‘You’ve been miserable for a long time now,’ she said in a low voice and kissed him on the mouth.
He responded to her lips, salty and slightly dry. Desire shot through him, the familiar stiffening.
‘Let’s go to bed,’ she said.
He followed her into the bedroom. She paused by the bathroom door.
‘You go ahead,’ she said.
Thomas knew what she was about to do. She was going to apply some lubricant to her genitals to ease the way. Slowly, he approached the bed, removed the bedspread and slipped out of his clothes. Eleonor came in and stood behind him, reaching for his hips and rubbing his buttocks against her lower body. He sank down to his knees next to the bed and she sat down in front of him, spreading her legs and leaning back. He stared at her vulva, gleaming with lubricant, and combed the well-tended bush of hair with his fingers, finding her clitoris. He rubbed it very gently and slowly until she started to moan. His cock as rigid as a spear, he pulled her close and pushed the tip against the opening. She gasped. He pressed on, barely moving, until the warm depths enveloped him, pulling him in, making him moan. Her loins came to life under him, around him, began to breathe and rotate. He pulled back, slowly, teasing her gateway, her clitoris, making her throw her head back and cry out. Then he plunged deep into her, hard, pounding rhythmically until he felt her spasm. Then he let go, surfing on the wake of her pleasure.
‘Oh, darling,’ she said, ‘that was wonderful.’
He collapsed on top of her, his head resting between her breasts.
‘You know, that chicken must be pretty well done by now,’ Eleonor said. ‘Could you hand me the tissues?’
A sensation of falling through the bed rendered Thomas unable to answer. She wriggled out from under him and he saw her take tissues from the box in her nightstand and wipe herself between her legs.
‘I’ll go take the pot off,’ she said.
He crawled up on the bed and dozed off briefly. Woke up after a minute or so, with cold feet and tender knees. Tottering, he got up, pulled on his robe, and went into the kitchen.
‘I brought everything downstairs,’ Eleonor said.
He took a leak, wiped the lubricant and sperm off his penis, and went downstairs to the den. There was wine and a salad and the coffee table was set for two. He sat down and Eleonor followed with the coconut chicken and a trivet. She snuggled up to him on the couch and planted a kiss on his forehead.
‘Sex always makes me hungry,’ she said.
They ate in silence and drank their wine.
‘I’ve been acting like a jerk,’ Thomas said after a while.
She looked down at the contents of her goblet, a crisp Australian Chardonnay.
‘You’ve been depressed,’ she said. ‘It happens to everyone.’
‘I don’t know what got into me,’ he said. ‘Nothing felt good any more.’
‘Well, that can happen when you work as hard as we do. We’d better watch it, or we might get burned out.’
He blinked, hearing the reporter’s voice asking,
Are you a burn-out case
? He cleared his throat, put an arm around Eleonor’s back, grabbed the remote with his free hand and leaned back. The news,
Aktuellt
, had started. Their party congress was drawing near and the Social Democrats were embroiled in a heated debate; it appeared to have something to do with a member of the government using her state credit card for private purchases, as far as he could gather. A fire in the Philippines threatened an entire city. A Kurdish woman had been murdered during a demonstration at Sergelstorg.
‘Would you like to listen to some music?’ his wife asked and got up.
Thomas mumbled something in reply as he tried to hear what had taken place. Shot in the head, in a crowd – how could something like that happen?
‘Bach or Mozart?’
He stifled the sigh he felt coming on.
‘It’s doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘You choose.’
SUNDAY 4 NOVEMBER
A
nnika detested Sundays. They were endless. Everybody occupying themselves with useless crap, whiling away the hours with meaningless pursuits. Society turned on pointless ideals: going on picnics, visiting museums, coddling the kids, throwing barbecues. Weekdays, the normal business that kept anxiety at bay, were far away, disconnected. The only valid excuse for not being associated with all this was to work – blaming work made you exempt. She needed to rest, to get some sleep, in order to work all night.
Thank God she had her shift tonight.
