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  Then they played a pre-recorded piece, by Swedish Television’s Russian correspondent, an extremely talented reporter. He had been to the Caucasus to report on one of those interminable bloody conflicts that had blown up in the old Soviet republics.

  This is the good thing about the news drought in the summer, Annika thought. You get to see a load of things on the news that otherwise never get covered.

  There was an interview with the ageing president of the republic. To the reporter’s astonishment, he spoke Swedish.

  ‘I was posted to the Soviet Embassy in Stockholm between 1970 and 1973,’ he said in a strong accent.

  ‘Brilliant!’ Annika said in amazement.

  The president was extremely concerned. Russia was supplying the rebels with weapons and ammunition, while he was suffering the effects of the UN arms embargo that had been imposed on his country. He had been the subject of repeated assassination attempts, and had a serious heart condition.

  ‘My country is suffering,’ he said in Swedish, staring into the camera. ‘Children are dying. This is not justice.’

  God, some people have a terrible time, Annika thought as she went to get a cup of coffee. When she got back a short sequence of domestic news was running. A car accident in Enköping. The body of a young woman had been found in Kronoberg Park in Stockholm. The threat of a strike by air-traffic controllers had been averted now that the union had accepted the mediators’ final offer. The stories were quickly rattled through, as a commentary to some fairly generic images. A television cameraman had evidently been out to Kungsholmen, because they showed a few seconds of blue and white tape fluttering in the breeze in front of the thick greenery of the park. And that was it.

  Annika sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  9

  Patricia was freezing. She wrapped her arms around her chest and pulled her legs up onto the seat. The air-conditioning was blowing at floor level, bringing with it exhaust fumes and pollen. She sneezed.

  ‘Are you getting a cold?’ the man in the front seat asked. He was quite good-looking, but he was wearing a really hideous shirt. No style at all. But she liked older men, they weren’t usually so pushy.

  ‘No,’ she said crossly, ‘hay fever.’

  ‘We’re almost there,’ he said.

  In the driver’s seat next to him sat a real bitch, one of those female police officers who thought she had to be tougher than all the men to get any respect. After greeting Patricia rather gruffly, she’d ignored her completely.

  She looks down on me, Patricia thought. She thinks she’s better than me.

  The bitch had driven down the Karlberg road and crossed Norra Stationsgatan. Usually only buses and taxis were allowed to do that, but the bitch obviously didn’t care. They passed beneath the Essinge motorway and entered the Karolinska Institute the back way. It was a whole collection of red-brick buildings in different styles, a city within a city. There was no one about: it was Saturday evening, after all. They passed the Scheele Laboratory on the right, with the red-brick palace of the Tomteboda School up on the left. The bitch turned right and pulled up in a small car park. The man in the loud shirt got out and opened the door on her side of the car.

  ‘Can’t be opened from the inside,’ he said.

  Patricia couldn’t move. She had her feet up on the seat, her knees pulled up to her chin, and her teeth were chattering.

  This isn’t happening, she thought. It’s just a whole series of nasty coincidences, nothing more than that. Positive thoughts, positive thoughts …

  The air was so heavy that she was having trouble getting it down to her lungs. It got stuck somewhere in her throat, swelling and solidifying, suffocating her.

  ‘I can’t do this,’ she said. ‘What if it isn’t her?’

  ‘Well, we’ll soon find out,’ the man said. ‘I realize this must be very difficult for you. Come on, let me help you out. Do you want anything to drink?’

  She shook her head and took the hand he was holding out to her. She stumbled onto the tarmac on unsteady legs. The bitch had started walking down a narrow path, her heavy shoes crunching on the gravel.

  ‘I feel sick,’ Patricia said.

  ‘Here, have some chewing-gum,’ the man said.

  Without saying anything she held out her hand and took a piece from the packet.

  ‘It’s just down here,’ the man said.

  They passed a sign with a red arrow saying, 95:7 Forensic laboratory: mortuary.

