Lifetime Read online

  The sound of the ventilation seemed to get louder in the silence. Annika stared at the woman, unable to take her eyes from her mouth.

  ‘Then there was another bang, and my ears popped, a sort of ringing, howling sound …’

  The shot to the groin. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

  Julia took a deep breath, which sounded rough and shaky. ‘I’ve got a bit of a cold,’ she said apologetically. ‘I’m a bit bunged up. I suppose I got it from the guards, or prison officers, as we’re supposed to call them.’ Julia nodded to herself and wiped her nose on her sleeve. ‘My heart was pounding right through my head, my body. I don’t know how I can describe …’ She brushed the hair from her face.

  ‘Did you see someone?’ Annika asked quietly. ‘Did you see who fired the shot?’

  ‘It was completely dark. David can’t sleep if it isn’t pitch-black. I don’t know, I didn’t see anyone.’

  ‘Do you remember what you were thinking?’

  Julia shook her head. They sat in silence for a while. Julia pulled a paper handkerchief from her jeans pocket and blew her nose, then crumpled the tissue into a little ball.

  ‘Then what happened?’ Annika asked.

  ‘Alexander was crying. I could hear him, even though my ears had gone deaf. So I got up to go and see if he was all right.’

  ‘Where was he?’

  Julia looked up at her in surprise. ‘In his room, of course. He’d been asleep. I mean, it was the middle of the night.’

  ‘And then what happened?’

  Julia seemed to shrink and her shoulders hunched. She seemed to be trying to make herself smaller. Locks of hair tumbled in front of her face.

  ‘Alexander was standing in the hall. He was hugging Bamse. She was standing behind him, holding the knife. He said, “Mummy.” She looked at me. I could feel her looking at me.’

  ‘The other woman? The one who was in the flat? What did she look like?’

  Julia’s eyes flickered across the wall.

  Annika had read her description of ‘the other woman’ in Berit’s report of the trial. Medium-length hair, possibly short. Not fair, not dark. Medium height, normal size.

  Julia looked down at the table. The psychiatrists had concluded that she was describing herself when she had told them about the murderer. The lawyer must have explained that to her. ‘It wasn’t me,’ she said, scratching her wrists. Annika noticed that she had scabs on her arms from where she’d scratched herself before.

  ‘What did she do with the knife?’

  The scratching got more frenetic.

  ‘She cut …’

  ‘It’s all right to tell me,’ Annika said.

  Julia’s hands stopped. ‘She … she cut his cheek and put her hand over his mouth … and she was wearing gloves …’

  ‘She cut Alexander’s face?’

  Tears were welling in Julia’s eyes.

  ‘And I did nothing,’ Julia said. ‘She said, “I’ll suffocate him. I’ll smother him if you scream. It’s so easy to kill little children.” That’s what she said … Oh, God … what have I done?’

  And she started to cry.

  Annika sat still on the other side of the table and watched. Then she reached for her bag to give Julia a tissue, but remembered she’d had to leave it in the locker down in Reception.

  Julia let out a deep, sobbing sigh and wiped her face on her sleeves. ‘I didn’t help him. “If you follow me, I’ll cut his throat,” she said. He was crying. He said, “Mummy.” That’s when she cut his cheek and I tried to scream but nothing came out, and after that I don’t know what happened …’ She shuddered and was crying again. ‘I couldn’t help him. She cut his face with the knife and I didn’t know what to do. I was so frightened he was going to die.’

  The blood on the floor. Alexander’s DNA.

  ‘I think the woman knew David,’ Annika said. ‘Can you help me track her down?’

  Julia felt for the used tissue and dried her eyes. ‘She’s lethal,’ she said. ‘David was terrified of her. “She’s mad,” he said. “Don’t go anywhere near her.”’

  Annika got goose-bumps.

  Is she talking about herself now?

  ‘Who is she? Do you know her name?’

