The mob around him was busy working itself up into a frenzy. He smiled. This was a bonus he hadn’t predicted. It was funny that all these people thought they knew what had become of Viola Söderland.
But Viola Söderland’s current whereabouts were totally impossible to ascertain.
He sighed happily.
They had found a bomb-proof site in which to dump their waste. He couldn’t help giggling at the thought.
‘Bomb-proof’ was precisely the right word.
Only in Sweden, he thought. Only in Sweden was there such formidable faith in people’s respect for laws and regulations.
The immense tract of land that made up the Vidsel Test Site was obviously out of bounds to the general public, but there wasn’t a single fence. Instead there was a sign every thirty metres along the perimeter, informing the public of the inadvisability of entering the area and thereby risking having a missile land on their heads. There was actually a public road running through the whole area. You could use it in any sort of vehicle, as long as you didn’t stop to get out and walk. There were cameras mounted in a few places, but it was fairly easy to avoid them.
They had chosen to dispose of their waste there, untroubled by wandering fruit-pickers and people walking their dogs. The only things likely to disturb the results of their work were bombs and grenades. Not a single one had been discovered in all these years.
The whole idea was really very simple. The remains of human bones were very difficult to tell apart from any other mammal’s. Only the skull, hands, feet and ribcage were easily identifiable as human to the naked eye. Everything else could belong to a reindeer, a cow, a juvenile elk, or some other medium-sized animal.
So they cut the heads, hands and feet off and buried them carefully, very deep. They broke up the ribcages using a crowbar. Wild animals did the rest. There may not have been any wolves in Norrbotten, but there were enough wolverines, bears, lynx and other predators in the untouched forests for the remains to disappear in a matter of days. They had actually tested the theory using a stolen pig before setting to work with real waste.
After two weeks the pig’s bones had been scattered across an area of four square kilometres.
Viola Söderland had been their first real attempt. Where she was today was therefore completely impossible to say. She was probably spread across an area stretching from Vuollerim up to Porjus and down towards Sikfors.
Apart from the skull, hands and feet, of course, which had been safely buried in the moraine some fifty metres from the main road through what had then been called the Norrland Missile Test Site.
But Nora’s whereabouts were even more difficult to determine.
Nora had been one of the organization’s smarter smurfs. Sadly she had ended up sinking further and further into debt and was no longer meeting her quotas. When the organization had suggested a solution, she had rejected it. Towards the end there were also signs that she had been putting money aside, and that sort of thing was obviously unacceptable. And now she had disappeared, which (from his perspective) was the very worst thing of all. He and his mirror-image had been instructed to get rid of her, but now they couldn’t find her. They had no idea where she was, and her husband didn’t know either. They had even let the poor bastard live, just to draw Nora out from her hiding place, but it hadn’t worked. (The wretched drunk, Ekblad, hadn’t had a clue about anything, that much had become apparent very quickly.)
So they had informed Moscow that Nora was gone, because of course she actually was, and that morning’s payment for the job had been transferred into the bank account of the forestry company, hosted by the sensible, unimpeachable Swedish Credit Bank.
He shut his eyes and noted the difference in temperature between the air going in and out of his nostrils.
One thing was certain: if their employers found out about their failure and lies, they could count themselves lucky if they escaped with a simple spread-eagle.
The thought prompted him to scrutinize his body, to feel the way the soles of his feet were standing on the ground, the roughness of his jacket under his fingertips.
Their hope was that Nora had gone so deep underground that she would never surface. And if she ever made herself known to anyone around her, he would find out about it, he had made sure of that, and then it wouldn’t only be little Nora who disappeared (for good this time!), but her young children too. Nora was well aware of that, because he had told her as much himself.
He relaxed.
The job was finished. He had nothing to fear.
He would have a relaxing Friday evening, watch some television. Treat himself to some nice food. An Indian, perhaps.
