Red Wolf

by Liza Marklund

  ‘I’m not going to,’ Annika said. ‘People of the world, unite and defeat the American aggressors and all their lackeys. People of the world, be courageous, and dare to fight, defy difficulties and advance wave upon wave. Then the whole world will belong to the people. Monsters of all kinds shall be destroyed. What does that mean?’

  The man didn’t answer for a long time. If it wasn’t for the sound of a television in the background she would have thought he’d hung up.

  ‘Have any other journalists called?’ she asked eventually.

  She heard the man swallow, an uneven sigh into the mouthpiece that made her move the receiver away from her ear.

  ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Up here they know what they think.’ He paused, maybe he was crying. She waited in silence.

  ‘They wrote that I was taken in for questioning but released due to lack of evidence.’

  Annika nodded mutely, no one calls a murderer.

  ‘But it wasn’t you,’ she said. ‘The police are certain about that.’

  The man gave a deep sigh, his voice trembling when he spoke. ‘That doesn’t matter up here,’ he said. ‘The neighbours saw me being taken away in a police car. From now on I shall be known as Margit’s murderer to people round here.’

  ‘Not if they catch the culprit,’ Annika said, hearing the man start to sob. ‘Not if they get hold of Göran Nilsson.’

  ‘Göran Nilsson,’ he said, blowing his nose. ‘Who’s that?’

  She paused, biting her tongue, not sure of how much the man knew.

  ‘He’s also known under his alias,’ she said. ‘Ragnwald.’

  ‘You mean … Ragnwald?’ the man said, spitting the name out. ‘The Yellow Dragon?’

  Annika started. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’

  ‘I know of him,’ Thord Axelsson said warmly. ‘The mad Maoist who ran around Luleå as a revolutionary in the late sixties, I know he’s back. I know what he’s done.’

  Annika grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper.

  ‘I’ve never heard the codename Yellow Dragon used for him before,’ she said. ‘Ragnwald was the name he used in the Maoist groups that used to meet in the basement of the library.’

  ‘Before the Beasts,’ Thord Axelsson said.

  Annika stopped for a moment. ‘Before the Beasts,’ she repeated, making notes.

  The line fell silent again.

  ‘Hello?’ Annika said

  A deep sigh confirmed that the man was still there.

  ‘The girls are here,’ he said, his mouth close to the phone. ‘I can’t talk about this now.’

  Annika thought quickly for a couple of seconds.

  ‘I’m coming up to Luleå on some other business tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Could I visit you at home so we can talk undisturbed?’

  ‘Margit’s dead,’ the man said, the sounds coming out broken and distorted. ‘There’s nothing for her to be afraid of any more. But I shan’t let her down, ever. You need to understand that.’

  Annika kept making notes even though she didn’t understand him.

  ‘I just want to understand the context,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to hang Margit or anyone else out to dry.’

  The man sighed again and thought for a moment.

  ‘Come at lunchtime. The girls have an appointment with the police, so we can be alone then.’

  He gave her the address and directions, and told her to come around twelve o’clock.

  Afterwards she let the receiver sit in its cradle for a long minute. The angels were quiet, but there was a sharp buzzing sound in her left ear. The shadows in the room were long and irregular, jumping jerkily over the walls as vehicles passed and the streetlamp swayed.

  She had to find the right way of explaining this to her editors.

  She phoned reception and she was in luck, Jansson was on duty.

  ‘How the hell are you?’ he asked, blowing smoke into the phone.

  ‘I’m on to something,’ she said. ‘A real human-interest story, a poor man in a nice suburb outside Piteå whose wife has been murdered and the whole town thinks he did it.’

  ‘But … ?’ Jansson didn’t sound particularly interested.

