After that terrible Christmas, once the worst of the attention had died down, everything had seemed pretty good. Annika had been quiet and pale, but okay. She’d spent a lot of time playing with the children, singing and dancing with them, cutting and gluing. She’d spent a lot of time on the new residents’ association, and on a small extension to the kitchen that they could have done now that they’d bought the freehold on the flat. The thought of the bargain they had got, buying the flat for less than half the market price, made her childishly excited, but then she had always been broke. He had tried to regard the purchase more soberly, aware that money came and went. Annika never let him forget that he’d lost his last savings on shares.
He glanced at the oven, wondering if the food was hot yet, but made no move to take it out.
When Annika started work again she seemed to slip out of reach more and more, becoming distant, unknown. She would stop in the middle of a conversation, her mouth open, eyes staring in horror. If he asked what was wrong she would look at him like she’d never seen him before. It gave him goosebumps.
‘Daddy, I can’t get the computer to work.’
‘Try turning it off and on again, then I’ll come and look.’
Suddenly he felt quite powerless. He glanced one last time at the paper, realizing that another day of journalistic effort was about to go straight in the recycling. With limbs heavy as lead he lay the table, threw the children’s dirty overalls in the washing machine, made a salad and showed Kalle how to restart the computer.
Just as they were sitting down to eat, the courier arrived with the brochures they were going to discuss and evaluate the following evening.
While the children chattered and made a mess he read through the advice on how threatened politicians should behave. All the way through, and then once more.
Then he thought about Sophia.
10
Annika switched off the car engine outside the darkened door of the Norrland News. The yellow streetlamps threw an oblique light on the dashboard.
The time she had spent at home had given Thomas space which he had soon made his own. In three months he had got used to total service from her, with the children as accessories; his evenings free for tennis and work meetings, weekends for hunting and hockey trips. Since she had started work again, she was still doing most of the work at home. He criticized her for working, under the pretext that she needed to rest.
In fact, he just wanted to avoid heating up the meals she had prepared, she thought, surprised at how angry the idea made her.
She threw open the car door, picked up her bag and laptop and stepped onto the snowy street.
‘Pekkari?’ she said over the intercom. ‘It’s Bengtzon. There’s something I have to talk to you about.’
She was let in, and felt her way through the dark entrance hall. The night editor met her at the top of the stairs.
‘What’s this about?’
She recoiled from the smell of stale alcohol on his breath, but stood as close as she could and said quietly, ‘Benny may have come across something he shouldn’t have.’
The man’s eyes opened wide, the broken veins evidence of genuine sorrow.
‘F21?’
She shrugged. ‘Not sure yet. I need to check with Suup.’
‘He always goes home at five sharp.’
‘He isn’t dead as well, is he?’ Annika said.
She was shown to the letters-page editor’s room, where she cleared away the neat piles of angry handwritten correspondence on the desk and unpacked her laptop. She switched it on as she called the police station; Inspector Suup had indeed left at precisely 17.00.
‘What’s his first name?’ Annika asked.
The duty officer sounded surprised by his own reply: ‘I don’t actually know.’
She heard him call, ‘Hey, what’s Suup’s name, apart from Suup?’ Muttering, the scraping of chairs.
‘He’s down as L.G. on the files.’
She called directory inquiries from the phone on the desk, only to find that the number was blocked. It had been the same on the Katrineholm Post, too, a subscription to a number service had been too expensive. She pulled the plug out of the back of the phone and connected her laptop instead, changing the settings to get a connection, then went in on the Evening Post’s server.
On Telia’s website she discovered there was no Suup with the initials L.G. in the phonebook for Luleå, Piteå, Boden, Kalix or Älvsbyn. He could hardly commute further than that each day, she reasoned. Instead she went into the national census results, which, thank God, were now online. There was a Suup, Lars-Gunnar, born 1941, on Kronvägen in Luleå. Back to Telia again, Kronvägen in the address box, and voilà! A Suup had two lines at number 19. She signed out, unplugged the lead and put it back in the phone.
No sooner had she done that than her mobile rang, and she put a hand to her forehead.
‘I’m so fucked up,’ she said to Anne Snapphane. ‘Why on earth don’t I call from this phone instead?’
‘Que?’ Anne said.
The noises behind her suggested alcohol and minimalist décor.
‘Where are you?’ Annika asked.
The line crackled and hissed.
‘What?’ Anne said. ‘Hello? Are you in the middle of something?’
Annika spoke slowly and clearly. ‘I’ve uncovered the murder of a reporter. Call me at midnight if you’re still awake.’
She hung up and called the first of Suup’s numbers, but reached a fax machine. She called the second and heard the theme-music of the evening news.
‘So you’re the sort of person who disturbs people at home?’ Inspector Suup said, not sounding particularly upset.
Like Benny Ekland, Annika thought, shutting her eyes as she asked: ‘That Volvo you found in Malmhamnen, was it a V70? Gold?’
