Annika stared at the information.
What the . . .?
She checked the ID number, tried it again.
The results were the same.
Ingrid Agneta Nordin, registered in Sollentuna, street address Kungsvägen. The latest change of address had been made six months ago. She entered the new name and pressed F2. Whir, process –
Well, what do you know!
Annika stared.
It worked. The information was accessed, and there was another historical reference listed dating back three years.
She logged out quickly, picked up the phone and dialled the direct line to the senior enforcement officer she had met the day before.
‘I was just wondering,’ she said, ‘if the name Ingrid Agneta Nordin rings a bell?’
While the man considered her question, Annika held her breath.
‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘Would that be here in Sollentuna? For a couple of years I had a great deal to do with a woman by that name.’
She exhaled.
Yes!
‘She’s changed her name to Rebecka Björkstig, but there’s another historical reference on the PubReg that I’m unable to access. Could you possibly check if you have that information?’
The senior enforcement officer rustled some papers.
‘What kind of information do you expect to find?’
‘Possibly a previous address,’ Annika said. ‘But there could also be a reference to other name changes.’
A brief pause while the man wrote down Rebecka’s personal ID number.
‘When would this have taken place?’
‘Three and a half years ago.’
He went off somewhere and was gone for five minutes.
‘Guess what?’ he said eventually, clearing his throat. ‘She did have another name previously: Eva Ingrid Charlotta Andersson, and she was registered in Märsta.’
Annika closed her eyes.
What a bull’s eye.
She thanked the officer hurriedly and hung up.
Anders Schyman closed the door behind him and surveyed his dusty cubbyhole. He sat down at his desk and looked out over the newsroom through the glass partition. An energetic Annika Bengtzon skipped past his fish tank and disappeared in the direction of the cafeteria. He would call her in when she returned, to see if she’d made any progress.
Today’s board meeting had done a great deal to clear the horizons around here. Torstensson, the editor-in-chief, had decided to come clean about the offer he had received from the EU. The party wanted him to go to Brussels and deal with policy issues. He was full of understated pride as he related this news to the group and Schyman reckoned he knew why he was so pleased. Torstensson had no real ties to
Kvällspressen.
He had been appointed purely for political reasons, Schyman doubted that Torstensson had ever read the paper regularly until he had been appointed editor-in-chief.
In spite of the fancy title, Torstensson hadn’t been particularly satisfied with his job. He’d never really grasped what the paper was all about. He would take part in televised debates and reveal how little he actually knew every time he opened his mouth, always using sentences brimming with politically correct clichés.
Anders Schyman wondered why this opening had come up at this particular time. As far as he knew there was no urgent need for yet another lobbyist dealing with the public access of information, not with any of the Swedish parties represented in Brussels right now. His guess was that the board was tired of being in the red, but hoped to avoid the negative media coverage that would result if the editor-in-chief was dismissed and thus publicly humiliated. It was likely that someone was putting pressure on the leading factions of the party and the result was a fancy new job in a new arena.
The question was what would happen next around here. If Torstensson actually got the appointment, if he accepted it and if he carried out his reorganization of the paper before he left, then who would his successor be? Unease sliced through Schyman’s gut, a sensation he quickly suppressed.
Annika Bengtzon strolled past on the other side of the glass partition, holding a mug of coffee. Schyman got up, slid the door open and summoned her into his bunker.
‘How’s Paradise coming along?’
The young woman sat down on a chair meant for visitors.
‘You should tell them to vacuum your office. It’s coming along fine. I’ve received a great deal of information about our friend Evita Perón.’
The deputy editor blinked, Annika Bengtzon waved her hands imperiously.
‘A.k.a. Rebecka Björkstig,’ she said. ‘Or Ingrid Agneta Nordin, or Eva Ingrid Charlotta Andersson, as she’s also called herself. She has one hundred and seven personal debts listed at the Debt Enforcement Agency and twenty of those involve Paradise. She’s gone bankrupt in every way known to man at least once. I have a source who tells me that all Paradise does is charge people for services they never render, but I haven’t had that fully corroborated yet.’
