'You can tell when people are sexually involved. They move into each other's personal space, they stand a bit too close, their hands touch at work. Little things, but decisive.'
'But she didn't like all women?'
'Not at all. She hated coquettish women. She would pull them to pieces, scrap everything they did, and bully them into resigning. Sometimes I think she enjoyed firing people in public. One of the nastiest ones was this young woman, Beata Ekesjo. In front of a whole group of people…'
Annika's eyes were now wide open.
'Really. So what did Ekesjo think of Christina?'
'She hated her. Absolutely and utterly,' Evert Danielsson said, and Annika felt the hair on her neck rising. Now she knew the man was lying. Only yesterday Beata Ekesjo had told her how much she admired Christina Furhage. Christina was her role model and her death had left her brokenhearted. There was no doubt about that. Evert Danielsson had shot himself in the foot. He couldn't know that Annika knew who Beata Ekesjo was.
It was half past eleven and the restaurant was beginning to fill up with lunch guests. Evert Danielsson fidgeted and looked around. People from the Secretariat would come here for lunch. He obviously wasn't keen on being seen talking to a journalist. Annika decided to go for the last, decisive questions.
'So who do you think killed Christina, and why?'
Evert Danielsson licked his lips and grabbed the tabletop again.
'I don't know who could've done it. I really haven't the faintest idea. But it must have been someone who hated her. You don't blow up half a stadium unless you're seriously angry.'
'Are you aware of any links between Christina Furhage and Stefan Bjurling?'
Evert Danielsson looked nonplussed.
'Who is Stefan Bjurling?'
'The second victim. He worked for one of your subcontractors, Building &Plumbing.'
'Oh, Building &Plumbing is one of our best subcontractors. They've had a finger in more or less every building project that SOCOG has been involved in over the past seven years. Was it one of their guys that died?'
'Don't you read the papers?' Annika wondered. 'He was a foreman, thirty-nine years old. Ash-blond hair, sturdy guy…'
'Oh, him,' Evert Danielsson said. 'Yes, I know who he is, Steffe. He is…
'His workmates said he was a nice guy. A cheerful man.'
Evert Danielsson gave a laugh. 'The things people will say about the dead!'
'Is there a connection between him and Christina Furhage?' Annika persisted.
The former head of the Secretariat pursed his lips and gave it some thought. His eyes traveled over a group of people entering the restaurant. He momentarily stiffened but then relaxed again. No one he knew.
'Yes, there is, actually. I mean, not so much of a connection. Probably more of a coincidence,' he said.
Annika waited, not turning a hair.
'Christina sat next to Stefan at that big Christmas dinner last week. They sat there talking until long after people had left their tables.'
'Was that at the Basque restaurant?'
'No, that was the Secretariat's Christmas dinner. This was at the big Olympic do for all the functionaries, voluntary workers, and subcontractors' employees… We won't be throwing a party like that again until after the Games are over.'
'So Christina Furhage and Stefan Bjurling knew one another?' Annika said in surprise.
Evert Danielsson's expression suddenly darkened. He remembered that he no longer could say 'we' and that he probably wouldn't be attending any more Olympic parties.
'Well, it seemed like it. They sat there talking most of the evening. But I really think I have to…'
'How come Stefan Bjurling was seated next to the MD?' Annika asked rapidly. 'Why wasn't she sitting next to the chairman of the board or some other big shot?'
Evert Danielsson gave her an annoyed look. 'They weren't there. This was a party for the foot soldiers. It was very grand, though. Christina chose the place:
He stood up, pushing at the chair with his legs.
'What do you think they talked about?'
'I haven't got the faintest idea. Look, I really have to go now.'
Annika got to her feet, too, collected her stuff, and shook hands with the ex-head of the Olympic Secretariat.
'Give me a call if there's anything you want to add,' she said.
He nodded and hurried out of the restaurant.
Instead of taking a right by the exit, Annika went down one floor to Anne Snapphane's office. Anne was on Christmas leave, Annika was told. Nice for her. The receptionist called a taxi for Annika.
While the car drove toward the paper, she was sorting through the information in her head. She couldn't tell the police about this; her sources were protected by law. But she could use Evert Danielsson's statement to formulate questions, including some that involved him.
Lena heard Sigrid, the daily help, singing in the kitchen while putting yesterday's dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Sigrid was a woman of about fifty whose husband had left her when the daughters had grown up and Sigrid had grown too big. She did the cleaning, washing-up, shopping, laundry, and cooking in the Furhage- Milander household. It was a full-time job. She had been doing it for close to two years now. Mother had welcomed the recession: Before they had had problems finding people and making them stay. In recent years, people had begun thinking twice about leaving a job. To tell the truth, all the nondisclosure agreements and threats of lawsuits that Mother forced them to sign may have had a cooling effect on their willingness to be employed. But Sigrid seemed to be happy and never had she been happier than during the last few days. She seemed to like being at the center of things, of being able to move freely in the world-famous murder victim's home. She would be cursing the nondisclosure agreement now, because Sigrid probably would open her heart to the media if she had a chance. She had cried to great effect off and on, but they were the kind of tears people had shed over Princess Diana. Lena recognized them. Because Sigrid had hardly met her mother since the papers had been signed, although she had been cleaning the toilet and washing her dirty underwear for nearly two years. Maybe that gave a certain feeling of intimacy.
Sigrid had bought both the evening papers and left them on the table in the hallway. Lena took them into the library where her poor father lay sleeping on the couch with his mouth open. She sat down in her armchair and put her feet on the antique table beside it. Both the tabloids were full of the new Bomber murder, but there were a few things about her mother's death, too. She couldn't help reading the details about the explosives, which had now been analyzed. Maybe the psychologist at the hospital had been wrong in not classifying her as a pyromaniac. She knew that she liked fire and everything connected with explosions and fires. Things like fire engines, fire extinguishers, hydrants, and gas masks also got her excited. Oh, well, she'd been declared fit and wasn't going to tell the doctors their diagnosis might be wrong after all.
She leafed through one paper and continued with the other. Before the center pages, she saw a spread and she felt like she'd been hit in the stomach. Her mother was looking up at her from the paper with smiling eyes. Under the picture it said in big letters, 'THE IDEAL WOMAN.' Lena threw the paper down and screamed out, a howl that cut through the light stillness of the Art-Nouveau apartment. Poor Daddy woke up and looked about him in a daze, saliva hanging from the corner of his mouth. She rushed to her feet, threw the table at the door, and grabbed the bookcase nearest to her. The whole section fell over, books and wood crashing with a deafening noise to the floor, crushing the TV and the stereo.
'Lena!'
She heard her father's distressed call through the red haze of her hatred and stopped short.
'Lena, Lena, what are you doing?'
