Thomas sighed again.
‘Cheer up,’ his wife said.
‘Annika Bengtzon? I’m Rebecka Björkstig.’
The woman was young, much younger than Annika had expected. Tiny, slim, a bit like a porcelain figurine. They exchanged greetings.
‘I apologize for the somewhat unusual spot,’ Rebecka said ‘Only we can’t be too careful.’
They crossed a deserted passage leading to a combined lobby and bar. The lights were low and the atmosphere was reminiscent of the state-run hotels of the former Soviet Union. Round brown tables, chairs where the backrests merged with the armrests. Some men spoke in hushed tones in the opposite corner while the rest of the room was empty.
The surreal feeling that she was starring in an old spy thriller washed over Annika and she felt a strong impulse to get the hell out of there. What was she doing there?
‘I’m so glad we could meet so soon,’ Rebecka said as she sat down at a table, glancing cautiously over her shoulder at the men seated further away.
Annika mumbled an inaudible reply.
‘Will this be featured in tomorrow’s paper?’ the woman asked with a hopeful smile.
Slightly dizzy, Annika shook her head. The air was stale.
‘No, it won’t. It might not be included at all. The publisher decides what material will be printed.’
Having been dishonest and evasive, she looked down at the table top.
The woman straightened her pale skirt and smoothed her slicked-back hair.
‘What subject matter do you usually cover?’ she asked, in slightly lacklustre soprano tones, trying to catch Annika’s eye.
Annika cleared her throat.
‘Currently I’ve been compiling and reviewing text material,’ she replied truthfully.
‘What kinds of texts?’
Annika rubbed her forehead.
‘All different kinds. Last night it was material about the hurricane, earlier in the week I reviewed the case of a handicapped boy that the local authorities refused to deal with responsibly . . .’
‘Oh,’ Rebecka Björkstig exclaimed while crossing her legs. ‘Then our work will fit right in with your beat. Our main contractors are the local authorities. Could I have a cup of coffee?’
A waiter in a stained apron had materialized next to them. Annika nodded curtly when he asked if she wanted coffee too; she was feeling queasy, wanting to go home, to get away. Rebecka leaned back against the curved backrest of the chair. Her eyes were pale and round, calm and expressionless.
‘We run a non-profit foundation, but we do have to charge money for our services. Generally, the Social Services agencies in different communities all over the country cover our expenditure. We don’t make a bean.’
Her voice remained gentle, but the words had a harsh impact.
She’s a gold-digger
, Annika thought as she looked up at the woman.
She does this to make money off women and children who are in dire circumstances.
The woman smiled.
‘I know what you’re thinking. I can assure you that you’re wrong.’
Annika looked down and fingered a toothpick.
‘Why did you call our paper, and why this particular evening?’
Rebecka sighed faintly and wiped her fingertips on a tissue she had in her purse.
‘To be honest, I had only planned to call and make some enquiries,’ she said. ‘I read the paper, about the damage caused by the hurricane, and saw the newsroom number. We’ve been talking about going public with our services for some time now, and I acted on an impulse, so to speak.’
Annika swallowed.
‘I’ve never heard of you,’ she said.
The woman smiled again, a smile as fleeting as a draught in a room.
‘Previously we lacked the resources to accommodate the numbers we anticipate receiving when we go public, but now we can have them. Today we have the means and the skills to expand, and we feel a certain urgency to do so. So many people need our help.”
Annika fished her notepad and her pen out of her bag.
‘Tell me what it’s all about.’
The woman looked around the room once more and wiped the corner of her mouth.
‘We pick up where the authorities fail,’ she said, a bit breathlessly. ‘Our sole purpose is to help the people truly at risk to start over. For the past three years we have focused on making our system work. Now we’re certain that it does.’
Annika waited silently.
‘Why is that?’
The waiter arrived with their coffee. It was grey and bitter. Rebecka inserted a paper napkin in between the cup and the saucer and stirred the beverage with a spoon.
