Red Wolf

11

Anne Snapphane woke up with a dull ache in her head and white lights in her eyes. Her mouth tasted disgusting and there was a terrible noise coming from under the bed. After much confusion, her brain finally worked out that it was the phone ringing. Her hand fumbled clumsily beside the bed and eventually caught the spiral cord of the receiver. She lifted it to her mouth with a groan.

‘Have you seen the paper?’ Annika said on the other end. ‘It’s fucked. If I didn’t have a mortgage I’d resign today. No, make that yesterday.’

Her voice had a strange echo, like it was hitting a glass wall.

‘What?’ Anne said, a croak that bounced off the ceiling.

‘Paula from Pop Factory forced into oral sex,’ Annika read with her echoing voice.

Anne tried to sit up.

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know if there’s any point in doing this any more,’ Annika said. ‘I’ve uncovered the murder of a reporter, possibly with links to terrorism, we’re the only ones with the story, and what happens? Radio and television news have led all morning with Benny Ekland, giving us the credit, and what do we decide to run on the front fucking page? A fucking blowjob!’

Anne gave up, slumping back onto the pillows, and laid an arm over her eyes. Her heart was thumping like a jackhammer, making her break out in a sweat. A vague feeling of anxiety was turning her stomach.

I shouldn’t have had that last one, she thought vaguely.

‘Anne?’

She cleared her throat.

‘What time is it?’

‘Ten or so. I’ve come out to that bloody museum on the airbase again, and do you think the bastard who runs it is back at work? Like fuck he is, so I’m sat out here like an idiot.’

She made no effort to understand, merely accepted that she had lost it. Again.

‘That’s bad,’ she agreed.

‘Are you coming this evening?’

Anne rubbed her forehead several times, trying to remember what they’d agreed.

‘Can we talk later? I was just-’

‘I’ll be home after five.’

She dropped the receiver on the floor, where it lay emitting a dead buzzing sound. Carefully she opened her eyes again, forced herself to look at the empty space beside her.

He wasn’t there. Not any more. She looked up at the ceiling, then across at the window. She remembered his smell, his laughter, and those angry little wrinkles. The gradual realization that he would no longer be with her had left her stiff, numb and cold. They had a deal, an agreement. A wonderful child, a shared life, the perfect mix of freedom and responsibility. No guilt, no demands, just care and support. Separate homes, their daughter spending a week at one, then the other, with a few shared evenings and weekends, Christmases and birthdays.

She had kept her part of the bargain; never let any other man get too close.

But then he went and moved in with a radically monogamous woman from Swedish Television who believed in coupledom and true love.

If only the other woman had been different, Anne thought vaguely. If only she’d been nice and petite and blond and pretty and inoffensive. If only he’d picked someone for something I didn’t have, but she was the same. Same sort of look, even pretty much the same job. The sense of betrayal was somehow magnified. It wasn’t because there was anything superficially wrong with her, Anne. No, she was wrong as a person. Her attitude to life was wrong, her affections and loyalties.

As tears of self-pity started to bubble up, she forced them back with sheer bloody-minded will-power.

He wasn’t worth it.

Annika was clenching her jaw so hard it hurt.

She was not going to cry, not because of this. Not because of the stupid priorities of the nightshift. It was like being a trainee again, only worse. Then, more than nine years ago, she had had no idea of context, was able to excuse errors of judgement and getting trampled on by management by thinking she obviously hadn’t understood. There must have been a higher purpose that she was unaware of, and if she could only concentrate hard enough she’d understand. She had taken pride in being open and willing to learn, not smug, ignorant and critical like a lot of beginners.

Now she knew how things worked, and the knowledge paralysed her.

Sometimes she got the impression that it was just about money. If it was just as lucrative to sell drugs, the proprietors would have done that instead. Other days things felt better. She could see the connections in the way she had been taught, commercialism guaranteed freedom of expression and democracy, the newspaper was produced according to the wishes of the readers, and the income secured continued publication.

She eased her rigid grip of the steering wheel, forcing herself to calm down. F21 disappeared behind her as she pulled onto the long straight leading to the main road. She dialled the police station, but Inspector Suup’s line was busy, and he already had calls waiting.

It doesn’t matter how good I am, she thought, failing to stifle her bitterness. The thought grew and blossomed into a sentence before she could stop it: The truth isn’t interesting, only the fantasy it can construct.

To stop herself wallowing in self-pity, and to stay on the line, she started asking the poor and increasingly stressed receptionist a pointless series of questions about the organization of the police station. The trick was to keep talking to the receptionist until the extension was free.

‘I can put you in the queue now,’ the receptionist said when Suup had ended one of his calls.

She was put on hold, but at least it was silent. An electronic version of ‘Für Elise’ would have pushed her over the edge.

She had already passed the roundabout at Bergnäset before there was a click on the line and it was her turn.

‘Well, I owe you a debt of thanks,’ Inspector Suup said. ‘Linus Gustafsson’s mother called us at seven this morning to say that her son is the secret witness in the Norrland News today. She said you’d tried to persuade the boy to talk to the police or another adult about what he’d seen; she was pleased about that. She said that the boy hadn’t been himself since Sunday night – not sleeping or eating properly, not wanting to go to school…’

She felt a tentative sense of calm. ‘That’s good to hear. What do you think about his story?’

‘I haven’t spoken to him myself, I’ve been stuck on the phone since you released the story to the agencies, but our officers have been at the scene with him and he seems credible.’

‘Quick work,’ Annika said, trying to sound impressed.

‘They wanted to strike while it was still dark, to get the same conditions as the time of the crime, and before the media storm broke. They seem to have made it.’

‘And…?’ she said, braking at a red light just before the Bergnäs bridge.

‘Let’s just say that the investigation has gone from hit-and-run to premeditated murder.’

‘Are you going to call in the national murder unit?’

The reply was ambiguous. ‘We’ll have to see what we turn up after the first day or so…’

The traffic light turned green. She slid over the junction with Granuddsvägen.

‘Benny had written a whole series of articles on terrorism in recent months,’ Annika said. ‘I’m actually on my way back from F21 right now. Do you think his death could have something to do with the article he wrote about the attack out there, or anything else he wrote?’

‘I don’t want to speculate. Can you hold on a moment?’

He didn’t wait for her to reply. There was a dull thud in her ear as the inspector put the phone down and crossed the floor, then the sound of a door closing.

