The Final Word
Page 22
Schyman’s heart sank, but Wennergren laughed.
‘Sit down,’ the chairman said, dragging another chair over to the desk.
Bengtzon did so. She looked hollow-eyed and tired, on the brink of exhaustion. Her fingernails sparkled in a range of neon colours – they looked very odd, Schyman thought. ‘How are you doing?’ he asked.
‘Not great,’ she said. ‘My sister’s disappeared.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Anything for us?’ he asked.
‘Hopefully not,’ she said, and looked down at her nails.
‘What sort of impression did you get of Gustaf Holmerud?’ Wennergren asked, evidently untroubled by missing sisters.
‘He’s resourceful and manipulative,’ Annika said. ‘He appears to have gathered information on the reporters who’ve written about him – he mentioned personal details about me, Berit, Patrik and Bosse from the other evening paper. And I don’t think he’s innocent of all the crimes. I’ve done some research into the first murder he was suspected of committing, and I think he’s guilty of that one.’
‘So you don’t think we should do this?’ Schyman asked.
She bit her lip. ‘I think we should, actually. For one important reason – to get justice for the murdered women. Four murderers are at liberty as a result of Holmerud taking their crimes on himself. That’s why I don’t think we should dismiss him out of hand, and certainly not as things stand.’
‘But you don’t want to do it?’ Schyman asked.
‘He’s not going to accept me. He wants someone prestigious, someone with more authority.’
Wennergren nodded. ‘Naturally he wants this gambit to make an impression. He wants someone who’s going to be seen and heard in the public debate.’
‘But you know all about the case now,’ Schyman said to Annika. ‘Couldn’t you start by pulling together all the research on the subject, conducting background interviews, figuring out how this synchronization might work?’
‘So that someone else can scoop up the National Award for Journalism?’ She put her hands on the arms of her chair and pushed herself up. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she said, ‘I’ve got things to do.’
‘What’s that picture you’ve got over there?’ Schyman said, nodding towards her desk.
‘He’s a German artist, who claims that women can’t paint.’ She walked out, closing the door behind her.
Wennergren watched her thoughtfully as she walked towards the exit with a hideous bag over her shoulder. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It would be very good indeed if we could organize an appeal to the Supreme Court. Hold our banner high, right to the end. What do you think? Will we have time?’
‘That depends on when we close down,’ Schyman said.
‘Come up with some thoughts about that too, will you?’ Wennergren said, and gathered his things together.
The children went to bed late, kept awake by the early-summer light outside the window and anticipation of the following day’s celebrations to mark the end of the school year.
Once they had finally fallen sleep, Annika walked from room to room in the apartment, listening out for the lift and Jimmy. His flight from Brussels had been delayed because of a thunderstorm.
Contradictory images of Birgitta were gnawing at her: talented, abused, loved, alcoholic . . .
On impulse, Annika went to the wardrobe and dug out the box containing old letters and newspaper cuttings, and there it was: the shoebox of childhood photographs. She sat down in the living room with it. Her mother had always meant to put them in a nice photograph album, to paint a rosy picture of the past, but had never got round to it.
In the fading light from the window she leafed through the photos: endless summer evenings, Christmas Eves, birthdays. Birgitta always smiling at the camera, and the young Annika looking away. There was the picture from the beach at Tallsjön, the ice-creams and the blue rug, the towels, herself in profile, Birgitta smiling . . . Birgitta as a child was very like someone else. She reminded Annika of someone she had met very recently.
Destiny, of course.
She lowered the pictures to her lap and let the tears come.
What if Birgitta never came back, if something really had happened to her? What would become of her little daughter?
The lock in the front door rattled, and she wiped her cheeks.
‘Hello,’ Jimmy said quietly, as he put his overnight bag and briefcase on the hall floor. ‘Why are you sitting here in the dark?’
She smiled at him, even though he probably couldn’t see it. ‘I’m glad you’re home,’ she said.
Jimmy walked into the room, sat down beside her on the sofa, and kissed her. ‘Are all the little ones asleep?’
‘Only just. They’re really wound up about the last day of school.’
‘I can take them – you’re seeing the psychologist first thing tomorrow, aren’t you?’
She sat up, pulled him towards her and kissed him hard.
‘How are you?’ Jimmy whispered.
‘Not too great,’ she said.
He held her tight, gently rocking her. She let the last of the tears fall and subside. His arms were solid; he smelt of skin and warmth.
‘How did you get on?’ she asked.
Jimmy sighed and loosened his grip. ‘Brussels was okay, but I’m having a massive problem with Thomas.’
She looked up at him.
‘I don’t understand what the hell he’s playing at,’ Jimmy said. ‘He’s obstructing the conclusion of the inquiry, insisting on pushing through a change to the law that guarantees online anonymity for the very worst internet nutters for ever. I was forced to stop him presenting his proposals at tomorrow’s cabinet meeting.’
‘He won’t have been happy about that,’ Annika said.
‘You’re absolutely right. He looked like I’d just chopped his other hand off. Anyway, tell me, have you heard anything from your sister?’
