The Long Shadow

by Liza Marklund

  ‘Fine, thanks. Alexander and I are in the city. We’ve been to Södermalm and the flat. Mum’s been there and made it really nice. Flowers everywhere, pelargoniums and African violets. We’re just going to get some coffee. Do you fancy coming along?’

  The bus set off with a jolt, and Annika had to grab onto an elderly man to stop herself falling over. ‘Sorry,’ she said, looking round for a seat, only to be met with rows of blank grey stares. At home her minimalist kitchen awaited her, with the uneaten toasted sandwiches, as well as the unmade beds. And she didn’t have any food in because she was about to go to Spain. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Where are you now?’

  ‘Central Station. We’re meeting Henrietta in an hour. Shall we see you at the coffee shop upstairs?’

  Alexander had grown. He was taller, heavier, and his face seemed darker, maybe because his blond curls had been cut off.

  ‘Hi,’ Annika said, crouching next to him. ‘My name’s Annika – I don’t know if you remember me? That’s a nice car you’ve got there. Can it drive on the floor?’

  He turned away and hid the toy car in his arms against Julia’s legs.

  ‘So you’ve started coming into the city?’ she said, standing up and giving Julia a quick hug.

  ‘We’ve done a bit of shopping, been to museums, and once we went to the children’s theatre. They say we’re making good progress. Next week we’re leaving the home to live on our own, in a little house a bit closer to the centre of the village. What would you like? Something to eat?’

  Julia had ordered juice for her son and two slices of Princess cake.

  Annika suppressed a grimace. ‘Chicken salad, please,’ she said to the waitress, ‘and a mineral water.’

  Julia asked for a cup of tea.

  Annika glanced at her from the corner of her eye. She looked completely different now compared to just a few months ago. Her hair was thicker and glossier, her movements more assured. There was depth in her eyes. She was starting to look like the police officer she had once been.

  ‘I’ve finished, Mummy,’ Alexander said, licking his spoon.

  ‘Do you want to play with your car for a bit? You could go over there near the toilets, but watch out for people’s legs.’

  They watched as he walked slowly towards the back of the coffee shop.

  ‘So he’s talking properly now?’ Annika said.

  ‘Only with me and Henrietta, but apparently that’s “normal” as well.’

  They laughed.

  ‘But things are moving in the right direction,’ Annika said.

  The waitress came over with the salad, water and tea. Annika unfolded a napkin and put it on her lap.

  Julia picked at a nail. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I miss him.’ She nodded towards her hands, and cleared her throat.

  Annika put down her knife and fork, unsure of what to say.

  ‘I know he treated me like shit and all that, but I really do miss him.’ She looked up at Annika with moist eyes that soon moved on to Alexander and his toy car. ‘You should see the pictures of him when he was little. Alexander’s just like him. It’s almost unnatural. We went to see David’s mother a few weeks ago and had a look at some old photograph albums.’

  ‘Does Alexander know his dad’s dead?’

  Julia nodded. ‘He’s started drawing pictures of him in Heaven. The clouds look like potatoes and the angels are stick figures with wings.’

  Annika couldn’t help smiling, and Julia laughed.

  ‘Those albums,’ Annika said. ‘They contained photographs of David when he was little?’

  ‘He looked so sweet, and his mum, Hannelore, was a real beauty.’

  ‘Were there any pictures of his playmates as well? Any of the other kids he grew up with?’

  Julia rested her chin on her hand and looked towards her son. He was pushing the toy car carefully around the grimy floor in front of the toilets. ‘They had such a lovely house out in Djursholm,’ she said. ‘Well, it was Torsten’s, of course. One of those big merchants’ villas, with an ornate veranda, rose-beds and raked gravel paths …’

  ‘Were there any pictures of Filip Andersson?’

  Julia blinked and let her hand fall to the table. ‘Filip Andersson? Why would he be there?’

  ‘He and David were childhood friends,’ Annika said. She didn’t mention Yvonne Nordin.

  Julia shook her head.

