The Golden Calf (15 page)

The flood of money streaming out of the company, however, was beginning to affect the business. The trio decided to hold a fifth investment round. They needed at least $45 million. At a board meeting in January, they decided to hold off on an IPO until the following quarter
.

Another major expense was the advertising budget. Sanna Kaegler had run an expensive ad campaign prior to the website launch. The campaign was paid for by a $9 million line of credit, but now ph.com needed to pay back the money. Sanna didn’t seem bothered by this in the least
.

The debts were piling up. They had too many expensive employees, too many expensive foreign offices, too many high-priced consultants, and too many outrageous warehouse costs. The six-month delay of the website launch had cost the company a fortune. Sales were catastrophically low. The company was bleeding out
.

By Christmas, the trio had already tried to stem the tide by
cutting expenses, but they refused to close any of the offices or fire employees, fearing it would send the wrong signal to investors. The only concrete savings plan they ended up with was to cut longdistance phone bills and travel costs
.

The entire ph.com project was built on one major miscalculation. Their concept was to lure exclusive customers who wanted to purchase designer clothes via the Internet. Like Bergman had said, “We’re going to bring a new kind of customer to the Internet! Our customers know what they want, and they have good taste and a great deal of money—but what they don’t have is time! By offering a time-saving shopping experience, we’ll generate profits with our large customer base!”

On the other hand, the fashion houses did not want to give ph.com any rebates. By then, it was clear that people shopped on the Internet to get good discounts. Obviously, ph.com didn’t fit the bill, so sales didn’t increase. Sales remained at 10 percent of projections
.

During the first few months of the new millennium, articles critical of ph.com appeared in the press. Was there anything behind the cool, trendy exterior of the website? Bergman and Kaegler kept an optimistic face to the world, but they were hurt by the negative reviews
.

Bergman and Kaegler were relieved when Thomas Bonetti came to them and said he was leaving ph.com for “other, new projects of his own.” Bonetti wanted to leave the company immediately at the end of January. He refused a half-hearted offer to stay on board and was gone for good on February first
.

The dot-com bubble burst in March 2000. Intel had given a projection lower than expected. All the tech stocks on the NASDAQ began to fall. By April, they were down by 25 percent. It took a few more months for the markets to realize what was going on. The European markets were even slower. Dot-com companies continued to go bust as the year 2000 progressed. Thousands of bankruptcies caused hundreds of thousands of cases of unemployment in the tech industry. In Sweden, the term ‘dot-com death’ was coined
.

With its bad finances, ph.com could not hang on for much longer. There never was a fifth round of investment. By April 2000, bankruptcy was a fact. HP Johnson tried to save what it could. People were still talking up an IPO, but by April 15, the end had come. The company was swallowed by debt
.

Sanna Kaegler was reportedly close to tears as she and Philip Bergman broke the news to their London employees. Philip said, “It’s the fault of the investors. They’ve jerked the rug out from under us.” They did not mention that investors had pumped more than $100 million into ph.com and would not see a penny from it
.

Since there was hardly any accounting done within the company, it was difficult to tell where all the money had gone. Advertising and marketing had taken at least $39 million. No one really knew who had been paid what when. All in all, the employees of ph.com had burned through $109 million in less than a year. According to the exchange rate at the time, this was equivalent to one billion Swedish kroner. It’s astonishing how all that money went up in smoke
.

A few months after the bankruptcy, Sanna Kaegler and Philip Bergman claimed that their former partner Thomas Bonetti had embezzled millions of dollars. Bonetti refuted the allegations and accused the two of them of running through money like water and then placing the blame on him. There was never a criminal indictment, because Thomas Bonetti went missing in September 2000
.

I
RENE FINISHED READING
just as the loudspeaker announced that the plane was beginning its descent. Passengers were requested to fasten their seatbelts for landing. Although Irene wasn’t clear about every detail in the chapter she’d just read, she did know one thing for sure: the amount of money lost in the ph.com crash was absolutely unbelievable!