The newsreader’s reliable tones filled the line for a few seconds, then the volume of the television was abruptly turned down.
‘Okay, you’ve got me really curious now,’ the inspector said.
‘There’s no leak,’ Annika said. ‘I spoke to a potential witness. Is the information correct?’
‘I can’t comment on that.’
‘Off the record?’
‘Can I switch phones?’
He hung up. Annika waited for an eternity before he picked up again, this time with no television in the background.
‘You might have got the duty officer to read out the details of cars stolen from Bergnäset on Saturday night,’ he said.
‘So it’s correct, then?’
His silence was all the confirmation she needed.
‘Now I’d like you to tell me something,’ he said.
She hesitated, but only for the sake of it. Without the inspector she didn’t have a story.
‘I spoke to someone,’ she said, ‘who says they saw Benny Ekland get run down on Skeppargatan in Svartöstaden. There was a gold-coloured Volvo V70 parked in the entrance to the football pitch, the front facing the road, with a man at the wheel. When Benny Ekland stumbled past the engine started, the car pulled out and drove at Ekland at full speed. My witness says Ekland tried to get out of the way, running from one side of the road to the other, but the car followed him. The collision happened more or less in the middle of the road.’
‘Bloody hell,’ the inspector muttered.
‘It gets worse,’ Annika said. ‘Ekland hit the car twice, and was thrown into the air, landing in the middle of the road. The car stopped, reversed and drove over him again, and then over his head. After driving over his skull the driver stopped – definitely a man – got out of the car and dragged the body up the slope towards the football pitch. There he wiped down the body somehow, then drove off towards – what’s it called? – Sjöfartsgatan, down towards LKAB’s ore terminal. What was the damage to the car?’
‘Front and windscreen,’ Inspector Suup said without hesitation.
‘You must have worked out that this was no ordinary accident. The sk
ull was crushed and his back was broken, all the internal organs mashed up.’
‘Quite right, the results of the post mortem came through this afternoon. So someone saw the whole thing?’
‘The witness wants to stay completely anonymous.’
‘You can’t persuade the person in question to contact us?’
‘I’ve already done what I can, but I’m happy to try again. What do you think?’
‘If the witness information is correct, which it may well be, then we’ll have a premeditated murder on our hands.’
Annika typed the quote directly onto her laptop.
‘Can you think of anything off the top of your head that Benny Ekland wrote that could explain why someone wanted him dead?’
‘Ekland wasn’t afraid of controversy and unpleasantness, so it’s not impossible. But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I speculated like that at this point. If the witness information is correct, and I mean if, then obviously we’d be open to any possible motive.’
‘Are you in charge of the investigation?’
‘No, I’m only the PR guy these days, but I’m the one you need to talk to. The preliminary investigation was allocated to Andersson, in the prosecutor’s office, I think, but she’s been in court all day so I don’t imagine she knows anything about this yet.’
When they had hung up Annika found her way to the newsroom. In a narrow room full of long tables and static electricity she found a group of lethargic editors, all white faces and evasive eyes.
‘We have to talk,’ she told the night editor.
With surprising ease the fat man got up and walked ahead of her through the room, past the sports desk, and opened the door to a small space that functioned as the smoking area.
Annika stopped in the doorway; the stench was awful. The man lit a cigarette and coughed violently.
‘I gave up nine years ago,’ he said, ‘but yesterday morning I started again.’
She took a step forward, leaving the door ajar. The walls closed in around her. She was having difficulty breathing.
‘What’s this about?’ Pekkari said, blowing a sad little plume of smoke towards the ventilation unit.
‘Benny was murdered,’ Annika said, her heart racing. ‘I have a witness who saw how he died. The police have confirmed that the witness’s story matches what they know so far. Do we have to stay in here?’
The editor stared at her like he’d seen a ghost, holding his cigarette motionless, halfway to his mouth.
‘Please?’ Annika said, unable to wait, as she pushed the door open and staggered through it.
She went over to the other corner of the almost empty sports section; one lone reporter looked up anxiously from his large computer screen.
‘Hi,’ Annika said.
‘Hi,’ the man replied, then looked down again.
‘Murdered?’ Pekkari whispered in her ear. ‘You’re kidding?’
‘Not at all. I’ll write the article, and you can publish it in its entirety, but you don’t get to release it to the agencies. We get to do that.’
‘Why would you give away something like that?’
‘Call it solidarity,’ Annika said, concentrating on getting her pulse rate down. ‘Besides, we don’t exactly share the same readers. We’re not competitors, we complement each other.’
‘I’ll get our guy onto it,’ the editor said.
‘No,’ Annika said. ‘My byline. This is my story, but you can publish it.’
He looked at her in astonishment.
‘That’s one I owe you,’ he said.
‘I know,’ Annika said, and went back to her laptop.
Thursday 12 November
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 j
ust 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.’
Red Wolf Page 7