Dolson’s group made their summit bid on the same day as Viktor Grankin’s climbers: May 13. During their acclimatization period, the two expeditions had lived side by side at Base Camp, and Elin had grown close to her countrymen Johannes Forsell and Svante Lindberg. She had also made friends with Klara Engelman.
“Thanks for agreeing to see me,” Blomkvist said.
“It’s not a problem, but as you can imagine I’m rather tired of this story. I’ve given almost two hundred talks about it.”
“Sounds like good money to me,” he said.
“There was a financial crisis then too, if you recall, so it’s never been that lucrative.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. But tell me about Klara Engelman. I know she and Grankin were an item, so there’s no need to tiptoe around that.”
“Are you going to quote me?”
“Not if you don’t want me to. I only need to understand what happened.”
“OK. They did have an affair. But they were discreet about it. Even at Base Camp not many people knew about it.”
“But you did?”
“Because Klara told me.”
“Isn’t it a bit odd that Klara was a member of Viktor Grankin’s expedition? With all her money and connections, why didn’t she choose one of the American leaders, Dolson, for example, who was better known?”
“Grankin had a good reputation too, but there was also a link of sorts between Viktor and Stan Engelman. They knew each other somehow.”
“Yet Grankin went after his wife?”
“Yes, that must have been unbearable for Stan.”
“I read that you thought Klara had been unhappy at first, when she was at Base Camp?”
“No, I didn’t,” she said. “I saw her as the ultimate stuck-up bitch. But then gradually I came to realize how sad she was and understood that, for her, the whole Everest adventure was about freedom. She hoped it would give her the courage to get a divorce. One evening, when we were drinking wine in her tent, she told me she’d got herself a lawyer.”
“Charles Mesterton, right?”
“Maybe, I don’t remember his name. And she’d also been in touch with a publisher. She said she wanted to write not only about climbing the mountain but also about Stan’s affairs with prostitutes and porn stars, and all his criminal contacts.”
“You would have expected Engelman to feel threatened by that.”
“I find that difficult to imagine. If Klara had one lawyer, then he had twenty, and I know she was scared. ‘He’s going to destroy me,’ she said.”
“But then something happened.”
“Our hero set his sights on her.”
“Grankin.”
“Precisely.”
“How did he do it?”
“I have no idea. But it was easy to be charmed by Viktor. He exuded such wonderful calm in the face of any practical difficulties. Just one look at him and we all felt: Viktor will fix it. He had a big, bear-like presence and dismissed all our worries with a glorious laugh. I remember envying the other group, I wished we had him as our leader too.”
“And Klara fell for him.”
“Hook, line and sinker.”
“Why, do you suppose?”
“Afterwards I wondered if it wasn’t something to do with Stan. I think Klara imagined that she could defeat her husband if she had Viktor by her side. He looked as if he could stand in a hail of bullets and simply smile.”
“But then something changed.”
“Yes. Even Viktor began to seem nervous, and that threw us all. It was a bit like, you know, when the flight attendant suddenly starts to look worried halfway through the flight. Then you really do begin to think that the plane is going to go down.”
“What do you think had happened?”
“I’ve no idea. It’s possible he was beginning to worry about his little escapade. Realized that Stan wasn’t to be trifled with, and that there would be consequences, and to be honest…”
“Yes?”
“He was right to worry. I was so young at the time, and I thought the romance was pretty cool. It was as if the world’s biggest secret had been entrusted to me. But with hindsight I realize it was bloody irresponsible. I’m not thinking so much about Stan or about Viktor’s wife, but the climbers on the expedition. Viktor was supposed to look after all of them and not favour anybody. He let them down by becoming so fixated on Klara, and I think that’s one of the reasons it all went horribly wrong. He wanted to get her up onto the summit, come what may.”
“He should have sent her down.”
“Definitely, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not just because she had such huge PR value. He was also upset that she had had to take all that crap in the press. He wanted to show the world she could do it.”
“There’s some suggestion that Grankin wasn’t really himself during the climb up from Camp Four?”
“I’ve heard that too. Maybe he just exhausted himself trying to keep the group together.”
“How did he get on with Nima Rita?”
“Viktor had tremendous respect for him.”
“And what about the relationship between Klara and Nima?”
“Different…it was a bit special. They weren’t on the same planet.”
“Did she treat him badly?”
“He was very superstitious, you see.”
“Did she tease him about it?”
“A bit, maybe, but I don’t think that bothered him. He just got on with his job. It was something totally different that destroyed their relationship.”
“And what was that…?”
“He had a wife.”
“Luna.”
“That’s it, her name was Luna. She meant everything to him, and I honestly think you could have said anything you liked to him. Treated him like dirt, as if he didn’t exist. He didn’t care. But one bad word about his wife and he became like thunder. One morning Luna came up to Base Camp with fresh bread and cheese, and mangoes and lychees and all sorts of other things in a decorated basket. She went around the tents, handing things out, and faces lit up and everyone thanked her. But as she was walking past Klara’s tent she tripped over a pair of crampons, I think, or a handbag or something else that Klara definitely didn’t need up there. Everything flew all over the gravel and Luna grazed her hands. There was actually no great drama, but Klara was sitting right there and instead of helping she just snapped, ‘Look where you’re going,’ and made a fuss. Basically she behaved like a stupid prima donna, and Nima was about to explode, I could see. I was afraid that he would lose his temper. But before anything could happen, Forsell appeared and helped Luna to her feet again and picked up the bread and fruit.”