‘I don’t want to wear this. It’s horrid.’ Ellen tugged at the zip of the raincoat.
‘I know you don’t like it,’ Annika said, ‘but you’ll be soaked before you get to school if you wear the other one.’
Kalle tutted by the door. Frustration bubbled inside Annika. Kalle was always ready on time, and ended up all sweaty and annoyed while Ellen made a fuss about insignificant things.
‘It’s got a scratchy zip,’ Ellen said.
Annika pulled it down a few centimetres so it wasn’t touching the little girl’s chin. ‘Would you rather have to sit in school all day when you’re wet and cold? And then get ill and not be able to go riding?’ She guided the child towards the door. ‘If you don’t catch the next bus you’re going to be late.’
The children still went to school on Kungsholmen, the one they had attended before she and Thomas separated, but they had to spend half an hour getting there when they were living with Annika. Ellen gave her a wounded look as she closed the front door. Annika heard their footsteps disappear down the stairwell.
She breathed out.
Jimmy had set off for work early that morning, so it was up to her to see that Jacob and Serena left home on time. They went to a school just a few blocks away, so didn’t need to leave for another quarter of an hour.
‘Jacob?’ she called down the corridor. ‘Serena? Are you nearly ready?’
No answer.
She went back into the kitchen and made another cup of coffee, got out her mobile and went onto the other evening paper’s website. While the coffee was filtering through the machine into the mug, she skimmed through their coverage of the Lerberg case. They were pushing hard with the missing wife, probably because they had managed to get hold of a genuinely charming picture of Nora and two of the children.
The machine fell silent, the signal that the coffee was ready. Jimmy had a machine that made coffee from small, coloured aluminium capsules, ridiculously expensive and presumably anything but environmentally friendly, but the coffee was good. (Mind you, who was she to judge that? She liked the tar that came out of the machine in the newsroom.) Once Jimmy had asked her to buy more capsules from the company’s concept store on Kungsgatan, which had been something of an otherworldly experience. The shop was like an aircraft hangar. When she’d stepped through the doors she’d been greeted by three young people with ambition to be models, dressed in Armani suits, competing to see who could give her the biggest smile. They were standing behind a counter made of metal and dark hardwood, and welcomed her in chorus. One handed her a queue ticket, with the sort of gesture that suggested she was being given a Fabergé egg. Then she was let into the shop itself – and gawped. To say that it was high-concept design was an understatement: marble floor, dark wood, large television screens on which George Clooney wandered about drinking coffee. Another twenty or so models in similar suits were standing behind a kilometre-long counter selling those little capsules at astonishing prices. All of a sudden she became aware of how wet and greasy her hair was, and how much mud she had on her shoes. She had walked out, unable to bring herself to buy their coffee, but drinking it was no problem at all.
‘Nora would never leave her children,’ she read in a headline on the other paper’s website. Bosse had written the article: he had managed to dig out a few other ‘friends’, similar to Annika’s group of mums. Bosse’s women – four in total, smartly dressed, neatly coiffed, holding pretty children in their arms – declared that Nora was very popular in the area, an example to them all in her devotion to her husband, children and housework. She had lived a quiet, unostentatious family life when she wasn’t socializing with neighbours and friends … Naturally they, like Annika’s mums, hoped that Nora would soon be home, and that Ingemar would recover, so that their community could settle down again and life could return to normal.
Annika couldn’t recall ever having lived a ‘normal’ life. As for calm, where on earth could she find that?
‘Jacob, can you come here?’ she heard Serena call from the bedroom corridor.
She lowered her mobile, hesitated, then put her cup down and went to Serena’s room.
The girl had chosen a patterned cotton dress with buttons up the back, and she couldn’t reach the two top ones.
‘Hang on, I’ll give you a hand,’ Annika said, forcing herself to sound cheerful.
Serena spun round and took a step back. ‘Get out,’ she said.
