‘Andika jibu,’ he repeated, holding out the piece of paper.
Did he want me to write the answer?
My hands wouldn’t do as I wanted, I tried to grasp the pencil but kept dropping it. The tall man was barking above my head, ‘Haraka, haraka!’ and I managed to write the answer shakily. Then the guard tied my hands again, turned off the torch and vanished into a darkness that was denser than ever.
‘What was that about?’ I whispered to the Dane, but he didn’t answer.
I was exhausted, and fell asleep almost instantly.
Now, in the morning light, the mystery remained.
How could they know about Annika? I hadn’t mentioned her to anyone, not the guards or any of the other hostages. How could they know? My mobile had been switched off when they took it from me, and I hadn’t given them my PIN so they couldn’t have got anything from there. My wallet?
I heard the air go out of my lungs. Of course. I had pictures of her and the children, with names and dates on the back.
But why did they want to know where she was living when we first met? What a ridiculous question to ask. What could they do with that information? It was utterly irrelevant, something hardly anyone knew …
I gasped. They’d spoken to her. Oh, God, they’d spoken to her and she wanted to check I was still alive, that they really were holding me captive. That had to be it! A wave of relief washed over me and I laughed out loud.
But how had they got hold of her phone number? All our numbers were ex-directory, apart from my mobile, and obviously they couldn’t have reached her on that.
I peered out at the light filtering through a gap under one of the sheets of tin that formed the walls. My field of vision was at the same level as a small spider. We stared at each other for a minute or so in the gloom, the spider and I, before it scuttled to my face and climbed up it, as if it were a small rock. I shut my eyes and felt its tiny feet scrambling over my eyelids. Once it had passed my ear and vanished into my hair I could no longer feel it. I didn’t think it was poisonous, but just to be on the safe side I shook my head fairly vigorously to make it fall off.
Then I lay still and listened towards the light. I could hear the guards moving around out there, one saying something to the other. The smell in there really was terrible.
‘Hey,’ I whispered to the Dane, shuffling into a sitting position. ‘Where’s that stink coming from?’
From my new position I could see the Dane properly, Per. He was lying on his back and staring up at the roof with eyes that had a greyish look to them. His face was grey, his whole body was grey. His grey lips were wide open, as if he were shouting up at the roof. Something was crawling inside his mouth, something was moving in there, and a cry rose up to the roof and out through the cracks round the door and right across the manyatta and off towards the horizon, but it wasn’t the Dane shouting, it wasn’t Per, it was me, screaming. I screamed and screamed until the tin door was removed and the light fell in on the body, like an explosion, and I saw all the ants.
* * *
Annika was looking at her face in the bathroom mirror, running her fingers along the dark rings under her eyes. That was where loneliness settled, the absence of the children, her inability to work, her unfaithful husband …
She listened to the sounds of the building: Lindström, her neighbour, running a tap on the other side of the wall, the hiss of the bathroom extractor fan, the rattle of the lift. The sounds weren’t hers any more: her home had been occupied by kidnappers and civil servants.
Mind you, it wasn’t much of a home – at least, not according to Thomas. He thought the flat was too small and difficult to furnish nicely, which was true after he had moved in and demanded furniture that didn’t come from Ikea. He hated the bathroom most of all, the plastic floor, the shower curtain, the cheap little basin. In Vaxholm he and Eleonor had had a spa complete with sauna and Jacuzzi. She ran her hand down the bathroom mirror, as if she were apologizing.
It wasn’t the apartment’s fault, and it wasn’t hers.
It was Thomas who had put himself on that plane, in that Toyota. It had been his decision, but she had been dragged into paying part of the cost.
She had an ice-cold shower.
She got dressed, made the bed and had breakfast.
By the time Halenius rang the doorbell she had cleared up in the kitchen. His hair was wet, as if he’d just got out of the shower as well, and he was wearing the same jeans as yesterday, but with a pale blue shirt, freshly ironed.
