The girl wore her school uniform beneath an oversized cardigan. Her blond hair was tied loosely behind her head, and she was reading something on her phone.
Helena poured coffee.
“About last night.”
Sofia did not look up.
“It’s fine.”
“It isn’t.”
“Then why did you do it?”
Helena stood beside the kitchen counter.
“I had a difficult case.”
“You always have a difficult case.”
“That’s what criminal defence is.”
Sofia looked at her.
“Then perhaps you should stop promising things.”
Helena felt the familiar impulse to explain the difference between unexpected work and deliberate neglect.
She stopped herself.
“You’re right.”
Sofia returned to her breakfast.
The admission did not produce the reconciliation Helena had hoped for.
It wasn’t supposed to.
Before leaving, Sofia asked whether she would be home on Sunday.
Helena said yes.
Her daughter studied her.
“Actually home?”
“Actually home.”
Sofia nodded.
Then she went to school.
Helena remained in the kitchen holding her coffee.
She had not yet decided to represent Matthias Lindholm.
But she already knew the case was going to consume her.
The defence firm Falk & Berg occupied two floors of a renovated commercial building near Norrmalmstorg.
Helena had founded it with her longtime colleague, Erik Berg, nine years earlier.
Erik was fifty-one, broad-shouldered, prematurely grey, and almost aggressively unimpressed by public attention. Where Helena approached a problem by looking for the overlooked possibility, Erik preferred to begin with the simplest explanation and work outward.
Their methods often irritated one another.
They worked together exceptionally well.
Helena found him in the conference room reading the Lindholm material.
He looked up when she entered.
“You’ve seen the photographs.”
“Yes.”
“The husband’s initial account is terrible.”
“Yes.”
“And the financial motive?”
“Not especially convincing.”
Erik tapped a page.
“His wife had recently consulted a divorce lawyer.”
“Consulting isn’t filing.”
“She’d also revised her will.”
“People do.”
He looked at her.
“You’re already defending him.”
“I’m evaluating the case.”
“Those are different activities.”
Helena sat opposite him.
For several minutes, they reviewed the evidence.
The couple’s house had no signs of forced entry.
Security footage showed Matthias arriving with Annika.
A neighbour reported hearing raised voices shortly before midnight.
The emergency call was inconsistent in several details.
And medical findings suggested that Annika’s injuries could not be explained by a simple fall.
Erik turned another page.
“Why does he want you?”
“He says he read about the Möller appeal.”
“Half of Stockholm read about the Möller appeal.”
Helena had recently secured the reversal of a high-profile conviction after demonstrating that investigators had failed to disclose evidence favourable to the defence.
The case had made her famous beyond legal circles.
Some newspapers celebrated her as a guardian of procedural fairness.
Others accused her of helping dangerous people escape punishment.
Both reactions annoyed her.
“The man is entitled to a defence,” Helena said.
Erik leaned back.
“Of course he is.”
“Then what bothers you?”
“Nothing about defending him.”
He closed the file.
“What bothers me is that you get a certain look when a case becomes personal.”
Helena smiled faintly.
“What look?”
“The one you have now.”
She reached for the report.
Erik watched her.
“Don’t confuse an interesting case with an innocent client.”
She looked up.
“I never do.”
Years later, she would remember the confidence with which she’d said it.
Helena met Matthias Lindholm three days later in a private interview room at a detention facility outside Stockholm.
She had seen photographs.
None quite prepared her for the man himself.
He was tall and strikingly handsome, with dark blond hair, pale blue eyes, and the composed movements of someone accustomed to being listened to. He wore a plain navy sweater and grey trousers supplied through the detention system. His face was tired but carefully controlled.
He stood when she entered.
“Ms Falk.”
His English was fluent, softened by traces of Swedish and German.
She shook his hand.
“MMrLindholm.”
He gestured toward the chair opposite him.
“Thank you for coming.”
Helena sat without responding to the courtesy.
She opened her notebook.
“I’ve read the preliminary material. Before we discuss possible representation, I need to understand your account in your own words.”
Matthias nodded.
He seemed prepared for the question.
He described the charity dinner.
A disagreement during the drive home.
Annika going upstairs.
He followed several minutes later.
He found her on the bedroom floor.
He called emergency services.
Helena listened without interrupting.
Then she asked about the argument.
Matthias looked down.
“It concerned our marriage.”
“In what way?”
He rubbed his hands together.
“She wanted to separate.”
“And you didn’t?”
“I wanted us to find a way through it.”
Helena made a note.
“Had there been physical arguments before?”
His expression tightened.
“No.”
“Had either of you threatened the other?”
“No.”
“Why did you tell the emergency dispatcher that she fell?”
“Because that’s what I thought.”
“The injuries suggest pressure to her neck.”
He looked at her.
“I know.”
“How do you explain that?”
“I can’t.”
For a moment, he looked genuinely helpless.
Helena had seen men imitate helplessness before.
She had also seen innocent people discover that the truth was less persuasive than a coherent lie.