‘But on the other hand,’ he said, back on the line, ‘there is something that I’ve spoken to Captain Pettersson about this morning that concerns you.’

She took her foot off the accelerator in sheer shock.

‘I don’t want to discuss it on the phone,’ the inspector went on. ‘Have you got time to come up here this afternoon?’

She shook her arm vigorously to get her watch to slide out of the sleeve of her coat.

‘Not really,’ she said, ‘my plane leaves at two fifty-five and I have to get over to the Norrland News before that.’

‘Okay, I’ll meet you there,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a team there now, and I’ve just promised that I’d go and talk to them about what we’re looking for.’

The receptionist’s face was puffy from crying. Annika approached cautiously and respectfully, well aware that she was disturbing her.

‘The paper’s closed to visitors,’ the woman snapped. ‘Come back tomorrow.’

‘My name’s Annika Bengtzon,’ Annika said gently. ‘I’m the one who-’

‘Is there something wrong with your hearing?’ the woman said, getting up, visibly trembling. ‘We’re in mourning today, in mourning; one of our reporters has… left us. So we’re closed. All day. Go away.’

Annika was furious. ‘For God’s sake,’ she said. ‘Has everyone gone mad? Sorry for being here.’

She turned her back on the woman and headed for the stairs to the newsroom.

‘Hey!’ the receptionist yelled. ‘This is a private company. Come back.’

Annika kept walking, glanced over her shoulder and made sure she got the last word in.

‘So shoot me.’

After just a few steps she could hear some sort of memorial service going on upstairs. From the landing outside the main office she could see the participants, a colourless mass of grey hair, dark-grey jackets, brown sweaters. Backs bent, sweaty necks, the sort of confused rage that makes people bloodless and mute. Their sighs seemed to suck up all the air, emptying the building of oxygen.

With a deep breath she slid in to the back of the room, making herself invisible whilst simultaneously craning to see whoever was talking at the front.

‘Benny Ekland had no family,’ the man said, a middle-aged media type in a dark suit and shiny shoes. ‘We were his family. He had us, and he had the Norrland News.’

The people in the room didn’t react to the words, each of them consumed by their own shocked disbelief, the impossibility of death. Fumbling hands, eyes glued to the floor or searching restlessly, each of them an island. Reporters and several photographers stood along the walls, people from other media outlets. She could pick them out by their greedy curiosity; they didn’t care, their interest was focused on the man speaking and the mourners.

‘Benny was the sort of journalist that no longer exists,’ the man in the polished shoes intoned. ‘He was a reporter who never gave up. He always had to know the truth, whatever the cost. We who had the privilege of working with Benny all these years have been given a great gift, the gift of being able to get to know such a devoted and responsible professional. For Benny there was no such thing as overtime, because he took his work seriously…’

‘Hmm,’ someone whispered in her ear, ‘now we’re getting to the truth.’

She jerked her head and saw Hans Blomberg, the archivist, standing right behind her, nodding and smiling. He leaned forward and went on in a whisper, ‘Benny was popular with management because he never asked for overtime or a pay rise. And because he earned so little he presented them with the perfect argument: if their star earned so little, surely it was only right that the others did too?’

Annika listened, astonished.

‘He broke the pay deal?’ she whispered back. ‘Why?’

‘Five weeks’ paid holiday with the whores of Thailand every year, and a running tab at the City Pub. What more could a man want?’

Two older women in front of them, with matching sweaters and swollen eyes, turned round and hissed at them to be quiet.

‘Where was Benny’s desk?’ she whispered to the archivist.

‘Follow me,’ he said, and backed out of the room.

They left the grey sea of people and went up to the next floor.

‘He was the only one besides the publisher who had his own office,’ Hans Blomberg said, pointing down a short, narrow corridor.

Annika walked along it, feeling at once the walls pressing in on her, looming over her. She stopped, took a deep breath, and saw the walls as they really were. Not moving. The hideous yellow-brown panels were bulging slightly, though, where they had come loose.

She went up to Benny Ekland’s brown-painted door and knocked loudly. To her surprise it flew open at once.

‘Yes, what is it?’ A plain-clothes policeman was kneeling in the centre of the room. He looked her up and down in irritation. Behind him two other officers looked up from cupboards and drawers. Annika took a step backward, feeling herself blush.

‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I’m looking for… I was wondering…’

‘This is Benny Ekland’s room,’ the plain-clothes officer said, then went on in a more friendly tone, ‘You’re Annika Bengtzon, aren’t you? The one who got stuck with the Bomber in the tunnel?’

She stared at him for a couple of seconds, contemplating running away, but nodded. She could hear the angels tuning up at the back of her mind. No, she thought. Not now.

‘Suup called and said he was going to meet you here, but he’s not here yet. Forsberg,’ he said, getting up and holding out his hand. He gave her a wolfish grin beneath his mane of blond hair.

Annika looked down, bewildered, and realized that her hands were cold and sweaty.

‘How’s it going?’ she said, only to have something to say, rubbing her head lightly with one hand to get the voices to shut up.

‘Suup said how you got hold of the Gustafsson boy,’ Forsberg said as he put a bundle of papers back on a shelf, sighing. ‘This place is a hell of a mess.’

‘He got quite a bit of post today,’ Hans Blomberg said from behind Annika’s back. ‘Have you been through that yet?’

The officers looked at one another, and all three shook their heads.

‘Where is it?’ Forsberg asked.

‘I put it in his pigeon-hole, like I usually do. Do you want me to get it?’

Annika went with the archivist down to the postroom rather than stay and get in the way of the police.

‘You don’t seem to have been Benny Ekland’s biggest fan,’ she said as Hans Blomberg pulled out the dead man’s post.

‘There’s no need,’ the fat man puffed. ‘There are plenty of others fighting for that accolade. I have a more nuanced view of our star reporter.’

He headed towards the stairs again. Annika followed the bobbly cardigan.

‘What sort of view would that be, then?’

The man panted as he laboriously climbed the stairs.

‘It didn’t matter who got who a tip-off here. If there was anything worth having then Big Ben got his hands on it. He was always the last one here in the evening, so he could go in and change a sentence or two in someone else’s article and get a double byline.’

‘Was that his nickname, Big Ben?’

‘Mind you, he was brilliant at digging up stories,’ Hans Blomberg conceded. ‘You’ve got to give him that.’

