The Long Shadow Read online

  ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘there’s a slim chance that I might discuss a serious change in my work with the father of my children, but I will never discuss my career with you. Have I made myself clear enough?’

  Sophia Fucking Bitch Grenborg sounded rather put out. ‘Why are you so aggressive? I only want what’s best for your children.’

  Annika let out an evil laugh. ‘You’re such a fucking hypocrite,’ she said, far too loudly. ‘If you wanted what’s best for my children, you wouldn’t have torn our family apart, you fucking …’ She had been on the point of saying ‘bitch on heat’ but felt that it wasn’t quite adequate. ‘I haven’t got time for you and your book group,’ she said instead. ‘There isn’t a chance in hell that I will ever be friends with you, so just drop it, okay?’

  She clicked to end the call without waiting for an answer.

  For the first time she didn’t feel remotely ashamed of shredding Sophia’s absurdly expensive bra at a petrol station outside Kungsör. And she felt less guilty now for having sent a tip-off to the paper from a fake email address that had made sure Thomas’s investigation at the Ministry of Justice was closed down suddenly. He didn’t seem to be suffering. He was now organizing new legislation in the area of international financial crime, and he certainly hadn’t seen fit to discuss that with her.

  Considering that it was rush-hour, the traffic was surprisingly light, but it was a short week after a public holiday, and a lot of people were still away, like Nina Hoffman.

  She got back to the paper in time to pack up her laptop and go home.

  ‘Oy!’ Patrik yelled, the moment he caught sight of her. ‘You’re flying to Málaga first thing tomorrow morning.’

  Annika dropped her things back on the desk. ‘What are you talking about?’ she said.

  ‘You’re booked on a flight that leaves at six thirty a.m.,’ Patrik said.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ she said. ‘I can’t go anywhere. I’ve just moved – I haven’t even had time to unpack.’

  ‘You can’t have that many things, can you?’ Patrik said. ‘Your house burned down, didn’t it? Clobbe from Sport is on holiday in Marbella. He’s not going to win any prizes, but he can do the main piece for tomorrow. You can have a handover meeting with him when you get there. Then you need to concentrate on getting confirmation of the victims’ identity, and if it is Sebastian Söderström, you’ll probably be there the rest of the week.’

  Annika stared down into her bag. Erik Ponti’s arrogant lies about how much he valued Kicki Pop and had nothing whatsoever against P1 being invaded by noisy talk-shows were still ringing in her ears.

  But, of course, she was working to a rota now.

  ‘The tickets, then,’ Annika said. ‘Where are they? Or have I just got a booking number? Where am I staying? Do you want me to hire a car? Have we got an interpreter? Have we established contact with the local police? And who’s going to be taking the pictures?’

  Patrik stared at her briefly, then puffed out his chest. ‘You can sort all that out once you’re there,’ he said. ‘There must be freelance photographers in Spain. And take the chance to do a bit of research on the Costa Cocaine as well. You’ll be doing a series of articles on drugs and money-laundering, the ones I’d have written if I hadn’t been promoted.’

  He hurried off to the entertainment desk.

  Annika turned to Berit. ‘Unbelievable!’ she said. ‘He thinks being head of news means running around and giving people advice about things that are bloody obvious.’

  ‘The booking number of your flight to Málaga’s in your email,’ Berit said, without looking up. ‘A couple of Scandinavian police officers are stationed in Andalucía. You’ve got their names and numbers in another email. Start by calling them – they’re bound to know a local interpreter. Take your own pictures. I managed to book out a completely automatic camera. You just point and click. Call as soon as you know anything.’

  She pointed at a little camera case on the desk beside Annika. ‘Fly carefully,’ she said, ‘and good luck.’

  Annika groaned. ‘Why didn’t you take the job, Berit?’

  There was an echo as she closed the door of the flat. She stopped in the hall for a minute or so, as she usually did, listening to the sounds from the street and feeling the draught trying to get into the stairwell.

  This flat was much darker than any she had lived in before. It was higher off the ground, on the fourth floor. The trees obscured the light from the streetlamps. Outside her bedroom window she had nothing but a starless sky.

