Annika played with her glass of water.
‘I’ve been wondering that all day,’ she said. ‘I think the terrorist has come back, and the police want him to know that they know.’
Anne frowned, then her gaze cleared, intoxication fading. ‘Isn’t that a bit of a long shot?’ she said. ‘Maybe they want to scare someone who knows him. His old friends. Warn political groups, left and right alike, against God knows what. You can’t possibly know what the police’s motives are.’
Annika took a sip of water, swallowed with difficulty, then put the glass down.
‘The officer said he’d checked with the press officer at the airbase, which means the military have discussed it, so this is something they’ve been planning for a while. But why now, and why me?’
‘Well, I don’t know why now,’ Anne said, ‘but why you is pretty obvious, isn’t it? How many famous crime reporters are there on Swedish papers?’
Annika thought in silence for a few seconds, as an emergency vehicle drove past outside.
‘But what if this has something to do with Benny Ekland’s murder. It all fits too neatly.’
‘Well, it’s not impossible,’ Anne said. ‘Are you going to run the story?’
‘I suppose so,’ she said with a sigh, ‘although it’s up to Schyman to decide. I think he’s starting to get tired of me.’
‘Maybe you’re just getting tired of him,’ Anne said, taking a biscuit.
Annika’s face was impassive. She pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms round her legs.
‘I just want to be left to get on with my job.’
The young waiter put two gin and tonics on the table, removed the coffee cups and cognac glasses, replaced an almost finished candle and emptied the ashtray.
‘The kitchen closes at ten, but the bar is open till one, so just say if you’d like anything else.’
He vanished silently up the thickly carpeted staircase.
‘Who knew that this was here!’ Sophia smiled, throwing her arms out.
Thomas couldn’t help laughing. The atmosphere in the cellar of the bar was almost surreally oriental; the walls and floor covered in layer upon layer of thick, dusty carpets, gleaming bronze dishes piled in the corners, oil-lamps on low stone tables. They were alone, facing one another across a large oak table on heavy leather chairs. The ceiling consisted of vaulted brickwork that appeared to be seventeenth century.
‘These old brick buildings hold a lot of secrets,’ Thomas said, embarrassed that he was slurring his words.
‘You live on Kungsholmen?’ Sophia asked, looking at him over the rim of the gin glass.
He nodded, sipping his drink.
‘Old stove,’ he said, ‘lots of ornate plasterwork, creaking parquet floors, the lot.’
‘Your own?’
‘These days. We bought out the tenancy a year ago. What about you?’
Sophia lit a menthol cigarette, sucking in the nicotine, and blew the smoke out in small rings.
‘Östermalm,’ she said. ‘My family own a building there.’
He raised his eyebrows, impressed. She lowered her eyes and smiled.
‘We’ve had it for generations,’ she said. ‘Mine’s small, only three rooms, there are other members of the family who need the fancy rooms more than me.’
He took a handful of the peanuts that had been on the table since they started.
‘You live alone?’
‘With Socks, my cat. Named after the Clintons’ cat, if you remember . . .’
He laughed loudly. ‘Of course, Socks in the White House.’
‘And you’ve got a family?’ she said, putting her cigarette out.
Thomas pushed his chair back a bit.
‘Yep,’ he said happily, crossing his hands on his stomach. ‘Wife, two kids. No cat, though . . .’
They laughed.
‘Does your wife work?’ Sophia asked, sipping her drink.
He let out a deep sigh. ‘Far too much.’
She smiled, and lit another cigarette. The silence between them grew like a soft deciduous tree full of promise, trembling leaves and sunlight. Everything was sweetness and light in their oriental cellar.
‘She spent a while at home last winter,’ he said, more
sombre now. ‘That was great. It suited the children, it suited me. It suited the apartment too; we renovated the kitchen and even managed to keep it clean.’
Sophia had leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. He could see the look in her eyes, and realized the effect his words had had.
‘I mean,’ he said, swallowing more gin, ‘I don’t mean women should be housewives and just stand by the stove and have babies, nothing like that. Of course women should have the same opportunities for education and careers as men, but there are loads of nice jobs in journalism. I don’t see why she insists on writing about violence and death for a tabloid.’