  Julia shook her head again. ‘She had an abortion,’ she said. ‘While I was expecting Alexander. David never admitted it, but I knew that was what had happened. I found a picture of the ultrasound. It would have been a girl. I should have left him then. I should have realized he was never going to stop seeing other women.’

  ‘Was she the one who used to call?’ Annika asked. ‘The one who used to phone when Alexander was little, telling you to let go of him?’

  Julia shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Maybe. He had more than one.’

  ‘When did David say that about the woman being so dangerous?’

  Julia looked up at her in surprise. ‘What woman?’

  ‘You said David talked about her, the dangerous woman. When did he do that? Was it when Alexander was small?’

  ‘Oh,’ Julia said, ‘no, not at all. It wasn’t that long ago.’

  ‘Just before he died?’

  Julia put a hand over her mouth. Her eyes filled with tears again. ‘It was my fault,’ she said. ‘I did absolutely nothing because I was so scared she was going to hurt him even more. She was evil! The blood was running down his cheek – you should have seen how terrified he looked, and she put her hand over his nose and mouth so he couldn’t scream, or even breathe. She had gloves on, and I was so scared …’

  ‘But when did he say it?’

  ‘When he was drunk. Alexander and I had been out to the cottage, cooking sausages outdoors, and we went to watch the May Day Eve bonfire in Hälleforsnäs, and when we got home he was so drunk. He wasn’t angry, mostly just scared.’

  ‘Earlier this year? Four weeks before he died, then?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You say David was scared? Did he say why?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘How could you tell? That he was scared?’

  ‘He asked me to forgive him. Said he’d hurt me. That he hadn’t meant to. That I should take care when I answered the phone, and not to answer the door if anyone knocked.’

  Annika recalled Nina describing how distraught Julia had been during the last few weeks before the murder, how she’d shut herself away and not answered the phone. ‘But he never said what her name was? Nothing about who she was?’

  Another shake of the head.

  Annika shifted on her chair. ‘She has to be seriously disturbed,’ she said. ‘She’s probably got criminal connections. If she did have an abortion and sent David a picture of the ultrasound, he must have been the father. Which means that she must have had some sort of contact with him over a long period, at least four and a half years. Right back to the time you spent living in Spain, at least. Had you ever seen her before?’

  Julia merely shook her head again.

  ‘Would you recognize her if you saw her again?’

  Julia hesitated, then nodded.

  ‘If I got hold of pictures of women David had dealings with for different reasons, would you look at them and see if you know any of them?’

  Julia nodded again.

  ‘One more thing,’ Annika said. ‘I’m a reporter on the Evening Post, as you know. Can I interview you and write about you for the paper?’

  Julia was clearly bewildered. ‘But what would I say?’

  ‘Well, you could start by telling me what it’s been like for you here in prison.’

  26

  Anders Schyman welcomed the chairman of the newspaper’s board into his little office with a flamboyant gesture. ‘Can I offer you anything?’ he said, taking Herman Wennergren’s coat and laying it ceremoniously across his desk. ‘A glass of water? Some coffee from the machine?’

  ‘Don’t overdo it,’ the chairman snapped, adjusting his cufflinks.

  Schyman had been invited to lunch with Wennergren on the veranda of th
e Grand Hotel, but had declined out of consideration for the poor finances of the paper’s proprietors. That hadn’t gone down well, evidently. There was now an item on the agenda of the next committee meeting proposing that his own entertainment budget be cut, not that he gave a damn about that. It was the petty act of revenge that annoyed him.

  ‘I have to say that this sounds deeply troubling,’ the chairman said, sitting down on the rather flimsy visitor’s chair. ‘An editorial management team consisting of eighty-two people is completely unreasonable. How on earth can we afford it?’

  Schyman sat down, and pulled his chair closer to the desk. He pulled a sheaf of calculations out from under the chairman’s coat and handed them to his visitor. ‘It’s the simplest, cheapest and quickest way to make the necessary cuts,’ he said. ‘In accordance with locally negotiated wage agreements – you’ve got those in appendix four – no productivity bonus is paid to members of the editorial management team. It’s included in their basic salary or recompensed in other ways. We chose to introduce a “responsibility bonus”, and those payments are made only to people in active leadership roles.’

