The Bomber

by Liza Marklund

  ‘You’re joking,’ Annika said sceptically. ‘Do you mean I could have pulled it out myself, whenever I felt like it?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘So what the fuck have I been doing, sitting here all night?’ she said angrily to herself.

  ‘Well, you did have a noose round your neck as well. That could have killed you just as effectively. You’ve got some pretty nasty marks on your neck, by the way. And if she’d let the wire touch the battery, even slightly, it would have been curtains for both of you.’

  ‘There’s a timer as well.’

  ‘Hang on. I’m just going to get the dynamite off your back. What the hell has she used to stick it on?’

  Annika sighed deeply.

  ‘Duct tape.’

  ‘Okay, so there’s no metal thread woven into the tape, then? Good, I’ll just tear through it here … There, all gone.’

  Annika felt the weight on her back vanish. She leaned back against the wall and pulled the tape off her stomach.

  ‘Anyway, you wouldn’t have got far, would you?’ the policeman said, pointing at the chains. ‘Do you know where the keys are?’

  Annika shook her head and pointed at Beata.

  ‘She must have them in her pocket.’

  The policeman took out his radio again and called the others back in now that the device was disarmed.

  ‘There’s more dynamite over there,’ Annika said, pointing.

  ‘Okay, we’ll take care of that as well.’

  He laid the taped bundle of sticks on top of the box, then went over to Beata. The woman was lying on her front, completely still, blood pouring from a hole in her shoulder. The policeman checked her pulse and lifted her eyelids.

  ‘Will she make it?’ Annika asked.

  ‘Who cares?’ the policeman said.

  And Annika heard herself say: ‘I care.’

  Two paramedics appeared in the tunnel, pushing a trolley between them. With the policeman’s help they lifted Beata onto the stretcher. One of the men went through her pockets and found the keys to the padlocks.

  ‘I can do that,’ Annika said, and the policeman tossed them over to her.

  The paramedics checked Beata’s vital signs as Annika unlocked the chains. She got up, her legs trembling, and watched the two men push Beata back towards the entrance to the tunnel. The woman’s eyelids fluttered open and she caught sight of Annika. It looked like she was trying to say something, but her voice was too weak.

  Annika watched the trolley until it disappeared round the corner. More police came into the tunnel. The air was soon full of chatter, voices rising and falling. She put her hands over her ears, feeling that she was close to collapse.

  ‘Do you need a hand?’ her source asked.

  She sighed, and felt as if she was going to start crying again.

  ‘I want to go home,’ she said simply.

  ‘You ought to go to hospital and get checked out,’ the policeman said.

  ‘No,’ Annika said firmly, thinking of her shit-stained trousers. ‘I have to go to Hantverkargatan first.’

  ‘Come on, I’ll help you, you’re still really groggy.’

  The policeman put his arm round her waist and led her towards the entrance. Annika suddenly realized something was missing.

  ‘Wait, my bag,’ she said, stopping. ‘I want my bag, and the laptop.’

  The man said something to a uniformed policeman, and someone passed Annika her bag.

  ‘Is this your computer?’ the policeman said.

  Annika hesitated. ‘Do I have to answer that right now?’

  ‘No, it can wait. Let’s get you home.’

  As they got closer to the entrance Annika caught sight of a wall of people in the darkness beneath the training ground. She stopped instinctively.

  ‘There’s only police and medical teams out there,’ the man beside her said.

  The moment she stepped out of the tunnel a flash went off right in her face. For a second she was completely blinded, and heard herself scream. When she could make out shapes again she saw the camera and the photographer. In two strides she had reached him, and knocked him to the ground with a powerful right hook.

  ‘You bastard!’ she yelled.

  ‘Bengtzon, for fuck’s sake, what’s got into you?’ the photographer exclaimed.

  It was Henriksson.

