The Long Shadow (41 page)

There was stunned silence at the other end, no tinnitus.

‘Er, what’s this concerning?’

‘Are you aware that a Swedish citizen has died in prison in Málaga?’

The person at the Foreign Ministry drew a deep breath. ‘We haven’t received any information to that effect.’

‘That’s as may be, but I happen to know that this death has occurred.’ She gave the woman all the facts about the case, and said she would call back in an hour for confirmation. That ought to get them moving.

Then she went back to the kitchen.

One result.

She felt her pulse quicken as she clicked to open the document.

It was an old website that had been cluttering the laptop’s memory, in temporary Internet files, a page from a company search on the national database that she must have made ages ago. It was about Advice Investment Management AB, described as providing ‘financial advice and business development and associated activities, but nothing that could legally be deemed to be banking or credit-related’. She scanned down the page. The company had two full board-members, Lena Yvonne Nordin from Huddinge, and Niklas Ernesto Zarco Martinez from Skärholmen. One deputy director was listed: David Ze’ev Lindholm from Bondegatan in Stockholm.

She forced herself to breathe calmly and steadily.

She recognized the image in front of her. This was where she had seen the name Zarco Martinez before. She knew exactly where it was from: her research into the bizarre business activities of the murdered police officer, David Lindholm.

Niklas Ernesto Zarco Martinez from Skärholmen was known as Nicke in Sweden and Ernesto in Spain. So he was Johan Zarco Martinez’s elder brother, and he had run a business with Yvonne Nordin, the triple-murderer from Sankt Paulsgatan.

She went back to her search: the dog with the wagging tail had found another two results containing the name in question, then stopped. He had evidently finished.

The first was a company record for a defunct cleaning business in Skärholmen. It had been run by Lena Yvonne Nordin and Niklas Ernesto Zarco Martinez.

The second was a record from the national ID database.

Niklas Ernesto Zarco Martinez – deregistered. Deceased.

He had died on Christmas Eve eighteen months ago.

She nodded to herself. That’s right. She remembered the search now that she saw it again.

Suddenly she was trembling. There was a connection between the Zarco Martinez brothers, Yvonne Nordin, David Lindholm and Astrid Paulson, Veronica Söderström’s mother: they had run companies together, worked together, and now they were all dead, all in a violent or destructive way.

Then a thought popped into her head and she went back to the website again, www.aplaceinthesun.se. She looked at the garish logo in the left-hand corner, the words set out vertically inside a beaming sun.

She read the initials, from the top down, and felt the room start to spin.

Apits.

Niklas Linde had been wrong. The drug business on the Costa del Sol, Apits, didn’t mean Airport Passenger Intelligent Transport Systems, or Analogue Proprietary Integrated Telephone System. It meant A Place in the Sun.

To start with there was only sky and meadows. Air and space and wind.

There were Mother’s strong arms and the scented bedlinen. The pattern of the scrubbed floor-tiles, the shimmering water of the lake, and singing in the evenings.

He has opened the pearly gates

So that I may come in,

Through His blood he has saved me

To keep me with Him.

She had no early memories of Father. He was there at a distance, always on the edge of her vision, because he was so tied to the earth: land, farm, winds. She herself was always slightly elevated, without any real contact with the ground, and that was because she was an angel.

That was what Mother always said. ‘You’re my little angel,’ she said, or
Du bist mein Engel
, because Mother always spoke her own language, the Angels’ Language.

And she would float and dance over Gudagården like the blessed child she was, conceived without sin with the approbation of the Lord. Father didn’t like her talking to the other children on the farm, but she did anyway, because God talks to everyone, and He sees and hears everything. And everyone was kind and friendly towards her, smiled and said nice things, because, of course, she was the preacher’s daughter. Everyone except the Troll Girl.

It was a mystery.

The Angel was a bit scared of the Troll Girl. Not very scared, because as an angel she was the servant of the Lord, and no one could be safer than God’s host of children, but
the Troll Girl hid her voice and had narrow black eyes that could see round corners.

