“Who knows someone. Perhaps.”
“I’m not sure what to do about it.”
Sven pursed his lips. “Leave it. It’s just some phone calls.”
“It doesn’t feel right. If they weren’t important, they wouldn’t have been deleted.”
Sven shrugged. “You need to trust your minister.”
Easy for him to say. Sven was Möller’s right hand. He genuinely believed in his minister.
“There’s more,” Jens said. He told Sven about Karl Schnurre at dinner and then at his apartment.
Sven bit his lip. Jens reckoned he was taking care not to say something that could be taken as a criticism of Kristina. The two had met, but, like his father, Sven had seemingly not taken to Kristina, nor she to him.
“Be wary,” he said at last. “Schnurre is dangerous. Both for the connections he has abroad and those here in Stockholm.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing. I’ll ask Kristina about it.”
Sven frowned. “Or perhaps not?” he suggested.
That would mean a relationship built on a lie. A life filled with monitoring the person you lived with, looking for inconsistencies, suspecting . . .
Sven shrugged. “I only mean, this is the one you’re going to marry, and it could come across as a serious accusation. You don’t know anything for sure.”
Sven didn’t trust Kristina, Jens thought. Did he? God, he no longer knew.
Jens realized what had been bugging him earlier. “What was her name again, the young woman who died?”
“Britta Hallberg.”
Britta Hallberg. But that was the person who . . .
He pushed back his chair and looked in the garbage bin he knew would be empty. Silently, he cursed. He rose. “I have to go.”
“Are you okay?” Sven asked. “You don’t look good.”
“I’m fine,” Jens said, not trusting his own voice. “A meeting I forgot.”
JENS RAN DOWN the corridor and glanced into each office on the way, but he couldn’t see the cleaners. He hurried down the stairs and caught up with a member of the cleaning staff in the lobby.
He grabbed the woman by her sleeve. “I threw a document away yesterday by mistake.”
She looked at his hand and he let go; he raised his hands in an apology, smiled. “I threw it in my garbage bin. Is there any chance I can recover it?”
She shook her head. “Garbage is burned each evening,” she said, and he knew it was, but he had hoped.
Jesus Christ.
He went back to his room, the walk now feeling unbearably long. Sven had left. Jens sank down behind his desk.
So a woman, a swallow, is murdered in such a way that the Security Services get themselves involved, but before she dies she sends him, Jens, a thesis?
Sven said she was a student.
But why send it to him?
Jens had been invited to speak in Uppsala. A Professor Lindahl had asked him to come to a nachspiel, to talk about Sweden’s foreign policy to a small group of students. The professor had a reputation for being extraordinarily intelligent—the government used him all the time—but he had made Jens feel uncomfortable. He was one of these androgynous characters. Face of a poet. Thought himself a genius. Jens tried to remember the women in the room. The only one who stood out was a blonde, with a northern accent, who was beautiful in a slightly vulgar way. Please don’t let it be her—he thought—she’d been so full of life, of zest, but of course it would be. He was certain. She had asked questions, he remembered now; intelligent questions about history and truth, about how much was known at any one time and how much of that which was known was later lost, hidden or reshaped. He had told her that everyone interpreted events according to what they saw and heard, each man with filters shaped by his own past—he was referring to the philosopher Immanuel Kant’s green sunglasses. But, he had argued, there was such a thing as a universal truth, an accurate history, and a good man would try to get as close to it as possible, trying to notice his own filters, and look beyond the same.
“A good man . . .” Yes, that was what he had said. And then she had sent him a document before dying.
18.
Blackåsen Mountain
Director Sandler paced his living room. Restless. It was a small town. At times, it felt way too small. He had the impression the forest was leaning in on them, gradually advancing to swallow them up. He had been to see Georg Ek’s widow and found the conversation hard to let go. It was always difficult to evict a family and, rather than support him, the foreman had contradicted him. There was no way the boy would make the cut. He was too young, too skinny. He hadn’t even grown facial hair yet.
“The boy . . .” he’d said to Hallberg afterward.
“Yes?” The foreman jutted his chin out.
“He isn’t ready.”
“We look after our own. The others will carry him until he is.”
“We can’t carry people. This is a business.”
Hallberg’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think you have any reason to complain of the work so far, do you? Our workers slave for you night and day for minimal wages.”
Sandler had backed down, even raised his hands as if in surrender. Didn’t want to get into a discussion about wages. But now he was troubled. He wasn’t in charge of the mine. It was clear. Things were running well enough without him and he didn’t like it.
SANDLER SADDLED HIS HORSE. There was nothing like a riding trip in the forest to clear your mind and he needed his mind cleared.
He grabbed the reins in his left hand, put his foot in the stirrup and swung himself up. The horse jogged a couple of steps to the side, then settled under his weight. Sandler squeezed with his thighs, feeling the warm muscles of the horse shift.
He steered the stallion out of the garden. It twitched. This animal loved to gallop; needed it as much as he did. It was just waiting for his command. Once on the road, he kicked his heels into the horse’s sides again. And they were off.