  She chewed hard on the gum. They were walking through trees, limes and maples. A gentle breeze was rustling the leaves, maybe the heat was about to lift at last.

  The first thing she caught sight of was the long canopy roof. It stuck out from the bunker-like building like a vast peaked cap. It was yet another red-brick building, its door dark grey iron, heavy and forbidding.

  STOCKHOLM MORTUARY, she read in gilded lettering under the canopy, then, in slightly smaller letters: Entrance for next of kin. Identification deposition.

  The plastic entry phone had seen better days. The man pressed a chrome button and a low voice responded. The man said something.

  Patricia turned away from the door and looked back towards the car park. She had a vague feeling that the ground was moving, like slow waves on a huge ocean. The sun had disappeared behind Tomteboda School, and beneath the canopy the daylight had almost vanished. Straight ahead of her lay the Medical School, a dull, red-brick building from the sixties. The air seemed to be getting thicker, and the chewing-gum was getting bigger and bigger in her mouth. A bird was singing somewhere in the bushes, its sound reaching her through some sort of filter. She could feel her jaw muscles clenching.

  ‘We can go in.’

  The man put his hand on her arm and she had to turn round. The door was open. Another man was standing in the doorway, smiling cautiously at her.

  ‘This way; please come through,’ he said.

  The lump in her throat rose, settling at the back of her tongue, and she swallowed hard.

  ‘I just have to get rid of my chewing-gum,’ she said.

  ‘There’s a bathroom in here,’ he said.

  The bitch and the man in the shirt let her go in first. The room was small. It reminded her of a dentist’s waiting room: the little grey sofa to the left, a birch-wood coffee table, four chrome chairs with blue-striped covers, an abstract picture on the wall, just three colours, grey, brown, blue. A mirror on the right. Cloakroom straight in front, toilet. She headed in that direction with an unpleasant feeling of not quite touching the floor.

  Are you here, Josefin?

  Can you feel that I’m here?

  Inside the toilet she locked the door and threw her chewing-gum in the bin. The woven basket was empty and the gum stuck to the plastic lining just below the rim. She tried to push it further down, but it stuck to her finger. There were no plastic cups so she drank directly from the tap. This is a mortuary, after all, she thought. They must be pretty hot on hygiene.

  She took several deep breaths through her nose, then went out. They were waiting for her. They were standing next to another door, between the mirror and the exit.

  ‘I want you to know that this will probably feel pretty tough,’ the man said. ‘The girl in here hasn’t been washed since she was found. She’s also lying in the same position we found her in.’

  Patricia swallowed once more.

  ‘How did she die?’

  ‘She was strangled. She was found in Kronoberg Park on Kungsholmen just after lunchtime today.’

  Patricia put her hand to her mouth, her eyes opened wide and filled with tears.

  ‘We usually cut through the park on our way home from work,’ she whispered.

  ‘It’s not certain that this girl is your friend,’ the man said. ‘I need you to be as relaxed as you can and have a good look at her. You’ll be okay.’

  ‘Is there … much blood?’

  ‘No, not at all. She’s in a reasonable state. The body has started to dry out, wh
ich is why the face looks a little sunken. Her skin and lips are discoloured, but not too badly. She’s not going to scare you.’

  The man’s voice was calm and low. He took her by the hand.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  Patricia nodded. The bitch opened the door. A cool draught swept out of the room inside. She breathed in the smell, expecting it to reek of corpses and death. But there was nothing. The air was fresh and clean. She took a cautious step inside. The floor was stone, shiny, grey-brown, the walls pure white, plastered, a little uneven. Two electric radiators hung on the far wall. She lifted her eyes. An uplighter hung from the ceiling. Twelve glowing bulbs spread a smooth light over the room. It reminded her of a chapel. Two candelabra, tall, wooden. They weren’t lit, but Patricia could still make out the smell of wax. Between them stood the mortuary trolley.