The wind that hit Annika as she emerged from the Underground was intoxicatingly mild, and full of exhaust fumes. She stopped at the exit from the metro station for a moment and was elbowed angrily in her back.
These streets were properly hers now, dry and dusty. And they would continue to be hers: she wasn’t going to move away from them. That made them feel more solid, and slightly less magical.
Even the sign on the door, the one she and Jimmy shared, was now more of a sign and less of a declaration.
Serena was standing in the hall when she walked into the apartment (her apartment!).
‘Hello,’ Annika said, pulling her boots off. ‘Are Kalle and Ellen home yet?’
‘No, just me.’
‘How was school?’
The girl was wearing one of the sixties-inspired tunics she had been given by her mother. It was tight across the shoulders and a little too short. She glared at Annika with black eyes made of glass. ‘Why are you even asking? You don’t care.’
Annika took her jacket off and hung it up. Don’t lose your temper. Act like a responsible adult.
‘I do care about you, Serena,’ she said, forcing herself to sound friendly and understanding. ‘I’d like to get to know you better, because we’re going to be living with each other for a long time, I hope.’
The girl took a step back, her face full of loathing. ‘Long hair and big tits are really lame,’ she said. ‘And your job’s lame, and I don’t want to be with you, I want you to die!’
Her words took Annika’s breath away. The reaction came a second later, shrinking her field of vision until all that was left were lightning flashes of rage.
Fuck you! Standing there in your stupid dress thinking you’re something special. You can’t be that fucking special if your own mother doesn’t want you. I might be disgusting and my job might be crap, but at least I haven’t abandoned my kids so I could prance about in some fucking government building in Johannesburg. I’m here! I’m all that’s on offer! Maybe you don’t deserve any better, you little bitch!
Shame hit her with such force that she had to reach out for support, and found the doorframe. When she caught her breath, it brought with it a howl of guilt and despair. She collapsed onto the hall bench, hid her face in her hands and burst into a flood of tears. Through a haze of snot and tears she saw Serena’s feet in front of her by the hat-rack, stubborn and hesitant. Annika screwed her eyes shut and just howled.
‘Er … sorry,’ Serena said. Her feet shuffled. ‘I’m sorry, I – I didn’t mean it …’
She started to cry too. Annika wiped her nose on the sleeve of her jumper (disgusting) and looked up at the little ten-year-old who missed her mum so much she was falling apart, great big tears rolling relentlessly down her soft cheeks.
‘I don’t want you to die,’ she sobbed.
‘I miss my mum too,’ Annika said, holding her arms out to the child. Serena stepped into her embrace and wrapped her arms around her neck, and wept into Annika’s hair.
The doorbell rang, a key was inserted into the lock and the door flew open. Jimmy and Jacob, Ellen and Kalle, Birgitta and Destiny all rolled into the hall with the noise of an invading tank. Annika grabbed Serena’s hand and they snuck into the bathroom, locking the door behind them. They wiped each other’s tears and look into one another’s
eyes, laughing tentatively.
‘Cold water’s the thing,’ Annika whispered. ‘Then no one can tell you’ve been crying, but it has to be really cold.’
They let the water run, then bathed their faces. Annika put some more mascara on, and lent Serena her lip-gloss.
‘Come on, Serena,’ Ellen cried. ‘Destiny wants to play with the dolls’ house.’
Annika unlocked the door and opened it.
‘Coming!’ Serena called, and hurried off.
Birgitta was waiting impatiently by the front door. ‘Thanks for having her.’
Annika smiled, her heart light. ‘Don’t worry, she’ll be fine with us.’ She nodded in the direction of the bedroom corridor, where the girls’ voices rose and fell. Birgitta shuffled on the spot and swallowed. ‘I need to go if I’m going to catch the plane,’ she said.
Annika nodded. Birgitta leaned forward and they gave each other an uncomfortable hug.
