‘We’ve got to get fuel,’ Anders said.
The woman in the front seat didn’t respond. She stared out at the surrounding forest instead: infinite, impenetrable. She knew what awaited them. Yet another icy cold, draughty log cabin with a smoky wood-burning stove, and rats that scuttled under the floorboards. Yet another kitchen without running water, with mismatched chipped china and scorched crockery. An outhouse. Mia thought that she had left all that behind her, that Paradise would be the way out.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ the man said, covering her hand with his. This won’t go on for ever.’
They came to a village: a lone tobacconist’s shop, now closed for the day, that was an agent for Svenska Spel, lotteries and sports betting; one pizzeria; a solitary cash-operated fuel pump.
‘Are you okay for cash?’ Mia asked.
The man nodded and left the car. Mia hesitated momentarily, but decided to stretch her legs. They had been driving for ages and the children had fallen asleep in the back seat a long time ago. Frigid air greeted her as she got out, this certainly was the far north. She walked around the tiny service station and considered taking a leak there in the shadows behind the building, but decided not to. Stuffing her hands in her pockets, she felt cold metal and stiffened.
Mia pulled out the objects: two keys for bolt locks – an Assa-brand house key and a plastic Mickey Mouse key ring. Rebecka would be furious.
Who cared? They’d never see her again. She walked over to the trash can next to the pump to throw them away.
‘Mia, could you come here?’ her husband asked. ‘The children are awake.’
She stopped, why throw them away? For a few seconds she considered an option, recalling Annika Bengtzon’s words:
I’m going to continue to dig for dirt on Paradise.
She turned to her husband.
‘Do we have an envelope around here somewhere?’
He was just about to shut the car door and stopped in mid-motion.
‘Here? Why?’
‘The car-inspection certificates – aren’t they in the glove compartment? Could you hand me the envelope they’re in, along with the kids’ chewing gum?’
The man sighed and handed over what Mia had asked for. She quickly stuffed the keys in the envelope that had been slit open, popped a piece of bubble gum into her mouth and chewed it energetically for half a minute. Then she used the gum to seal the envelope and fished out a pen from an inside pocket.
‘My wallet too, please,’ she said.
Mia stuck four stamps in the upper right-hand corner, then wrote down a name and an address – Hantverkaregatan 32, courtyard building, three flights up. At the bottom edge she added:
The keys to Paradise. Sincerely, Mia.
‘Are you ready?’ Anders asked.
‘I just need to mail this,’ Mia replied and headed for the yellow mailbox.
SATURDAY 3 NOVEMBER
H
e heard the demonstration before he saw it: a dull roar of voices chanting something rhythmic with a steady beat. Cars came to a standstill, there was confusion and a certain amount of chaos. His senses grew more acute: it was almost time. He looked around, his gaze sweeping over the buildings – glass and sheet metal, bricks and mortar – and then landing on the pattern of triangles on the square in front of him. She would be coming. Sooner or later she would show up. It was vital to strike first, to have the upper hand. He shivered in the cold air: this was one fucking cold country.
Now he could see the procession. Six women led the way, carrying a banner and a poster of a leader who had been imprisoned. A crowd followed in their wake, mostly men, but there were some women and children as well. Thousands of people protesting against something or another. He stamped his feet, freezing in his thin jacket. Some young people set fire to a Turkish flag below him. It burned up quickly and the teenagers seemed to lose interest in the proceedings after that.
The masses invaded Sergelstorg, blotting out the triangular shapes on the ground. Now he could hear what they were chanting:
Turkish terrorism, Turkish terrorism.
Flags, banners and posters swayed in the wind. A speaker’s makeshift platform was set up and loudspeakers appeared. A Swedish man, probably a politician, began to speak.
‘The PKK have waged a war,’ he shouted. ‘This has led to violations of democracy and acts of terrorism that cannot be justified. However, they have taken place in a wartime situation during a Turkish war of aggression . . .’
This was it.
