The Long Shadow (33 page)

It was relatively calm around her. A few kids were laughing near the counter. Two smartly dressed women were talking confidentially over a couple of muffins. At the table in front of her a man in a suit, white shirt and tie sat next to a teenager in a wheelchair. The boy seemed to have cerebral palsy. His arms, hands, feet and legs were contorted, and jerked uncontrollably. Annika made an effort not to stare at him, which was hard when he was sitting right in front of her. She picked at her carrots and drank the water.

The dad was talking to his son in low, soft Spanish, feeding him fries and holding a cup with a straw for him to drink from. The boy tried to say something, which his father evidently understood, because he laughed conspiratorially, then said, ‘
Sí, sí, claro
.’

The door opened and an elegant woman and a girl of about five walked in. The woman lit up when she caught sight of the father and son. She skipped between the tables, holding the little girl with one hand and shopping bags from D&G and Versace in the other. She went over to the table, kissed the man on the lips and the boy on the cheek, and said something that made all four of them laugh.

Without thinking, Annika got up from her table and walked towards the door. She bumped into tables on the way, bruising her legs, but the pain was in her chest. There was so much love in the world, if you only knew how to find it. And what did she choose to do? Fight pathetic little battles with everyone, obsessed with the idea of winning, of being
right
, of showing off and getting recognition.

Some British girls were coming along the pavement towards her, with loud voices, Zara bags and peeling noses. She wiped her tears with the back of her hand and walked quickly, head down, towards El Corte Inglés. She stopped outside the department store and looked up at the hotel. She didn’t want to be alone in her room, waiting for someone to call.

I have to be somewhere else.

She looked in the other direction, and remembered that Rickard Marmén’s estate agency was just round the corner. Maybe he was still there.

She turned right, past the British bookshop, and saw that the lights were still on. She tried the door, but it was locked. The office was empty, but a bluish reflection on the wall behind the desk told her that the computer was still on.

She knocked on the glass.

Marmén poked his head through a doorway at the back of the room. He seemed to say something, but Annika couldn’t make out what. He vanished again, but reappeared a moment later with a key in his hand. ‘Annika Bengtzon, our favourite representative of the Swedish press,’ he said, holding the door open. ‘Welcome!’

Annika smiled and air-kissed him on both cheeks.

‘And what can we do for you this evening?’ he asked.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve any new lives for sale?’ she said, walking into the shop.

‘But, my dear, we don’t sell anything else here. Dreams and new lives are our speciality. Did you have anything particular in mind? Marble floors, wild vines on the terrace? Four bathrooms, each with a sea view?’

She laughed, and her spirits rose. She sat down on one of the chairs in front of his desk. There was a large dustball by the desk-leg. The window was smeared. Marmén locked the door again and came to sit next to her on the other chair. ‘What’s wrong with the life you’ve already got?’

Annika decided to blank the question. ‘I’m here to write some articles about drug-trafficking and money-laundering,’ she said, ‘so right now things aren’t too bad. The title of the series is “The Costa Cocaine”.’

‘How exciting. Glass of wine?’

Annika shook her head.

He stood up anyway, then fetched a bottle of red wine and two glasses. ‘You can keep me company,’ he said. ‘How are you getting on with the cocaine?’ He poured some rioja into both glasses.

‘I’ve got a bit more to do before I go back home,’ she said.

‘I can’t help you there, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘Drugs are one of the few things I’ve never dealt in. I’ve got no contacts at all. Cheers!’

He drank with his eyes closed.

Annika tasted the wine and put the glass to one side. ‘Has business picked up?’ she asked.

‘If it was static before,’ he said, ‘it’s going backwards now. The mortgage companies are demanding that buyers have a fifty per cent deposit in cash, even if there’s already planning permission. Only the drug barons have that sort of money, and although there are a lot of them, they can’t keep the whole market afloat. Prices are falling, so people would rather sit it out than
sell. I’m thinking of opening a lettings agency instead. That’s what people are doing, these days, leasing their property in the hope that things will pick up—’

Annika interrupted his tale of woe. ‘The drug-barons pay cash?’ she said.