The door closed behind her sister. Annika heard the lift start, stop, then set off again. She padded quietly towards Ellen’s room. Destiny was laughing, a gurgling toddler’s laugh. She stopped in the corridor and peeped into the room. Ellen was holding the mummy doll and walking her through the rooms in the dolls’ house, singing a little song. Serena was rearranging the attic, talking to herself. Destiny was cradling the baby doll. All very stereotypical.
The little girl sensed her presence and looked in her direction. Annika smiled and stepped into the room. ‘What are you playing?’
Serena looked at her with a degree of trepidation. Annika sat down on the floor next to her and patted her arm.
‘The family who live in the house, they’re going to go for a picnic in the park,’ Serena said. ‘Mum, Dad and their children.’
Destiny toddled over to Annika, put an arm round her neck and sank onto her lap. Warmth bubbled up inside her, and for a moment she had trouble breathing. Her vision blurred. ‘I need to go and help Daddy in the kitchen,’ she said.
Jimmy was standing there with the apron tied round his waist, holding a spatula. The television screen by the little kitchen table showed Anders Schyman being interviewed by a female presenter in a bright blue television studio. Annika stood by the sink and watched him: television makeup made him look smoother.
‘No,’ Schyman said on screen. ‘I’m not going to resign. I’m going to stay and take my responsibility for the development of Sweden’s largest daily newspaper.’
He managed to look fairly good-humoured as he said that. Jimmy came over, stood beside her and watched, as fat dripped from the spatula onto the floor.
‘Apparently the police had to break up a mob that had gathered outside your home this afternoon,’ the presenter said. ‘They broke some windows and threw eggs at the building. That must make you feel rather uncomfortable?’
‘Of course it does.’
‘What’s your view of the situation?’
Schyman sighed. Jimmy noticed the dripping fat and swore, put the spatula down and reached for some kitchen roll to wipe it up.
‘You’re making this crazy online bullying sound like Nine/Eleven, but it’s nothing like that. We have to keep a bit of perspective on things … Media witch-hunts like this don’t happen in dictatorships. They’re just a rather unappealing symptom of a functioning democracy.’
‘It’s quick and easy tonight,’ Jimmy said, throwing the kitchen roll in the bin. ‘Steak and pre-packed salad from Konsum.’
‘Will you be sleeping in the house tonight?’ the interviewer asked.
Schyman looked sad. ‘Nothing in my life has changed at all,’ he replied.
‘Are you sure you want yours well done?’
Annika switched off the television and looked out through the window (her window!). ‘There are lots of things I’m not sure about,’ she said, ‘but that isn’t one of them.’
The lift slowed and pinged, then the door slid open with a sigh. Nina stepped out onto the red landing, took two steps to the left, held her key-card up to the lock and tapped in the code. The door shielding the National Crime Unit from the rest of the world unlocked with an electronic click. She walked quickly and purposefully towards her office, still pumped with adrenalin from her discovery and the forensics officers’ brief comments of tacit admiration. They would be spending the whole weekend going through it, dragging out every last trace of digital dust that had ever been stored on the device.
The rooms she passed were empty. Most of her colleagues had already left for the weekend. Music was floating to her from somewhere along the corridor, laughter and voices, and as she got closer she realized it was coming from her room. She straightened her back as she approached, and slowed down.
‘The leaders of Solntsevskaya Bratva are utterly obsessed with looking Western and established,’ she heard Jesper Wou say. ‘Not only has the one known as “the Director” bought himself a French vineyard, but guess what names he’s given his new-born twins? William and Kate.’
Nina held her breath and walked through the door, taking in the room as she did when she was securing a crime scene.
Jesper Wou was leaning back in his chair with his feet up on the desk. Johansson was sitting in her place, and Lamia was perched on Jesper’s side of the desk. Her skirt had ridden up, exposing almost the whole of her thigh. All three turned towards her, laughing. No one showed any sign of moving.
‘Hi, Nina,’ Lamia said. ‘Q was looking for you earlier. He wanted to talk to you.’
She turned in the doorway and went towards the commissioner’s office, her colleagues’ laughter ringing in her head.
