The Bomber

by Liza Marklund

  ‘Crystal clear,’ he said, getting ready to leave. ‘I’ll tell Jansson.’

  ‘What else did Langeby say?’ Annika wondered in a low voice.

  He stopped and looked solemnly at her.

  ‘I think Nils Langeby is about to turn into a really serious problem for the two of us,’ he said, and walked out.

  26

  Helena Starke lived in a brown 1920s building at the eastern end of Ringvägen. The door had a coded lock, of course, and Annika didn’t have the code, so she pulled out her mobile and asked Directory Inquiries for a couple of numbers of people living at 139 Ringvägen.

  ‘We can’t give out numbers like that,’ the woman on the other end said curtly.

  Annika sighed. Occasionally that approach worked, but not this time.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for an Andersson at 139 Ringvägen.’

  ‘Arne Andersson or Petra Andersson?’

  ‘Both,’ Annika said quickly, and jotted the numbers in her notebook. ‘Thanks very much.’

  She dialled the first number, for Arne. No answer, maybe he had already gone to bed. It was almost half past ten. Petra was home, though, and she sounded rather cross.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Annika said, ‘but I’m on my way up to a friend of mine who lives in the same block as you and she forgot to give me the code for the door …’

  ‘Who’s that then?’

  ‘Helena Starke,’ Annika said, and Petra Andersson laughed. It wasn’t a normal laugh.

  ‘So you’re on your way to see Starke at half ten in the evening? Right, well, good luck with that,’ she said, and gave Annika the code.

  People say some weird things, Annika thought, as she let herself in and climbed up until she found Helena Starke’s apartment on the fourth floor. She rang the bell, but there was no answer. She looked around the stairwell, trying to get an idea of which way Helena Starke’s apartment faced, and how big it might be. Then she went downstairs and out into the street again, and counted the windows. Starke ought to have at least three windows facing the street, and there was light coming from two of them. So she was probably home. Annika went inside again, took the lift up and rang the bell insistently. Then she opened the letterbox and said, ‘Helena Starke? My name’s Annika Bengtzon, I’m from the Evening Post. I know you’re in there. Can you just open the door?’

  She waited in silence for a while, then heard a security chain on the other side. The door opened slightly and a woman’s face, puffy from crying, appeared in the gap.

  ‘What do you want?’ Helena Starke said quietly.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, but we’ve been trying to reach you all day.’

  ‘I know. I’ve had fifteen notes through my letterbox from you and all the others.’

  ‘Can I come in for a minute?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We’re writing about Christina Furhage’s death in tomorrow’s paper and I just wondered if I could ask a few questions.’

  ‘About what?’

  Annika sighed. ‘I’d be happy to tell you, but I’d rather not do it out here.’

  Starke opened the door and let her into the apartment. It was a real mess, and Annika thought she could smell vomit. They went into the kitchen, where the sink was overflowing with dishes, and on top of the stove was an empty cognac bottle. Helena Starke herself was wearing nothing but a T-shirt and pants. Her hair was all over the place and her face was a mess.

  ‘Christina’s death is a terrible loss,’ she said. ‘We’d never have got the Olympics in Stockholm if it hadn’t been for her.’

  Annika took out her pen and notepad and started writing. How was it that everyone kept saying the same things about Christina Furhage?

  ‘What was she like as a person?’ Annika asked.

  ‘Wonderful,’ Helena Starke said, staring at the floor. ‘She was an example to us all: hard-working, intelligent, resilient, funny … everything, really. She could do anything.’

  ‘If I’ve got this right, you were the last person to see her alive?’

  ‘Apart from the killer, yes. We left the Christmas party together. Christina was tired, and I was pretty drunk.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  Helena Starke gave a start.

  ‘What do you mean? We went our separate ways at the underground station, I came home and Christina got a taxi.’

  Annika raised her eyebrows. This was new; she hadn’t heard that Christina Furhage had taken a taxi after midnight. So there was someone else who had seen her alive after Helena Starke: the taxi-driver.