The only person the Troll Girl was prepared to show her voice to was the Princess, the most beautiful of all princesses in the whole world. In fact she was almost an angel too, because she could actually speak the Angels’ Language. She had heard the girls talking to each other up under the roof where they lived; they only spoke when they thought no one was listening, and the Princess told stories about the Castle Among the Clouds, and the Troll Girl talked about the Little Match Girl who froze to death and became a falling star in the sky.

But the Troll Girl’s weasel eyes saw her on the stairs and she drove her away with hard fists.

Then came the day when Wall-eye put his hand on the Princess for the first time. The Troll Girl hit him on the head with a stone and he let go of the Princess and rushed after the Troll Girl, who hid right at the back of the tool-shed.

And the Angel, she saw it all, and she knew that the task of angels is to protect and help, so she followed them into the shed and saw how Wall-eye found a knife and circled round the Troll Girl with the blade sticking out.

‘Thou shalt not kill,’ she said, in her high, clear angel’s voice, and Wall-eye looked in her direction, angry.

‘Get out of here,’ he said.

But angels help people in need, even troll girls, so she took another step into the tool-shed.

‘Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon thy land,’ she said.

‘Ma’s dead and Dad’s been locked up to dry out. That’s why I’m in this hell-hole,’ Wall-eye said, his voice cracking.

‘We should fear and love God that we may not harm our neighbour’s life or cause him suffering, but help and defend him in every danger and need,’ the Angel said, going up to him and taking hold of the knife.

Wall-eye sniffed, let go of it and ran for the door.

It was completely quiet once the boy had disappeared. The dust danced in the rays of sunlight. The Troll Girl was staring at her open-mouthed, and then she let the Angel hear her voice. ‘Why did you do that?’ she asked, and all of a sudden the Angel felt bashful.

‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,’ she said, ‘and thy neighbour as thyself. So Jesus says.’

The Troll Girl took a step towards her and her eyes narrowed. ‘Are you a bit simple?’

The Angel shook her head.

And from that day on she was allowed to go with the Troll Girl and the Princess wherever they went around the farm. Father and Mother didn’t want her to join in with the sowing and reaping, but she replied with the words of the Lord, ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,’ and they let her be. Together they whirled round, between the mist’s frosty down, at rest and play, and the Angel learned of other worlds, where there was a great man who lost a mighty war, and cold nights in damp cellars where drunken men bought drink and love. Yes, they did everything together, through summers, autumns, winters and springs, until that night in August when the terrible thing happened and the Troll Girl and the Princess vanished from Gudagården for ever, and the Angel’s long journey towards the underworld began.

–– Original Message ––

TT NEWSFLASH: Filip Andersson cleared.

Press Conference: Lawyer Sven-Göran Olin’s office Skeppsbron 28, at 10.30 a.m.

(nnnn)

It felt as if summer would never arrive. There hadn’t been a single day when the air had been mild. The north winds had the whole country in a cast-iron grip, and the weather-forecasters had nothing good to say.

Annika pulled her jacket tighter round herself as she headed for the bus. Rain was lingering in the treetops. She passed the billboards for that day’s papers outside a Seven-Eleven: ‘HOW TO GET AWAY TO THE SUN’ and ‘RAIN FORECAST FOR MIDSUMMER’. Sadly her paper had the negative message, and their competitors the optimistic one. So there was no doubt who was going to win the circulation war today.

She missed the bus and waited in the doorway of number 32 Hantverkargatan to escape the rain that had now decided to fall. She looked up at the arched doorway above her head: this was where she and Thomas had lived together for several years. It seemed so unreal, like something she’d read about or seen in a film.

He hadn’t been in touch since the Costa del Sol. ‘I’ll call you,’ was the last thing he had said when he’d dropped her off at the airport, and he had looked as if he meant it, but he hadn’t.

She hadn’t called either. In fact she had bought
Kalle a mobile phone and taught him how to charge it so that she wouldn’t have to call the flat on Grev Turegatan when she wanted to say goodnight to the children.

She missed them already, even though she had had them for the Whit weekend and had only just dropped them off at their schools.

She hadn’t heard anything from Niklas Linde either, but she hadn’t been expecting to.

