Borderline

by Liza Marklund

Informative, without a doubt. A triumph of investigative journalism.

  He sighed.

  But not quite everything in that day’s media offering was superficial speculation. There was one story in the papers that had made a definite impact on him, the one about the old man who had been lying dead in his flat for years without anyone missing him. He had been found when they were installing broadband in the building where he lived. The front door had been unlocked, and the technician had clambered over the mountain of post and found him on the bathroom floor.

  The food in the fridge, the postmarks on the letters in the hall and the body’s advanced state of decay had led the police to estimate that he had been dead for at least three years. His pension had been paid directly into his bank account, the bills paid out by direct debit. No one had missed him, not his neighbours, not his son, none of his former workmates. The police didn’t regard the case as suspicious.

  An unlocked door for three years, Schyman thought. He hadn’t even been worth burgling.

  There was a knock on the glass door.

  Berit Hamrin and Patrik Nilsson were standing outside, their hands full of printouts, files and notes, looking anything but cheerful. That didn’t bode well. He waved them in.

  ‘We need some advice,’ Berit said.

  ‘Everything has to be so complicated these days,’ Patrik said.

  Schyman gestured towards the chairs.

  ‘The minister of finance’s luxury renovation of his luxury apartment, carried out by black-market labour,’ Berit said. ‘It’s a good story if it holds up, but there are a few problems with the facts.’

  Patrik folded his arms. Schyman nodded for her to go on.

  ‘First,’ Berit said, ‘it wasn’t the minister himself who was renovating a luxury apartment, but a consultancy firm he has shares in.’

  ‘That doesn’t make any difference,’ Patrik said.

  Berit ignored him.

  ‘Second, it wasn’t a luxury apartment, but an office for the five employees of the consultancy firm.’

  ‘So?’ Patrik said.

  ‘Third, it wasn’t a luxury renovation, but an upgrade of the entire building. The plumbing in a total of thirty-six offices was being replaced.’

  ‘These are just details,’ Patrik said.

  ‘Fourth, the consultancy firm had a contract with an entrepreneur who was paid above board. The entrepreneur in turn farmed out a small part of the demolition work to a subcontractor and paid above board. The subcontractor was checked and approved by both the union, the construction federation and the tax office.’

  ‘This is all a matter of presentation,’ Patrik said.

  Berit put her notepad on her lap. ‘No, Patrik,’ she said. ‘This is nonsense.’

  ‘But mediatime.se have interviewed a man who says he was paid cash in hand for working on the minister’s luxury flat!’

  Schyman slapped his forehead. ‘Mediatime.se! Patrik, we’ve already talked about these gossip sites.’

  ‘If the source mentioned by mediatime.se is telling the truth, there’s a story,’ Berit said. ‘How come people are being forced to work outside a regulated industry even though all the companies involved are above board? Who stands to gain from it? And who are these black-market workers? Are they Swedish, and, if they are, are they claiming unemployment benefit at the same time? Or are they illegal immigrants living in basements and working for peanuts?’

  Patrik was chewing a biro intently. ‘How can he be running a consultancy business at the same time as being a minister?’ he said. ‘How does that work? There must be no end of conflicts of interest. We could check to see if he’s awarded contracts from his department to his own company. There’s a scandal here, if we can just dig deep enough.’

  ‘The renovation was carried out seven years ago,’ Berit said, ‘three years before Jansson was appointed minister. He sold his share in the company as soon as he became a member of the cabinet.’

  ‘Maybe he still gives them favourable treatment. Jobs for the boys?’

  Schyman raised his hand. ‘Patrik,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have to drop this. There is no story about Jansson’s luxury renovation. But, on the other hand, a series of articles about dodgy business practices in the construction industry isn’t a bad idea. How much fraud is there with building grants, for instance?’

  Patrik threw his pen on to Schyman’s desk and stood up. His chair hit the wall behind him. He left the glass box without a word.

