Maybe he’s out in another boat, Annika thought. Maybe he’s out checking his pots and nets.
But with a glass of schnapps already poured out?
She stopped and stared at the sunset, with a growing feeling that something wasn’t right. She went back up to her car and dug out her cell phone from her ridiculously heavy bag, and called the national vehicle registry.
The Ford in front of her belonged to a Lars-Henry Svensson, registered as living on Ringvägen in Stockholm.
She put the cell phone in her pocket.
He had to be here somewhere.
How long could he have been gone? Were the potatoes warm? The schnapps cold?
She hurried back down to the cottage again and went straight into the main room to check the food.
The potatoes were cold. There was no condensation on the schnapps-glass.
Something was wrong.
She went over to the window and looked out at the trees, the sea, the lengthening shadows. The Ford up by the road, her SUV behind it. The drifts of wild flowers, a ramshackle garden bench halfway down the path to the little wooden sauna.
The sauna door was ajar.
She leaned closer to the window, screwing her eyes up to see better.
There was no smoke coming from the chimney, and the little window was dark, but the door was definitely open.
She went outside again, then down the pine needle–strewn, stone-edged path and up to the door of the sauna. From here she could hear the sound of waves lapping against the jetty.
As she opened the door wider, the dusk light fell on a small changing room. There was a pile of wood and a bundle of neatly folded towels, all blue. Apart from that, the room was empty.
On the opposite wall was the door into the sauna itself.
She took three paces toward it and pulled it open.
He was hanging on the wall.
Somehow she knew at once that he was hanging on the wall, he wasn’t just leaning against it, he wasn’t resting. He was hanging.
A large metal nail was sticking out of his right eye.
His left eye was staring at her, bloodshot and bulging.
There was another nail in his neck, through his throat.
She stared at him, closed her eyes, looked again.
Then she shut the door and went outside, where she threw up over an anthill.
Then she called Q.
The first police car was a normal patrol car; it arrived after just fifteen minutes. It parked down the hill, not far from the sauna, and two walking clichés got out and looked around.
Annika had locked herself inside her car with the engine running and the heater on. She felt so cold that she was shaking, and couldn’t stop looking in the rearview mirror to make sure no one was creeping up on her from behind.
She felt better now the patrol had arrived.
One of the officers came up the hill and over to her. When she showed no sign of getting out, he came around and knocked on her window.
She opened the window a few centimeters.
“Are you the person who called?”
She nodded.
“And the owner of the house is in the sauna, you say. Dead.”
She nodded again.
The policeman sighed.
“Someone from the crime unit will be here to ask you some questions in due course,” he said, then went back to the patrol car.
She closed the window again and went on staring ahead of her.
A nail through his eye, sticking out maybe two or three centimeters.
Which meant that someone had knocked it in, using a hammer to drive it through the professor’s head until there was about an inch left.
How long could the nail be? How deep was a skull? Seven inches? Nine?
And what had Q said about Svensson earlier that day?
He had nothing to do with the death of Ernst Ericsson.
She heard her own reply echo in her memory:
And you’re absolutely certain of that?
His response:
Not a shadow of a doubt.
She gasped.
Now she knew why they were so certain Ernst Ericsson hadn’t committed suicide.
It might just be possible to drive a nail through your own neck, but not if you’ve already hammered one through your brain.
She pulled out her cell phone, thinking she ought to call home to Thomas.
She couldn’t bring herself to do it.
She could feel his anger through the air without the need for any cell-phone network.
I’ll deal with it when I get home, she thought. Otherwise I’ll only get it in the neck twice.
Three unmarked cars appeared about ten minutes later.
In the second one she caught a glimpse of a Hawaiian shirt.
She switched off the ignition, pulled on a cardigan she found on the backseat, and went out to meet the detective inspector. She waited patiently beside his car as he went down to the sauna and confirmed to himself that she wasn’t hallucinating.
“Not a shadow of a doubt,” Annika said. “Great.”
He pointed at the pile of vomit on the anthill just outside the door of the sauna.
“What are you doing here?”
“Is this a formal interrogation?”
He threw out his hands.
“Do I look like a microphone?”
“I was hoping to get a comment on the death of Ernst Ericsson,” Annika said. “There were lights on inside the cottage and the sauna door was ajar, so I looked inside.”
“You’re sure about that, the door was ajar?”
“I noticed it from the house,” Annika said, pointing up at the illuminated window up the hill.
“You were inside the house? What were you doing there?”
“There was a plate of herring and potatoes on the table; I was checking to see if the food was warm.”
Q groaned.
“So you’ve been scampering about touching things all over the scene of a crime?”
Annika bit her lip.
“Not the body,” she said. “I didn’t touch him. And I didn’t touch anything inside the sauna itself, except the door handle.”
Q walked over to his car, opened the door, and dug about for something inside the glove compartment.
Annika stayed close to him.