Annika swallowed. ‘It turns out she actually went missing nearly three weeks ago. The manager of the shop she worked in withdrew a promise of a permanent job, so she went to a bar and got drunk. When she got home she had a row with Steven and stormed out, and he hasn’t spoken to her since, but they’ve exchanged texts. She’s ashamed and says she wants to be left alone, but she’s been trying to get hold of me.’
Jimmy whistled.
‘She was in Hälleforsnäs last week,’ Annika went on. ‘I bumped into Roland Larsson, and he saw her in a car in Malmköping. She was looking for somewhere to rent for the summer, possibly her old art teacher’s little cottage. Maybe she was thinking of moving home.’ She gulped. ‘And she phoned Harpsund and asked if she could rent Lyckebo.’
He blew into her hair. ‘Where did you see Roland?’
‘In the café of the discount store in Hälleforsnäs.’
‘Was he eating something likely to raise his blood pressure?’
Annika wrapped her arms round his neck, picturing Roland’s round face. ‘He seemed happy with life, wants us to go swimming with him and Sylvia in Mellösa.’
Jimmy kissed her neck. ‘You know you were his fantasy girl when we were teenagers?’ he said.
‘What about Birgitta?’ she said. ‘She was much prettier than me.’
‘You were sexier,’ Jimmy whispered.
They kissed each other again, more intensely this time . . .
FRIDAY, 5 JUNE
‘Is that what it’s usually like for you? When the attacks come?’
Annika folded her arms and crossed her legs. ‘I suppose so.’
‘Can you describe the process?’
Why? The psychologist had seen for herself how it happened.
‘What you’re suffering from is called panic syndrome,’ the psychologist said. ‘It’s by no means unusual. You’re not alone.’
As if that was going to make Annika feel better. ‘I don’t understand why I can’t stop them,’ she said. ‘I mean, I can feel them coming, but I can’t do anything about it.’
That was easy for the psychologist to say, Annika thought. Presumably she had her own problems, like everyone else, but considering that you needed top grades to study psychology, it was safe to assume that she’d had a secure, stable childhood. Probably upper middle class, raised in a nice suburb or a big flat in the centre of the city. She had two shiny gold rings on her left finger, so she was married, and the slack skin around her stomach, visible through her tight blouse, suggested at least one child. What could she really know about panic syndrome?
‘We were talking about your boyfriend, Sven, when the attack happened, and the way he used to—’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Annika said.
The psychologist closed her notebook. ‘I can understand that,’ she said. ‘But if you want to get to grips with these attacks, I’m afraid you’re probably going to have to.’
‘I can’t,’ Annika said.
The psychologist smiled. ‘You’re capable of more than you think,’ she said. ‘The feelings that hit you when you talk about it are perfectly normal. Your body’s reaction is being magnified, but it isn’t remotely dangerous. I can help you.’
Annika felt her hands relax. ‘How?’
‘I’ll catch you if you fall.’
A shiver of anticipation (aha! A basic emotion!) ran down Annika’s spine, and she cleared her throat. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said.
‘Why don’t you start by telling me how you first met Sven?’
The walls grew darker and began to close in on her.
‘What’s happening now?’ the psychologist asked. ‘What are you feeling?’
‘It’s . . . getting darker in here. A bit harder to breathe.’
‘On a scale of one to ten, how difficult does it feel?’
She paused (surprise! Another basic emotion!) and made an effort to consider how she felt. ‘Not too bad,’ she said. ‘Maybe . . . a two.’
‘Do you feel up to going on?’
‘I think so.’ More confident now. She rubbed her sweaty hands on her jeans. ‘He was the handsomest boy in the whole school, all the girls wanted him, and I was the one he chose.’ She felt herself stretching inside. ‘It was like winning the lottery,’ she said, ‘and I hadn’t even bought a ticket. I couldn’t understand what he saw in me, because I was so . . .’ Her throat tightened.
‘What were you?’ the psychologist asked.
‘Worthless,’ Annika said, and felt tears overflow, without any warning.
‘How are you feeling now?’ the psychologist asked. ‘Uncomfortable? Or sad, perhaps?’
Annika nodded, reached for a tissue and wiped her mascara. So here she was, after all, fishing about in the box of tissues.
‘How difficult is it, on the same scale?’
‘Three, maybe.’
The psychologist waited patiently. Annika blew her nose.
‘Now I’m going to ask a question that will activate your defence mechanisms,’ she said. ‘Try to feel what’s happening in your body. Pay attention to any sounds that arise, different physical sensations, if you feel hot or cold. Is that okay?’
Annika nodded again. The psychologist narrowed her eyes slightly and looked at her.
‘You said last time that Sven chased you, that he often threatened and hit you.’
Annika felt the pressure building inside her, as the darkness crackled at the edge of her field of vision.
‘Can you tell me about one occasion when that happened?’
‘There were so many.’
‘Pick one.’
The television on, sound turned down, a warm pizza carton in her hands, the smell of dough and oregano, the blow striking her on the left temple with no warning, the coffee-table hitting her shoulder, melted cheese on her arm, you fucking bitch, I saw you, what the fuck were you talking to Roland about, have you been fucking him?
