The Bomber

by Liza Marklund

  The explosion had gone off when Tore Brand had gone to pick up the registered post. One of the postal employees had stumbled and happened to drop the package.

  It couldn’t have fallen more than half a metre, and it tumbled back into the tray it had been in all night, but that was enough to trigger the detonator.

  Four people were injured, three of them seriously. The man closest to the explosion, the one who had dropped it, was in a critical condition.

  Anders Schyman sighed. There was a knock on his door and one of the police officers walked in without waiting for a response.

  ‘We can’t get hold of Thomas Samuelsson either,’ he said. ‘We sent officers to the Association of Local Councils, but he wasn’t there. People there think he went to meet a local politician involved in a committee report they’re both working on. We’ve tried calling his mobile number, but so far he hasn’t answered.’

  ‘Have you found Annika or the car?’ Schyman asked.

  The police officer shook his head.

  The editor-in-chief turned away and stared at the embassy roof again.

  Dear God, he prayed, please don’t let her be dead.

  62

  Suddenly her sight returned. The strip-lights flickered on with a buzz, and for a moment Annika was blinded and couldn’t see a thing. A clatter of heels approached in the tunnel and Annika rolled into a little ball and shut her eyes tight. The steps came closer and stopped next to her ear.

  ‘Are you awake?’ a voice said above her.

  Annika opened her eyes and blinked. She could see the linoleum floor and the toes of a pair of Pertti Palmroth designer boots.

  ‘Good. We’ve got things to do.’

  Someone grabbed her and sat her up against the concrete wall with her legs bent at the knees and sticking out to one side. It was extremely uncomfortable.

  Beata Ekesjö leaned over her, sniffing.

  ‘Have you shat yourself? Eurgh, how disgusting!’

  Annika didn’t react. She was staring at the concrete wall opposite, whimpering quietly.

  ‘Right, let’s get you ready,’ Beata said, grabbing Annika under the arms. With a combination of shoves and tugs she managed to make Annika lean forward with her head between her knees.

  ‘This worked well last time,’ Beata said. ‘It’s nice when you start to get used to things, isn’t it?’

  Annika couldn’t hear what the woman was saying. Her terror was muffling everything around her, killing all activity in her brain. She didn’t even notice the smell from her lower half. She cried silently as Beata fiddled with something next to her. Beata was humming some old song. Annika tried to join in but couldn’t.

  ‘Don’t try to talk yet,’ Beata said. ‘The rope dug into your larynx. Here, look at this!’

  Beata stood up in front of Annika. She was holding a roll of duct tape in one hand and a pack of what looked like red candles in the other.

  ‘This is Minex, twenty cardboard charges, 22 by 200 millimetres, each weighing 100 grams. Two kilos. That’s enough. It was enough for Stefan. He ended up in pieces.’

  Annika realized what the woman was saying. She realized what was happening and leaned over and threw up. She vomited until her whole body was shaking and nothing but bile was coming out.

  ‘What a mess you’re making!’ Beata said reproachfully. ‘I really ought to make you clean that up.’

  Annika was panting heavily. She could feel the bile dribbling from her mouth. I’m going to die, she thought. How has it come to this? This isn’t the way things end in the movies.

  ‘What the fuck do you expect?’ Annika croaked.

  ‘Ah, you’re starting to get your voice back now,’ Beata said happily. ‘That’s great, because I’ve got a few questions I’d like answers to.’

  ‘Fuck you, you bitch,’ Annika said. ‘I’m not talking to you.’

  Beata didn’t answer, merely leaned forward and attached something to Annika’s back, just below her ribcage. Annika thought, breathed, and thought she could smell a mixture of fear and explosives.

  ‘Dynamite?’ she asked.

  ‘Yep. I’m using the duct tape to hold it.’

  Beata rolled the tape round Annika’s body a couple of times, wrapping her arms round her as she did so. Annika knew that this was an opportunity to get free, but couldn’t work out what to do. Her hands were still tied behind her back, and her feet were still chained to the wall.

