‘Her name’s Sophia Grenborg, she works for the Federation of County Councils. She’s on the same working group as Thomas – you know, the one looking into threats to politicians . . .’
‘Shit,’ Anne said. ‘Shit. What a bastard. What’s he say? Does he deny it?’
Annika closed her eyes and put a hand to her forehead. ‘I haven’t said anything,’ she said. ‘I’m going to deal with this my own way.’
‘What?’ Anne said. ‘Rubbish. Of course you’ve got to talk to him.’
Annika looked up. ‘I know he’s thinking about leaving me and the children. He’s started lying to me as well. And he has been unfaithful before.’
Anne looked astonished. ‘Who with?’
Annika tried to laugh and felt the stone forcing tears into her eyes.
‘With me,’ she finally said.
Anne Snapphane sighed heavily and looked at her with eyes of black glass. ‘You’ve got to talk to him.’
‘And I hear angels,’ Annika said, taking a deep breath. ‘They sing to me, and sometimes they talk to me. As soon as I get stressed they start up.’
And she shut her eyes and hummed their melancholy song.
Anne Snapphane took hold of her shoulders and pulled her round to face her with a stern, dark expression on her face.
‘You’ve got to get help,’ she said. ‘Do you hear me, Annika? For God’s sake, you can’t go round with a load of fairies in your head.’ She took a step closer, shaking Annika until her teeth rattled. ‘You mustn’t let go, Anki, listen to me.’
Annika pulled free of her friend’s grasp.
‘It’s okay,’ she said quietly. ‘They go away when I have something to think about. When I’m working, doing things. Do you want coffee, then?’
‘Green tea,’ Anne said. ‘If you’ve got any.’
Annika went into the kitchen with a peculiar bounce in her step, feeling the angels’ astonishment right down to her stomach. She had called their bluff. They didn’t think she’d do that; they were sure they’d be able to sing and console her and terrorize her for ever without anyone ever finding out.
She poured water in the little copper pan, lit the stove with the lighter that only just managed to muster enough of a spark to ignite the blue flames.
The voices started up, weak, isolated . . .
She gasped for breath and slapped the side of her head with one hand to make them shut up.
Anne came into the kitchen in her stockinged feet; she had got some colour back in her face, an inquisitive look in her eyes.
Annika tried to smile.
‘I think they’re mostly trying to comfort me,’ she said. ‘They only sing nice things.’
She walked over to the pantry and felt in the half-darkness inside for the tea.
Anne Snapphane sat down at the kitchen table. Annika could feel her eyes on her back.
‘But it’s you doing it,’ Anne said. ‘Don’t you get it? You’re consoling yourself; you’re looking after the little child somewhere in there. Did anyone sing you songs like that when you were little?’
Annika blew away a mean comment about amateur psychology and actually managed to find some Japanese tea that she’d been given by someone at work.
‘Are you serious about moving?’ she said, returning to the now-boiling water. ‘I can recommend Kungsholmen. We islanders are a bit better than everyone else.’
Anne picked up a few stray crumbs from breakfast between her thumb and forefinger and thought for a moment before replying.
‘Somehow I suppose I thought Mehmet would move out to us, or that we’d just carry on like we were for ever, if that makes any sense? He sort of . . . belonged, and without him it’s . . . wrong. It’s miserable and a long way away and the old sod downstairs is always trying to sneak a look under my dressing gown when I go down to get the paper.’
‘So what’s most important?’ Annika said, pouring tea through the strainer into the cup.
‘Miranda,’ Anne said without thinking. ‘Although I realize I can’t be a martyr and give up everything important for her sake, but the house on Lidingö has
never been that important to me. Of course I like modernism, but I can probably survive without the right sort of interior design.’
‘Maybe you could put up with a bit of art nouveau if you had to?’ Annika said, carrying the mugs over.
‘Even a bit of national romanticism. Cheers.’
Annika sat down facing Anne and watched her blow on the hot drink.
‘Östermalm, you mean?’
Anne nodded, grimacing as she burned her tongue.
‘As close as possible, so she can walk between us.’
‘How big?’
‘How expensive, you mean? I can’t add anything in cash.’
