The woman laughed. ‘No, I’m not ill, but we all have to die. Just look after yourself and don’t do anything in too much of a hurry now, darling. Take it easy and let the pain come. You can run from it for a while, but it will always catch up with you in the end. Let it wash over you, and make sure you feel it. You’re not dying. You’re going to survive, and when you emerge on the other side you’ll be stronger. Older and wiser.’
Annika smiled. ‘Like you, Grandma.’
The woman laughed. ‘Make yourself some hot chocolate, Annika. Curl up on the sofa and watch something silly on television, that’s what I do when life feels hard. Put a blanket over your legs and keep yourself nice and warm. Everything will turn out just fine, you’ll see.’
‘Thanks, Grandma,’ Annika whispered.
They were silent for a few moments, and Annika realized how selfish she was being.
‘How are things with you?’ she asked quickly.
Her grandmother sighed. ‘Well, it rained every single day while you were away. I’ve only come into town to get some shopping and do a bit of washing, so it’s a stroke of luck I was here.’
There is a God, Annika thought.
‘I spoke to Ingegerd, they’ve been having a busy time of it up at Harpsund,’ her grandmother said in a different voice, the one she used for gossip.
Annika smiled. ‘How’s the Prime Minister’s diet going?’
‘It isn’t going at all; it’s on hold for the foreseeable future. But they’ve had other people there who eat even less.’
Whatever gossip her grandmother had gleaned from the new housekeeper at Harpsund didn’t really interest Annika, but she asked politely, ‘Really, who?’
‘That minister who resigned, Christer Lundgren. He came the day before it was announced, and stayed a whole week. The journalists were all looking for him, but no one found him.’
‘You see?’ Annika laughed. ‘You’re still at the centre of things!’
They both laughed, and the lump in Annika’s chest gradually dissolved and disappeared.
‘Thanks, Grandma,’ she said quietly.
‘Come out and see me if things get too much. Whiskas misses you.’
‘I doubt it,’ Annika said, ‘not the way you spoil him! Give him a kiss from me!’
The warm glow lived on after they had hung up, but even so she started to cry again. Sad, but no longer despairing. And somehow lighter this time.
When the phone rang, the shrill signal made her jump.
‘So, you’re home at last? God, you’ve been gone ages. How was it?’
Annika wiped her face with the back of her hand.
‘Good, it was really good. Turkey’s wonderful.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ Anne Snapphane said. ‘Maybe I should go. What’s the health system like?’
Annika couldn’t help laughing, it bubbled out before she could stop it. Anne Snapphane was still happy to call her, despite everything that had happened.
‘They’ve got special clinics for hypochondriacs,’ Annika said. ‘Magnetic X-ray for breakfast, Prozac with coffee, and antibiotics for lunch.’
‘Sounds good. What about the radon levels round there? And anyway, where did you end up?’
Annika laughed again. ‘In a half-built tourist ghetto twenty kilometres outside Alanya,’ she said. ‘Loads of Germans. I went up to Istanbul and stayed with a woman I met on the bus, I spent a week working in her hotel. Then I went on to Ankara. Much more modern …’
She could feel her body relaxing as she spoke.
‘Where did you stay there?’
‘I got there late at night, and the bus station was a bit chaotic. I jumped in the first taxi I could find and said “Hotel International”. As luck would have it, there’s one called that. The staff were lovely.’
‘And you got to stay in a suite even though you were only paying for a single room?’ Anne Snapphane said.
Annika was astonished. ‘How did you know that?’
Anne laughed. ‘You always land on your feet, haven’t you noticed?’
They both laughed, in amiable companionship. The silence that followed was warm and fuzzy.
‘Are you off work now?’ Annika wondered.
‘Yep, I finished yesterday. The television job doesn’t start until the twelfth, when they kick off their autumn season. What are you going to do now?’
Annika sighed, and the lump started to take shape again.
‘Don’t know, haven’t got that far. I can always go back to Istanbul and work in the hotel again; they need waitresses and kitchen staff.’
‘Come with me up to Piteå,’ Anne said. ‘I was thinking of flying up this afternoon.’
