Lifetime Page 18

  Annika smiled wryly. ‘To be honest, I think he’s more interesting than Viktor Gabrielsson, but I’ve already tried to get his murky past into the paper and hit a brick wall. Do you think Julia Lindholm might be innocent?’

  Berit looked at her over her glasses. ‘Not the tiniest chance.’

  Annika picked up her bag and headed off to the day-shift’s desk. She unpacked her secondhand laptop and logged into the network, waiting for it to load while looking out across the newsroom.

  Eva-Britt Qvist had installed herself in Anders Schyman’s glass-walled office, and was talking and gesticulating; she did that most of the time these days. Schyman was leaning back in his chair, looking tired and harassed, which was what he did most of the time these days.

  After the summer holidays the paper’s management had announced that there would have to be serious cutbacks across the business, but mainly on the editorial side, which had caused several days of panic among the journalists. The editor-in-chief, oddly enough, had done nothing to calm people’s nerves. He had allowed the union and the gossips to run on until the whole newsroom was in chaos. Eva-Britt Qvist had burst into tears in one union meeting that she was chairing, not because she was under threat, of course – as union representative she was the only one whose position was utterly safe – but because she was thinking about the collective.

  Eventually Spike had had enough and roared that if people didn’t get a grip and come up with a few headlines, they might as well shut down the whole fucking paper straight away instead of doing it the slow way with a series of cutbacks. The reporters, editors, photographers and web managers had made their way back to their desks and got to work again.

  ‘A fuck of a lot of fuss just because some of us get to take things easy in the future,’ Spike had said, putting his feet up on his desk as he took a bite of a super-sized pizza.

  ‘You’ve given up the diet?’ Annika had asked, only to receive a greasy middle finger in reply.

  Once the atmosphere in the newsroom had stabilized, it was simultaneously more nervous and more focused. People were more alert, which Annika had nothing against.

  Less chat and more work.

  She was utterly immune to communal social events, like boules tournaments, after-work drinks and birthday celebrations. Now all that sort of nonsense seemed to have ground to a halt.

  Excellent! Just let me get on with my job.

  For the first time in several years, she had also had the chance to work full-time throughout the autumn, at least during the weeks when Thomas had the children. She had focused on a series of articles about the gradual dismantling of social services provided by local councils, as well as an overview of discrimination cases in the Swedish Labour Court.

  ‘You should be fucking grateful for the chaos here in the newsroom,’ Spike had said, on the day she had turned up with her article about the nine cases in which the Labour Court had decreed that it was okay for women to be paid less than men in the same job because they were worth less to employers.

  ‘Believe me,’ Annika said, ‘I am.’

  Without the paralysis that the others were displaying, she would never have got a piece like that into the paper, but when the alternative was empty pages, even articles with a feminist angle could squeeze in.

  No, Annika had nothing against things being stirred up a bit.

  If they sacked her, they sacked her, but Annika didn’t think that was very likely. She had been employed on the paper for almost ten years and ought to survive if they decided to rationalize in accordance with employment legislation. This law about employment protection, so cherished by the unions, was based upon the premise of last in, first out.

  If Schyman was allowed to choose personally whom to get rid of, she’d be okay too. If that wasn’t the case, she would have been history long ago.

  But on the other hand, a group of young hotshots, with Patrik Nilsson in the vanguard, had suddenly understood they were in the danger zone and had therefore shifted into indispensable mode. Their ruthless ambition wasn’t making them indispensable, though: it was making them unbearable.

  The only drawback of the cuts.

  She sighed and logged into the phone book. She was looking for Julia’s legal representative, the lawyer Mats Lennström, from the Kvarnstenen practice. The number was engaged eight times in a row (every reporter in the country must have had the same brilliant idea as she had to interview him), but then she got through to a secretary who told her that he was in court and wasn’t expected in the office until the following morning.

  So much for that story.

  She spun on her chair, irritated that Patrik would be proved right.

  Instead she went into the newspaper’s archive and pulled out the articles that had been written about David Lindholm around the time of his death.

  There, once again, were all the heroic deeds, the eulogies from Christer Bure and Hampus Lagerbäck at the Police Academy. She tried calling them and left messages saying she was trying to get in touch.

  Then she looked through the amazing contributions the policeman had made to society. The hostage crisis in Malmö, solving the raid on the security van …

  But that was it.

  That can’t be all? Where are the rest of the heroic deeds?

  She repeated the search, broadening the terms of enquiry: david lindholm achievement* criminal* search. Loads of hits, but no new heroic deeds. But she did find an old article about police officers working undercover. David Lindholm was mentioned at the end of the piece as an example of an officer who had extensive contacts in the underworld, who had acted as a handler to people wanting to change sides, and had been a link between different worlds.

  She pushed the computer away from her, deep in thought.

  Timmo Koivisto had claimed that David Lindholm had worked for the drugs Mafia. Could that really have been true? Was there any other explanation as to why he had been attacked?

  How well did David Lindholm manage to maintain the balance between right and wrong? And what did the criminal world think of his double-dealing?