  ‘Definitely didn’t do it,’ Annika said. ‘He was at work sixty kilometres away from the scene of the crime, with three colleagues, at the time of the murder. And the police think they know who was responsible, but that hasn’t made any difference for this man. His neighbours saw him being taken away in a police car early in the morning and they all think they know what happened. The local papers wrote that he was taken in for questioning, but was released due to lack of evidence. He’ll be known there as the man who killed his wife until the day he dies.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Jansson said, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Just imagine what it would be like to be in this poor man’s situation,’ Annika said. ‘Not only has he lost the wife he loved, but he’s lost his reputation among the people he’s spent his life among. How on earth can he go on?’ She fell silent and bit her lip, maybe she was pushing it a bit far now.

  ‘And he’s prepared to talk about all this?’

  She cleared her throat. ‘Tomorrow lunchtime. Can I go ahead and book a ticket?’

  Jansson sighed audibly. ‘Okay, okay,’ he said. ‘After all, you are an independent reporter.’

  ‘And this isn’t about terrorism,’ Annika said.

  The editor laughed slightly sheepishly. ‘I heard Schyman had put his foot down there,’ he said.

  ‘New day, new byline,’ Annika said and hung up.

  Then she dialled the number of the paper’s twenty-four-hour travel office and booked herself onto the 09.40 flight to Kallax, and a hire-car, and not a small one either.

  She had just ended the conversation when the front door opened and the children tumbled in, buzzing with surplus energy. She went quickly over to the computer and switched it off, then went out into the hall.

  ‘Mummy! Do you know what, we got sweets for being so good at Grandma and Grandad’s, because we didn’t run and Daddy bought a paper with naked ladies and Grandad’s heart hurts again and can we go to the park, pleeeeease?’

  She hugged them both, laughed and rocked them slowly, warm and fragrant.

  ‘Of course we can,’ she said. ‘Are your gloves dry?’

  ‘Mine are horrid,’ Ellen said.

  ‘We’ll find another pair,’ Annika said and opened the pineapple cupboard.

  Thomas walked past her without a glance.

  ‘I’m going to Luleå for the day tomorrow,’ she said as she pulled the gloves onto the girl’s spread-out fingers. ‘You’ll have to drop them off and pick them up.’

  He stopped at the door of the pantry, his shoulders hunched right up to his ears. Looked like he was going to turn inside out and explode; she waited for a blast that didn’t come.

  He carried on towards the bedroom with the evening papers and an issue of Café under his arm and shut the door behind him.

  ‘Can we go now, Mummy?’

  ‘Yep,’ Annika said, grabbing her jacket and opening the balcony door to get the sledge they kept out there. ‘Off we go.’

  Monday 23 November

  42

  In front of Annika lay an endless chalk-white landscape with roaring clouds of snow and deep-blue sky. She stood naked with both feet frozen solid in a block of ice, sharp wind howling round her and cutting small wounds in her skin. Her attention was entirely focused on the horizon, someone was heading towards her but she couldn’t see him yet; she could feel his presence as a bass note in her stomach as she peered into the sharp wind.

  And then he came, a blurred grey silhouette against the velvet background, his coat swaying slowly from side to side as he walked, and she recognized him. He was one of the presenters from Studio Six. She tried to free her feet from the block of ice that had now turned to stone, the man came closer and his hands were visible and she saw the hunting knife in his hand and it was Sven, there was blood on the knife and she knew it was cat�
�s blood, he was walking towards her and the wind was blowing and she looked up at his face and it was Thomas, and he stopped right in front of her and said: ‘It was your turn to collect the children.’

  She stretched her neck and back and looked past him and saw Ellen and Kalle hanging from meat hooks on a steel beam with their stomachs cut open and their guts dangling down towards the ground.

  Annika stared up at the ceiling for a moment before realizing that she had woken up. Her pulse was throbbing hard in her throat, there was a shrieking sound in her left ear and the covers had slid off her. She twisted her head and in the dark she saw Thomas’s back heave in dreamless sleep. She sat up carefully. Her neck was aching and she had been crying in her sleep.

  She crept through the hall on shaky legs, and into the children’s room and their living warmth.

