Last Will Read online

  Her sense of hearing was coming back and she could make out the roar of the powerful outboard motor.

  She left the shadows and turned sharply to the right through the garden, frozen grass crunching beneath her feet, cutting into her like needles. Shots were coming from somewhere behind her and she was flying, darting and flying, with the pistol and shoes in her hands as she tried to hold her skirt up.

  The sound of the engine cut off as the boat swung in alongside the City Hall.

  Winds of ice cut into her skin as she threw herself down the granite steps.

  The waves of Lake Mälaren were hitting the hull and splashing over the sides as she landed awkwardly in the stern of the boat.

  The feeling of triumph vanished almost immediately and was replaced by a restless irritation. She felt her cheek, damn, she was bleeding. As long as it didn’t leave a scar. And it was cold as fuck as well.

  Only when the tower of the City Hall had disappeared behind them and she was taking off her evening gown did she realize that she had lost one of her shoes.

  Detective Inspector Anton Abrahamsson’s baby was three months old and had colic. The child had been screaming day and night for eight weeks now and he and his wife were at their wits’ end. He was able to go off to work and get a break sometimes, but it was worse for his wife. Anton tried vainly to comfort her over the phone: “It has to stop sometime, darling. Has he burped? Have you tried Minifom?”

  The emergency call came through to the communications office of the Security Police just as Anton’s wife started to sob with exhaustion.

  “I’ll be home as soon as I can,” Anton Abrahamsson said, hanging up on his despairing spouse and angrily snatching up the emergency call. His reaction could probably be explained by the fact that the call didn’t come from either the bodyguard unit or any of their own units, but from the regular police.

  Which meant that the regular police force, whose primary duties were to look after the traffic and keep curious bystanders away from crime scenes, had a better grasp on the security situation than the Security Police.

  That was Anton Abrahamsson’s first conclusion.

  The second dawned on him a second later:

  Someone’s going to end up in serious shit because of this.

  The third made the hairs on his arms stand up:

  Shit. They’re here now.

  I have to call the paper, Annika thought.

  She had ended up lying face down on the dance floor, the marble ice-cold against her bare arms. A man was throwing up in front of her, another was standing on her hand. She pulled it away without any sense of pain. A woman was shrieking somewhere to her right, skirts brushed over her head. The orchestra stopped playing in the middle of a note, and in the sonic vacuum the screams echoed like an icy wave around the Blue Hall and out into all the rooms of the City Hall.

  Where’s my bag? she thought and tried to get up, but was knocked on the head and sank back down.

  A moment later the people around her vanished and she was being lifted up out of the crowd of people, a dark-gray suit sitting her down with her back to the rest of the hall. She found herself staring at a dark oak door.

  I have to get hold of Jansson, she thought, and tried to look round for her bag. She’d left it by the copper doors leading to the Three Crowns Chamber, but all she could see now was a mass of people milling about and dark-gray men rushing in.

  Her knees started to tremble and she felt the familiar rush of angst but managed to hold it at bay, this isn’t dangerous, this isn’t dangerous. She forced herself to take deep breaths and see the situation for what it was.

  There was nothing she could do.

  The mosaic figure on the far wall stared at her encouragingly, its snake-hair floating around its face. A fat woman in a black lace dress turned her eyes up and fainted dead away beside her. A young man was shouting so loudly that the veins on his neck were standing out like rubber bands. A drunk old man dropped his beer glass on the floor with a crash.

  I wonder where Bosse’s got to? she thought.

  Her pulse slowed down, the carpet of noise in her head slowly began to fragment, and she could make out words and phrases again. She could hear calls and orders, mostly from the dark-gray suits. They were talking in steel-plated voices into wires that snaked from their ears toward their mouths, then down into inside pockets and trouser linings.

  “The service elevator is too small, the gurney won’t go in—we’ll have to take it out through the ceremonial entrance in the tower.”

  She could make out the words, but not who was saying them.

  “The building’s secure, over. Yes, we’ve separated the witnesses and are in the process of emptying the banqueting halls.”

  I have to get my bag, she thought.

  “I have to get my bag,” she said out loud, but no one heard her. “Can I get my bag? I need my cell phone.”

  She turned round. The mass of people was moving slowly now, like ants before the first frost. A white-clad woman came running in from the Three Crowns Chamber, pushing a gurney in front of her, then a man with another gurney, then several men with stethoscopes and oxygen masks and drips. Further away in the Golden Hall the Nobel banquet guests stood like a wall, faces white, their mouths black holes. All the screaming had stopped and the silence was deafening. Annika could make out the fragmented sound of quiet talking from the white coats, then the bodies were loaded onto the gurneys, and only then did Annika notice the man, the man who had fallen on the dance floor: he was conscious, moaning. The woman was lying completely still.

  A moment later they were gone.

  The noise rose again with earsplitting force and Annika took her chance. She slunk past two suits and managed to reach her bag. One of them grabbed hold of her just as she was fishing out her cell phone.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” he said with unnecessary force, and she shook herself free.

  She rang Jansson’s direct line in the newsroom and got three short bleeps in response.

  Network busy.

  What the …?

