Liza Marklund - Red Wolf

‘Reporter for Radio Sjuhärad,’ Annika reminded her.

‘You know what I mean,’ Anne said, and stood up. ‘I’ll go and look at Artillerigatan, did they give the door-code?’

Annika printed out the details with the code and agent’s number.

‘Are you coming?’

Annika shook her head, and sat and listened as Anne went into the hall and pulled on her boots and coat, headband and scarf.

‘I’ll call and tell you all about it,’ she called from the front door, and the angels sang a little farewell song.

Annika quickly performed a new search and the voices faded away, as she looked at the newly built house on Vinterviksgatan in Djursholm, which was still for sale, for just six point nine million.

Oak flooring in every room, open-plan kitchen and dining room, Mediterranean-blue mosaic in both bathrooms, a level, child-friendly garden with newly planted fruit trees, for more pictures click here .

And she clicked and waited as the pictures loaded, pictures from someone else’s life, staring at a double bed in a cream-white bedroom with en-suite bathroom.

A family lives here , she thought, and they’ve decided to move . They got hold of an estate agent who did a valuation, took his digital camera and put together a stupid sales pitch, put it all on the net and now anyone can stare at their bedroom, judge their taste, study the way they’ve filled the space.

She got up quickly and went over to the phone, dialled directory inquiries with trembling fingers. When a woman answered, she asked for the number of Margit Axelsson in Piteå.

‘I’ve got a Thord and Margit Axelsson in Pitholm,’ the operator said slowly. ‘He’s listed as an engineer, and her as a nursery school teacher, could that be right?’

She asked to be put through and waited with bated breath as the phone rang. The angels kept quiet.

An old-fashioned answer machine took the call. Her head was filled with a woman’s cheery voice against the slightly distorted background noise of a tape that’s been played too many times.

‘Hello, you’ve reached the home of the Axelsson family.’

Of course, the home of, we live here.

‘Thord and Margit aren’t in at the moment and the girls are at university, so leave a message after the beep. Bye for now.’

Annika cleared her throat as the machine clicked and whirred.

‘Hello,’ she said weakly after the signal on a tape somewhere outside Piteå. ‘My name’s Annika Bengtzon and I’m a reporter on the Evening Post . I’d like to apologize for intruding at a time like this, but I’m phoning about something particular. I know about the Mao quotation.’

She hesitated for a moment, not sure if the woman’s relatives knew that there were three letters with similar content.

‘I’m trying to contact Thord,’ she said. ‘I know you didn’t do it.’

She fell silent again, listening to the gentle hiss of the tape, wondering how long she could stay quiet before the call was cut off.

‘Over the last few weeks I’ve been investigating the explosion of a Draken plane at F21 in November nineteen sixty-nine,’ she said. ‘I know about Ragnwald; I know that he was together with Karina Björnlund-’

The receiver was picked up at the other end, and the change in background noise made her jump.

‘The explosion?’ a rough male voice said. ‘What do you know about that?’

Annika gulped. ‘Is that Thord?’

‘What do you know about F21?’ The man’s voice was curt, subdued.

‘Quite a bit,’ Annika said, and waited.

‘You can’t put anything in the paper unless you know,’ the man said. ‘You can’t do that.’

‘I’m not going to,’ Annika said. ‘ People of the world, unite and defeat the American aggressors and all their lackeys. People of the world, be courageous, and dare to fight, defy difficulties and advance wave upon wave. Then the whole world will belong to the people. Monsters of all kinds shall be destroyed . What does that mean?’

The man didn’t answer for a long time. If it wasn’t for the sound of a television in the background she would have thought he’d hung up.

‘Have any other journalists called?’ she asked eventually.

She heard the man swallow, an uneven sigh into the mouthpiece that made her move the receiver away from her ear.

‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Up here they know what they think.’ He paused, maybe he was crying. She waited in silence.

‘They wrote that I was taken in for questioning but released due to lack of evidence.’

Annika nodded mutely, no one calls a murderer.

‘But it wasn’t you,’ she said. ‘The police are certain about that.’

The man gave a deep sigh, his voice trembling when he spoke. ‘That doesn’t matter up here,’ he said. ‘The neighbours saw me being taken away in a police car. From now on I shall be known as Margit’s murderer to people round here.’

‘Not if they catch the culprit,’ Annika said, hearing the man start to sob. ‘Not if they get hold of Göran Nilsson.’

‘Göran Nilsson,’ he said, blowing his nose. ‘Who’s that?’

She paused, biting her tongue, not sure of how much the man knew.

‘He’s also known under his alias,’ she said. ‘Ragnwald.’

‘You mean… Ragnwald?’ the man said, spitting the name out. ‘The Yellow Dragon?’

Annika started. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’

‘I know of him,’ Thord Axelsson said warmly. ‘The mad Maoist who ran around Luleå as a revolutionary in the late sixties, I know he’s back. I know what he’s done.’

Annika grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper.

‘I’ve never heard the codename Yellow Dragon used for him before,’ she said. ‘Ragnwald was the name he used in the Maoist groups that used to meet in the basement of the library.’

‘Before the Beasts,’ Thord Axelsson said.

Annika stopped for a moment. ‘Before the Beasts,’ she repeated, making notes.

The line fell silent again.

‘Hello?’ Annika said

A deep sigh confirmed that the man was still there.

‘The girls are here,’ he said, his mouth close to the phone. ‘I can’t talk about this now.’

Annika thought quickly for a couple of seconds.

‘I’m coming up to Luleå on some other business tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Could I visit you at home so we can talk undisturbed?’

‘Margit’s dead,’ the man said, the sounds coming out broken and distorted. ‘There’s nothing for her to be afraid of any more. But I shan’t let her down, ever. You need to understand that.’

Annika kept making notes even though she didn’t understand him.

‘I just want to understand the context,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to hang Margit or anyone else out to dry.’

The man sighed again and thought for a moment.

‘Come at lunchtime. The girls have an appointment with the police, so we can be alone then.’

He gave her the address and directions, and told her to come around twelve o’clock.

Afterwards she let the receiver sit in its cradle for a long minute. The angels were quiet, but there was a sharp buzzing sound in her left ear. The shadows in the room were long and irregular, jumping jerkily over the walls as vehicles passed and the streetlamp swayed.

She had to find the right way of explaining this to her editors.

She phoned reception and she was in luck, Jansson was on duty.

‘How the hell are you?’ he asked, blowing smoke into the phone.

‘I’m on to something,’ she said. ‘A real human-interest story, a poor man in a nice suburb outside Piteå whose wife has been murdered and the whole town thinks he did it.’

‘But…?’ Jansson didn’t sound particularly interested.