“This has to have some sort of personal motive, doesn’t it?” she asked. “This isn’t remotely clean or professional, so it wasn’t the Kitten, was it? And yesterday, Ernst Ericsson wasn’t her either, was it?”
The detective inspector emerged from the car with a small tape recorder in his hand and slammed the car door.
“Interview with witness Annika Bengtzon,” he said. “Personal details to be added later, Tuesday, June 1, time 7:55 PM, at the crime scene on Tavastbodavägen in Fågelbrolandet, regarding the suspected murder of Lars-Henry Svensson …”
Annika turned and started walking toward her car.
“Where are you going?”
“The paper,” Annika said. “Don’t even think of imposing a ban on disclosure this time. I’m not going to stay quiet.”
“You’d never put an investigation at risk,” Q said.
“Please,” she said, turning to face him again. “This is my first day back at work. I can’t get myself thrown out again.”
He looked at her with his head tilted to one side, without the slightest trace of sympathy.
“Well, of course I’m going to issue you with a ban on disclosure,” he said, “according to chapter twenty-three, paragraph ten of the Judicial Procedure Act. I want you to stay here until we’re done, so that I can interview you properly.”
“I drove here and got out of my car,” Annika said. “I looked around for twenty-three minutes before I found the body. Then I threw up and phoned you. I haven’t seen anyone else here since I arrived. No cars have gone past, nor any boats. I’ve been in all the buildings, including the outside toilet, and I’ve touched pretty much everything.
Okay, I’m going now.”
“I forbid you to leave,” Q said.
“So shoot me,” Annika said, turning around and walking to her car.
She pulled out her cell phone and called the paper.
Anders Schyman tossed his briefcase on the desk in his little office. He had had a terrible day.
The family that owned the paper had been given early warning of the morning paper’s disastrous results for the first half of the year, and had pulled the emergency cord as hard as they possibly could.
There had been a meeting out at their villa on Djurgården, practically an inquisition.
All costs were to be reviewed.
All new initiatives were to be put on ice.
Every part of the media empire was to stop all new recruitment. They were no longer even allowed to use freelancers.
Fortunately there were several wise men and women among the editorial managers of the business. Together they had bullied the owners and the board into realizing that putting the brakes on was not the way to get out of a crisis.
Acknowledgement of a state of crisis was all very well, but you had to find ways for people to vent their frustrations, which were an inevitable side effect when you had to start slaughtering holy cows.
But you had to be able to push ahead as well.
He wasn’t sure if his message had really sunk in, but he knew he was going to have to spend the next month trying to rescue the new initiatives that he had thought were already safe.
He rubbed his chin with the palm of his hand.
Why on earth was he doing all this?
These cuts were enough to trigger his already somewhat-battered parachute, which could carry him safely and securely to the ground as the media world collapsed.
But he already knew the answer. It had been formulated by an old hack at Swedish Television who had covered every global conflict from Vietnam to Iraq: It’s never hard to step up to the mark in wartime. You only feel like curling up and dying in times of peace.
And right now war was raging all around him, with a new front opening up against the idiotic priorities of the paper’s owners, alongside the ongoing battle against the other evening paper and future battles about ill-considered technological investments and negotiating positions.
His wife would be waiting for him. He ought to go home.
He sighed deeply.
She would rather he go home late with the battle behind him than show up early with the ballistics still going off.
Which is why he answered when the phone rang, even though he should have been on his way home.
“I’ve done it again.”
It was Bengtzon, the walking disaster.
He slumped into his chair and put his feet up on the desk.
“I know,” he said, “I saw it. The Kitten, what sort of alias is that? How long have you been sitting on that story?”
“I’m not talking about the Kitten. I’ve just stumbled across a body, but this time I’m not going to keep quiet.”
He blinked several times against the lamp in the ceiling.
“What?” he said.
“The professor who was questioned about the murder of Ernst Ericsson is dead,” she said.
“Who?” Schyman said.
“Another professor from the Karolinska Institute. I found him. He’d been nailed up in his own sauna, a nine-inch nail through one eye and another through the throat.”
He stared at the lamp until he was forced to close his eyes. Flecks of light danced in front of his eyes.
“Nailed up … ?”
“He was dead when it happened, strangled. Ernst Ericsson’s corpse was mutilated the same way.”
She sounded wound up beyond any acceptable safety limits.
“I’m not allowed to write anything myself,” she said, “except for maybe an overview. Someone else will have to deal with the news angle.”
“Are you allowed to talk about it? They haven’t imposed another ban on disclosure?”
“They’re trying to, but I’m not going to let them. I’ve kept quiet for long enough. Someone who understands the meaning of the disclosure ban will have to interview me; then it’ll be up to you to decide if we publish it. Is Berit there, or Patrik?”
“They’re working flat out on the extradition from Bromma—we’ve got to run with that tomorrow.”
“Is there anyone else there who knows what rules we’re trying to get around?”
He sat down again and leaned his head on his hand.