  She checked the archive again to see what had happened to the hostage-taker in Malmö.

  After several false starts she found a piece in Sydsvenska Dagbladet, saying that the Appeal Court had upheld the verdict of the City Court. The man had been sentenced to life imprisonment for attempted murder, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated extortion and threatening behaviour.

  Life? Wow! I wonder if he was such good friends with David Lindholm after that?

  She called Malmö City Court and asked them to send her a copy of the verdict.

  Then she searched for information about the American who had spilled the beans about the raid in Botkyrka, but found nothing.

  She rested her chin on her hand and stared at the screen.

  How come the information about the American had ever got out? If someone in the criminal underworld talked, you didn’t usually plaster it all over the media.

  This is bloody weird.

  Why had David Lindholm revealed that he had received information about the raid on the security van from that particular prisoner? Was it even true? And if it was, had it really been David who had made it public?

  And what had happened to the American afterwards?

  She didn’t even know what his name was.

  She went into the website of the National Correctional Organization and found the phone number of Tidaholm Prison. She got through to a receptionist, asked to speak to the press officer, and was put through to the main office.

  ‘Our press officer has finished for the day,’ she was told.

  ‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ Annika said. ‘That’ll probably mean we get it wrong in tomorrow’s paper again.’

  ‘Er, what?’

  ‘That American who was serving a life sentence with you, the man who was friendly with David Lindholm, you know the one. We’re running an article about him tomorrow and I just felt I ought to check with you that our facts
are correct, because they seem pretty weird to me.’

  ‘But he’s not here now,’ the man said.

  ‘The press officer?’

  ‘No, the American.’

  Annika waited a couple of seconds, letting the information sink in. ‘There! I knew it. The journalist who wrote the article got it wrong. He wrote that the man was still in Tidaholm with you.’

  ‘No chance. He was transferred straight after the accident.’

  Accident?

  ‘Of course!’ Annika said. ‘And naturally he never came back?’

  ‘I’m not so sure about “friendly” either,’ the man said. ‘David Lindholm was his trustee. There’s quite a difference.’

  ‘Trustee,’ Annika said, noting that down. ‘Right.’

  ‘What’s this article about?’ the man asked, beginning to sound suspicious.

  ‘It’s part of a series about life sentences,’ Annika said, ‘but I think I’m going to have to put it on hold because the facts need to be checked properly. Where’s the American now?’

  She closed her eyes and held her breath.

  ‘You’ll have to call our press officer tomorrow,’ the man said, and hung up.

  Oh, well, better than nothing!

  Something happened to the American and he was transferred.

  I wonder how happy he feels about it all now?

  David Lindholm needed to be investigated, as closely as possible. Every little stone he left behind him had to be turned over.

  She looked at the time. She had to get something to eat first.

  She pulled on her jacket and went out.

  17

  Thomas was sitting at his desk on the fourth floor of the government building at Rosenbad, looking down on to Fredsgatan. It was snowing, and the flakes were being blown at the window, where they slid jerkily towards the sill. He could see people hurrying along the pavements, hunched with upturned collars.

  The view really wasn’t anything special.

  He sighed and looked at the time, then checked again that the memo and outline were in the folder where they should be. Evaluating the cost implications of abolishing life sentencing had been more complicated than he had imagined. Not that the calculations themselves were particularly difficult, but the political aspects of the inquiry …

  The intercom buzzed, making him jump. ‘Thomas, where the hell are you? I’m sitting here waiting like some old maid.’

  What do you think I’m doing, then?

  He straightened and pressed the button to reply to his boss. ‘I thought you were going to let me know when you were free.’

  ‘Free? I’m never free. Come over now.’

  Thomas stood up, pulled the hem of his jacket down and made sure the top button of his shirt was done up. With the folder in his hand, he headed out into the corridor and off towards Per Cramne’s room.

  ‘So, tell me what’s bothering you most, then,’ the assistant under-secretary said, gesturing towards a chair as he rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt.

  ‘It’s turned out to be slightly problematic,’ Thomas said, sitting down. ‘I don’t know that it’s possible to abolish life sentences under the remit we’ve been given.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ Cramne said, walking round the room and stretching his arms. ‘Nothing lasts a lifetime any more. Why should prison sentences?’

  Thomas put the folder on the desk in front of him.

  This isn’t going to be easy.

  ‘I’m thinking specifically about the frame of the inquiry,’ he said, crossing one leg over the other.

  Cramne stopped with his back to the room, looking out over Riddarfjärden. ‘I mean, we can forget marriage,’ he said. ‘If that lasts a lifetime, I’ve lived three lives – so far, I should add …’

  He doesn’t want to listen.

  ‘Are you thinking of getting married again?’ Thomas asked, moving the folder slightly.

  Cramne sighed, turned and sat down. ‘Employment is another thing we can take off the lifetime list. No one has the same job from cradle to grave any more. Nowadays people don’t just switch employer, they switch career several times during their working lives.’