Not even Jimmy Halenius had called, but that was probably down to a mass break-out from Österåker Prison, which had had serious political consequences. Obviously, all the opposition parties were calling for the justice minister’s resignation, as if he had personally driven the bulldozer through the wall of the prison. It looked as if he’d survive, as usual, thanks to a few tactical appointments and a large dose of natural political talent.

The bus pulled up and she scrambled on board. She had to stand all the way to Gjörwellsgatan.

Tore the caretaker made straight for her when she came through the door. ‘You didn’t fill up the car the last time you borrowed it,’ he said, standing squarely in front of her.

Her mobile rang and she fished it up at the end of the hands-free cable and checked the screen: a number she didn’t recognize.

‘Do you think I’m some kind of errand boy with nothing better to do than clear up after you?’ he said.

‘Hello?’ Annika said, into the phone.

‘Annika? Hi! It’s Polly.’ The voice was high-pitched and bright, like a little girl’s. She closed her eyes to shut out the whining caretaker. Polly: Polly Sandman, Suzette’s friend. She’d never heard her voice before, just exchanged emails with her.

‘Hello,’ she said, turning away from Tore and walking towards the newsroom. ‘How are you?’

‘Next time you want a car from here you can whistle for it!’ Tore shouted after her.

‘You said I should call you,’ Polly said, ‘if Suzette got in touch.’

Annika stopped in the middle of the newsroom. Patrik caught sight of her from the newsdesk and leaped to his feet, bouncing towards her with a bundle of notes in his hand.

‘Has she?’ Annika asked. ‘She’s been in touch?’

‘As Mr Gunnar Larsson,’ Polly said. ‘This time she wrote a message as well.’

‘Press conference at Skeppsbron, half an hour,’ Patrik said, handing her a printout from the bundle. ‘You’re going at once, with Steven.’

‘What?’ Annika said, taking the earpiece out. ‘Who’s Steven?’

‘Filip Andersson’s been released. New temp photographer.’

‘Hello?’ Polly said in the earpiece.

Annika put it back in. ‘Can we meet up?’ she asked. ‘Bring your laptop or a printout of the message. Where will you be at lunchtime?’

Polly mentioned a café on Drottninggatan, right in the city centre. Annika had never heard of it, which probably meant it was terribly trendy. She saw a tall man, very young, festooned with camera cases, rushing towards her. ‘Hi, I’m Steven.’

She dropped her mobile into her bag and shook hands with him. ‘I suppose we should set off at once,’ she said, glancing at the printout of the newsflash from the agency that Patrik had given her: 28 Skeppsbron. In Gamla stan, then, with parking spaces on the quayside opposite the building.

‘I don’t drive,’ Steven said.

Great, Annika thought, and made for the caretaker’s desk.

‘No chance,’ Tore said, when he saw her coming towards him. ‘You need to learn to fill the tank before you try that again.’

‘It’s your job to fill the tank, and it’s my job to think,’ Annika said. ‘Get me a car.’ She got the shabby old Volvo he usually gave her.

‘What do we want from this press conference?’ the photographer asked, as Annika drove out of the car park. ‘Dramatic or formal? Who’s the victim? Who’s the hero? Is there a bad guy?’

She glanced at him to see if he was making fun of her, but he seemed deadly serious. ‘I suppose Filip Andersson’s the victim, and the lawyer’s the hero,’ she said, ‘but neither of them looks particularly good in their respective roles. Filip Andersson’s like a gangster and Sven-Göran Olin is a cuddly old uncle.’

‘And the bad guy is a well-dressed man with a suntan and trustworthy blue eyes?’

‘The bad guy is an ordinary-looking woman who was shot by the police in the forest outside Garphyttan in December last year. Called Yvonne.’

The rain had stopped. She crept through the heavy traffic in the city centre and parked on the quayside at Skeppsbron, paying 260 kronor for two hours. It would have been cheaper to take a taxi.

She wondered how long the press conference would last. If it looked like it was going to drag on she’d abandon it. Her meeting with Polly in the café was more important, no matter what Patrik might say.

It might be a false alarm, she thought. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a sign of life from Suzette. Polly was prone to dramatizing.