‘If you’re planning on writing something, you’d better contact our press relations manager,’ the man replied in a friendly voice.
‘Oh no, I’m not a reporter, I just check the articles and see that everything’s right. That’s why it’s good to get out once in a while, so you’ll know if the reporters are out of line.’
The Customs officer laughed. ‘Well then, you’ve got your work cut out for you,’ he said.
‘So do you, I bet,’ Annika countered.
They shook hands and introduced themselves.
‘That about it for today?’ Annika asked and pointed at the last vehicle as it puffed its way to the gate.
The man sighed lightly. ‘It will be for me, at any rate,’ he said. ‘The past few days have been a headache, what with that crime scene and all. Not to mention the cigarettes.’
Annika raised an eyebrow. ‘Anything particular happen today?’
‘We caught a phoney refrigeration truck this morning. It was loaded with tobacco products; floorboards, ceiling, walls. They’d removed all the insulation and filled the space with cigarettes.’
‘Wow,’ Annika exclaimed. ‘How did you figure that out?’
The Customs officer shrugged. ‘By unscrewing a plate in the back of the vehicle and finding a thin layer of insulation. Beneath that layer there was another plate, and the cigarettes were behind that.’
‘How many?’
‘The floor of a trailer holds five hundred thousand, the ceiling another five hundred thousand, and the walls hold about as many more. We’re looking at something like two million, and you can estimate one krona per smoke.’
‘Oh man,’ Annika said.
‘It’s nothing compared to what gets into the country. There’s no end to the amounts smuggled. Gangs have quit dealing in drugs and have turned to tobacco products instead. Ever since the state raised the tax, cigarettes yield profits on a par with heroin, but it’s nowhere near as risky. A drug bust worth millions will put you in jail ‘til you rot, while cigarettes won’t get you much prison time. They use layered covers, hinged floors, hollow steel beams . . .’
‘Crafty little devils,’ Annika said.
‘You’re dead right,’ the Customs officer agreed.
Annika moved in. ‘Any idea who the stiffs were?’
The man shook his head. ‘Nope, never saw them before.’
Annika’s eyes widened. ‘You saw them?’
‘Yes. They were lying out there when I got here. Shot in the head.’
‘Gee, how awful!’ Annika said.
The Customs officer pulled a face and revived his feet by stamping them. ‘Well, it’s almost time to close up shop. Any more questions?’
Annika looked around. ‘One, could you tell me what’s in these buildings?’
The customs officer pointed at them in turn. ‘Warehouse eight,’ he began. ‘It’s vacant at the moment. Number two over there is the Tallinn terminal and the Port Customs Authority. Every single carrier from Tallinn has to go over there and show their papers before they come to us.’
‘What papers would those be?’
‘Shipping documents – every crate and its contents have to be listed. Then they receive one of these, and show it to us over here.’ The man showed her a bright green paper strip with stamps, signatures and the letters IN.
‘And you check every single item?’ Annika asked.
‘Most of it, but we don’t have time for everything.’
Annika flashed him an understanding smile. ‘What makes you skip certain vehicles?’
The Customs officer sighed. ‘When you open a trailer and there are crates and boxes wedged in from floor to ceiling, you sometimes just can’t face it. If we’re checking a load like that, we have to drive it to number seven over there, in the container section, unload the whole thing and pry the stuff out with a fork-lift. Some Customs officers are licensed fork-lift operators, but not all of us.’
‘No, that makes sense,’ Annika said.
‘Then we have the sealed trucks, the ones that just drive through Sweden with sealed cargo compartments. No one is permitted to remove, add or exchange any portion of the shipment until the transport has reached its specific destination.’
‘Are those the ones marked with the letters TIR?’
The man nodded. ‘There are other types of seals too, but TIR is the most well-known variety.’
Annika pointed. ‘What are all those trailers doing here?’
He turned and looked out over the parking lot. ‘That’s cargo destined for the Baltic States awaiting shipment, or stuff that’s been cleared through Customs and will be shipped throughout Sweden.’
‘Can you rent space here?’
‘No, you just park your trailer. No one actually keeps track of what’s out here. Or why. Or for how long. It could be anything.’
‘Like the occasional smuggled carton of cigarettes?’
‘That’s highly probable.’
They smiled at each other.
‘Thank you for taking the time,’ Annika said.