All of a sudden he could hear his mother’s voice in his head, words she had never said but he knew she was thinking:
Because that’s what she is. A tabloid person who attracts trouble. You’re too good for her, Thomas; you could have found a good woman
.
‘She’s a good woman,’ he said out loud. ‘Intelligent, but not very intellectual.’
Sophia looked at him, her head on one side. ‘The two don’t have to go together,’ she said. ‘You can be talented without being well-read.’
‘Exactly.’ Thomas took a large gulp of gin. ‘That’s exactly it. Annika’s incredibly smart. The problem is that she’s so bloody unpolished. Sometimes she goes about things like a bulldozer.’
Sophia covered her mouth with her hands and giggled. He looked at her in surprise, then started laughing as well.
‘But it’s true!’ he said, then got serious again. ‘She’s pretty unusual, in all sorts of ways. Never lets go once she’s decided to do something.’
Sophia had stopped laughing and was looking at him sympathetically.
‘It must be hard to live with that sort of stubbornness,’ she said.
Thomas shook his head slowly, emptying his glass. ‘My mother can’t stand her,’ he said, putting the glass down. ‘She thinks I married beneath me, that I should have stayed with Eleonor.’
Sophia looked quizzically at him.
‘My first wife,’ he said. ‘She was a bank director. Is a bank director. She’s remarried now, with the only IT-guru who landed on his feet. Last I heard, they’d bought their own island outside Vaxholm.’
The tree of silence spread its boughs above them, mature, calm. They sat in silence and looked at each other as her cigarette burned away in the ashtray.
‘We may as well share a taxi,’ Sophia said. ‘We’re more or less going in the same direction.’
The boy stopped at the door of the bus and swallowed hard. He leaned forward to look at the road, the wind blowing sharp ice crystals into his face. There was a smell of fumes and iron.
‘Are you getting off or what?’
He looked sheepishly at the bus-driver, took a quick breath, jumped the two steps and landed on the pavement. The door closed behind him with a hiss, the bus glided away with a muffled noise caused by cold and snow.
It disappeared into Laxgatan, the sound drowning behind heaps of snow and fencing. He stood there on the pavement, looking carefully around him, listening hard. He couldn’t even hear the ironworks.
He forced himself to breathe out, calm down. There was no reason to be frightened. He spat in the snow.
Shit, soon he’d be as nervous as that reporter from Stockholm. She was really jumpy. They’d read her article
in the
Norrland News
, and he’d shown Alex how she behaved in the hallway.
‘It’s her,’ Alex had said. ‘You know, the one who was held hostage by the Bomber. Probably left her a bit funny in the head afterwards.’
He hadn’t been much good at the game tonight, not really on form. He was actually really good at it, much better than Alex, but this evening he’d been zapped to ash by several other players. He was annoyed that he’d blown his stats; he kicked away a lump of ice so hard it made his foot hurt. Might be just as well to start again with a new character. ‘Cruel Devil’ would never be a Teslatron God with useless results like this to make up for. Ninja Master, maybe, but he was aiming for the top.
He slowly walked out of the yellow circle of the street-lamp, heading for the house. There were lights on in Andersson’s flat, blue light seeping into the darkness. The old man was probably watching the sports news.
Suddenly a shadow fell over the façade of the building, a flashing demon that gasped and disappeared. The boy struggled for breath, so hard that it froze his throat. He felt his muscles tense, his legs ready for flight. Eyes and ears open to the darkness, absorbing every trembling nuance.
Still not a sound. Blue light from Andersson’s window. Icy chill from the ground that was slowly working its way through the soles of his shoes.
Nothing. Something flashed past the window.
He forced his shoulders down again, realizing that he hadn’t breathed for a minute or so. Started panting in a loud rattle, feeling the tears rise.
Fucking shit
, the boy thought,
fucking bloody shit
.
Without thinking any more, he gave in to his fear and raced blindly towards the door. It was just as dark as
usual in the yard, but he knew where Andersson left his rubbish and crossed the hazardous path with ease.
