Then there had to be servants: people who emptied chamber pots and worked in the fields. Zine the foreman had to have someone to be foreman over, after all.
She put her pen down and sat on the bed. She pulled out the book that Suzette had given her in the library, Siv Hoffman’s labour of love, A Place in the Sun. She pulled the pillow out from under the blanket and put it against the wall to cushion her back.
She opened the first chapter and started to read.
As she read about The Princess in the Castle Among the Clouds, The Little Troll Girl with the Matches, The Angel at Gudagården, Falling through the Sky, Death on the Beach, and other strange tales, the Atlantic rain lashed the window-panes and the wind tore at the plants in the fields around the farm.
38
In the afternoon it was so dark in the room that she had to light the little lamp so she could finish the book. She read the last page and didn’t know what to think. Could that really have happened, or was it just a piece of fiction with literary pretensions?
A flash of lightning followed by a clap of thunder made her get up and look out at the mountains. They were completely black. More lightning chased across the sky, to the sound of rumbles and cracks. What would she do if a bolt hit the house and set it on fire?
She recalled the smoke and flames on the other side of her bedroom door in Djursholm, how she had opened the window and lowered the children in the bedclothes. Here she was trapped like a rat in a trap.
A terrifying crack of thunder shook the whole house, almost making her lose her balance. She screamed, took the three paces to the door and yanked at the handle. It was as unresponsive and solid as the door of a bank-vault.
She ran to the window and peered intently at the lock on the french windows. They opened outwards. The lock was part of the handle, in the middle of the windows, at waist-height. She pushed at it, hard. It didn’t move.
She looked down at the farm. The lights had gone out. A power cut.
She tried to calm herself. She’d never been scared of lightning before.
The house was made of stone and the roof was tiled, so it couldn’t be particularly flammable.
But it wasn’t the weather that was her main problem: it was her own foolhardiness.
She sat on the bed again and tried to think carefully.
Schyman knew she was on the Costa del Sol, as long as he had received the email with her articles. It wasn’t absolutely certain that they’d got through.
If there was any kind of search for her, then passenger lists and Passport Control would show that she had entered Morocco. At least they’d know which country she was in.
Her service provider’s list of calls made on her mobile would show that she had called Rickard Marmén, and he could lead them to the muqaddam in Asilah. And he, in turn, could tell them that she had been asking about Fatima’s farm.
So she hadn’t disappeared without trace, even if it had been incredibly stupid not to tell anyone where she was going.
There was a crack of thunder above her head and she ducked instinctively.
How long would it be before anyone started looking?
Monday at the earliest, when she was supposed to pick up the children.
There was another crash, not thunder this time but something else, a shorter, sharper noise from below.
She went to the window, leaned forward and peered down at the yard. The little lantern was reflecting off the glass so she moved it aside and blew it out. Then she huddled up and peered out through the bars of the window. The gate in the wall was half open. The metal at the bottom was warped and smoking.
She frowned. The metal gate was actually smoking.
The bang had been an explosion. Someone had blown the lock off the gate.
She saw movement in the yard, black figures sliding through grey sheets of rain. Two, no, three moving towards the house. Then something flared and she heard a different sort of noise.
She gasped. They had guns and were using them.
She fought an intense impulse to crawl away and hide under the bed. Instead she pulled her dark jacket on over her pale T-shirt so as not to be seen. She pulled the hood over her hair and cupped her hands against the glass.
There was more noise, several shots this time, and fire was returned from somewhere inside the house. She heard a scream and one of the shadows fell: one of the intruders. Zine or his son must have hit him.
The two other shadows zigzagged across the yard, now firing constantly. The flashes from the barrels lit them so she could see their faces.
They were Europeans.
Another man fell, the one closest to the house. She saw him land on his back immediately below her window.
The remaining man stopped, pulled himself up to his full height, and seemed to be thinking. Then he walked calmly towards the house and disappeared from Annika’s field of vision. She waited, and after a short while he reappeared. He had someone else with him, a man or a child, and was dragging him by the hair into the middle of the yard where he let go. The youth lay squirming on the ground – it looked as if he had been hit by one of the shots.
Annika caught a glimpse of his face, contorted by pain and fear. It was Ahmed, the foreman’s son. The black-clad man leaned forward, aimed the barrel of his gun at the boy’s head and fired. Ahmed twitched, then lay still. Annika thought she was going to throw up.
The gunfire ceased. That must mean the foreman had been disarmed as well, and was possibly dead.
The man stayed where he was in the yard. She saw him lift his head and study the building in front of him, and leaped back into the room so he wouldn’t see her in the window.
She waited a minute before she dared to look out again.
The man was gone.
She heard a shout from one of the floors below her, then more screaming.
Suzette, she thought, the little boys, Amira. Oh, God, he’s going from room to room, shooting everyone.
Her pulse was racing and she assumed she was about to die. Soon he would have worked his way through the lower floors and then he would come up to where she was.