  ‘Did Christina have any enemies inside the Olympic organization?’

  Helena Starke sniffed.

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘Well, that’s what I’m asking. You work in the office too, don’t you?’

  ‘I was Christina’s personal assistant,’ the woman said.

  ‘Does that mean you were her secretary?’

  ‘No, she had three secretaries. I did everything else, I suppose. But I think you should go now.’

  Annika gathered her things together silently. Before she left she turned and asked, ‘Christina fired a young girl from the Olympic headquarters for having an affair with a superior. How did the rest of the staff react?’

  Helena Starke stared at her.

  ‘Just go.’

  ‘Here’s my card. Ring me if there’s anything you want to add, or to say we’ve got something wrong,’ she muttered, and put the card down on the table in the hall. She noted that there was a scrap of paper with a telephone number next to the phone, and quickly wrote it down. Helena Starke didn’t accompany her to the door, so Annika closed it quietly behind her.

  Humanity

  I’ve always done a lot of walking. I love light, wind, gales, stars and sea. I’ve spent so long walking that my body has started walking of its own accord, hardly touching the ground, dissolving into the elements around me and becoming an invisible roar of joy. But sometimes my legs help focus my attention on my surroundings. Instead of opening up the world around me, they shrink it down to a single, diminishing point. I’ve walked along pavements, concentrating on my body, letting the tread of my heels reverberate up through my limbs. With every step, the same questions: What am I? Where am I? What is it that makes me, me?

  In the days when those questions were important to me, I lived in a town where it was always windy. Whichever way I walked, I always had the wind against me. The squally gale was so strong that it sometimes took my breath away. As damp crept into my very marrow, I would work my way through my flesh and blood, trying to discover where inside me I could find my core. Not in my heels, nor in my fingertips, and not in my knees, or genitals, or stomach. The conclusion I reached after all those long walks was hardly controversial. I was to be found somewhere behind my eyes, above my neck but under my scalp, just above my mouth and ears. That’s where I live. That’s my home.

  In those days, that place where I lived was cramped and dark, but I remember it as being infinite, impossible to possess and conquer. I was completely obsessed with understanding what I was. In my bed each evening I would close my eyes and try to work out if I was a man or a woman. How was I supposed to know? My genitals throbbed with something I can only attribute to lust. If I didn’t know what they looked like, I couldn’t have described them as anything other than weighty, bottomless, and pulsating. Man or woman, black or white? My consciousness was incapable of finding any explanation for me, other than deciding that I was human.

  When I opened my eyes they would encounter the electromagnetic rays we call light. They interpreted colour in a way I was never sure was shared by other people. What I called red, and regarded as warm and pulsating, maybe looked different to other people. We might agree on and learn common names, but our understanding of them might well be extremely subjective.

  You can never know for sure.

  Monday 20 December

  27

  Thomas left the flat before Annika and the children h
ad woken up. He had loads of work to get done by Christmas, and he was supposed to be picking up the children early today. They had agreed to take turns this week, getting them at three o’clock, ideally. Partly because the children were tired and seemed to be suffering with the winter, and partly to get things organized at home for Christmas. Annika had hung up their copper Advent star and got out the candlesticks, but that was as far as they had got. They hadn’t started buying food or presents yet, let alone preparing the salmon and Christmas ham, and they hadn’t ordered a tree. Then there was the cleaning, which was something like six months behind. Annika wanted them to start paying for a Polish cleaner, the same one Anne Snapphane had, but he refused. He could hardly work for the Swedish Association of Local Councils and then go and employ an illegal cleaner. She saw the sense in this, but she still did no cleaning.

  He gave a deep sigh and headed out into the slushy snow. The timing of Christmas this year was hopeless, from an employee’s point of view: Christmas Eve was a Friday, so there was a normal working week between Christmas and New Year. He ought to have appreciated that, seeing as he was theoretically on the employers’ side of the argument. But he sighed again, thinking of the personal implications, as he crossed Hantverkargatan, heading for the number 48 bus-stop on the far side of Kungsholmstorg. His lower back ached as he strode along; it often did if he had slept in a strange position. Kalle had spent the night in their bed, with his feet against Thomas’s back. He twisted from side to side, like a boxer, trying to get his stiff muscles to loosen up.

