Walking carefully, she started up the hill, looking hard at every bush and shadow. At the top of the hill the road swung sharply to the left and led back into the housing estate. Straight ahead was a narrow track, clear of snow and ice, with a sign forbidding vehicle traffic.
Annika narrowed her eyes and peered around her, unable to see the minister anywhere. She took a few steps along the private track, jogging as fast as she dared on the ice and grit. She passed a bundle of cables leading down to the railway tracks and ran past an empty car park, then the track emerged alongside the railway line again. Far ahead the ironworks, coke ovens, and blastfurnaces sat brooding darkly against the winter sky, millions of tons of ore turned into a rolling carpet of
steel. To the left was nothing but slurry and snow. The full moon had risen behind the mounds of ore, its blue light mixing with the yellow lights illuminating the ore railway.
She ran for several minutes until she was forced to stop and catch her breath, coughing drily and quietly into her glove, blinking moisture out of her eyes and looking round for Karina Björnlund.
The track looked as though it was rarely used. She could see just a few footprints, some tracks left by dogs and a bicycle, but no minister.
The angels suddenly burst out in song.
She hit the back of her head so hard that the voices fell silent. She shut her eyes and breathed for a few seconds, listening to the emptiness in her head, and in the echo of the silence she suddenly heard other voices, human voices, coming from within the forest up ahead. She couldn’t make out any words, could just hear a male and a female voice talking fairly quietly.
She passed beneath a viaduct, either a road or a railway, Annika couldn’t tell. She no longer knew where she was. The voices grew louder, and in the light of the moon and the railway track she suddenly saw footsteps leading into an opening in the scrub.
She stopped, peering through the low trees, just able to make out shadows, spirits.
‘Well, I’m here now,’ Karina Björnlund was saying. ‘Don’t hurt me.’
A rough male voice with a Finnish accent answered, ‘Karina, don’t be scared. I’ve never meant you any harm.’
‘Believe me, Göran, no one’s ever done me as much harm as you have. Say what you want and . . . let me go.’
Annika caught her breath, her stomach turning
somersaults, her dry mouth turned to sandpaper. She took a careful step into the first of the footprints already there in the snow, then another, and another. In the moonlight she saw the forest open out into a clearing, and at its centre was a small brick building with a sheet-metal roof and sealed-up windows.
In the middle of the clearing stood the Minister of Culture in her thick fur, and a thin grey man in a long coat and leather cap, with a dark duffel bag beside him.
Göran Nilsson, the ruler with divine power, the Yellow Dragon.
Annika stared at him with painfully dry eyes.
Terrorist, mass-murderer, evil personified, this was what it looked like, hunched and dull and trembling slightly?
She had to call the police.
Then realized: her mobile was in the bag on the passenger seat of the Volvo down by the abandoned car.
‘How can you think I’ve ever meant you any harm?’ the man said, his voice carrying through the still air. ‘All my life you’re the person who’s meant the most to me.’
The woman shuffled her feet nervously.
‘I got your messages,’ she said, and Annika realized at once why she sounded so scared. She had received the same warnings as Margit.
The man, the Yellow Dragon, lowered his head for a few seconds. Then he looked up again, and Annika could see his eyes. In the strange light they glimmered red and hollow.
‘I had a reason for coming here, and you’re all going to hear it,’ he said, his voice as cold as the wind. ‘You may have come a long way, but I’ve come further.’
The woman was shaking under her fur, her voice scared, and she was close to tears. ‘Don’t hurt me.’
The man went up to her. Annika could see him pull something from his coat pocket, black, shiny.
A weapon. A revolver.
‘I shan’t trouble you again,’ he said quietly. ‘This is the last time. You’ll just have to wait at the meeting place. There’s something I need to take care of first.’
The wind freshened, tugging at the branches of the pine trees.
‘Please,’ the woman pleaded. ‘Let me go.’
‘In,’ he said harshly. ‘Now.’
And Karina Björnlund picked up her bag from the ground and, with the revolver aimed at her back, walked inside the little brick building. Göran Nilsson didn’t move, watched her go inside, put the gun in his pocket again, turned round and walked over to the duffel bag leaning against the wall of the building.