  From the hall she looked through the living room into the darkness that would be Ellen’s room. The kitchen was immediately to the left, a modern, minimalist affair that she instinctively disliked.

  She turned on the lights, took off her padded jacket and let it fall in a heap on the floor. She went quickly past the kitchen and into her room, where she curled up on the bed.

  There wasn’t much wrong with the flat itself. It was actually quite nice. It had three rooms, apart from the kitchen and the bathroom, and it was fairly spacious, with a large hall that could be used as a living room, which meant that she and the children could each have their own bedroom. The keys had been delivered by courier to her temporary home in Gamla stan the day before New Year’s Eve. She had spent New Year’s Eve hiring a car and moving the few possessions she had managed to acquire since the fire.

  She looked up at the smooth ceiling. There must have been some heavy plaster detail up there at some point, but the building had been renovated at the end of the 1930s and all its ornamentation had been stripped out.

  She had found out that the building, known as No. 1 Walnut Block for bureaucratic purposes, was a cooperative apartment block, where each occupant owned a share of the building. This flat was owned by the National Property Board. She had no idea how Q had got hold of it or how long she would be able to live there.

  She turned on one of the bedside lamps and plumped up the pillows behind her back, turned her head a little to the right and looked out at the sky. She could see the bedroom in the villa on Vinterviksvägen. She had felt so abandoned and alone there. She closed her eyes and remembered the fire, the smoke, the panic.

  Thomas hadn’t been at home. That evening he had left his family and gone off to Sophia Grenborg. Annika had had to save herself and the children. She had lowered Kalle and Ellen out of the bedroom window on the first floor using sheets, then jumped out and landed on the terrace table.

  She had been suspected of arson.

  After several months of forensic investigation, they had found a fingerprint on a Molotov cocktail in the remains of the house that could be linked to the real culprit: an American contract-killer known as the Kitten.

  Which made little difference to Annika.

  The Kitten would never be held responsible for the fire.

  Instead of arresting her, Inspector Q had used her to negotiate a prisoner exchange with the American authorities: the FBI got the Kitten, and the American justice system sent home a Swedish citizen from a prison in New Jersey.

  ‘You sold out my home, my children’s home, just to get a bit of credit with the CIA and bring home a cop-killer,’ she had said to Inspector Q.

  That was when he had joked about organizing a new home for her, and now here she was, in number 28 Agnegatan, in the same block as the flat she had lived in when she’d first arrived as a summer temp on the Evening Post ten years before. She had no windows facing in that direction, or she could probably have looked into the little house in the courtyard where she had spent that hot summer when everything had begun, before the children, before Thomas, when Sven was still alive …

  The phone rang somewhere in the flat, the landline. She flew up, unable to remember where she had plugged it in.

  After the fourth ring she found it on the floor of Kalle’s room.

  ‘Annika Bengtzon? Jimmy Halenius.’

  The under-secretary of state at the Ministry of Justice, the minister’s right-hand
man.

  Thomas’s boss.

  She cleared her throat audibly. ‘Thomas has moved out,’ she said. ‘I told you.’

  ‘I want to talk to you, not him.’

  She moved the receiver to her other ear. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Really?’

  ‘I heard from Britta that you wanted a comment about the extradition of an American citizen towards the end of last year. As you know, the minister isn’t in a position to comment on individual cases, but I could outline some of the issues involved in a more informal way.’

  ‘Britta?’ she said.

  ‘I’ll be at Järnet on Österlånggatan from seven p.m. Come if you’re interested.’

  ‘On the record?’ she asked.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ he said. ‘But I’ll pay for dinner.’

  ‘I don’t have dinner with politicians,’ she said.

  ‘As you like. Well, thanks, and goodbye,’ he said, and hung up.

  She replaced the receiver and lowered the phone to the floor. There were no lights in Kalle’s room yet, so she was standing in the dark by the window, gazing down on the naked treetops.

  Really she ought to unpack.

  She looked at the time.

