The effect on the thickset man was striking. He sobered instantly and stood up with surprising agility.
‘Steven, come on,’ Birgitta said, pulling at his arm.
This isn’t the first time, Annika thought. He’s been spoken to by the police like that before, and it’s left its mark on him, the sort of mark that cuts through a lot of drink.
‘This way,’ Halenius said, taking the man’s other arm.
Annika saw them disappear into the hall, heard the front door open and close, then the clatter of the lift. She stood in the light of the television, heart pounding.
Birgitta, the darling daughter, the favourite child, the fair, pretty one. Mummy’s little angel, the girl of distinctly average talents who always got picked to be the star of the annual Lucia festivities in December.
Annika had been Daddy’s girl, dark and edgy even as a child, with her precocious breasts, big eyes and top marks in every subject without having to try.
Halenius came back into the living room.
‘Andersson, from the crime squad?’ Annika said.
He sighed and sat down in an armchair. ‘Impersonating a public official,’ he said. ‘I confess. Could be fined ten days’ wages if I’m found guilty. So that was your sister and brother-in-law?’
She felt her knees give way and sank on to the sofa.
‘Thanks for your help,’ she said.
‘I remember her from school photographs,’ he said. ‘She was the year below you, wasn’t she? Roly had a bit of a crush on her as well, but you were the one for him.’
‘Everyone had a crush on Birgitta,’ Annika said, leaning her head back. ‘I think she actually went out with Roly for a while, in high school.’
‘True,’ Halenius said. ‘But only because he couldn’t have you.’
‘That’s her real hair colour,’ Annika said. ‘Different shades of blonde. People pay a fortune to look like her.’
‘How old is she? Thirty-seven? She seems older.’
Annika raised her head and looked at Halenius. ‘How the hell did you remember that she went out with Roly? I’d be surprised if she herself remembered that.’
He smiled and shook his head.
She leaned towards him. ‘How well did you know Roly?’ she asked. ‘How much time did you really spend together?’
‘A lot.’
‘And he talked about me and Birgitta?’
‘Mostly you. All the time, in fact.’
Annika looked at Halenius. He didn’t look away.
‘I grew up with you,’ he said. ‘You were Utopia, a mirage, the dream girl no one could ever have. Why do you think I came to dinner at yours that time out in Djursholm?’
Her mouth had dried.
‘I wanted to see who you were,’ he said quietly. ‘See what sort of adult you’d become.’
‘And shatter the dream?’ she said hoarsely.
He looked at her for a few seconds, then stood up. ‘See you tomorrow,’ he said, then put on his outdoor clothes and left.
I woke up when the tall man walked into the shack. His smell washed over me, like the waves around Gällnö. I experienced a few seconds of utter panic before I realized what he wanted.
He had brought tea, water,
ugali
and a fresh tomato. He was doing an unusual amount of smiling and talking, ‘
Kula ili kupata nguvu, siku kubwa mbele yenu
.’ He leaned over me and untied the thick rope binding my hands behind me. It was a blessing to be able to massage my wrists and try to get a bit of circulation back into my fingers. When I reached cautiously for the tomato, he nodded encouragingly. ‘
Kula vizuri
,’ he said, then walked out. He had left my hands untied, but they usually did when I was eating.
The tea was strong and sweet and tasted of mint. This was the nicest meal I’d had since I got there. The water was cool and tasted fresh, and the
ugali
was still warm.
Perhaps I was doing something right. Perhaps they’d understood that I didn’t want to be a problem, that I really would co-operate, and this was the reward. Maybe from now on I would be better treated.
The thought filled me with confidence.
Perhaps Annika had had something to do with this. I’d worked out that they had been in touch with her. I knew she’d do anything to get me released. Perhaps the ransom had already been paid. Soon they’d drive up in that big Toyota and take me back to the plane on the runway in Liboi.
I have to admit, I was crying with relief.
