Red Wolf_ A Novel Part 28

He sat on the chair by the door and struggled to take off his shoes. His diaphragm was really hurting now, and bending down made him feel sick. He groaned and leaned back against the chair, shutting his eyes for a moment.

His other daughter, Barking Dog, had been noisy and difficult in the sixties, but so much could have happened. It would be interesting to meet her. Maybe it was she who really deserved her inheritance.

He went over to the wardrobe to check that the duffel bag was still there.

Thursday 19 November

32.

The front door clicked shut with a bang and silence spread through the apartment. Annika was alone again. She lay in bed with her head burrowed into the pillow and her knees drawn up to her chin, the duvet cover damp with anxiety. The angels were humming in the background, monotonous and powerless.

She had to get up today, at least to pick up the children. She wasn't ill often; Thomas wasn't used to being responsible for them, both dropping them off and picking them up as well as preparing food and reading to them and putting them to bed. It made him grouchy and irritable and made her feel guilty.

She snuggled deeper under the covers.

Things could be worse, she thought.

If the children got sick. If Thomas left her. If the paper was shut down. If war broke out in Iraq, all of that would be worse. This is nothing This is nothing.

But it was something. It was like a big hole where the foundation of her professional confidence had been.

She had trusted Schyman. Trusted his judgement.

Something had happened, either to him or to her. Maybe to both of them. Maybe it was because of the story; maybe it was too big for them.

Or maybe she really had gone mad in that tunnel. She knew that this was a real possibility.

Had she lost the ability to judge relevance and probability? Was she on the verge of losing her grip on reality?

She pulled the covers over her head and let the thought creep up on her. It stopped beside her, settling down on her pillow. She looked at it and realized that it really wasn't dangerous.

The story was what it was, and she was right. There was something there. Schyman may have been right before, but not this time.

She threw off the duvet and gasped for air. She hurried naked into the bathroom and brushed her teeth and showered, in rapid succession.

The apartment echoed desolately without Thomas and the children. She stopped in the doorway to the kitchen and looked at the mess they had left behind them from breakfast, without really acknowledging it. Instead she listened to the sound of silence, sounds she never appreciated when they were all home and she had another function apart from just being an individual. When she became part of something bigger than herself, the little, insignificant things didn't get through to her. In her role as Responsible Adult, only the most persistent cries reached her, like 'Food!' and 'Sticky Tape!' and 'Where's Tiger?'

Now she was just her own self, off sick, holed below the waterline, a used-up reporter who had pa.s.sed her sell-by date, and the nuances submerged her, making her listen in mute astonishment.

The fridge was rumbling, deep and steady, a half-tone lower than the ventilation unit on the roof of the next building. The smell of frying was creeping in from somewhere, a restaurant in the block heating up pans and griddles and preparing lunch of the day. The buses at the stop down on Hantverkargatan sighed and groaned, sirens from the fire engines stationed by Kron.o.berg Park rose and fell.

Suddenly the panic struck.

I can't bear it.

All the muscles in her body strained, sound and breathing vanished.

There's nothing wrong, she thought. It just feels like it. I'm not suffocating, but the opposite. I'm hyperventilating, it'll pa.s.s, just wait, calm down It just feels like it. I'm not suffocating, but the opposite. I'm hyperventilating, it'll pa.s.s, just wait, calm down.

And the floor came closer and pressed against her thighs and elbows until she ended up staring under the dishwasher.

He completely invalidated me as a person, she thought, a moment of clarity that brought back sound and colour. Schyman wasn't just seeing me as a reporter; he took away my honour and value as a person. He's never done that before. He must be under serious pressure from an unlikely desire to be accepted. I'm not accepted. He can't go into battle on my side right now, because it would cost too much Schyman wasn't just seeing me as a reporter; he took away my honour and value as a person. He's never done that before. He must be under serious pressure from an unlikely desire to be accepted. I'm not accepted. He can't go into battle on my side right now, because it would cost too much.

