He’d collected personal belongings.
He hadn’t concealed the affair.
He’d been afraid of losing Helena.
He hadn’t resented Annika.
He’d been exhausted by the marriage.
Every explanation contained enough ordinary human truth to make the missing details seem unimportant.
She thought of Erik.
Don’t confuse an interesting case with an innocent client.
She opened the memorandum about the unidentified man in Berlin.
The phrase she’d left unchanged stared back at her.
Threatening associate.
She read the original witness statement.
The witness had described an argument.
Not a threat.
Not an associate.
Not even an identification.
Helena closed her eyes.
The distortion was hers.
No one had forced her to write it.
No one had threatened her.
She had wanted an alternative suspect badly enough to begin creating one from uncertainty.
Her stomach turned.
For the first time, she understood that the question was no longer simply whether Matthias had killed Annika.
It was what Helena herself had become willing to do.
The next morning, she called Erik.
He answered after several rings.
“Helena.”
She looked at the papers scattered across her desk.
“I need your help.”
A long silence.
Then he asked where she was.
“At the office.”
“I’ll come.”
Erik arrived shortly before nine.
He entered the conference room carrying his coat over one arm.
Helena had arranged the relevant documents in neat piles.
For a moment, he simply looked at her.
She appeared exhausted.
Her hair was tied back badly.
There were dark shadows beneath her eyes.
He placed his coat on a chair.
“What happened?”
Helena told him.
Not everything at once.
First the discrepancies.
Then the photograph.
Then Matthias’s answers.
Then the changes she’d made to the internal memorandum.
Erik listened.
His expression grew steadily more serious.
When she finished, he asked whether she had submitted any misleading statement to the court.
Helena looked down.
“Not knowingly false testimony.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She swallowed.
“We relied on the description in one application.”
Erik closed his eyes.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he sat opposite her.
“We need to examine exactly what was filed and correct anything misleading through the proper process.”
Helena nodded.
He looked at her.
“And you need independent legal advice.”
“I know.”
“About your conduct.”
“I know.”
He studied her.
For the first time in years, she did not argue.
Then he asked the question she’d been avoiding.
“Are you still involved with him?”
She looked at her hands.
“Yes.”
Erik exhaled.
“Helena.”
She nodded.
“I know.”
He leaned forward.
“No, I don’t think you do.”
Her eyes filled.
He continued quietly.
“You may have compromised your judgment, your client’s case, your colleagues, and yourself. You cannot repair that by finding a clever way to win.”
Helena looked at him.
“Then what do I do?”
Erik remained silent for a moment.
“Start telling the truth.”
Part Four: The Price of Knowing
Helena withdrew from leading Matthias’s defence.
The decision shocked the legal community.
She cited a serious professional conflict requiring a change in representation. She did not publicly disclose the private details.
Independent counsel was appointed to assess her conduct and assist with the necessary disclosures and procedural corrections.
Erik helped ensure the case could continue without unfairly compromising Matthias’s legal rights.
Freja agreed to remain on the defence team under new leadership.
Helena met her in the conference room the day before the transition.
The younger woman stood beside the window holding a folder.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Helena apologised.
Not for the pressure of the work.
Not for the difficult case.
For the way she had treated Freja when she’d raised legitimate concerns.
Freja looked down.
“You made me think I was incompetent.”
Helena felt the words land.
“I know.”
“I checked that witness statement six times because you told me I didn’t understand it.”
Helena nodded.
“You understood it.”
Freja looked up.
“You knew that?”
“Not at the time. I should have.”
Freja closed the folder.
For a moment, she appeared angry enough to leave.
Then she asked, “Why did you stop listening?”
Helena thought about Matthias.
The dinners.
The intimacy.
The sensation of being needed by someone who seemed to see beyond her professional reputation.
She could have described manipulation.
Pressure.
Vulnerability.
All were relevant.
None erased her choices.
“Because I wanted a particular answer,” she said.
Freja watched her.
Helena continued.
“And every time you brought me evidence that complicated it, I treated you as the problem.”
Freja looked away.
The apology did not restore trust.
Helena had not expected it to.
That afternoon, she cleared her desk of the Lindholm case.
For the first time in many years, she left the office before five.
Matthias reacted badly.
He called repeatedly.
When Helena finally agreed to speak with him, she insisted on meeting in a professional setting with the appropriate boundaries.
He arrived visibly angry.
“You abandoned me.”
Helena sat across the table.
“I withdrew because I can no longer act independently.”
He stared.
“After everything?”
“Yes.”
He leaned forward.
“Do you understand what this does to my case?”
“New counsel will have access to the material and time to prepare.”