When I thought about it, the guards hadn’t treated me too badly. Kiongozi Ujumla, the thickset man in the turban, had kicked me pretty viciously, but that was because I was lying. Of course I was a rich man in their eyes: to say anything different was ridiculous. The right side of my chest hurt, making me wince every time I took a deep breath, but that was just one of those things. The Dane wasn’t their fault: he’d been asthmatic and, well, what could I say about the Frenchman? There had been moments when I’d felt like chopping his head off.
I hadn’t seen or heard anything of the Spaniard or the Romanian since they’d been taken from the shack. Perhaps they’d be coming back with me to the landing strip in the Toyota. Maybe our governments had got together and negotiated our release in return for some sort of political gesture.
I’d gobbled the tomato first. Now I was eating the last of the
ugali
, finishing the water, and licking the inside of the tea mug to get the last of the sugar. My stomach felt completely full. If it hadn’t been for the itching of the insect bites and the throbbing pain in my right side, I was actually doing pretty well.
I sat down in the corner and leaned against the tin wall, diagonally across from the dark stain where the Dane had died. I’d made that corner of the shack the toilet, not as a sign of disrespect, purely for sanitary reasons.
The tin was still cool against my back. It would get much hotter during the day.
Then I heard voices out in the
manyatta
, male and female. One was Catherine’s, she was talking loudly in English, pleading.
I sat bolt upright and sharpened my senses. Weren’t there other voices too? The Spaniard’s? And the Romanian’s?
Maybe Catherine would be coming back to the plane with us in the Toyota.
‘
Please, please
,’ I heard her say. I thought she was crying.
I stood up as best I could in the low shack. At the top of the wall, just under the roof, there was a fairly large gap. I closed one eye and put the other to it, cupping my hands over my forehead to see better. The wind blew sand into my eye. I blinked and tried again. I could see three huts, all made of cracked clay rather than tin, and there was a smell of fire and mould. The sun was still low, the shadows long and deep. I couldn’t see the people whose voices I’d heard, but they had to be outside somewhere. Their words were being carried by the wind – they had to be behind one of the other huts. I looked all round, but couldn’t see anyone. So I sat down and listened again, trying to hear what Catherine was saying, what she wanted. Wasn’t a man talking as well? Answering her? And then she cried, ‘
No, no, no
,’ and the screaming started.
* * *
The woman had been killed by four stab wounds to the neck. She was lying at the edge of the forest, close to a footpath, behind the buildings on Kungsätravägen to the south of Stockholm. There was a playground not far away. She had been found at about six o’clock in the evening by a man walking his dog. There were striking similarities to the murder of Linnea Sendman, according to the
Evening Post
, which, to be on the safe side, had presented them in list form, accompanied by big pictures:
The murdered woman’s name was Lena Andersson, she was forty-two, single, and had two teenage daughters. Her laughing face looked out at Annika from the newspaper, her red hair swirling in the wind.
And now the theory about a serial murder in the Stockholm suburbs seemed to have taken root among the police. Two named detectives confirmed that the investigations into Lena and Linnea were being combined (the paper was already on first-name terms with both murdered women).
‘Where do you get all these photographs of murder victims?’ Halenius asked, eating a rye-bread sandwich. ‘I thought we’d blocked access to those archives.’
Annika closed the paper and pushed it away from her. She couldn’t bear to think of the two teenage girls left alone. Had they sat up waiting for their mother on Saturday night, listening for her footsteps? Or were they out with their friends, not thinking about her at all, maybe not knowing she was missing until the police appeared at the door, ‘We’re very sorry …’?
‘In some ways it’s got harder since you blocked the archives,’ Annika said, ‘but in the new digital world there are countless new sources to dig about in.’
‘Such as?’
‘Blogs, Twitter, online papers, discussion forums, the PR pages of various companies and public bodies, and Facebook, of course. Even the suicide bomber who blew himself up on Drottninggatan was on Facebook.’
‘What about copyright?’ Halenius said. ‘I thought you were all very concerned about that.’
‘It’s a grey area,’ Annika said.
The image of the red-haired woman was floating in front of her above the breakfast table. She had been living alone with her daughters for three years, according to Elin Michnik’s article, and worked as a chiropractor at a clinic in the centre of Skärholmen. She had been on her way home from a yoga class when she’d met her fate in the winter darkness.