‘If there’s one thing they’ve got plenty of it’s cash. You said you were writing about money-laundering? Building large, expensive houses is one way of cleaning up dirty money.’

Annika looked at the man beside her. She really shouldn’t be remotely surprised. ‘So you know how money-laundering works?’

Marmén smiled a very sad smile. ‘Sadly I’ve never been blessed with any dirty money that needed laundering,’ he said, ‘but knowing how the washing-machine works is no great secret.’

‘Would you mind telling me?’

‘What do you want to know?’

She pulled her pen and notepad from her bag. He refilled his glass.

‘So they buy property?’ she said.

He nodded. ‘The laws are constantly being tightened,’ he said. ‘Nowadays you can’t just waltz into a bank with a sack full of dollars – the police will be there before you can say “deposit account”. The banks and financial institutions have a duty to report anything suspicious. You have to be able to explain that you acquired the money legally.’

‘So you buy a house?’

‘Or you buy a plot and build a house. As much as possible gets paid in cash. It’s no problem for the builder to roll up at his bank with a bundle of notes because he can explain that it came from building a house. He’ll have receipts for pipes, cement and bricks. And then the house is there, all finished, and can be sold for X
million euros. The drug-baron can prove that he got the money from selling a house perfectly legally. And then the money is back in the system.’

‘They must build a lot of houses,’ Annika said.

‘And they must have a lot of luxury yachts that they sail about in,’ Marmén said. ‘That’s why Gibraltar is so useful.’

Annika put down her pen. ‘I read about something called “Operation White Whale”,’ she said. ‘Some huge crackdown where loads of crooks were arrested, and more than two hundred and fifty villas seized. Apparently they used solicitors and companies in Gibraltar.’

Marmén nodded enthusiastically and drained his second glass. ‘That’s it exactly!’

Annika was taking notes. ‘So how does it work? The money-launderer sets up a company in Gibraltar,’ she said, drawing a circle in the middle of her page. ‘Then what?’

‘Several companies,’ Marmén said patiently, reaching over and moving her notepad to his own lap. He drew several smaller circles around the first one. ‘The barons feed money into a few of the companies, then start sending invoices to each other. For rent, perhaps, or consultancy services, import and export of goods, everything between Heaven and Earth.’

‘But none of it’s actually real?’ Annika asked. ‘All the invoices are false?’

He poured some more wine. ‘Are you sure you don’t want any?’

Annika pointed at the circles. ‘When all the invoices are there, it’s perfectly all right that the money is there as well?’ she asked.

‘Hey presto,’ Marmén said. ‘Dirty drug money has become lovely clean company profits, all of it audited and signed off by solicitors and bankers and accountants.
And Gibraltar is completely tax-free, which, of course, is wonderfully practical!’

‘But doesn’t anyone check to make sure that it’s all above board?’

‘Of course. The solicitors and bankers and accountants.’

‘Solicitors and bankers and accountants in Gibraltar?’

‘Exactly.’

She was starting to realize why Patrik had been so keen for her to interview someone practising there. ‘You don’t happen to know a Swedish solicitor I could interview?’

‘In Gibraltar?’ He rolled the wine around his mouth as he thought. Then he swallowed loudly. ‘Not a Swede,’ he said, ‘but a Dane.’

‘Does he launder money?’

‘Like I said, not for me. Would you like me to call him?’

‘If you wouldn’t mind.’

She went through to the toilet while Marmén, swaying slightly, made his way round his desk and dialled a number with the prefix 350. There was no loo paper and the washbasin had dark-grey tide-marks. He had evidently cut back on cleaning costs.

She stood and looked at her reflection as she heard his voice rising and falling out in the shop. It was obvious that she had been crying. Her eyes were red and her lashes were like spiders’ legs, with the clumped mascara. She was incredibly tired.

Then she heard the telephone being hung up out in the office. She dutifully flushed some water into the basin and went back out to Marmén.

‘Stig Seidenfaden will see you in his office first thing tomorrow,’ the estate agent said. ‘Do you feel like heading down to the harbour for a bite to eat?’

She smiled, but felt ready to collapse. ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘but I’ve already eaten. Now I need to go and write an article.’

