Lifetime

by Liza Marklund

  ‘Is it more demanding being a trustee?’

  ‘Yes, you could probably say that. Providing support to someone serving a life sentence is tough.’

  ‘Can you tell me anything about who the inmates were?’ Annika said, then held her breath.

  ‘I can’t identify them. We’re bound by confidentiality legislation within the prison service, and have to protect individual privacy. We’ve come to the conclusion that this isn’t public information and therefore can’t be handed out.’

  ‘Okay,’ Annika said. ‘Could you answer just one question: was any of them a woman?’

  The lawyer leafed through the documents. ‘Well, I don’t know …’

  ‘Could you check? I don’t know how this works. Could a man be a probation contact for a woman?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything prohibiting it, or the reverse, of course.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me who she is, just if there was anyone …’

  More paper shuffling.

  ‘No,’ the lawyer said. ‘No women, only men.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Annika said, and hung up.

  Okay. She could get rid of point four.

  She got going with the second group on the list. She went into the national ID database and typed in Stevens, Michael Harold. It was a nuisance not being able to use her left index finger when she typed.

  Stevens was registered at an address in Sundsvall. Annika kept the address and surname but changed the gender of her search. Bingo! There were two women at the same address with the same surname, Linda Helena and Sarah Linda Hillary. The former was thirty-three years old, the latter eight.

  Wife and daughter. The wife will do nicely.

  She printed out the details, then looked up Ahmed Muhammad Svensson from Malmö. She found an old record, and tracked back until she had his daughter Fatima and his ex-wife, Doris Magdalena.

  I’ll have her as well.

  Filip Andersson, full name Arne Filip Göran, wasn’t married, and never had been. It didn’t look like he had any children either. Because he had such a common surname, it was impossible to track down his mother through the database.

  She stretched her neck. Her headache was starting to ease. The pills must be kicking in.

  I’ll try Googling him instead.

  He was listed in Wikipedia under the category ‘Swedish criminals’, but there was nothing about a wife or fiancée. The search-terms ‘filip andersson wife’ brought up loads of results, but nothing to suggest that he was married.

  She sighed. Thin pickings so far.

  She tried the national police website instead to see if she could find any group photographs of the staff at different police stations, but all she found were a few portraits of grey-haired gentlemen with titles like national head of police and general director, as well as a few blonde-haired women, senior directors and the head of National Crime.

  Shit. This isn’t going well at all.

  She pulled out the printouts of David Lindholm’s business activities and decided to list the names and ID numbers of any women who had been involved in his old companies.

  The first file she looked at was the one about Fly High Equipment, the parachuting company David had run with two other men, Christer Bure and the prematurely deceased Algot Heinrich Heimer, also known as Henke.

  She decided to check out any women in Henke’s life, and now things started to move.

  Algot Heinrich Heimer had left a wife, Clara Susanna, and three daughters, who were now twenty-three, twenty-one and nineteen. Their names were Malin Elisabeth, Lisa Katarina and Claudia Linn. It was likely that David had known these women. He could well have had sex with them, or at least one of them. Annika made a note to try to find pictures of all four.

  The next company she checked was Pettersson Catering & Arrangements AB, the one with a large number of board members, which dealt with catering as well as horses. She made a note of the four women on the board. She also looked up Bertil Oskar Holmberg’s wife, Victoria Charlotta, eighteen years younger than her husband.

  This could be something …

  She glanced at the remaining printouts: Advice Investment Management Behzad Karami and B. Holmberg Property in Nacka AB. She looked at her watch: she needed enough time to get home and do some washing before heading to Grev Turegatan.

  Oh, what difference does it make what clothes I’m wearing? Anyway, they won’t have time to dry properly …

  She concentrated on the people behind Advice Investment Management AB: Lena Yvonne Nordin in Huddinge, and Niklas Ernesto Zarco Martinez in Skärholmen. She added Lena Yvonne to the list, and checked her other professional dealings, the cleaning firm in Skärholmen that she ran with Martinez, and the investment company with Arne Filip Göran Andersson …

  The room around her went totally silent. The light from the windows turned a corrosive white, and she opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out.

