titus runs up to the flat again to check if anything has been stolen. He can’t find anything amiss. There isn’t much to steal. Who wants a pile of pizza cartons? At the same time, that unpleasant sensation is still evident. Somebody has been there.

Then he sees it.

Oh, shit! He was right after all!

The desk by the window. The computer. The lid has been opened. He never leaves the lid up when he has a rest. That is something that has been imprinted since he was a little boy. A lid should always be put down again after use, and that’s that. He might have been something of a careless fellow for the greater part of his life. But lids? No, he has put them down as far back as he can remember.

So Lenny has been there sneaking around. Has he got inside the computer? Has he managed to get past the breathalyser lock?

Titus blows into the tube and waits for the computer to start up. A message appears on the screen:

Hello Titus! A little while ago, you or someone else started me incorrectly. This means hibernation for a further one hour, twenty-two minutes and forty-three seconds. Please come back a little later!

The figures flick past on the counter. After a few moments, the screen goes blank.

What the fucking hell, thinks Titus. Lenny has tried to force his way into my computer! That can only mean one thing: he is after my manuscript!

But how has Lenny found out about The Best Book in the World? There are only four people in the whole world who know about the idea: Titus himself, Astra, Evita Winchester and Eddie X. Who talked? It could hardly be Astra or Evita – they have everything to lose from revealing something. They would never jeopardise good sales. He himself has hardly met a soul for weeks. Besides, he has been stone cold sober.

So it must be Eddie. But why would Eddie tell Lenny about the idea? Wouldn’t it be better in that case to do what Titus has done: just shut himself in his room and write the book without talking to a soul about it? Besides, Eddie X is too kind-hearted to sell out Titus. No, it doesn’t seem likely. Not Eddie.

The only reasonable explanation that Titus can come up with is that Lenny must have eavesdropped on his and Eddie’s drunken ramblings at the festival, when they thought up the whole idea. Then, when Lenny and Titus happened to meet at Moderna Museet and sat in the café, well… Lenny must have put two and two together. He saw that I was sober and on the ball, thinks Titus. Must have thought that I seemed to be back in the real world again. Like hell he did – he must have realised that I’m busy with something big when he twigged that I wasn’t boozing any more. What could have got Titus back on the straight and narrow? And then he got curious. Why didn’t I think of this earlier? I can’t go around looking like a new person until all this is over. Everybody is going to wonder what’s got into me. And then the speculation will get going. A new book, a new woman, what the hell could it be? No, not until the book is finished can I let people see me sober, thinks Titus.

He grabs the telephone and punches in Astra’s number. He lets it ring a while. Lots of rings. Finally, she answers.

‘Hi, Titus! How are things?’

‘Truth is, it’s all fucked up.’

He tells her everything that has happened. About the message on the computer screen and who he suspects, about their meeting at Moderna Museet. He hadn’t uttered a word about the book to Lenny, who nevertheless clearly seemed to be on his case. This is much worse than industrial espionage. Cultural espionage – this threatens our entire democracy. Threatens our very existence. Titus is at full steam ahead now, blurting out all his worries.

Astra is a model of calm. She wouldn’t be a star publisher if she couldn’t cope with panicky situations and panicky people.

‘Titus, this is what we’ll do. I’ll arrange a locksmith and see to it that you get a modern and secure lock, or a completely new door if it’s needed. And you need have no worries at all about the computer. Lenny – if it was indeed him – hasn’t managed to get into it. The breathalyser lock is restricted so that it will only react to your unique enzyme combination, it is only your breath that can start the computer. I didn’t want to tell you this earlier, because you would only have blown your top and shouted even more about Winchester’s undercover tricks. I took a saliva sample from a beer can when you were at my place after the festival and the technicians fixed the rest.’

‘What are you saying? So that breathalyser thing was your idea from the very start? You said it was Evita’s idea!’ mutters Titus.

‘Sorry.’

‘Damn it, Astra. I thought you were on my side.’

‘But I am! You must admit that it has worked rather well!’

‘Yeah… I suppose.’

‘Well then you can relax. I can guarantee that he hasn’t seen any of your files. Sit down and try to work again. As soon as I’m back home we can meet and then I’ll start reading.

‘As soon as you’re back home? What do you mean? Where are you?’

‘In Antiparos, in Greece. Didn’t I tell you? I’m on holiday.’

‘Oh, right. Nice. Okay, ring me when you’re back. Have a nice time!’

Titus feels calmer. Astra is good for him. She thinks about everything. A perfect woman. And if she was pretty before, then what is she going to look like after a few weeks of Greek sun? Oh my God, if only I had a bit of Zorba in me, thinks Titus.

He blows in the tube and looks at the message: fifty-eight minutes and thirty-five seconds left.

He is keen to see with his own eyes that the manuscript is still there. If anyone has stolen it, he might just as well top himself straight away. He would never be able to find the energy to re-write the whole thing.