  ‘I don’t want to,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ the man said. ‘We can ask her parents to come, or her boyfriend. The only problem is that that would take time. The killer’s already got a head start. Whoever did this can’t be allowed to get away with it.’

  She gulped. Behind the trolley hung a large blue tapestry. It covered the whole of the back entrance. She stared into the blue of it, trying to make out a pattern.

  ‘Okay, I’ll do it, then,’ she said.

  The man, still holding her hand, pulled her slowly over to the trolley. She was lying under a sheet. Her hands were raised above her head.

  ‘Now Anya’s going to lift the sheet slowly from her face. I’ll be right beside you the whole time.’

  Anya was the bitch.

  She saw movement from the corner of her eye, the white cloth being pulled down, the faint movement in the air. She let go of the blue tapestry and let her eyes fall to the trolley.

  It’s true, she thought. She looks okay. She’s dead, but she isn’t disgusting. She just looks a bit surprised, like she didn’t really know what had happened.

  ‘Josie,’ Patricia whispered.

  ‘Is this your friend?’ the man asked.

  She nodded. Her tears poured out; there was nothing she could do to stop them. She reached out a hand to stroke Josefin’s hair, but stopped herself.

  ‘Josie, what have they done to you?’

  ‘Are you quite sure?’

  She closed her eyes and nodded.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she said.

  She put a hand to her mouth and screwed her eyes tight shut.

  ‘So you can confirm that this is your flatmate, Josefin Liljeberg? You’re one hundred per cent sure?’

  She nodded and turned away – away from Josie, away from death, away from the blueness hanging behind the trolley.

  ‘I want to get out of here,’ she said quietly. ‘Get me out of here.’

  The man put his arm round her shoulders and pulled her towards him, stroking her hair. She was crying helplessly now, soaking his nasty tropical shirt.

  ‘We’d like to search the flat properly tonight,’ he said. ‘It would be good if you could be there.’

  She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and shook her head.

  ‘I have to go to work,’ she said. ‘With Josie gone I’ll have even more to do. They’ll be missing me already.’

  He looked hard at her.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be okay?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

  10

  The press release rolled out of the fax machine at 21.12. Because the press section of the Stockholm Police always sent their communiqués to the editorial secretary, Eva-Britt Qvist, who didn’t work weekends, no one noticed it. It wasn’t until the main news agency sent out an alert at 21.45 that Berit picked up the information.

  ‘Press conference in Police Headquarters at ten p.m.,’ she called to Annika as she hurried towards the picture desk.

  Annika dropped her pen and notebook in her bag and headed for the exit. A sense of expectation was churning in her stomach: now she was about to find out. The uncertainty was making her nervous; she had never been to a press conference in Stockholm Police Headquarters before.

  ‘We have to shift the fax machine away from Eva-Britt’s desk,’ Berit said in the lift.

  They squeezed into Bertil Strand’s Saab, just like before. Annika sat in the back again, in the same seat. She closed the door gently. As the photographer accelerated towards the Western Bridge she realized that she hadn’t shut the door properly. She quickly clicked down the lock and took a firm hold of the handle, hoping the driver wouldn’t notice anything.

  ‘Where are we heading?’ Bertil Strand wondered.

  ‘Kungsholmsgatan, the Falck entrance,’ Berit said.

  ‘What do you think they’re likely to say?’ Annika asked.

  ‘They’ve probably found out who she is and informed the relatives,’ Berit said.

  ‘Yes, but why call a press conference?’

  ‘They haven’t got a single thing to go on,’ Berit said. ‘They need as much coverage in the media as they can get. It’s a matter of shaking a bit of life into their unpaid helpers, the general public, while the body is still fresh. And we’re the alarm clock.’

  Annika gulped. She switched to hold the door handle with her other hand and looked out of the window. The evening looked cloudy and grey through the tinted glass. The neon signs of Fridhemsplan shone dully in the fading evening light.

  ‘Oh, to be sitting on a terrace with a glass of red,’ Bertil Strand said.