  Arne Filip Göran Andersson.

  The axe murderer from Sankt Paulsgatan.

  She gasped.

  It couldn’t be anyone else.

  I knew it! I KNEW I’d seen his full name somewhere before and it was in these printouts. This is what I’ve been looking for …

  Hands trembling, she hunted through the printouts she had just got from the national database. Yes, the financier Filip Andersson was also named Arne and Göran.

  Annika glanced back at the woman who connected them. Lena Yvonne Nordin. She sorted the documents in front of her, trying to see the links. Lena Yvonne had run two investment companies, one with Niklas Martinez, and the second with Filip Andersson.

  This is the link! Here’s the evidence that David and Filip Andersson had dealings with each other! A woman called Lena Yvonne Nordin.

  Annika made a note of her name and ID number, then took out her mobile phone and called Nina Hoffman.

  ‘I’ve found something!’ she said, standing up, unable to conceal the excitement in her voice. ‘Damn it, I think I’m on to something. You know I said there was something I couldn’t quite work out? I know what it was now! You know the axe murderer, Filip Andersson … Nina …?’

  She stopped and listened to the silence on the phone.

  ‘Nina? What is it? Has something happened? Are you crying?’

  ‘Life,’ Nina said, taking a deep breath. ‘I knew she’d get a custodial sentence, but life! And for killing Alexander as well. This is just awful …’

  Annika swallowed and sank back on to her chair. Her finger started to throb and ache. ‘I know,’ she said lamely. ‘It’s really …’

  ‘Her lawyer, the useless idiot, says he’s considering an appeal seeing as Alexander’s body hasn’t been found. As if that makes any difference!’ She was crying openly now, angrily and violently.

  ‘What does Julia say?’

  ‘Don’t know. Holger’s been told they’ve taken her back to the medical wing. She must have collapsed.’

  Annika tried to think of something sympathetic to say, but failed.

  ‘This is typical,’ Nina went on. ‘They gave her an inexperienced know-all to represent her, knowing full well that he’d fail. I’ve never seen such a show trial in my life, or such a sloppy murder investigation! Of course she was going to get life! Anything else was out of the question! Just because David Lindholm’s dead, and someone had to pay, they made up their minds it was going to be Julia, and then they decided to sacrifice her child as well …’

  ‘Nina,’ Annika said. ‘There’s something you could do to help me. I’ve been looking through various archives and I’ve found something I’d like to look into.’

  ‘What?’ Nina said.

  ‘I’ve found a connection. There’s a woman who links David Lindholm with Filip Andersson.’

  ‘What sort of connection?’

  ‘Two investment companies. They were both owned by a Lena Yvonne Nordin. She ran one with David Lindholm and the other with Filip Andersson. Does that name mean anything to you? Lena
Yvonne Nordin?’

  Nina Hoffman fell silent, breathing shallowly down the phone. Then she blew her nose. ‘No.’

  ‘There are others as well, other women … I’ve got a list of names and ID numbers. Would you be able to find photos of them from the National Police Registry?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I think the woman in the flat might be one of them. I can’t get into passport records any more, so …’

  She could hear Nina Hoffman breathing. ‘Why do you want pictures of them?’

  ‘Julia thinks she’d recognize the woman who took Alexander.’

  The police officer groaned. ‘So you’re thinking of showing them to Julia?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I can’t do it,’ she said. ‘I can’t help you.’

  ‘Of course you can!’ Annika said. ‘It’s just a matter of putting in a request for them!’

  ‘I don’t want to get involved.’

  ‘Don’t give me that!’ Annika said, more harshly than she’d intended. ‘I’ll send the list to the station straight away.’

  ‘No!’ Nina said. ‘Absolutely not. My colleagues mustn’t know.’

  ‘A letter, then? Do you want me to send it to your home address or the station?’

  ‘Well, I’m working tonight so if you want to post it …’

  ‘I’ll get it couriered over at once.’ Annika hung up and looked at her watch. It was high time she went home.