  ‘There, now you’re ready,’ Beata said, standing up again. ‘The explosive is stable enough, but the detonator can be a bit sensitive, so we’ll have to be careful. I’ve got the wire, can you see? This is what I use to set off the explosion. I take it over here, and do you see this? An ordinary little torch battery. That’s enough to set it off. Isn’t that great?’

  Annika looked at the thin yellow and green wire snaking over to the little camping table. She didn’t know anything about explosives, so had no way of knowing if Beata was bluffing or telling the truth. She had used a car battery for Christina’s murder. Why, if a small torch battery would do the job?

  ‘It’s a shame it had to turn out like this,’ Beata said. ‘If you’d stayed at work yesterday afternoon we wouldn’t have to bother with all this. That would have been much better for all concerned. Climaxes should happen in the right place, which in your case would be the Evening Post’s newsroom. But it went off in the sorting office instead, which, frankly, was a real shame.’

  Annika stared at the woman, she really was completely mad.

  ‘What do you mean? Has there been another explosion?’

  The Bomber sighed.

  ‘Yes, I haven’t dragged you out here for the fun of it, you know. Well, we’ll just have to make do with this instead. I’m going to leave you for a little while. If I were you, I’d try to get some rest. But don’t lie on your back, and don’t try to pull the chain from the wall. Sudden movements can set off the explosives.’

  ‘But why …?’ Annika said.

  Beata stared at her with a look of complete indifference for several seconds.

  ‘See you in a couple of hours,’ she said, and headed off, heels clicking, back towards the training ground.

  Annika heard her steps disappear round the corner, then the lights went out again.

  Annika turned carefully, away from the vomit, and lay down incredibly slowly on her left side. She had her back to the wall and was facing the darkness, almost afraid to even breathe. Another explosion, then. Had anyone been killed? Was the bomb meant for her? How on earth could she possibly get out of this?

  The stadium was crawling with people, Beata had said. They ought to be at the far end of the tunnel. If she shouted loudly enough maybe they’d hear her.

  ‘Help!’ Annika screamed as loudly as she could, but her voice was still weak.

  She waited a few seconds, then screamed again. She realized the sound wouldn’t travel far enough.

  She lay her head down and felt panic rising. She thought she could hear animals moving around her, but realized that it was just the sound of the chain around her ankles. If Beata had left the light on she might have been able to get them loose.

  ‘Help!’ she screamed again, but with even poorer results.

  Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic …

  ‘Help!’

  She was breathing fast and deep. Don’t breathe too fast, or you’ll get cramp, take it easy, hold your breath, one two three four, breathe, hold your breath, one two three four … It’ll be fine, take it easy, you can do this, it can all be sorted out …

  Suddenly Mozart’s Symphony No.40, the first movement, started peeping electronically in the dark. Annika stopped hyperventilating out of sheer shock.

  Her mobile phone! It still worked down here! Oh, God bless her network! She got to her knees. The music went on. She was the only person in the city who used this particular ringtone. Carefully she started to crawl towards the sound as the tune began again. She knew her time was almost out. The call would go to
voicemail any second. At that moment she reached the end of the chain. And she couldn’t reach her bag.

  The telephone fell silent. Annika was panting loudly in the darkness. She knelt on the yellow linoleum floor for a minute or so, thinking. Then she started to go back to the mattress again. It was warmer and more comfortable there.

  ‘This will be fine,’ she said out loud to herself. ‘As long as that madwoman isn’t here, everything’s fine. Not very comfortable, admittedly, but as long as I move very carefully there’s no danger. It’s going to be fine.’

  She lay down and, like a form of incantation, started quietly singing the first lines of ‘I Will Survive’.

  Then she started to cry softly, into the darkness.

  63

  Thomas was striding out of the Central Station when his mobile rang. He got it just in time before voicemail took the call.

  ‘We did tell you we’d be closing at five o’clock today,’ one of the male nursery teachers said. ‘Are you on your way?’

