Liza Marklund - Red Wolf

A broad grin broke out inside her.

‘Hello, darling.’

‘I’m going to stay at home today.’

Annika stroked her daughter’s cheek, cleared her throat and smiled. ‘I don’t think so. I’ll pick you up after lunch,’ she said, struggling up by straining her stomach muscles and kissing the girl on the mouth, licking at the peanut butter.

‘Before lunch.’

‘It’s Friday, so there’ll be ice-cream today.’

The girl pondered this. ‘After,’ she said finally, and ran out.

Thomas looked in through the door, his usual, normal face with its tired morning eyes and hair sticking out.

‘How are you feeling?’

She smiled at him, shut her eyes and stretched like a cat.

‘Okay, I think.’

‘We’re off now.’

When she opened her eyes he was gone.

Today she didn’t wait for the silence. She was in the shower before the front door had closed behind them. She washed her hair, put on a facepack, trimmed her split ends and massaged her legs with cream. She put on mascara and filed her nails smooth, and picked out a clean bra. She made coffee and a sandwich that she knew she would have trouble eating.

Then she sat at the kitchen table and felt the anxiety rush towards her, rolling out of the corners like dark clouds of smoke and poison gas, and she fled, leaving the coffee and sandwich and an unopened yogurt on the table.

Outside the snow had stopped, but the sky was still solid grey. Hard shards of ice were being blown about in the wind, along the streets and pavements, catching on her face and hair. She couldn’t make out any colours; the world had turned black and white, the sharp stone twisting in her chest.

Sophia Grenborg. Grev Turegatan.

She knew where that was. Christina Furhage used to live there. Without thinking, she started walking.

The façade was honey yellow and heavy with plaster embellishments, icicles hanging from the extremities, the glass of the bay windows shimmering unevenly, the door carved and dark brown.

Her feet and ears were freezing. She stamped the ground and adjusted her scarf better.

Wealthy middle-class , she thought, going up to the door.

The intercom was the modern sort that didn’t give away where in the building people lived. She stepped back and looked up at the façade, as though she’d be able to work out where Sophia Grenborg’s flat was. The snow blew into her eyes, making them water.

She crossed the street and stood in the doorway opposite, pulled out her mobile and dialled directory inquiries, then asked for Sophia Grenborg’s number, Grev Turegatan, and was put through. If Sophia had a caller-display phone then her number wouldn’t show, only the number for directory inquiries.

The phone rang. Annika stared at the building. Somewhere in there it was ringing and ringing, a telephone beside a bed where her husband had been last night.

After the fifth ring an answerphone clicked in. Annika held her breath, listening to the woman’s happy, breezy voice. ‘Hello, you’ve reached Sophia, I can’t take your call right now, but-’

Annika hung up, the breezy voice ringing in her ears, the stone in her chest starting to glow and spit.

She went back to the door, pressed one name after the other until an old lady finally answered.

‘Electricity,’ Annika said. ‘We need to read the meter in the basement, can you let us in?’

The lock buzzed and she pushed the door open on well-oiled hinges.

The stairwell was all gold and black marble, wooden panels of heavily polished oak reflecting the light from bronze lamps. A thick dark-blue carpet swallowed all sound.

Annika ran a finger along the beautiful grain of the dado rail as she walked towards the list of occupants beside the lift.

Sophia Grenborg’s name was listed in splendid isolation for the sixth floor.

Slowly she started to climb the stairs all the way up to the attic floor, soundlessly, slightly giddy.

Sophia’s front door was more modern than the others in the building – white and minimalistic.

Annika stared at the brushed bronze nameplate, her feet wide apart, anchored to the marble. Her chest rose and sank, the stone tore and pulled. Then she took out her mobile again and dialled directory inquiries again, this time asking for the number of the Federation of County Councils.

‘Sophia Grenborg, please,’ she said.

The voice that answered sounded just as breezy as it had on the answer machine.

‘My name’s Sara, and I’m calling from the journal County Council World ,’ Annika said, staring at the nameplate. ‘I’m calling a few people before Christmas to see if I could just ask one quick question.’

Sophia Grenborg laughed, a light, tinkling sound. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I suppose so…’

‘What would you like for Christmas?’ Annika said, running the palm of her hand over Sophia’s front door.

The woman at the other end laughed again. ‘A kiss from my beloved,’ she said, ‘although some bath salts would be good, too.’

Everything went black before Annika’s eyes, a dark sheet drifting past through her brain.

‘Beloved?’ she said in a flat voice. ‘Would that be your husband?’

More laughter. ‘He’s a bit of a secret at the moment. County Council World , you said? That’s a decent magazine, you cover the things that matter in our field really well. Which issue will this be in?’

Annika closed her eyes and ran a hand over her forehead, the stairwell was starting to tilt, a sucking wave shifting from wall to wall.

‘Sorry, what?’

‘The questionnaire! Will it be out before Christmas?’

She was forced to crouch down, leaning her back against the door.

‘We don’t quite know how much space we’ve got, it depends on adverts.’ Did County Council World have adverts? She had no idea.

The line fell silent. Annika could hear Sophia Grenborg breathing, listened to the other woman’s rhythmic intake of air.

‘Well,’ Sophia said, ‘if there wasn’t anything else…’

‘My surname’s Grenborg too,’ Annika said. ‘Do you think we could be related?’

The laughter was less hearty this time. ‘Hmm, what did you say your name was?’

‘Sara,’ Annika said. ‘Sara Grenborg.’

‘Which branch of the family?’

Was she imagining things, or had Sophia’s accent got a bit posher?

‘Södermanland,’ Annika said.

‘We’re from Österbotten, from the Väse manor-house. Are you descended from Carl-Johan?’

‘No,’ Annika said. ‘From Sofia Katarina.’

All of a sudden she could no longer be bothered to listen to Sophia La-di-da bloody Grenborg, and she hung up in the middle of a word.

She sat in silence and waited for her pulse to stop racing, resting a hand against Sophia Grenborg’s front door, gradually absorbing the woman into her bloodstream.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on the cold staircase, listened to her voice, saw her sitting doing her lovely work in her lovely Federation, just loving the articles in County Council World . A woman so cold and well-behaved and appreciated that her own husband had chosen to kiss her outside NK, a woman who was everything she would never be.

She left the building without looking back.

The man woke up with the pink duvet cover tickling his nose. He snorted, then groaned as the pain from his stomach reached his head. The wooden panels in the ceiling swayed slowly to and fro, he looked away and stared into the boarded walls, shocked at how bad his breath smelled. The smell was taking him over.

La mort est dans cette ville , he thought, panting for breath.

He could see the doctor’s face floating above him, as it had the day he woke up from the anaesthetic, his friend’s clenched jaw and evasive gaze; he had already been informed about the consequences and alternatives and understood immediately.