They galloped down Blackåsen’s main road. People stepped aside. His horse. His land. His people. Here goes the director again. A crazy man on a crazy horse. So be it, he thought. This was his outlet.
He needed a foreman he could trust. He would replace Hallberg. The foreman’s second-in-command wasn’t yet up to the job, but there had to be someone else.
At the end of the town, horse and rider left the road and took a trail into the forest. The trail was finally free of snow. The stallion lengthened its strides, and Sandler rose in the stirrups and crouched over its neck.
Faster, he willed it. Faster.
The world became a blur, but he trusted his mount. It knew what it was doing. He could feel its muscles move underneath his hands. He could feel his own anxiety pouring off him and away.
He rode like one possessed, down the trail and into the forest.
It wasn’t until they reached the large river that he slowed down. The horse was breathing heavily, just like he was. Sandler inhaled, felt his lungs ache.
They stopped by the water and the animal bent its head to drink. The forest was silent. He’d gone far enough to not hear the constant clamor coming from the mine. Peace, he thought.
He closed his eyes, listened to the trickling of water.
The stallion shook its head as if it knew how he was feeling. Then it tensed and turned. A noise. Sandler heard it, too. Someone else coming—also on a horse . . . No, more than one horse. At least two.
He didn’t want to see anyone. He slid off his mount and led it into the forest behind him. He stood underneath its neck, held the bit close to his own face, willed it to be silent.
Just a moment later, two horses emerged. Notholm. The sight of him made Sandler cringe. And with him, Dr. Öhrnberg. This surprised him. Öhrnberg was a respected man in the community. A scientist. He was a quiet, thoughtful man. He’d always struck Sandler as very cultured; wise, even. He had never seen the two men together before and he couldn’t imagine what business they could possibly h
ave with each other.
Their horses drank from the river, just as his had done moments earlier. Beside him, his stallion shifted. Perhaps at the sight of other animals. Director Sandler stroked its neck.
“It shall all be done,” Notholm said.
“I never doubted it.” Öhrnberg looked out over the river.
Notholm nodded. “One thing, though.”
“Yes?”
“One of them—a particular one—is for me.”
“For you?” Öhrnberg turned to look at his companion.
Notholm shrugged. “Just for me.”
Öhrnberg sighed. “That is not what this is about. It’s not what we want.”
“That is my condition: this one has to be for me.”
“Fine,” Öhrnberg said. “Just no mess.”
“No mess.”
The two men sat up taller and directed their horses onto the path. Sandler waited until he was certain they were gone. They were up to something, he thought. It’s none of your business he told himself. But it had to do with Notholm. And even though he’d been told to leave well enough alone, Notholm was his business.
19.
Laura
Laura was still in bed. She was in her childhood bedroom in her father’s house and nobody would care if she stayed there all day. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept in. She didn’t like oversleeping. It was such a waste: a whole day ahead of you, reduced. She much preferred to be tired than to sleep for longer. Britta had loved sleeping till late in the morning.
Her father had left early that morning. He had wanted to stay and attend the police interview. She had said absolutely not. She was an adult. Even if he and Wallenberg didn’t treat her as such. Grumpily, he’d accepted.
“You are home now,” he’d said last night. “You’ll be safe.”
She could think of nothing worse. Returned to where she was eight years ago, before starting university. A child in the house of her father. Everything she had fought for, gone. Her independence, vanished. She had always planned a way out: if she hadn’t enjoyed history at university, she would have changed to economics—she had made sure she knew the professor. If the negotiations with the Germans came to an end, she would continue working with Wallenberg in a different capacity. But not once had it occurred to her that Wallenberg might drop her. He liked her.
Once, during a business trip to Germany, the two of them had remained at the bar when the others had retired.
“You see patterns where others see nothing,” he’d said. “You don’t realize it yourself, but in the negotiations, you make huge leaps to draw conclusions and you’re always right. A gaze, a phrasing, a face . . . You immediately seem to know what it means. Intuition . . . intellect, I don’t know what it is but it’s quite remarkable.”
She hadn’t known what to say.
“I can’t wait to see what will happen the day you dare start acting on these impulses rather than just telling others about them,” he said. “That day, you will begin to trust yourself.”
He was right about her not believing in herself, but she hadn’t thought it was obvious to others.
“Intelligent, like your father,” Wallenberg had said.
She knew what high praise that was; knew the admiration men held for her father.
“I’m thinking you might even be better than your father,” Wallenberg had said.
And now, she had become a liability, a security risk, and he had dropped her. Another reason he was good at his job: he did not mix personal feelings with whatever work was at hand.
Someone had destroyed her life. She’d lost her best friend, her flat and her job. Her eyes burned and she closed them. There was nothing left. They had killed her friend and then tried to take her life, too. She might have died, had not . . . had not Erik asked for a nightcap?
No, she thought. She knew Erik.
“It has to do with you. And your friend,” Wallenberg had said. Did it?