  ‘Did David ever mention anyone called Veronica?’ Annika asked. ‘Veronica Paulson, or Veronica Söderström?’

  Julia leaned back in her chair and peered down at the checkout on the floor below them. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

  ‘Does David’s mother ever mention a Veronica? Or Filip Andersson?’

  Julia sighed. ‘Hannelore isn’t well,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with her. It must be some sort of dementia, but there’s something else as well. She’ll soon have been in that home for twenty-five years. No, Alexander, not there. Stay between the tables.’

  Annika waited in silence as Julia went over to show her son where he could play. Then she sat down again and warmed her hands on the teacup.

  ‘How does David’s mother treat you and Alexander?’ Annika asked. ‘Does she understand who you are?’

  There was a chink of porcelain as Julia stirred her tea.

  ‘I don’t know if she recognizes us. I sometimes wonder if she’s ever really understood that I’m David’s wife, and Alexander his son. She used to recognize David, and she asks after him all the time. She doesn’t seem to understand that he’s dead.’

  ‘So what do you do? Tell her he’s gone?’

  Julia nodded. ‘Every time. She just stares at me, for ages, then starts talking about something completely unrelated. About things that happened in the sixties, old films and radio shows. Do you remember something called The Breakfast Club with Sigge Fürst?’

  Annika shook her head.

  ‘She can still sing the theme tune. She idolized Sigge Fürst. She seems to think he was German, which he wasn’t.’

  ‘But Hannelore was German, wasn’t she?’

  Julia nodded.

  ‘Jewish?’

  Julia tilted her head. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Nina once said she came to Sweden on the white buses full of refugees after the war. And David’s middle names, Ze’ev and Samuel, well, they could hardly be more Jewish.’

  ‘She refuses to talk about it. She’s never said a word about what it was like in the concentration camp.’

  ‘Did David have any cousins or other relatives?’

  Julia wrapped her cardigan more tightly round her. ‘Hannelore was the only member of the family who survived.’

  Annika was chewing a lettuce leaf that seemed to be swelling in her mouth. She took a gulp of water and managed to swallow it. ‘What happened to David’s father?’

  ‘He’s been out of the picture for the past forty years. David grew up with Torsten, Torsten Ernsten.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘A Finnish-Swedish businessman. He and Hannelore weren’t married. He used to come and go pretty much as he liked.’

  ‘Okay,’ Annika said. ‘That sounds complicated, particularly out in Djursholm in the sixties. Do you have any contact with Torsten, these days?’

  Julia shook her head. ‘He disappeared when David was eighteen. That was when things started to go wrong for Hannelore.’

  ‘Disappeared?’

  ‘He went off on a business trip and never came back. Soon after that Hannelore was put in the home.’

  ‘What sort of business trip? Where to? What business was he in?’

  Julia shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’

  Annika looked intently at her. What was this peculiar family Julia had married into? Hannelore, a German Jew, alone in the world, with a son who had been childhood friends with a famous financier and an international glamour model. The son gets murdered, the model gets murdered, and the others either join the police or become murderers. She leaned acros
s the table. ‘When you lived in Estepona,’ she said, ‘and David was working undercover on the Costa del Sol, did you ever meet Sebastian Söderström and his family?’

  Julia stared at her, wide-eyed. ‘The ice-hockey player?’ she said. ‘The one who died? No! Just because David was famous from television it didn’t mean we socialized with other famous people. We spent all our time alone, when David wasn’t away for work, of course. When he was away I was left by myself …’ She shuddered and looked quickly at her watch.

  Annika did the same. Ten minutes left until Julia was supposed to meet Henrietta.

  ‘We should probably get going,’ Julia said, standing up and taking her son’s outdoor clothes from the back of his chair and heading towards the toilets. She put them on him as if he were a doll.

  ‘It was lovely to see you,’ she said, as they walked past Annika on their way to the stairs. ‘In June we’re going to start spending the daytime in our flat. Maybe you could call in.’

  ‘Of course,’ Annika said automatically.