‘Annika Bengtzon?’ a voice said from below.

She went back down a few steps, leaned over and looked round the corner.

‘Suup,’ said a thin man with grey hair. ‘Can I have a word?’

She went down and shook the older man’s hand, looking into a pair of eyes that for a moment seemed to her to belong to a child, bright and translucent.

‘I promised to talk to the staff in a little while, but this won’t take long,’ he said. The wrinkles in his face emphasized the impression of stability and honesty.

‘You’re making me very curious,’ Annika said, going into the letters-page editor’s room where she had written her article the previous evening.

It struck her that he wasn’t bitter. He’s a good man; he does what he thinks is right, and other people respond to that. He’s a solid person.

She pulled out a chair for the inspector, then sat down herself on the corner of the desk.

‘We appreciate the fact that you came to us with your information yesterday,’ the man said in a quiet voice. ‘And I have to say that it came as a surprise to us that you gave away your story. The Norrland News comes out much earlier than the Evening Post up here, so you weren’t first, and it wasn’t an exclusive.’

Annika smiled, noting that the angels had gone quiet.

‘You’ve spent a long time dealing with the press,’ she said, ‘I can tell.’

‘Which is why I spoke to Pettersson at F21 about some information we’ve had for some time and have been wondering about releasing.’

She felt adrenalin slowly spreading out from the small of her back, up towards her chest.

‘For years now we’ve had a chief suspect for the attack,’ he said quietly. ‘A young man who came to Luleå from the south at the end of the sixties, but who was originally from somewhere in the Torne Valley. He was active in a couple of left-wing groups, went under the codename Ragnwald. We’ve had a couple of different suggestions of his real identity, but we don’t know for sure.’

Annika stared at the inspector in silence. The astonishing information was making her hair stand on end.

‘Do you mind if I take notes?’

‘Not at all.’

She took out a notebook and pen and scribbled down what the inspector had told her, shaking so much that it was almost illegible.

‘What makes you suspect this particular man?’ she asked.

‘Ragnwald disappeared,’ Suup said. ‘We believe he moved to Spain and became a member of ETA. He became a full-time terrorist, and the attack on F21 was his qualification.’

There was a knock on the door and Inspector Forsberg looked in.

‘Sorry, boss, but we’ve found something pretty weird.’

‘What?’

‘An unsigned letter, pretentious language, unclear content.’

He cast a look at Annika and fell silent.

She was thinking furiously and trying to look unconcerned.

‘Sounds like the usual sort of nutter’s letter,’ she said. ‘I’ve got eighteen bin-bags full of them.’

‘Read it out,’ Inspector Suup said.

Forsberg hesitated for just a second. Then he pulled out a sheet torn from a pad of A4, folded in four, which he held carefully with gloved hands.

‘There is no construction without destruction,’ he read. ‘Destruction means criticism and rejection, it means revolution. It involves reasoning things out, which means construction. If you concentrate on destruction first, you get construction as part of the process.’

Annika was scribbling furiously, got half the words down. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Forsberg lower the letter.

‘Does that ring any bells?’ he said.

Annika saw Inspector Suup shake his head and mechanically mimicked his movement.

‘We’ll be upstairs,’ Forsberg said, and disappeared again.

‘Can I go public with Ragnwald?’ Annika asked.

The inspector nodded.

‘And it won’t mess up any investigation if I write about it?’

‘Quite the reverse,’ Suup said.

Annika looked at the policeman, aware that he would be prepared to bend the rules if it would help the investigation. He could doubtless be pretty sly if he had to be, but that was just part of the job.

‘So why are you telling me?’ she said.

The man stood up surprisingly quickly. ‘The information is correct insofar as it matches our suspicions,’ he said. ‘We don’t know if he actually did it, but we believe he was involved. He may even have arranged the whole thing. He must have had accomplices; you know there were footprints found at the site. There aren’t many men with size thirty-six shoes.’

This last detail was new.

He left her sitting among the readers’ letters about rubbish collections and dogshit, with the distinct suspicion that she had been given more than just a scoop.

Slowly she filled in the letters she had missed in her notes.

There is no construction without destruction.

True enough, she thought.

If you concentrate on destruction first you get construction as part of the process.

God knows.

12

The taxi-drivers’ voices cascaded over her as she walked through the small airport, making her feel slightly hunted. Didn’t they ever work? Maybe they just stood by the entrance, in the warm air coming out of the doors of heated buildings, protected against the arctic cold in their dark-blue uniforms and gold buttons.

She got a seat at the back of the plane, next to a woman with two young children. The woman had one of them on her lap, while the other clambered about the cabin. Annika felt the stress rising beyond her tolerance level: this was her only chance to get anything written.

‘Excuse me,’ she said to the stewardess once they were in the air. ‘I have to work. Is it okay if I move forward a bit?’

She stood up and gestured a few rows ahead in the half-empty cabin. The toddler in its mother’s lap started to scream in her ear.

‘You’re booked into this seat, so I’m afraid you can’t move. You should have booked Business Class,’ the stewardess said curtly, turning back to her drinks trolley.

‘I’m sorry,’ Annika said, louder this time, ‘but I did. Or rather my employer did. Can I move, please?’

She struggled past the mother and blocked the aisle. The stewardess squeezed past the trolley with irritated little steps.

‘You heard what I said. After September eleventh, you can’t just change seats.’

Annika took a long stride closer to the stewardess, breathing right in her face.

‘So throw me off,’ she whispered, taking her laptop from the overhead locker and moving five rows forward.

With stress raging through her veins she wrote three articles before the plane touched down at Arlanda: an account of Luleå the day after the murder announcement, the sorrow of Benny Ekland’s workmates, and the police questioning of the witness at the crime scene. The night crew would have to put together the overview and factual box-outs. She held back the details about Ragnwald and the F21 attack. She wasn’t going to let go of them that quickly.

She hurried across the terminal and disappeared underground with her heart racing. She called Spike from the Arlanda Express and gave him an update, then he put her through to Pelle on the picture desk so they could talk about illustrations. The newly established collaboration with the Norrland News gave the Evening Post full access to the whole of their picture archive, both new and old, which saved them having to send someone up or use a freelancer.

‘Hmm, you’re not going to find picture of the year among this lot,’ the pictures editor said, as Annika heard him clicking through the transferred material, ‘but they’ll do for tomorrow’s edition. At least some of them are decent resolution, and even in focus.’