They walked together over to the entrance of the free port. As soon as they reached the crime scene, the floodlights went on, relentlessly blazing light throughout the area.
‘It’s a goddamn tragedy,’ the Customs officer said. ‘Young guys, barely in their twenties.’
‘What did they look like?’ Annika asked.
‘They were clueless about winter clothing,’ the Customs officer replied. ‘Must have been damn cold: all they had on were fancy leather jackets and jeans. No hats or gloves. Sports shoes.’
‘How were they lying?’
‘Practically on top of each other – both of them had holes in their heads.’ The Customs officer tapped the crown of his head.
Annika stopped walking. ‘Didn’t anyone hear anything? Don’t guards patrol the area at night?’
‘Every warehouse has watchdogs, except for number eight – that’s empty. They bark like crazy if anyone tries to enter. There are far fewer break-ins and burglaries since they brought in the dogs, but they’re not much good as eyewitnesses. I really don’t know if anyone heard shots ring out. We were having hurricane-force gales, after all.’
They exchanged business cards and pleasantries. Annika walked quickly to the bus stop near the sign indicating Tallinn, Klaipeda, Riga and St Petersburg. She was so cold that her teeth were chattering. Loneliness engulfed her, heavy and wet. She stood there in the bus shelter, a grey shape fading into the grey background. It was too early to go to the office, too late to go home and the sense of emptiness was so vast it precluded thought.
When the 76 bus suddenly appeared behind the SVEX administration building, she acted on an impulse. Instead of taking the 41 bus back to Kungsholmen, she headed for the Old Town. Got off at Slottsbacken, near the palace, and weaved her way through the narrow streets towards Tyska Brinken. The rain had stopped, the wind had died down. Time stood still around these stone buildings: the sounds of traffic from Skeppsbron subsided and her footsteps were muffled on the icy cobblestones. Night fell quickly, colours shifting in the golden light of the cast-iron street lamps, reduced to spots in the limited pools of lamplight. Black cast iron. Red ochre. Gleaming hand-blown window-panes in tiny criss-crossed frames. Stockholm’s Old Town was another world, another time, an echo from the past. And naturally Anne Snapphane had managed to get herself an attic flat near the German Church. It was only a sub-let, but still.
Anne was at home and in the process of making pasta. ‘Get a bowl out, there’s enough for you too,’ she said after letting Annika in and locking the door behind her. ‘To what do I owe this honour?’
‘I was out and about – I’ve been to see the free port.’ Annika sank down on a chair under the sloping ceiling of the tiny kitchen, inhaling the warmth and the steam from the potful of pasta. Her sense of futility faded as the void filled with the rise and fall of Anne Snapphane’s chatter. Annika answered in monosyllables. They sat across from one another at the table, tossing their tagliatelle with butter, cheese and soy sauce. The cheese melted into stringy tentacles between the strips of pasta. Annika twirled her fork in the mixture and looked out the dormer window. Rooftops, chimneys and terraces created dark contours on the deep blue winter sky. Suddenly she realized how hungry she was, ate until she was breathless and drank a large beer glass full of Coke.
‘Didn’t someone get killed out in the free port this morning?’ Anne said as she shovelled in the last of her food and filled the electric kettle.
‘Two people, yesterday,’ Annika replied and put her plate in the dishwasher.
‘Great,’ Anne exclaimed. ‘When did they reinstate you as a reporter?’ She poured water into the Bodum coffee maker.
‘Don’t jump to any conclusions. The deep-freeze they’ve put me in is deeper than you’d know,’ Annika said and went out to the living room with its timbered ceiling.
Anne Snapphane followed, carrying a tray with two mugs, the coffee maker and a bag of marshmallow candy bars.
‘But they have let you start writing again, haven’t they? For real?’
They sat down on the couch and Annika swallowed. ‘No, they haven’t. I just couldn’t stand being at home, that’s all. A double homicide is still a double homicide.’
Anne made a face, blew on her steaming beverage and took a slurp. ‘I don’t know how you manage,’ she said. ‘I’m so grateful for female relationships, fashion and eating disorders.’
Annika smiled. ‘How’s it going?’
‘The programming supervisor sees
The Women’s Sofa
as a raging success. Personally, I’m not quite as thrilled. The entire staff is working itself to death, everyone detests the show’s host and the producer is having an affair with the project manager.’