  ‘Sometimes it isn’t possible to fit reality into a tabloid frame,’ Berit said. ‘Were you serious about the construction industry?’

  Schyman rubbed his face. ‘About it being a good idea, sure,’ he said. ‘But we haven’t got the resources to do something like that.’

  Berit stood up. ‘I’ll go and see if I can find someone who’s suffering from alien hand syndrome,’ she said, and left the office.

  Schyman sat there and watched them both go.

  If his wife died before him, would he lie dead in his bathroom for three years before anyone found him? Would anyone miss him? Some former work colleague, maybe?

  * * *

  Annika put the tripod down and tossed the bag containing the video-camera on to the sofa. It was a bit brighter outside – the sun was trying to break through the cloud. She padded silently into the bedroom.

  Halenius had fallen asleep on her bed, lying on his side with one knee pulled up, his hands under a cushion. He was breathing quietly and rhythmically.

  Then he opened his eyes. ‘Already?’ he said, sitting up. One of his shirt buttons had come off.

  ‘There’s only one way to get the money there,’ Annika said. ‘A foreign payment to an account in Nairobi. All the other options are crap.’

  Halenius stood up, swaying slightly. ‘Good,’ he said, walking out of the room. ‘We’ll get it sorted.’

  She heard him go into the bathroom and lift the toilet seat. There was a pile of newspapers on the floor next to the bed – he must have been lying there reading them when he fell asleep.

  His hair had settled down when he got back – he had tried to flatten it in front of the mirror. There was a gap in his shirt where the button was missing.

  ‘How’s that going to work?’ Annika said. ‘I haven’t got a Kenyan bank account.’

  He sat down beside her on the bed rather than on the office chair. ‘Either you fly down and open one, or we find someone we can send the money to.’

  Annika studied his face. His blue, blue eyes were fringed with red. ‘You know someone,’ she said. ‘You’ve got him or her in mind.’

  ‘Frida Arokodare,’ he said. ‘She was Angie’s roommate at university. Nigerian, works for the UN in Nairobi.’

  He had the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, almost luminous. Why were they so red round the edges? Had he been crying? Or perhaps he had an allergy. To what, though? She reached out her hand and touched his cheek. He stiffened, a response that transmitted itself to the mattress beneath her. She took her hand away. ‘Can we really do it?’ she said.

  ‘What?’ he said in a low voice.

  She opened her mouth but nothing came out. Oh, no, she thought. Is this how it is now?

  He got up and went over to the computer. His hand hid his groin.

  ‘Grégoire Makuza wrote an article in the Daily Nation five years ago. At the time he was still at the university. It was extremely critical of Frontex, the way the various countries shifted the blame elsewhere and pretended their closed borders were some sort of all-encompassing decree from above, and the hypocrisy of that at a time when Western Europe was exploiting illegal immigrants more than ever before …’

  ‘The Daily Nation?’

  ‘The biggest newspaper in East Africa. To be honest, the article makes some good points. His argument is shared by plenty of critics today, even within Europe. He could have had a career as a political commentator if he’d chosen that path.’ Halenius sat down in the office chair, then pushed it backwards so he ended
up near the door.

  ‘Instead he chose to become the new bin Laden,’ Annika said, reaching for the pile of papers on the floor and holding up the copy of the other evening paper. The front page was dominated by a freeze-frame image from one of the videos, with the turbaned man staring intently into the camera.

  ‘There’s a number of flaws in that comparison,’ Halenius said. ‘Bin Laden came from a very wealthy family. Grégoire Makuza may have been a Tutsi, but his family doesn’t seem to have had much status. His father was a teacher in the village school, his mother looked after the house. He was the youngest of four children, and both parents and two of his brothers disappeared in the genocide. Presumably they’re in a mass grave somewhere.’

  ‘So I should feel sorry for him?’ Annika said.

  Halenius’s eyes looked slightly less red now. ‘It’s no justification, but possibly an explanation. He’s completely mad, but not stupid.’

  He handed her the printouts, and she took them hesitantly, as if they were hot.