With her coat flapping, she walked from the central station to the place her six-year-old spent his days. The wind was damp and full of the smells of soil, leaves and car fumes; the grass was still green and half-dead leaves clung to a few branches. The light from a million lamps overpowered the Nordic autumn evening, giving the illusion that reality could be controlled, tamed.

There are never any stars in the city, she thought.

Annika’s son threw himself at her as if she had been away six months. He pressed his sticky face against hers and ran his fingers through the hair at the back of her neck.

‘I missed you, Mummy,’ he said in her ear.

She rocked the boy in her arms, stroking the stiff little back, kissing his hair.

Hand in hand they walked off to Ellen’s nursery school, until the boy pulled himself free and ran the last ten metres to the door.

Ellen was tired and reserved when she came over. She didn’t want to go home, didn’t want a hug. Wanted to carry on cutting out pictures, Daddy would pick her up.

Annika clenched her jaw to stop herself exploding, noting that her boundaries had evaporated.

‘Ellen,’ she said firmly, ‘Kalle and I are going now.’

The girl stiffened, her face contorted, eyes open wide, and a desperate cry came out.

‘My oversall,’ she screamed. ‘I haven’t got my over-sall!’

She dropped the scissors and ran over to her peg, searching frantically for the overall. Annika could sense the disapproving stares of two other mothers further down the corridor.

‘Well, come on now,’ she said, going over to her daughter. ‘I’ll help you, but you’ve to stop being cross.’

‘It’s called an overall,’ Kalle said.

On the way home Ellen let out occasional little sobs.

‘We go on the bus with Daddy,’ the boy said as they stood huddled on a traffic island at the traffic lights on Kungsholmsgatan.

‘It’s too crowded and hot on the bus,’ Annika said, feeling suffocated at the very thought of it.

She had to carry Ellen from Bergsgatan. Once they were home, she quickly lit a fire in the stove to force the cold back from the draughty windows, and ran down to the yard with the stinking bag of rubbish, her hands and legs moving without her even being aware of them. Then she put the rice on as she fished her laptop out of her bag and turned it on, switching the cable from the phone in the kitchen, and putting a pack of cod into the microwave to defrost.

‘Can we play on the computer, Mummy?’ Kalle asked.

‘It’s Daddy’s computer.’

‘But Daddy lets us. I know how to start it.’

‘Watch some cartoons instead, they’ll soon be on,’ she said, connecting to the paper’s server.

The boy went off, shoulders drooping. She cut the cod into slices as her laptop signed in, turned the slices in salt and flour, then put them in a heavy pan with a bit of melted butter. She listened to the frying sound as she sent over the three articles, then splashed some lemon juice over the fish, dug out some frozen dill and scattered that over the top, then poured in some cream, warm water, fish stock, and a handful of frozen prawns.

‘What are we having for tea, Mummy?’ Ellen said, looking up at her from under her fringe.

‘Darling,’ Annika said, leaning over to pick her daughter up. ‘Come here, come and sit up here.’

Her daughter cuddled into her lap, put her arms round her neck.

‘Oh, sweetie,’ Annika said, rocking her, breathing into her hair. ‘Are you hungry?’

The girl nodded hesitantly.

‘We’re having fish in cream sauce with rice and prawns. You like that, don’t you?’

She nodded again.

‘Do you want to help me make the salad?’

A third nod.

‘Okay,’ Annika said, putting her on the floor and pulling a chair over to the worktop next to the cooker. ‘Have you washed your hands?’

The girl ran into the bathroom, there was the sound of running water, and Annika suddenly felt giddy with tiredness.

She took out an apron and a fruit knife, tied the strings behind Ellen’s back and showed her how to hold the knife. She let her cut some cucumber while she dealt with the lettuce and a handful of tomatoes. She poured over some olive oil, balsamic vinegar and some Italian salad herbs, and let Ellen toss the salad.

‘Brilliant!’ she said, putting the bowl on the table. ‘Can you lay the table? You know how, don’t you?’

‘You’re missing Björne,’ Kalle yelled from the television room, and the girl dropped the cutlery and ran off. Annika noted how filthy her socks were as she ran out.

Then came the sound of the front door being unlocked. She heard the children’s jubilant cries and the noise of Thomas’s briefcase being dropped on the bench in the hall.

‘Hello,’ he said as he came into the kitchen and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Who have you been talking to?’

She reached up on tiptoe to kiss him on the lips, wrapping her arms round his neck and holding him close. For some reason the image of Forsberg, the police officer, popped into her head.

‘I haven’t been talking to anyone,’ she said to her husband’s neck.

‘You’ve been engaged for half an hour.’

She let go of him abruptly. ‘Shit. I’m still online.’

She hurried to the laptop, pulled out all the wires and plugged the phone back in.

‘We can eat straight away,’ she said.

‘I don’t want anything,’ Thomas said. ‘We’ve got a meeting with the department this evening so I’ll be eating with the working group.’

Annika stopped, the pan of fish in her hand.

‘I thought you were playing tennis tonight,’ she said, bewildered.

She was burning her fingers in spite of the oven gloves, and quickly put the pan down.

‘The bloke from Justice wants a quick run-through over a bite to eat.’

‘You could have a bite with us first,’ Annika said, pulling out a chair for Ellen.

She looked up at her husband, saw him sigh soundlessly, and put the rice on the table.

‘Kalle,’ she called towards the television room. ‘It’s ready!’

‘But I want to watch this,’ the boy shouted back.

She spooned out rice and fish for Ellen, and put the salad next to her.

‘Ellen made the salad,’ she announced to the room in general. ‘You can help yourself, can’t you?’

Then she went into the television room and switched off the set, making her son howl with annoyance.

‘Stop that,’ Annika said. ‘Food before television, you know that. Go and sit down.’

‘What are we having?’

‘Fish stew with rice and prawns.’

The boy made a face. ‘Prawns, yuk.’

‘You can pick them out. Hurry up, before it gets cold.’

Thomas was eating contentedly when she went back into the kitchen.

‘How is it?’ she asked, sitting down opposite him.

‘The prawns are a bit tough,’ he said. ‘You always put them in too early.’

She said nothing, merely helped herself to the food, realizing that she wouldn’t be able to eat a single mouthful now.