  She didn’t have to do that this evening. She had never expected to hear back from anyone in the department. Shouldn’t she go and listen to what he had to say? Besides, she’d met Halenius before when Thomas had had some colleagues round for dinner.

  Her eyes fell on the boxes.

  It’s a tough decision, she thought. Dinner at a fancy restaurant with a highly placed source or an evening with Kalle’s Brio train-set?

  Järnet turned out to be one of the restaurants in Gamla stan that Annika had walked past many times and peered into, as if the people inside lived in a different, much more beautiful, world from her own. It always looked so cosy, with candles, gleaming cutlery and glasses filled with wine. Outside in the street there was always a bitterly cold wind blowing.

  A simple sign with the name of the restaurant was swinging and creaking above the entrance. She pushed open one of the grey-green double-doors and found herself in a lobby. At once a waiter appeared out of nowhere. He took her padded jacket without giving her a numbered ticket or asking for fifteen kronor as a wardrobe fee.

  It was ten past seven. She had chosen the time carefully, didn’t want to seem too keen but didn’t want to leave him waiting on his own for too long either.

  The dining room was small, only ten or so tables. Jimmy Halenius was sitting in a far corner, immersed in one of the evening papers with a glass of beer in front of him. Not the Evening Post, she noted, but its main competitor. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘You’re reading the wrong paper.’

  His brown hair was sticking up in all directions, as if he’d got into the habit of rubbing it in frustration. He stood up and held out his right hand. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Have a seat. I’ve already read the right paper. Memorized it, in fact. Do you want a drink?’

  ‘Mineral water,’ she said, hooking her bag over the back of the chair.

  ‘Throw caution to the winds and have a Coke. My treat.’

  She sat down. ‘Not the benevolent state’s, then?’

  He folded his arms and raised his shoulders slightly with a smile. ‘Unlike yours, my expenses are in the public domain,’ he said. ‘I think we’ll keep this in the family.’

  Annika unfolded her napkin, glancing at him surreptitiously, his demeanour and the way he was dressed. He didn’t exactly exude power. He was wearing a blue-striped shirt under a fairly crumpled jacket. No tie. Jeans.

  ‘So, am I to understand that the Kitten’s extradition is something else we’re going to keep in the family?’ she said, looking him in the eye. ‘Why are you being so secretive about it?’

  Jimmy Halenius folded the paper and put it into a shabby briefcase. ‘I need to know that this will stay between the two of us,’ he said.

  Annika didn’t answer.

  ‘I can tell you some of what you want to know,’ he went on, ‘but you can’t publish it.’

  ‘Why should I listen to you if I can’t write about it?’ she asked.

  He smiled and shrugged. ‘The food here is good,’ he said.

  She looked at her watch.

  He leaned back in his chair.

  ‘The Kitten was responsible for the murders at the Nobel banquet just over a year ago,’ Annika said.

  ‘Correct,’ Jimmy Halenius said.

  ‘And she murdered that young scientist out at the Karolinska Institute.’

  ‘In all probability.’

  ‘And she burned down my house by throwing firebombs into the children’s bedrooms.’

  ‘We’re assuming that’s what happened.’

  Annika rubbed her forehead. ‘This is completely incomprehensible to me,’ she said. ‘How can you refrain from prosecuting one of the most ruthless criminals ever to have been caught by the Swedish police?’

  ‘Obviously this is about what we got in exchange,’ the under-secretary of state said.

  ‘And that’s what you were thinking of telling me?’

  He laughed. ‘What would you like to eat?’ he said. ‘At least the menu’s comprehensible, for the most part.’

  Annika picked it up. ‘This can’t just be about some shabby little cop-killer in New Jersey,’ she said. She could identify a lot of the dishes on offer, fried herring with dill butter and puréed potatoes, for instance. But things like the ‘gremolata emolution with potato confit’ were rather more difficult.

  Jimmy Halenius chose the carpaccio of venison with black chanterelle mushrooms and Västerbotten cheese as a starter, then grilled steak with shallot purée, roast Hamburg parsley and Västerbotten croquettes.

  She ordered vendace caviar and reindeer casserole.

