‘Do you have an address for the authorized signatory?’
‘Yes, she’s a residente here, and is listed at the same address as the proprietor.’
He gave her the name of a street in Nueva Andalucía, the district where all the companies were registered, and promised to send her an email containing all the details and extracts from official databases.
‘Do you go on holiday, Señorita Hoffman?’ the policeman asked. ‘Have you ever thought about paying us a visit down here in the sun? It’s very warm and sunny here, twenty-six degrees in the shade.’
Nina thanked him, hung up, and put her hand down gently on Isak’s drawing.
Berit Hamrin was heading towards her usual seat with her suitcase rolling behind her. Annika leaped to her feet and gave her a hug. ‘How was Oslo?’
‘Expensive.’
Valter stood up, looking slightly lost. ‘Valter Wennergren, trainee,’ he said, shaking Berit’s hand. ‘I’m sorry, I’m in your place. I’ll move at once.’
‘No, stay where you are,’ Berit said, taking her coat off. ‘I can squat at the end of the table for the time being. What’s going on here, then?’ She nodded towards the newsdesk, where the web-TV team had set up their studio camera, a microphone on a boom, and a large lamp. Bulky cables snaked across half of the room and people kept tripping over them.
‘Schyman’s about to address the nation,’ Annika said.
‘About time,’ Berit said.
At that moment Schyman strode out of his room with a determined expression. He nodded to Berit. ‘We can talk about Norway this afternoon,’ he said, as he passed them.
‘So he’s not thinking of resigning before lunch, then,’ Annika said quietly.
The editor-in-chief installed himself in front of the camera. Annika was glad he hadn’t decided to stand on the desk. He exchanged a few words with the online editor, then raised his eyes to look out across the newsroom.
‘OK, everyone,’ he said, in a loud, firm voice. ‘If I could just have your attention for a few minutes?’
They fell silent, moving slowly and hesitantly towards the desk, as if the television lamp were dangerous or infectious. Annika, Valter and Berit moved a few steps closer, but stopped at a suitable distance.
‘As you are all aware,’ Schyman began, ‘I am currently the subject of a great deal of scrutiny on the internet and in various other media as a result of a television documentary I made eighteen years ago. There’s nothing odd about that. We scrutinize each other’s work far too infrequently in this business, and when it does happen, it is often poorly and uncritically done.’
Annika realized she was holding her breath. She exhaled and forced her shoulders to relax from their hunched posture. Schyman seemed as cool as a cucumber.
‘For me, this scrutiny has led to a great deal of self-criticism and reflection,’ he went on. ‘There are things I could have done differently when I made the programme. But, above all, the criticism has made me think about the way I work now, and how my colleagues and competitors reason when they make decisions about whether or not to publish a story.’
‘You can tell he used to be a television presenter,’ Berit muttered.
Schyman looked out over the newsroom as he spoke, ignoring the television camera and addressing himself to the people in the room, even if it was abundantly clear that he was focused on the camera the whole time. This speech wasn’t aimed primarily at his colleagues on the Evening Post, but at the rest of the industry.
‘It’s a good thing that the rest of the media, in large part, have maintained their sceptical, neutral attitude towards information found on the internet,’ he said.
‘They’ve hardly done that, though,’ Valter whispered.
‘Definitely not,’ Annika whispered back. ‘But he can’t have a go at the rest of the media because they’d get defensive and stop listening to what he’s saying. He can’t afford to rub them up the wrong way.’
‘The internet is an excellent forum for debate and democracy and freedom of speech,’ Schyman said. ‘But the decision about whether or not to publish any material becomes bigger and more important the more players there are in the arena. There is every reason for me and others to ask ourselves if we are really taking that responsibility seriously.’
‘Where’s he going with this?’ Valter asked.
‘Trying to shift the focus of the debate, I assume,’ Berit whispered.