I
RENE AND
K
AJSA
had both brought backpacks as their carry-ons, since they didn’t need any luggage for such a short trip. How nice it was to avoid the crowd waiting next to the baggage carousels. Charles de Gaulle Airport was a dreary colossus of gray concrete, and they were happy they could get out of there quickly. They boarded the airport bus to the center of Paris.

“This bus is going into the city along the Boulevard Raspail,” Kajsa said. “The question is, where do we get off? It’s a darned long street.”

She was studying the map she’d picked up at the information booth in the airport. After a while, she folded it up and said, “We’ll get off right before Place Denfert Rochereau and walk along the boulevard until we reach number 207.”

Irene took the map and tried to orient herself. She finally found Boulevard Raspail and saw that Kajsa was right—the street was amazingly long. Nonetheless, she wouldn’t mind a brisk walk in the gorgeous weather, which reminded her of a Swedish summer day.

The bus neared the center of Paris. Traffic flowed smoothly along the wide boulevards. There were many tall trees and resplendent gardens between the stone buildings. In spite of all the asphalt and stone, Paris gave the impression of a garden city. The driver called out the stop they wanted, and they got off, breathing in the exhaust-filled air.

“I’m hungry,” Kajsa said. “Can we have lunch before we go to the apartment?”

“That’s a good idea.”

They started to walk toward a wide boulevard marked on the map as Montparnasse. Right before they reached it, they found number 207, the apartment building where Philip Bergman and Joachim Rothstaahl had lived. The building was a bit shorter than the other nine-story buildings nearby and looked older, but it was well cared for and had light gray plaster with balcony railings painted black.

“We’re here,” Irene said.

“Yes, we are,” said Kajsa. She pointed across the street filled with lively traffic. “And over there I see a promising restaurant.”

There were in fact many different kinds of restaurants located at the large intersection. Two of them appeared to be fine-dining seafood places, while the others were small pubs and cafés. Kajsa wanted to sit outside so they could enjoy the sunshine.

One place had a large sign over the entrance, La Rotonde, and they decided to head there. Once they managed to cross the street, which was a tangle of crosswalks and traffic lights, they sank into wicker chairs around a small brass table.

With Kajsa’s help, Irene was able to order a beer, a bottle of water, and chicken in Noilly-Prat sauce on a bed of mixed greens. Kajsa kept reassuring her that
poulet
did, in fact, mean chicken.

After lunch, they both ordered a café au lait and sat back in the creaking wicker chairs. Irene was grateful that she’d followed her instinct last night to throw in a pair of sunglasses. Hidden behind them, she could watch all sorts of people stream past their table. Even after they paid the bill, they remained in their chairs a few more minutes enjoying the warm sunshine.

“This city has a wonderful feel to it,” said Irene.

“All day and all night,” said Kajsa. “This city never sleeps.”

“Have you been here before?” asked Irene.

Kajsa smiled broadly. “I lived here for five months, working as an au pair, but then I went back home. I didn’t like caring for small children. The family lived far from the center and … the idea of becoming a policewoman sounded more exciting.”

“Well, not surprising that your French is so good,” Irene said.

“Although it’s been ten years, I guess something stuck with me.”

“You don’t speak with a Göteborg accent, but your accent isn’t a Stockholm one, either. Where are you from?”

“Eskilstuna.”

“I see. So how did you end up in Göteborg?” Irene realized that her questions sounded like an interrogation, but even so, this relaxed moment was a good chance to find out more about her colleague.

Kajsa was silent for a long time before she said shortly, “The usual. A guy.”

Irene sensed an interesting story behind this, so she asked another question.

“I see. Are you still together?”

“No.”

“Did you find someone else after that?”

“No.”

Kajsa did not try to hide her irritation at Irene’s questions, but Irene was not going to give up so easily. She’d gotten Kajsa in the place she wanted her. Quietly she said, “Think about it before you rebound too quickly to a new guy. A married man, especially, always means trouble. Trouble not only for you, but also for him, his wife, and his children. The more children, the more trouble. Children must come first, since they suffer the most during a divorce. If you’re a factor in the breakup, you’ll
find yourself at the back of the line in any relationship after that. Because all the blame will fall on you.”