Thomas pulled his woolly hat down over his ears as he left the building, and took a deep breath of the cold air. He was full to the point of bursting, a feeling he had come to appreciate more and more.

The good life, he thought vaguely. Pleasure and love, on every level.

He stretched his limbs, confident, calm. It was good to have Annika back. Everything was so nice and comfortable when she was home, and she was great with the kids. They had it pretty good.

He stopped outside the door with his briefcase, not sure if he should take the car. They were meeting on Södermalm, at a bar on Hornsgatan where they could get a function room. They’d probably have wine, and he’d have to either stay sober or take a chance on driving home. On the other hand, it was Thursday, the night the street was cleaned, so he’d have to move the car anyway.

He turned left, then left again into Agnegatan.

Hope the bastard starts, he thought, opening the door of the Toyota with a rough tug.

He was so pissed off with the car. It was already old when he met Annika, but she refused to take out a loan against the flat so they could buy a new one.

‘I take public transport,’ she said. ‘That’s good enough for you as well. Only idiots insist on driving in this city.’

She was quite right about that, but that wasn’t the fault of drivers, but the politicians.

He drove along Hornsgatan. The street was supposed to be closed to cars, but he did it anyway. All the streets in the area were due to be cleaned that night. With a sinking heart and a rising pulse he drove round trying to find a street that wasn’t going to be cleaned that had any parking spaces left. Nothing.

He stopped right outside the bar. Annika would go mad if she found the parking fine charged to their shared account, so he’d have to remember to pay it in cash.

He stood for a moment, checking out the bar. A dive, he thought. Just a cheap lousy bar. He sighed, pulled off his hat and stuffed it in his coat pocket, took out his briefcase and went in.

The bar was smoky and noisy, with some sort of generic mainstream rock on the speakers and dart boards on the walls. Old adverts for various beers were evidently meant to strike a cultural note. A jukebox glowered silently from one corner.

‘Thomas, over here!’

Sophia Grenborg was sitting in a booth to the right of the bar, and he headed gratefully towards her. Greeting his colleague warmly, he felt only a small pang of guilt. Three years ago they had applied for the same job. He had got it, even though she was better qualified. Whenever they had met over the years since then he always felt a little bad, which made him act more friendly than usual.

‘Where’s Cramne?’ he asked, pulling off his wax jacket.

‘He’s not here yet,’ Sophia replied, moving to make space on the bench. ‘I wonder what was going through his mind when he arranged to meet in a place like this.’

Thomas burst out laughing; he’d been thinking exactly the same thing. He settled down next to her, noting that she was drinking beer. She followed his gaze, shrugged and smiled.

‘Seemed to make sense here,’ she said.

He raised a hand and stopped a young waiter and ordered a large glass of beer.

‘What do you think of the brochure?’ she said.

Thomas pulled up his briefcase and put a pile of papers on the table, the leaflet at the top.

‘It’s pretty much okay,’ he said, putting the briefcase back down. ‘There are a few things that are a bit woolly, though. We have to spell out exactly what politicians should do if they’re threatened, not to frighten them, just so they take it seriously and think about it. Maybe give a few statistics on how they usually behave, and some figures from the National Council for Crime Prevention.’

This was basically what Annika had said when she looked through the brochure just before he set out. Sophia Grenborg blinked, seeming quite impressed. He puffed out his chest.

‘That makes a lot of sense,’ she said. ‘Can I note that down?’

He gave a short nod, looking round for Cramne, then turned his attention to his beer.

‘Something else I was thinking,’ Sophia went on, as she wrote in her notebook. ‘What do you think of doing a more general survey? An opinion poll to find out what people think about violence to politicians?’

He looked at her, aware that he hadn’t been listening.

She put her pen and notebook in her bag.

‘I mean,’ she said, ‘what values do we apply to attempts to silence politicians? Shouldn’t we find out?’

Thomas frowned, hiding his enthusiasm.

‘You mean what people think about threats to politicians?’

‘Yes,’ she said, leaning forwards, ‘and at the same time see how we can change those opinions by an awareness campaign.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Maybe we could get some support in the press,’ he said. ‘Get a debate going, influence people’s opinions the old-fashioned way.’

‘Yes!’ she said with enthusiasm. ‘Get the PR department involved, speed up press releases.’

‘A series of articles about our new heroes,’ Thomas said, seeing the headline in his mind. ‘The local politician battling right-wing extremists and anarchists in his small town.’

‘But without exaggerating the threat and scaring off the people starting out in politics,’ Sophia said.

‘Are you the ones having the meeting about democracy?’ the young waiter said as he put the glass of beer down on Thomas’s papers.

Quick as a flash Thomas lifted the glass, but he was too slow to stop a ring of bubbles soaking into the proposal for clearer guidelines.

‘Cramne rang,’ the waiter continued. ‘He asked me to tell you he can’t make it tonight. That’ll be thirty-two kronor.’

He stood there expectantly, waiting to be paid for the beer.

Thomas felt himself getting angry for several reasons at once, bubbling over like the head on the beer that was dripping onto his hands and trousers.

‘What the fuck?’ he said. ‘What is this?’

Sophia Grenborg straightened up and leaned towards the waiter.

‘Did Cramne say why?’

The young man shrugged, shifting impatiently as he waited to be paid. ‘Just that he couldn’t make it, and that I should tell you. And he said you were welcome to go down and eat, and he’ll pay the bill next time he comes in.’

Thomas and Sophia looked at each other.

‘Cramne lives upstairs,’ the waiter said, pointing with his pen. ‘Fifth floor. He’s in here all the time. We have a table reserved in the restaurant, down the narrow staircase behind the toilets.’

Thomas took out exactly thirty-two kronor from his wallet, then put it and all his papers back in his briefcase.

‘I don’t have time for this,’ he said, getting ready to stand up.

The waiter disappeared.

‘We could go through what this sort of survey might look like,’ Sophia said. ‘Seeing as we’re already here. And see if we could simplify the advice about threats. That’s the most important thing, after all. That politicians feel more secure in their posts, and know how to deal with threats and violence.’

‘I cancelled my tennis for this,’ Thomas heard himself say, sounding like a disappointed child.

‘And I cancelled my salsa class. We could at least let the government pay for dinner to make up for it.’

He relaxed and smiled back at her.