Annika stopped. ‘I just want to—’
‘Jacob can help me. We don’t need you.’
Annika felt all the air go out of her lungs. She gasped. She ought to say something, but what? She bit her lip and moved aside to let Jacob into the room. Serena turned round and Jacob fastened the two top buttons. ‘Thanks, Jacob,’ she said airily, then pushed past Annika and headed for the hall.
Annika stayed in the room until she heard the front door close. She shut her eyes for a few seconds, waiting for the pressure in her chest to ease, but it didn’t.
What have I ever done to you, you little bitch?
That thought eased the pressure slightly, and made it easier to breathe again.
Then she started to cry.
*
Ingemar Lerberg was lying in an ordinary hospital bed, slightly raised at the head, his arms lying slightly away from his body, elbows bent. Nina looked at him through the glass panel in the hospital door. The ventilator had been disconnected, but there were a number of tubes leading from his body to a drip and various monitoring devices. He was dressed in a white hospital gown, no socks. A white blanket covered his legs and torso, but his feet were bare. She couldn’t help staring at the soles of his feet. They were badly swollen and discoloured blue, yellow and green, criss-crossed with wounds and covered with thick, black scabs. He had a dark patch over one eye.
Senior consultant Kararei came hurrying along the corridor.
‘Is he awake?’ Nina asked.
‘He regained consciousness intermittently during the night. He’s had some sleep this morning, but he was awake a short while ago.’
Nina studied his body. ‘He’s not bandaged,’ she said.
‘Only over the scars from his operation,’ the doctor said. ‘You can’t bandage ribs, and the soles of the feet heal best if they’re left uncovered.’
‘Can he talk?’
‘He understands what we say, but he’s been intubated and had a tracheotomy in his throat for the ventilator, so his larynx is badly swollen. You can have a few minutes with him, but no more than that.’
‘Why is the patch black?’
The doctor looked at her quizzically.
‘Everything else is white,’ Nina said. ‘Why is the patch over his eye black?’
Dr Kararei blinked. ‘I honestly don’t know,’ he said, pushing the door open and walking into the room.
Nina followed him. A cool breeze swept past her out into the corridor.
‘Ingemar,’ the doctor said, walking over to the man. ‘I’ve got a police officer here who’d like to talk to you. They’re trying to find whoever did this to you. Do you feel up to seeing her?’
The man in the bed turned his head slightly and his single eye, hazy and bloodshot, focused on Nina.
‘My name’s Nina Hoffman,’ she said. ‘I’m from the National Crime Unit.’
The eye stared at her.
‘I understand that it’s hard to speak,’ she said. ‘Can you nod your head?’
The man didn’t move.
‘Can you blink?’
The man blinked his swollen eyelid. She breathed out, suddenly conscious that she had been holding her breath.
‘Blink once for yes, and shut your eye completely for a few seconds if you want to say no,’ Nina said. ‘Can you do that?’
The man blinked once.
‘Do you feel up to answering some questions?’
Another blink.
Nina straightened her back. She had only a few minutes so she would take her own theories as a startin
g point. ‘Were you assaulted by two men?’
The man blinked.
‘Did you recognize them?’
He closed his eye. Nina waited. No. He’d never seen them before.
‘Did they want information from you?’
A blink.
‘Were you able to give it to them?’
The eye closed, and remained shut. A tear trickled out and ran down past his ear.
They had asked for information Ingemar hadn’t been able to give them, something concerning him or a third person, someone close, possibly someone who was missing.
‘Do you know where Nora is?’
The man’s entire body arched up, the eye widened and stared at her in terror. A noise emerged from his throat – it sounded like a moan. Dr Kararei hurried over to him and Nina took a step back in alarm.
‘Ooooh!’ Ingemar Lerberg’s arms jerked uncontrollably, his legs cramping.
Dr Kararei pressed the alarm button: a red light began to flash outside the room and a siren sounded. Two nurses came rushing in and Nina took several more steps back.
