Silver Tears(12)

“And I can also afford it,” Faye replied.

The only question was how long that would remain true.





“Come on, aren’t you going to try an oyster? Just one?”

Kerstin looked at Faye in disgust.

“I don’t know how many times you’ve asked me that, and do you ever get anything but the usual response? No.”

“It’s delicious—I promise.”

Faye squeezed lemon over an oyster and added a small teaspoon of chopped red onion in vinegar.

“I mean, you have no idea what you’re missing.”

“I prefer food that’s cooked. Like this lobster, for instance. No one insists on eating that raw.”

Kerstin reached for one of the half lobsters on the large seafood platter in front of them. The Sturehof brasserie was vibrating with the sounds of guests laughing loudly and cutlery clattering. Staff in elegant white jackets with gold detailing smoothly maneuvered between the tables.

“You like herring, don’t you?”

“But it’s not raw, it’s…Well. What the hell is herring? Cured? Pickled? At any rate, it’s not raw.”

“Well, if you say so…”

“Shush now and eat your shellfish. Otherwise I’ll eat your half lobster too.”

“You can have it—I’m still full from lunch.”

Faye leaned back in her chair and sipped from her glass. To the barely suppressed horror of the waiter, she had ordered a bottle of Amarone. Apparently you didn’t drink Amarone with shellfish. The staff was well drilled enough not to say so. The customer was always right. But she was certain that the sommelier was in the kitchen in tears right now.



“Oh yes, lunch. Did you…enjoy it?”

“Pfft, it wasn’t like that. I just happened to get to talking to him in the hotel bar yesterday. Exactly the kind of man you’d expect to find in the Cadier Bar.”

“But it still sounded as though you had a nice time? You’ve mentioned him several times this afternoon…”

“Now you’re being annoying.”

Faye reached for a prawn and began to peel it skillfully. When you came from Fj?llbacka, you knew how to peel shellfish in your sleep.

“Yes, well, no, well, we had a nice time. He’s easygoing and generally well informed without being overbearing. Always a pleasant attribute in a man.”

Kerstin raised her eyebrows and Faye shook her head.

“Enough about my lunch. So, we have a plan?”

They had spent the afternoon in Faye’s hotel room thrashing through everything they knew and discussing their options for taking action. There were fewer of them than they had hoped. They had brainstormed the names of companies and individuals who they thought might be behind the acquisitions, but no one name had emerged as a more likely candidate than the others. Faye simply couldn’t work out who was trying to take Revenge away from her.

Worse still, she couldn’t understand how her co-owners could go behind her back. These were the women she had shared Revenge’s growth and success with. There hadn’t been any dissatisfaction. Her leadership style had been met with nothing but praise. There had been articles in the press paying homage to her and she’d had the distinction of being named businesswoman of the year. No one had come to her with complaints. There had been nothing to set the alarm bells ringing. She simply couldn’t understand it.



“You can’t leave the body like that,” Faye said in outrage, pointing at Kerstin’s half lobster. “That greeny-brown stuff is lobster tomalley—it’s the tastiest part. And you know you can suck the meat out of the small legs, and there are tiny thin slices of meat in the tail if you separate the sections of shell…”

“Let me eat my food my own way,” Kerstin muttered, returning her lobster shell to the ice on the platter and helping herself to a fistful of prawns instead.

“Perhaps you should ask for some tinned lobster next time, so you don’t have to bother with all that palaver with the shell…”

Kerstin shook her head in laughter and brushed her bangs aside with the back of her hand. Faye took a mouthful of Amarone while contemplating Kerstin, who was clearly struggling with the shells on the prawns. She was once again struck by how grateful she was that Kerstin had come into her life. Things had been so different when they had first met. When Faye had rented a room in Kerstin’s house in Enskede, Kerstin had been living alone after her bastard of a husband had ended up in a care home after a stroke. This was something Kerstin had not been grieving over, given that he had made her life hell both physically and mentally. They had slowly become a family and now they were there for each other through thick and thin. Faye had difficulty trusting people, but she had absolute trust in Kerstin.

A distinguished gentleman with white hair and a well-groomed mustache let his gaze linger on Kerstin for slightly too long. Faye kicked her under the table.

“Over there. At two o’clock. The guy who looks like he’s stepped straight out of colonial times. He can’t take his eyes off you. Have you started bathing in some kind of musk oil? What’s it all about?”

Faye wagged a finger at Kerstin, who blushed all the way up to her ears.

“I’m not even going to answer that. Order me a glass of Chardonnay, then we can go over the plan for tomorrow.”