He had sat at his computer, going through international reaction to the kidnappers’ second message, while he waited for Sjölander to get back from a sudden death on Kungsholmen: an elderly woman had been found dead in a laundry-room. It didn’t sound as if it could be linked to their serial killer, but you didn’t win a circulation war by leaving anything to chance.
When he saw the reporter appear at the far side of the newsroom, over by the sports desk, he stood up and slid the glass door open. ‘Sjölander? Come here a minute.’
The reporter left his coat and the bag containing his laptop on a chair by the newsdesk and walked across to Schyman. ‘It’s going to be tricky to make anything out of that,’ he said, shutting the door behind him. ‘A seventy-five-year-old woman, no sign of violence, two previous heart attacks. They’d already moved the body when we arrived, but we’ve got pictures of the drying room with a concerned neighbour in the foreground …’
Schyman raised his hand. ‘You’ve heard that the Somali kidnappers have started killing the hostages?’
Sjölander nodded and sat down.
‘There’ve been demonstrations in Sudan and Nigeria this evening in support of the kidnappers’ demands for more open borders and lower or non-existent import duties,’ Schyman went on, gesturing towards his computer. ‘They want the concentration camps in Libya emptied and Frontex closed down.’
‘Oh, fuck,’ Sjölander said. Schyman turned the screen so the other man could read the report.
‘So far it’s just a few demonstrations, but God knows what this could lead to,’ Schyman added.
Sjölander read some of the newsflashes in silence. ‘The rebel movements have lacked a figurehead since bin Laden was killed,’ he said, sinking back into his chair. ‘Maybe this fellow could take up the mantle.’
Schyman looked sceptical. ‘Do you think? No one seems to know anything about him, not even the boys in Langley. Holy warriors don’t usually appear out of nowhere. Bin Laden was an apprentice to Abdullah Azzam, and commanded battles during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan before he founded al-Qaeda.’
Sjölander tucked a pouch of chewing tobacco under his lip. ‘This man could have been a fighter too,’ he said. ‘The fact that we’ve never heard of him doesn’t mean anything – there’s a hell of a lot of armed conflicts in Africa that no one gives a damn about. And he must have learned the rhetoric from somewhere.’
‘I saw our esteemed commissioner on TV earlier,’ Schyman said. ‘She didn’t seem especially keen to abolish Frontex.’
Sjölander chuckled and adjusted the tobacco. ‘Are you kidding? That’s what her entire policy is based on, with some justification. Imagine the chaos in the Mediterranean during the rebellions in North Africa without Frontex’s patrol boats. Christ, you’d be able to walk all the way to Libya over the torrent of refugees without getting your feet wet. We’re bloody lucky she’s prepared to take firm action.’
A shout from the newsroom made Schyman and Sjölander look up.
Patrik was rushing to Schyman’s office with a printout fluttering above his head like a battle standard. He thrust the glass door open. ‘We’ve got a murdered young mum on a footpath out in Sätra, stabbed in the neck.’
* * *
My first memory of the sea. I was rocking in it, with it, lying in it, as if it were a cradle. Above me white tufts of cloud floated past. I was on my back in a basket staring up at them. I knew I was on the sea. I don’t know how old I was, but I knew I was in the boat, don’t ask me how. Maybe it was the smell of salt water, the sound of waves breaking against the hull, the light reflecting off the surface of the sea.
It reached all the way in here, into the darkness inside the tin shack. The surf roared and algae stuck to my legs.
I’d forgotten how much I loved the sea.
For some reason that thought made me cry.
I had frittered away so much love and happiness. There were so many people I’d let down, not just myself but all of my nearest and dearest.
And I told them about the money, Annika. I know you were planning to buy a flat with it, but I was so scared, and my right side where he kicked me hurt so much. I know you wanted to use that insurance pay-out to make a future for us together, but you have to help me, Annika. I can’t handle this any more …
And suddenly I was back at sea, in the boat on the way out to Gällnö, in the old sloop my dad had inherited from Uncle Knut, the sail that smelt like laundry and flapped in the wind. Behind me were the jetty and the gravel path up to the village, the unpainted barn, the rusty boathouse. The low, red-grey buildings leaning against each other, as if for support against the wind. The grey rocks, the skinny pines, the shriek of the seagulls on the wind. Söderby farm, the fields and meadows, cows grazing … I was rocking towards the horizon, soft and endless, and felt my tears drying on my jaw.