‘Nooooo,’ Ingemar Lerberg shouted. ‘Noooohhhaaa …’
She stared at the man, frozen to the spot in horror. The door behind her flew open and hit her hard in the shoulder as another doctor ran into the room. She stumbled to one side, then rushed out into the corridor, away from the ward, away from the hoarse screams. She didn’t catch her breath until she reached the lift area. She took the stairs down from the fourth floor and hurried through the large glazed lobby and out into the rain.
She got back to her sterile room at National Crime. She closed the door – she’d had quite enough introductions. As an operational analyst she was a resource, someone who was supposed to help structure a great deal of information, and to do that she needed peace in which to think. According to her job description, she was expected to present the results of her analysis to the group both verbally and in writing, so she ought to be given the space in which to come up with them.
She sank gently onto her chair, let out a deep breath, then took out a bottle of mineral water and an apple and put them on a napkin on her desk. The documents from that morning’s group meeting were spread out in front of her. Someone must know something – someone must have seen something. The surveillance footage from Solsidan station hadn’t revealed anything. No Nora caught on camera at the entrance or on the platform. She could have passed the station on foot, outside the range of the cameras, or left by car. But not in one of the two cars at the family’s disposal, a Mercedes registered to Ingemar Lerberg’s company, or the Nissan Micra that he owned privately.
There was a knock at the door, hard and rapid. Before Nina had time to react Lamia had entered the room and made herself comfortable on her desk. ‘Were you able to talk to him?’
She was sitting on the documents. Nina took hold of the papers and tried to pull them out. Lamia raised one buttock to release them.
‘He was conscious,’ Nina said, ‘but his larynx is swollen and he’s got a hole in his throat for the ventilator.’
‘What did he say?’
Lamia reached for the bottle of water, unscrewed it and took a deep gulp. Nina glanced at the Barbie woman: she was swinging one foot and beaming like the sun.
‘He communicated by blinking,’ Nina said. ‘He was assaulted by two men. He’d never seen them before. They wanted information from him – something he didn’t know. He reacted extremely strongly to the question of where Nora might be, had convulsions and screamed her name.’
‘Do you want that apple?’ Lamia was pointing at it.
‘Er, yes,’ Nina said.
The woman reached for the apple and took a big bite, then put it back on the napkin. ‘The passenger manifests have arrived,’ she said, with her mouth full. ‘There’s a result for Nora.’ Then she picked up the water-bottle, opened it and drank some.
Nina felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Why the hell couldn’t she have said that at once? ‘Where is she?’
‘We don’t know where she is, but we know where she’s been. She flew to Switzerland two weeks ago, to Zürich with Swiss Air, just for the day.’
Nina was struggling against various impulses that struck her one after the other: to throw the woman out of her room, to move the bottle of water away from her, and get her to explain what had happened.
‘Switzerland?’ she said, almost under her breath. ‘What was she doing there?’
‘The people at Ingemar’s company knew nothing about it – I’ve called and asked. They don’t have an office in Zürich, or any clients. And there’s nothing to indicate any business connections with Switzerland, or any secret bank accounts, not in any computer or files or financial records. The Lerbergs never declared any capital income abroad.’
She smiled cheerily.
‘These days it’s actually possible to get hold of information about Swiss bank accounts,’ she said, screwing the lid back on the bottle and putting it down on the desk.
‘Nora’s passport was found in the house, wasn’t it?’ Nina said, leafing through the forensics report.
‘In a drawer in the bedroom,’ Lamia said. ‘Issued on the thirteenth of December last year. Her previous passport was reported stolen to Nacka Police at the end of November. It disappeared at the same time as her purse, along with her driving licence, credit cards, ID card, car and house keys, when her handbag was stolen in a café in Nacka shopping centre while she was doing some Christmas shopping.’
Nina stared at her. There was something really odd about the woman. ‘Have you got a photographic memory?’ she asked.