“Jansson, but he’s putting the paper together.”
She fell silent.
“I see,” she said. “So I just go home and give up on the whole thing?”
“Me,” he said. “I can do it. Come up to the newsroom and I’ll interview you.”
She said nothing for a few moments.
“What, Interview by Anders Schyman?” she said skeptically.
“Do you suppose I’ve never had to knock something together in the past?” he said.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2
Annika thought she was going to die when the alarm clock rang. Her whole body ached with tiredness; it felt like she hadn’t slept in years.
She rolled over onto her back, glancing cautiously at the other side of the bed. There was someone there, a warm body, only it wasn’t Thomas but Ellen. Her tousled hair was spread out across the white pillow. Annika leaned over and pulled the covers away from her face. The girls eyelashes were flickering, a sure sign that she was dreaming.
My darling, she thought, stroking her daughter’s hair gently.
Then she lay back and listened hard for sounds from the kitchen.
No sound of running taps. No rustling newspaper. No chink of crockery.
I hope he’s gone, she thought.
Which would mean she had managed to postpone the confrontation for a while longer.
She hadn’t called at the previous evening, and nor had Thomas. When she got home he was already asleep, and she had managed to creep into bed beside him and Ellen without him waking up.
And now he had gone without waking her, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
Ellen shifted uneasily, then stretched out in a slow, leisurely gesture that reminded Annika of Whiskas, her old cat, now long since dead.
I have to get up now, she thought. I have to make breakfast and drive the children to nursery school.
Kalle would have to go back to kindergarten today.
Her stomach knotted when she thought about how vulnerable he was.
If only she could do something.
If only she had some sort of power.
But I have, she thought.
She stared up at the ceiling, letting her thoughts settle.
There were ways and means of getting power, if you didn’t already have it. It was easy, in fact—she had spent her whole life working with it. Power didn’t come for free; it always had a price, but in this case she was prepared to pay.
I have a choice, she thought. I can do it, if I want …
She rolled over to Thomas’s side of the bed and cuddled up to her daughter.
“Ellen,” she whispered. “It’s time to get up now.”
She stroked the child’s hair until she opened her eyes, looking around blindly for a moment until she caught sight of Annika.
Then the smile—oh, that smile—radiating complete confidence and unconditional love, and then the sleepy voice.
“Mommy!”
Sleep-moistened arms around her neck, the sweet smell of a child’s skin and cotton pajamas. Annika rocked the little bundle in her arms and wanted never to have to get up.
“Are we going to nursery school today, Mommy?”
“Yes,” Annika whispered, “today’s a nursery school day.”
The girl wriggled out of her arms and jumped up in the bed, bouncing happily on the absurdly expensive mattress.
“I’m going to finish my bag today,” she said with her hair flying about. “I’m making a bag, Mommy,
with red pockets and lots of buttons.”
“That sounds just lovely,” Annika said.
She pulled up outside the nursery. It was just before nine o’clock and the playground was full of children. She stopped and stared intently at the crowd, looking for two solidly built little boys with expensive haircuts and sneakers.
There. There they were. They were standing by the fence kicking a tricycle.
“Come on,” Annika said, switching the engine off. “It’ll soon be time for assembly.”
Ellen took her own seat belt off and jumped out, but Kalle hung back. His fingers went to the large bandage on his forehead.
“Can I take this off, Mommy?”
“Absolutely not,” Annika said. “You might get dirt in the cut. You have to promise me that you’re going to leave it on, okay?”
The boy nodded.
“But what if they’re mean again?” he said.
Annika bent down toward him.
“Kalle,” she said, looking him in the eye. “I promise you this. Alex and Ben will never be nasty to you again. I’m going to make sure of that.”
He sighed and nodded, then climbed out of the car.
“Hi Kalle,” Lotta called from the entrance. “Can you come and help me with assembly today? You can hand out the books!”
A smile slipped out, and he let go of Annika’s hand and ran off.
Soon they would be going in; she only had a minute or so.
Annika felt her pulse race until it filled her head. She made her way through the crowd of children as her field of vision shrank. It got narrower and narrower until it became a tunnel, with just two small figures at the end, two six-year-olds who were kicking a tricycle at the far end of the fence.
Finally they were standing in front of her, right at her feet, but they still hadn’t noticed her; they were still yelling and shouting as they kicked the little tricycle, and she leaned down toward them.
“Benjamin,” she said quietly, taking a firm grasp on one of the boy’s arms.
The child looked up at her in surprise, stopping midyell. She put her face just a couple of centimeters from his and saw the surprise in his eyes turn into a vague unease.
“Benjamin,” she said. “Have you been mean to Kalle?”
The boy’s jaw fell open and his tongue stuck out slightly.
“I want you to know something,” Annika whispered, her heart thudding so hard that she could hardly hear her own words. “If you are ever mean to Kalle again, and I mean ever, I’ll kill you. Got it?”
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