‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I . . . spent the night in the emergency room.’
Eleonor pulled free and looked at him.
‘Why didn’t you call?’
He pulled her close again, not wanting to meet her gaze.
‘I couldn’t,’ he said. ‘I was in the examination room all night. You know, X-rays and all that . . .’
‘But what happened to you?’
Suddenly Thomas got a whiff of sex, a scent emanating from his own body that shouldn’t have been there. He swallowed and patted Eleonor on the back, the plush of her robe feeling slightly rough to his touch.
‘Put on some coffee,’ he said. ‘I need to take a shower. Then I’ll tell you about it. It’s a long story.’
They released each other and looked into each other’s eyes. He steadied his gaze and forced himself to smile.
‘It’s all right,’ he said and planted a kiss on his wife’s forehead. ‘I love you.’
Eleonor kissed him on the chin, let him go and went into the kitchen. Thomas went into the bathroom, crammed every last item of clothing into the hamper, got in the shower and let the hot water gush over him. Annika was all over his body, in every pore, her scent was everywhere – it rose in the steam and filled the entire bathroom. He could feel her firm body under him: the soft breasts, the tangled wild hair. He closed his eyes and saw her bottomless dark eyes and felt his penis stiffen again. He turned on the cold water and scrubbed his groin with Wella’s volume-enhancing shampoo.
His desperation increased and indecision took over.
Another meeting. Damn it, that was all he did all day, go to meetings. How the hell was anyone supposed to get a paper out when everyone just sat around yacking all the time?
Anders Schyman put a lid on his bad mood. Always having to be the responsible, tender and compassionate leader was nerve-racking.
On the other hand, he was used to the day-care factor. That and the never-ending discussions on press ethics. The real drain was something else, a new element.
The power struggle.
Schyman wasn’t used to that. Every single job he had held, every last position he’d ever been offered had been his because someone wanted him there. He had been offered influence without fighting for it, he had dined at the tables of power without having to make a kill to get there.
He surveyed the newsroom. The tasks of the day were in full swing. Reporters were on the phone and editors were hammering away at keyboards; they looked, assessed, clicked a mouse and made changes. Soon he would walk the forty-five metres that would take him to the editor-in-chief’s spacious corner office; a powerful man, when Schyman passed conversations would come to a halt, eyes would grow attentive, people would sit up straight.
What were powerful men prepared to do to keep that power? Out of the corner of his eye he could see that the men had gathered, their flannel-covered backs receding in the direction of the management zone: the cosy corridor, the rooms with views and lots of space. He followed them, and when he entered the room, the others took a seat, waited, grew silent.
‘Let’s get down to business immediately,’ Schyman said and looked at Sjölander. The crime desk. ‘Where is this Yugo Mafia thing going? Did the murdered woman at Sergelstorg have anything to do with that business?’
All gazes shifted to Sjölander, who sat up straighter.
‘Could be,’ the crime desk editor said. ‘The two bodies found in the torched trailer have been identified. They were two young guys staying at a refugee camp in Upplands Väsby, to the north of Stockholm, nineteen and twenty years old respectively. They’ve been missing for a while – the police and the camp supervisors figured that they’d run away to avoid being deported. That wasn’t the case. One of the boys could be identified by his dental records, he’d been to see a dentist since he had arrived in Sweden. The other boy’s identity hasn’t been entirely confirmed, but all the details indicate that he is the missing friend of the identified boy. There might be a connection between the murdered woman and the boys, according to the police.’
‘What would that be?’ Schyman asked. ‘Were they from Bosnia too?’
‘No,’ Sjölander replied, ‘they were ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. But Aida, the woman, stayed at the same refugee camp. True, that was long before the boys lived there, but the staff claims that she came by now and then to say hello. She could have met the two young men.’
The deputy editor leaned back.
‘What does this tell us?’ he said. ‘What is this story really all about?’
They all looked at him in silent anticipation, not sure what to say. Letting his gaze sweep the room he took them in, the Flannel Pack, the heads of the different departments: op-ed, show business, civic affairs, sports, Torstensson was there and the picture editor.
