Liza Marklund - Red Wolf

He looked at the grainy photograph of a young man, dark and skinny, with nondescript features.

Then Annika was back again, a brief summary of her work and achievements.

He put the palm of his hand over her face and shut his eyes.

Strangely, he thought he could feel warmth from the newspaper.

A moment later the phone rang, and he picked it up with a smile.

‘I have to see you,’ Sophia Grenborg said, sobbing loudly. ‘Something terrible has happened. I’m on my way to you now.’

For a moment he was caught up in her panic, his throat constricting, terrorists, hitmen, people frozen to death.

Then everything fell into place. Sophia’s terrible things were not Annika’s. He cleared his throat and looked at the time, trying to think of an excuse not to see her.

‘There’s a committee meeting in quarter of an hour,’ he said, blushing at the lie.

‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’

She hung up and he was left sitting there with an unidentifiable summer tune in his head.

On Friday she had been happy as a lark, because she was going to be in an article in County Council World . They had asked her what she wanted for Christmas.

‘I said you,’ she had whispered, then kissed him on the ear.

He looked at the front page of the Evening Post , one of the biggest papers in Scandinavia, his serious-looking wife uncovering a group of terrorists. She was changing reality, while he and his colleagues were trying to tame it and administer it; she was making a difference while he was putting up smokescreens.

The telephone rang again, an internal call from reception.

‘There’s someone here to see you.’

He stood up and stared out across the churchyard below, frosted and frozen. He rolled his shoulders in an attempt to shake off the disquiet, the clamminess, the feeling of reluctance and obligation.

A few seconds later Sophia Grenborg stumbled into his room, her eyes red with crying, her nose puffy and swollen. He went over and helped her take off her coat.

‘I don’t understand what’s happened,’ she sniffed, pulling a handkerchief from her bag. ‘I don’t know what’s got into them.’

He stroked her on the cheek and tried to smile. ‘What’s happened?’

She sank onto a chair, holding the handkerchief to her mouth.

‘Management want to move me,’ she said, breathing unevenly. ‘Clerk in the traffic safety department.’

She lowered her head, her shoulders began to shake, he shuffled his feet a couple of times, bewildered, then leaned over her, paused.

‘Sophia,’ he said. ‘Oh dear, come on, poor you…’

She stopped, looking up at him in genuine confusion.

‘After all the work I’ve done,’ she said. ‘I’ve put everything into this job for five years. How can they downgrade me like this?’

‘Are you sure it isn’t a promotion?’ he said, sitting down on the desk and putting his hand on her back.

‘Promotion?’ she said. ‘I’m losing my project management bonus, and I have to clear my room this afternoon and move out to an open-plan office in Kista. I won’t even have my own desk.’

Thomas rubbed her shoulders, looking down at her hair, breathing in the smell of apples.

‘What reason are they giving?’

Sophia started to cry again, he stood up and pushed the door shut properly.

‘Come on, love,’ he said, crouching down and stroking the hair from her face. ‘Tell me what happened.’

She pulled herself together and wiped her nose.

‘We’ll sort this out,’ he said. ‘Tell me.’

‘They called me in for a meeting,’ she said. ‘I was really pleased. I thought I was going to join the congress group, or maybe one of the committees, but instead this happened.’

‘But why?’

She shook her head. ‘They said it was part of the reorganization ahead of the merger with you, and then they sent me out. Thomas, I don’t understand. What’s going on?’

He kissed her on the forehead, stroked her hair, looked at his watch.

‘Darling,’ he said, ‘I have to get to my meeting, and I don’t have any contacts in the Federation…’

The words hung in the air. She looked at him, wide-eyed.

‘Can’t you pull any strings?’

He patted her cheek. ‘Well, I can try. This will all sort itself out, you’ll see.’

‘Do you think so?’ she said, and stood up.

He followed her, breathing in the scent of her apple hair.

‘Absolutely,’ he said, getting her coat.

She kissed him gently before turning round and letting him help her with her coat.

‘Can’t you come over tonight?’ she whispered into his neck. ‘I could cook something Italian.’

He felt the sweat break out between his shoulder blades.

‘Not tonight,’ he said quickly. ‘My wife’s home. Haven’t you seen the paper?’

‘What?’ She opened her damp eyes wide. ‘Which paper?’

He walked away from her, went over to the desk, and held up the front page of the Evening Post towards her. Annika’s dark, unseeing eyes stared at them.

‘Cracked terrorist gang,’ Sophia read in astonishment and disbelief. ‘What does your wife do, exactly?’

Thomas looked at his wife as he replied. ‘She used to be head of the crime desk, but that took too much time from the family. Nowadays she’s an independent reporter, looking into official corruption and political scandals. She’s been working on this terrorism case for the last few weeks.’

He put the newspaper down, the picture facing upwards, noting the pride in his voice and behaviour.

‘She was supposed to come back yesterday, but this came up instead. She’s flying home this afternoon.’

‘Oh well,’ Sophia said, ‘I can understand that you’re busy tonight.’

She left without saying anything else, and he was surprised at how genuinely relieved he felt when she had gone.

Annika was staring at the countryside outside the window of the Arlanda Express. Frozen fields and icy farms rushed past but she barely registered them. Her eyes were fixed.

The night had disappeared as she had weighed up and analysed different options and their consequences, piecing together the facts and formulating her argument. Now the article was in her notepad, ready to be printed.

Home , she thought. It doesn’t have to be a place or a house; it’s something else entirely .

She shut her eyes and thought through her decisions one more time. One: the text would be published. Two: she had lived in the building on Hantverkargatan for ten years. That didn’t mean that her home was there. Thomas had never really liked living in the city, for him it would come as a relief.

You have to win , she thought. You have to be stronger. You can’t give your opponent a chance. She must not be an alternative. Thomas will never pick a loser .

Her phone started to vibrate in the inside pocket of the polar jacket. She pulled it out and saw it was Q, calling from his private number.

‘Congratulations,’ the head of the national crime unit said.

‘What for?’ Annika said.

‘I heard you got your mobile phone back.’

She smiled weakly. ‘From your lads up in Luleå. Hans Blomberg had it in his trouser pocket when they caught him out on the ice. What can I do for you today?’

‘I was wondering about something,’ he said. ‘It’s this business of the money.’

‘What money?’ Annika said.

‘Ragnwald’s money. A bag full of euros.’

Annika watched blue-panelled industrial units fly by at 160 kilometres an hour.

‘Don’t know what you mean,’ she said.

‘How did you find it?’

She shut her eyes, swaying with the movement of the train.