  She packed up her laptop and put the list into an envelope, then called Reception to arrange for a courier.

  27

  The flat was a mess. Annika hadn’t bothered making the bed since the children had gone to Thomas’s. She dropped her bag on the hall floor and stood in the doorway, looking at the state of the living room.

  She was living in an unconverted office space so there were no wardrobes, which meant that her clothes, bed-linen and towels were piled in heaps along one wall.

  I have to sort my life out, and I have to start with my home.

  She sighed, hung up her coat, then rolled up her sleeves.

  There were only twelve names for Nina to match with pictures. Stevens’s wife, Svensson’s wife, Henke’s wife and daughters. The four women on the board of the catering company, Bertil Oskar Holmberg’s wife, and the woman from the investment companies.

  Twelve.

  She started picking up clothes frenetically from the living-room floor and stuffing them into a laundry basket. She was halfway through when the phone rang. ‘Hello?’ she said crossly into the receiver, dropping the dirty laundry on the floor.

  ‘I’m trying to reach Thomas Samuelsson,’ said a deep male voice, with a pronounced Stockholm accent.

  ‘Are you, now?’ Annika said, putting her uninjured hand on her hip. ‘He’s not on this number any more.’

  ‘Do you know how I can get hold of him?’

  ‘Do what everyone else does. Call him on his mobile.’

  ‘I’ve tried, but it’s switched off. Have you got his new home number?’

  Annika took a deep breath and let rip. ‘He’s moved in with his mistress,’ she said. ‘You can try calling him there.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ the man said. To Annika’s annoyance, he sounded almost amused. ‘So the mistress has a phone?’

  ‘Who can I tell him called?’ Annika said, hearing how unfriendly she sounded.

  ‘My name’s Jimmy Halenius, I’m calling from the department. Is that Annika?’

  Annika straightened her back. Jimmy Halenius, the under-secretary of state. Thomas’s boss, and the minister’s right-hand man. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it is.’

  ‘Thanks for dinner, I should say, although it was a while ago now.’

  They had met once, at the fateful dinner she and Thomas had held in the villa out in Djursholm a few days before it had burned down.

  ‘A pleasure,’ she said curtly.

  Was that right? Is that what you said when someone thanked you for your hospitality? I should get hold of a book on etiquette.

  ‘I’ve read Thomas’s memo and I need to get hold of him at once. Can you give him a message?’

  ‘Why?’ she said. ‘What’s so urgent?’

  The man fell silent. His tone had led her to expect something oily and sexist, Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about, or something in that style, but he didn’t say anything of the sort. ‘I’ve left a message on his voicemail, but he hasn’t called back,’ he said, sounding rather at a loss.

  Annika took a deep breath. ‘He’s working from home today. Ellen isn’t well. I’ll be seeing him this evening. I’m looking after the children so that he and Sophia can go to the opera.’ Why was she telling Jimmy Halenius all this?

  ‘Just ask him to call me,’ he said.

  ‘Because otherwise I’ll read about it in tomorrow morning’s papers?’ she blurted out, and could have bitten her tongue out. What the hell did I say that for?

  But the under-secretary of state just let out a little laugh. ‘Something like that,’ he said, and hung up.

  Thomas had evidently said nothing about their divorce at work. Mind you, why would he?

  She put the phone down and gathered up the rest of the dirty washing. The last thing on the pile was the cornflower-blue top Thomas had given her last Christmas, the only thing that had survived from her former life. She had been wearing it the night the house burned down. She was thinking of putting it on tonight, because it brought together the person she had been then and the person she had become. Besides, she knew Thomas liked her in it. It was a feminine cut, scooped at the front with a deep neckline, not her style at all, really, but she liked the colour.

  She squashed it into the basket, fighting back tears. Why do I care what he thinks?

  The colour of honey, heavy with stucco detailing, bay windows with leaded glass. This was one of the Grenborg family’s rock-solid investments. Annika was standing in the darkness on the other side of the street, looking up at the attic flat, the sharp light coming from the windows in the roof.