  She asked the police to stop at the corner shop, and bought some conditioner. Then she climbed the two flights of stairs to the flat, unlocked the front door and stepped into the silent hall. It felt like another age, as if several years had passed since she was last there. She pulled off all her clothes and let them fall in a heap in the hall. She took a towel from the toilet and wiped her stomach, backside and groin. Then she went straight to the shower and stood under it for a long time. She knew that Thomas was at the Grand Hotel, he would be home as soon as the children woke up.

  She put on fresh clothes. She bundled all the old ones, including her coat and shoes, in a big, black, plastic bin-bag. Dragging it behind her, she took the bag out and threw it in the bins down in the basement.

  After that, there was only one thing left to do before she got some sleep. She switched on Christina’s laptop. The battery was almost exhausted. She found a USB stick and copied the article she had written from the computer’s desktop. She hesitated for a few seconds, then double-clicked on Christina’s folder, the one marked ‘Me’.

  There were seven files, seven chapters which all started with a single word: Existence, Love, Humanity, Happiness, Lies, Evil and Death.

  Annika opened the first one and started reading.

  She had spoken to all sorts of people who had worked with Christina or were close to her. They had all contributed to the image of the Olympics boss that Annika had in her head.

  But in the end, Christina had chosen to speak after all.

  Epilogue

  Towards the end of June, six months to the day after the last bombing, Beata Ekesjö was found guilty in Stockholm City Courthouse of three charges of murder, four attempted murders, murder by arson, malicious damage, destruction constituting a public danger, theft, and driving without a licence. She didn’t say a word throughout the entire trial.

  The recommended sentence was that she be kept in a secure psychiatric hospital, and that strict conditions be set for her eventual parole. There was no appeal, and sentence was passed three weeks later.

  No one seemed to pay it any particular attention, but during the whole five weeks of the trial, the accused always wore the same piece of jewellery.

  It was a cheap, old garnet brooch of gold-plated silver.

  The article about how a civil engineer, Beata Ekesjö, became the serial killer known as the Bomber was never published.

  THE END

  Liza Marklund on The Bomber

  Early in 1995 I decided I needed to become a boss. It was a purely political decision. I was a reporter and columnist on the recently established newspaper Metro in Stockholm, and as usual I made it my business to track down stories about violence against women, child abuse, feminism, and other forms of oppression.

  One of the articles I wrote was a sarcastic piece entitled ‘Funny How There Are Never Any Women Around’, in which I poked fun at the fact that there never seem to be any women involved whenever there’s a promotion or a pay rise in the offing, or some other sort of official recognition.

  While this was all going on, the management of the Metro were trying to persuade me to accept the job of news-editor for the paper. I kept saying no. I explained that I was very happy to have power and influence over my own work, but that I had no ambitions to decide what other people should do. Most of all I wanted to write thrillers and grow strawberries.

  ‘Oh well,’ my bosses eventually said. ‘We’ll just have to find a bloke instead, if there are no women around this time either …’

  That made me think. If I was going to continue writing about women never being given the opportunity to get ahead with an
y credibility whatsoever, I had to accept the consequences of my own demands.

  So I became the news-editor.

  The following year I was appointed editor-in-chief.

  A year after that I was head-hunted to become the head of daily news broadcasting at TV4 in Sweden.

  Being a boss was much more fun than I had imagined, and also a great deal harder. It made me appreciate the very powerful forces at work within any organization: that people are prepared to do pretty much anything in order to gain power.

  During my years at TV4 I signed a contract with a publisher to write a series of crime novels featuring a central character called Annika Bengtzon: Annika after my eldest daughter, and Bengtzon after my favourite boss at the Expressen newspaper. I wanted my heroine to combine the innocence, sensitivity and beauty of my daughter with the professionalism and thick-skinned attitude of my former editor. Scared, vulnerable, caring and loving, but also ambitious, clumsy, aggressive and intelligent. Because that’s what women are like – because women are people, even if we aren’t always treated that way.