Schyman took notes. He wasn’t surprised.
‘If this is true, it sounds like your classic white-collar criminal.’
Annika nodded enthusiastically.
‘You bet. I’ve called the police in the different communities where Björkstig or whatever her name may be has been a resident. I spoke to a police detective who has been looking for her for the past six months. Evita is suspected of criminal intent in connection with all her bankruptcies.’
Thoughtfully, Schyman studied the young reporter. She was damn good at digging up dirt on any subject. She was enjoying herself, he could tell.
‘What are we going to do about this? When can you start writing an article?’
Annika Bengtzon flipped through her pad.
‘The outline’s ready, I just need to flesh it out. I’ve been in contact with a woman who has seen the set-up from the inside, and in addition to that I know of another woman involved. I found this guy at Social Services in Vaxholm, and he’s talked to me. And I’m going to go to Järfälla and check out the house there. I’ve got to get a better picture of what, if anything goes on. And, naturally, I’ve got to talk to Rebecka again and ask her why she’s been lying.’
Schyman nodded: that sounded reasonable.
‘We can count on a chain reaction of sorts,’ Annika went on. ‘Once we go public with this information, more and more monsters may start creeping out of the woodwork – people may call in and tell us more.’
‘There’s no way we can plan for that,’ he said.
‘I guess not,’ Annika said. ‘But we need to be prepared to receive any information that comes our way.’
‘And those local authorities she’s defrauded,’ Schyman said, ‘they might want to bring charges against her.’
‘In for questioning, criminal proceedings, trial, prison,’ Annika said.
Schyman smiled briefly at the young woman.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you have it all lined up.’
‘I’m going to type up my notes,’ she said. ‘Then I’ll spend the weekend visiting my grandmother. She’s had a stroke.’
Annika Bengtzon got up and slung her bag over her shoulder.
‘You’ve got to get this room vacuumed or you’ll get asthma.’
The slush along the sidewalk had frozen into ice, making walking difficult. The sun shone, a cold white November light that made all contours shimmer.
Annika let the rays of light fall on her face. It had taken longer than she thought to type up her notes and the sun had dipped low on the horizon already.
She sighed. She hadn’t told Anders Schyman everything. She hadn’t told him that she’d been responsible for sending a woman to Paradise, and that the woman had disappeared, and that Rebecka had threatened to kill her.
If that was true.
She shook off the sense of unease, got on a 62 bus, took it to Tegelbacken and walked to the train station from there. The next train to Katrineholm would leave in thirty-five minutes, so she bought a sandwich and sat with her back facing the hall. The buzz of the crowd was like a haze behind her and her thoughts began wandering.
Rebecka Agneta Charlotta, dangerous and elusive.
Thomas Samuelsson, rich and good-looking.
Annika thought that she ought to tell him about the information she had discovered, the many identities, the suspicion of crime. She finished her sandwich, picked up her stuff and walked over to the telephone booths.
Mr Samuelsson had gone for the day – could she take a message? the receptionist asked.
Gone for the day, gone home to his wife.
‘No, thank you. No message.’
Annika’s grandmother had been moved to a different room. The electronic equipment wasn’t as prominent here, but in other respects the room looked the same. She was awake when Annika arrived.
‘I’m sorry I wasn’t able to make it earlier,’ Annika said, taking off her coat and scarf and tossing them into the comer behind the door before she walked over to the elderly woman.
Slightly bewildered, Sofia Katarina looked up at her.
‘Barbro?’
‘No, it’s Annika, Barbro’s daughter.’
The elderly woman tried to smile.
‘The light of my life,’ she said, her ravaged voice a fluttery whisper, the words slurred, her eyes cloudy.
Annika felt her chest constrict, the tears suspended like a veil inside her eyes.
‘Have you and my mother figured out where you’re going to live?’ she asked.
Her grandmother’s gaze darted around the room, unseeingly, focusing on visions from the past.
‘Live? We lived over at the “Horseshoe”,’ she said. ‘They let us have a room with a stove in the middle of the wall . . .’