  It was ages before the bus came. He was wet and cold by the time it finally drew to a halt outside the bank. He hated having to use the bus, but the alternatives were worse. There was an underground station round the corner, but it was the blue line, which was so deep it was halfway to hell. It took longer to weave through all the passageways down to the platform than it did to walk through the streets to get to the Central Station. And you had to change lines after just one stop anyway. Then a new set of tunnels and escalators, moving walkways and urine-splashed lifts. And then the train to Slussen, with steamed-up windows and the elbows of countless Metro-reading commuters. And there was no point even thinking of going by car. He’d had his Toyota Corolla in town when they first moved in together, but when the monthly accumulation of parking fines finally exceeded their childcare costs Annika got her way and he got rid of it. Now it was parked under a tarpaulin in his parents’ garden out in Vaxholm, slowly rusting away. He wanted them to move out of the centre and buy somewhere, but Annika refused. She loved their flat, even if the rent was extortionate.

  The bus was packed and he had to stand next to the pushchairs by the doors in the middle, but it started to empty when they reached the City Hall. By Tegelbacken he was able to sit down – right at the back on top of the wheel, but it was still a seat. He pulled his legs up and peered out at the government offices as they drove past Rosenbad, and couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to work there. And why not? His progress from the council in Vaxholm to his current post in the Association of Local Councils had been remarkably swift. He preferred to ignore the help he had got from Annika and her career. If it carried on like this, there was every chance he might be working in parliament or for a government department by the time he was forty.

  The bus rumbled past Strömsborg and Riddarhuset. He felt impatient and restless, but was unwilling to admit to himself that it was Annika’s fault. He had hardly spoken to her all weekend. Yesterday evening he had thought she was on her way home when she didn’t answer her phone at the paper. He had got tea and sandwiches ready for when she got back, but it was several more hours before she finally appeared. He had eaten the sandwiches, the tea was stewed, and he had finished reading Time and Newsweek before he heard her banging about outside. And when she’d finally stumbled through the double doors, she was talking to someone at the paper on her mobile.

  ‘Hello, you. God, you’ve had a long day,’ he said, walking over to her.

  ‘I’ll call you on another line,’ she said, ending the call and walking past him with just a pat on the cheek. She had gone straight to her desk, dumping her outdoor clothes in a heap at her feet as she called the paper again. She was talking about some taxi ride that needed to be checked with the police, and he could feel his anger growing by the moment. When she hung up she stood there, holding on to the desk, for a while, as if she was feeling giddy.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ she had said quietly, without looking up. ‘I had to go out to Södermalm for an interview on my way home.’

  He had said nothing, just stood there, arms by his sides, staring at her back. She was swaying slightly, and seemed utterly exhausted.

  ‘You mustn’t work yourself to death,’ he had said, more tersely than he intended.

  ‘No, I know,’ she said, putting her clothes on the desk and going out into the bathroom. He had gone back to the bedroom and lay there listening to the sound of water splashing and her brushing her teeth. When she came to bed he pretended to be asleep, and she didn’t notice that he was faking. She kissed him on the neck and ran her hand over his hair, then fell asleep. He had lain awake for a long time listening to the cars in the street and the sound of her gentle breathing.

  He got off the bus at Slussen and set off to walk the last few blocks to his office on Hornsgatan. A damp wind was blowing from the Baltic and an eager stall-holder had already set up his stall outside the entrance to the underground station.

  ‘An early-morning cup of mulled wine, sir?’ the stall-holder said, holding out a steaming cup of mass-produced punch as Thomas approached.

  ‘Yes, why not?’ Thomas said, fishing a note from his pocket. ‘And a cookie as well, a heart-shaped one, the biggest one you’ve got!’

