Red Wolf

Now she knew how things worked, and the knowledge paralysed her.

Sometimes she got the impression that it was just about money. If it was just as lucrative to sell drugs, the proprietors would have done that instead. Other days things felt better. She could see the connections in the way she had been taught, commercialism guaranteed freedom of expression and democracy, the newspaper was produced according to the wishes of the readers, and the income secured continued publication.

She eased her rigid grip of the steering wheel, forcing herself to calm down. F21 disappeared behind her as she pulled onto the long straight leading to the main road. She dialled the police station, but Inspector Suup’s line was busy, and he already had calls waiting.

It doesn’t matter how good I am, she thought, failing to stifle her bitterness. The thought grew and blossomed into a sentence before she could stop it: The truth isn’t interesting, only the fantasy it can construct.

To stop herself wallowing in self-pity, and to stay on the line, she started asking the poor and increasingly stressed receptionist a pointless series of questions about the organization of the police station. The trick was to keep talking to the receptionist until the extension was free.

‘I can put you in the queue now,’ the receptionist said when Suup had ended one of his calls.

She was put on hold, but at least it was silent. An electronic version of ‘Fur Elise’ would have pushed her over the edge.

She had already passed the roundabout at Bergnaset before there was a click on the line and it was her turn.

‘Well, I owe you a debt of thanks,’ Inspector Suup said. ‘Linus Gustafsson’s mother called us at seven this morning to say that her son is the secret witness in the Norrland News today. She said you’d tried to persuade the boy to talk to the police or another adult about what he’d seen; she was pleased about that. She said that the boy hadn’t been himself since Sunday night – not sleeping or eating properly, not wanting to go to school…’

She felt a tentative sense of calm. ‘That’s good to hear. What do you think about his story?’

‘I haven’t spoken to him myself, I’ve been stuck on the phone since you released the story to the agencies, but our officers have been at the scene with him and he seems credible.’

‘Quick work,’ Annika said, trying to sound impressed.

‘They wanted to strike while it was still dark, to get the same conditions as the time of the crime, and before the media storm broke. They seem to have made it.’

‘And…?’ she said, braking at a red light just before the Bergnas bridge.

‘Let’s just say that the investigation has gone from hit-and-run to premeditated murder.’

‘Are you going to call in the national murder unit?’

The reply was ambiguous. ‘We’ll have to see what we turn up after the first day or so…’

The traffic light turned green. She slid over the junction with Granuddsvagen.

‘Benny had written a whole series of articles on terrorism in recent months,’ Annika said. ‘I’m actually on my way back from F21 right now. Do you think his death could have something to do with the article he wrote about the attack out there, or anything else he wrote?’

‘I don’t want to speculate. Can you hold on a moment?’

He didn’t wait for her to reply. There was a dull thud in her ear as the inspector put the phone down and crossed the floor, then the sound of a door closing.

‘But on the other hand,’ he said, back on the line, ‘there is something that I’ve spoken to Captain Pettersson about this morning that concerns you.’

She took her foot off the accelerator in sheer shock.

‘I don’t want to discuss it on the phone,’ the inspector went on. ‘Have you got time to come up here this afternoon?’

She shook her arm vigorously to get her watch to slide out of the sleeve of her coat.

‘Not really,’ she said, ‘my plane leaves at two fifty-five and I have to get over to the Norrland News before that.’

‘Okay, I’ll meet you there,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a team there now, and I’ve just promised that I’d go and talk to them about what we’re looking for.’

The receptionist’s face was puffy from crying. Annika approached cautiously and respectfully, well aware that she was disturbing her.

‘The paper’s closed to visitors,’ the woman snapped. ‘Come back tomorrow.’

‘My name’s Annika Bengtzon,’ Annika said gently. ‘I’m the one who-’

‘Is there something wrong with your hearing?’ the woman said, getting up, visibly trembling. ‘We’re in mourning today, in mourning; one of our reporters has… left us. So we’re closed. All day. Go away.’

Annika was furious. ‘For God’s sake,’ she said. ‘Has everyone gone mad? Sorry for being here.’

She turned her back on the woman and headed for the stairs to the newsroom.

‘Hey!’ the receptionist yelled. ‘This is a private company. Come back.’

Annika kept walking, glanced over her shoulder and made sure she got the last word in.

‘So shoot me.’

After just a few steps she could hear some sort of memorial service going on upstairs. From the landing outside the main office she could see the participants, a colourless mass of grey hair, dark-grey jackets, brown sweaters. Backs bent, sweaty necks, the sort of confused rage that makes people bloodless and mute. Their sighs seemed to suck up all the air, emptying the building of oxygen.

With a deep breath she slid in to the back of the room, making herself invisible whilst simultaneously craning to see whoever was talking at the front.

‘Benny Ekland had no family,’ the man said, a middle-aged media type in a dark suit and shiny shoes. ‘We were his family. He had us, and he had the Norrland News.’

The people in the room didn’t react to the words, each of them consumed by their own shocked disbelief, the impossibility of death. Fumbling hands, eyes glued to the floor or searching restlessly, each of them an island. Reporters and several photographers stood along the walls, people from other media outlets. She could pick them out by their greedy curiosity; they didn’t care, their interest was focused on the man speaking and the mourners.

‘Benny was the sort of journalist that no longer exists,’ the man in the polished shoes intoned. ‘He was a reporter who never gave up. He always had to know the truth, whatever the cost. We who had the privilege of working with Benny all these years have been given a great gift, the gift of being able to get to know such a devoted and responsible professional. For Benny there was no such thing as overtime, because he took his work seriously…’

‘Hmm,’ someone whispered in her ear, ‘now we’re getting to the truth.’

She jerked her head and saw Hans Blomberg, the archivist, standing right behind her, nodding and smiling. He leaned forward and went on in a whisper, ‘Benny was popular with management because he never asked for overtime or a pay rise. And because he earned so little he presented them with the perfect argument: if their star earned so little, surely it was only right that the others did too?’

Annika listened, astonished.

‘He broke the pay deal?’ she whispered back. ‘Why?’

‘Five weeks’ paid holiday with the whores of Thailand every year, and a running tab at the City Pub. What more could a man want?’

Two older women in front of them, with matching sweaters and swollen eyes, turned round and hissed at them to be quiet.

‘Where was Benny’s desk?’ she whispered to the archivist.

‘Follow me,’ he said, and backed out of the room.

They left the grey sea of people and went up to the next floor.

‘He was the only one besides the publisher who had his own office,’ Hans Blomberg said, pointing down a short, narrow corridor.

Annika walked along it, feeling at once the walls pressing in on her, looming over her. She stopped, took a deep breath, and saw the walls as they really were. Not moving. The hideous yellow-brown panels were bulging