It was a loggers’ track, they had used it to take the timber out, it had started to regrow, the new growth should be almost two metres high by now.
Head for the new growth, she thought.
At that moment her cat leaped out and rubbed against her legs, and she almost tripped.
‘Whiskas, you silly boy, go home!’
She pushed him away with her foot, trying to get him to go.
‘Back to Lyckebo! Go on, back to Grandma!’
The cat miaowed and dodged into a thicket.
She headed east, and suddenly the forest became low and tangled. Yes, this was the trail. She waited a few seconds at its edge before setting off. Breathing carefully, she made steady progress. She passed Gorgnäs, but there was no one home. Then Mastrop, no one there. She continued east, heading towards the hikers’ trail.
73
He was standing at the last bend before she reached the Sörmland trail. She saw him just three seconds before she reached him and turned sharply north, towards the ironworks pond. Something flashed in his hand, and, realizing what it was, she was terrified. She ran, screaming and stumbling, until she reached the water. She waded out, gasping at the cold, then swam as fast as she could, clambering up the beach on the far side, coughing and spluttering, heading for the buildings. A fence, then more fence, she ran to the left, scrambled up a tree and over the fence, in among the ironworks buildings.
‘You can’t get away, you fucking slut!’
She looked round, couldn’t see him, rushed past a white building, tore open a sun-bleached blue metal door, into the darkness. Blinded, she stumbled into a heap of clinker, spat out a mouthful of ash, went further in, further away, sobbing. The darkness lifted and the shadows around her took shape; a blast furnace, abandoned smelting moulds. Rows of grimy little windows up by the roof, soot, rust. The door she had come through was a rectangle of light in the distance, and the man’s silhouette gradually grew larger. She saw the knife glinting in his hand and recognized it: his hunting knife.
She turned and ran, the floor plates rattling as she crossed them, past the holding furnace. Stairs, heading up, darkness, more stairs, she stumbled and hit her knee, light returned, a platform, windows, winches. She hit her head on a pipe.
‘There’s nowhere else to go now.’
He was breathing hard, his eyes shining with alcohol and hatred.
‘Sven,’ she sobbed, backing towards the scrap chute. ‘Sven, don’t do this. You don’t really want—’
‘You fucking whore!’ he said.
At that moment there was a faint miaow from the staircase. Annika peered into the shadows, searching the soot and clinker. The cat – her cat – he’d followed her the whole way!
‘Whiskas!’ she cried.
Sven took a step nearer and she backed away. The cat came closer, miaowing and purring, trotting along, rubbing against the rusty machinery, playing with a piece of coke.
‘Fucking cat,’ Sven said hoarsely.
She recognized that voice. It meant he was on the verge of tears.
‘You can’t leave me like this. What am I going to do without you?’
He was racked with sobs. Annika couldn’t reply. Her throat felt tight, incapable of speech. She could see the edge of the knife glinting in a beam of sunlight, aimlessly waving around as Sven began to sob harder.
‘Annika, for fuck’s sake, I love you!’ he cried.
She sensed rather than saw the cat approaching him, stretching up on its back legs to rub its head against his knee. She followed the course of the glinting blade as it swept down towards the cat.
‘NO!’
The scream deep as a canyon, no conscious thought. The cat’s body flew through the air in a wide arc over the coke intake, leaving a bright red trail of splattered blood after it.
‘You bastard!’
She suddenly felt as powerful as fire and iron, like the furnace building she was standing in; glowing with unstoppable fury. Her vision turned red, images reached her mind in slow motion. She bent down and reached for a pipe, rusty and black, far below on the ground, the distance impossible to measure. She grasped it with both hands, strong as iron, and swung it with a force she didn’t know she had.
The pipe hit him on the temple. As her sight gradually returned, she watched as it came into contact with his skull, shattering it like an eggshell, his eyes rolling back to show the whites, something squirting from the hole, his arms flying out, the knife sailing through the air like a falling star, his body lurching to the left, tumbling, his legs off the ground, dancing, flailing.
The next blow hit him in the chest, she heard his ribs crack. His whole body left the ground, strafed by iron and fire and rolling slowly over the edge, into the shaft leading into the furnace.
‘You fucking bastard!’ Annika said.
She tipped him into the blast furnace with one final shove. The last thing she saw was his feet tumbling over the edge.
She dropped the pipe on the floor, and it rattled noisily in the sudden silence.
‘Whiskas …’ she said softly.
He was lying behind the intake belt. His back legs were twitching, his eyes looked into hers. He tried to miaow. She hesitated before picking him up, not wanting to cause him more pain. She sat down and took him in her arms. She rocked him gently as his breathing slowed and came to a rest. His eyes left hers, now glazed and vacant.
Annika wept, rocking the broken little body in her arms. The sounds she made were long howls of anguish and pain. She sat there until her tears were exhausted, as the sun began to go down behind the factory.
The cement floor was hard and cold. She was shaking with cold. Her clothes had almost dried, her legs were numb, and she staggered to her feet, clutching the cat in her arms.