‘Are you coming for a beer later, Nina?’ Jesper Wou called after her.
She increased her pace and the length of her stride, and breathed out when she turned the corner at the end of the corridor. The door to the head of the Criminal Intelligence Unit’s office was open, and the commissioner was typing on his laptop.
‘Ah, Analyst Hoffman,’ he said, as she tapped on the door. ‘Come in. You get a gold star for finding that computer. How are you enjoying National Crime?’
He went on writing, not taking his eyes off the screen. She walked into the room and sat on the uncomfortable visitor’s chair – had he chosen that one on purpose? Subtle psychological game-playing?
‘Fine, thanks,’ she said, as she tried to make herself comfortable.
‘What do you think of the work? Is it what you expected?’
She sat for a few seconds, silent and uncertain: what had she been expecting? The commissioner went on writing.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It’s very … interesting.’
‘From what I’ve understood, you’ve slotted into the team well.’ Her boss tapped a last key with a flourish and pushed the laptop away. ‘I pulled out everything we’ve got on the Viola Söderland case yesterday evening,’ he said, leaning forward across the desk. ‘After that programme was broadcast on television, it was assumed that she’d fled to Russia. For the first few years the matter was raised at ministerial level, largely as an extradition issue, but the Russians claimed she had never crossed the border, and had never lived in the country. Eventually the case was dropped.’
‘Do we believe them?’
Q sighed. ‘The Russians didn’t really have any reason to lie. In marked contrast to the Bergling case, for instance, where he really had been spying for them – but what had Viola done? Tried to avoid paying tax in Sweden and bought a load of Russian forest. Why would they protect her?’
‘Maybe she was living under the radar – they might not have known she was there.’
‘Theoretically possible. If you’ve got enough money you can buy pretty much anything in Russia.’
‘Is she dead?’
Q scratched his navel. ‘When she disappeared there was some evidence of a struggle in her villa out in Djursholm, a broken vase on the hall floor, and a strand of hair was found among the fragments. What was interesting about the hair was that it didn’t belong to Viola, her children, or any of the st
aff in the house. But that was as far as it went.’
Nina nodded. Twenty years ago it wasn’t possible to extract DNA from a strand of hair. The technology was too new, and required a whole bagful. Now, in contrast, mitochondrial DNA could be identified from a single strand. That didn’t provide as much evidence as an ordinary DNA sample but it was a start.
‘I asked for a mitochondrial DNA test on the hair yesterday evening,’ Q said, handing her a rather grainy printout of a biotechnical protocol.
Nina took the paper and looked at it. It was like any other DNA result, and didn’t mean anything to her. She put it down. Now it could be checked against various databases: the evidence register that consisted of DNA profiles from unsolved cases, the database of DNA from suspects and, of course, the one containing the DNA of convicted criminals.
‘We had a man in for questioning about Viola’s case almost twenty years ago,’ Q said. ‘There was a witness, a neighbour who was out walking his dog when he saw a man getting out of a car outside Viola’s house on the night in question. He thought he could remember the registration number, but that turned out not to be the case. The owner of the car he identified had a watertight alibi: he was giving a lecture on the genetic modification of aspen trees up in Sandviken that night … He lives out in Täby, so I’ve asked our colleagues there to go and get a DNA sample from him first thing tomorrow morning.’
Nina nodded. If the man’s DNA matched the mitochondrial DNA from the strand of hair, or from any other investigation, ongoing or concluded, it would show up in the search. It didn’t necessarily mean anything, but it could be of decisive importance.
‘Have you been in touch with Dr Kararei today?’ Q asked.
‘No,’ Nina said, and blushed – she had forgotten.
‘I spoke to him this afternoon. Things don’t look good for Ingemar Lerberg. He’s going to survive, but he’s suffered severe brain damage. He could live for years as a vegetable in long-term care.’
Without a Trace (Annika Bengtzon 10) Page 28