Red Wolf

Annika stared at the red-painted wall of a Norrbotten farmhouse and adopted a neutral tone of voice.

‘I was wondering if the Red Wolf had met the Yellow Dragon recently?’ she said, and listened intently to the noise on the line, voices talking, a metallic clattering in the background, a tannoy announcing something, then a second later the line went dead.

Annika looked at the display. She pressed redial and got an impersonal electronic answering service, and ended the call without speaking.

Where had Karina Bjornlund been when she took the call? What was the metallic voice saying over the tannoy in the background?

She shut her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her temples.

‘Last call for SK009 to Stockholm, gate number five’?

A flight announcement, that much was certain. But SK? Didn’t that mean an SAS flight?

She called directory inquiries and asked to be put through to the Scandinavian Airlines System for business customers, and waited in a queue for thirty seconds until the call was picked up.

‘SK009 is the afternoon flight from Kallax to Arlanda,’ the sales assistant at SAS told her.

Annika felt the adrenalin pumping.

Karina Bjornlund was at the airport just five kilometres away and either was on her way back down to Stockholm or had just arrived and was collecting her bags. She considered booking her return flight to Stockholm but decided to wait, said thank you and ended the call.

Then she drove towards the roundabout, turned right and glided along frozen roads towards Kallax Airport.

Because of the taxi strike, anyone who didn’t have their own car was forced to take the bus from the airport into Lulea. Annika could see the queue trail back outside the terminal, huddled figures fighting against the cold and their own luggage. She was about to drive past the airport bus towards the hire-car parking lot when she caught sight of Karina Bjornlund.

The minister was at the back of the queue, patiently waiting her turn.

Thoughts ricocheted round Annika’s head. What was Bjornlund doing here?

She pulled up by the kerb, putting the car in neutral and pulling on the handbrake, stared at the minister and picked up her mobile again. She dialled the department and asked to speak to the minister’s press secretary. She was told that Karina Bjornlund had taken the day off.

‘I have a question about the proposal being presented tomorrow,’ Annika said, her eyes glued to the woman at the end of the queue. ‘I have to talk to her today.’

‘I’m afraid that isn’t possible,’ the press secretary said amiably. ‘Karina’s away and won’t be back until late this evening.’

‘Isn’t it a bit odd for a minister to take time off the day before a major proposal is presented to parliament?’ Annika said slowly, staring at Karina Bjornlund’s dark fur-coat.

The press secretary hesitated. ‘It’s a private matter,’ she said quietly. ‘Karina was called to an urgent meeting that couldn’t be postponed. It’s very unfortunate timing, I have to agree with you. Karina was very upset that she had to go.’

‘But she’ll be home this evening?’

‘That’s what she was hoping.’

What sort of meeting would make a minister abandon their work? A sick relative, a partner or child or parent? A meeting in Lulea, something she couldn’t avoid, something that took priority over everything else.

The Red Wolf.

The meeting to celebrate the return of the Dragon.

Annika’s fingers started to tingle, and sweat broke out along her back.

‘Thank you,’ she said, and ended the call.

She drove past the bus, and watched in the rear-view mirror as the minister climbed on, then let the bus pass her and stayed a hundred metres behind it. Just before the Bergnas bridge she decided it was time to get closer.

You’re sitting in there, Annika thought, staring at the vehicle’s filthy back window. You’re on your way somewhere that you don’t want to be seen, but I’m here.

And the angels starting singing gently to her, slowly and mournfully.

‘Oh, shut up!’ Annika yelled, hitting her head with the palm of her hand, and the voices disappeared.

She followed the bus over the bridge and entered the frozen city, driving past panelled houses and banks of snow and frozen cars, and turned off at a junction by a petrol station.

The airport bus stopped just across the street from the City Hotel’s heavy facade. She braked and leaned forward to watch the passengers getting off. Her breath misted the widescreen, and she wiped it with her sleeve.

Karina Bjornlund was the second last off. The Minister of Culture stepped carefully out of the bus with a black leather bag in her hand. Annika could feel herself on the verge of hyperventilating.

A bag to breathe into, she thought, realizing that she didn’t have one. Instead she held her breath and counted to ten three times, and her heartbeat slowed down.

It was getting dark, but the sunset was as slow and gradual as dawn had been, and she watched Karina Bjornlund stand and freeze at the bus-stop, a thickset, dark woman in a fur-coat and no hat.

The Red Wolf, Annika thought, trying to make out the features of her face in the shadows, imagining that she could see a pair of anxious, sad eyes.

What are you doing here?

Her mother lives on Storgatan, she thought. Maybe she’s on her way there.

Then realized: this is Storgatan. Why would she be standing at a bus-stop to go somewhere else? She hasn’t come to visit her mother.

Suddenly her back window was filled with the headlights of one of the local buses. She put the car in gear and rolled forward a few metres to let the bus pull in, passing the little gaggle of people waiting in the queue. In her rear-view mirror she watched as Karina Bjornlund picked her bag up and climbed on board.

I’ll follow the bus to see where she gets off, Annika thought, and rolled a bit further until she realized she was heading into a pedestrianized street. People were walking slowly in front of the car, challenging her with their stares. She looked up and noticed a sign indicating that all vehicles apart from public transport were forbidden. She felt herself starting to panic again, grappled with the gear-stick to find reverse, and saw the bus gliding slowly towards her. She turned the wheel as hard as she could and swerved on crunching tyres.

The bus slid past and she felt the sweat sticking her legs to the seat. She was about to lose sight of the minister, and had no idea where she was heading.

Bus number one, she thought. The bus that Linus Gustafsson usually took.

Svartostaden.

East, towards Swedish Steel.

And she drove down towards the harbour, turning right towards the ironworks. She pulled over to the side and waited; if she was right the bus would have to pass her here. Four minutes later the bus glided past her and carried on towards Malmudden.

She just had time to register the name of the street, Lovskatan, as the bus turned right; wasn’t that where Margit Axelsson used to live? Another sign, Foreningsgatan, and the bus carried on along the edge of a messy and desolate industrial estate, huddling in the shadow of an enormous jet-black mound of iron-ore. On the left was a row of identical two-storey apartment blocks from the forties, and up ahead loomed a huge, abandoned industrial building that seemed to have grown into the side of the mountain of iron-ore. Dark windows sent warnings into the twilight, cold cries into the darkness. She followed the bus as the road swung up and left and ran alongside the railway line. An immense steel pipe hung high above, and below lurked a row of graffiti-covered and ramshackle industrial units, surrounded by pipes, steel girders, tyres, pallets. No sign of life anywhere.

The bus indicated and pulled in at a bus-stop. Annika braked and pulled up behind an abandoned car twenty metres further down the hill.

Karina Bjornlund got off, clutching her leather bag. Annika slumped down in her seat and stared at her.