‘So, as recently as this morning, I have spoken to representatives of the Ministry of Justice about reinforcing the responsibilities inherent in publishing. Power, even power held by the public, has to come with responsibility. We have to be held accountable for anything expressed in the public arena. Individuals need to be protected from threats and slander. Not primarily the editors of large newspapers, but young people on Facebook, Twitter and other social media, female commentators, sports presenters, bloggers of every gender and ethnicity … This is a vitally important democratic issue.’
Annika shifted her weight to the other foot. When was he going to get to the point? He couldn’t carry on like this much longer, or people would stop listening.
‘If I might return to my own situation, I can see that the blogger, the Light of Truth, has put a great deal of work into the rhetoric of denouncing me and the opinions I expressed in an almost twenty-year-old television programme,’ Schyman went on, sounding almost amused. ‘However, he hasn’t been quite as skilful when it comes to his journalism. Later this afternoon, on the Evening Post website, we will be releasing a number of previously unknown details that have arisen in the case of Viola Söderland’s disappearance. We will also publish interviews with a number of people who were close to Viola Söderland. This involves no risk either to me personally or the Evening Post newspaper. We shall take responsibility for what we publish – about that there is no doubt whatsoever.’
He said this in a way that let the assembled staff breathe out, without knowing why.
‘One question,’ the union representative called. He had once been one of the morning-shift editors, but had been struck by writer’s block and now worked full-time as union rep. ‘Gustaf Holmerud has claimed responsibility for Viola Söderland’s murder. That means you were wrong all along, doesn’t it?’
Schyman held his ground with a good-natured expression on his face. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I read that too. It is a fact that the Evening Post has led the way in the reporting of Gustaf Holmerud’s crimes and confession, and of course he has been convicted of no fewer than five murders, both in the Crown Court and the Court of Appeal. But we don’t stop our coverage of the case simply because the verdict has been pronounced. We are already investigating the background and circumstances surrounding these, in part, highly questionable judgments. You will be able to read much more about this in the Evening Post in the future.’
Annika saw how Sjölander flew up from his relaxed position by the sports desk – he had clearly known nothing about this.
The editor-in-chief got ready to leave the limelight.
‘One more question,’ the union rep shouted.
Schyman stopped and looked tolerantly at the man, who was obviously plucking up courage to say something.
‘Are you going to resign?’ he asked.
Schyman blinked as if the question were a joke. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Why would I do that?’
Then he turned away, the light went out and the live broadcast was over. The editor-in-chief strode purposefully through the newsroom. Halfway to his glass box he turned to Annika, pointed at her, then at his office.
‘Oh, shit,’ Annika said. ‘What now?’
‘Close the door,’ Schyman said, when Annika walked into his room.
He sat behind his desk and studied some documents in front of him. She slid the door shut behind her and stood in the middle of the cramped floor space. ‘Nice speech,’ she said. ‘Do you think it’ll be enough?’
‘Not by a long shot,’ he said, ‘but it might do as a start. I’v
e got a job for you.’
She sat down in the visitor’s chair. As long as whatever it was didn’t take all day – Birgitta was bringing Destiny over that evening: the little girl would be staying at theirs for the weekend. ‘Apart from finding Viola Söderland?’
‘Viola Söderland’s dead,’ Schyman said, without looking up. ‘At least she is if this fellow’s to be believed.’
He handed the documents to Annika. It was a printout of the police interview with Gustaf Holmerud in which he confessed to the murder of the billionairess, a document that most definitely wasn’t in the public domain.
‘Sjölander’s got some good sources,’ Annika murmured.
‘I want you to go through all the cases Holmerud was convicted of,’ Schyman said. ‘I want you to rip those verdicts to shreds.’
She looked up sharply. Schyman sighed. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, ‘I know. You never believed in him. You think those women were killed by their husbands or boyfriends. Well, now’s your chance to investigate it properly.’
‘So I’m supposed to act like some sort of Don Quixote, going on the attack against the entire justice system all on my own?’