It was strange, she had to admit. The missing eye, the body at the Historical Society. It could be seen as a message to them. But why? Nothing in their history together merited a murder . . . And a bomb.
She sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. I shall carry on, she said to herself. That was what her two male role models had taught her: to carry on. Something will come up.
After she’d dressed, there was a soft knock on the door.
“There is a phone call for you,” the maid said.
She walked downstairs and took the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Laura. It’s Emil Persson from Svenska Dagbladet. How are you?”
“I have nothing to tell you,” she said. “Really.”
“Was it your flat?”
“It was.”
“But why?”
“I have no idea.”
“Mind if I dig around?”
“Be my guest.” She hesitated. “Let me know if you find anything.”
Her grandfather was standing in the doorway: “Laura, the police are here to talk to you.”
THERE WERE TWO of them. Her grandfather asked if she wanted him to stay, but she shook her head. One of the policemen was older, her father’s age, silver-haired, but with the bumpy face of a boxer. The other one was younger, close to her own age. He was dark-haired, and his face was open. Wallenberg had told her to tell them everything and so she did. All of it, starting with Britta’s death.
“Have you been threatened in any way?” the older policeman asked.
She shook her head.
“What about the work you’re doing for Wallenberg—have there been threats there?”
“Not aimed at me. I think this has to do with Britta’s death.”
The older one lowered his head. “You said you were best friends,” he asked. “If she was frightened, surely she would have told you?”
Their visit at NK flashed through her mind.
“I imagine she would have if we had met more often,” she said, with effort. “But we rarely saw each other after I left Uppsala.”
“I thought girlfriends told each other everything,” he insisted. “Are you sure she didn’t hint at anything?”
She shrugged. It was her fault that Britta hadn’t told her what she was frightened of, that time she came to Stockholm, but, with Britta, she had never known everything. She had understood there had been affairs, men, dates, but she had rarely known who those men were. She didn’t think Britta was hiding things: it was more that the details didn’t matter much to her. Laura also knew very little about Britta’s past. Britta had not spoken about her family, or her upbringing—possibly for the same reason.
Had Laura told Britta everything? Yes, she thought; she had. Not always willingly, but whatever she hadn’t said, Britta had seemingly understood anyway.
“Again,” she said, “I think she would have, had I been there. Haven’t you found out anything yet?”
The older policeman frowned. “The explosion only happened last night.”
“Yes, but the other policeman in Uppsala, he’s been on the case since Britta was killed.”
“Ah . . .” The older policeman looked at his papers. “Inspector Ackerman . . . We don’t know that the two are linked yet. At the moment, we are treating it as two separate incidents, as well as two linked events. The murder might have been connected to Britta’s personal life.”
The older policeman closed his book. The younger one stood up. “May I use your washroom before we leave?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s in the hallway.”
He left the room. The older policeman was still watching her.
“If I were you, I’d lie low for now,” he said.
She nodded. Yes, yes.
He leaned forward. The red bumps on his forehead were flaking. His eyes were small, his gaze hard.
“No.” He shook his head. “I would lie really, really low. I wouldn’t talk to anyone or see anyone. Heck, I’d probably not leave the
house.”
The hair on her arms was standing up even though they were the police and she was supposed to feel safe with them.
The door opened in the hallway: the younger one, coming out of the washroom.
The older policeman stood up. “We’ll see ourselves out.”
HER GRANDFATHER WAS sitting in an armchair in the living room. He didn’t rise like he usually did when she came in, just lifted his hand in greeting. He looked small.
“Everything alright?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Are you cold? Do you want me to make up a fire?”
“It’s spring. There’s no need for fires.”
“If you’re cold, you’re cold.”
“No, no.” The steely military resolve was still there. “No need.”
She fetched a blanket and put it over his knees, though he scoffed. She sat down in the chair beside him, mind buzzing.
The older policeman had sought to scare her. Why? People had tried to kill her and now the police were attempting to scare her.
Wait. She slowed herself down. Had they tried to kill her?
The bomb was set on a timer. She thought about the man exiting the apartment building. That had been perhaps fifteen minutes before the bomb went off. Enough time for him to disappear. They had no idea when she would return and she had come home early, for her. If they wanted to be certain to murder her, surely the bomb would have had a mechanism that was triggered by movement, so it would go off when she came in?
No, they had executed Britta but had tried to scare Laura off—and potentially destroy anything compromising that Britta might have given her.
“What are you thinking about?” her grandfather asked.
“About all of this,” she confessed. “My friend, my flat . . . It’s a lot to take in.”
“It would be a lot for anyone.” He had clasped his bony white fingers in his lap on top of the blanket. Now, he unfolded them and pinched at the wool. “So what will you do?”
She sighed. “Regroup. I need to find a new job, a new place to live . . .”
He nodded, but his fingers had fallen still again in his lap. She realized he’d asked what she would do about Britta. But I will do nothing, she thought, confused. The police were on it, the Security Services . . . She wondered how Britta’s family had taken the death of their daughter. But she no longer had a brief to investigate.
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