  Thomas felt in his pocket for a pen.

  ‘We also swap our friends along the way,’ Cramne said. ‘We can choose not to have anything to do with our siblings—’

  ‘Children,’ Thomas interrupted, looking up, pen at the ready.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re for life,’ Thomas said. ‘You can’t escape being a parent.’

  Cramne snatched at the memorandum. ‘Shall we stop wasting taxpayers’ money and do some work?’

  Thomas coughed. ‘The directives,’ he said, picking up the document. ‘They clearly specify that the cost of the criminal justice system mustn’t increase if life sentences are abolished. But my calculations indicate that the costs will rocket if this is pushed through.’

  ‘Be more specific.’

  ‘You know the background, of course. The longest fixed term we currently have is ten years. Prisoners sentenced to life get an average of twenty years and six months, in terms of the actual sentence. Because they get out after serving two-thirds of the sentence, that means they’re out in fourteen years, more or less. If we abolish life sentences, the new maximum term for murder would be something between twenty-one and twenty-five years, probably closer to the latter, meaning that there’d be a difference of up to fifteen years between the highest penalty and the next. That doesn’t make sense, and it suggests that all sentences should be adjusted upwards. Also, the current option of imposing tougher sentences would be exploited more often.’

  ‘That’s just speculation on your part,’ Cramne said.

  Thomas took a deep breath. ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘I’ve discussed this with three professors of criminal justice, five researchers at the Council for Crime Prevention, and with the political group, of course.’

  ‘And what do they say?’

  ‘Within three years, every sentencing tariff would have increased so that we had a plethora of crimes attracting sentences of twelve, thirteen years … Experience in other countries shows that tariffs rise across the board when life sentences are abolished in favour of lengthy statutory penalties. The next time we come to sentence a multiple rapist, he’d get eighteen years.’

  ‘And?’ the section head said. ‘You’re a civil servant. What you’re doing now is making political judgements, and you’re not supposed to do that.’

  The man’s voice was as silky as ever, but his words held an edge.

  ‘These aren’t political judgements,’ Thomas said. ‘They’re realistic. My task was to evaluate the cost implications of a specific legislative change, and that’s exactly what I’ve done. If we abolish life sentences, all other sentences will increase, and it will happen within three years, which would mean a thirty per cent increase in the cost of the prison system, according to the most cautious estimates.’

  Cramne stood up, walked round his desk and went to the closed door. Thomas looked at him in surprise, noting that his face seemed slightly swollen, his eyes a little red.

  Is he drinking too much?

  ‘It’s like this,’ Cramne said, sitting on his desk close to Thomas. ‘Criminals have been shown a hell of a lot of consideration throughout the time this minister has been in office. The sentencing tariffs need to be adjusted upwards – the whole criminal justice system demands it – but the politicians are putting the brakes on. The minister even wants to abolish certain crimes.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Per Cramne stood up again and went back to his chair. ‘Treason,’ he said, catching the blank look on Thomas’s face. ‘Throwing pies at the king, although perhaps that’s a bad example.’ He sat down with a sigh. ‘Sentencing tariffs are the only thing this government has left to deal with. They’ve thrashed their way through all the other big issues, including the whole wretched question of bugging, but they’ve always shied away from this. How much more bloo
dy obvious do I have to be?’ He leaned over the desk and laid his hairy hands on Thomas’s folder. ‘The directive about this not costing any more money is a restriction imposed by them. You have to find a way of getting round that. We have to make sure that this gets through. We have to be able to lock criminals up, and there has to be an end to all this kid-gloves treatment.’

  Thomas stared at his boss.

  He wants me to falsify the calculations in a parliamentary inquiry so that he can push through a policy that has no democratic basis.

  With his eyes firmly fixed on the other man’s, he nodded slowly. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I understand what you mean. Thank you for making it so clear.’

  Per Cramne’s face cracked into a broad smile. ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘I look forward to seeing your new cost evaluations. Consider them cost proposals!’

  Thomas gathered his papers, stood up, opened the door and floated out into the corridor without quite touching the floor.

  Two other reporters were tapping away at their computers when Annika returned to the day-shift’s desk. One had left a mug of coffee on her folded laptop.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Annika said, pointing at it, ‘but I need to do some work.’

  The reporter, a girl called Ronja, of all the ridiculous fashionable names, moved her mug so that it was no longer on top of Annika’s computer, but half a centimetre away from it.

  The other, Emil Oscarsson, was one of the guys who had found an extra gear in order to cling on to his job. He glanced up, then returned to his screen.

  Annika knocked the mug so that the contents spilled over Ronja’s notes. ‘Whoops,’ she said, switching on her laptop.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ the girl said, jumping up as the coffee dripped on to her trousers.

  Annika logged into the national database and pretended not to have heard her.

  ‘Why did you spill my coffee?’

  Annika looked up at her in surprise. ‘Well, go and mop yourself up, for heaven’s sake,’ she said.

  The girl was on the verge of tears.

  If you fuck with me, I’ll fuck you right back.