Annika took a deep breath. She had heard more than enough. She moved softly and carefully back along the trail of footprints and emerged onto the track, casting a last glance at the trees so she could describe the site properly to the police.
Someone was moving, someone was coming towards her.
Her breathing came hard and deep. She looked around in panic.
Ten metres or so behind her was a metal box with a mass of thick cables snaking out of it, and behind it was a thicket of young pine trees. Annika fled towards them, her feet scarcely touching the crunching surface of the track. She flew into the sharp branches, parting them with both hands, then peered behind her.
The grey man emerged into the dim light from the railway track, dragging the duffel bag behind him. It was clearly very heavy. He stood still on the icy track for a few seconds, then put his hand to his stomach and bent over, his breath rising from his mouth in panting bursts. Annika craned her neck to see better. It looked like the man was about to fall flat on his face.
Then his breathing calmed down, he straightened his back and took a few unsteady steps forward.
Then he looked straight at Annika.
Horrified, she let go off the branch she had been holding back, and put her hand over her mouth to muffle
the sound and cloud of her breath. She stood completely still in the darkness as the man slowly walked towards her. His panting breath and strained steps grew in her head, coming closer and closer until she thought she was going to scream. She closed her eyes and heard him stop a metre or so away from her, on the other side of the little pine trees.
There was a scraping noise. She opened her eyes.
Metal scraping against metal, she held her breath and listened.
The man was doing something with the metal box. He was opening the doors of the cabinet containing all the cables. She could hear him panting, and realized that she had to take another breath, inhaling quickly and silently, only to feel a huge and instant desire to throw up.
The man stank. A smell of decay filtered through the branches and made her put her hand in front of her mouth again. He was panting and struggling with something on the other side of the trees. The scraping sounds continued, then fell silent. There was a squeak, and then a click.
Ten seconds of easier breathing, then some more steps, away.
Annika turned round and pushed the branch aside to take another look.
The man was on his way back into the bushes. The duffel bag was gone.
He put it in the box
, she thought.
The undergrowth swallowed him up, erasing his presence in the weak light.
Annika stood up and flew along the track, only pausing at the edge of the forest. She turned and ran as quietly as she could, under the viaduct and back up to the Skanska building, past the empty car park,
until suddenly she saw another figure coming towards her.
She stopped instantly, looked around with adrenalin racing through her veins, threw herself down in the forest and sank up to her chin into the snow.
It was a man. He was bare-headed, dressed in jeans and a thin padded jacket. From his stumbling gait and unsteady movements she read the signs of serious and long-term alcohol abuse, a drunk.
A few seconds later he had vanished behind the Skanska building and she was able to get out onto the road again, rushing on without trying to brush off the snow.
To begin with she couldn’t see the hire-car, and had a moment of panic before she found it behind the abandoned car. She clicked open the lock and threw herself into the driver’s seat, pulling off her gloves and fumbling for her mobile, her fingers trembling so much that she had trouble keying in Inspector Suup’s direct number.
‘Karlsson, Central Control.’
She had reached the switchboard.
‘Suup,’ she said, ‘I’m trying to reach Inspector Suup.’
‘He’s finished for the day,’ Karlsson said.
Her brain went into overdrive; she shut her eyes and rubbed a sweaty palm across her forehead.
‘Forsberg,’ she said. ‘Is Forsberg there?’
‘Which one? We’ve got three.’
‘In crime?’
‘Hang on, I’ll put you through.’
The line went quiet and she ended up in a vague cyberspace without sound or colour. After three minutes she gave up and rang again.
‘I’m trying to get hold of someone on the Benny Ekland and Linus Gustafsson murder inquiries,’ she
said in a tone of panic when Karlsson answered once more.
‘About what?’ the young man said, uninterested.
She forced herself to breathe calmly.
‘My name is Annika Bengtzon, and I’m a reporter on the
Evening Post
, and I—’
‘Suup’s in charge of the press,’ Karlsson interrupted. ‘You’ll have to call him tomorrow.’
‘Listen to me!’ she screamed. ‘Ragnwald is here, Göran Nilsson, the Yellow Dragon, I know where he is, he’s in a small brick building next to the ore railway together with Karina Björnlund. You’ve got to come and arrest him, now!’