Suddenly he looked very tired. ‘I was serious about us taking responsibility,’ he said. ‘Those verdicts were wrong. We pushed the police and the prosecutor into finding him guilty, and now I’ve got to try to put things right.’
The bitter light of hindsight, Annika thought, as she returned to the printout.
Holmerud had given a detailed account of how he had kidnapped and murdered Viola, strangling her and dumping her body in a lake he would never be able to find again.
‘Have you read the Light of Truth today?’ Schyman asked.
She shook her head.
‘Linette Pettersson and Sven-Olof Witterfeldt are demanding that I be tried for fraud. Their legal knowledge seems a little limited, to put it mildly. The blogger himself is claiming that the documentary caused Viola’s daughter, Linda, to have a miscarriage. I am, in other words, both a fraudster and a child-killer.’
‘You’ve got to sue him,’ Annika said. ‘He’s crossing all sorts of boundaries now.’
The editor-in-chief shrugged his shoulders. ‘Several things are slanderous, but that would only play into his hands. He wants a trial, an established platform, and I’m not going to give it to him.’
She felt her frustration growing. ‘What do you want me to do? Get Holmerud’s convictions quashed against his own wishes?’
Schyman scratched his beard. ‘Maybe you could get him to agree with you? Get him to retract his confession?’
‘And why would he do that? He probably did murder Lena, so he’d still get a life sentence. He’ll end up in Kumla as a wife-killer, way down the food-chain. But if he carries on claiming all those murders, he’ll be a legend.’
‘So you don’t want to do it?’
Annika sighed. Of course she wanted to do it, she really did. Those verdicts needed to be scrutinized: the police investigation had been sloppy and biased and ought to be examined, and the prosecutor who hadn’t bothered to look into the case properly should be confronted, the relatives’ grief and despair acknowledged.
Schyman’s intercom crackled.
‘You’ve got visitors,’ Tore said, from the caretaker’s desk.
Annika stood up to leave. ‘I want you to stay,’ Schyman said.
On the other side of the newsroom she could see a confused-looking middle-aged couple.
‘Henrik Söderland and his sister Linda,’ the editor-in-chief said. ‘I thought they should have the briefcase back.’
Braxengatan was on the outskirts of Fisksätra. The area was part of the so-called Million Homes Programme, housing that was erected at the cheapest possible cost on the edges of the big cities between 1965 and 1975, creating a whole raft of social problems.
Nina parked next to a garage door and climbed a flight of steps to get to the entry level. The blocks were brown and white, five storeys high, and hundreds of metres long. Nina walked past door after door until she finally reached number twenty-two.
The stairwell was cool and light and smelt of disinfectant. She went up the stairs, silent in her rubber soles. Various sounds filtered out of the flats she passed, cartoon characters chasing each other, the hum of a fan, a man coughing. On the fourth floor she stopped outside a door marked ANDERSSON. There was no letterbox she could peer through, and no sound of activity inside. She stood there for a minute or so, arms by her sides, then reached out her finger to the doorbell and pressed it.
Nothing happened.
She tried again.
Still no response.
She banged on the door. Hard.
‘Open up,’ she said loudly. ‘This is the police.’
She rang again, three times in succession. The flats around her fell silent, until only the fan was audible.
Shit, shit, shit.
She wasn’t going to be defeated now she had found her way here. She would wait until the little woman came home, or until she was on the brink of starvation and had to go out to buy food. Or until the landlord came to evict her because Nora hadn’t paid the rent.
‘If you don’t open the door within ten seconds, we’ll break it down,’ she shouted.
The lock clicked. The handle was pressed down, and the door opened. The short woman from the train, and from Isak’s drawing, was standing before her in the doorway: curly hair, slightly bowed legs. She was in her fifties, dressed in dark trousers and a brown cardigan.
‘Please, don’t shout on the landing. Come in.’
Her English was perfect, her accent British.