  ‘That’s him. You have to take the conversation for what it is. I’ve spoken to him several times now, and this is what it’s like. We’ve been through this dialogue a couple of times.’

  She glanced at the document. ‘What do “N” and “K” mean?’

  ‘Negotiator and Kidnapper. Remember, my aim has been to reduce the amount they want in ransom, and to reach agreement as soon as possible. At the end he finally gives in. You can read from here.’ He pointed some way into the text.

  K: Have you been to the bank?

  N: First we want proof of life.

  K: Don’t try my patience. What does the bank say?

  N: Annika, Thomas’s wife, is there now. But how are we to know that Thomas is alive?

  K: You’ll just have to trust me. What does the bank say?

  N: She isn’t back yet. It’s still early in the morning here in Sweden. But if we don’t have proof of life, we can’t pay anything at all, as I’m sure you understand.

  K (screaming): Forty million dollars, or we’ll cut the infidel’s head off!

  N (loud sigh): You know it isn’t possible for her to get hold of that much money. It’s completely unrealistic. She has an ordinary job, two small children and lives in a rented apartment.

  K (calmer): She has the insurance money from a fire.

  N: Yes, that’s right. But that’s nowhere near enough. How is she going to get hold of the rest?

  K: She’ll have to put a bit of effort into it.

  N: What do you mean?

  K: She’s got a cunt like all the others, hasn’t she? She’ll just have to go out and use it. How much does she want her husband back?

  N (loud sigh): She’s thirty-eight years old. Have you seen what she looks like?

  K (chuckling): You’re right, my friend, she wouldn’t bring in much money that way. It’s lucky she has a job, or the children would starve …

  She looked up from the text. ‘“Have you seen what she looks like?”’

  ‘I think you’re beautiful,’ he said. ‘I’ve always thought so.’

  She was having trouble breathing, and returned to the text.

  N: She wants him back badly. She’s sad and upset because he’s gone. And the children are missing their father. In my opinion, she is absolutely prepared to pay a ransom, as much as she can, but she has very limited resources.

  K (snorting): That’s not my problem. Have you spoken to the police?

  N: No. You know we’re not talking to them. I understand your dilemma, but perhaps you can understand hers as well. She doesn’t have forty million dollars. There’s no way she could get hold of that sort of money.

  K (agitated): Either she gets hold of the money or the infidel dies. Her choice.

  N: You know better than that. If you don’t lower the ransom, you won’t get any money at all. We want to come to an agreement. We want to resolve this. We’re prepared to do as you ask, but you have to drop the demand for forty million dollars.

  (Silence.)

  K (very calm): How much is she prepared to pay?

  N: Like I said, she’s a woman with an ordinary job, without any assets …

  K: How much has she got in the bank?

  N: Not that much, but she’s prepared to give you all she’s got. She hasn’t been very successful, if I can put it like that.

  K: Can’t she borrow more?

  N: With what security? You know how the capitalist banking system works. She has no house, no shares, no nice car. She’s an ordinary Swedish woman who goes out to work. She’s working class – they both are.

  K: Can’t the Swedish government pay? He works for the Swedish government.

  N (derisive snort): Yes, as a committee secretary. You should know that the Swedish government doesn’t care about its citizens, whether they work for it or vote for it. The men in power care only about themselves, their own power and their own money.

  K: It’s the same everywhere. Those bastards rape their people the whole time.

  N: Governments don’t care if people die.

  K: Piss on their graves.

  N: True.

  (Silence.)

  K: How much has she got? A couple of million?

  N: Dollars? Dear God, no, much less.

  K: The infidel says she’s got a couple of million.

  N: Swedish kronor, yes. That’s completely different. It’s more than Kenyan shillings, but it’s not dollars.

  (Short silence.)

  K: What sort of fire was it?

  N: That she got the money for? They had a small house and she got the money from the insurance when it burned down. It’s not much, but it’s all she’s got. And, like I say, it’s really not much …

  (Silence.)