  Julia took a pen and a scrap of paper out of her handbag. ‘This is our home phone number,’ she said, writing something on what looked like an old bus-ticket. ‘We went ex-directory when David started appearing on television and everything went completely mad, with calls at all hours of day and night …’

  She gave Annika a hug, took her son by the hand and led him down the stairs.

  Annika remembered her almost untouched chicken salad and realized how hungry she was. She ate the chicken and vegetables but left the pasta: these days you were supposed to avoid carbohydrates rather than fat.

  She walked home along crowded pavements with a sense of anticipation in her gut.

  Wednesday, 27 April

  17

  Annika gasped as she stepped out of the plane. The heat and the stench of aviation fuel made her lungs burn and her eyes water.

  Lotta, the photographer, appeared beside her. ‘Oh!’ she said in delight. ‘It reminds me of Tehran. Did I mention I used to work there?’

  ‘Yes, you did,’ Annika said, hoisting her bag onto her shoulder and going down the steps towards the bus that would take them to the terminal building.

  The air above the cement apron was quivering and planes in the distance looked distorted, as if they were behind uneven glass. Annika was breathing through her mouth. How hot was it? A hundred degrees?

  ‘Everything in Tehran was extremely photogenic,’ Lotta said, squeezing aboard the bus and pushing the rucksack containing her photography equipment in the face of an old lady. ‘Things seem much more rigid here. I mean, you want to try to capture the expressions, the character of the buildings and people. Other cultures are so wonderful!’

  Annika had already worked out that Thomas wasn’t on the flight, but she checked again to make sure, although civil servants didn’t fly with low-cost airlines when they were on government business.

  They got their bags after just a ten-minute wait, and headed for the car-hire hall. Annika was aiming for Helle Hollis at the far end and was almost there when she realized that the photographer wasn’t following her. She turned and went back. She found Lotta at the Avis counter. ‘Large companies are great,’ Lotta said. ‘They operate everywhere, and offer a sort of continuity that I think is important when so much else around you is new.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Annika said. ‘I thought I’d be doing the driving.’

  ‘As a photographer I’m used to being the chauffeur.’ She hired a Ford Escort, the same model Annika had had last time. They went down into the garage to find the car. Annika switched her mobile on, and found one message on voicemail. Carita Halling Gonzales said she was busy on Tuesday and Wednesday, but that she could work on Thursday, and possibly Friday.

  ‘Let’s go and check in at the hotel first,’ Lotta said. ‘It always feels good to get unpacked and settled before you start work.’

  Annika glanced at her watch. ‘The conference centre’s only five minutes from here,’ she said, ‘and the press conference starts in three-quarters of an hour. We won’t have time to get to Puerto Banús and back before then.’

  Lotta raised her eyebrows. ‘Who arranged such a tight schedule?’

  Annika shrugged.

  They found the car and squashed their luggage into the small boot. Lotta got behind the wheel, started the engine and headed for the exit. Annika opened the glove-compartment and pulled out the contract Lotta had tucked in. Avis was three times the price of Helle Hollis.

  The sunlight outside the garage was blinding, eroding all shapes. Annika and Lotta fumbled for their sunglasses.

  ‘Where do I go?’ Lotta said, braking.

  Annika squinted through the windscreen. Either Avis used an entirely different salida from Helle Hollis or the building work had proceeded at such a pace that her earlier frame of reference had gone. The only thing that was the same was the chaos of cars and people, trucks and cement-mixers. Temporary signs in yellow and red shouted directions from gantries and pillars. ‘Do you want me to drive?’ Annika said.

  ‘Just tell me where to go!’

  ‘Aim for Málaga,’ Annika said, turning on the air-conditioning. ‘Try to get up onto the A7, northbound. It should be the first or second exit.’

  The driver of the car behind them sounded his horn. Stressed, Lotta found the wrong gear and the engine stalled. Annika shut her eyes and gritted her teeth.