Annika laughed again. ‘No thanks, I’ve just spent the last twenty-four hours on an assortment of airport benches.’
‘Well, at least you’re in practice. Come on, have you ever been any further north than Karlstad?’
‘But I haven’t even unpacked,’ Annika said.
‘So much the better,’ Anne said. ‘My parents live in a huge house out in Pitholm; there’s plenty of room. You can come back home tomorrow if you want.’
Annika looked at her damp clothes draped around the room and made up her mind.
‘What plane are we catching?’
When they hung up Annika rushed into her bedroom and pulled out her old reporter’s bag. She threw in a couple of pairs of pants, a T-shirt, and grabbed her toilet-bag from the living-room floor.
Before she left to meet Anne Snapphane at Kungsholmstorg she fetched a cloth to wipe the rain from the living-room floor.
53
Annika looked around, disappointed.
‘Where are the mountains?’ she said.
‘Don’t be so fucking metropolitan,’ Anne Snapphane said. ‘This is the coast. The Norrland Riviera. Come on, the airport taxi’s over there.’
They crossed the acres of tarmac surrounding Kallax Airport. Annika looked around at the scenery: mostly pine forests, and very flat.
The sky was almost clear, and the sun was shining. It was cold, at least to someone who had only just got back from Turkey. A Viggen air-force plane thundered past overhead.
‘The F21 airbase,’ Anne Snapphane said, tossing her bags in the boot of the taxi. ‘Kallax is a military airfield as well. I learned to parachute here.’
Annika put her bag on her lap. Two men in suits squeezed into the taxi as well, then they set off for Piteå.
Little villages flew past, a few meadows with crooked barns, but the E4 was mostly lined with forest. The leaves were starting to glow with autumn colour even though it was only the beginning of September.
‘When does winter arrive?’ Annika asked.
‘I took my driving test on the seventh of October one year, and two days later we had a snowstorm. I drove straight into a ditch,’ Anne said.
They stopped at the Norrfjärden junction to let one of the men out.
Twenty minutes later Annika and Anne got out at the bus station in Piteå.
‘It looks like Katrineholm,’ Annika said. ‘Social Democrats in charge of local government, I suppose?’
‘You’re in Norrbotten now, darling,’ Anne Snapphane said. ‘What do you think?’
They left Anne’s bags in a locker in the waiting room.
‘Dad’s picking us up in an hour. Shall we get some coffee?’
They went into Ekberg’s café on the main street, and Annika asked for a prawn sandwich. Her appetite had come back.
‘This was a good idea,’ she said.
‘Haven’t you missed it?’ Anne wondered.
Annika looked up, surprised. ‘What?’
‘Life. News. The government minister.’
Annika took a large mouthful of her sandwich.
‘I don’t give a damn about journalism,’ she said tersely.
‘Don’t you want to know what’s been going on?’
Annika shook her head and carried on eating.
‘Okay,’ Anne said. ‘W
hy is your name spelt with a “Z”?’
Annika shrugged. ‘Don’t really know. My grandfather’s grandfather on my father’s side, Gottfried, arrived in Hälleforsnäs in the 1850s. Lasse Celsing, who owned the ironworks, had installed a new crusher and my great-great-grandfather was employed to look after it. One of my cousins has tried to look into our family history, but didn’t get very far. He never got any further back than Gottfried. No one knows where he came from. He could have been German, or possibly Czech. Either way, he registered under the name of Bengtzon.’
Anne Snapphane took a large bite of her potato-cake.
‘How very dull. What about your mum?’
‘She comes from the oldest family of foundry-managers in Hälleforsnäs. Basically, I’ve got a blast furnace stamped on my forehead. How about you? How can you be called Snapphane and come from Norrland?’
Anne groaned and licked her spoon.
‘I told you, this is the coast. Everyone up here, apart from the Sami, comes from somewhere else. Sailors and navvies and Walloons and all sorts. According to family legend, Snapphane was first used as an insult to a dishonest Danish ancestor of ours. He was hanged for theft on the gallows outside Norrfjärden sometime in the eighteenth century. And to set an example to others, his kids were called Snapphane as well. And they didn’t turn out too well either. Just be grateful you’ve got a blast furnace stamped on your forehead. Our family crest is a fucking gallows.’