I wonder if he does his own ironing, or if his girlfriend does it, she thought, as he hung up his coat.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I won’t question your methods or your judgement again. I’d be completely lost without you. Thank you for everything you’re doing. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. Honestly. If you want Hans and Hans here as well, that’s fine. It really is.’
She fell silent. When she’d practised it in her head, she’d thought her speech sounded humble and poetic and vulnerable, but everything had tumbled out in a rush and in the wrong order.
She bit her lower lip, but he was smiling.
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I’m easily bribed with coffee and cake.’
She smiled back, surprised by how relieved she was. ‘I’ve been feeling like a right arsehole since you left,’ she said, hurrying into the kitchen to fill the kettle. He took it without milk, didn’t he?
‘The families of the Romanian and the Spaniard have received proof of life,’ he said. ‘They have received video films, emailed directly to them.’
He said it in a neutral voice, but Annika felt her muscles tense. ‘I haven’t checked my email today,’ she said.
‘I’ve checked for you,’ Halenius said. ‘You haven’t received anything.’
She didn’t bother asking how he had managed to do that.
‘And a French passenger plane crashed in the Atlantic this morning,’ Halenius said. ‘No Swedes on board.’
‘A terrorist attack?’ Annika asked.
‘Bad weather,’ Halenius said, disappearing into the bedroom. She heard him switch on the computer and fiddle with the mobile phone.
She leaned back against the draining board for a minute to let the information sink in.
Proof of Life. Wasn’t there a film with that title, starring Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe? Hadn’t Meg and Russell got together while they were making it? And then she’d divorced Dennis Quaid?
She turned the oven on, 175 degrees, melted a large lump of butter in the microwave, took out a bowl and cracked some eggs, then added sugar, vanilla sugar, a pinch of salt, syrup, cocoa, the melted butter and a large scoop of flour.
So the Spaniard and the Romanian were alive. I wonder what the Frenchman did wrong.
She greased the tin, the one with the loose base, then poured in the mixture and put it into the oven. She waited fifteen minutes for it to bake, then got some vanilla ice-cream out of the freezer, heated some blackberries, and went into the bedroom (Kidnap Control), with coffee, cake, ice-cream and blackberries. ‘I took you at your word and made a sticky toffee cake.’
Halenius gave her a look of total bemusement. He was obviously immersed in something far removed from her baking exploits.
All of a sudden she felt ridiculous. There was nowhere to put the tray – the desk was covered with recording equipment, computer accessories and notes, and there was still a great heap of clothes on the other chair (why did she never tidy up after herself?). She felt herself starting to blush.
‘Let’s have it out there,’ Halenius said, standing up.
She turned away gratefully, went into the living room and put the tray on the coffee-table, then curled up in the corner of the sofa with the fake White House mug and let her hair fall in front of her face.
‘What sort of films were they?’ she asked.
‘I haven’t seen them,’ Halenius said. ‘The families don’t want to go public with them, but I’ll see if I can get hold of th
em off the record. They’re evidently fairly poor quality, the hostages sitting in a dark room with a lamp shining in their faces, saying that they’re being treated well and that their families should pay the ransom as soon as possible. The usual, really.’
Annika’s heart was pounding: proof – of – life, it throbbed, proof – of – life … ‘How did they look?’ she asked.
‘Pretty much as expected, apparently, unshaven and dirty, but otherwise okay. No signs of maltreatment, or nothing visible.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Do you think we’ll be getting one as well?’
‘Probably.’
‘When?’
‘Today, maybe tomorrow. The kidnappers seem to be doing everything in a strict sequence. You were the last person to get the initial call. Maybe Thomas is number seven on their list.’
She nodded and bit the inside of her cheek. ‘What else is likely to happen?’
‘If I were to hazard a guess,’ Halenius said, ‘I don’t expect them to be very communicative today. They know you can’t get to the bank before Monday morning, and they want us to sweat.’
She blew on her coffee. ‘Because sitting and waiting for a call is much worse than getting one?’