  ‘Ahem.’ Wennergren leafed through the documents. ‘And this will solve the problem of the cutbacks?’

  ‘We have to take into account the union’s demand that we follow the “last in, first out” principle. Sixty-two posts are going, most of them on the editorial side. As you can see from the proposals, we’re clearing out top management as well. The committee would remove the managing director of his position and transfer his responsibilities to me. I’m going to negotiate with the local union representative straight after this meeting. Which is why I wanted to run my alternative proposal past you before I set to work.’

  ‘I see,’ Wennergren said. ‘Well, we can certainly manage without our current MD. So, what’s this alternative proposal of yours?’

  ‘If the union kicks up a fuss, I’ll dismiss the entire editorial staff. They would all have to reapply for their jobs, and I’ll reinstate those I want.’

  The chairman frowned disapprovingly. ‘We’ve tried that before, and there’s always a catch.’

  Schyman threw out his arms. ‘You’re the ones who want to impose the cuts. I’m just a facilitator. Will the company support my proposal, even if it means a certain amount of turbulence?’

  Wennergren stood up and consulted his watch, a Rolex Oyster (which Schyman regarded as ridiculous). ‘We would appreciate it if any turbulence could be kept to a minimum,’ he said. ‘Can I have my coat, please?’

  Schyman smiled, aware that by having this meeting here and not on the veranda of the Grand Hotel, he had saved the company at least two thousand kronor, and himself at least three hours of his life. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said.

  As soon as the chairman of the board had disappeared towards the lifts to go back to his chauffeur-driven Volvo, he asked the receptionist to call Eva-Britt Qvist.

  She appeared outside his room a mere ten seconds later. ‘What did Herman Wennergren want?’ she asked, pulling the door shut behind her.

  Yet another good reason for meeting him here.

  The editor-in-chief adopted a deep frown. ‘I wanted to make sure that the board and our owners were absolutely sure about the cutbacks and that they understand how serious this is. But they won’t be moved. They really do want this to be carried out. They’re not even sparing their own ranks – our new MD will lose his job. The whole committee is behind our preliminary proposal, but is also prepared to support our alternative plan.’

  Eva-Britt Qvist nodded thoughtfully and sat down.

  ‘We’re pleased that the paper has accepted its responsibilities and is following our preferred list when it comes to redundancies.’ He handed over a document containing a list of names. ‘Based on our locally negotiated agreements, the list of posts to be lost looks like this,’ he said.

  Eva-Britt Qvist began reading.

  I wonder how long it will be before she realizes.

  He checked an urge to time her.

  At least two minutes passed.

  ‘But,’ Eva-Britt Qvist said, ‘this doesn’t follow the last-in, first-out principle. Where’s Emil Oscarsson, for instance? He was the last person to be taken on – surely he only arrived this summer.’

  ‘Ah,’ Schyman said, handing her another list. ‘This is the new list of editorial management.’

  Eva-Britt Qvist turned pale. She read for a long time in silence, going through the whole list several times. Then she lowered the document. ‘So this is how you think you can get away with it,’ she said. ‘But, let me tell you, we won’t agree to this.’ She stood up.

  ‘Sit down,’ Schyman said.

  ‘No,’ she said, in a loud, clear voice. ‘I’m going now.’

  ‘In that case we have an even greater problem, you and I.’ He stood up as well, a head taller than her.

  She stopped, her hand on the door-handle.

  ‘I have just been authorized by the chairman of the board to dismiss the entire editorial staff,’ the editor-in-chief said. ‘Then I will reinstate those I actually want, rather than those I am obliged to keep. Even if it means the closure of the paper, we’re going to get this through. Because we don’t have any alternative. Carrying on as we have done up to now simply means that we will reach the same disaster more slowly.’

  ‘And if we protest?’

