‘What reason are they giving?’
Sophia started to cry again, he stood up and pushed the door shut properly.
‘Come on, love,’ he said, crouching down and stroking the hair from her face. ‘Tell me what happened.’
She pulled herself together and wiped her nose.
‘We’ll sort this out,’ he said. ‘Tell me.’
‘They called me in for a meeting,’ she said. ‘I was really pleased. I thought I was going to join the congress group, or maybe one of the committees, but instead this happened.’
‘But why?’
She shook her head. ‘They said it was part of the reorganization ahead of the merger with you, and then they sent me out. Thomas, I don’t understand. What’s going on?’
He kissed her on the forehead, stroked her hair, looked at his watch.
‘Darling,’ he said, ‘I have to get to my meeting, and I don’t have any contacts in the Federation…’
The words hung in the air. She looked at him, wide-eyed.
‘Can’t you pull any strings?’
He patted her cheek. ‘Well, I can try. This will all sort itself out, you’ll see.’
‘Do you think so?’ she said, and stood up.
He followed her, breathing in the scent of her apple hair.
‘Absolutely,’ he said, getting her coat.
She kissed him gently before turning round and letting him help her with her coat.
‘Can’t you come over tonight?’ she whispered into his neck. ‘I could cook something Italian.’
He felt the sweat break out between his shoulder blades.
‘Not tonight,’ he said quickly. ‘My wife’s home. Haven’t you seen the paper?’
‘What?’ She opened her damp eyes wide. ‘Which paper?’
He walked away from her, went over to the desk, and held up the front page of the
‘Cracked terrorist gang,’ Sophia read in astonishment and disbelief. ‘What does your wife do, exactly?’
Thomas looked at his wife as he replied. ‘She used to be head of the crime desk, but that took too much time from the family. Nowadays she’s an independent reporter, looking into official corruption and political scandals. She’s been working on this terrorism case for the last few weeks.’
He put the newspaper down, the picture facing upwards, noting the pride in his voice and behaviour.
‘She was supposed to come back yesterday, but this came up instead. She’s flying home this afternoon.’
‘Oh well,’ Sophia said, ‘I can understand that you’re busy tonight.’
She left without saying anything else, and he was surprised at how genuinely relieved he felt when she had gone.
Annika was staring at the countryside outside the window of the Arlanda Express. Frozen fields and icy farms rushed past but she barely registered them. Her eyes were fixed.
The night had disappeared as she had weighed up and analysed different options and their consequences, piecing together the facts and formulating her argument. Now the article was in her notepad, ready to be printed.
She shut her eyes and thought through her decisions one more time. One: the text would be published. Two: she had lived in the building on Hantverkargatan for ten years. That didn’t mean that her home was there. Thomas had never really liked living in the city, for him it would come as a relief.
Her phone started to vibrate in the inside pocket of the polar jacket. She pulled it out and saw it was Q, calling from his private number.
‘Congratulations,’ the head of the national crime unit said.
‘What for?’ Annika said.
‘I heard you got your mobile phone back.’
She smiled weakly. ‘From your lads up in Lulea. Hans Blomberg had it in his trouser pocket when they caught him out on the ice. What can I do for you today?’
‘I was wondering about something,’ he said. ‘It’s this business of the money.’
‘What money?’ Annika said.
‘Ragnwald’s money. A bag full of euros.’
Annika watched blue-panelled industrial units fly by at 160 kilometres an hour.
‘Don’t know what you mean,’ she said.
‘How did you find it?’
She shut her eyes, swaying with the movement of the train.
‘I was just out taking a walk. I stumbled across a bag of money that someone must have dropped. I handed it over to the police as lost property. Anything else you’re wondering?’
‘That’s Ragnwald’s life’s work,’ the commissioner said. ‘He killed people for money all his life and never used a franc to make his life easier, and because of that he was never caught. He collected it all in his doctor’s safety deposit box in Bilbao and took the whole lot out one month ago.’
Annika looked through the window again.
‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘I wonder what happened to it.’
‘Perhaps he dropped it? In a transformer box, perhaps?’
‘Perhaps, but I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.’
The commissioner chuckled, admitting defeat.
‘Do you know how much it was?’
‘I’d guess about twelve million.’
‘Almost fourteen; one hundred and twenty-eight million kronor.’
‘Wow.’
‘No one has reported the money as missing. If the owner doesn’t come forward within six months, it goes to the person who found it.’
‘But?’ Annika said.
‘But,’ Q said, ‘because the chief prosecutor in Lulea suspects that the money was the result of criminal activity, he’s considering impounding it.’
‘That’s bad luck,’ Annika said.
‘Hang on a moment, I haven’t finished. So that you don’t fight for the money, the prosecutor has decided to give you the customary ten per cent finder’s reward.’
The carriage, and the world, suddenly went very quiet. Annika saw a shopping mall and a garden centre swirl past.
‘Really?’ she said.
‘You’ll have to wait six months. Then it’s yours.’
She did the calculations in her head, stumbling over the zeros.
‘What happens if someone claims it?’
‘They’d have to describe the object the money was in when it was found, describe roughly where it was found, and naturally how they came to be in possession of it. Are you fond of money?’
‘Not particularly,’ Annika said. ‘It’s really only exciting when you haven’t got any.’
‘True enough.’
‘By the way,’ Annika said, opening the newspaper on the seat beside her, ‘who said Blomberg blew up the plane at F21?’
‘He did, he confessed to it. Why? Do you know otherwise?’
Annika saw Thord Axelsson in front of her, his face turned grey by lifelong secrets.
‘No, no,’ she said quickly, ‘I was just wondering how it all fitted together…’
‘Hmm,’ Q said, and hung up.
She was left sitting there with her phone, weighing it in her hand.
