‘Fifty kilos,’ Annika said. ‘That would be tricky to take as hand-luggage.’
The last time she’d flown anywhere the check-in desk had been unwavering: a maximum six kilos in her cabin bag. Hers had weighed seven. According to the airline’s crystal-clear logic, she was allowed to take a Jonathan Franzen novel out of the bag and put it into her coat pocket – apparently that was fine.
‘I wouldn’t recommend checking them in,’ he said. ‘All cases get X-rayed. But there is another way.’
Annika leaned forward.
‘Cash cards,’ he said loudly, almost derisively. ‘The same as top-up cards for mobile phones, but for money.’
She thought the woman sitting closest to them glanced in their direction.
‘Like a debit card,’ he said, ‘with a number but no account holder. You pay the money into the card’s account and you can withdraw it anywhere in the world from an ordinary cashpoint.’
‘A cashpoint?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘although it would take a fair number of withdrawals. The shadier individuals who normally use this particular service usually employ a gang of people who go round and withdraw a couple of hundred at a time, but if you don’t want to be filmed and registered by security cameras that’s an option.’
Shadier individuals? Was that what she’d become? Someone who lived on the edge of life, trying to imitate real people and the lives they led? Ordinary people, like those who worked in this bank, for instance, who looked after their clothes and jewellery and presumably had their friends round for dinner-parties.
She got up on unsteady legs, holding the tripod for support, then folded it and put her bag over her shoulder. ‘Well, thanks very much,’ she said. ‘Most informative.’
She could feel the banker’s glassy stare on her back as she stumbled towards the door. Somewhere along the way the tripod knocked over a mug of coffee, but she pretended she hadn’t noticed.
* * *
Schyman closed the last of the morning papers and leaned back in his office chair. It creaked alarmingly, but it had always done that.
He looked at the hefty pile of newspapers in front of him, all the publications that he read every day of the year, summer and winter, weekdays and weekends, when he was at work, when he was on holiday. In recent years he’d been speeding up and reading less thoroughly. In fact he skimmed them now, particularly the morning papers.
Today he had every reason to feel pleased after his read-through.
Their serial killer had been picked up by all the national media, even if the murderer was being presented as more or less hypothetical, depending on the affiliation of the paper in question. The fact that the police were merging the two investigations was at least indisputable, and he felt he could be happy with that. He wasn’t guilty of deceiving his readers today.
The kidnap story had started to go cold. That the kidnapper had appeared in public again and said something else incomprehensible in Kinyarwanda was obviously news, but not the sort that was going to sell many copies. The other evening paper had accompanied the story about the video with a terrible picture of Annika Bengtzon staring into the camera outside her flat, mouth half open, hair in a state. ‘No comment,’ she was reported as having said.
Informative, without a doubt. A triumph of investigative journalism.
He sighed.
But not quite everything in that day’s media offering was superficial speculation. There was one story in the papers that had made a definite impact on him, the one about the old man who had been lying dead in his flat for years without anyone missing him. He had been found when they were installing broadband in the building where he lived. The front door had been unlocked, and the technician had clambered over the mountain of post and found him on the bathroom floor.
The food in the fridge, the postmarks on the letters in the hall and the body’s advanced state of decay had led the police to estimate that he had been dead for at least three years. His pension had been paid directly into his bank account, the bills paid out by direct debit. No one had missed him, not his neighbours, not his son, none of his former workmates. The police didn’t regard the case as suspicious.
An unlocked door for three years, Schyman thought. He hadn’t even been worth burgling.
There was a knock on the glass door.
Berit Hamrin and Patrik Nilsson were standing outside, their hands full of printouts, files and notes, looking anything but cheerful. That didn’t bode well. He waved them in.
‘We need some advice,’ Berit said.
‘Everything has to be so complicated these days,’ Patrik said.
Schyman gestured towards the chairs.
‘The minister of finance’s luxury renovation of his luxury apartment, carried out by black-market labour,’ Berit said. ‘It’s a good story if it holds up, but there are a few problems with the facts.’
Patrik folded his arms. Schyman nodded for her to go on.
