It was an open secret in the family that Loke had been the unseen hand behind the Nordic Light arson. Of course, he hadn’t meant for anyone to die. He wasn’t a murderer, for pity’s sake, not of children, anyway. The inflamed passions of the time were to blame. The Nordic Light newspaper was clearly an organ of Soviets, a treasonous outlet in a time of war and an extreme danger to the state. Nordic Light had to be silenced, it was that simple. No doubt if Loke could go back, he would do it all over again.
Ylva wondered that an obvious clue to her grandfather’s involvement in the arson had always been ignored. It had happened on 3 March, Loke’s birthday. She actually appreciated the arrogant quality of scheduling the arson attack on that exact day. It made her laugh, like hanging a sign around your neck declaring “I’m guilty!” and daring the world to do anything about it. In his youth, her grandfather had been a real pisser. He wasn’t one to apologize, ever.
No, there was something else bothering him, Ylva felt sure. Amid the flurry of organizing the anniversary celebration, it often seemed she was the only one paying any real attention to the man himself. The rest of the family rushed around busily, treating the patriark like the still eye of the storm.
“Is something bothering you, farfar?” she asked, kneeling next to Loke’s wheelchair. She looked into her grandfather’s eyes, trying to discern the source of the shadow on his life. All the Vosses had pale blue eyes, but Loke’s were extraordinary, a kind of unflecked gray that was the rarest eye coloring of all. “Goat eyes,” was the insult flung at him in his youth, one for which he made his schoolmates pay in blood.
“Are you happy?” Ylva persisted. “You know, if the celebration is too much for you, you can go home after the church ceremony, we can have you watch it on TV. You could stay right here at home. Would you like that?”
They were in the Stockholm townhouse in Östermalm, the whole family filling the rooms of the luxurious and grandiose city space. Elias Voss kept his son Jarl elsewhere, monitoring the boy closely, since he always seemed to fall into some kind of trouble whenever he was in the capital, which was all the time. By hook or by crook, Elias would see to it that Jarl was present and sober for the gathering at the Cathedral.
At that moment, with Ylva staring into Loke’s arresting eyes, she thought he resembled a stroke victim, trying to articulate but unable to speak.
“I’ve done wrong,” the old man moaned.
“Oh, no, no, farfar, you’ve been good! So good! Look at the whole world lining up to honor you! Would they do that for a bad man?”
“I loved her,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. He began to weep.
All the tears a man’s man holds back in his early years, Ylva thought, all those left unwept because after all boys don’t cry, well, the dam always breaks eventually and they pour forth in old age.
“She…she…she…” Loke stuttered.
“What is it? You can tell me,” she said in her most comforting granddaughter’s voice, the one that nearly always got her what she wanted. But she couldn’t get anything more out of him. Then Junior had come in, angry at her for upsetting his father.
As the anniversary celebration approached, Ylva made her own preparations. She considered that she had come at the American detective and her Sami sidekick twice now, both times with blades. It was time to employ a proper weapon, one that she trained herself in for years, winning shooting competitions all over Sweden.
The Anschütz 1827F biathlon rifle, manufactured by a German company, looked like it was put together by a committee of the insane. At the thing’s heart lay an ordinary .22 long rifle, rendered extraordinary by the demands of the sport. Add-ons, appurtenances, and modifications attached themselves to every section of the weapon, from a cheek guard fastened to the stock, to a snow cover on the front gun sight. The special biathlon magazine poked awkwardly up mid-barrel. The 1827F was a rifle in the sense that the international space station was an airplane.
The Vosses owned one of the colorful buildings off the Stortorget, the Great Square. The top story was given over to a tower arrangement. The cramped, belfry-like interior contained an apartment, now empty, that had been used over the years by this or that family member. It was a measure of the Voss wealth that such a gem located in a neighborhood of outrageously pricey real estate was left vacant. But the building’s elevator did not reach to the top floor apartment. One had to climb a narrow flight of stairs. What a bother! No one wanted it.
Hours before the anniversary celebration, Ylva set herself up in the tower apartment. Her worry over the public event was not limited to concerns about her grandfather’s health. She knew that the American detective was still running free somewhere, sniffing around, bound to make trouble. The combined efforts of the polis, the military (Frans Voss had set the Särskilda operationsgruppen on her trail), and the formidable security corps of Voss Transport had so far failed to locate Veronika Brand.
In the aftermath of their encounter at Voss Medical Center, Brand had either left the country or holed up somewhere. Either way, Ylva did not feel like taking chances. Something had set the madwoman against the Voss family and against Loke Voss senior. Brand was the granddaughter of Gustav Dalgren, the editor of Nordic Light. Ylva didn’t believe anyone (apart from herself) could nurse a grudge over an event that happened that far in the past.
What was