Annika smiled and ate the last of the sandwich.
‘Good story,’ she said.
‘There probably isn’t a word of truth in it,’ Anne said. ‘Shall we go?’
Anne’s father was called Hans, he drove a Volvo, and he seemed genuinely pleased to meet one of Anne’s friends from Stockholm.
‘There’s a lot to see up here,’ he said enthusiastically as the car headed off down Sundsgatan. ‘There’s Storfors, and the Elias Cave, Bölebyn tannery, the agricultural museum in Gran, and Altersbruk, an old ironworks with a pond and a mill …’
‘Oh, Dad!’ Anne Snapphane said, slightly embarrassed. ‘Annika’s here to visit me. You sound like a tourist guide!’
Hans Snapphane didn’t seem offended.
‘Just say if you want to go anywhere and I’ll drive you,’ he said cheerily, looking at Annika in the rear-view mirror.
Annika nodded, then turned to look out of the window. A narrow canal flashed past and then they were out of the town centre.
Piteå. This was where he lived, the bloke who had called the tip-off line the day Studio Six had revealed that Christer Lundgren had been to a sex club. Married to the minister’s cousin, if she remembered right?
Instinctively she reached for her bag and dug around at the bottom. Yes! Her notepad was still there, and she leafed through to the end.
‘Roger Sundström,’ she read. ‘From Piteå. Do you know anyone with that name?’
Anne’s father turned left at a roundabout and thought out loud.
‘Sundström … Roger Sundström. What’s his line of business?’
‘I don’t know,’ Annika said, looking through her notes. ‘Ah, his wife’s called Britt-Inger.’
‘Everyone’s wife is called Britt-Inger up here,’ Hans Snapphane said. ‘Sorry, but I can’t help you.’
‘Why do you ask?’ Anne said.
‘A Roger Sundström phoned in with an odd tip-off about the Minister for Foreign Trade the evening before he resigned.’
‘I know someone who isn’t remotely interested in journalism any more,’ Anne Snapphane said sweetly.
Annika put her notepad back in her bag and put it on the floor.
‘Me too,’ she said.
Anne Snapphane’s parents’ home lay on Oli-Jansgatan on Pitholm. It was a large, modern house.
‘You girls can have the upstairs,’ Anne’s father said. ‘I’ll get dinner started. Britt-Inger’s working this evening.’
Annika looked questioningly at Anne.
‘Mum,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t joking.’
The upstairs was open and light. To the right, over by the window, stood a desk with a computer, printer and scanner. To the right were two guestrooms, one each.
While Hans was busy cooking they looked through Anne’s old record collection, stored under the stereo in the living room.
‘Bloody hell, have you got this!’ Annika said in delight, pulling out Jim Steinman’s solo album Bad for Good.
‘It’s pretty rare,’ Anne Snapphane said.
‘I don’t know anyone apart from me who’s ever heard of this record,’ Annika said.
‘It’s amazing,’ Anne said. ‘You know he reused chunks of it on Meatloaf and Streets of Fire?’
‘Old Jim stuff is just brilliant,’ Annika said.
‘Close to divine,’ Anne said.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, contemplating Jim Steinman’s greatness.
‘Have you got his Bonnie Tyler records?’ Annika wondered.
‘Of course. Which one? Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire?’
Anne put the needle on the record and they both sang along. Hans came in and carefully turned down the volume.
‘This is a residential area,’ he said. ‘Have you ever eaten Pitepalt dumplings?’
‘Nope,’ Annika said.
They tasted pretty good, not too different from ordinary potato dumplings.
‘Do you fancy the cinema?’ Anne Snapphane asked as the dishwasher got going.
‘There’s a cinema?’ Annika said, surprised.
Anne looked enquiringly at her father.
‘Have we still got a cinema?’
Her father shrugged apologetically from behind his paper.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘don’t know.’
‘Can I borrow the phone book?’ Annika asked.