They drank their tea in silence, listening to the door of the bin room bang at irregular intervals down in the courtyard. The kitchen swayed gently in the weak winter light, the angels hummed uncertainly, the stone twisted and scratched.
‘Shall we have a look online?’ Annika said, and stood up, unable to sit there any longer.
Anne slurped her tea and followed her to the computer.
Annika sat down and concentrated on icons and keys.
‘Let’s start with the ultimate,’ she said. ‘Three rooms, balcony and open fire on Artillerigatan?’
Anne sighed.
There was one like that for sale, one hundred and fifteen square metres, three floors up, in excellent condition, new kitchen, fully tiled bathroom with bath and basin, viewing Sunday at 16.00.
‘Four million?’ Anne guessed, peering at the screen.
‘Three point eight,’ Annika said, ‘but it’ll probably go up when they start getting offers.’
‘That’s absurd,’ Anne Snapphane said. ‘I can’t afford that. What would the monthly payments on a four million mortgage be?’
Annika shut her eyes and did the maths in her head.
‘Twenty thousand, plus fees, but minus tax deductions.’
‘What about something smaller?’
They found a two-room flat on the ground floor on the wrong side of Valhallavägen for one and half million.
‘Unemployed,’ Anne said, sitting down heavily on the arm of Annika’s chair. ‘Abandoned by my daughter’s father, halfway to alcoholic and with a two-room flat on the ground floor. Can I sink any lower?’
‘Reporter for Radio Sjuhärad,’ Annika reminded her.
‘You know what I mean,’ Anne said, and stood up. ‘I’ll go and look at Artillerigatan, did they give the door-code?’
Annika printed out the details with the code and agent’s number.
‘Are you coming?’
Annika shook her head, and sat and listened as Anne went into the hall and pulled on her boots and coat, headband and scarf.
‘I’ll call and tell you all about it,’ she called from the front door, and the angels sang a little farewell song.
Annika quickly performed a new search and the voices faded away, as she looked at the newly built house on Vinterviksgatan in Djursholm, which was still for sale, for just six point nine million.
Oak flooring in every room, open-plan kitchen and dining room, Mediterranean-blue mosaic in both bathrooms, a level, child-friendly garden with newly planted fruit trees, for more pictures click
here
.
And she clicked and waited as the pictures loaded,
pictures from someone else’s life, staring at a double bed in a cream-white bedroom with en-suite bathroom.
A family lives here
, she thought,
and they’ve decided to move
. They got hold of an estate agent who did a valuation, took his digital camera and put together a stupid sales pitch, put it all on the net and now anyone can stare at their bedroom, judge their taste, study the way they’ve filled the space.
She got up quickly and went over to the phone, dialled directory inquiries with trembling fingers. When a woman answered, she asked for the number of Margit Axelsson in Piteå.
‘I’ve got a Thord and Margit Axelsson in Pitholm,’ the operator said slowly. ‘He’s listed as an engineer, and her as a nursery school teacher, could that be right?’
She asked to be put through and waited with bated breath as the phone rang. The angels kept quiet.
An old-fashioned answer machine took the call. Her head was filled with a woman’s cheery voice against the slightly distorted background noise of a tape that’s been played too many times.
‘Hello, you’ve reached the home of the Axelsson family.’
Of course, the home of, we live here.
‘Thord and Margit aren’t in at the moment and the girls are at university, so leave a message after the beep. Bye for now.’
Annika cleared her throat as the machine clicked and whirred.
‘Hello,’ she said weakly after the signal on a tape somewhere outside Piteå. ‘My name’s Annika Bengtzon and I’m a reporter on the
Evening Post
. I’d like to apologize for intruding at a time like this, but I’m phoning about something particular. I know about the Mao quotation.’
She hesitated for a moment, not sure if the woman’s relatives knew that there were three letters with similar content.
‘I’m trying to contact Thord,’ she said. ‘I know you didn’t do it.’
She fell silent again, listening to the gentle hiss of the tape, wondering how long she could stay quiet before the call was cut off.
‘Over the last few weeks I’ve been investigating the explosion of a Draken plane at F21 in November nineteen sixty-nine,’ she said. ‘I know about Ragnwald; I know that he was together with Karina Björnlund—’
The receiver was picked up at the other end, and the change in background noise made her jump.
‘The explosion?’ a rough male voice said. ‘What do you know about that?’