He started to move swiftly and unobtrusively through the crowd and put his hand inside his jacket to caressed his weapon, a nine-millimetre calibre Beretta 92, fifteen bullets in the magazine and one in the breech. A silencer was attached to the end of the barrel.
With slightly hunched shoulders, he kept close to the wall of the underpass.
‘Hey, dude, got any speed?’
He dismissed the junkie in front of him with a wave, considered attaching the scope to the gun but changed his mind. He could keep tabs on the situation better without it.
Suddenly he saw her. Twenty metres away, her back to him. The churning crowd was pushing her slowly forward, away from him. Perfect.
He picked up his pace, darted between baby buggies and banners, saw her hesitate and look around. The adrenalin was singing in his veins, a familiar tune.
When there was only a metre left between them he pulled out his handgun, took one last step, twisted the woman’s arm behind her back and put the gun’s muzzle against the base of her neck, under her hair.
‘Game over,’ he said. ‘You lose.’
Sounds faded, the crowd chanted silent slogans, time stood still. The woman was motionless, frozen, not breathing.
‘I know it was you,’ the man hissed, the words reverberating in his head.
He pulled her even closer against him, stared at her hair gleaming with bluish lights, and wished he could see her face. The gun’s muzzle was resting perfectly at the junction of her neck and the back of her head.
‘Bijelina,’ he whispered, ‘do you remember Bijelina?’
Suddenly the pressure on the muzzle disappeared. The woman yanked her arm free and waded quickly through the crowd. It took a second before he lunged after her, almost falling over a baby buggy, and caught up with her, the adrenalin roaring through his system, and forced her arm behind her back again. She struggled, on the ball this time, a gun in her hand now. People jostled them, they were pushed back, and he smashed her fingers with the butt of his gun. She dropped her own gun. A woman stared at them with a frightened expression and he tried to smile. Then he managed to get his gun back in place at the base of her skull, saw that her mouth was moving and leaned in closer.
‘What was that?’
‘You won’t win,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve destroyed your life.’
He saw her from the side and met her gaze.
She smiled.
Something exploded in his mind and in his pants. He squeezed the trigger and she fell limply into his arms, her eyes wide open. He laid her on the ground, stuffed his gun back under his sweater and noticed people in the crowd giving him surprised looks. The sounds returned –
Turkish terrorism –
and he walked quickly to the subway station, tore off his jacket and his gloves as soon as he was inside, thrust them into a trash receptacle and headed for the next exit.
The car pulled up at the same instant as he reached the Åhléns department store. He got into the back seat and shut the door, his whole body shaking. The driver ran a yellow light and made a right turn on Klara Norra Kyrkogata. They had to hurry before the police cordoned off the area. Once they reached Olof Palmesgata, they made a left turn, and then a quick right on Dalagatan and speeded all the way to Vanadisvägen. There they pulled up on the courtyard, continued down into the garage and parked. There were no people in sight.
‘Things go okay?’ the driver wondered.
The gunman opened the door, got out, lit a cigarette and slammed the door shut.
‘Get rid of the car,’ he said and headed for the elevators.
He had to change before the stench killed him.
The night had been a calm one. Annika had slept on a bench next to her grandmother, slept deeply all night without waking up once. Come morning, the elderly woman was still asleep and they had to wake her up for breakfast. After her meal, Sofia Katerina dozed off again.
Annika showered and turned her underwear inside out. Then she sat for a long time by her grandmother’s side, studying the peaceful face: the wrinkles like ripples, the pale down on her cheeks. Her mouth drooped open and Annika repeatedly wiped away the saliva that pooled there.
After that she anxiously paced up and down the hallway. Called her mother, no reply, her sister, no reply there either. Had some coffee. Had a plastic cup of warm rose-hip soup from a vending machine.
You have to take care of the people you love.
At lunchtime Annika tried to feed her grandmother again, but the old woman told her that she wasn’t hungry.
The afternoon dragged on. Annika managed to find a few newspapers, not having the concentration to read a book.
Kvällspressen
’s main story was a piece by Carl Wennergren: he had found a receipt indicating that a female member of government had bought a chocolate bar using her official state credit card.