‘There have been five murders in a little over a week,’ Schyman said. ‘Every last one has been extremely spectacular. First the two young men at the free port, shot in the head from a distance with a powerful hunting rifle. Then those poor bastards in the trailer, tortured to death. And the latest victim, the woman at Sergelstorg, taken out at close range in the middle of a crowd of five thousand witnesses. What do these facts tell us?’
They all stared at him.
‘Power,’ he explained. ‘This is a power struggle. It could be over money, or maybe someone wants to have a say in things – be it politics or crime, to have the power over life and death matters. I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this business yet. Sjölander, I want us to stay on top of this.’
They all nodded, they all agreed with him – this he duly noted.
Power. Schyman was about to make his play.
The ceiling floated above her, shimmering in the semi-darkness. For a second she lay there, wondering where she was, exhilaration filling her, a sensation of total bliss. And then it dawned on her that something was wrong.
Annika sat up in bed abruptly, putting her hand on the pillow next to her to make sure that he wasn’t there. Emptiness struck, a cold, stabbing pain.
Thomas had gone. Gone home to his wife named Eleonor, Eleonor Samuelsson.
Annika jumped out of bed to see if he had left a note, a few words about their encounter or a promise to call. Searched the kitchen, the hall and the living room. Then she yanked off the bedclothes to check if there was a note on the pillow, a note that had fallen down somewhere. Then she pulled out the bed and looked under it.
Nothing.
Annika tried to sort out her feelings: joy, betrayal, emptiness, assurance, jubilant intoxication.
There, among the covers, she lay down and stared up at the ceiling again.
Bliss. She had never felt bliss before, not like this. With Sven there had always been that dark undercurrent, the performance anxiety, the insistence on happiness.
This was different. Warm, easy, peculiar, fantastic.
She turned over on her side and pulled up her legs, Thomas’s sperm still sticky on her thighs. She spread the duvet over herself and inhaled his scent.
Thomas Samuelsson, the bureaucrat.
Laughing out loud, she let the bubbly emotion shimmer.
Thomas Samuelsson, with shiny hair and a broad chest, a mouth that could kiss and caress and suck and bite.
Annika curled up into a ball, rocking and humming.
She knew it. She was certain. She wanted him.
Thomas Samuelsson, the bureaucrat.
She sat up and picked up the phone.
‘I’m sorry, Thomas Samuelsson isn’t in,’ the receptionist at the Vaxholm city council building informed her. ‘He was assaulted, you see, and we’re all very upset here.’
Annika smiled to herself, knowing that the accountant was actually in fairly good shape. She thanked the receptionist and hung up. For several seconds she held the receiver uncertainly. Then she dialled the number, Thomas’s home number, the eight-digit number. Her heart racing, she waited while the phone rang; soon he would be with her again.
Soon, soon, soon.
She smiled, got warmer.
‘The Samuelsson residence.’
Eleonor was at home. She wasn’t at the bank, she was there with him.
‘Hello? Who is this? What do you want?’
Slowly, Annika replaced the receiver, her mouth dry.
Shit, shit, shit.
The shimmering desire subsided and loneliness banged on the door.
She pictured them together, the man she knew and the shadowy figure of a woman, the dream woman of his youth. She swallowed, the disturbing episode gnawing at her. Then she pulled on her jogging clothes, walked around for a while, went to the bathroom, went into the kitchen and made coffee and then walked into the living room with all her notes and the telephone.
Thomas Samuelsson and his wife.
Shit, shit, shit.
She called Anne Snapphane: no one was there. Her mother: no reply. The ward at Kullbergska: her grandmother was sleeping.
I’ll be coming to see her this evening,’ she told the nurse.
Annika’s next move was to phone Berit Hamrin, using her direct line, but there was no answer and she tried Anders Schyman instead. The phone rang. She was just about to hang up when he answered, slightly out of breath.
‘You busy?’ she asked.
‘I just got out of a meeting,’ he said. ‘How are you?’
A twinge of guilt stabbed at her; she was supposed to be ill.
‘So-so,’ she said. ‘I was out in Järfälla yesterday, over by the house that Paradise owns. It was interesting.’