13

Anne Snapphane was breathing hard in the stairwell, looking up at its curved shape, slowly calmed by the gentle curves of the wall. It was so far to the second floor, and she felt unsteady.

She stopped on the next landing, peering out through the tinted glass at the courtyard. There was a light in Annika’s old window in the little house down there. So picturesque, and so cramped. She couldn’t put up with living in the city again, she realized, just as she realized that this hangover really wasn’t any fun.

The doors of Annika’s apartment were tall as church-doors, heavy as stone. She knocked cautiously, conscious that the children would only just have gone to bed.

‘Come in,’ Annika said quietly, backing into the hall. ‘I’ve just got to say goodnight to Kalle, then I’ll be with you.’

Anne sank onto the bench in the hall and pulled the too-tight shoes off her feet. She could hear Annika laugh and the boy giggle, and sat there with her outdoor clothes on until her forehead began to itch under her hat. Then she went into the living room with all the ornate plaster detailing, slumped onto the sofa and leaned her head back.

‘Do you want coffee?’ Annika said as she came into the room with a plate of macaroons.

The thought was enough to make Anne’s stomach churn.

‘Have you got any wine?’

Annika put the plate down.

‘Thomas has,’ she said, ‘but he’s so fussy about it. Don’t take any of the fancy stuff, it’s…’ She gestured towards the glass cabinet.

All of a sudden it was easy to stand up. Anne’s feet scarcely touched the floor as she glided towards the wine-rack. She turned the bottles, read the labels.

‘Villa Puccini,’ she said. ‘That costs eighty-two kronor a bottle and is completely wonderful. Can we have that?’

‘Why not?’ Annika said from the hall.

With a practised hand Anne soon had the foil off and pulled the cork out so hard that she splashed her top. Her hands trembled slightly as she took a crystal glass from the shelf below and poured out the dark-red liquid. The taste was divine; full-bodied and round and healthy all at the same time. She took several large gulps, filled the glass again, then stood the bottle back in the cupboard. Then she settled into a corner of the sofa, pulling out a table for her glass. Suddenly life seemed much simpler.

Annika walked into the living room, breathing out. Once the children were in bed it always felt as though a huge weight had lifted. She no longer had to rush around like a mad thing, but slowing down meant that everything caught up with her. Her thoughts came back, and she started to feel empty again. The apartment became a desert to wander aimlessly around, a stuccoed and ornately panelled prison.

She sank into the other corner of the sofa, her body light and her head empty, and became aware that she was cold. She pulled her knees up, forming a tight ball, and looked at her friend. She could see that Anne was a bundle of nerves, from her drawn features, and the fevered search for something that could put the world in its place again. She knew that Anne wouldn’t find it. In contrast, Annika had learned the trick of abstaining, of shutting off, of waiting for things to balance out again.

Anne was working her way through Thomas’s wine in deep gulps.

‘I can understand your frustration,’ she said, glancing at Annika as she put her glass down. ‘Even I don’t remember Paula from Pop Factory.’

Annika pointed at the biscuits, pushed a few stray crumbs around with her finger, wondering if she could manage a bite. She gave up, leaned back into the sofa and closed her eyes.

‘I have to choose my battles,’ she said, ‘otherwise I run out of energy. Going and making a fuss in front of Schyman would be shooting myself in the foot. No thanks, not this time.’

‘Trust me, you really wouldn’t want my job,’ Anne said. ‘I can promise you that much.’

They sat listening to the background sounds for a moment. Through the noise of the number three bus on the street below dark shadows crept across the corners, rising and falling.

‘I just need to check the news,’ Annika said, reaching for the remote. The shadows withdrew with a hiss.

The television flickered into life, and Anne stiffened.

‘Mehmet’s new monogamous fuck is a news editor there,’ she said.

Annika nodded without taking her eyes from the screen. ‘So you said,’ she said. ‘Hang on a moment.’

She turned up the volume. Over the beat of the theme-music the newsreader read out the headlines in verbless soundbites: ‘Suspected murder of a journalist in Luleå; four thousand laid off at Ericsson; new library proposals from the Ministry of Culture. Good evening, but first the Middle East, where a suicide bomber has this evening killed nine young people outside a café in Tel Aviv… ’

Annika lowered the volume to a murmur.

‘Do you think it’s serious, then, Mehmet and this one?’

Anne took a gulp of wine, swallowing audibly.

‘She’s started picking Miranda up from nursery,’ she said, her voice flat and peculiar.

Annika thought for a moment, trying to imagine how that would feel.

‘I couldn’t handle that,’ she said, ‘another woman looking after my children.’

Anne pulled a face. ‘I haven’t got much choice, have I?’

‘Do you want more children?’

Annika heard the loaded subtext of her question, as if she had been working up to asking it. Anne looked up in surprise, and shook her head.

‘I want to be an individual,’ she said. ‘Not a function.’

Annika raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s the whole point,’ she said. ‘Becoming part of something bigger, something more important. Voluntarily giving up your freedom for someone else; that never happens anywhere else in our culture.’

‘I’ve never thought of it like that,’ Anne said, taking another drink. ‘But when you put it like that, that was one of the reasons why I didn’t want to live with Mehmet. Being alone with my thoughts is vital; otherwise I’d go mad again.’

Annika knew that Anne thought she had never understood the way she and her husband had lived, had never seen how well it worked until it suddenly collapsed.

‘But being an egotist doesn’t necessarily make you any truer to yourself,’ Annika said, then realized how harsh her words sounded. ‘I mean, we have to deal with any number of things every day. Not just kids, but jobs, sports, anything. How many people get to go around being individuals in their jobs? How much could I be Annika Bengtzon if I was in the national ice-hockey team?’

‘I knew there was a reason why I hate sports journalists,’ Anne muttered.

‘But seriously,’ Annika said, leaning forward, ‘being part of a context is vital, having a function that’s bigger than us individually. Why else would people be attracted to sects and other groups of nutters if there wasn’t something really appealing about it?’

‘I don’t like sects either,’ Anne said, taking another gulp of wine.

An image of Svartöstaden filled the screen behind the newsreader, and Annika turned the sound up again.

‘Police have confirmed that the death of journalist Benny Ekland is being treated as suspected murder, and that he was killed by a stolen Volvo V70.’

‘They haven’t come up with anything new,’ Annika said, lowering the volume again.

‘He was murdered by a Volvo?’ Anne asked, putting her hands down again.