  Ellen had put her thumb in her mouth, even though they had cajoled, threatened and bribed her to stop. Annika took the little hand and pulled out her thumb, saw the girl’s mouth searching for what it had lost for a few seconds before sleep forgot it. She watched the sleeping child, marvelling at her complete unawareness of how precious and beautiful she was, feeling a great loss for the sense of the clarity of life that her daughter still possessed. She stroked her soft hair, feeling its warmth through the palm of her hand.

  Little girl, little girl, nothing is ever going to happen to you.

  She went over to her son, lying on his back in his Batman pyjamas, his hands above his head, just as she used to sleep as a child. Thomas’s blond hair, and already his broad shoulders, he was so like them both.

  She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. The child took a deep breath and blinked up at her.

  ‘Is it morning?’

  ‘Soon,’ Annika whispered. ‘Sleep a bit longer.’

  ‘I was having a nasty dream,’ he said and turned onto his side.

  ‘Me too,’ Annika said quietly, stroking the back of his head with her hand.

  She looked at the luminous face of her watch; it was about an hour before the alarm would go off.

  She knew she wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep.

  She walked like a lost soul out into the living room. The draught from the window was moving the curtains. She went over and peered through the gap, Hantverkargatan was slowly coming to life below, the yellow streetlamp swinging in eternal isolation between the buildings. She warmed one foot against the radiator, then the other.

  She went out into the kitchen, lit the stove and filled the pan with water, measured four spoonfuls into the coffee-pot, and looked out on to the frozen desert of the courtyard as the water came to the boil, the thermometer outside the window showed minus twenty-two degrees. She poured the water on the coffee and stirred, turned on P1 at low volume and sat down at the kitchen table. The burble from the radio drove out the demons from the corners. She sat quietly with frozen feet as the coffee slowly cooled.

  Without her hearing or sensing him, Thomas came into the kitchen, bleary-eyed, hair all over the place.

  ‘What are you doing up so early?’ he said, taking a glass from the draining-board and filling it with water, drinking in deep gulps.

  She turned her face away and stared at the radio without replying.

  ‘Okay, don’t then,’ he said, and went back into the bedroom.

  She covered her eyes with a hand and breathed through her mouth until her stomach had calmed down and she could move again. She poured the coffee down the sink and went into the bathroom. She showered under scalding water and dried herself quickly. She dressed in her skiing outfit, thermal long-johns and vest, two layers of wool jumpers, thick jeans and a fleece top. She dug out the keys to the cellar and went out onto the empty street and through to the courtyard, down the steps, and undid the lock on their storeroom in the cellar.

  Her ski-boots were in a Co-op bag next to Thomas’s old college textbooks. Her polar jacket was dusty and dirty. It had been hanging abandoned here since Sven died. She hadn’t needed it – those endless evenings standing round freezing ice hockey rinks were over for good.

  She took the boots and jacket outside and brushed them off, then carried them up to the flat. She hung the jacket up and studied it critically. It was really hideous, but it was going to be even colder in Piteå than it was in Stockholm.

  ‘When will you be home?’

  She turned and saw Thomas standing in the bedroom door pulling on his underwear.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Do you want to know when to have dinner ready?’

  He turned away and walked into the kitchen.

  She suddenly felt that she couldn’t stay a moment longer. She pulled on the polar jacket, laced the ski-boots and checked that she had her keys, purse, gloves and hat in her bag. She closed the door soundlessly and flew down the stairs, away from the children, leaving them behind her in the warmth, her whole chest thick with loss.

  Little darlings, I shall always be with you, nothing bad will get to you.

  She walked along newly woken streets towards the Arlanda Express, and took a packed train out to the airport.

  There were still two hours before the plane took off. She tried drinking coffee and reading yesterday’s evening papers, but restlessness tore at her stomach until the words and the caffeine felt like they were suffocating her. She gave up and watched the wings being de-iced. She’d made up her mind not to think about the Federation of County Council middle-managers planning the day’s work, and preparing to deal with a rapidly developing crisis involving one of their employees.

  As the plane moved away from the ground, her sense of being lost gradually faded. It wasn’t quite full; she had an empty seat next to her, and picked up a copy of the Norrland News that had been left by a previous passenger.