She heard noise – furniture being moved around and a faint sigh.
‘Didn’t I tell you to ease up on that business for a while?’
‘I was feeling fine,’ Annika said, ‘so I took a walk. The information that my source gave me seems to be accurate. I went through the office and couldn’t find any evidence at all that they were doing what they claim to be doing, apart from sending out invoices, that is. They’re very good at charging people for their services. Every last file was empty . . .’
‘Hang on,’ the deputy editor said. ‘Did Rebecka let you into her office?’
She closed her eyes and briefly clenched her teeth.
‘Not exactly,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t break into the place, see. I’d been invited over and I had keys.’
‘Rebecka invited you?’
‘One of her tenants did. And while I was there, Rebecka showed up along with a man, who might have been her brother . . .’
‘And you were on their premises?’
Annika stood up, suddenly annoyed.
‘Now listen,’ she said. ‘I hid, and while I was hiding Thomas Samuelsson came over, that civil servant from Vaxholm I’ve mentioned. He was royally pissed off – it seemed that Rebecka had faxed him an invoice that morning. And the client she was charging them for is dead!’
This statement was followed by silence. To Annika, it seemed as though the name ‘Thomas Samuelsson’ reverberated in the air, that her voice had sounded strange when she’d pronounced the words, that it had gone all warm and soft.
‘Go on,’ Schyman said. ‘What happened?’
She cleared her throat.
‘They assaulted the guy from the council, locked him in a closet and went to get their car. I let him out and drove him to an emergency room.’
‘Violence, oh my God, they’re dangerous! Annika, you are
not
going over there again, you hear?’
She scratched her forehead, feeling the scrape marks left by the springs under the bed and reached a conclusion: she wouldn’t tell her boss about Aida.
‘All right,’ she said.
‘We can’t sit on this story,’ Schyman said. ‘What do you need to write it?’
Annika gave it some thought.
‘Supporting statements. Interviews with legal experts, social workers, and so on. This set-up needs to be put into a context. It might take time. And Rebecka should have the opportunity to comment on these developments too.’
“This guy from the council, do you think he’ll talk?’
She swallowed, her voice soft again.
“Thomas Samuelsson? He might.’
‘Do you have any more official connections?’
She closed her eyes in concentration.
‘It may not be legally admissible, exactly, but I did see a few invoices with references. One was Helga, Helga Axelsson, I think, from . . . Österåker. And some guy in Nacka, Martin something . . . ending with “– lius”, that can’t be all that common. Things were a bit hectic and I didn’t have time to study the rest.’
‘What you did is called trespassing,’ Schyman said. Annika couldn’t tell if he was pleased or concerned.
‘That’s right,’ Annika said, ‘if you get caught. I had a key and I didn’t leave any traces behind.’
‘Were you wearing gloves?’
She didn’t answer. She hadn’t been wearing gloves and she did have a police record.
‘I don’t think Rebecka will call the police,’ she said.
The deputy editor asked her: ‘Would you like some help with the research?’
As long as it’s not Eva-Britt Qvist,
she thought.
‘I’d like to work with Berit Hamrin,’ she said.
‘I’ll have Berit call you,’ he said.
‘All right.’
Silence. Annika reckoned that the man at the other end of the line was thinking hard.
‘This is how we’ll play it,’ Anders Schyman said. ‘You’re relieved from your upcoming night duty. You’ll take it easy for the next few days and come in on Monday, and then work days until this is wrapped up. What do you say?’
Annika closed her eyes and stopped holding her breath as a heartfelt smile spread across her face.
‘Sure.’
Annika practically flew to the train station, dancing along without touching the ground, not noticing the biting cold wind. Home free at last, her heart’s desire within reach.
Yes, yes, yes.
She just knew that she would be allowed back on the beat again. Interviews, articles, investigations of people in power, blowing the whistle on corruption and revealing scandals, that was what she would be doing. Sticking up for the little people, taking a stand for the disenfranchised.
Once aboard the train she could choose between a view of the luggage rack or the brownish-green pine trees flashing past. She shut her eyes, the train clattered out:
Tho-mas, Tho-mas, Tho-mas, Tho-mas . . .