Annika folded her strong hands around her grandmother’s paralysed hand, gently stroking the old fingers, her heart sinking.
‘Have you spoken with a social worker? Do you know if they’ve found a home for you?’
‘One room, that was all we had,’ the elderly woman gasped out. ‘Mother did the cooking for fifteen men, she did all her cooking on that stove by the wall, and she did laundry too, ten öre for a handkerchief, fifty öre a piece for overalls . . .’
Annika licked her lips, unsure of how to react, of what she should say, and calmly stroked the old woman’s arm. Then her grandmother stopped talking – her chest heaved up and down in rapid, shallow breaths and her restless eyes tried to recover a memory.
‘The fire alarm woke us up, Mother and me,’ she whispered. ‘It was still dark out, the alarm wailed on and on, the whole foundry was on fire. We ran outside, it was hot and I was only wearing my nightie. The fire was so huge, the flames licked the heavens, it just kept on burning and burning.’
Annika knew what her grandmother was talking about: the great fire at the foundry that had taken place during the early hours of 21 August 1934. Sofia Katarina had been fifteen at the time.
‘My mother and I pitched in, we rescued papers from the office, important business papers. My father was a part of the chain that passed buckets of water from the stream. The fire engine arrived from Flen and then it started to rain . . .’
‘I know,’ Annika said in a low voice. ‘You helped save Hälleforsnäs.’
Her grandmother nodded.
‘Once it was light, the motorized fire engine from Eskilstuna arrived. Arvid helped put out the fire too. He got a job at the foundry as soon as he had finished school. Twenty-one öre an hour, ten kronor and ten öre a week, and the first thing he bought was a bicycle.’
Sofia Katerina tried to smile, one side of her mouth not responding.
‘He gave me a ride on his bicycle, the whole way past Fjellskäfte and over to the big church in Floda. ‘That’s where we’ll be married,’ he told me. But that’s not what happened, we were married in the church in Mellösa . . .’
Annika inclined her head, patted her grandmother’s cold hand, and allowed the tears to roll down her face. She had never met her grandfather. He had died the autumn before she’d been born, his lungs ruined. Up through the years he had been a sooty, shadowy presence in her life, always coming home from work grimy, always full of stories and mischief. She had grown up with her grandfather Arvid’s tales; they lived on after his death, creating a picture of him that she could never revise. Annika gazed at her grandmother’s bewildered expression, she saw her see Arvid again, a young man on his bike.
‘Do you miss Arvid?’ Annika whispered.
Now fully conscious, her grandmother met Annika’s gaze.
‘I miss the young man,’ she said, ‘the strong and healthy lad, not the complaining drunkard he became.’
Annika was startled: she had never heard that her grandfather had a drinking problem.
‘He wasted his pay on drink, there was no stopping him, but he never got his hands on mine. My salary supported my daughter and myself, and it put food on the table for my husband . . .’
Suddenly her grandmother started to cry. The tears rolled down into her ears, and Annika took a tissue and wiped them away.
‘It was rough on Barbro,’ Sofia Katarina murmured. ‘She spent too much time alone as a child. I couldn’t bring her to work all the time, you couldn’t let a little girl run around a place like that with all those statesmen, presidents and members of parliament. It wasn’t good for her, though, it filled her heart with sadness that never left her.’
Her grandmother put her good hand on top of Annika’s and looked her in the eye.
‘Don’t be too hard on Barbro,’ she whispered. ‘You’re much stronger than she is.’
Annika blinked away the tears and tried to smile.
‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘We’ll get along and you’re going to get well.’
Her grandmother closed her eyes for a minute or two, resting. Then she opened them once more.
‘Annika,’ she murmured. ‘I loved you the best. I suppose it was wrong of me to do so, to love one family member more than the others.’
‘That’s what made me so strong,’ Annika whispered.
The silence following her remark told her that her grandmother had dozed off again.
The branches of the pine trees, heavy with snow, were like a tunnel in the winter’s night. The car carrying Mia Eriksson, her husband and her children progressed slowly along the icy roads. The north wind slapped the windshield with a hiss, hurling cascades of snow at them, over them.