  Contacts, press, Jansson, press.

  Bleep bleep bleep. Network busy.

  Contacts, press, Jansson, press.

  Network busy.

  Annika looked round, trying to find help. Nobody noticed her.

  “Your name?”

  A man in jeans was standing in front of her, holding a pad and pen.

  “Sorry?” Annika said.

  “Criminal Investigation Department, can I have your name? We’re trying to figure out exactly what happened. Did you see anything?”

  “I don’t know,” Annika said, looking over at the blood on the marble floor, already dark and congealing.

  No angels, she managed to think, thank god the angels are keeping quiet.

  She shivered and realized that she had dropped her shawl, her grandmother’s best shawl that she had worn back when she was a housekeeper at Harpsund, the prime minister’s country estate. It was in a heap on the floor next to the vivid pool of blood.

  Dry cleaners, Annika thought. Hope it’s okay.

  “My name’s Annika Bengtzon,” she said to the police officer. “I’m covering the Nobel banquet for the Evening Post. What happened?”

  “Did you hear the shots?”

  Shots?

  Annika shook her head.

  “Did you notice anyone suspicious in connection with the shots?”

  “I was dancing,” she said, “it was crowded. Someone pushed into me, but nothing suspicious, no …”

  “Pushed? Who was doing the pushing?”

  “A woman, she was trying to get through, and she stood on my foot.”

  “Okay,” the policeman said, writing something in his pad. “Wait here and someone will come and get you for questioning.”

  “I can’t,” Annika said. “I’ve got an article to write. What’s your name? Can I quote you?”

  The man in jeans stepped closer to her and pressed her up against the wal
l.

  “You’re going to wait right here,” he said, “until I get back.”

  “Not on your life,” Annika said in a voice that threatened to turn into falsetto.

  The police officer groaned and dragged her into the Three Crowns Chamber.

  My deadline, Annika thought. How the hell am I going to get out of this?

  Editor in chief Anders Schyman had just settled into the sofa in his living room with his wife and an Almodóvar film when the night editor rang.

  “There’s been shooting at the Nobel banquet,” Jansson said. “At least five people have been shot, we don’t know if they’re alive or dead.”

  Anders Schyman looked at his wife, as she pressed in vain on the remote to get the right subtitles.

  “It’s the round button,” he said, showing her at the same time as the night editor’s words landed in his head.

  “Annika Bengtzon and Ulf Olsson from pictures are there,” Jansson said. “I haven’t been able to contact them, the mobile network’s jammed. Too much traffic.”

  “Tell me again,” Schyman said, signaling to his wife to pause the film.

  “Too much traffic on the mobile network; one thousand three hundred people trying to make calls from the City Hall at the same time, and it’s gone down.”

  “Who’s been shot? At the Nobel banquet?!”

  His wife opened her eyes wide and dropped the remote on the floor.

  “Some were security guards, but we don’t know about the others. The ambulances headed off, sirens blaring, toward Sankt Göran Hospital a few minutes ago.”

  “Damn!” Schyman said, sitting up straight. “When did this happen?”

  He glanced at his watch, 10:57 PM.

  “Ten minutes ago, fifteen at most.”

  “Is anyone dead?” his wife asked, but he hushed her.

  “This is mad,” he said. “What are the police doing? Have they arrested anyone? Where were the shots fired? Inside the Blue Hall? Where were the king and queen? Haven’t they got any fucking security in that building?”

  His wife laid a calming hand on his back.

  “The police have sealed off the City Hall,” Jansson said, “no one can get in or out. They’re questioning everyone and will start to let people out in half an hour or so. We’ve got people on their way to get eyewitness accounts. We don’t know if they’ve arrested anyone, but they’re certainly still looking for more people.”

  “What do things look like in the rest of the city?”

  “They’ve stopped all the trains, and the main roads out are blocked off, but planes are still taking off from Arlanda. There aren’t many flights left this evening. We’ve got people heading for the Central Station, the motorways, pretty much everywhere.”

  His wife gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, then got up and left the room. Pedro Almodóvar’s women disappeared into an indeterminate future, their impending nervous breakdowns on hold.

  “Have the police said anything?” Anders Schyman asked. “Terrorism, extremists, any suggestion of a threat?”

  “They’ve announced a press conference, but not until 1:00 AM …”

  Someone shouted in the background and Jansson disappeared for a moment.

  “Well,” he said when he came back on the line, “things are pretty hectic here. I need some quick decisions: how many extra pages can we add? Can we hold back some of the ads? And who do you think we should get in to do the lead article?”

  The darkness hung heavily outside the editor in chief’s living room; he could see his own reflection in the glass and heard his wife running a tap out in the kitchen.

  I’m starting to get old, he thought. I’d rather spend the evening with Antonio Banderas and Carmen Maura.

  “I’m on my way,” the editor in chief said.

  Jansson hung up without replying.

  His wife was standing by the counter making a cup of tea; she turned around and kissed him when she felt his hands on her shoulders.

  “Who’s been killed?” she asked.

  “Don’t know,” he whispered.

  “Wake me up when you get home,” she said.

  He nodded, his lips touching the back of her neck.