‘There’s no such thing,’ Lamia said. ‘But I have got an eidetic memory, from the Greek eidos, to see.’ She tilted her head to one side.
Nina didn’t understand her answer and wasn’t sure what to say.
‘Ingemar Lerberg wasn’t working for the security services, by the way. At least not as far as the people working for him know,’ Lamia went on, untroubled.
‘If the work was secret, then presumably his staff wouldn’t tell you about it anyway,’ Nina said.
Lamia wasn’t about to be put off. ‘They’re not aware of any couriers or deliveries of secret material, and they look after all the administration and invoicing—’
‘Why did Nora have her passport in her handbag?’ she interrupted.
Lamia blinked her long eyelashes.
‘You don’t need your passport for Christmas shopping,’ Nina said. ‘And she had her driving licence and ID card with her.’
Lamia smiled. ‘Ingemar Lerberg’s company has three big customers who make up ninety per cent of the business’s turnover: Panama General Cargo, Philippines Shipping Lines, and Cargo International España …’ She went on to provide figures for turnover and profit, but Nina wasn’t listening.
The only time you needed a passport was if you were planning to cross a border outside the Schengen Area. And she thought that some airlines required a passport as ID, even if a Swedish ID card worked practically everywhere in Europe, apart from the United Kingdom.
‘Where did Nina’s handbag go missing? Exactly, I mean,’ Nina asked, cutting off Lamia mid-sentence.
‘At Hot Spot Coffee. It’s on the ground floor.’ The answer came without a moment’s hesitation.
‘Were there any witnesses?’
‘That wasn’t clear from the report.’
Nina tugged at her ponytail. ‘Do you think you could move a bit?’ She reached for the phone, which was hidden behind Lamia’s backside.
‘Oops, of course,’ the blonde said, and jumped onto the floor.
‘Can you shut the door after you?’ Nina said.
‘Sure,’ Lamia said, and trotted out of the room on her high heels.
Nina picked up the receiver. Slowly she dialled the number of her colleagues out in Nacka: this was definitely a long shot. When the receptionist answered, she explained that she was calling from the National Crime Unit, even if the words stil
l felt odd in her mouth. She asked for Superintendent Lundqvist, the officer in charge of the local investigation into the Lerberg case. The receptionist put her through without any questions.
Lundqvist sounded very stressed when he eventually answered. ‘Nora Lerberg’s handbag? I don’t know anything about a stolen handbag. When’s it supposed to have gone missing?’
‘Her passport was inside the bag. She had a new one issued on the thirteenth of December last year.’
‘That’s six months ago!’
Nina looked at the closed door, glad that no one could hear her. ‘I’d like to know the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of her handbag and what she said when she reported it missing.’
There was a noise in the background, and someone shouted something.
‘Listen, Hoffman, things are a bit hectic right now.’
‘Anything we ought to know?’
The superintendent let out a loud sigh. ‘This morning one of our local talents was found hanging from the branch of a tree out near Kråkträsken, naked and smeared with honey, a plastic bag over his head.’
Nina’s head was buzzing.
‘Local talents?’
‘One of society’s lost sheep. They hang around in Orminge shopping centre.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘As a doornail. So if you’ll excuse me …’
Naked, smeared with honey, and asphyxiated with a plastic bag?
Hanging from a branch?
Hanging from a branch?
Images ran through Nina’s head, names, methods. ‘Was he hanging from his knees, with his wrists tied below his knees?’
Lundqvist lost his thread. There was silence on the line. Then he cleared his throat. ‘How …?’
La Barra.
‘I’m coming out to you,’ she said. ‘Right away. Kråkträsken, you said?’
‘What—’
She hung up and looked at Jesper’s bookcase.
The method has several names: apart from La Barra it is also known as El Pollo (the chicken) or Pau de Arara (the parrot’s perch).
She pulled on her jacket, put her mobile into her pocket and headed for the exit.
Without a Trace (Annika Bengtzon 10) Page 14