  They’re in there. In that white light.

  She had been here before. A year ago, last November, the day after she had realized Thomas was having an affair, she had stood in this exact spot and looked up at the building. She felt a lurching sensation in her head, and had to grab hold of the wall behind her to stop herself falling. She struggled against dizziness and the urge to be sick before she was able to cross the street to the main door, dark brown and ornate.

  She pressed the entry-phone – she hadn’t been given the code.

  She answered: Sophia Fucking Bitch Grenborg. ‘Come in, come in. Sixth floor, at the top, the penthouse.’

  The penthouse? Christ!

  The entrance hall was yellow and black marble, the lower part of the walls clad in dark wood panelling, with smoke-coloured brass lamps. The carpet was dark blue, soft as down.

  She took the stairs slowly and unsteadily.

  The attic floor was much less interesting than the rest of the building, a white security door in the middle of a whitewashed brick wall. She remembered the nameplate, brushed steel, and there was a handwritten note beside it: T. Samuelsson.

  She rang the bell.

  Thank goodness it was Thomas who opened the door. She hadn’t seen him since July. He’d cut his hair. His fringe was sticking straight up and looked a bit odd. It made him seem much older. His features were sharper than she remembered them. He was wearing a black suit and polished shoes.

  I always polished his shoes. I wonder if he’s started doing it for himself now.

  ‘Aren’t you allowed a first name?’ she asked, pointing at the note.

  ‘You’re a bit late,’ he said. ‘We have to go straight away.’ He was visibly nervous, turning away and reaching for a coat hanging from an ornate wrought-iron coat-rack.

  Sophia F. B. Grenborg skipped out behind Thomas with her hand outstretched and an ingratiating smile glued to her face. She was wearing a bright yellow top, which, with her
yellow hair, made her look like an Easter chick. Annika realized that the top was exactly the same design as her cornflower-blue one – Thank God I didn’t have time to wash it.

  ‘Mummy!’

  The voice came from the living room, and was accompanied by quick footsteps. Kalle shoved Sophia Grenborg out of the way and threw his arms round Annika’s legs. Ellen came skipping along behind him, clutching her new Poppy. Annika dropped her bag and coat on the floor and crouched down, taking both children in her arms, laughing and rocking them from side to side. It felt like she hadn’t seen them for months, even though it had been only Monday when she had dropped them off at school and nursery. She kissed their hair and cheeks, hugged them, tickled them, and kissed Poppy too, just to be on the safe side.

  Thomas cleared his throat. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we ought to be going …’

  ‘How are you?’ Annika asked, stroking her daughter’s hair from her face and looking at her carefully. ‘Have you been sick any more today?’

  Ellen shook her head.

  Annika looked up at Thomas. ‘So she hasn’t got a temperature?’

  ‘Since about lunchtime,’ he said. ‘She can go to nursery tomorrow, so she ought to be in bed by eight. What have you done to your hand?’

  Annika stood up with her daughter in her arms. ‘Cut myself cooking. I need to do some work once the children are asleep. Is there a computer I can borrow?’

  ‘Of course,’ Thomas said, gesturing with one hand towards a large studio space that seemed to take up most of the flat.

  Annika went past Sophia Grenborg without taking any notice of her.

  ‘This is my office,’ Thomas said, opening the door to a cramped little space beyond the kitchen. ‘You can work in here. We won’t be late, will we, Soph?’

  Soph?

  ‘Well,’ Soph Grenborg said, pulling on her coat and a pair of nap-leather gloves, ‘I think Mother wanted to have dinner afterwards. She may even have booked a table at Operakällaren.’

  Mind you, he used to call me Anki …

  ‘I’m not planning on going anywhere,’ Annika said curtly, without looking at her, then took Kalle’s hand and headed towards the sound of the children’s favourite television programme. Thomas came after them and watched as they settled down on the black-leather sofa in front of the plasma screen. He stopped in the doorway. Annika sensed him looking at her and felt her pulse-rate increase.