  The Palacio de Ferias y Congresos de Málaga turned out to be smaller than Annika had expected from the pictures on the website. The building had been thrown up in a rundown industrial area and was a futuristic affair in glass, steel and aluminium. The roof was shaped like a wave, and the walls resembled the folds of a concertina. Annika remembered the virtual tour and aimed for the smaller hall where the press conference was due to take place.

  ‘What a clichéd building,’ Lotta said, behind her. ‘It strikes me that it personifies some sort of Mediterranean macho idea, with an excess of style and elaborate construction methods …’

  ‘There’s plenty of that down here,’ Annika said, as she walked under the series of multi-coloured pipework hanging above the entrance. Lotta was right, she thought, as she entered the building. It was overblown, all cladding and lamps and orange pillars. She had to stand in a disorganized queue, then identify herself and undergo airport-style security checks.

  The conference hall was on the floor above. She heard Lotta’s footsteps slowing, and by the time she reached the doors the other woman had stopped.

  ‘What is it?’ Annika said, turning.

  ‘Press conferences are never very photogenic,’ she said. ‘I’ll go outside and try to capture the soul of the building.’

  Annika looked into the hall. Blue chairs. Irregular walls of cherry-coloured wood, sharp angles, a blue podium with four chairs. The ceiling was heavily ornamented. Would anything from inside the press conference ever be published? Men in suits sitting in a row? Hardly. A picture would only be useful if anything unforeseen happened – if something caught fire or the participants started fighting.

  She checked that she had her mobile handy. If anything did happen, it would probably do the job. ‘Okay,’ she said, taking a copy of the press release from a pile and walking into the hall.

  She took a seat right at the back, switched off her mobile, and watched a sea of people file into the rows of seats. There were media representatives from all over Europe, but the order of precedence seemed to be the same as at press conferences in Stockholm.

  The television teams installed themselves at the front with the unquestioning authority of those who knew they were most important. The radio journalists buzzed about in the row behind them, making a huge song and dance of putting their microphones on the podium and adjusting their digital recorders to get the sound-levels right. The newspaper photographers hung around in the gangways between the seats. Behind the radio journalists sat the newspaper editors, who wanted to be seen, she knew from their studiously relaxed posture and self-importa
nt expressions. Their purpose in life was to demonstrate to their colleagues how important they were, perhaps by shouting muddled and uninteresting questions at the podium once the radio lot had finished.

  She looked for Thomas but saw no sign of him.

  Four men walked up behind the table on the podium: an EU commissioner, a Spanish lawyer, a Dutch lawyer and a moderator.

  She groaned inwardly. Lotta had made the right decision.

  The press conference was long-winded, and at one point Annika nodded off for a minute or so. It was about the coordination of legislation covering financial crimes throughout EU member states, everything from accounting offences to tax evasion, VAT fraud, credit-card fraud, and a duty of disclosure for banks and bureaux de change. The various countries involved first had to compare their existing legislation, work out what the differences were, then discuss who was going to change what so the bad guys couldn’t go on doing as they liked by moving from one country into the next.

  There must be a way of expressing that more simply, Annika thought, as she stood up with everyone else. There was still no sign of Thomas.

  Then she felt a hand at the base of her spine.

  ‘Hello,’ Niklas Linde said in her ear. ‘Would you mind accompanying me?’

  ‘Am I under arrest?’ Annika asked.

  ‘Definitely,’ the police officer said.

  They stepped out into the vestibule outside the hall. Linde put his hands on either side of her neck and kissed her, first on one cheek, then the other. ‘Welcome back,’ he said.

  She laid her right palm over his fingertips. ‘Is Knut here as well?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s at the tapas bar.’

  ‘Annika?’

  The voice came from behind her. She took a deep breath. Linde let go of her. She turned. ‘Hi, Thomas,’ she said. He was wearing one of the new suits he had bought after the fire, dark, a bit shiny, Italian. Red tie, Rimowa briefcase, freshly polished shoes. She smiled at his tousled hair and blue eyes, but he didn’t see. He was staring at the policeman beside her.

  ‘Have you met Niklas Linde?’ she said. ‘He’s a narcotics police officer and works down here.’