Nina stepped into the flat and looked around the hall: two cupboards, a door that presumably led to the bathroom. She darted quickly over to it and pulled it open. Yes, shower and toilet, empty. She closed the door.
‘How can I help you?’ the woman asked.
Her face was in deep shadow, but Nina could still tell that she was very frightened. She moved quickly into the larger room: no one. The woman probably lived alone – she recognized the reflection of her own solitude. Nothing jarred. A narrow bed stood along one wall, with a table and two wooden chairs by the window, and a tiny kitchen area towards the bathroom.
‘My name is Nina Hoffman. I’m from the Swedish National Crime Unit,’ Nina said, showing her ID. The woman took it and studied it carefully.
‘What’s your name?’ Nina asked.
The woman gave the ID back and looked at the floor. ‘Irina,’ she said. ‘Irina Azarova.’
Maybe that was true, maybe it wasn’t.
The woman was making an effort to seem calm and collected, but was fiddling nervously with the buttons of her cardigan. Irina Azarova. She must come from the east, even if it wasn’t clear from her accent. Either she had grown up in a Communist dictatorship, or she had fled from one, or had relatives or some other personal connection to the old Soviet bloc. It seemed likely that she would have great respect for the authorities, hopefully rather too great.
‘I have a long list of questions for you, Irina Azarova,’ Nina said, in a loud, authoritative voice. ‘Do you want to answer them here, or do you want to come with me to the National Crime Unit and answer them in an interview room?’
The woman seemed to shrink, and her hands began to shake.
‘Please,’ she said, sounding as if she was about to cry. ‘I haven’t done anything. Nothing illegal.’
‘So where’s your work permit?’ Nina asked. ‘You work for the Lerbergs on Silvervägen in Saltsjöbaden. And you were at a crime scene where a man was found very badly assaulted. You alerted the police by sending a text message from Solsidan railway station …’
Irina Azarova sank onto one of the wooden chairs and started to cry. Nina stood where she was, in the middle of the floor. People were always upset to receive an unannounced visit from the police, but this outburst of sobbing was out of all proportion. It had to be a response to something else.
She let the woman cry
for a few minutes. When she spoke again, her voice was soft. ‘We could talk here for a while,’ she said, ‘and see if that will do. How does that sound?’
The woman fished a handkerchief out of the pocket of her cardigan, carefully blew her nose and nodded. Nina sat down on the other chair. In the light from the only window she could see some knitting, pink wool.
‘What’s that going to be?’ Nina said, nodding towards it.
Irina Azarova grabbed it and put it into a plastic bag that contained several other balls of wool. ‘For the girl,’ she said. ‘For little Elisabeth.’ Nora’s youngest child.
‘How long have you worked for Nora Lerberg?’ Nina asked, putting her mobile phone on the table with its recording device switched on.
‘One year,’ she said.
‘And what have your duties been?’
Irina glanced up at her.
‘I know you’re there secretly,’ Nina said. ‘No one knows you work for Nora. She’s very careful to say she does everything herself.’
Irina nodded. ‘She’s a politician’s wife, and credibility is important to politicians. Setting a good example to the voters. She wants to be popular among the wives in the area. She wants them to like her, accept her.’ She nodded to underline her words.
‘So Nora brought you in to take care of her duties as a housewife.’
The woman looked frightened again.
‘Can you describe a typical day at work to me?’ Nina said gently.
Irina cleared her throat. ‘Her husband leaves home to go to work at a quarter to nine. Nora takes the children to the church playgroup at nine o’clock. I arrive on the train that gets into Solsidan just after nine and I take the path through the woods so I can arrive at the house the back way. No one sees me. I let myself in through the kitchen door and work until one o’clock …’
‘What do you do in the house?’
‘Clear breakfast away, clean, do the washing and ironing. I bake cakes and bread, get the evening meal ready so Nora only has to heat it up …’
Without a Trace (Annika Bengtzon 10) Page 25