Outside the guards’ fire was dying. I could hear one of them snoring. It was very cold, and I was so cold I was shaking. Was I getting a fever? Had the malaria mosquito,
Anopheles gambiae
, installed its parasite in my liver? Was this the start of the symptoms?
I started to cry again.
I was so hungry.
They had given me some
ugali
that evening, with a little scrap of meat, but the meat was crawling with white maggots and I couldn’t make myself eat it, and the tall man yelled at me and forced the meat into my mouth, but I clenched my teeth and then he held my nose closed until I fainted. When I came round he had vanished, taking the
ugali
with him.
I breathed hard in the darkness and tasted salt water.
* * *
Annika was sitting on the sofa next to Jimmy Halenius watching the television screen without really registering what was going on. The under-secretary of state, on the other hand, seemed to be following it pretty well, laughing, then tilting his head when things got sad and the violins started up.
The kidnappers hadn’t been in touch. No video, no phone call.
But all the media in Sweden and quite a few from abroad had been calling her mobile non-stop since the news of the Frenchman had broken. It had been on the unit in the hall, vibrating silently, but after an hour or so it had vibrated its way on to the floor and was probably somewhere among her shoes by now.
She glanced at Halenius. He was leaning towards the television: something exciting must be happening. It was incredible that he was supporting her and Thomas like this, quite remarkable. Would any of her bosses have done the same? Schyman, or Patrik Nilsson? She snorted.
She wondered what sort of father he was. She’d never heard him talking to his children on the phone. He probably did that when he was shut in the bedroom. She knew the plane to Cape Town had taken off earlier that evening, but he hadn’t mentioned it and she didn’t want to seem nosy. She wondered who his girlfriend was. Probably one of the lawyers in the department. Where else would a single father of two with a top job meet anyone if not at work?
I wonder if she’s beautiful or intelligent, Annika thought. A combination of the two was rare.
The film was evidently over, because Halenius stood up and said something. She raised her eyebrows.
‘Coffee?’
She shook her head.
‘Is it okay if I have a cup?’
She flew up. ‘Sit down. I’m in charge of supplies.’ She got out a plate of buns from the previous day’s raid on the Co-op, then sat in silence and watched him eat them. The television was on with the volume turned down. It was showing a repeat of some British detective series.
‘Aren’t you rather young to be an under-secretary of state?’ she asked.
He swallowed a piece of bun. ‘You’re wondering who I had to sleep with to get this job.’ He grinned. ‘There’s only one likely candidate, the minister himself. He selects his under-secretary of state personally. It’s not a party appointment.’
She smiled back. ‘So what do you actually do? When your staff aren’t getting kidnapped.’
‘The minister’s work is focused outside the department, and the under-secretary of state deals with what goes on inside it. You have to get on very well together. There’ve been some real horror stories where it hasn’t worked at all.’
‘You must end up practically merging. You sound just like him now. But what do you actually
do
?’
He laughed gently and took another bite of the bun. ‘Sometimes I have to answer to the media, but only when we’re trying to play down something really difficult, really bloody awful.’ He was chuckling now.
‘And the minister chose you specifically because?’
He washed down the bun with a gulp of coffee. ‘I didn’t know him particularly well. We’d met at a party and played football a few times, but he must have needed someone with my particular abilities.’
‘Which are?’
‘I got my Ph.D. in administrative law when I was twenty-eight, and was working at the Supreme Court when his secretary called and asked me to go for an interview.’
She looked at him, trying to see him as a legal bureaucrat at the Supreme Court. It wasn’t easy. She had the impression that everyone there was dusty and had threadbare suits and dandruff, not spiked hair and faded jeans. ‘So if you lose the election next year, you’ll have to resign?’
‘Yep.’
‘And then you’ll end up in charge of some obscure authority?’
Halenius stiffened. ‘Did the lift just stop up here?’ he said quietly.
Annika got to her feet. She went towards the door in her stockinged feet without breathing. It certainly sounded as if someone was out there – she could hear scraping sounds and muttering. The lift went back down. The bell rang. She stood beside the door, trying to hear through it to the stairwell.
‘Anki?’
