Do you really mean to tell me you didn’t know they were together?’
‘A teenage fling,’ Q said. ‘Nothing more. Besides, she ended it.’
‘Retrospective adjustment,’ Annika said. ‘Karina Bjornlund would do anything to save her own skin.’
‘I see,’ Q said. ‘Little Miss Amateur-Profiler has spoken.’
Annika was thinking about Herman Wennergren’s email,
In her mind Annika could hear her own voice asking the Trade Minister’s press secretary to convey her request for a comment on the IB affair, and heard herself revealing the Social Democrats’ biggest secrets to Karina Bjornlund. And just a few weeks later Bjornlund was made a minister, in one of the most unforeseen promotions ever.
‘Trust me,’ Annika said. ‘I know more about her than you do.’
‘I’ve got to go,’ Q said, and she had nothing to add because the angels were gone now, they had withdrawn to their hiding place.
She put down the phone and hurried over to her laptop, switching it on and pulling on a pair of socks as the programs loaded. She typed in the new details from the conversation until the backs of her knees started to sweat and her ankles began to freeze.
41
The doorbell rang. Annika opened the front door cautiously, not sure what she would find out there. The angels started humming anxiously, but calmed down when she saw Anne Snapphane standing there breathless on the landing, lips white, eyes red.
‘Come in,’ Annika said, backing into the flat.
Anne Snapphane didn’t answer, just walked in, hunched and self-contained.
‘Are you dying?’ Annika asked, and Anne nodded, slumped onto the hall bench and pulled off her headband.
‘It feels like it,’ she said, ‘but you know what they say in
‘Anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’ Annika said, sitting down beside her.
As the central heating clicked, a toilet somewhere in the building flushed, and a bus pulled up and set off again down below, they sat there staring at the cupboard with the carved pineapples that Annika had bought from a flea-market.
‘There are always noises in the city,’ Anne eventually said.
Annika let some air out from her lungs in a dull sigh. ‘At least you’re never alone,’ she said, getting up. ‘Do you want anything? Coffee? Wine?’
Anne Snapphane didn’t move.
‘I’ve stopped drinking,’ she said.
‘Oh, it’s one of those days, is it?’ Annika said, standing and looking beyond the balcony at the courtyard below. Someone had forgotten to close the door to the room containing the waste-bins, it swung back and forth in the violent winds playing round the building.
‘It feels like I’ve been thrown in a bottomless pit and I’m just falling and falling,’ Anne said. ‘It started with Mehmet and his new fuck, then the talk about Miranda living with them; and now that my job has gone there’s nothing I can hold on to any more. Drinking on top of all that would be like pressing the fast-forward button.’
‘I see what you mean,’ Annika said, putting her hand on the door-handle to help her stay upright.
‘When I walk around town everything seems so strange. I don’t remember it ever looking like this. It’s hard to breathe, somehow. Everything’s so fucking grey. People look like ghosts; I get the idea that half of them are already dead. I don’t know if I’m alive. Can anyone live like that?’
Annika nodded and swallowed audibly, the door to the bin room crashed twice, bang, bang.
‘Welcome to the darkness,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry you’ve come to keep me company.’
It took a few moments for Anne to appreciate the seriousness of her words.
‘What’s happened?’ she said, getting up, taking off her coat and scarf and hanging them up. Then she joined Annika at the window, looking down at the bin room.
‘It’s a whole load of things,’ Annika said. ‘My position at work is pretty shaky; Schyman has forbidden me to write about terrorism. He thinks the Bomber made me a bit crazy.’
‘Huh,’ Anne said, folding her arms.
‘And Thomas is having an affair,’ she went on, almost in a whisper, the words rolling round the walls, growing larger and larger until they got caught on the ceiling.
Anne looked sceptically at her. ‘Whatever makes you think that?’
Annika’s throat contracted, the sticky little words wouldn’t come out. She looked down at her hands and cleared her throat, then looked up. ‘I saw them. Outside NK. He kissed her.’
Anne’s mouth had fallen half open, scepticism and disbelief dancing across her face.
‘Are you sure? You couldn’t be mistaken?’
Annika shook her head, looked down at her hands again.
‘Her name’s Sophia Grenborg, she works for the Federation of County Councils. She’s on the same working group as Thomas – you know, the one looking into threats to politicians…’
‘Shit,’ Anne said. ‘Shit. What a bastard. What’s he say? Does he deny it?’
Annika closed her eyes and put a hand to her forehead. ‘I haven’t said anything,’ she said. ‘I’m going to deal with this my own way.’
‘What?’ Anne said. ‘Rubbish. Of course you’ve got to talk to him.’
Annika looked up. ‘I know he’s thinking about leaving me and the children. He’s started lying to me as well. And he has been unfaithful before.’
Anne looked astonished. ‘Who with?’
Annika tried to laugh and felt the stone forcing tears into her eyes.
‘With me,’ she finally said.
Anne Snapphane sighed heavily and looked at her with eyes of black glass. ‘You’ve got to talk to him.’
‘And I hear angels,’ Annika said, taking a deep breath. ‘They sing to me, and sometimes they talk to me. As soon as I get stressed they start up.’
And she shut her eyes and hummed their melancholy song.
Anne Snapphane took hold of her shoulders and pulled her round to face her with a stern, dark expression on her face.
‘You’ve got to get help,’ she said. ‘Do you hear me, Annika? For God’s sake, you can’t go round with a load of fairies in your head.’ She took a step closer, shaking Annika until her teeth rattled. ‘You mustn’t let go, Anki, listen to me.’
Annika pulled free of her friend’s grasp.
‘It’s okay,’ she said quietly. ‘They go away when I have something to think about. When I’m working, doing things. Do you want coffee, then?’
‘Green tea,’ Anne said. ‘If you’ve got any.’
Annika went into the kitchen with a peculiar bounce in her step, feeling the angels’ astonishment right down to her stomach. She had called their bluff. They didn’t think she’d do that; they were sure they’d be able to sing and console her and terrorize her for ever without anyone ever finding out.
She poured water in the little copper pan, lit the stove with the lighter that only just managed to muster enough of a spark to ignite the blue flames.
The voices started up, weak, isolated…
She gasped for breath and slapped the side of her head with one hand to make them shut up.
Anne came into the kitchen in her stockinged feet; she had got some colour back in her face, an inquisitive