She forced away her panic. Shouting and screaming, which she had been on the verge of doing, would be stupid.
She had to get out of there. Breaking the window was out of the question: there were forty little leaded panes of glass in each side so she’d never be able to squeeze out. She had to find a way to open the french windows and get down to the ground.
She had used bedclothes before and survived. And at least there wasn’t a fire this time.
She tried throwing herself at the window-frame but lacked force because she didn’t have enough space to take a proper run-up.
Then she glanced at the desk and knew what to do. She pushed it towards the windows, got up on top of it, shuffled forward so that her feet reached the lock, pulled her knees back as far as possible, then kicked as hard as she could. The thunder rumbled. The doors creaked and the desk moved back a bit. She took aim again and kicked four more times. Then she had to get down and push the desk back into place.
After the seventh kick the door flew open with a crash. The thunder answered. Rain swept into the room and she was drenched in an instant. In two swift movements she tore down the pale-yellow curtains. She pulled the sheets off the bed, noting to her relief that they were made of decent linen. Fingers trembling, she tied them together with reef knots – thank God she’d been in the Scouts. She attached one end firmly to the balcony railing, and tossed the other over the edge.
It stretched almost to the ground, swaying in the gusts of rain.
Would the rain make the fabric slippery?
Probably.
She hesitated.
Maybe it was better to stay in the room. Maybe the man wouldn’t come up this far.
At that moment she heard another shot below. She took three deep breaths, then stepped out onto the little balcony and climbed over the edge.
It was a very long way to the ground.
She crouched on the other side of the railing, grabbed the curtain and tested to see if it would hold. It did. The rain lashed at her face, making it hard to see. Well, she didn’t need to look, not downwards at any rate, just needed to lower herself down the wall until she reached the ground. As long as she could get over her fear of heights …
She let go of the balcony railing and almost fell straight away. She was breathing so hard that it drowned the claps of thunder. She clung on for dear life and realized she had to let go with one hand. She eased her grip. The fabric burned her palms. Then her feet touched the wall. She steadied herself and began to lower herself down, one step, two steps, another step, far too big. She made it past the first knot, past the next floor, as her arms started to ache. She passed the second knot. She must be halfway now. Her arms were getting numb so she loosened her hold a fraction, then the third knot, and she lost her grip. She tumbled to the ground and landed awkwardly on one foot. The gravel cut into her lower arms. She lay there quite still, just listening. The rain was still pouring down and she was soaked to the skin. Her ankle hurt badly.
She could hear voices. From inside the house.
She sat up. It seemed lighter on the ground than it had been up in her room. She could see the stable-block as a dark shape maybe thirty or forty metres away. The mangled gate was creaking in the wind far behind her, and off to one side, in front of her, the door to the house was open.
With a twisted ankle she wasn’t going to be able to run away from anyone. Getting out through the gate and hiding among the hash plants was one option, if she could make it that far. The stable was closer, but then she’d have to go right across the open yard, and she didn’t know if it would be unlocked.
She heard a child’s heartrending scream from inside the house. She looked towards the open door.
There was a faint light on the floor above.
Swaying slightly, she got to her feet. Just a couple of metres away from her lay one of the men who had been shot, staring up at the sky. The rain was falling on his open eyes.
She limped over to him. She recognized those eyes. Pale, they had laughed at her as they cut into her left forefinger.
The man’s gun was by his side, some sort of automatic rifle that she’d only ever seen before in American action films. She picked it up. It was astonishingly heavy.
Ahmed lay ten metres away. Half of his head had been blown off. She looked away.
In a flash of lightning she saw something move by the gate. She stiffened, staring intently through the veils of rain towards the opening in the wall.
Then she saw it again. She was quite sure. It was the shape of a person running past the shattered gate.
Her legs crumpled and she dropped the gun. Oh, God, oh, God, just don’t let them shoot me.
On all fours she crawled towards the wall of the house, got to her feet, then ran at a crouch towards the doorway with adrenalin pounding in her ears.
By the entrance she stopped and peered inside the hall. She couldn’t see anything, and threw herself into the darkness of the house, pressing her back to the wall. She slumped down, gasping, and put a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. The thunder rumbled on. The child was crying. She glanced out through the doorway but couldn’t see anyone outside.
She couldn’t stay where she was. She got up and tried to put weight on her foot. It hurt badly, but it was just about bearable.
As quietly as she could she moved away from the front door towards the stairs. She grabbed the banister and peered upwards.
The voices were coming from one of the rooms up there. She could hear a man’s voice, then a woman’s. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but it sounded like English.
She went up a few steps.
‘You emptied the accounts in Gibraltar. Where’s the money?’ The man’s voice, almost shouting.
‘Yes, I emptied them,’ Fatima replied, her voice thick with fear. ‘I warned her about the raids in Algeciras, but Astrid wouldn’t listen. I knew what was coming, and I saved what I could.’
Annika took several more steps.
