The Bomber

Annika was feeling a bit dizzy from the mulled wine when she reached the paper. Not a very pleasant feeling. She concentrated on walking in a straight line. She didn't talk to anyone on the way to her office. Eva-Britt Qvist's chair was empty. She had already gone home, even though her working hours were until 5 P.M. Annika threw her coat and scarf on the couch and went and collected two mugs of coffee. Why had she drunk that damned glogg?

She started by calling her contact. Busy signal. She hung up and started writing down what she had found out about Christina's children, that the son had died and the daughter was a pyromaniac. She finished her first mug of coffee and brought the other one with her to the computer terminal where she ran a search of the archives. Yes, a children's home in Botkyrka had burned down six years before. A fourteen-year-old girl had started the fire. Nobody was hurt but the building had been completely destroyed. So far the details of Helena Starke's outburst tallied.

She went back to her office and called her contact again. This time the call went through.

'I know you have a right to be angry with me about the security codes,' was the first thing she said to him.

The man sighed. 'What do you mean, 'angry'? Are you serious? You blew our best lead sky-high, and you ask me if I'm angry? I was fucking furious. Mostly with myself for talking about it in the first place.'

Annika closed her eyes and felt her heart sink deep into her shoes. It was pointless to try and find excuses about editors writing headlines they shouldn't have. The only thing that would work here was to go on the offensive.

'Oh, please,' Annika said in as reproachful a tone of voice as she could muster. 'Who revealed what exactly? I had the whole story and sat on it for twenty-four hours. Just like you asked. I think you're being unfair.'

'Unfair? This is a murder investigation, for Christ's sake! What's fair got to do with it?'

'It wouldn't have taken a total genius to figure out that there were security codes involved. You shouldn't have let me write anything at all,' Annika said dryly.

The man exhaled slowly. She had him.

'Okay, give me your apologies and let's be done with it.'

Annika took a breath. 'I'm sorry that the words 'security codes' got in the headline. As you may have noticed, they were nowhere in the actual text. The editor wrote the headline sometime in the early morning. He was only trying to do a good job. He didn't know.'

'Damned editors,' the police officer said. 'Well, what is it you want now?'

Annika smiled.

'Have you questioned Christina's daughter, Lena Milander?'

'About what?'

'About what she was doing last Friday night?'

'Why do you ask?'

'I've found out about her pyromania.'

'Fire fixation,' the man corrected her. 'Pyromania is an extremely rare condition. It's very precise. A pyromaniac has to meet five distinct criteria that largely have to do with a person having a pathological fascination with, and being excited by, both fire and everything connected with fire, like fire brigades, fire extinguishers…'

'All right, fire fixation, then. Have you?'

'Yes, we've checked her out.'

'And?'

'That's all I can say.'

Annika fell silent. She wondered whether she should say anything about the son that died but decided not to. A dead five-year-old had nothing to do with this.

'So what's happened with the security codes?'

'Do you think I should tell you?'

'Come off it,' Annika said.

The man paused.

'We're working on it,' was all he said.

'Do you have a suspect?'

'No, not at this stage.'

'Any leads?'

'Yes, of course, what the hell do you think we do up here?'

'Okay,' Annika said and looked at her notes. 'How about this: You're still looking into the security codes- I can write that now that it's out in the open, can't I? That you've had several people in for questioning without finding a particular suspect but that you're working on several leads at the moment.'

'That sounds about right,' her contact said.

Annika hung up with a taste of bitter disappointment in her mouth. The idiot who had written that headline had ruined years of work for her. What she had found out now was nothing, nada, the usual bullshit. Now she had to rely on her colleagues and their sources.

At that moment Berit and Patrik popped their heads in the door.

'Are you busy?'

'No, come right in. Take a seat, just chuck my clothes on the floor. They're so dirty, it won't make any difference.'

'Where have you been?' Berit asked and hung Annika's coat on a hook.

'In the mud outside the Olympic Secretariat. I hope you've had better luck than I have today,' she said cheerlessly and gave them a brief outline of the conversation with her contact.

'Accident at work,' Berit comforted her. 'Shit happens.'

Annika sighed. 'Well, let's get started. What have you got today, Berit?'

'I've told you about my interview with the chauffeur; he's quite good. And I've been making calls about that taxi tip off. It's odd. No one wants to say anything about where Christina disappeared to after the Christmas party. We don't know what she was doing between midnight and 3:17.'

'Right, so you have two things: Christina was afraid of being blown up, according to her private chauffeur, and her missing hours. Patrik?'

'I just got here, but I've made a couple of calls. Interpol is putting out an alert for the Tiger during the evening.'

'Really?' Annika said. 'Global?'

'I think so. Zone two, they said.'

'That's Europe,' Berit and Annika said simultaneously, and laughed.

'Any particular country?'

'Don't know,' Patrik answered.

'Okay, so you can deal with stuff that comes in this evening,' Annika said. 'Unfortunately I don't have much that's worth writing about, but I've discovered a couple of things.'

She told them about Christina Furhage's first husband, the wealthy old forestry official, about her dead son and pyromaniac of a daughter, Evert Danielsson's devastating love affair at work and his uncertain future, about Helena Starke's unexpected outburst, and the fact that she was a militant lesbian.

'Why are you poking about in all that?' Patrik said skeptically.

Annika gave him a look of mild indulgence.

'Because, dear boy, this type of general research into the human nature sometimes produces something. Cause and effect. An understanding of the individual and her impact on society. As you'll learn when you've been around here as long as I have.'

Patrik looked like he didn't believe her.

'Whatever. I just want to get my copy onto the front page,' he said.

Annika smiled slightly.

'Great. Shall we pack it in?'

Berit and Patrik left. She listened to Eko before she went into the evening news