‘Next to the computer,’ Hans Snapphane said.
There were two Roger Sundströms, one whose wife was called Britt-Inger. They lived on Solandersgatan.
‘Djupviken,’ Anne said. ‘On the other side of town.’
‘Shall we go for a walk?’ Annika said.
54
The sun had started to go down behind the pulp factory. They crossed Strömnäs and skirted round the Nolia district behind the community centre. The Sundström family’s house was a single-storey building with a cellar. Yellow brick, built in the sixties. Annika could hear children singing.
‘Do whatever you like,’ Anne said. ‘I’m just along for the ride.’
Annika rang the doorbell and Roger Sundström answered. He was both suspicious and surprised when Annika explained who she was.
‘I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what you said,’ Annika told him. ‘I just happened to be up here visiting my old friend Anne, and I just thought I’d call by.’
The children, a boy and a girl, rushed into the hall and hid behind their father’s legs, curious to see who was at the door.
‘Okay, time to get your pyjamas on,’ the man said, shepherding the children into a room off to the left.
‘Can we do some more singing after that, Daddy?’
‘Okay, but brush your teeth first.’
‘May we come in?’ Annika asked.
The man hesitated for a moment, then showed them into the living room. Leather corner sofa, glass coffee table, china figurines on the bookcase.
‘Britt-Inger’s doing an evening course,’ he said.
‘What a nice house,’ Anne Snapphane said, in a considerably stronger Norrland accent than usual.
‘So what do you actually want?’ Roger Sundström said, sinking into a plush armchair.
Annika perched on the edge of the sofa.
‘I’m sorry to intrude like this,’ she said, ‘but I’m just wondering if my memory is right. You flew from Arlanda with Transwede?’
The man scratched his stubble.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, with Transwede. Would you like some coffee?’
The question was hesitant, as if he knew he ought to ma
ke the offer.
‘No thanks,’ Anne said. ‘We won’t be long.’
‘So you would have flown from Terminal Two, is that right?’ Annika said. ‘The small hall?’
‘Which one?’ the man said.
‘Not the big domestic hall, but the one a bit further away?’
Roger Sundström nodded thoughtfully.
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘We had to get the transfer bus, dragging all our luggage with us – we had to go through customs in Stockholm.’
Annika nodded. ‘Exactly! So it was there, in the small hall, that you and Britt-Inger saw the minister?’
Roger Sundström thought for a moment.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it must have been. Because it was at the checkin.’
Annika swallowed. ‘I realize that this sounds a bit odd,’ she said, ‘but do you remember which gate you flew from?’
The man raised his eyebrows.
‘Gate?’ he repeated.
‘Which exit you left through?’
He shook his head. ‘Not a clue, sorry.’
Annika sighed silently. ‘Oh well, it was a long shot.’
‘Mind you,’ the man said, ‘the kids took a ride on the suitcases in the terminal, it looked hilarious. I think Britt-Inger recorded them doing it. You might be able to tell which gate it was from the video.’
Annika opened her eyes wide.
‘Seriously?’ she said.
‘Let’s see …’ the man said, going over to the bookcase. He opened the door to the drinks cabinet and started rooting through the mini-video cassettes inside.
‘Mallorca, here it is,’ he said, slotting the tape into a converter and turning on the video machine. The picture flickered into life, two children playing in a pool. The sun was high in the sky; there were only very small shadows. Two hairy legs, presumably Roger’s, appeared in shot from the left. The date in the corner of the screen said: 24 July, 2.27 p.m.
‘Is the clock accurate?’ Annika asked.
‘I think so,’ Roger said. ‘I’ll fast-forward a bit.’
A sleeping blonde woman on a plane, her chin resting on her chest. The date had jumped to 27 July, 4.53 p.m.
‘My wife,’ the man explained.
And then a suntanned, smiling Roger steering a baggage trolley laden with luggage and the two children: 27 July, 7.43 p.m. The boy was holding on to the handle of the trolley, and his sister was perched on top of the bags. They were both waving to their mother behind the camera. Then the picture wobbled, and did a sweep of the departure hall.
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