8
The place where Benny Ekland was run down was just a couple of hundred metres from the West Checkpoint, but not visible from there. In fact, it wasn’t overlooked from anywhere, apart from a run-down housing block and small shop a hundred metres or so away. A thin row of yellow streetlamps, some of them broken, spread a dusty light over the cordons, snow and mud. To the left was an area of ragged scrub, on the right an embankment topped by a fence.
She switched off the engine and sat in the dark, listening.
Benny Ekland had just written a series of articles about terrorism. The last thing he published was about the attack on F21. After that he was run down, here, in the most desolate place in Lulea.
She didn’t like coincidences.
After a few minutes a teenage boy came out of one of the blocks nearby and walked slowly up to the fluttering plastic cordon around the crime scene, hands in his pockets. His hair was stiff with gel, making Annika smile. Her son Kalle had just discovered the joys of hair-gel.
The boy stopped just a couple of metres from her car, staring blankly at a small heap of flowers and candles inside the cordon.
Her smile faded as it dawned on her how Benny Ekland’s death had affected the people living here. They were all mourning his loss. Would any of her neighbours mourn her?
Hardly.
She started the car, intending to drive down to Malmhamnen. The moment she turned the key the boy started as though he’d been hit, and his reaction made her jump. With a cry that penetrated the car the lad rushed back to his block. She waited until he had disappeared behind the fence, then rolled off towards the harbour where the stolen car had been found.
The road was pitch-black and treacherous, leading to a dead end and a large gate. She decided to drive back up to the site of the accident, creeping along at a snail’s pace. As she passed the shop she looked into the block of flats next to it and saw the boy’s spiked hair silhouetted in the bottom-left window.
‘I didn’t mean to scare you,’ she said to herself. ‘What made you so frightened?’
She stopped the car by the cordon and got out, taking her bag. She looked up at furnace number two, still impressed, then turned and looked the other way, into the wind. This road was one of the routes into the residential district.
Annika pulled her torch out of the bag and shone it behind the police cordon. The snow of recent days had covered all traces that might have been visible to the average person. The ice on the tarmac showed no signs of emergency braking, but any that had been there would have been obliterated by now.
She shone the beam on the fence some ten metres away. That was where he had been found. Inspector Suup was right; Benny Ekland’s last movements had been a flight through the air.
She stood with the torch in her hand, listening to the distant noise of the steelworks. Turning around, she saw the boy’s head again, this time in the right-hand window.
She might as well go and knock, seeing as she was here.
The yard was dark, and she had to use her torch to find her way. It looked like a scrap yard, and the house was ramshackle. The panels on the roof were rusty, the paint peeling. She switched off the torch, put it in her bag and went up to the plain front door. It led into a pitch-black hallway.
‘What are you doing here?’
She leaped back, fumbling for the torch once more. The voice had come from the right, a boy whose voice was breaking.
‘Hello?’ she said.
There was a click and the hall lit up. She blinked, momentarily confused. She was surrounded by dark-brown panelled walls that seemed to loom over her. It felt like the ceiling was pressing down on her. She put her hands above her head and screamed.
‘What on earth’s the matter? Take it easy.’
The boy was gangly and skinny, and was wearing thick socks. He was pressed against a door bearing the name Gustafsson, his eyes dark, watchful.
‘Jesus,’ Annika said. ‘You scared me.’
‘I’m not the son of God,’ the boy said.
‘What?’ And the angels suddenly started singing. ‘Oh, just shut up!’ she yelled.
‘Are you nuts?’ the boy said.
She gathered her thoughts and met his gaze. It was inquisitive, and slightly scared. The voices fell silent, the ceiling slid away, the walls stopped throbbing.
‘I just get a bit dizzy sometimes,’ she said.
‘What are you doing creeping around here?’
She pulled a crumpled paper handkerchief out of the bag and wiped her nose.
‘My name’s Annika Bengtzon; I’m a journalist,’ she said. ‘I came to see the place where my colleague died.’
She held out her hand, the boy hesitated, then shook it half-heartedly.
‘Did you know Benny?’ he asked, pulling his slender fingers away.
Annika shook her head. ‘But we wrote about the same things,’ she said. ‘I was supposed to meet him yesterday.’
The hall went dark again.
‘So you’re not with the police?’ the boy said.
‘Can you turn the lights on again, please?’ Annika said, hearing the note of panic in her voice.
‘You are a bit nuts,’ the boy said, sterner now. ‘Unless you’re just scared of the dark?’
‘Nuts,’ Annika said. ‘Turn the lights on!’
The boy pressed the switch and the bulb lit up for another minute or so.
‘Look,’ Annika said, ‘could I use your toilet?’
The boy hesitated. ‘I can’t let crazy women into my flat,’ he said. ‘You can understand that, can’t you?’
Annika couldn’t help spluttering with laughter. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll just pee in the hall instead.’
He raised his eyebrows, opened the door with the hand that had been resting on the handle.
‘But don’t tell Mum,’ he said.
‘Promise,’ Annika said.
The bathroom had vinyl wallpaper from the seventies, decorated with stylized sunflowers. She splashed her face, washed her hands, ran her fingers through her hair.
‘Did you know Benny?’ she asked when she emerged.
The boy nodded.
‘What’s your name, by the way?’ Annika said.
He looked at the floor. ‘Linus,’ he said, his voice managing to perform somersaults within the space of just five letters.
‘Linus,’ Annika said, ‘do you know if anyone in the building saw what happened to Benny?’
The boy’s eyes opened wide, he took two steps back.
‘So you are police?’
‘Is there something wrong with your hearing?’ Annika said. ‘I’m a hack, like Benny. We wrote about the same stuff. The police say that someone ran into him and scarpered. I don’t know if that’s true. Do you know if anyone heard anything that night?’
‘The police have already been here, they asked the same thing.’
‘So what did you tell them, Linus?’