  ‘Looks like you’re very fond of Västerbotten cheese,’ she commented, as the waiter glided off to fetch their wine, a South African Shiraz.

  ‘Well, you’re sticking to Norrbotten,’ he said. ‘Reindeer and vendace.’

  ‘Even though I’m from Södermanland,’ she said, raising her glass of water.

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  She opened her mouth to ask how he knew, then remembered their last meeting at the villa in Djursholm.

  ‘You used to have an old Volvo, didn’t you?’ he had asked back then. ‘A 144, dark-blue, lots of rust?’

  Annika could still feel how the blood had coursed through her body, turning her face dark red. She put down the mineral water. ‘How did you know I’d sold Sven’s car?’ she asked.

  ‘It was my cousin who bought it,’ he said, and drank some beer.

  She stared at him. ‘Roland Larsson?’ she said. ‘He’s your cousin?’

  ‘Of course. We were best friends growing up.’

  ‘He was in my class at the Works School in Hälleforsnäs!’ she said.

  Jimmy Halenius laughed. ‘And he had a huge crush on you.’

  Annika started to laugh as well. ‘God, he did, didn’t he?’ she said. ‘I almost felt sorry for him.’

  ‘We used to lie in the hayloft at Grandma’s on summer evenings, down in Vingåker, and Roland would spend hours talking about you. He had an old photograph he’d cut out of the paper, of you and a few other people, but he’d folded it so only you showed. He kept it in his wallet.’

  The waiter came over with their starters and poured their wine. They ate, silent.

  Annika pushed her empty plate away and studied the man opposite her. ‘How old are you really?’ she asked.

  ‘Two years older than Roland,’ he said.

  ‘Who was one year older than me, because he had to repeat a year.’

  ‘Education wasn’t exactly a priority in the Halenius family. I was the first to make it to university.’

  ‘Are you from Södermanland as well?’

  He took a sip of wine and shook his head. ‘Östergötland, Norrköping. I grew up on the third floor of a block of flats on Himmelstalundsvägen.’

  ‘So
are you Social Democrat royalty, then? You know, Mum a local councillor, Dad a union boss?’

  ‘God, no,’ he said. ‘Dad was a Communist. I was in the Red Youth to start with, but the Social Democrat youth movement had better parties. And much prettier girls. I got Roland to join as well. He’s still on the town council for the Social Democrats down in Flen.’

  She visualized Roland Larsson, his rather squat frame and long arms. He and Jimmy Halenius were actually fairly similar. She didn’t know he had gone into local politics. ‘What else is Roland up to, these days?’

  ‘He usually works in the ice-cream factory each summer, but he’s signing on at the moment.’

  ‘Does he still live in Hälleforsnäs?’

  ‘Last autumn he took the leap and went all the way to Mellösa. He moved in with a divorcee with three kids who has a place just behind the local shop, the one on the road out to Harpsund.’

  ‘Not Sylvia Hagtorn?’

  ‘Yes, that’s her name! Do you know her?’

  ‘She was in the class above us. Three kids? I wonder who with.’

  The waiter removed their plates and brought the main course. He refilled Jimmy Halenius’s glass.

  ‘Are you married?’ Annika asked, glancing at the ring finger of his left hand.

  ‘Divorced,’ he said, as he attacked his steak.

  ‘Children?’ she asked, picking at the reindeer stew.

  ‘Two,’ he said. ‘Twins. One of each. They’re six now.’

  ‘And you have them every other week?’

  ‘Since they were eighteen months.’

  ‘How do you think it works?’

  He drank some wine. ‘Oh, you know,’ he said. ‘How do you think it works?’

  She swirled her wine in the glass. She didn’t usually like red wine and this was particularly heavy. ‘I hate being divorced,’ she said, meeting his gaze. ‘I miss my children so much I feel like dying when they’re not with me. And I … Well, I have a few problems with Thomas’s new … partner.’ She had almost said, ‘I hate Thomas’s new fuck.’

  ‘Really, why?’ He sounded almost amused.

  ‘She’s a walking cliché. I don’t understand what Thomas sees in her.’

  ‘So you don’t think she tore your family apart?’