She got up, noticing that she had banged her knee. Her arms and feet ached, a sign that she had absorbed too much oxygen. Her panic attacks had disappeared for several years. She hadn't had any since the children were born, until the Bomber got her. Now they came at irregular intervals, with the same violence and terror as they had before.

I wonder if I need happy pills, she thought.

She knew that Anne Snapphane had a large bottle hidden in her bathroom cabinet.

But it's all my imagination, she thought. I'm scared of my own fear. It's all in my head. Drag these thoughts into the light and they'll vanish, let them out and look at them and they'll just disappear I'm scared of my own fear. It's all in my head. Drag these thoughts into the light and they'll vanish, let them out and look at them and they'll just disappear.

And she stood there with her hands on the dishwasher, feeling her body stabilize.

She knew she was right. There was a link between Ragnwald, the Minister of Culture, the attack on F21 and the deaths of the boy, the journalist and the councillor.

She had also clearly understood that she was not allowed to look into the story any more, under any circ.u.mstances.

I don't want to hear another word about this.

At work, no, she thought. But if I make a few calls when I'm off sick at home, then it doesn't count But if I make a few calls when I'm off sick at home, then it doesn't count.

So she went into the bedroom and got dressed, then went back into the kitchen and made coffee, without clearing the mess left by Thomas and the children, just pushed all the dirty crockery into a corner of the table and sat down with her mug of coffee, her pad of paper and a ballpoint pen from the a.s.sociation of Local Authorities.

She needed to know more about both the terrorist and the minister in order to see the bigger picture. She had the internet at home, but only via an old modem. Thomas had wanted to get broadband but she had refused, because he spent too much time on the computer already.

Check the church records, she wrote; backgrounds and parents.

Ask for the minister's public records, start with the post, then journeys, representations, declarations, property register, company register, and so on.

Read more about ETA and Laestadianism.

She looked at the short list.

That would be enough for today.

She picked up the phone and asked directory inquiries to put her through to the parish office in Sattajarv and discovered that there wasn't one. She asked for the numbers of all parish offices covered by the local code for Pajala, and, apart from Pajala itself, was given numbers for Junesuando and Tarendo.

Sattajarvi was covered by Pajala.

Goran Nilsson was born 2 October 1948, the only son of Toivo and Elina Nilsson. His mother's birthplace was given as Kexholm. The couple married 17 May 1946. Father died 1977, mother 1989.

She wrote all of this down and thanked them.

Kexholm?

She would have to go online after all.

Kakisalmi, also known as Kexholm, turned out to be at the mouth of the River Vuoksen, where it flowed into Lake Ladoga on the Karelian Isthmus, not far from the old Swedish city of Viborg.

In other words, now in Russia.

She found a site through the county council in Lulea, with a lot of information about the history of the area.

In the autumn of 1944 Karelia was invaded by the Soviet Union and the whole district was emptied of its original inhabitants. 400,000 people fled deeper into Finland, and some of them carried on to Sweden.

She stared at the screen.

Ethnic cleansing, she thought. An old concept, only the terminology is new An old concept, only the terminology is new.

Did that mean anything? Was it important that the terrorist's mother had been driven from her home by Russian soldiers?

Not sure. Maybe.

She logged out and called the parish office in Lower Lulea. It was always easier to do this sort of research over the phone, when no one could see her being so nosy.

Karina Bjornlund was born 9 September 1951, second child of three to Hilma and Helge Bjornlund. The couple divorced in 1968, the mother remarried and now lives on Storgatan in Lulea. Father dead. Brothers: Per and Alf.

So what did that tell her?

Nothing.

She thanked the parish secretary and got up, restless, and walked around the flat before picking up the phone again and calling the Norrland News Norrland News.

'Hans Blomberg is off today,' the sour receptionist said.

'Put me through to the archive anyway,' Annika said quickly before she got another rant about the EU.

A young woman answered.

'I know the powers that be have decided that we should cooperate with the Evening Post Evening Post, but no one ever asks us if we have enough time to do it,' the woman said, sounding stressed. 'You can have the pa.s.sword, then you can log in direct and check the archive online.'

She needs to calm down before she ends up like Hans, Annika thought.