‘You sold us out,’ the man said. ‘You wanted to force us to use your supply chain, with your grotesque overpricing. When Astrid refused you tried to get rid of us.’
She recognized the voice. It belonged to Filip Andersson.
Annika used the banister to heave herself up the last few steps. The stone landing of the smartest floor of the building was in darkness. The voices were coming from the room next to the library where she had had breakfast. She looked down at the thick carpet under her feet: it seemed to run the whole length of the hallway.
‘The police had you all under surveillance,’ Fatima said. ‘I warned Astrid, but she refused to listen. She said she had no choice.’
The double-doors were ajar, letting a thin strip of light out into the hallway. Annika moved along the wall to squint through the gap between the door and its frame into a large sitting room. Filip Andersson was standing with his back to the door. A white shirt collar stuck out from inside his black waterproof jacket. A pool of water had formed by his feet.
‘Of course she felt under pressure,’ Filip Andersson said. ‘She’d withdrawn the money to finance that fucking tennis club.’
Annika moved so she could see more of the room. It was dimly lit by a candelabrum, with two candles, and two oil-lamps. At the far end of the room Fatima was sitting on a flowery chintz sofa with a little boy in her arms. One of her grandchildren, of course. Suzette and another girl, presumably Amira, were sitting together in an armchair, holding each other’s hands. They were terrified. Two other women were standing in front of them, presumably servants, crying. Beside them stood a man and the woman she had seen in the yard that morning. She was holding the other little boy: Maryam and her husband, Abbas, with one of their sons.
It looked as if Filip Andersson had gathered together everyone he could find and ordered them into the sitting room. No one seemed to have been shot or injured.
‘You shouldn’t have brought in such big shipments,’ Fatima said. ‘You should have let me handle it.’
‘And you should have kept your hands off the Gibraltar accounts. Where’s the money?’
Fatima didn’t answer.
‘I’ll count to ten,’ Filip Andersson said. ‘Then I’ll start with the kid in your lap. One.’
Annika pulled back. There was a rushing sound in her ears and her hands were trembling. What should she do? Call someone? There must be a phone somewhere. She hadn’t seen one, or any phone lines leading to the house.
She looked down the stairs: nothing but darkness.
‘Two.’
Annika realized what Filip Andersson was about to do. He was going to kill all of them, regardless of whether or not he got the money. The little boys, Suzette, Amira, the weeping servants: he was going to shoot them all just as he had executed Ahmed.
What should she do?
‘Three.’
He wasn’t standing far from the door, two, two and half metres.
She looked round the hallway.
It was dark: she could hardly make out anything.
She limped quickly towards the library and blinked at the shadows inside.
She heard his voice from within the sitting room.
‘Four.’
She focused her eyes and looked round the room, at the leather sofas, the books and the table. The tray was gone.
Then she saw the bronze ashtray on the marble table between the sofas.
She limped over and picked it up. It was just as solid and heavy as it looked. Her foot hurt even more as she limped back towards with the door with it in her hands.
‘Five. Where’s the money?’
‘It’s not your money, Filip. We can come to an agreement, you and me. Put the gun down and let the children and servants go. Then we can sit down and work out a solution.’
‘Six. I negotiate my way. Try asking Astrid. Ask her who owns all her cheris
hed fucking codes and records and company deeds, these days. Seven.’
Annika hopped back towards the sitting room on one leg.
‘Filip, there’s been more than enough death and misery now.’
‘Eight.’
‘Okay, Filip, I’ll tell you where the money is.’
Annika peered into the room again. Filip Andersson was heading across the floor towards Fatima and the child, with light, almost playful steps.
He’s enjoying this, she thought. He’s going to do it.
‘Nine.’
She’d only get one chance.
Annika raised the ashtray above her head, took a deep breath, then rushed into the room. Filip Andersson was three metres away. The muscles in her arms ached, and pain shot up her leg every time her foot hit the floor.
One of the weeping women saw her and screamed.
With all the strength she could muster she smashed the ashtray into Filip Andersson’s head.
The man had noticed her in the corner of his eye. He turned round just as the bronze ashtray hit him.
Annika saw at once that she had failed.
The ashtray didn’t hit him on the back of the head, but on his ear and shoulder. He staggered and dropped his gun but remained standing.
‘What the …?’
Annika threw herself forward and grabbed the gun, the same as the one lying beside the dead man outside. She tried to shove it away, towards the others, but Filip Andersson was faster than her. He grabbed the weapon from her and kicked her, and she ended up on her back beneath him. He aimed the gun at her forehead. She saw his face twitch as he recognized her.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ he said, sounding genuinely surprised.
Annika couldn’t bring herself to answer. She was close to peeing in terror.
Filip Andersson put a hand to his ear, and found blood on his fingers. She saw the surprise fade from his face as fury took over. ‘I warned you,’ he said. ‘You really shouldn’t stick your nose into things that are none of your fucking business.’
The Long Shadow Page 42