‘Our society is so thoroughly computerized that no one can hide,’ she said in hushed tones after the waiter had sailed off again. ‘No matter where these individuals turn, they have to deal with the fact that there are people who know their new addresses, their new telephone numbers, their new bank-account numbers, and know that they’ve leased a new place. Even if all this information is supposed to be kept confidential, it may turn up in hospital records, at Social Service agencies, in city court records, on tax rolls, in stockholder directories, anywhere.’
‘Can’t this be arranged in some way?’ Annika wondered cautiously. ‘Isn’t there some way to remove addresses from all lists and directories? To obtain new personal ID numbers and things like that?’
The woman let another faint sigh escape her lips.
‘Sure, there are other ways. The problem is that they don’t work. Our group has designed a way to wipe people completely off the record. Did you know that there are more than sixty different public computerized directories that list practically everyone residing in Sweden?’
Annika uttered a negative response and made a face – the coffee was truly disgusting.
‘For the first six months I was completely occupied with mapping out the different directories. I worked out plans and approaches to get around them. There were lots of questions, while the answers would sometimes be a long time in coming. The method we have worked out is completely unique.’
That last sentence reverberating in her mind, Annika swallowed a mouthful of the grey sludge, spilling a drop or two when she set down her cup.
‘Why are you involved in this?’ she asked.
The silence became oppressive.
‘I’ve been exposed to threats myself,’ the woman replied.
‘Why was that?’ Annika wondered.
Rebecka cleared her throat, hesitated and wiped her wrists with the tissue.
‘I’m sorry, but I really don’t want to talk about it. Fear is such a paralysing feeling. I’ve worked hard to make a new life for myself, and I want to put my experience to good use.’
Annika looked at Rebecka Björkstig, so cold and so soft at the same time.
‘Tell me about the foundation,’ she said.
Rebecka carefully sipped her coffee.
‘Our operations are conducted in the form of a non-profit organization, a foundation that we decided to call Paradise. We don’t really do anything all that remarkable, we just give our clients back a regular life. But for anyone who has ever been stalked and knows the meaning of terror and fear, for a person like that, a new lease on life
is
like paradise.’
Annika looked down at her pad, embarrassed by the hackneyed cliché.
‘And how do you accomplish that?’
The woman smiled slightly, her voice confident.
‘The Garden of Eden was a sheltered place,’ she said. ‘It was surrounded by invisible walls that kept evil out. That’s how we operate too. The client comes to us, passes through our set-up and disappears behind an impenetrable wall. They simply vanish. Whenever anyone tries to trace a client of ours, no matter which route they try, they will run up against a great big wall of silence: us.’
Annika looked up.
‘But aren’t you afraid?’
‘We’re aware of the risks, but the Paradise Foundation is impossible to trace as well. We maintain several different offices that we alternate between. Our phone connections are directed through other stations in other provinces. Five of us work full time for Paradise – we’ve all had our records wiped clean. The only route into Paradise is an unlisted telephone number.’
Annika studied the tiny porcelain-figurine lady unconsciously twisting a tissue around her fingers. She was so out of place in this environment, so pale and pure in the shabby bar with its shady decor.
‘How do you manage to get them removed from all the different records?’
Someone switched on an overhead lamp diagonally behind Rebecka Björkstig, shadowing her face and turning the pale inexpressive eyes into black holes.
‘I think that will be all for now,’ she said. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to wait a bit until I give you the rest of the information.’
Feeling a mixture of disappointment and relief, Annika exhaled. Rebecka Björkstig pulled a card out of her purse.
‘Talk to your publisher and ask if your paper would like to write about our endeavour. Then give me a call – this is our unlisted number. I guess I don’t have to tell you that you need to be extremely careful with it.’
Annika swallowed, stammering in agreement.
‘As soon as you’ve got the go-ahead, we can meet again,’ Rebecka said as she got up, a small pale figure veiled in shadows.
Annika smiled sheepishly and got up. They shook hands.
‘Then maybe I’ll be getting back to you,’ Annika said.
‘If you’ll excuse me, I’m in a bit of a hurry,’ Rebecka said. ‘I’m looking forward to your call.’
And then she was gone.
The waiter drifted over to the table.
‘That will be fifty-five kronor for the coffee.’
Annika paid the bill.