The room vanished and was replaced by a dark grey gloom where she couldn’t breathe.
‘What are you feeling now? Can you describe it?’ The psychologist’s voice cut through the depths and opened up a sliver of clarity.
‘I’m falling,’ Annika heard herself say. ‘The greyness is swallowing me.’
‘On a scale, how difficult?’
How bad was the darkness, really?
‘A five, maybe . . .’
‘So you can go on?’
She was breathing with her mouth open, could feel the air hitting her throat. She could breathe. There was oxygen.
Her on top of him, him deep inside her, the punch from out of nowhere, I’m doing this for your sake! Bare feet in the snow, bleeding from the crotch.
‘Seven,’ she said, ‘hardly any air now. Eight.’
‘Do you feel able to go on?’
Darkness. The ironworks closing around her. Rust and ash. She can hear the sound of his breathing echo off the concrete walls, this is the end, she knows that, she won’t get away this time, you can’t leave me like this, what am I going to do without you? Annika, for fuck’s sake, I love you!
‘Ten,’ Annika managed.
‘You’re doing really well,’ the psychologist said, from somewhere beyond the shadows. ‘It’s okay for it to feel this hard. You don’t have to fight it.’
‘I don’t want to,’ she gasped.
‘Where are you? What can you see?’
Whiskas, oh, her sandy-coloured cat, no, no, no!
‘My cat,’ she said, unless she merely thought it.
The knife through the air, the cat’s dying scream, NO NO NO, the pipe, the flaking rust against her hands. Swinging it through the air, the sky shaking, the world turning red . . . She was standing there with her dead cat in her arms and let the darkness drain away.
Silence.
The blackness didn’t swallow her.
The room came back. The air was light and soft, meeting her nose and throat with a hint of dust and sunlight. The psychologist’s glasses sparkled.
‘I didn’t have a panic attack,’ Annika said in surprise, sounding almost disappointed.
‘It’s going to take practice, and more exposure, but you’ve every chance of getting rid of them for good now,’ the psychologist said.
Was it really that simple? She could hardly believe it. Annika looked at the window. ‘He killed my cat,’ she said.
The psychologist waited.
‘It wasn’t an accident,’ she said. ‘I wanted him to die. I killed him.’
She nodded.
‘Not for what he’d done to me, but for what he’d done to my cat.’
Anders Schyman had heard thunder rumbling in the distance as he drove in from the coast. Chased by lightning, he had cruised through the traffic. Now he was jogging through the newsroom, the staff milling about him, sacrificial lambs on their way to slaughter, unaware of the fate that awaited them. The air was so dense that it was almost impossible to inhale, and he was panting as he sat down at the editorial meeting.
Patrik Nilsson was obviously very excited as he handed out printed versions of the preliminary edition to the editors responsible for different sections of the paper, all the colleagues Schyman had fostered and trained, nurtured and drilled. Take responsibility, stretch the boundaries, see every issue from all sides. Anders Schyman sat down at the end of the conference table, closed his eyes and waited until the voices around him died away and the meeting came to order.
‘The trial of Ivar Berglund has been halted. The investigation is now being coordinated with the Spanish police,’ Patrik said, bouncing on to his chair. ‘Have we got hold of pictures of that Spanish businessman? Apparently he had five children, so there must be p
ictures of the kids.’
‘They’re in their fifties,’ the picture editor said, without looking up.
‘VICTIM OF THE TIMBERMAN,’ Patrik said, in his headline voice.
‘He hasn’t actually been found guilty yet,’ someone said – Schyman didn’t catch who it was.
‘We’ll put Police Suspect above it,’ Patrik said. ‘And then we need to talk to some frightened tourists in San Sebastián. How upset are they by all this brutality?’
‘He was from Bilbao . . .’
Patrik jotted something down. ‘We’ve already covered all aspects of the murder in Nacka, his background, the international suspicions. Where do we go next?’
‘Maybe someone could call that police professor and ask him for a comment,’ Carina, the head of entertainment, said.
‘He just makes things up,’ Sjölander said.
‘That doesn’t matter,’ Patrik said. ‘Get Berit to give him a call. What have we got in social news?’
‘There was a new opinion poll this morning, saying the government is on its way out.’
‘Any statistically supported change from the one the day before yesterday?’
‘Not exactly,’ Sjölander conceded.
‘So what’s our angle?’
‘We could ask the police professor. He might say something scornful about a government minister while he’s at it.’
‘Excellent! Sport?’
‘Zlatan’s spoken out about being a father – it’s a really strong story.’
They all made notes.
‘Entertainment?’
‘Tomorrow’s Sweden’s National Day, and Princess Madeleine still hasn’t got on a plane to cross the Atlantic. We’ve got people at Newark waiting to see if she gets on the SAS flight to Stockholm this afternoon.’
‘Who have we got lined up to be furious if she doesn’t come?’
‘Herman Lindqvist?’ Entertainment Carina suggested.
‘No, we called him last time. Check the list of last year’s Big Brother participants – they’ll say anything to drag out their fifteen minutes . . .’
Carina made notes. Schyman folded his hands over his stomach to stop himself punching his head with his fists.