She took a step back out of sheer astonishment.
‘Who is it?’ Halenius whispered.
Annika stared at the door. ‘My sister,’ she said. ‘Birgitta.’
The bell rang again. Someone tried the handle.
‘I’ll pull back to Kidnap Control,’ Halenius said.
Annika waited until he had gone, then opened the door.
Her little sister was swaying in the darkness of the stairwell beside a large man in a denim waistcoat.
‘Hello, Anki,’ Birgitta said. ‘Long time no see. Can we come in?’
Annika’s sister and her husband, presumably the Steven Annika had never met, had clearly had a bit to drink. She hesitated.
‘Or am I going to have to piss out here?’ Birgitta said.
Annika took a step back and pointed to the bathroom. Birgitta hurried in and closed the door. The large man filled the hall. Annika went round him and stood in the kitchen doorway, folding her arms over her chest, a gesture that clearly signalled defence and mistrust, but she couldn’t help herself. They stood in silence until Birgitta emerged. In spite of the gloom in the hall, she could see that her sister hadn’t managed to lose the weight she’d gained while she was pregnant. Her hair was longer than ever, reaching to below her waist.
‘This is something of a surprise,’ Annika said. ‘To what do I owe the honour?’
‘We’ve been to a concert,’ Birgitta said. ‘Rammstein. In the Globe. Brilliant.’
She’s got exactly the same voice as me, Annika found herself thinking. We sound exactly the same. She’s blonde and I’m brunette, but we’re so similar. I’m her dark shadow.
‘I thought you were working this weekend?’ Annika said. ‘Mum said she was going to be looking after … your daughter.’
She wasn’t sure she could remember the name. Destiny? Crystal? Chastity?
‘I don’t work evenings, do I? When Steven got hold of a couple of cheap tickets online, we decided to go for it.’
Steven went into the living room. Annika started and hurried after him. Before she knew it he’d blunder into the bedroom and find Halenius sitting there with his computer and recording equipment and loads of Post-it notes on the wall with reminders for when the kidnappers called: suggested code-words, different negotiating tactics, facts that Halenius had dug out, transcripts of the conversations with the kidnappers …
‘What exactly do you want?’ Annika asked. Steven was a head taller than her, with thinning hair and liver spots on his forehead. So far he hadn’t said a word.
‘We were wondering if we could spend the night here,’ Birgitta said. ‘The last train to Flen has already left, and we can’t afford a hotel.’
Annika looked at her sister and tried to work out her own reaction. They hadn’t seen each other in how long? Three years? Four? Now Birgitta had turned up in the middle of a hostage crisis because she’d
missed the train
?
‘I don’t know if you’ve heard,’ Annika said, her voice thickening, ‘but my husband’s been kidnapped. He’s being held captive somewhere in East Africa. They’re threatening to execute him.’
Birgitta looked round the living room. ‘Mum said. That’s so awful. Poor you.’
The husband sat on the sofa with a thud. His upper body immediately began to lean alarmingly. He was on the point of falling asleep, and Annika felt her brain short-circuit. ‘You can’t stay here,’ she said loudly. ‘Not tonight.’
The man was making himself comfortable on the sofa, putting his feet up, shoes and all, on the armrest, and stuffing one of the scatter cushions under his head. Birgitta sat down beside him. ‘What difference does it make if we …?’
Annika put her hands over her ears, hard, for several seconds. ‘You have to go,’ she said, grabbing the man’s arm. ‘Get out, both of you!’
‘Calm down,’ Birgitta said, sounding small and frightened. ‘Don’t pull him like that. He might get angry.’
‘Haven’t you a shred of decency in you?’ she said. ‘Forcing your way into my home in the middle of the night because you’re too drunk to catch the train home? Get out!’
‘Don’t talk to Steven like that!’ Birgitta squeaked.
The man opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on Annika. ‘You, you fucking …’
Annika felt the draught as the bedroom door opened. Then Jimmy Halenius was standing right behind her – she could feel his chest against her back.
‘You’ve got a man in your bedroom?’ Birgitta said.
‘Andersson, from the crime squad,’ Halenius said, holding up his pass card from Rosenbad. ‘This flat is a crime scene. We’re in the process of investigating a serious crime. I’m going to have to ask you to leave immediately.’