  He looked at her hard.

  Bet everything on one card.

  ‘There’ll be a lot of important work for you at this paper, Eva-Britt. Don’t let something like this ruin your whole career.’

  She gasped. ‘That’s a threat.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Schyman said, looking affronted. ‘I’m just keen to keep you, even after the cuts. We need experienced administrators, and we have to bear one thing in mind. Not even my position is secure.’ He opened the door. ‘Nothing lasts a lifetime.’

  Annika Bengtzon was just walking past. ‘You’ve heard?’ she said. ‘Mind you, it was entirely predictable, with that idiot defending her.’

  ‘What?’ Schyman said.

  ‘She’s the sixth woman ever to be given a life sentence in Sweden.’

  ‘We won’t accept this,’ the union representative whispered, looking close to tears.

  ‘We can probably come to an agreement,’ he said quietly, and smiled amiably.

  As she headed to her place at the day shift’s desk, it occurred to Annika that Eva-Britt Qvist had looked terrible. She took out her laptop, notes and documents relating to David Lindholm. First she wrote up her interview with Julia, under the heading ‘Accused Police Officer’s Wife Speaks Out’. It didn’t reveal much of what Julia had said. She left out everything about the other woman and what she had done. The article was more a description of the prison and Julia’s time there, nothing remarkable, with no contentious allegations.

  She went to the coffee machine to get herself a mug of tea. She took some headache pills and persuaded herself that the fact she was feeling unwell had nothing to do with the evening ahead, when she had agreed to look after the children in Sophia Grenborg’s flat. She was doing it for their sake, Ellen and Kalle’s, because they needed her and were missing her.

  Once she had sent the article to the shared file store, she sat down to structure her real work.

  Women who had had personal dealings with David. Who had he been with? Where do people meet their bits on the side? At work? In their free time? In bars? Among mutual friends, with shared ambitions and business interests?

  And how was she going to get hold of pictures, even if she managed to put together a list of names?

  The passport register was no longer open to the public; neither was the register of driving licences. A lot of people were in pictures on the Internet, or in different image archives, but she needed definite identification of every one. Otherwise it would be a complete waste of time.

  Well, she’d deal with that later.

  The criteria were fairly clear. There shouldn’t
be too many alternatives.

  Someone who had known David well. Who had had a sexual relationship with him. Who had had access to his home. Who was sufficiently criminal and ruthless to murder him, frame Julia and kidnap Alexander.

  This is an attack on a whole family. She must have been planning it ever since the gun disappeared.

  She shrugged off an image of Thomas, Sophia and the children.

  The woman must have got hold of the keys to the flat in Bondegatan, stolen Julia’s Sig Sauer from the gun-cabinet in David and Julia’s bedroom, without fingering it and without smearing Julia’s prints. It was no more complicated than that. She laid out the printouts she already had, pulled her notepad and pen from her bag, and decided to try to structure the search.

  1. Women who had been on the same committees as David. Easy, but there would probably be a lot of names. And it wasn’t a particularly likely list either, so she decided to wait with that one.

  2. Women related to the men who were in prison, thanks to David: wives, mothers, daughters, sisters and, ideally, lovers as well. Harder to dig out the information, but not impossible, and more likely to produce something interesting. She’d make this one her first priority.

  3. All the women David had worked with. There must be hundreds. The best way of checking them would be to find group photographs.

  4. Women he’d acted as a probation contact for. Were there any?

  She remembered that she hadn’t heard anything from the National Correctional Organization after her freedom of information request to see the list of David’s trustee activities, so she looked through her notepad and rang the lawyer’s direct number. She picked up after four rings, then disappeared to look up Annika’s request and returned a minute or so later. Annika heard the rustle of paper.

  ‘I can confirm that David Lindholm was active as both a probation contact and as a trustee over many years,’ the lawyer said. ‘Sometimes he was a probation contact for, let’s see, up to three people simultaneously, but while he was a trustee he had no other responsibilities.’