Her mother and Birgitta came over to the ward after lunch. The three of them sat together and talked to Gran, Annika was starting to recognize a pattern to the conversation: Arvid, the foundry, her parents, mainly her mother, the little sister who’d died. After an hour or so the old woman grew tired and dozed off. They went downstairs to the cafeteria, which was closed, naturally – it was Sunday, the day of rest, and all – and bought shrink-wrapped pastries from Delicato and coffee from a vending machine.
‘This isn’t a good environment for her,’ Annika said. ‘Gran needs serious rehabilitation, the sooner, the better.’
‘So, what are we supposed to do,’ Birgitta said, ‘when there aren’t any vacancies anywhere? Have you thought about that?’
Startled, Annika took in her sister’s expression, so guarded and aggressive.
She’s on Mother’s side
, the thought flashed through her mind.
She doesn’t like me either.
‘Well,’ Annika said. ‘I’ve been thinking. Maybe I could take care of her.’
‘You?’ her mother said contemptuously. ‘That would be a feat, in that awful apartment with no modern conveniences. I don’t know how you stand it.’
Suddenly Annika felt close to tears, she couldn’t take any more. She got up, put on her jacket, slung her bag over her shoulder and looked at her mother.
‘Don’t make any decisions without talking to me first,’ she said.
Then she looked at her sister.
‘See you.’
She turned, left the hospital and went out to the parking lot; the sun was shining, the light was hazy, there was snow on the ground that crunched when she walked. It was cold. She wound her scarf around her head and breathed with her mouth open, the tears welling up in her eyes but not spilling over.
The train station. She had to get home. Get away.
Sjölander was perched on Jansson’s desk drinking coffee when Annika arrived at the newsroom. It was already dark by then: reality was manageable – the newsroom was still quiet, without tension, practically deserted. Her shift didn’t begin for another hour or two, but she couldn’t stand being alone for long. The train had come to a standstill outside Södertälje due to a signal error, something Annika thought only happened to the Green Line on the subway, and she had gone straight to the office as soon as she’d arrived at the Central Station.
‘So what have we got?’ Jansson asked as he hammered away at his computer keyboard, writing his notes directly onto the hard drive.
‘Loads,’ Sjölander said and put his notes on the desk.
‘How much can we print?’ Jansson asked without taking his gaze off the computer screen.
‘Almost everything,’ Sjölander replied.
‘What’s this?’ Annika asked, taking a seat, picking up her notepad and pen and turning on her own computer. ‘The Kurdish girl at Sergelstorg?’
‘Yeah,’ Jansson said. ‘Talk about a weird story: five thousand witnesses and nobody saw a damn thing.’
‘The police have found some of the killer’s clothes,’ Sjölander added. ‘Brown gloves and a dark green poplin jacket. The gloves were purchased at the nearby Åhléns, and they were covered with fingerprints. So far prints from eighteen different individuals. The jacket was as clean as a whistle apart from the traces of cordite on the sleeve.’
‘What, did they find the guy’s laundry basket, or something?’ Jansson said.
‘A trash bin. The items were in the bin along with the regular trash over at the central subway station.’
Annika leaned back, shifting into gear, a welcome and familiar feeling.
‘And nobody saw a thing?’ she asked.
‘Oh, yes, they did,’ Sjölander said. ‘About a hundred people have described a man who may have been Swedish or Turkish, though he could have been an Arab or even a Finn. It seems that he spoke to the victim beforehand, shot her and laid her on the ground, then ran into the subway station, since his gear was found stuffed in the bin by the entrance. There are witnesses who saw him take his things off, one of those being a security guard. The guy was wearing light-coloured clothing underneath. After that there are a number of different options as to where he took off. Out in the street, according to the security guard. Down to the trains, a group of young people say. And back out to the square, according to a woman with a baby buggy. He almost ran her down. In any case, he disappeared.’
‘He must have nerves of steel,’ Jansson said, ‘pulling off a stunt like that in front of all those people.’
‘Probably helped him – the crowd worked as cover for him. What a cool bastard.’
Sjölander sounded almost impressed.
‘What else do we know? Any details about the gun?’
Sjölander leafed through his notes.
‘A silencer, of course. We’re talking about a handgun here. I have data on the bullet, we can print that. The ammo was semi-jacketed. The girl was shot at the base of the skull: a fully jacketed bullet would have blown her face off from the inside, which would have been a mess. This one lodged in her nasal cavity after trashing her brain. She looked fine from the front – people thought she had fallen.’