Kajsa’s entire face went white, but she couldn’t gather words quickly enough for a reply before Irene stood up.

“I believe it’s time for us to get back to work.” She used a cheerful tone. “According to Philip’s mother, the apartment is not that big. We’ll have enough time to go through it thoroughly before the flight home. Our bus to the airport leaves, I believe, at six o’clock.”

Without waiting for her colleague to say anything, Irene headed off toward the nearest crosswalk.

Kajsa kept quiet as they walked toward the building they planned to enter. She wasn’t an idiot. She probably understood Irene’s message to keep away from Tommy. Irene also intended to have a little chat with him at a convenient moment.
There must be something wrong between him and Agneta. Or is there? Maybe he’s just been hit by the proverbial male midlife crisis?
The thought had entered her mind before, and it could be that simple explanation. Although she always called Tommy her best friend, what did she really know about him? Not much. They never discussed their love lives or their sex lives, which wasn’t all that strange. They’d both been married for quite a while, and they had kids. Their two families had spent time together, and Irene considered Tommy’s wife her best female friend. Any fallout from an affair or a divorce between Tommy and Agneta would affect Irene personally.

They came to a halt in front of the entrance and read the elegant nameplates, in shining brass, which showed that J. Rothstaahl lived on the sixth floor. Irene pulled out keys from an inner pocket in her backpack, stuck one in the lock, and the heavy door opened on its iron hinges with a loud creak.

The entryway was cool and whitewashed, clean and pleasant. There was a vague odor of cleaning products.

“No elevator,” Irene stated as she began to climb the stairs.

Kajsa followed her, still silent. Behind some of the closed doors, they could hear music or talking, but most of them were completely silent.

On the top floor, there were three doors. On one was the name
J. ROTHSTAAHL
. There was no sign for a resident named P. Bergman. She opened the door with the apartment key. There was a large scattering of mail on the floor inside, mostly advertisements. The hallway was very narrow, only one antique mirror on the wall with a matching table below. Irene noticed that the apartment did not smell musty, which was unusual since no one had been there for a week and a half. Maybe the old building was drafty.

“Let’s split up,” Irene said.

Kajsa nodded and went toward the kitchen past one of the open doors. Irene opened the closed door next to her to a small bathroom with a toilet and shower. She could smell men’s cologne. A small black kit lay on the shelf beneath the mirror. She didn’t see anything else. Irene went back to the hallway and opened the next door, which revealed an airy bedroom dominated by an extra-wide, queen-size bed with a beautiful white and blue bedcover. The high windows had long curtains made from matching fabric. The wood floor had been carefully restored. She could also smell men’s cologne in this room.
Odd that the odor was so strong.…
She opened another door; as she suspected, it was a walk-in closet.

The push on her back was so unexpected that she was completely surprised. It was so powerful that her feet actually left the floor as she was shoved into the closet, and she would have hit the back wall head-first if not for her many hours of physical training. She managed to raise one arm to take the blow while hearing the door behind her close and lock. All she could see was darkness.

A sharp, paralyzing pain ran up from her right elbow. She tried to move her hand, but it didn’t react. She groaned as she
staggered to her feet, but she paused when she heard a sudden noise. Kajsa’s voice came clearly through the thick wooden door.

“Wha—Nooo!”

Irene heard two dull thuds and then complete silence fell. Irene listened hard for any sound from the other side of the door, but all she could hear was blood pounding in her ears. Something had happened to Kajsa. Was their attacker still in the apartment? As if in answer to her question, she heard steps walking quickly across the floor. When the front door slammed, Irene realized she’d been holding her breath.

Whoever had attacked them was gone. She thought the attacker must have been a man—she’d had the impression she’d been hockey blocked from behind by a tall and rather hefty male. No woman had that kind of strength. Irene was 180 centimeters tall, weighed almost 70 kilos, and was in great shape.