She went cautiously over to the stairs, the dust dancing in the air. It was a long way down and she fumbled towards the light, the shining rectangle. Outside the day was as clear as it had been earlier, just colder, the shadows longer. She stood there for a while, then headed towards the factory gate.
The eight people who still worked at the ironworks were about to go home. Two of them were already in their cars. The others were chatting about something as the foreman locked the gate.
The man who caught sight of her shouted and pointed at her. She was covered in blood from her head to her waist, and she was cradling the cat’s body in her arms.
‘What the hell’s happened?’
The foreman was the first to reach her. ‘He’s in there,’ Annika said flatly. ‘In one of the blast furnaces.’
‘Where are you hurt? Do you need an ambulance?’
Annika didn’t reply, just walked towards the gate.
‘Come on, we’ll help you.’
The men gathered round her, the two who had already started their cars switched them off again and got out. The foreman unlocked the gate and led Annika into his office.
‘Has there been an accident? Here, in the factory?’
Annika didn’t answer. She was sitting holding the cat tightly in her arms.
‘Go and check the forty-five-tonner in the old plant,’ the foreman said quietly. Three of the men went off.
The foreman sat down beside her, taking a good look at the shocked woman. She was covered in blood, but didn’t seem to be injured.
‘What’s that you’re holding?’ he said.
‘Whiskas,’ Annika said. ‘He’s my cat.’
She leaned over and stroked his soft fur with her cheek, blowing gently into one ear. He was so ticklish, always used to scratch his ear with his back leg when she did that.
‘Do you want me to take it?’
She didn’t answer, just turned away from the foreman and hugged the cat’s body harder. The man sighed and went out.
‘Keep an eye on her,’ he said to one of the men in the doorway.
She had no idea how long she had been sitting there when another man put his hand on her shoulder. God, what a stereotype, she thought.
/>
‘How are you, miss?’
She didn’t reply.
‘I’m the chief inspector of police in Eskilstuna,’ he said. ‘There’s a dead man in one of the blast furnaces. Do you know anything about that?’
She didn’t react. The policeman sat down next to her. He looked at her carefully for several minutes.
‘It looks like you’ve been through something very nasty indeed,’ he said eventually. ‘Is that your cat?’
She nodded.
‘What’s her name?’
‘His. Whiskas.’
So at least she could talk.
‘And what happened to Whiskas?’
She started to cry again. The policeman waited quietly at her side until she stopped.
‘He killed him, with his hunting knife,’ she said in the end. ‘I couldn’t do anything to stop him.’
‘Who did?’
She didn’t answer.
‘The men here think that the dead body over there is Sven Matsson, the ice-hockey player. Is that correct?’
She hesitated, then looked up at him and nodded.
‘He shouldn’t have attacked my cat,’ she said. ‘He really shouldn’t have done anything to Whiskas. Do you understand?’
The policeman nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘And who are you?’
She sighed and took a deep breath.
‘Annika Sofia Bengtzon,’ she said.
He took his notebook out of his pocket.
‘What’s your date of birth?’
She looked into his eyes.
‘I’m twenty-four years, five months and twenty days old,’ she said.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘That’s very precise!’
‘I keep count in my diary,’ she said, and bowed her head over her dead cat.
Epilogue
‘Yes, hello, this is Karina Björnlund. I hope I’m not disturbing you?’
The Prime Minister sighed silently.
‘No, not at all. What can I do for you?’
‘Quite a lot, actually. As you’ll understand, this has been a very difficult period for me. In the middle of the election campaign and everything …’ She tailed off, and the Prime Minister waited for her to go on.
‘Well, of course I only spent eight months in the job,’ she said, ‘so my leaving package isn’t very generous.’
Yes, he couldn’t dispute that.
‘So I was wondering if I could possibly carry on working for the government. I’ve learned a lot and I’ve got a lot to contribute.’
The Prime Minister smiled. ‘I’m sure you have, Karina. Working at the eye of the hurricane changes us all. I’m sure you’ll find a good job before long. No one could possibly doubt your abilities and experience.’
‘Nor what I’ve learned.’
‘Absolutely. But you know that government ministers like to choose their own press secretaries themselves. I can’t promise anything.’
She giggled. ‘Of course you can. Everyone knows you make the decisions. No one disagrees with anything you say. If they did, they’d be history.’
That’s actually true, he thought with amusement. Maybe she wasn’t that stupid after all.
‘Karina, I understand what you’re saying. Okay? You want to stay on, and I’m saying no. Can we agree on that?’
The woman was silent for a few seconds.
‘Well, if there was nothing else?’ the Prime Minister said, ready to hang up.
‘You really haven’t got it at all, have you?’ Karina Björnlund said quietly.
‘Sorry?’ He was starting to sound ever so slightly irritated now.
‘Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,’ Karina Björnlund said. ‘This isn’t some damn negotiation. I’m telling you that I’ve learned things during these eight months that are impossible to put a value on. And I’m telling you that I’ve got a lot to offer, and that I want to carry on working for the government.’
The Prime Minister breathed quietly down the phone, his brain not quite joining the dots. How the hell …? What the fuck had she found out?
‘I suggest that you listen very bloody carefully,’ the woman said, ‘because I’m only saying this once. After this I never want to talk about it again. But I’m not the one who can make that decision.’