Annika gulped. ‘Is that Thord?’
‘What do you know about F21?’ The man’s voice was curt, subdued.
‘Quite a bit,’ Annika said, and waited.
‘You can’t put anything in the paper unless you know,’ the man said. ‘You can’t do that.’
‘I’m not going to,’ Annika said. ‘
People of the world, unite and defeat the American aggressors and all their lackeys. People of the world, be courageous, and dare to fight, defy difficulties and advance wave upon wave. Then the whole world will belong to the people. Monsters of all kinds shall be destroyed
. What does that mean?’
The man didn’t answer for a long time. If it wasn’t for the sound of a television in the background she would have thought he’d hung up.
‘Have any other journalists called?’ she asked eventually.
She heard the man swallow, an uneven sigh into the
mouthpiece that made her move the receiver away from her ear.
‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Up here they know what they think.’ He paused, maybe he was crying. She waited in silence.
‘They wrote that I was taken in for questioning but released due to lack of evidence.’
Annika nodded mutely, no one calls a murderer.
‘But it wasn’t you,’ she said. ‘The police are certain about that.’
The man gave a deep sigh, his voice trembling when he spoke. ‘That doesn’t matter up here,’ he said. ‘The neighbours saw me being taken away in a police car. From now on I shall be known as Margit’s murderer to people round here.’
‘Not if they catch the culprit,’ Annika said, hearing the man start to sob. ‘Not if they get hold of Göran Nilsson.’
‘Göran Nilsson,’ he said, blowing his nose. ‘Who’s that?’
She paused, biting her tongue, not sure of how much the man knew.
‘He’s also known under his alias,’ she said. ‘Ragnwald.’
‘You mean . . . Ragnwald?’ the man said, spitting the name out. ‘The Yellow Dragon?’
Annika started. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’
‘I know of him,’ Thord Axelsson said warmly. ‘The mad Maoist who ran around Luleå as a revolutionary in the late sixties, I know he’s back. I know what he’s done.’
Annika grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper.
‘I’ve never heard the codename Yellow Dragon used for him before,’ she said. ‘Ragnwald was the name he used in the Maoist groups that used to meet in the basement of the library.’
‘Before the Beasts,’ Thord Axelsson said.
Annika stopped for a moment. ‘Before the Beasts,’ she repeated, making notes.
The line fell silent again.
‘Hello?’ Annika said
A deep sigh confirmed that the man was still there.
‘The girls are here,’ he said, his mouth close to the phone. ‘I can’t talk about this now.’
Annika thought quickly for a couple of seconds.
‘I’m coming up to Luleå on some other business tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Could I visit you at home so we can talk undisturbed?’
‘Margit’s dead,’ the man said, the sounds coming out broken and distorted. ‘There’s nothing for her to be afraid of any more. But I shan’t let her down, ever. You need to understand that.’
Annika kept making notes even though she didn’t understand him.
‘I just want to understand the context,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to hang Margit or anyone else out to dry.’
The man sighed again and thought for a moment.
‘Come at lunchtime. The girls have an appointment with the police, so we can be alone then.’
He gave her the address and directions, and told her to come around twelve o’clock.
Afterwards she let the receiver sit in its cradle for a long minute. The angels were quiet, but there was a sharp buzzing sound in her left ear. The shadows in the room were long and irregular, jumping jerkily over the walls as vehicles passed and the streetlamp swayed.
She had to find the right way of explaining this to her editors.
She phoned reception and she was in luck, Jansson was on duty.
‘How the hell are you?’ he asked, blowing smoke into the phone.
‘I’m on to something,’ she said. ‘A real human-interest story, a poor man in a nice suburb outside Piteå whose wife has been murdered and the whole town thinks he did it.’
‘But . . . ?’ Jansson didn’t sound particularly interested.
‘Definitely didn’t do it,’ Annika said. ‘He was at work sixty kilometres away from the scene of the crime, with three colleagues, at the time of the murder. And the police think they know who was responsible, but that hasn’t made any difference for this man. His neighbours saw him being taken away in a police car early in the morning and they all think they know what happened. The local papers wrote that he was taken in for questioning, but was released due to lack of evidence. He’ll be known there as the man who killed his wife until the day he dies.’