He tutted. ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ Annika said, ‘I think you’re pretty good fun.’

‘I was thinking more of you,’ he said seriously, as he switched off his computer.

They headed out through the door together. Marmén pulled down the obligatory metal shutter and secured it with a padlock to a hook in the pavement. ‘Let me know if there’s anything else you need help with,’ he said, then waved and disappeared into the alleyways leading to the harbour.

The lobby was empty. There wasn’t even any sign of the receptionist.

Annika hurried up to her room without meeting anyone. Best of all, there was no sign of Lotta. Relieved, she slumped onto the bed. That’s how I see things, she thought. If I can avoid confrontation, if I don’t have to talk and explain myself, then I’ve won. If I can talk about work, and make use of other people’s expertise, I feel good. As long as someone answers my questions and does as I say, my anxiety fades away.

She straightened her back.

And that’s not very healthy, she thought. It might even be worthy of its own diagnosis. What if I’m mentally ill?

Maybe she ought to see a shrink after all – her friend Anne Snapphane had been trying to persuade her to do so for long enough. Or she could try to change her behaviour. Make an effort to be more accommodating, even with people who didn’t do as she said. How hard could that be?

She stood up and walked around the room restlessly.
People with far worse problems than hers managed to fit in. They had the capacity to appreciate love – it happened all over the place, all the time. It happened in damp prison cells, where men were locked away because they were scared for their closest relatives. It happened in half-empty hamburger joints, where people with a disabled child stuck together and loved each other.

She sat on the bed again and pulled her bag onto her lap. She took out her mobile and paused with it in her hand. She had to let Lotta know they would be going to Gibraltar early the next morning. The question was whether she should call her or send a text. She hesitated for half a second, then decided to text. First she clicked to check the list of missed calls.

Thomas’s number was second on the list, after the government office.

It was now a quarter past eight. She pressed ‘call’.

The phone rang, once, twice, three times, four … ‘Hello, Thomas here …’

She had to clear her throat. ‘Er, hello,’ she said. ‘It’s me.’

‘Hi! Hello!’ he said. ‘How are you?’

A double greeting. He was surprised to hear from her. ‘I saw you called me,’ she said. ‘Some time this morning?’

‘Yes, I did! Can you hold on?’

She heard him say something in English in the background. ‘That’s better,’ he said. ‘I’m outside now.’

‘Where are you?’

‘At the hotel, the Parador. A golf resort right by the sea, and right under the flight-path to the airport. If you hear something that sounds like the Third World War, it’ll be the easyJet flight from London bringing a load of British tourists on a package holiday to Torremolinos—’ The rest of his words were drowned in the roar of a
plane coming in to land. ‘That was it,’ he said, and she couldn’t help laughing. He must have had some wine – he wasn’t usually so light-hearted.

‘Did you want anything in particular when you rang?’ she asked feebly, transferring responsibility for the call to him.

‘Er, yes,’ he said. ‘I had a call from the insurance company this morning. Do you remember that damage assessor, Zachrisson?’

A small man with a wide, dishonest smile, in a glass-walled, high-rise office with chrome furniture. ‘How could I forget?’ she said.

‘He said we’re going to get the money. Do you know if anything’s happened?’

She laughed with relief. It really was true. ‘They’ve identified the person who did it,’ she said. ‘It’s a woman who’s in prison in the US. She’s not going to be extradited, so there won’t be a trial, but any suspicions against us have been dropped.’

She said ‘us’ rather than ‘me’, but he didn’t protest. ‘That’s brilliant,’ he said simply.

She gulped, then said: ‘Do you want to celebrate?’

‘Celebrate?’

‘What are you doing tomorrow evening?’

‘The negotiations are due to finish at four or so. We were going to have dinner.’

She bit her lip, making it bleed. ‘Okay,’ she said, embarrassed. ‘Of course.’

There were a few long moments of silence. She put her hand over her eyes.

‘It’s just the Scandinavian delegation, though,’ he said. ‘The Norwegians have come along for the ride as usual, taking part in all the things they like about the EU but refusing to pay for any of it.’ He fell silent.

‘I could interview you about how the negotiations have gone,’ Annika said.