  The traffic on Vasagatan was so noisy that Thomas could hardly hear what he said, and went into the doorway of a fur shop to ask what the matter was.

  ‘Are you on your way, or what?’ the man said again.

  Fury hit Thomas in the guts with a force that surprised him. Bloody Annika! He had let her sleep late that morning, he had taken the kids and was on his way home on time, despite the fact that the regional government proposal had been leaked, and she couldn’t even be bothered to pick up her own kids from nursery on time.

  ‘I’m sorry we’re late. I’ll be there in five minutes,’ he said, and ended the call.

  Furious, he marched off towards Kungsbron. He went past Burger King and almost collided with a pushchair full of Christmas parcels, and hurried past Oscars Theatre. A group of black men were standing on the pavement outside Fasching’s jazz club and Thomas stepped onto the road to get past them.

  This was what he got for being so reasonable, such a New Man: his children were left waiting in an educational institution the day before Christmas Eve because his wife who was supposed to pick them up put her job ahead of her family.

  They had had this discussion before. He could hear her voice over the noise of the city.

  ‘My job is important to me,’ she always said.

  ‘More important than the children?’ he had shouted on one occasion. She had gone completely pale and said ‘of course not’, but he wasn’t sure he believed her. They had had a couple of really serious arguments about it, one when his parents had invited them out to their summer cottage out in the archipelago for Midsummer. There had been a murder somewhere and she had to mess up all their plans and leave.

  ‘I don’t do this just because I think it’s fun,’ she said. ‘Yes, it is fun having an interesting story to work on, but this time I’ve negotiated to get a whole week off instead if I cover this job.’

  ‘You never think of the children,’ he had raged, and she had gone all cold and dismissive.

  ‘Now you’re just being unfair,’ she’d said. ‘I’ll get a whole week’s extra holiday with them now. They won’t miss me at all out there on the island, there’ll be loads of people there. You’ll be there, and Grandma and Grandpa and all their cousins …’

  ‘You really are selfish,’ he had said.

  She had been completely calm when she replied. ‘No, you’re the one being selfish now. You want me out there so you can show your parents what a lovely family you’ve got, and to prove that I don’t work all the time. Yes, I know that’s what your mother thinks. And she thinks the children spend far too much time at nursery, don’t tell me she doesn’t. I heard her say it.’

  ‘Your job’s more important to you than your family,’ he had shouted after her, trying to hurt her.

  She had stared back at him with distaste, and then said, ‘Who took two years off to be with the children when they were tiny? Who stays at home with them when they’re ill? Who takes them to nursery every day, and who picks them up most days?’

  She had walked right up to him. ‘Yes, Thomas, you’re absolutely right. I’m going to let my job take priority over my family this time. For once I’m actually going to do it, so you’re just going to have to put up with it.’

  Then she had turned on her heel and walked out through the door without taking so much as a toothbrush with her.

  Of course the whole Midsummer weekend was ruined, for him, not the children. They didn’t miss Annika for a second, just as she had said. Instead they were overjoyed when they got back home and Mummy was already there with meatballs and presents at the ready.

  In hindsight he had to admit she had been right. She didn’t put her job ahead of her family very often, just occasionally, just the same as him. But this didn’t stop him from feeling absolutely livid right now. For the past two months, everything had been about the damn newspaper. This new job wasn’t good for her, the others were pushing her too hard and she hadn’t been prepared for it.

  He had noticed other signs that she wasn’t happy. She had started eating badly again, for instance. After one particular mass murder, when she was away for eight days, she had lost five kilos. It took five months for her to put the weight back on again. The occupational health advisor had warned her about being underweight. She saw this as praise, and proudly told all her friends over the phone. But in spite of that, she still got it into her head that she ought to diet occasionally.

  He turned off Fleminggatan and went down the steps beside the Klara Sjö restaurant, to the waterside walk along Kungsholms Strand, which took him to the rear entrance of the nursery. The children were sitting in their coats beside the door, tired and hollow-eyed. Ellen was clutching her blue teddy bear.