  The Kitten changed to a higher gear and accelerated cautiously. The little motorbike growled encouragingly, its headlight playing over the graveled tarmac of the path.

  This really was too damn easy.

  She knew that any sense of superiority wasn’t good, it increased the risk of carelessness.

  But in this case there were no more difficulties. The rest was just a walk in the park.

  The job itself had been presented to her as a challenge, and that was what had interested her. After an initial check she had realized how simple it would be, but that wasn’t something she had any intention of revealing to her employer. Negotiations had taken place with the understanding that the job was extremely dangerous and difficult, which had obviously had a decisive effect on the size of her fee.

  Ah well, she thought. You wanted it to be spectacular. Okay, hope you like it.

  She swung into a narrow bikeway. A branch struck her helmet; it was black as the grave. Stockholm was usually described as a major city, a metropolis with glittering nightlife and a functioning security service, which was a laughable exaggeration. Everything outside the city center itself seemed to consist of scrappy patches of woodland. There was a chance that the couple with the dog had seen her and her wingman head off in different directions on their bikes, but since then she hadn’t seen a single person.

  A major city, she thought scornfully, as she rode past a deserted campsite.

  She rolled her shoulders; she was still freezing. Her thick jacket couldn’t really thaw her out, and the boat trip in her evening gown had practically frozen her.

  Well, now that wretched silk outfit was at the bottom of the lake together with her bag and eight bricks. The sack was made of netting, so the water would rinse through the material, and any biological evidence would be washed away in a few hours. She still had the gun, as well as the one shoe and the cell phone. She was planning to get rid of those somewhere in the middle of the Baltic.

  The thought of the other shoe preyed on her mind.

  It had her fingerprints on it, she was sure of that. The shoes had been clean of evidence when she set out on the job, but before that last sprint she had taken it off, held it in her hand.

  God knows where she’d dropped it.

  There was light ahead of her and she realized she had reached the only inhabited road along the whole of the shore. She forced that damn shoe out of her mind, changed down a gear and turned off the path and up onto the road. Streetlights shone among the tightly packed houses. She let the motorbike roll down the slope, following the shoreline. A few youngsters were hanging about by a jetty; they glanced idly at her, then went on laughing and kicking at the gravel.

  She knew that all they saw was a single person of uncertain gender on a small motorbike, wearing dark jeans and a helmet with a visor, no memorable features, nothing to stick in the mind.

  The street came to an end and she rolled on into thin forest again, glancing quickly at her watch.

  She was slightly behind schedule, only a minute or so, because of the frost. The evening she had timed the journey it had been raining, but the road hadn’t been slippery.

  She accelerated gently, and a moment later it happened.

  The tires lost their grip on the ground and she felt the bike disappear from beneath her. Her left leg took the first blow and snapped like a matchstick just below the knee. Her shoulder hit next and dislocated instantly, then she felt a thud as her head hit the ground, thinking: I haven’t got time for this.

  When she came to again she was lying facedown on the ground.

  What the hell had happened?

  Pain was pulsing through her whole left side, from her head to her toes. The motorcycle was still growling somewhere behind her, its headlight shining into the trees.

  She groa
ned. Fucking fuck. What was she going to do now?

  She pulled off her helmet and lay her cheek against the frozen ground for a few seconds, forcing her brain to clear.

  At least the bike was still working: she could feel the vibrations of the engine through the ground. But she was in worse shape. Her leg was broken and her shoulder was buggered. Carefully she flexed the right side of her body.

  It seemed okay.

  She sat up with her left arm hanging uselessly by her side. The joint was dislocated; she’d seen it happen to other people but had never had it happen to her before. Her leg was excruciatingly painful: she could feel the shaft of the bone pressing against the skin just below her left knee.

  She shuffled backward until she felt a narrow tree trunk behind her, and groaned again.

  The list of possible options she had to choose from was shrinking pretty damn fast.

  Using her right side she dragged herself upright, and with a well-judged motion threw herself forward, letting her shoulder hit the tree trunk.

  Holy fucking shit!

  The pain as her shoulder popped back in was almost unbearable; she had to cling onto the tree with her healthy arm to stop herself from fainting.

  When she had pulled herself together she flexed the fingers of her left hand, gently moved her arm, and realized it was working. But there was nothing she could do about her leg.

  She leaned down carefully and caught hold of the helmet. Carefully she hopped over to the motorbike, pulled it upright and, with a great deal of effort, hoisted herself up. She had to bite her lip as she put her left foot on the pedal. The pain brought her out in a sweat as she adjusted her position on the seat.

  For a moment she wasn’t sure which direction she should be going in. The forest looked the same; she couldn’t tell where she had come from.

  Shit, shit, shit!

  She looked at the time, thirteen minutes behind schedule.

  Her wingman would wait for half an hour in the boat out at Torö, then she had given him orders to set off for Ventspils.

  Fear hit her like a dagger in the chest.

  Would this crappy job up at the bloody North Pole turn out to be her last?

  She put the helmet on, dropped the visor and put the bike in gear. She turned and rode in what she hoped was a southerly direction, with her left knee jutting out at an indescribably wrong angle.