In the taxi back to the newsroom, her mind wandered. The suburbs flashed past through the dirty glass: industrial areas with sheet-metal siding, dreary high-rise buildings, thoroughfares with red lights.
What did she actually look like, this Rebecka Björkstig? Annika realized that she’d already forgotten, remembering only a certain intangible evasive quality.
People at risk, abused women. If ever there was a subject she ought to avoid, this was it. She was disqualified for all eternity.
And what had Rebecka said about the Garden of Eden, anyway? Annika searched her memory, the information slipping beyond her grasp. She got her notes out, leafed through them and tried to read by the flashes of yellow light produced by the street lamps.
It was surrounded by an invisible wall that evil couldn’t penetrate.
She put her pad down again and saw the high-rise buildings of the neighbourhood known as ‘the Blues’ flash by.
Then what about the serpent?
she thought.
Where did it come from?
Berit Hamrin was sitting at her desk in the newsroom by the time she returned. Annika walked over to her and hugged her.
‘The double homicide?’ she asked.
Berit smiled.
‘There’s nothing like a mob war,’ she said.
Annika took off her jacket, letting it fall in a small pile on the floor.
‘Have you had anything to eat?’
They went down to the lunch room commonly referred to as ‘Seven Rats’ and had the special.
‘What’s up?’ Berit asked and buttered a piece of crispbread.
Annika sighed.
‘I guess there’ll be more hurricane coverage tonight,’ she said. ‘And I just met this woman with a really strange story.’
Interested, Berit raised an eyebrow as she sampled the potatoes au gratin.
‘Strange stories can be a lot of fun,’ she said. ‘Pass the salt, please.’
Annika leaned back and reached over to take the salt and pepper shakers from the table behind her.
‘This woman claims that there is this foundation called Paradise that helps women and children whose lives have been threatened to make new lives for themselves.’
Berit nodded in approval.
‘Sounds exciting. Is it on the level?’
Annika hesitated.
‘I’m not sure, I didn’t get the whole story. The director seemed to be on the level. Apparently they’ve devised some sort of process to wipe people who fear for their lives off public records.’
She took the salt from Berit and sprinkled her own food liberally.
‘Do you think . . . that my checking this lead would be a problem?’ she asked cautiously.
Berit chewed her food a while.
‘No, I shouldn’t think so,’ she said. ‘Because of Sven, you mean?’
Annika nodded, her voice failing her.
Her older colleague sighed.
‘I can see that the thought occurred to you, but what you went through can’t disqualify you from being able to perform as a journalist for all eternity. It was an accident – you’ve got the decree to prove it.’
There was nothing she could say; Annika looked down at her plate as she sliced a piece of lettuce into shreds.
‘Just talk to the executives,’ Berit said. ‘It’s easier to get stuff in the paper if the guys upstairs think that a story is their idea.’
Annika smiled, chewing on a mouthful of salad. They ate in comfortable silence.
‘Have you been over to the free-port compound?’ Annika asked as she pushed her plate away and reached for a toothpick.
Berit got up. ‘Coffee?’
‘Black.’
Berit went and got them both a cup.
‘Nasty affair,’ she said, placing a cup in front of Annika. ‘The two dead guys might possibly be Serbs – the cops think it’s a mob killing, that it’s the Yugo Mafia. They’re afraid people will start slaughtering each other.’
‘Any leads?’
Berit sighed. ‘Hard to tell,’ she said. ‘The forensics team were at the site until nightfall, sifting through every last bit of gravel in search of bullets and evidence.’
Annika blew on her coffee. ‘Will we be able to trot out the grand old clichés? Slayings? Underworld liquidation? The police fear that gang wars are in the works?’
They both laughed a little.
‘Probably all three,’ Berit said.
Annika typed up her notes about the Paradise Foundation, then Jansson wanted her to doctor some follow-up copy about the hurricane. The long night shifts left more and more of a mark – she had to rub her eyes to keep the letters in check. Luckily, the large document about the handicapped boy had been edited beforehand and was ready to go, four pages about how the Social Services had broken municipal laws by not providing the care that he was entitled to. It would be a quiet night, maybe even too quiet.