  28

  ‘Mummy, can I have a ride too?’ Kalle said, climbing up on the back of the pushchair so that it started to topple backwards. Annika only caught it at the last moment.

  ‘You know what, let’s not bother with the pushchair today; it’s so slushy.’

  ‘But I don’t want to walk, Mummy,’ Ellen said.

  Annika went back to the lift and guided the girl out, pulling the gate shut and closing the door behind them. She crouched on the hall carpet and gave Ellen a hug. The shiny nylon snowsuit was cold against her cheek.

  ‘We’re getting the bus today, so I’ll carry you. Will that be all right?’

  The girl nodded and wrapped her arms around Annika’s neck, hugging her tight.

  ‘But I want to stay with you today, Mummy.’

  ‘I know, but I’m afraid I have to go to work. But I’ve got the day off on Friday, because do you know what day that is?’

  ‘Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve!’ Kalle yelled.

  Annika laughed. ‘That’s right, it’s Christmas Eve. Do you know how many days it is until then?’

  ‘Three weeks?’ Ellen said, holding up three fingers.

  ‘Stupid,’ Kalle said. ‘It’s four days.’

  ‘We don’t say stupid, do we? But you’re quite right, it’s four days. Now, where are your gloves, Ellen? Did we leave them upstairs? No, here they are …’

  Out on the pavement the slush was turning to water. It was raining and the world was completely and uniformly grey. She carried her daughter in her left arm and held on to Kalle with her right hand. Her bag slapped against her back with every step.

  ‘You smell nice, Mummy,’ Ellen said.

  They turned into Scheelegatan and caught the number 40 bus outside the Indian curry house, and got off just two stops later by the white 1980s building where Radio Stockholm was based. The children’s nursery was on the third floor. Kalle had been going there since he was fifteen months old, Ellen since she was about a year. When she talked to other parents she realized they had been lucky – the staff were experienced and competent, the manager engaged, and half of the preschool teachers were men – male role models seemed to be lacking in society.

  The entrance-hall was crowded and noi
sy, and the grit and snow had formed a little dam by the door. The children were shouting, and the adults were trying to calm them down.

  ‘Is it okay if I stay for a bit?’ Annika asked, and one of the staff nodded.

  The children sat at the same table for breakfast and lunch. Even though they argued a lot at home, they got on well together at nursery, where Kalle looked out for his little sister. Annika sat with Ellen in her lap as they ate breakfast, taking a sandwich and a cup of coffee so they could see she was joining in.

  ‘We’re going on an outing on Wednesday, so they’ll need a packed lunch,’ one of the teachers said, and Annika nodded.

  After breakfast the children gathered in one corner of the room for the register, and then there was singing. Some of the children had already disappeared for Christmas. But the remaining ones sang Christmas carols with great enthusiasm. Then they talked about Christmas, before finishing off with a burst of ‘Jingle Bells’.

  ‘I’ve got to go now,’ Annika said. Ellen started to cry and Kalle clung to her arm.

  ‘I want to go with you, Mummy,’ Ellen sobbed.

  ‘Daddy’s going to pick you up early today, after the afternoon break,’ Annika said briskly, trying to extricate herself. ‘That’ll be fun. Then you can go home and start getting ready for Christmas. Maybe get a Christmas tree, too? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah!’ Kalle cried, with Ellen joining in as a small echo.

  ‘See you later!’ she said, and quickly shut the door on their little faces. She stood outside for a moment, listening to see if there was any reaction inside. Nothing. With a sigh, she pushed open the door to the stairs.

  She took the 56 bus from the Trygg Hansa building and got to the office at half past ten. The newsroom was packed with people chatting and bustling about. For some reason she never got used to that. She always thought that the normal state of the newsroom was when it was a large empty room with just a few people concentrating on shimmering computer screens, with the sound of phones persistently ringing in the background. It was like that at weekends and at night, but right now there had to be ninety people in there. She took a bundle of newspapers and headed towards her office.