His mouth had gone completely dry.
‘You’re not even a Social Democrat,’ he said.
‘And what fucking difference does that make?’ she said.
Two Surprises in New Government
So the Prime Minister has finally presented his new government. The whole process has been shrouded in secrecy – there wasn’t a single leak before the new Cabinet was unveiled at Rosenbad yesterday.
‘Ministers are under severe pressure this time,’ a source told the Evening Post. ‘Anyone caught talking to the press in advance is out.’
Among the usual suspects there are two surprises. The new Minister for Foreign Trade, following Christer Lundgren, who was recently appointed head of Swedish Steel in Luleå, is the former head of social services in Katrineholm. He has no previous experience of national politics, but is believed to be a good friend of the Prime Minister.
The second surprise is, if anything, even more astonishing. Karina Björnlund, who is Christer Lundgren’s former press secretary, has been appointed as the new Minister for Culture.
‘The mass media have become far too commercialized,’ the new Culture Minister said in her first statement. ‘I want to set up a committee to look into the concentration of media ownership, to make sure that we retain a variety of media voices and avoid ending up with monopolies. The media have too much power, in my opinion.’
The question is, however: how many of their policies will Karina Björnlund and the rest of the new government be able to push through?
This autumn’s election saw the worst performance by the Social Democrats in modern times. They will need the support of at least two other parties if they are to stand any chance of getting their policies through parliament and onto the statute book.
Memo from:
The United Provincial Newspapers’ Association
Date: 10 November
Subject: General
STUDIO SIX AWARDED THIS YEAR’S PRIZE FOR JOURNALISM
STOCKHOLM (UPNA):
Studio Six, the daily news programme featuring debate and analysis, and broadcast live from Radio House in Stockholm, has been awarded this year’s prize for radio journalism.
Studio Six has been awarded the prize for its coverage of the involvement of former Minister for Foreign Trade Christer Lundgren in the murder of a stripper in July this year.
‘This is a victory for investigative reporting,’ the programme’s presenter told UPNA. ‘This award shows that it pays to invest in scrupulous editorial practices and talented staff.’
The prize will be presented on 20 November.
Copyright: UPNA
TT Agency Newsflash
Date: 24 February
Subject: Domestic
PORN MAGNATE JAILED
STOCKHOLM (TT): A twenty-nine-year-old man who used to run the sex club Studio Six in Stockholm was sentenced on Tuesday to five and a half years in prison. The man was found guilty of dishonesty to creditors, false accounting and tax fraud, tax crime and obstructing tax control at Stockholm Magistrates’ Court.
A twenty-two-year-old woman who is suspected of running the business with the man is still wanted for questioning by the police. The woman, originally from South America, is the subject of an arrest warrant.
Copyright: TT
Transcript of lunchtime radio broadcast
Date: 15 March
Subject: Politics
Swedish Weapons Used in Civil War
in Caucasus
In September last year conflict broke out again in a small mountainous republic in the Caucasus. During the past six months more than ten thousand people have been killed in fighting between guerrillas and government forces.
The S
wedish Peace and Arbitration Association claims that the government troops are using weapons manufactured by Swedish Weapon Ltd. The accusations were made in an article in today’s Evening Post.
The government refutes the accuracy of the claim. The Prime Minister’s press spokesman made the following statement: ‘We are extremely sceptical about the veracity of this information. This republic is subject to a weapons embargo and we are unable to understand how Swedish weapons could have found their way there. The Swedish Government has not and will not be granting export licences for any shipments to the area for the foreseeable future.’
Eskilstuna Courier
23 June
Woman Found Guilty of Manslaughter
ESKILSTUNA: A twenty-five-year-old woman has been found guilty of manslaughter at Eskilstuna Magistrates’ Court, for causing the death of ice hockey player Sven Matsson in Hälleforsnäs last year. A probationary sentence was passed.
The prosecution had initially pursued a charge of murder, but the court agreed with the defence case. According to the judge’s statement, the victim’s abuse of the woman over many years had influenced the decision to apply the lesser charge of manslaughter. The act was also deemed to have been committed at least in part for reasons of self-defence.
‘The details of the abuse described over many years in the woman’s diary undoubtedly contributed to the outcome of this case,’ the woman’s lawyer said.
The woman herself did not wish to comment on the sentence.
‘She has made a whole new life for herself since this tragic event,’ her lawyer said. ‘She now lives in Stockholm, and was yesterday offered a permanent contract of employment, on the same day sentence was passed.’
(EC)
THE END
Liza Marklund on Exposed
I spent the summer of 1994 working for the Expressen evening paper in Stockholm. Most people in Sweden probably remember the heatwave, and the fact that the national football team almost went all the way in the World Cup in America. My memories are dominated by completely different things. It was the sixth summer I had spent at Expressen, and it ended up being my last.
I had been on maternity leave following the birth of my third child, and when I returned I was one of very few permanent members of staff working during the heatwave. As a result, I ended up covering the story when it emerged that the head of the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees, Björn Rosengren, had visited a sex club, Tabu, three years earlier.
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