Liza Marklund: Red Wolf

Annika zipped up her bag and stood up, pulling on her coat.

‘Well, thank you,’ she said. ‘And thanks for the offer of the museum tour, but I’m not sure I’ll have time tomorrow. I’ve still got a few things to do and I’m flying home after lunch.’

‘Try to find the time,’ the press officer said, shaking her hand. ‘Gustaf’s got it in pretty good shape.’

She looked down at the floor, muttering under her breath.

That was completely bloody useless , she thought as she drove back to the main road. I can’t go back to the paper and say the whole trip was a waste of time .

In restless disappointment she put her foot down on the accelerator. The car started to skid and she eased up, horrified.

At that moment her mobile rang, number withheld. She knew it was Spike before she even answered it.

‘Have you caught the men behind the attack then?’ he asked smoothly.

She braked cautiously and indicated right, adjusting the earpiece better.

‘The journalist I was supposed to meet is dead,’ she said. ‘Run down the day before yesterday in a hit-and-run.’

‘Ouch,’ Spike said. ‘There was a thing on one of the agencies about something like that this morning, credited to some rag up there. Was that him?’

She waited for a timber-truck to pass, making her Ford shake as it sped by. Her grip on the wheel stiffened.

‘Might have been,’ she said. ‘The staff on his paper were told yesterday, so it would be odd if it didn’t make their own paper.’

Cautiously she pulled out onto the main road.

‘Have they found the driver?’

‘Not as far as I know,’ she said, then heard herself say: ‘I was thinking of looking into his death a bit today.’

‘Why?’ Spike said. ‘He was probably just driving home drunk.’

‘Maybe,’ Annika said. ‘But he was in the middle of a big story, had some seriously controversial stuff in the paper on Friday.’ Which I know isn’t true , she thought, biting her lip.

Spike sighed loudly. ‘Well, make sure it checks out, that’s all,’ he said, and hung up.

Annika parked outside the entrance to the hotel, went up to her room and sank onto the bed. The maid had been in and made the bed, eradicating the traces of her awful night. She had slept badly, woken up in a cold sweat and with a headache. The angels had been singing to her in a chorus of rising and falling notes almost all night long: they were much more persistent when she was away from home.

She plumped up the pillow behind her head, reached for the telephone on the bedside table and put it on her stomach, then she called her husband on his direct line at the Association of Local Authorities.

‘Thomas is at lunch,’ his secretary said sullenly.

She crept under the covers and closed her eyes as the angels’ song filled her head.

She let herself be swept away by the words. Can’t fight any more , she thought.

She woke with a start, unsure where she was for a moment. Putting her hand to her chin she discovered that it was wet, as was her neck, and realized with disgust that it was her own saliva. Her clothes were sticking unpleasantly to her body, and there was a nasty whistling sound in her left ear. She got unsteadily to her feet and went to the bathroom.

When she came back into the room she realized that it was almost completely dark. In a panic, she stared at her watch, but it was only quarter past three. She wiped her neck with a towel, checked that she had what she needed in her bag and left the room.

She picked up a map of Luleå from reception, only to find that Svartöstaden wasn’t on there, but the receptionist enthusiastically added the route that would take her there.

‘So you’re working on a story,’ the young woman said excitedly.

Annika, already on her way to the door, stopped and looked at her, confused.

‘Ah,’ the receptionist explained with a blush, ‘I saw that the invoice was going to the Evening Post .’

Annika took a few steps backwards, hitting her heel against the door. A moment later she was out in the wind. No parking ticket. She got into the freezing car and pulled out onto Södra Varvsleden. The steering wheel was ice-cold, and as she fumbled for her gloves in the bag she came close to hitting a fat woman pushing a pram. Turning the noisy ventilator on full, her heart thumping, she drove towards Malmudden.

At a red light on a viaduct over some railway tracks she checked the map again: she was already at the bottom-right corner. A couple of minutes later she was at the roundabout and from now on she would have to rely on road-signs. She glanced up: Skurholmen left, Hertsön straight on, Svartöstaden right. She caught sight of another sign – Frasse’s Hamburgers – and felt her blood-sugar plummet. When the lights turned green she swung off the road, parked by the petrol station and went in. She bought a cheeseburger with onions and ate it ravenously, taking in her surroundings: the smell of frying, the painted fibreglass walls, the plastic rubber plant in the corner, the Star Wars pinball machine, the shabby wood and chrome furniture.

This is the real Sweden , she thought. Central Stockholm is a little nature reserve. We have no idea what goes on out here in the wilderness .

Feeling slightly queasy from the melted cheese and raw onion, she drove on. Powdery snow swirled in front of the headlights, making it hard to see, even though she was alone on the road. She drove a few kilometres, and then suddenly, out of the haze of snow, the ironworks appeared right above her. Illuminated jet-black steel skeletons that let off steam and looked almost alive. She let out a small yelp of surprise. It was beautiful! So weirdly… alive.

A viaduct took her across a goods yard, twenty or so rail tracks criss-crossing each other.

The final stop of Malmbanan, ‘the ore railway’, of course. The contents of the trashed mountains in the iron-field were rolled down here to the coast by those endless ore-trains she’d seen on television.

Astonished, she drove on until she reached an illuminated sign by the main entrance, and parked by what turned out to be the West Checkpoint.

The immense monster above her was blast-furnace number two – a growling, rumbling giant turning ore into steel. Further away were the rolling-mill, the steelworks, the coke ovens, the power station. The whole site was enveloped in a rolling, rumbling sound that rose and fell, humming and singing.

What a place , she thought, feeling the cold. The angels kept quiet. It was now completely dark.

Anne Snapphane left the press conference with her knees trembling and her palms sweating. She wanted to cry, or scream. The rumbling headache only increased her anger at the MD who had taken off for the US and left the whole presentation to her. She wasn’t employed to take the flak for the whole of TV Scandinavia, just the programming.

She made it to her room, dialled Annika’s number and looked around desperately for a glass of wine.

‘I’m standing by the ironworks in Svartöstaden,’ Annika yelled from Anne’s home territory. ‘It’s a real monster, absolutely amazing. How did the press conference go?’

‘Crap,’ Anne Snapphane said in a dull voice, feeling her hands shake. ‘They tore me to shreds, and the boys from your lot were worst.’

‘Hang on,’ Annika said, ‘I have to move the car, I’m in the way of a truck… Yes! I know! I’m moving!’

The sound of a car engine; Anne looked for her headache pills in the desk drawer, but the box was empty.

‘Right, tell me what happened,’ Annika said to her friend.

Anne forced her hands to be still, then put her right hand to her forehead.