'What I'm looking for probably isn't on the net,' she said. 'I'm after the earliest cuttings you have for Karina Bjornlund.'

'Who? The Minister of Culture? We've got kilometres' worth of columns about her.'

'The very earliest ones. Can you fax them to me?'

She gave her home number, making a mental note to turn the fax machine on.

'How many? The first hundred?'

Annika thought for a moment. 'The first five will do.'

The sound of air being exhaled, a long sigh.

'Okay, but not before lunch.'

They hung up and Annika went out into the kitchen and cleared the breakfast things, checked what was in the freezer and worked out that she could do chicken fillets in coconut milk for dinner.

Then she tied on her shoes and pulled on her jacket.

Have to get out, have to breathe.

She picked up a microwaved pasta dish with mushrooms and bacon from the 7-Eleven on Fleminggatan, and ate it slowly with a plastic spoon as she crossed Kungsbron in to the city centre.

She threw the paper tray in a bin by the junction of Vasagatan and Kungsgatan, then walked quickly towards Hotorget. She only slowed down once she reached Drottninggatan, Stockholm's only truly continental pedestrian street, with its mix of heaven and h.e.l.l, street-sellers, performers, wh.o.r.es and the frozen tramps who filled the gaps between the retail palaces. She was pushed forward in the crush, strangely full of tenderness, she was jostled along by people, and felt something oddly melancholic as she took them in: the mothers with clenched teeth and squeaking, swaying buggies; groups of beautiful young women from immigrant suburbs with their high heels and clear voices, finally out of sight of home, their hair dancing above unb.u.t.toned jackets and tight tops; important men with their universal uniforms of briefcases and stress; slick ostermalm kids with Canada Goose jackets and posh nasal 'i' sounds; tourists; hotdog sellers; couriers; idiots and drug-dealers. She let herself be swept along with them, drawn in among them, could maybe even find a home at the bottom of their big, forgiving, common well.

'Isn't that the Blaster? That's her, isn't it? Look! In the tunnel, she was on telly . . .'

She didn't turn round, knew that the whispering would pa.s.s; if you sit by the river long enough, you will see the bodies of your enemies float by if you sit by the river long enough, you will see the bodies of your enemies float by. Soon no one would remember the Bomber in the tunnel and she would be just one among all the others in the well, a grey-black flake slowly drifting down towards the sludge at the bottom, ignored by everyone.

She stopped before the gla.s.s door to number 16, one of the government's discreet departmental entrances. The window-frames were all polished copper, and behind large empty gla.s.s windows and well-tended potted palms was a reception desk with bullet-proof gla.s.s and a uniformed guard.

Annika pushed open the two doors, the grit on the soles of her shoes sc.r.a.ping against the marble floor, and went up to the guard, her skin creeping with the feeling that she was a shameless infiltrator. She tapped on the microphone in front of the closed screen.

'It works,' the elderly man behind the gla.s.s said; she saw his lips move and heard the words to her left, through a hidden speaker.

'Oh, good,' Annika said, trying to smile and leaning towards the microphone. 'I'd like to check Karina Bjornlund's post.'

It was done, the spy is here, about to go through the bins and the post-box.

The man picked up a phone and pressed some b.u.t.tons.

'Take a seat and I'll call the registrar.'

She went over to the waiting area, three curved brick-red sofas, one EU flag and one Swedish flag, a designer rack holding a ma.s.s of magazines, a metal statue possibly supposed to be a small child. Maybe a girl.

She looked at the statue; was it bronze?

She took a step closer. Who was the girl? How many inquisitive spies had she watched come and go?

'h.e.l.lo? Did you want to look through the minister's register?'

She glanced up and found herself looking at a middle-aged man with a ponytail and sideburns.

'Yes,' Annika said. 'That's me.'

She held out her hand, not mentioning her name. According to the freedom of information laws, you could check public doc.u.ments without having to prove your ident.i.ty, a law she was happy to safeguard as often as she had the chance. At least it saved her from having to feel the slightest shame, because they didn't know who she was.