‘Björnlund?’ Karlsson said. ‘The Minister of Culture?’
‘Yes!’ Annika shouted. ‘Göran Nilsson from Sattajärvi is with her in a small building below the ironworks. I can’t explain exactly where, it’s close to a viaduct—’
‘Listen,’ Karlsson said. ‘Are you sure you’re feeling okay?’
She paused and realized that she sounded like a lunatic, cleared her throat and forced herself to speak calmly and coherently. ‘I know this might sound a little crazy,’ she said, trying to smile down the line. ‘I’m calling from somewhere called Lövskatan, it’s not far from the ironworks, the railway track runs right alongside—’
‘Lövskatan, yes, we do know where Lövskatan is,’ the policeman said, and she could hear that his patience was wearing thin.
‘A man you’ve been looking for for years has come back to Luleå,’ Annika said, sounding almost normal. ‘His name is Göran Nilsson, and since he returned to Sweden he’s committed at least four murders. The Mao murders. And right now he’s outside that building, or at
least was very recently, a brick building with a tin roof a short way into the forest below a viaduct . . .’
Officer Karlsson sighed audibly down the line.
‘The duty officer is booking someone in,’ he said, ‘but I’ll pass on your message as soon as she gets back.’
‘No!’ Annika yelled. ‘You have to come now! I don’t know how long he’s going to be there.’
‘Listen,’ the policeman said firmly. ‘Calm down. I’ve just told you, I’ll talk to the duty officer.’
‘Good,’ Annika said, breathing heavily, ‘good. I’ll wait here by the bus-stop until you come so I can show you the way. I’m parked here, I’m in a silver Volvo.’
‘Okay,’ the policeman said. ‘Just you wait there.’ And he hung up.
Annika looked at the display on her phone, a glowing rectangle in the darkness.
She pushed in the earpiece and called Jansson’s direct number in the newsroom.
‘I might have to stay in Luleå tonight,’ she said. ‘Just wanted to check it’s okay to book into the City Hotel tonight if I have to.’
‘Why?’ Jansson said.
‘There might be something going on up here,’ she said.
‘No terrorism,’ Jansson said. ‘I got hauled over the coals this morning for letting you go up to Norrbotten again.’
‘Okay,’ Annika said.
‘Are you listening?’ Jansson said. ‘Not one single line about another bloody terrorist, is that clear?’
She waited a second before replying. ‘Of course. Understood. I promise.’
‘Stay at the City,’ the editor said closer to the receiver in a considerably quieter and friendlier voice. ‘Call room service. Get pay-TV and watch porn films, I’ll sign for
the whole lot. I know how it is, we all have to get away sometimes.’
‘Okay,’ she said smartly and ended the call, dialled directory inquiries and asked to be put through to the City Hotel, Luleå, booking a business-class room on the top floor.
After that she sat in the car and stared out of the windscreen. Her breath hit the windows and they soon froze over again. She could do nothing more. All she could do was sit and wait for the police.
It’ll soon be over
, she thought, feeling her pulse-rate slow.
She saw Thord Axelsson’s grey face before her, Gunnel Sandström’s swollen eyes and wine-red cardigan, Linus Gustafsson’s spiky gelled hair and watchful eyes, and was consumed with burning fury.
You’re finished, you bastard
.
And she realized she was freezing. She thought about starting the car engine to heat it up, but opened the door instead and got out, far too restless to sit still. She checked that her mobile was in her pocket, locked the door and walked up towards the top of the hill.
The arctic night had taken an iron grip on the landscape, as hard and unrelenting as the steel produced in the blast-furnaces down by the shore. Annika’s breath drifted around her, light veils of frozen warmth.
It’s beautiful
, she thought, her eyes following the rails and ending up among the stars.
Then she heard a vehicle rumbling behind her, she turned round, hoping it was the police.
It was a local Luleå bus, the number one.
It drove towards her and stopped. She realized that she was standing at the bus-stop and took a few steps to one side to indicate that she wasn’t waiting for it.
But the bus stopped a few metres away from her
anyway, the back door opened and a thickset man stepped onto the street, moving slowly, heavily.