Annika drank some apple juice and took a bite of her sandwich.
Halenius wasn’t quite so neat today, which supported her suspicion that his girlfriend did his ironing for him. ‘Have your children got there yet?’ she asked.
He glanced at his watch. ‘They landed an hour ago. Can I have the newspaper?’
She pushed it across the table and stood up: if he didn’t want to talk about his children, she wasn’t going to force him. ‘Well, I’m going to call mine,’ she said, taking her mobile and going into the children’s room, shutting the door quietly behind her.
She didn’t bother turning any lights on. There was a kind of grey, cloudy half-light outside, the sort that was incapable of penetrating the shadows. She curled up in a foetal position on top of Kalle’s duvet, hugging his pillow to her. She needed to change the sheets – it had been a fortnight since she’d last done it. At least. And she needed to go through the children’s wardrobes – she hadn’t done that properly since they’d got back from the USA, had just chucked everything from their cases into the cupboard, along with all the things they’d grown out of. She sat up.
She’d have to see if they’d grown out of their Lucia clothes – they must have done by now. And on the day before 13 December the whole of Sweden had always been sucked dry of Lucia dresses and boys’ robes. She must remember to buy new ones as soon as possible. Perhaps Kalle wouldn’t want to join in any longer. And maybe their new American school didn’t celebrate Lucia in the same way as Swedish schools.
She picked up her mobile and dialled Berit’s home number. Thord, her husband, answered. ‘Don’t come and get them too early,’ he said. ‘We’re about to go out fishing.’
Kalle came on the line.
‘Do you know if there’s going to be a Lucia procession at school this year?’ Annika asked.
‘Mum,’ Kalle said, ‘Daddy’s promised to take us to Norway and go fishing for trout in Randsfjorden loads of times. If he doesn’t come home can I go with Thord instead?’
She took a deep breath. ‘Sure.’
‘Yay!’ the boy exclaimed, and passed the phone to Ellen.
‘Mummy, can I have a dog? A yellow one, called Soraya?’
‘Are you having a nice time with Berit and Thord?’ Annika asked.
‘
Pleeease?
Just a little dog?’
‘I’ll be coming to get you soon so make the most of Soraya while you can. And we can see her lots more times.’
‘We’re going fishing now,’ Ellen said, putting the phone down with a thud.
She heard footsteps approaching, then crackling as the phone was picked up. ‘It’s full-on here,’ Berit said.
‘How can I ever thank you?’ Annika said.
‘How are you getting on?’
‘Don’t know,’ Annika said. ‘We haven’t heard any more. I’ve agreed with Schyman to write and film everything, and we’ll see what can be published when it’s all over.’
‘Sounds like a good deal,’ Berit said. ‘Just say if you need help with anything.’
She noticed that someone had scribbled on the wallpaper in felt-tip. ‘Where are they going fishing? Isn’t the lake frozen?’
‘Thord’s got a hole in the ice out by the perch fishing ground. He keeps it open all winter.’
They hung up, and Annika sat there for a while with the phone in her hand. Then she stood up and went over to the wardrobes, opened the first and looked at the mess inside. All the clothes they’d had when they were little had gone up in the fire, but Kalle and Ellen had grown a fair bit since then. At the front was a little Batman costume. She pulled it out and held it up. She’d had no idea it was still there. She put it on Kalle’s bed, as the start of the pile of things to keep. Next came a jumper with a train on it that Birgitta had knitted for his third birthday. She was so practical. It had been at their grandmother’s in Vaxholm and had therefore escaped the fire. That ended up in the ‘keep’ pile as well. A princess dress that Sophia Grenborg had bought: get rid of. Old pyjamas, odd socks and washed out T-shirts all ended up on the scrapheap. Just a few went back on to hangers and into the drawers.
She’d got halfway through the first wardrobe when Halenius knocked on the door.
‘It’s arrived,’ he said.
He sat her on the office chair in the bedroom, with the computer on the desk in front of her. The screen was black. In the middle a little triangle inside a circle indicated that a video had loaded but was paused.