  ‘Mummy’s coming to get us today,’ Kalle said dismissively. ‘Where’s Mummy?’

  The teacher who had stayed with the children was properly annoyed.

  ‘I won’t get this quarter of an hour back, you know,’ he said.

  ‘I really am very sorry,’ Thomas said, noticing how out of breath he was. ‘I don’t know where on earth Annika could have got to.’

  He hurried away with the children, and after a quick run they caught the number 40 bus outside the Pousette å Vis bar.

  ‘You shouldn’t run to catch the bus, you know,’ the driver said crossly. ‘How can we teach the kids not to when their parents do it?’

  Thomas felt like hitting the man. He held up his card and herded the children back through the bus. Ellen fell over and started to cry. Give me strength, Thomas thought. They had to stand in the middle, among the Christmas presents, dogs and three pushchairs. When they tried to get out at Kungsholmstorg they almost didn’t make it. He groaned out loud as he pushed open the door to number 32 Hantverkargatan. As he was stamping the snow off his shoes on the mat inside the door he suddenly heard voices behind him.

  He looked up and saw two uniformed policemen coming up the steps.

  ‘Thomas Samuelsson? I’m afraid I must ask you and the children to come with us.’

  Thomas stared at them.

  ‘We’ve been trying to get hold of you all afternoon. You haven’t received any messages from us or the paper?’

  ‘Daddy, where are we going?’ Kalle said, taking Thomas’s hand.

  The realization that something was terribly wrong dawned on Thomas all of a sudden. Annika! Oh God!

  ‘Is she …?’

  ‘We don’t know where your wife is. She disappeared this afternoon. Our detectives will tell you more. If you could just come with us …’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We’re afraid that your home may have been interfered with.’

  Thomas leaned down and took the two children in his arms.

  ‘Let’s get away from here,’ he said quietly.

  64

  The six o’clock meeting at the paper was the strangest for many years. Anders Schyman could feel panic bubbling under the surface, his instinct told him that the paper shouldn’t be published, that they shou
ld be out looking for Annika, supporting her family, hunting for the Bomber. Anything, really.

  ‘We’re going to sell a hell of a lot of papers,’ Ingvar Johansson said as he entered the room. He sounded neither happy nor triumphant, just flat and sad, as if he were merely stating a fact. But Anders Schyman exploded.

  ‘How dare you?’ the editor-in-chief roared, grabbing hold of Ingvar Johansson, making him spill his coffee down one trouser leg.

  Ingvar Johansson didn’t even feel the burning coffee on his thigh, he was so shocked. He had never seen Anders Schyman lose control. The editor-in-chief glared right into the other man’s eyes for a moment, then pulled himself together.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, letting go and turning away with his hands over his face. ‘I’m not myself today. Sorry.’

  Jansson came into the room, last as usual, but without making his usual fuss. The night-editor looked pale and focused. This would be the hardest edition he had ever produced, he was fully aware of that.

  ‘Okay,’ Schyman said, looking at the few faces round the table: Picture-Pelle, Jansson and Ingvar Johansson. Entertainment and Sport had gone home. ‘What are we going to do?’

  Silence filled the room. They all had their heads bowed. The chair where Annika usually sat seemed to grow and fill the whole room. Anders Schyman turned away towards the night sky outside.

  Ingvar Johansson started to speak, quietly and intently.

  ‘Well, what we’ve got so far is a sort of embryonic stage, I suppose. There are a lot of editorial decisions to be taken on this edition …’

  He leafed uncertainly through his notes. The situation felt absurd, unreal. It was very rare for the people in the room to be personally affected by the subject under discussion. But now the discussion was about one of them.

  As Ingvar Johansson went slowly through his list, talking about what they had, the men seemed to find strength in their own routines. There was no escaping this, so the best thing they could do right now was to continue to do their jobs as well as they could. So this is what it feels like to be the colleagues of one of the victims, Anders Schyman thought as he stared out through the glass. It might be worth remembering how it feels when we come to cover other stories.