‘Didn’t you read my article?’

Anne smiled briefly in apology.

‘Do you want some water?’

‘No, I’d like some more wine,’ Anne called after her.

The passageway to the kitchen was dark and full of silent sound. In the kitchen the subdued lighting of the extraction unit looked like a campfire from a distance. The water sloshed in the dishwasher, sending cascades up against its stainless-steel walls.

She poured two large glasses of water, even though Anne didn’t want any.

When she came back her friend was still sitting in the sofa with her empty wineglass in her hand. The alcohol had made her face relax. Her eyes were drawn to the silent television, and Annika followed her gaze and suddenly saw the broad, dark figure of the Minister of Culture fill the screen. She turned up the sound.

‘From July first, every council district will be obliged to have at least one public library,’ Karina Björnlund, the Minister of Culture, announced, her gaze fluttering about. ‘This new libraries law is a great step towards equality.’

She nodded emphatically on the screen, and the unseen reporter was evidently expecting her to go on. Karina Björnlund cleared her throat, leaned towards the microphone and said: ‘For knowledge. Equality. Potential. For knowledge.’

The reporter withdrew the microphone with his gloved hand and asked, ‘Doesn’t this initiative tread on the toes of local accountability?’

The microphone came back in a shot, as Karina Björnlund bit her lip.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘this is an issue that has been debated over many years, but we are proposing new state subsidies of twenty-five million kronor for the purchase of books for public and school libraries.’

‘God, she’s mad, isn’t she?’ Annika said, turning the volume down again.

Anne raised her eyebrows, seemingly unconcerned. ‘I don’t understand why you’re so against it,’ she said. ‘That proposal she’s talking about is what’s making my TV channel possible.’

‘She should never have been made a minister,’ Annika said. ‘Something went wrong after the whole Studio Six business. She was only the Trade Minister’s press secretary back then – Christer Lundgren, you remember him…?’

Anne frowned, thinking hard.

‘And she didn’t make a very good press secretary either, and then she gets to be Minister of Culture after the election.’

‘Aah,’ Anne said, ‘Christer Lundgren, the minister everyone thought killed that stripper.’

‘Josefin Liljeberg, exactly. Even though he didn’t do it.’

They sat in silence again, watching Karina Björnlund talk soundlessly. Annika had an idea of why the press secretary had become a minister, and suspected that she herself, entirely innocently, had been a contributing factor to her appointment.

‘Do you mind if I turn it off?’ she asked.

Anne shrugged. Annika considered getting up and fetching something else, anything else, to eat or drink or look at, something to consume, but she stopped herself, gathered her thoughts, allowed the grey anxiety to wash over her, and hopefully go away.

‘I got a load of really sensitive information from a policeman in Luleå today,’ she said. ‘About a bloke from the Torne Valley who probably blew up that plane at F21 and went on to become an international terrorist. What would make anyone leak that after thirty years?’

Anne let the words sink in.

‘Depends on what the policeman said,’ she replied. ‘I don’t suppose he was stupid, so there’s a reason behind the leak. What do you think he was after?’

Annika played with her glass of water.

‘I’ve been wondering that all day,’ she said. ‘I think the terrorist has come back, and the police want him to know that they know.’

Anne frowned, then her gaze cleared, intoxication fading. ‘Isn’t that a bit of a long shot?’ she said. ‘Maybe they want to scare someone who knows him. His old friends. Warn political groups, left and right alike, against God knows what. You can’t possibly know what the police’s motives are.’

Annika took a sip of water, swallowed with difficulty, then put the glass down.

‘The officer said he’d checked with the press officer at the airbase, which means the military have discussed it, so this is something they’ve been planning for a while. But why now, and why me?’

‘Well, I don’t know why now,’ Anne said, ‘but why you is pretty obvious, isn’t it? How many famous crime reporters are there on Swedish papers?’

Annika thought in silence for a few seconds, as an emergency vehicle drove past outside.

‘But what if this has something to do with Benny Ekland’s murder. It all fits too neatly.’

‘Well, it’s not impossible,’ Anne said. ‘Are you going to run the story?’

‘I suppose so,’ she said with a sigh, ‘although it’s up to Schyman to decide. I think he’s starting to get tired of me.’

‘Maybe you’re just getting tired of him,’ Anne said, taking a biscuit.

Annika’s face was impassive. She pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms round her legs.

‘I just want to be left to get on with my job.’

14

The young waiter put two gin and tonics on the table, removed the coffee cups and cognac glasses, replaced an almost finished candle and emptied the ashtray.

‘The kitchen closes at ten, but the bar is open till one, so just say if you’d like anything else.’

He vanished silently up the thickly carpeted staircase.

‘Who knew that this was here!’ Sophia smiled, throwing her arms out.

Thomas couldn’t help laughing. The atmosphere in the cellar of the bar was almost surreally oriental; the walls and floor covered in layer upon layer of thick, dusty carpets, gleaming bronze dishes piled in the corners, oil-lamps on low stone tables. They were alone, facing one another across a large oak table on heavy leather chairs. The ceiling consisted of vaulted brickwork that appeared to be seventeenth century.

‘These old brick buildings hold a lot of secrets,’ Thomas said, embarrassed that he was slurring his words.

‘You live on Kungsholmen?’ Sophia asked, looking at him over the rim of the gin glass.

He nodded, sipping his drink.

‘Old stove,’ he said, ‘lots of ornate plasterwork, creaking parquet floors, the lot.’

‘Your own?’

‘These days. We bought out the tenancy a year ago. What about you?’

Sophia lit a menthol cigarette, sucking in the nicotine, and blew the smoke out in small rings.

‘Östermalm,’ she said. ‘My family own a building there.’

He raised his eyebrows, impressed. She lowered her eyes and smiled.

‘We’ve had it for generations,’ she said. ‘Mine’s small, only three rooms, there are other members of the family who need the fancy rooms more than me.’

He took a handful of the peanuts that had been on the table since they started.

‘You live alone?’

‘With Socks, my cat. Named after the Clintons’ cat, if you remember…’

He laughed loudly. ‘Of course, Socks in the White House.’

‘And you’ve got a family?’ she said, putting her cigarette out.

Thomas pushed his chair back a bit.

‘Yep,’ he said happily, crossing his hands on his stomach. ‘Wife, two kids. No cat, though…’

They laughed.