  Neither of the women responded.

  As they passed the park Annika could see the police tape fluttering. The photographer headed round the park, aiming for the Falck entrance at the top of Kungsholmsgatan.

  ‘It’s almost ironic,’ Berit said. ‘The largest concentration of police in the whole of Scandinavia is just two hundred metres from the scene of the murder.’

  The brown-panelled mass of National Crime Headquarters loomed up to Annika’s right. She turned and looked at the park through the rear window. The green of the hill lay in shadow now, filling the window. All of a sudden she felt faint, caught between the building and the heavy greenery. She dug about in her bag and found a roll of strong English mints. She popped a couple in her mouth.

  ‘We’re just going to make it,’ Berit said.

  Bertil Strand parked a bit too close to the junction, and Annika hurried to get out. Her wrist felt stiff after holding on to the door all the way there.

  ‘You look a bit pale,’ Berit said. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ Annika said.

  She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and headed for the entrance, chewing aggressively on the mints. A guard from Falck Security was standing by the door. They showed their press cards and went into a narrow space, where most of the floor area was taken up by a photocopier. Annika looked around curiously. Long corridors stretched off to the left and right.

  ‘Those are the departments for identification and fingerprinting,’ Berit whispered.

  ‘Straight ahead,’ the guard said.

  The words ‘National Crime Department’ were printed in reverse in blue letters on the glass doors in front of them. Berit pushed them open. They found themselves in yet another corridor with beige, panelled walls. Some ten metres along they found the room for the press conference.

  Bertil Strand sighed. ‘This is the worst room in the whole of Sweden for taking pictures in,’ he said. ‘You can’t even get a decent flash reflection off the ceiling. It’s all dark brown.’

  ‘Is that why press spokesmen always have red eyes?’ Annika asked with a smile.

  The photographer groaned.

  The room was fairly large, with an orange carpet and beige armchairs with a blue and brown pattern. A small group of journalists had gathered at the front of the room. Arne Påhlson and another reporter from the other evening paper were already there, talking to the police press spokesman. The detective in the Hawaiian shirt wasn’t there. To her surprise, Annika saw tha
t a radio news team had turned up, as well as reporters from the prestigious morning paper that shared a building with the Evening Post.

  ‘Murders always get taken more seriously when there’s a press conference,’ Berit whispered.

  The room was oppressively hot, and Annika broke into a sweat again. They sat at the front seeing as there was no one from television there. The first few rows were usually occupied by television cameras and cables. The other evening paper’s reporters sat next to them, and Bertil Strand prepared his cameras. The press spokesman cleared his throat.

  ‘Well, welcome, everyone,’ he said, stepping onto the little platform at the front of the room. He sat down heavily behind a conference table, leafed through his papers and tapped the microphone in front of him.

  ‘So, we’ve invited you here this evening to tell you about a body that was discovered in central Stockholm at lunchtime today,’ he said, pushing his papers aside.

  Annika was sitting next to Berit, and they were both taking notes. Bertil Strand was moving about somewhere to the left of them, looking for the right angles for his pictures.

  ‘We’ve received a lot of requests for information about the case over the course of the day, which is why we decided to call this somewhat impromptu press conference,’ he continued. ‘I thought I might run through some of the facts first, then I’ll be happy to talk to you individually. If that’s okay with you?’

  The journalists nodded. The press spokesman picked up his notes again.

  ‘The emergency desk received notification about a dead body at twelve forty-eight,’ he said. ‘The informant was a member of the public who happened to be walking past.’

  Junkie, Annika wrote in her notebook.

  The spokesman fell silent for a moment, before beginning again.

  ‘The dead body is that of a young woman. She has been identified as Hanna Josefin Liljeberg, nineteen years old, and a Stockholm resident. Her relatives have been informed.’

  Annika could feel her stomach lurch. Those cloudy eyes now had a name. She looked around surreptitiously to see how her colleagues were reacting. No one was showing any emotion.