‘First,’ Berit said, ‘it wasn’t the minister himself who was renovating a luxury apartment, but a consultancy firm he has shares in.’
‘That doesn’t make any difference,’ Patrik said.
Berit ignored him.
‘Second, it wasn’t a luxury apartment, but an office for the five employees of the consultancy firm.’
‘So?’ Patrik said.
‘Third, it wasn’t a luxury renovation, but an upgrade of the entire building. The plumbing in a total of thirty-six offices was being replaced.’
‘These are just details,’ Patrik said.
‘Fourth, the consultancy firm had a contract with an entrepreneur who was paid above board. The entrepreneur in turn farmed out a small part of the demolition work to a subcontractor and paid above board. The subcontractor was checked and approved by both the union, the construction federation and the tax office.’
‘This is all a matter of presentation,’ Patrik said.
Berit put her notepad on her lap. ‘No, Patrik,’ she said. ‘This is nonsense.’
‘But mediatime.se have interviewed a man who says he was paid cash in hand for working on the minister’s luxury flat!’
Schyman slapped his forehead. ‘Mediatime.se! Patrik, we’ve already talked about these gossip sites.’
‘
If
the source mentioned by mediatime.se is telling the truth, there’s a story,’ Berit said. ‘How come people are being forced to work outside a regulated industry even though all the companies involved are above board? Who stands to gain from it? And who are these black-market workers? Are they Swedish, and, if they are, are they claiming unemployment benefit at the same time? Or are they illegal immigrants living in basements and working for peanuts?’
Patrik was chewing a biro intently. ‘How can he be running a consultancy business at the same time as being a minister?’ he said. ‘How does that work? There must be no end of conflicts of interest. We could check to see if he’s awarded contracts from his department to his own company. There’s a scandal here, if we can just dig deep enough.’
‘The renovation was carried out seven years ago,’ Berit said, ‘three years before Jansson was appointed minister. He sold his share in the company as soon as he became a member of the cabinet.’
‘Maybe he still gives them favourable treatment. Jobs for the boys?’
Schyman raised his hand. ‘Patrik,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have to drop this. There is no story about Jansson’s luxury renovation. But, on the other hand, a series of articles about dodgy business practices in the construction industry isn’t a bad idea. How much fraud is there with building grants, for instance?’
Patrik threw his pen on to Schyman’s desk and stood up. His chair hit the wall behind him. He left the glass box without a word.
‘Sometimes it isn’t possible to fit reality into a tabloid frame,’ Berit said. ‘Were you serious about the construction industry?’
Schyman rubbed his face. ‘About it being a good idea, sure,’ he said. ‘But we haven’t got the resources to do something like that.’
Berit stood up. ‘I’ll go and see if I can find someone who’s suffering from alien hand syndrome,’ she said, and left the office.
Schyman sat there and watched them both go.
If his wife died before him, would he lie dead in his bathroom for three years before anyone found him? Would anyone miss him? Some former work colleague, maybe?
* * *
Annika put the tripod down and tossed the bag containing the video-camera on to the sofa. It was a bit brighter outside – the sun was trying to break through the cloud. She padded silently into the bedroom.
Halenius had fallen asleep on her bed, lying on his side with one knee pulled up, his hands under a cushion. He was breathing quietly and rhythmically.
Then he opened his eyes. ‘Already?’ he said, sitting up. One of his shirt buttons had come off.
‘There’s only one way to get the money there,’ Annika said. ‘A foreign payment to an account in Nairobi. All the other options are crap.’
Halenius stood up, swaying slightly. ‘Good,’ he said, walking out of the room. ‘We’ll get it sorted.’
She heard him go into the bathroom and lift the toilet seat. There was a pile of newspapers on the floor next to the bed – he must have been lying there reading them when he fell asleep.
His hair had settled down when he got back – he had tried to flatten it in front of the mirror. There was a gap in his shirt where the button was missing.
‘How’s that going to work?’ Annika said. ‘I haven’t got a Kenyan bank account.’