He nodded. ‘Kidnappers have two weapons: violence and time. They’ve already demonstrated that they’re prepared to use the first, so they probably won’t object to using the second.’
Violence and time. How long would Halenius be able to spend all his waking hours in her bedroom? How long would the media maintain any sort of interest?
‘I have to go and see Schyman today,’ she said.
‘That’s probably a good idea,’ Halenius said.
‘Has the news about the Frenchman got out yet?’
‘Not as far as I’ve seen, but it’ll probably happen today.’
‘I was wondering,’ she said, ‘what the Frenchman might have done wrong.’
‘To get himself killed? Nothing at all, probably. It might have depended on the negotiator, or the relatives, or both. Unless he tried to escape. Or there may not be a reason. Maybe the kidnappers just wanted to make an example of someone.’
She pushed the cake to him. ‘Help yourself,’ she said.
He leaned back in the armchair, her armchair, and laughed. He had such a big laugh that his whole face seemed to crack open, and his eyes narrowed until they were almost closed. ‘You’re really nothing like I imagined,’ he said.
She stood up. ‘Is that good or bad?’
He smiled and swallowed his coffee. She picked up his mug, went into the kitchen and made some more, grabbed a handful of napkins and went back to the living room. ‘What will it mean for us, when news of the Frenchman gets out?’ she asked, putting the fresh mug and the napkins in front of him.
‘The whole story gets hotter,’ he said. ‘The hunt for the kidnappers will intensify, although the Yanks and Brits are already pretty hot.’
He cut himself a decent slice of the steaming cake. The inside was still almost liquid.
‘All the eager editors who got in touch with me yesterday will be wanting a new comment today,’ she said.
He nodded, his mouth full. ‘This is seriously good with ice-cream,’ he said.
She looked at the ice-cream, wondering if she should put it back in the freezer, or if she could leave it out a bit longer … Here she was, worrying about a tub of ice-cream, trying to guess whether or not the man on the other side of the table had had enough, instead of just asking him. Her husband was missing somewhere in East Africa, and she was fretting over whether her baking was up to scratch. She started to tremble and covered her face with her hands. ‘Sorry,’ she managed. ‘Sorry, it’s just …’
‘You don’t have to respond, if you don’t want to,’ he said.
She blinked at him.
‘All those eager editors,’ he said.
She tried to smile, reached for a napkin and blew her nose. ‘This whole thing is so sick,’ she said.
He carried on eating his cake. She looked at the time on her mobile. ‘I’m meeting Anne. She’s got yoga at twelve o’clock.’
‘Make sure you talk through Schyman’s offer with him properly,’ he said. ‘I’m going to go through last night’s conversation and make a transcript of it. I’m planning to call Q later. Do you want to talk to him?’
She got to her feet, with the tub of ice-cream in one hand. ‘Why would I?’
Halenius shrugged. She stuck the ice-cream into the freezer, then put on her coat in the hall. ‘Your children,’ she said, pulling on her gloves. ‘What do they say when you’re away so much? Doesn’t it make them wonder?’
‘Yes,’ Halenius said. ‘But they’re flying down to see Angie tonight – the schools there are having their summer holidays now. It’s her turn to do Christmas.’
‘They go all that way on their own?’
He smiled and stood up, holding his mug and plate. ‘My girlfriend’s going with them,’ he said, then went into the kitchen and put the china into the dishwasher.
She unlocked the front door and left the flat.
Anne Snapphane was waiting in the Kafferepet café on Klarabergsgatan with juice and a wholewheat open sandwich in front of her. It looked as though she’d bought a copy of every newspaper she could find on her way there: the pile on the wobbly café table was even bigger than the one Schyman had brought with him the day before.
‘It’s terrible, this serial-killer business,’ Anne said, holding the Evening Post towards Annika. ‘And did you hear about that plane that crashed into the Atlantic? Terrorists everywhere, these days …’
Annika put her coffee on the last free patch of table, dropped her bag on to the floor and peeled off her padded jacket. ‘Wasn’t it bad weather?’ she said, taking the newspaper.
