The bus pulled away, and the Minister of Culture was left staring out at the railway track, her breath drifting like clouds around her. She seemed to hesitate.
Annika switched off the engine and pulled out the key, waiting inside the warm interior of the car without taking her eyes off the woman.
Then Karina Bjornlund suddenly turned round and started walking towards the crown of the hill, away from the industrial units.
Annika stiffened, fumbled with the ignition key, biting the inside of her cheek.
Should she get out and follow the minister? Drive up and offer her a lift? Wait and see if she came back?
She rubbed her eyes for a moment.
Wherever Karina Bjornlund was going, she evidently didn’t want company.
Annika opened the car door, pulling her hat and ski-gloves from her bag, pushed the door shut and locked the car with a bleep. She gasped for breath, reeling from the cold; how was it possible to live in a climate like this?
She blinked a few times; the cold was making the air incredibly dry, hurting her eyes.
The daylight was dark grey now, almost gone. The sky was distant, clear and entirely colourless; a few stars twinkled above the mounds of ore. Two streetlamps further down the road spread a dull, hopeless light in a small circle around their own feet. Karina Bjornlund had disappeared over the crown of the hill, and there was no other sign of life anywhere. The rumble from the steelworks was carried through the cold along the railway track, reaching her like a dull vibration.
Walking carefully, she started up the hill, looking hard at every bush and shadow. At the top of the hill the road swung sharply to the left and led back into the housing estate. Straight ahead was a narrow track, clear of snow and ice, with a sign forbidding vehicle traffic.
Annika narrowed her eyes and peered around her, unable to see the minister anywhere. She took a few steps along the private track, jogging as fast as she dared on the ice and grit. She passed a bundle of cables leading down to the railway tracks and ran past an empty car park, then the track emerged alongside the railway line again. Far ahead the ironworks, coke ovens, and blastfurnaces sat brooding darkly against the winter sky, millions of tons of ore turned into a rolling carpet of steel. To the left was nothing but slurry and snow. The full moon had risen behind the mounds of ore, its blue light mixing with the yellow lights illuminating the ore railway.
She ran for several minutes until she was forced to stop and catch her breath, coughing drily and quietly into her glove, blinking moisture out of her eyes and looking round for Karina Bjornlund.
The track looked as though it was rarely used. She could see just a few footprints, some tracks left by dogs and a bicycle, but no minister.
The angels suddenly burst out in song.
She hit the back of her head so hard that the voices fell silent. She shut her eyes and breathed for a few seconds, listening to the emptiness in her head, and in the echo of the silence she suddenly heard other voices, human voices, coming from within the forest up ahead. She couldn’t make out any words, could just hear a male and a female voice talking fairly quietly.
She passed beneath a viaduct, either a road or a railway, Annika couldn’t tell. She no longer knew where she was. The voices grew louder, and in the light of the moon and the railway track she suddenly saw footsteps leading into an opening in the scrub.
She stopped, peering through the low trees, just able to make out shadows, spirits.
‘Well, I’m here now,’ Karina Bjornlund was saying. ‘Don’t hurt me.’
A rough male voice with a Finnish accent answered, ‘Karina, don’t be scared. I’ve never meant you any harm.’
‘Believe me, Goran, no one’s ever done me as much harm as you have. Say what you want and… let me go.’
Annika caught her breath, her stomach turning somersaults, her dry mouth turned to sandpaper. She took a careful step into the first of the footprints already there in the snow, then another, and another. In the moonlight she saw the forest open out into a clearing, and at its centre was a small brick building with a sheet-metal roof and sealed-up windows.
In the middle of the clearing stood the Minister of Culture in her thick fur, and a thin grey man in a long coat and leather cap, with a dark duffel bag beside him.
Goran Nilsson, the ruler with divine power, the Yellow Dragon.
Annika stared at him with painfully dry eyes.
Terrorist, mass-murderer, evil personified, this was what it looked like, hunched and dull and trembling slightly?
She had to call the police.
Then realized: her mobile was in the bag on the passenger seat of the Volvo down by the abandoned car.
44
‘How can you think I’ve ever meant you any harm?’ the man said, his voice carrying through the still air. ‘All my life you’re the person who’s meant the most to me.’
The woman shuffled her feet nervously.
‘I got your messages,’ she said, and Annika realized at once why she sounded so scared. She had received the same warnings as Margit.
The man, the Yellow Dragon, lowered his head for a few seconds. Then he looked up again, and Annika could see his eyes. In the strange light they glimmered red and hollow.
‘I had a reason for coming here, and you’re all going to hear it,’ he said, his voice as cold as the wind. ‘You may have come a long way, but I’ve come further.’
The woman was shaking under her fur, her voice scared, and she was close to tears. ‘Don’t hurt me.’
The man went up to her. Annika could see him pull something from his coat pocket, black, shiny.
A weapon. A revolver.
‘I shan’t trouble you again,’ he said quietly. ‘This is the last time. You’ll just have to wait at the meeting place. There’s something I need to take care of first.’
The wind freshened, tugging at the branches of the pine trees.
‘Please,’ the woman pleaded. ‘Let me go.’
‘In,’ he said harshly. ‘Now.’
And Karina Bjornlund picked up her bag from the ground and, with the revolver aimed at her back, walked inside the little brick building. Goran Nilsson didn’t move, watched her go inside, put the gun in his pocket again, turned round and walked over to the duffel bag leaning against the wall of the building.
Annika took a deep breath. She had heard more than enough. She moved softly and carefully back along the trail of footprints and emerged onto the track, casting a last glance at the trees so she could describe the site properly to the police.
Someone was moving, someone was coming towards her.
Her breathing came hard and deep. She looked around in panic.
Ten metres or so behind her was a metal box with a mass of thick cables snaking out of it, and behind it was a thicket of young pine trees. Annika fled towards them, her feet scarcely touching the crunching surface of the track. She flew into the sharp branches, parting them with both hands, then peered behind her.
The grey man emerged into the dim light from the railway track, dragging the duffel bag behind him. It was clearly very heavy. He stood still on the icy track for a few seconds, then put his hand to his stomach and bent over, his breath rising from his mouth in panting bursts. Annika craned her neck to see better. It looked like the man was about to fall flat on his face.
Then his breathing calmed down, he straightened his back and took a few unsteady steps forward.
Then he looked straight at Annika.
Horrified, she let go off the branch she had been holding back, and put her hand over her mouth to muffle the
