A bottle of large yellow pills.
Goran Nilsson had been heavily medicated towards the end.
A packet of suppositories.
A box of red and white capsules.
She sighed and reached in one last time.
A five-centimetre-thick bundle of notes.
She stopped and stared at the money, as a light wind blew eerily through the trees.
Euros. Hundred-euro notes.
She looked around her. The sky was flaming, blast-furnace number two over at the ironworks was roaring.
How much?
She pulled off her gloves and ran a finger over the notes, new notes, entirely unused, at least a hundred of them.
One hundred hundred-euro notes.
Ten thousand euros, almost one hundred thousand kronor.
She pulled on her gloves again, leaned over and pulled out two more bundles.
She folded down the sides of the bag and looked openmouthed at its contents. Nothing but bundles of euros, dozens of them. She pressed the bag, trying to work out how many layers there were inside. A lot. An absurd number.
Then she felt sick.
The executioner’s death-tainted bequest to his children.
Without reflecting any more about it she picked up the bag and threw the money into the boot of the car.
49
The glass internal doors of the City Hotel slid open with a swishing sound. Annika walked into the chandelier-lit space, blinking against the light.
‘I think she’s just walked in,’ the receptionist said into a telephone behind the counter. ‘Annika Bengtzon?’
Annika looked at the young woman.
‘It is you, isn’t it? From the
‘Which one?’
The woman listened.
‘Anders Schyman,’ she called across the lobby.
Annika hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and walked over to the desk.
‘Tell him I’ll call him in five minutes, I just need to check in.’
Ten seconds of silence.
‘He says he wants to talk to you now.’
Annika reached for the receiver.
‘What do you want?’
The editor-in-chief sounded muted and clenched when he spoke.
‘The newspaper’s telegram agency has just sent out a newsflash that the police in Lulea have cracked a thirty-year-old terrorist cell. That the attack on a Draken plane at F21 has been cleared up, that an international hitman has been found dead, and that a suspected terrorist is still at large.’
Annika glanced at the receptionist’s inquisitive ears, turned round and stretched the lead as far as she could.
‘Goodness,’ she said.
‘It says you were there when the hitman died. That you were locked up with some of the terrorists. That Minister of Culture Karina Bjornlund was one of the members. That you alerted the police so that they could be arrested.’
Annika shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
‘Oops,’ she said
‘What are you planning for tomorrow?’
She glanced at the receptionist over her shoulder, who was trying hard to look as though she wasn’t listening.
‘Nothing, of course,’ she said. ‘I’m not allowed to write about terrorism, that was a direct order. I obey my orders.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Schyman said. ‘But what are you writing? We’ve torn up everything we’ve got, all the way to the centrefold.’
She clenched her jaw.
‘Not one single line. Not in the
There was a short, astonished silence.
‘Now you’re being silly,’ he eventually said. ‘That would be a very bad miscalculation on your part.’
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘but who’s responsible for the miscalculations on this story?’
Silence echoed along the line. She knew the editor-in-chief was fighting against a justifiable instinct to tell her to go to hell and slam the phone down, but with an entirely empty news section he couldn’t afford to.
‘I’m on my way to bed,’ she said. ‘Was there anything else you wanted?’
Anders Schyman started to say something, but changed his mind. She could hear him breathing down the line.
‘I’ve had some good news today,’ he said, trying to sound conciliatory.
She swallowed her derision. ‘Oh?’
‘I’m going to be the new chair of the Newspaper Publishers’ Association.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘I knew you’d be pleased,’ he said. ‘Why aren’t you answering your mobile, by the way?’
‘There’s no coverage up here. Goodnight.’
She handed the phone back to the receptionist.
‘Can I check in now, please?’
The door of the lift was heavy and Annika had to strain to push it open. She stumbled out onto the fourth floor, the thick carpet swallowing her steps.
Her business-class room was off to the left. The hotel corridor was tilting slightly from side to side, and she had to put her hand out to steady herself against the wall twice.
She found her room, pushed the card in, waited for the little bleep and the green light.
She was greeted by a gentle hum, and narrow slivers of light creeping round the closed curtains, her safe haven on earth. She shut the door behind her; it closed with a well-oiled click. She let her bag slide to the floor and switched on the main lamp.
Hans Blomberg was sitting on her bed.
50
She froze to ice, her body utterly rigid. She couldn’t breathe.
‘Good evening, young lady,’ the archivist said, pointing a pistol at her.
She stared at the man, his grey cardigan and friendly face, trying to get her brain to work.
‘What a long time you’ve been. I’ve been waiting for several hours.’
