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.
Did that mean anything? Was it important that the terrorist’s mother had been driven from her home by Russian soldiers?
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
‘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
‘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.
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 hell, street-sellers, performers, whores 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 unbuttoned 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 pass;
She stopped before the glass door to number 16, one of the government’s discreet departmental entrances. The window-frames were all polished copper, and behind large empty glass windows and well-tended potted palms was a reception desk with bullet-proof glass and a uniformed guard.
Annika pushed open the two doors, the grit on the soles of her shoes scraping 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 glass 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 buttons.
‘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 mass 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?
‘Hello? 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 documents without having to prove your identity, 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.
‘This way.’
They passed two locked doors and a passageway painted in diagonal stripes, and took the lift up to the sixth floor.
‘To your right,’ the man said.
The marble floor was replaced by linoleum.
‘Down the steps.’
Worn oak tiles.