He sat down beside her on the bed rather than on the office chair. ‘Either you fly down and open one, or we find someone we can send the money to.’
Annika studied his face. His blue, blue eyes were fringed with red. ‘You know someone,’ she said. ‘You’ve got him or her in mind.’
‘Frida Arokodare,’ he said. ‘She was Angie’s roommate at university. Nigerian, works for the UN in Nairobi.’
He had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, almost luminous. Why were they so red round the edges? Had he been crying? Or perhaps he had an allergy. To what, though? She reached out her hand and touched his cheek. He stiffened, a response that transmitted itself to the mattress beneath her. She took her hand away. ‘Can we really do it?’ she said.
‘What?’ he said in a low voice.
She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Oh, no, she thought. Is this how it is now?
He got up and went over to the computer. His hand hid his groin.
‘Grégoire Makuza wrote an article in the
Daily Nation
five years ago. At the time he was still at the university. It was extremely critical of Frontex, the way the various countries shifted the blame elsewhere and pretended their closed borders were some sort of all-encompassing decree from above, and the hypocrisy of that at a time when Western Europe was exploiting illegal immigrants more than ever before …’
‘The
Daily Nation
?’
‘The biggest newspaper in East Africa. To be honest, the article makes some good points. His argument is shared by plenty of critics today, even within Europe. He could have had a career as a political commentator if he’d chosen that path.’ Halenius sat down in the office chair, then pushed it backwards so he ended up near the door.
‘Instead he chose to become the new bin Laden,’ Annika said, reaching for the pile of papers on the floor and holding up the copy of the other evening paper. The front page was dominated by a freeze-frame image from one of the videos, with the turbaned man staring intently into the camera.
‘There’s a number of flaws in that comparison,’ Halenius said. ‘Bin Laden came from a very wealthy family. Grégoire Makuza may have been a Tutsi, but his family doesn’t seem to have had much status. His father was a teacher in the village school, his mother looked after the house. He was the youngest of four children, and both parents and two of his brothers disappeared in the genocide. Presumably they’re in a mass grave somewhere.’
‘So I should feel sorry for him?’ Annika said.
Halenius’s eyes looked slightly less red now. ‘It’s no justification, but possibly an explanation. He’s completely mad, but not stupid.’
He handed her the printouts, and she took them hesitantly, as if they were hot.
‘That’s him. You have to take the conversation for what it is. I’ve spoken to him several times now, and this is what it’s like. We’ve been through this dialogue a couple of times.’
She glanced at the document. ‘What do “N” and “K” mean?’
‘Negotiator and Kidnapper. Remember, my aim has been to reduce the amount they want in ransom, and to reach agreement as soon as possible. At the end he finally gives in. You can read from here.’ He pointed some way into the text.
K: Have you been to the bank?
N: First we want proof of life.
K: Don’t try my patience. What does the bank say?
N: Annika, Thomas’s wife, is there now. But how are we to know that Thomas is alive?
K: You’ll just have to trust me. What does the bank say?
N: She isn’t back yet. It’s still early in the morning here in Sweden. But if we don’t have proof of life, we can’t pay anything at all, as I’m sure you understand.
K (
screaming
): Forty million dollars, or we’ll cut the infidel’s head off!
N (
loud sigh
): You know it isn’t possible for her to get hold of that much money. It’s completely unrealistic. She has an ordinary job, two small children and lives in a rented apartment.
K (
calmer
): She has the insurance money from a fire.
N: Yes, that’s right. But that’s nowhere near enough. How is she going to get hold of the rest?
K: She’ll have to put a bit of effort into it.
N: What do you mean?
K: She’s got a cunt like all the others, hasn’t she? She’ll just have to go out and use it. How much does she want her husband back?
N (
loud sigh
): She’s thirty-eight years old. Have you seen what she looks like?
K (
chuckling
): You’re right, my friend, she wouldn’t bring in much money that way. It’s lucky she has a job, or the children would starve …
She looked up from the text. ‘“
Have you seen what she looks like?
”’
‘I think you’re beautiful,’ he said. ‘I’ve always thought so.’