‘What kind of ratings do you have? A million viewers?’
Anne Snapphane gazed at Annika with mournful eyes. ‘My dear,’ she said. ‘We’re talking about the satellite universe here. Audience shares. Target group impact. Only boring public-service outfits still talk about ratings.’
‘In that case, why do we always write about them?’ Annika said before opening the bag of candy.
‘How the hell should I know?’ said Anne. ‘I guess you guys don’t know any better. And
The Women’s Sofa
will never amount to much unless we get some real journalists on board.’
‘So it’s that bad, is it? Wasn’t someone new supposed to join you?’ Annika asked and stuffed her mouth full of candy.
Anne Snapphane groaned. ‘Michelle Carlsson. Incompetent, brainless, but red-hot for the camera.’
Annika laughed. ‘Isn’t that the TV industry in a nutshell?’
‘Hey,’ Anne replied, ‘watch it with the attitude. Tabloid journalists in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.’
Anne switched on her TV right in the middle of the theme song heralding a newscast on one of the public-service channels. ‘
Voilà
, the pretentious news hour!’
‘Hush,’ said Annika, ‘let’s see if they feature the free-port killings.’
The newscast opened with the aftermath of the hurricane that had hit the southern part of Sweden. The local news team down in Malmö had shot footage of twisted bus shelters, barn roofs that had been swept away and shattered shop windows. An old man in a Farmers’ Union cap scratched his neck anxiously while he surveyed the remains of his greenhouse and, in the drawling dialect of the province of Skåne, uttered something that ought to have been subtitled to be comprehensible. Then viewers were transported inside a power company, where a hollow-eyed representative testified that every possible effort was being made after the blackout to get things up and running again by nightfall. This or that many households were still affected in Skåne, Blekinge and Småland.
Annika sighed silently. So incredibly boring.
The segment continued with an estimate of the damage, which came to millions upon millions. A woman in Denmark had been killed when her car was crushed by a falling tree.
‘Denmark has forests?’ Anne Snapphane remarked.
Annika gave her friend, who hailed from the far north of Sweden, a weary look. ‘Haven’t you ever ventured below the tree line?’
Next came the compulsory voice-over drone to feed-footage from Chechnya and Kosovo. Russian troops had blah, blah, blah and the UCK had yada, yada . . . The cameras panned over bombed-out buildings and truckloads of grimy refugees.
‘Looks like they couldn’t care less about your homicide,’ Anne Snapphane remarked.
‘It’s not mine,’ Annika countered. ‘It’s Sjölander’s.’
After a brief flash about something that the Prime Minister had said, there was a live segment about the free-port killings. The reporter went on as they aired footage showing the spot by the silos. They featured pretty much the same information as
Kvällspressen
had published twelve hours earlier.
‘It’s astonishing that TV reporters never go dig up anything,’ Annika claimed. ‘They’ve had all day at their disposal, and they haven’t found a damn thing.’
‘This stuff isn’t high priority for them,’ Anne countered.
‘Television is stuck in the fifties,’ Annika continued. ‘They settle for moving pictures and sound. They don’t give a damn about journalism, or maybe they just don’t know how to do it. TV reporters suck.’
‘Amen,’ Anne concluded. ‘God’s gift to journalism has spoken. Christ, did you polish off all the candy? You could have saved some for me.’
‘Sorry,’ Annika replied sheepishly. ‘I’ve got to go.’
She left Anne behind in her attic flat and headed down Stora Nygatan towards Norrmalm. The air didn’t seem as piercing now, only fresh and crisp. Something inside came to life – she felt like singing. Waiting for the signal to cross the street by the House of the Nobility and the Supreme Court, she was humming away when a little man wheeled up alongside her to the left.
‘I rode my bike all the way from Huddinge,’ the man said, and Annika jumped. He was utterly exhausted. His whole body was shaking and his nose was running copiously.
‘Boy, that’s quite a distance,’ Annika replied. ‘Don’t your legs ache?’
‘Not one bit,’ the man said as tears started rolling down his cheeks. ‘I could keep on going just as far.’
The lights turned green. When Annika started to cross the street, the man followed suit. He stumbled after her, leaning heavily on his bike. Annika waited for him. ‘Where are you headed?’ she asked.