  She watched the ground glistening, frozen and rock-hard beneath them, further away with every passing second.

  She turned her attention to the paper and forced herself to look through it.

  The inhabitants of Karlsvik were demanding more evening buses. A missing three-year-old had been found in the forest outside Risvik with the help of a helicopter with thermal imaging equipment, and everyone was happy and grateful and the police had done a wonderful job. There was the threat of a taxi strike at Kallax Airport. Luleå Hockey had lost at home in the Dolphin Stadium, 2–5 against Djurgården, served them right.

  She lowered the paper and leaned her head back, shutting her eyes.

  She must have dozed off, because the next moment the wheels were hitting the ice and tarmac at the Arctic Circle. She looked at her watch, almost eleven, and stretched her back, looking out of the plane window. Pale dawn was hanging over the frozen heath landscape.

  As she walked through the Arrivals hall she felt empty and naked. It took a few seconds before she realized what was missing: the horde of chattering taxi-drivers by the exit.

  She went over to the hire-car counter and picked up her keys.

  ‘The engine warmer and inside heater are plugged in,’ the young man said, smiling flirtatiously. ‘Take the cable with you. You’ll need it.’

  She looked down at the floor and muttered her thanks.

  The cold outside was dry as dust and utterly paralysing. It hit her like a fist. Shocked, she gasped for breath and tried to defend herself against the sharp little knives she was breathing in. The illuminated figures above the door said it was minus twenty-eight degrees.

  The car was a silver-grey Volvo, anchored to an electricity post with a thick cable. Without electric engine-warmers no car would ever start in this sort of cold.

  She took off her polar jacket and threw it in the back seat.

  Inside the car it was stuffy and warm thanks to the heater on the passenger side. She started to sweat immediately in all her thermals. The engine started the first time, but the power-steering and wheels were sluggish and hesitant.

  She passed the fighter-plane that loomed over the entrance to the airport, and took the left exit from the roundabout in
stead of the right, towards Piteå instead of Luleå. She peered through the windscreen to see if she recognized anything. She had taken a taxi from the airport with Anne Snapphane ten years ago.

  The heathland disappeared behind her and she drove into what must have been fertile agricultural land. Large farms perched on the edge of the forest, oblong timber buildings, exuding wealth and influence. To her surprise she emerged onto a wide motorway, she didn’t remember that at all. Her surprise only grew as the motorway went on and on without her seeing a single other vehicle on the road. The feeling of surreal desolation took a stranglehold on her neck; she had to struggle to breathe normally. Was this some sort of joke? Had reality slid away from her? Was this the road to hell?

  Forest flew by on both sides, short, thin pine trees with frozen crowns. The cold made the low sunlight shimmer, just like heat can. She took a tighter grip on the steering wheel and hunched forward.

  Maybe your perspective changed at the Arctic Circle. Maybe up was down, right was left. In which case it would be entirely logical to build a motorway through arctic forest where no one lived.

  After two wrong turns, one where she discovered she was on her way to Haparanda and the Finnish border, she reached the centre of Piteå. The town was silent, low-built. It reminded her of Sköldinge, a village between Katrineholm and Flen, just colder and barer. The main difference was the central thoroughfare, three times broader than even Sveavägen in Stockholm.

  Margit and Thord Axelsson’s home was in Pitholm, the same place where Anne Snapphane’s parents lived. She rolled carefully along gritted roads until she reached the turning Thord had described to her.

  The detached house was one of a row of confusingly identical properties built in the seventies, when the lending rates dictated for home-building by the state led to a previously unknown form of construction – it was the decade of the over-sized pitched roof.

  She parked the hire-car behind a green Toyota Corolla identical to the one Thomas had. She got out of the Volvo, pulled on her jacket and was struck for a dizzying moment by the notion that she actually lived here, that the children were at university and she worked on the Norrland News. She took shallow breaths of the frozen air, looking up at the peak of the roof that was casting a great shadow across the street.