  K: We’ll be in touch.

  (Call ends.)

  She lowered the printout to her lap, feeling sick. She didn’t know where to look. She felt as if he’d sold her out, humiliated and belittled her, like he’d betrayed his boss and his government, actually the whole of Sweden. He had lined up alongside the bastards and made her out to be old and ugly with no assets and no way of getting any, a real loser who could do nothing but sit and whine and hope the bastards would show a bit of human mercy, which wasn’t particularly likely.

  ‘Remember the purpose of the conversation,’ Halenius said. ‘You know what we’re trying to do.’

  She couldn’t look up, and felt her hands start to shake. The printout slipped on to the pile of newspapers. He got up from his chair and sat beside her on the bed, put his arm round her and pulled her to him. Her body became a coiled spring and she hit him in the side, hard. ‘How the hell could you?’ she said, in a thin voice, and felt the dam burst. Tears fell and she tried to push him away. He held her tight.

  ‘Annika,’ he said. ‘Annika, listen to me, listen …’

  She sniffed into his shoulder.

  ‘It’s all lies,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean a word of it, you know that. Annika, look at me …’

  She burrowed her face into his armpit. He smelt of washing powder and deodorant.

  ‘It’s all just strategy,’ he said. ‘I’d say whatever it took to help you.’

  She took several breaths through her mouth. ‘Why did you show me the transcript?’ she asked, the words muffled by his shirt.

  ‘I’m here on your behalf,’ he said. ‘It’s important that you know what I’m doing, what I’m saying. This is what it sounds like. Annika …’

  He pulled back and she peered up at him. He brushed a strand of hair from her face and smiled. ‘Hello,’ he said.

  She shut her eyes and couldn’t help laughing. He let go of her shoulders and moved away. Everything became bright and cold around her.

  ‘I hate this,’ she said.

  He moved to the computer, sat down at the screen and read. The silence in the room grew, eventually becoming too much for her. She picked up the bundle of papers from the floor and got up. ‘I’m going to catch up on what’s been happening in the w
orld,’ she said, and left the room.

  Chapter 15

  The murdered women in the Stockholm suburbs filled the daily papers, and now the violence was important, down to the smallest detail. Linnea Sendman’s killer had been lying in wait for her behind a fir next to the path at the back of the nursery school, she read. The victim had probably been chased up the slope and stabbed in the neck with excessive force. Her spinal column had been severed at the second vertebra.

  Annika tried to envisage the scene, but failed: her own memories kept taking over – the boot sticking into the air.

  Sandra Eriksson, fifty-four, from Nacka, was running away across a car park when she had been stabbed from behind, the knife going straight into her heart. She was dead in a matter of seconds. She had four children, the youngest a daughter of thirteen.

  Eva Nilsson Bredberg, thirty-seven, from Hässelby, had been stabbed fourteen times, most of the blows going all the way through her body. The murder weapon was described as long and powerful. The victim had probably tried to run into her house, but fell and was stabbed from behind on the street outside.

  Just to be on the safe side, the similarities were listed in the articles and fact-boxes: murder weapons, modus operandi, the proximity to children and playgrounds, and the fact that there were no witnesses in any of the cases. It wasn’t stated in so many words, but intelligent readers would understand that the police were hunting a particularly cunning and emotionless perpetrator.

  Annika got her mobile phone and went into the children’s room, closing the door behind her. She dialled Berit’s direct line at work.

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ Berit said, in reply to Annika’s question about what was going on in the world. ‘I’ve spent half the day on a ridiculous story from mediatime.se, claiming that the minister of finance had a luxury renovation done on a luxury flat, using black-market labour.’

  ‘Sounds like a brilliant story,’ Annika said.

  ‘In an ideal world,’ Berit said. ‘Now they’ve put me back on your serial killer.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Annika said. ‘That’s why I’m calling. You don’t happen to have the official addresses of the five murdered women?’

  ‘Why?’