He yanked open the outer door and hit the button to light up the hall with damp gloves. His whole body was shaking as he dug for the key in his jacket pocket.
The door fell open just as he realized he was about to wet himself. Letting out a small whine, he rushed into the bathroom and yanked up the toilet lid.
He shut his eyes and sobbed as the warm urine landed more or less in the toilet. Afterwards he just pulled up his pants and sat down on the toilet, leaving his trousers and long-johns in a puddle around his feet. The sunflowers smiled down at him from the wallpaper.
Why had he got so scared, like a little kid? He snorted at his own behaviour; he’d never been scared of the dark before.
Slowly he stood up, flushed, washed his hands and rinsed his mouth. He couldn’t be bothered to brush his teeth tonight. He kicked off his trousers, gathered up his clothes and went into his room.
There was someone sitting on his bed.
The thought came from nowhere and he didn’t believe it, even though he could see for himself.
There was a shadow sitting on his bed.
His arms fell, his clothes landing in a heap on the floor. He tried to cry out, but probably made no sound because the shadow was moving very slowly, got up, came towards him, filling the room, right up to the ceiling.
A howl emerged, echoing off the walls, the boy turned and tried to run, then all sound was switched off, colour vanished, the picture went fuzzy. He aimed for the light in the hall, saw his own hand fly past his face, felt his weight shift from one foot to the other. Breathless, the doorway came closer, then slid sideways, a clammy
glove against his forehead, another on his left arm. The hall light reflected in something shiny.
Chaos, a howling in his head. Warm liquid on his chest.
Then a thought. A final, radiant, clear thought:
Mum
.
The train rumbled hypnotically through the night, rattling monotonously. The man lay in his first-class compartment staring out of the window, trying to make out the line of treetops against the dark starry sky. The pain was pushing through the morphine, making him gasp.
With an effort he took out another tablet from the case under the pillow and swallowed it without water. He felt its effects before it had even hit his stomach, soothing him to peace at last.
As he relaxed, he found himself at one of the vast meetings of his youth, in a huge campsite outside Pajala. Thousands of people on hard wooden benches, the smell of damp wool and sawdust. The men up on the platform made speeches, first one in Finnish, then the other translating into Swedish, the endlessness of their voices, rolling, rising, falling.
With a jerk the train pulled in to a station. He looked out along the platform. Långsele.
Långsele?
Panic hit him hard. Good grief, he was going in the wrong direction! His arms flew up, his head rising from the synthetic pillow, breathless.
Dans quelle direction est Långsele?
South
, he thought.
It’s south, just above Ånge
.
He sank back onto the pillow, trying to ignore his own smell, checking that the duffel bag was still at the end of the bed. He coughed weakly. He heard a door slam, felt a jolt as the train got ready to leave. He looked at his watch: 05.16.
There was no reason to worry. Everything was going as planned. He was on his way, invisible, untouchable, like a flickering shadow. Free to travel in his own thoughts in an unfree world, free to return or disappear.
And he chose to return to the meeting at the campsite, to conjure up images that had lain dusty and rusty, faded with age, but still clear.
One pair of speakers followed the other, the strictly arranged presentation which always began with a reading from the Bible, half in Finnish, half Swedish, then the interpretations, variations, analysis and occasionally the personal confession: I was in trouble, searching throughout my youth, something was lacking in my life and I found my way to Sin, and I found women and drink and stole a watch from a friend, but then I met a fellow believer during my national service and Jesus Christ brought light into my life, because my brother sowed a seed in my heart.
Lying in his compartment, he smiled, listening to the stories, full of pain and angst, jubilant and grateful.
But they never really took off, he interrupted himself. There was never any shouting, never any raised voices. Never any ecstasy.
He recalled the boredom of youth.
Often he had let the voices fade away and drift out of the tent together with the thoughts, hopes and restlessness. The city of tents and caravans on the meadow outside was more appealing, an ocean of possibilities
concealed behind horse-carts and Volvos. His sideways glances at unknown girls on the bench in front, in their headscarves and long skirts, his awareness of their warmth and shiny hair.
The awareness that his thoughts and hard penis were sinful.