Christ
, Annika thought,
talk about a plant!
Someone must have thought that the politician was getting too powerful, that she was too young, too good-looking, and too smart. A nice little scandal shifted the focus from the major issue of the Social Democrat congress: who would be appointed party secretary and fast-track their political career?
She put the paper aside, went to sit in the lounge and turned on the TV; a Turkish programme.
It’s not like you have to live in Stockholm
, she thought.
You could live in Istanbul and work at the hotel with Nese. You could live in Katrineholm and take care of your grandmother.
She let the thought linger and take root.
Why not? What reasons were there for not letting the most important person in her life claim that very position in her life?
Her work. Her career, everything she believed in and had fought for as a journalist. Her friends – but she would still have them even if she moved. Her home, her apartment – which honestly wasn’t much to lose.
Suddenly Annika started to cry. She was filled with a sense of longing, mourning the loss of the way she had felt when she had first moved in, recalling how light had flooded the rooms, making the walls and ceilings live and breathe; the stillness, the peace, the drive to move on. She’d had it all, but where had it got her?
An elderly man, accompanied by two loud women and leaning on a walking frame, entered the room. Annika dashed away her tears.
‘Are you watching this?’ one of the women asked her sceptically.
Annika shook her head, got up and left. The women took over the room.
‘At five there is an afternoon concert on – you’d like to see that, wouldn’t you, Father?’
The hallway was only partially lit. The fluorescent overhead lighting had been switched off and daylight slipped in through open doors, making waxed floors gleam. Slowly, Annika walked to her grandmother’s room, her chest constricting again. The sense of longing lingered: memories of times when it had been easy to breathe, the hot days at Nese’s hotel, the good times with Sven. She rested her forehead against the doorpost of her grandmother’s room, longing for love, for a context. She swallowed, felt her back pocket, yes, she had change. Went over to the tiny telephone room next to the ward and looked up the number in the directory, a number for someone’s home. Östra Ekuddsgatan. She dialled seven digits and hesitated before dialing the eighth but finally did it. It rang once, twice, three times.
‘The Samuelsson residence.’
A woman. They had the same last name.
‘Hello?’
Did she take his or did he take hers?
‘Is there anybody there? Hello?’
Without a word, Annika hung up, her mistake like a weight in her stomach. She went in and looked at her grandmother, who was asleep, went back to the TV room and found it empty. Tried to breathe, tried to read.
Things will work out. Everything will be all right.
‘Who was it?’ Thomas asked.
He was standing with his back to Eleanor, when she didn’t reply he looked at her over his shoulder. She had a searching and wary expression on her face.
‘Nobody. Were you expecting a call?’
He turned around again and focused on the knife that he was holding.
‘No, not at all. Should I be?’
‘It’s so eerie when people don’t say anything.’
‘Maybe it was just a wrong number,’ Thomas said and chopped the last of the onion. ‘Could you pass me the oil?’
Eleonor handed him the bottle – corn oil, better for high temperatures. Thomas poured the liquid into the pan, a thin, looping stream.
‘We should have a gas range,’ Eleonor said. ‘They’re so much better for woks. Maybe we could install one when we remodel the kitchen – what do you think?’
‘This is fine,’ Thomas replied, briskly stirring the chopped onion.
Eleonor went up to him and kissed him on the cheek.
‘You’re such a good cook,’ she said.
He didn’t reply, just tipped in the slivers of chicken and stirred. He added fish sauce, struck, as always, by its sexual aroma and added a dollop of chili paste, some pickled coriander and fresh basil.
‘Could you open the coconut milk?’
Eleonor handed him the can she’d already opened.
‘There,’ Thomas said once the dish was simmering.
‘The rice is done,’ Eleonor said.
He turned to face her, his wife, and gazed down on her smooth face devoid of make-up. She was at her best like this. He put down the spatula, took a step forward and folded her in his arms. She responded by stroking his shoulders and kissing his neck.
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured.
‘No, I behaved badly.’
His reply was a whisper in her hair.