‘Does your wife work?’ Sophia asked, sipping her drink.

He let out a deep sigh. ‘Far too much.’

She smiled, and lit another cigarette. The silence between them grew like a soft deciduous tree full of promise, trembling leaves and sunlight. Everything was sweetness and light in their oriental cellar.

‘She spent a while at home last winter,’ he said, more sombre now. ‘That was great. It suited the children, it suited me. It suited the apartment too; we renovated the kitchen and even managed to keep it clean.’

Sophia had leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. He could see the look in her eyes, and realized the effect his words had had.

‘I mean,’ he said, swallowing more gin, ‘I don’t mean women should be housewives and just stand by the stove and have babies, nothing like that. Of course women should have the same opportunities for education and careers as men, but there are loads of nice jobs in journalism. I don’t see why she insists on writing about violence and death for a tabloid.’

All of a sudden he could hear his mother’s voice in his head, words she had never said but he knew she was thinking: Because that’s what she is. A tabloid person who attracts trouble. You’re too good for her, Thomas; you could have found a good woman.

‘She’s a good woman,’ he said out loud. ‘Intelligent, but not very intellectual.’

Sophia looked at him, her head on one side. ‘The two don’t have to go together,’ she said. ‘You can be talented without being well-read.’

‘Exactly.’ Thomas took a large gulp of gin. ‘That’s exactly it. Annika’s incredibly smart. The problem is that she’s so bloody unpolished. Sometimes she goes about things like a bulldozer.’

Sophia covered her mouth with her hands and giggled. He looked at her in surprise, then started laughing as well.

‘But it’s true!’ he said, then got serious again. ‘She’s pretty unusual, in all sorts of ways. Never lets go once she’s decided to do something.’

Sophia had stopped laughing and was looking at him sympathetically.

‘It must be hard to live with that sort of stubbornness,’ she said.

Thomas shook his head slowly, emptying his glass. ‘My mother can’t stand her,’ he said, putting the glass down. ‘She thinks I married beneath me, that I should have stayed with Eleonor.’

Sophia looked quizzically at him.

‘My first wife,’ he said. ‘She was a bank director. Is a bank director. She’s remarried now, with the only IT-guru who landed on his feet. Last I heard, they’d bought their own island outside Vaxholm.’

The tree of silence spread its boughs above them, mature, calm. They sat in silence and looked at each other as her cigarette burned away in the ashtray.

‘We may as well share a taxi,’ Sophia said. ‘We’re more or less going in the same direction.’

The boy stopped at the door of the bus and swallowed hard. He leaned forward to look at the road, the wind blowing sharp ice crystals into his face. There was a smell of fumes and iron.

‘Are you getting off or what?’

He looked sheepishly at the bus-driver, took a quick breath, jumped the two steps and landed on the pavement. The door closed behind him with a hiss, the bus glided away with a muffled noise caused by cold and snow.

It disappeared into Laxgatan, the sound drowning behind heaps of snow and fencing. He stood there on the pavement, looking carefully around him, listening hard. He couldn’t even hear the ironworks.

He forced himself to breathe out, calm down. There was no reason to be frightened. He spat in the snow.

Shit, soon he’d be as nervous as that reporter from Stockholm. She was really jumpy. They’d read her article in the Norrland News, and he’d shown Alex how she behaved in the hallway.

‘It’s her,’ Alex had said. ‘You know, the one who was held hostage by the Bomber. Probably left her a bit funny in the head afterwards.’

He hadn’t been much good at the game tonight, not really on form. He was actually really good at it, much better than Alex, but this evening he’d been zapped to ash by several other players. He was annoyed that he’d blown his stats; he kicked away a lump of ice so hard it made his foot hurt. Might be just as well to start again with a new character. ‘Cruel Devil’ would never be a Teslatron God with useless results like this to make up for. Ninja Master, maybe, but he was aiming for the top.

He slowly walked out of the yellow circle of the street-lamp, heading for the house. There were lights on in Andersson’s flat, blue light seeping into the darkness. The old man was probably watching the sports news.

Suddenly a shadow fell over the façade of the building, a flashing demon that gasped and disappeared. The boy struggled for breath, so hard that it froze his throat. He felt his muscles tense, his legs ready for flight. Eyes and ears open to the darkness, absorbing every trembling nuance.

Still not a sound. Blue light from Andersson’s window. Icy chill from the ground that was slowly working its way through the soles of his shoes.

Nothing. Something flashed past the window.

He forced his shoulders down again, realizing that he hadn’t breathed for a minute or so. Started panting in a loud rattle, feeling the tears rise.

Fucking shit, the boy thought, fucking bloody shit.

Without thinking any more, he gave in to his fear and raced blindly towards the door. It was just as dark as usual in the yard, but he knew where Andersson left his rubbish and crossed the hazardous path with ease.

He yanked open the outer door and hit the button to light up the hall with damp gloves. His whole body was shaking as he dug for the key in his jacket pocket.

The door fell open just as he realized he was about to wet himself. Letting out a small whine, he rushed into the bathroom and yanked up the toilet lid.

He shut his eyes and sobbed as the warm urine landed more or less in the toilet. Afterwards he just pulled up his pants and sat down on the toilet, leaving his trousers and long-johns in a puddle around his feet. The sunflowers smiled down at him from the wallpaper.

Why had he got so scared, like a little kid? He snorted at his own behaviour; he’d never been scared of the dark before.

Slowly he stood up, flushed, washed his hands and rinsed his mouth. He couldn’t be bothered to brush his teeth tonight. He kicked off his trousers, gathered up his clothes and went into his room.

There was someone sitting on his bed.

The thought came from nowhere and he didn’t believe it, even though he could see for himself.

There was a shadow sitting on his bed.

His arms fell, his clothes landing in a heap on the floor. He tried to cry out, but probably made no sound because the shadow was moving very slowly, got up, came towards him, filling the room, right up to the ceiling.

A howl emerged, echoing off the walls, the boy turned and tried to run, then all sound was switched off, colour vanished, the picture went fuzzy. He aimed for the light in the hall, saw his own hand fly past his face, felt his weight shift from one foot to the other. Breathless, the doorway came closer, then slid sideways, a clammy glove against his forehead, another on his left arm. The hall light reflected in something shiny.

Chaos, a howling in his head. Warm liquid on his chest.

Then a thought. A final, radiant, clear thought: Mum.