Annika shivered.
Pretty damn nasty.
She yawned; the first night on duty always seemed extra long.
‘Do we know her name?’
‘Yes, they’ve released her identity. She didn’t have any relatives here, she was a refugee – from Kosovo, I think. No family left over there, either. Here it is. She was from Bije— how the heck do you pronounce that, Bijelina? Her name was Aida, Aida Begovic.’
The newsroom closed in like a noose. Annika was struck by a sensation of tunnel vision; colours drained away, sounds grew hollow. She got up.
‘What’s the matter?’ Jansson said, his voice seeming to come from far away. She saw his face. The floor tilted as voices receding into the distance called: ‘Annika, what’s the matter? Are you sick? Sit down, you’re as white as a sheet . . .’
Someone set her down on a swivel chair, forced her head between her knees and ordered her to breathe regularly.
Annika gazed at the underside of the seat, at the height-regulation mechanism. She closed her eyes, squeezed them shut and held her breath.
Aida, Aida from Bijelina was dead and she was the one who killed her.
I’ve done it again
, she thought.
I’m a killer twice over.
‘Damn it, Annika, are you still alive?’
She sat up, letting her hair fall forward to veil her face. The whole building pitched and rolled.
‘I feel sick,’ she said in a strange voice. ‘I have to go home.’
‘I’ll call a cab,’ Jansson said.
Darkness. Annika didn’t have the strength to turn on the lights. She just sat on the couch and stared at the gently swaying curtains, shadows dancing.
Aida was dead. A man had killed her. The man in black had found her. How?
Rebecka, of course. Aida had threatened to expose the Paradise Foundation and Rebecka had retaliated by betraying Aida, by revealing her whereabouts.
What a monster. A fucking murderer.
And she, Annika, had set Aida up.
She was guilty of manslaughter.
The tightness in her chest increased, vicelike; soon, very soon she would be crushed to bits.
She reached for the phone, needing to call someone, needing to talk. Anne Snapphane was at home.
‘What’s happened?’ Anne said. ‘Are you sick?’
‘The girl who was shot to death at Sergelstorg,’ Annika said. ‘I knew her. It’s my fault that she’s dead.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Annika drew up her knees, clasped her shins and rocked back and forth on the scratchy couch, sobbing into the phone.
‘I sent her to Paradise and they betrayed her. And now she’s dead.’
‘Hang on,’ Anne Snapphane said. ‘The girl was murdered, right? She was shot in the head. How could you be responsible for that?’
Annika took a few breaths, her sobs dying down.
‘Paradise is a sham. The director is an impostor. Aida, the dead girl, said she was going to expose the whole dirty business. That’s why she died.’
‘Let’s take the whole story from the top,’ Anne said. ‘Tell me everything.’
Annika steeled herself and told her friend everything. She told how Rebecka had called her, wanting publicity. She described their first encounter at the shabby hotel, the ingenious set-up of Paradise, her own reservations; their second encounter; how Rebecka’s calculations didn’t add up properly; the threats from the Yugoslav Mafia; Rebecka’s incredible scheme for relocating clients abroad; how she, Annika, had found out about Rebecka’s debts and her name changes, the bankruptcies, the suspicion of criminal intent. Then Annika went on to tell Anne about Aida, the danger she was in, the man who tried to force his way into her hotel room, and how Annika had given her the Paradise phone number and encouraged her to go there for help. She told Anne about Mia Eriksson showing up on her doorstep, gave her an account of her story, and described that final desperate phone call when Mia had told her that Aida had disappeared, that Rebecka had threatened her.
‘And you believe this is all your fault?’ Anne Snapphane said.
Annika swallowed.
‘It is.’
Anne sighed.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘You aren’t accountable for everything that goes wrong here on Earth. I know you want to save the world, but there’s got to be a limit. And now you’ve crossed the line. You’re all worn out. Your grandmother isn’t well – don’t you realize how much energy you’ve spent on being concerned about her? You’re so incredibly considerate when it comes to other people, it’s time you were a little less hard on yourself.’
Annika didn’t reply, just sat in her dark apartment and let the words sink in.