  I was planning to write five books. I had been gathering ideas over the years and I had various sketches and outlines on my computer, waiting to grow into books.

  Rather naïvely, I imagined that I would somehow be able to write crime novels alongside my normal work, at the same time as looking after three children and a husband who was the head of programming at a rival channel.

  It didn’t work out terribly well.

  To be honest, the job at TV4 wasn’t going terribly well either. Within the tough, male-dominated environment of the Stenbeck Group, which owned the Metro, I had never had any problems being a female boss. The only thing that mattered was the quality of my work, not what gender I was.

  At TV4 I wasn’t just a boss, but specifically a female boss. Which was considerably messier. I was the only woman in a management team of six, I was ten years younger than anyone else, and the only one who had been recruited from the enemy (the Stenbeck Group, in other words).

  There was a lot of discontent in the organization at that time. There were a number of self-appointed grandees swanning around like lords of the flies, and these individuals set out to sabotage things for the new management team. You didn’t have to be a genius to see that I would be right in the firing line, seeing as I seemed to be the weakest link in the chain.

  I was aware of all this and I thought I would be able to avoid taking their attacks personally, but that wasn’t a long-term solution. I resigned after just a year or so to devote myself to writing my books full-time.

  Everyone thought I was mad. There were crazy rumours about me getting the sack, because no one would be stupid enough to leave one of the most prominent jobs in Swedish journalism out of choice, just to sit in their bedroom writing novels.

  Well, once I was sitting there the next problem presented itself: could I actually write a novel? I’d never even tried before. I may have had a book published, based on the true story of a woman who had been forced to go into hiding because of the terrible abuse she had suffered, but that wasn’t the same as writing a novel from scratch.

  To make things easier for myself I decided to start writing about the subject that was closest to my own experience at the time: the book where Annika Bengtzon became a boss. Admittedly, this was the fourth in the series I had sketched out, but back then I didn’t even know if I’d be able to finish one book, so that was where I started.

  And things turned out okay in the end.

  The Bomber went on to spend eighteen months at the top of the Swedish bestseller charts.

  The management of TV4 bought copies to give to the employees of the newsroom as a Christmas present.

  British-Swedish film director Colin Nutley made a film adaptation of the book, which turned out to be one of the most successful Swedish movies during the decade.

  It has been translated into 30 languages, and the rights have been sold to 115 countries.

  I’m glad I’m no longer a boss.

  Having read The Bomber, you’ll understand why.

  Liza Marklund

  Stockholm, November 2011

  Author’s Acknowledgements

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarities between the characters in this novel and real people are purely coincidental.

  The newspaper the Evening Post does not exist either. It may reflect elements of many actual media companies, but is entirely the product of the author’s imagination.

  Locations and places visited by the characters in the novel are, however, described as they appear in reality, or would have appeared. This also applies to the Victoria Stadium and the Olympic village.

  Finally, I would like to thank everyone who has helped make this novel possible with their help and advice. They are:

  Arne Rosenlund from the Stockholm 2004 Olympic bid team, who explained the organization needed to apply for and host the Olympic Games.

  Per-Axel Bergman, project manager of the Hammarby Sjöstad development, who described plans for the Victoria Stadium and the Olympic village.

  Bosse Daniels, explosives expert with Frölanders Järn AB in Breds-Skälby outside Enköping, for advice and demonstrations of various sorts of explosives, detonators, fuse wires, timers, etc.

  Gunnar Gustafsson, head of operations at Comviq, for information about mobile phone signals.

  Lotta Wahlbäck, civil engineering student, for her insights into attitudes towards women, education and hierarchies within the construction industry.

  Lotta Byqvist, for descriptions of sales analysis at an evening newspaper.

  Lotta Snickare, of the Swedish Association of Local Councils, for introducing me to the work of the Association.

  Stefan Wahlberg, producer of the Swedish television programme Efterlyst (roughly equivalent to the BBC programme Crimewatch in the UK), for information about police radio channels.