Photographs of three women smiled out at her from the front page. Above them floated ‘Police Suspect:’ and below, in screaming capital letters:
SERIAL
KILLER
‘Beautifully even lines,’ Annika said, leafing through to pages six and seven.
Elin Michnik, the talented temp, had written the article. An anonymous police source was said to support the theory suggested in the previous day’s Evening Post that the murders in the suburbs of Stockholm showed ‘similarities’, and that they were ‘keeping an open mind’ about the investigations.
That meant, Elin Michnik had written, that the police might well consider combining the investigations into the three murders and look for the common denominator.
‘Dear God,’ Annika muttered. ‘The epitome of non-committal statements.’
‘What do you mean?’ Anne shovelled a forkful of prawns into her mouth.
‘It’s pretty obvious that there are similarities between the murders. They’re all women, they were all stabbed, and they’re all from Stockholm. And name one police investigation where they haven’t kept an open mind. Well, apart from the Palme murder, obviously. And of course the police “might well consider” combining the investigations. Christ …’
Anne frowned. ‘What’s this got to do with Olof Palme?’
Annika sighed and turned the page. ‘The Palme investigation collapsed because the chief of police in Stockholm sat in his office and decided that the prime minister was murdered by Kurds. Which turned out to be utterly wrong, but by then a year had passed and it was too late.’
She carried on through the paper.
Pages eight and nine focused on the dead women’s relatives. ‘Mummy’s Gone’ was the headline running across the spread. Thomas had been demoted to page ten. A different photograph, one from his days playing ice-hockey, probably from the paper’s archive, accompanied by a flabby article about ‘the feverish hunt’ continuing. Opposite was a full-page advert.
But the next two pages were more interesting.
A pretty blonde woman sitting on a flowery sofa looking into the camera with tears in her eyes, two little children in her arms, beneath the headline ‘Come Home, Daddy!’ The capt
ion read, ‘Held hostage with Swedish Thomas in East Africa’.
Annika sighed to herself. The Romanian’s wife. She closed the paper and put it down. ‘How’s Miranda getting on?’
Anne’s daughter was a year or so older than Ellen.
‘I’m not one to make a fuss,’ Anne said curtly. ‘As long as she’s happy, that’s great. She really does seem to like Mehmet’s new kids …’
‘Her half-siblings, you mean?’
‘… so I’m not going to be the one to upset the applecart. It’s easier if she stays there during the week, but we get on well, Mehmet and I, and his new partner, of course. We all muck in and help each other out. Always.’
Annika blinked. ‘Wow,’ she said.
‘What?’ Anne said.
Annika cleared her throat. ‘You had something exciting you wanted to talk about?’
Anne leaned forward, and one of her breasts fell into the mayonnaise on the sandwich. She’d had them enlarged to a D-cup six months ago, and hadn’t got used to judging distances with them. ‘I’ve got a brilliant idea for a programme that I’m going to pitch to the bosses at Media Time on Monday.’
Annika hadn’t got much of a grip on all the new digital channels that had sprung up while she had been away.
‘It’s a serious channel,’ Anne said. ‘They run an on-line news agency as well, mediatime.se. My idea is for an in-depth interview programme, not entertainment, serious, and all the more entertaining because of that, if you get what I mean?’
‘Like Oprah and Skavlan, you mean?’ Annika asked.
‘Exactly!’ Anne said, wiping the mayonnaise off her lambswool jumper. ‘Do you think you could help me put something together?’
Annika pushed back her hair. ‘Anne,’ she said, ‘you know what’s happened to Thomas …’
Her friend raised both hands in a defensive gesture. ‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘And it’s really terrible, and you need to prepare yourself for the worst. I mean, the kidnappers hardly shot the guards and translators in the head so they could take all the others off to Starbucks, did they?’
Annika shrugged and shook her head more or less simultaneously. What could she say to that?
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