The Bomber

EVIL

My intuition warned me of its existence and power early on. Reason, surrounding me on all sides in the form of adults, was trying to tear this certainty out of me. 'That's just make-believe,' they would say. 'That's not how it is in real life, and anyway, it's always the forces of good that win out.' I knew this was a lie because I had heard the story of Hansel and Gretel. There, evil prevailed everywhere, even though the author insisted it was all part of a grander design. Evil forced the little children out into the woods, evil fatted Hans up and heated the oven, but Gretel turned out to be the most evil of them all, for she was the one who actually committed murder.

Stories of that kind never scared me. You don't fear the entity that you're familiar with. This gave me an advantage over the world around me.

Experiences later on in life naturally showed me I had been right. In our country, we've made the fatal mistake of abolishing evil. It doesn't exist officially. Sweden is a state governed by law; understanding and logic have taken the place of evil. That made it possible for evil to move underground, and there, in the dark, it thrived more than ever. It fed on envy and suppressed hatred, became impervious, and with time grew so dark that it became invisible. But I recognized it. Anyone who has once known its being can smell it out, wherever it lies hidden.

A person who has learned from Gretel knows how to deal with evil. Like cures like, that's the only way. I saw evil in the malicious faces at my workplace, in the eyes of the members of the board, in the taut smiles of my colleagues- and I would smile back. The seven-headed monster was nowhere to be seen; it hid behind union talks and in supposedly objective discussions. But I knew and played along. They couldn't fool me. I held up a mirror, and their powers were reflected.

But I saw it make other advances in society. I noted how the violence against several of my employees was ignored by police and prosecutors. A woman in my office reported her ex-husband some twenty times, and every time the police classified it as a 'domestic incident.' The social services appointed a mediator, but I knew it was futile. I could smell the stench of evil, and I knew her time was up. The woman would die because no one took evil seriously. 'He didn't mean any harm; he really only wanted to see the children,' I once heard the mediator say. I told my secretary to shut the door because people's inability to act vexes me.

In the end, the woman had her throat slit with a bread knife and those around her reacted with surprise and dismay. They looked for an explanation but overlooked the most obvious one.

Evil escaped yet another time.

THURSDAY 23 DECEMBER

The apartment was empty when Annika woke up. It was half past eight and the sun shone in through the bedroom window. She got up and found a big note on the fridge door, held up with Santa Claus magnets:

'Thanks for being there.

Kisses from your husband.

P.S. I'll take the kids to daycare. Your turn to pick up.'

She made herself a cheese sandwich while leafing through the morning papers. They were also making a great deal of the government regional bill, and they had started their Christmas material, a historical retrospective of Christmas through the ages and stuff like that. There was nothing new on the Bomber. She had a quick shower, then microwaved a cup of water and added some instant coffee, which she drank while getting dressed. She took the bus to the old entrance and took the back stairs up to the newsroom. She didn't want to see anyone until she'd seen what had been published on Christina Furhage's sexuality.

There wasn't a single smutty line about Christina Furhage or Helena Starke in the entire paper. Annika switched on her computer and entered the so-called Historical server. You could read discarded copy there for up to twenty-four hours afterwards.

Nils Langeby had indeed written a piece titled 'Christina Furhage- Lesbian.' The copy had been discarded at 22:50 last night. Annika clicked to open it and skimmed through it. What she saw made her feel faint. The named source who supposedly had confirmed that Christina Furhage was a lesbian was a woman at the Olympic Secretariat whom Annika never had heard of. She said: 'Well, of course we wondered. Christina always wanted to work with Helena Starke, and a lot of us found that peculiar. Everyone knew that Helena Starke is one of those… Some people even thought they were an item.' The reporter then quoted a couple of anonymous sources saying they'd seen the two women together out on the town.

At the end was a quote from Helena Starke herself: 'The last time I saw Christina was at the restaurant last Friday night. We left at the same time. We each went home to our respective houses.'

That was it. No wonder Schyman had pulled the story.

Annika read on and was hit by an unpleasant thought: How the hell did Nils Langeby get hold of Helena Starke's unlisted phone number, if indeed he had talked to her?

She looked in the newsroom electronic contacts book and saw that she had made a mistake when inputting the woman's number. She had put it in the common book, instead of in her private one. Without a moment's hesitation, she lifted the receiver and dialed Helena's number to apologize. She got the phone company's automated response: 'The number has been disconnected. The customer has not registered a forwarding number.' Helena Starke must have left the country.

Annika sighed and went through what had been printed. They had chosen to lead with something completely different from the Bomber story: a celebrity telling all about his incurable condition. One of the anchors on the public service television sports desk suffered from gluten intolerance; he was allergic to flour and recounted how his life had changed since he was diagnosed with the ailment a year before. It was okay for a lead on a day like this, the day before Christmas Eve. Anne Snapphane would fall on it.

Herman Osel's snapshot of Christina Furhage and Stefan Bjurling was lousy, but it worked. The two murder victims were sitting next to each other in a dark room. The flash had given Christina red-eye and her teeth shone white. Stefan Bjurling was pulling some kind of a face. The photo was blurred but was spread over pages six and seven with Patrik's piece about the police hunt directly underneath. The headline was the one Ingvar Johansson had coined: 'Now They're Both Dead.' Patrik's story on the explosives was on page eight. She would tell him he'd done a good job when she next saw him.

Annika leafed through the rival, which had opted for a lead about the economy: 'Do Your Tax Returns Now- Save Thousands.' You could always lead with stuff like that at the end of December because there would always be one tax law or another changing at the turn of the year. Annika couldn't be bothered to read the advice. It never concerned the likes of herself, people who neither saved in share funds, nor owned houses or drove a company car to work. She knew this kind of material sold well but believed you should use it sparingly.

She fished out the disk from her bag on which Christina Furhage's lover really told all about their last hours and put it in the drawer together with the rest of her sensitive material. She called her contact, but he didn't answer. He had to sleep some time. In a fit of restlessness, she walked out to the newsroom, and noted that Berit wasn't there yet. She asked the picture desk to call Herman Osel to arrange his payment, fetched coffee, and said good morning to Eva-Britt Qvist.

'So what was the fuss about yesterday?' the secretary asked with poorly disguised glee.

'Fuss?' Annika said, pretending to search her mind. 'What do you mean?'

'Here in the newsroom. You and Spike?'

'Oh, you mean Spike's bullshit front page on Christina Furhage as a lesbian? Well, I don't know what happened, but Anders Schyman must have stopped it. Poor Spike, talk about a loser,' Annika said and walked into her office. She couldn't resist it.

She drank her coffee and started outlining the day's work. The police might pick up the Bomber today, and most likely they would not announce it over the radio. So they had to rely on sources other than the tipsters. She would have to talk to Berit and Ingvar Johansson about that. Personally, she was going to try to put the pieces of