  Robert Braunerhielm, managing director of MTG Publishing, and Annika Rydman, union representative of the Expressen newspaper, for advice about employment regulations and redundancy practices.

  Thomas Hagblom, of the Stockholm Klara sorting office, for explanations and demonstrations of the work of the Post Office on that site.

  Conny Lagerstedt, for information about growing organic tomatoes.

  Niclas Salomonsson, my literary agent, and his staff at Salomonsson Agency for all their fantastic work.

  And, above all, Tove Alsterdal, who read every line and commented, listened, discussed, analysed and provided invaluable advice and suggestions.

  Thank you, all of you!

  Any errors which may have crept in during the writing process are all my own.

  Liza Marklund

  Name: Eva Elisabeth Marklund (which only the bank statement calls her. To the rest of the world, she’s Liza).

  Family: Husband and three children.

  Home: A house in the suburbs of Stockholm, and a townhouse in southern Spain.

  Born: In the small village of Pålmark in northern Sweden, in the vast forests just below the Arctic Circle.

  Drives: A 2001 Chrysler Sebring LX (a convertible, much more suitable for Spain than Pålmark).

  Five Interesting Facts About Liza

  1. She once walked from Tel Aviv to London. It took all of one summer, but she made it. Sometimes she hitchhiked as well, sometimes she sneaked on board trains. When her money ran out she took various odd jobs, including working in an Italian circus. Sadly she had to give that up when it turned out she was allergic to tigers.

  2. Liza used to live in Hollywood. Not because she wanted to be a film star, but because that was where her first husband was from. In the early 1980s she had a two-room apartment on Citrus Avenue, a narrow side-street just a couple of blocks from Mann’s Chinese Theatre (the cinema on Hollywood Boulevard with all the stars’ hand and footprints). She moved back to Sweden to study journalism in Kalix.

  3. She was once arrested for vagrancy in Athens. Together with fifty other young p
eople from all corners of the world she was locked in a garage full of motorbikes. But Liza was released after just quarter of an hour: she had asked to meet the head of police, commended him on his work, and passed on greetings from her father, the head of police in Stockholm. This was a blatant lie: Liza’s father runs a tractor-repair workshop in Pålmark.

  4. Liza’s eldest daughter is an actress and model. Annika, who lends her name to the heroine of Liza’s novels, was the seductress in the film adaptation of Mikael Niemi’s bestseller Popular Music from Vittula. Mikael and Liza have also been good friends from the time when they both lived in Luleå in the mid-1980s. Mikael was one of Liza’s tutors when she studied journalism in Kalix.

  5. Liza got married in Leningrad in 1986. She married a Russian computer programmer to help him get out of the Soviet Union. The sham marriage worked; he was able to escape, taking his brother and parents with him. Today the whole family is living and working in the USA.

  Liza’s Favourites

  Book: History by Elsa Morante

  Film: Happiness by Todd Solondz

  Modern music: Rammstein (German hard rock)

  Classical music: Mozart’s 25th Symphony in G-minor. And his Requiem, of course.

  Idols: Nelson Mandela, Madeleine Albright and Amelia Adamo (the Swedish media queen).

  Liza’s Top Holiday Destinations

  1. North Korea. The most isolated country in the world, and the last iron curtain. Liza has seen it from the outside, looking into North Korea from the South, at the Bridge of No Return on the 38th parallel.

  2. Masai Mara, Kenya. Her family co-owns a safari camp in the Entumoto valley.

  3. Rarotonga, the main island in Cook archipelago in the South Pacific. The coolest paradise on the planet.

  4. Los Angeles. Going ‘home’ is always brilliant.

  5. Andalucia in southern Spain. The best climate in Europe, dramatic scenery, fantastic food and excellent wine. Not too far away, and cheap to fly to!

  Turn the page for a sneak preview of