The Bomber

by Liza Marklund

  Anders Schyman was on the phone, it sounded like he was talking to a child. Pelle from the picture desk was already seated at the conference table with his long lists. Annika stood by the window and stared at her own reflection. If she held up her hand to block the light from the ceiling and put her head close to the glass, she could see through it. The darkness outside was dense, heavy. The yellow lamps of the Russian Embassy hung like small golden islands in a sea of darkness. Even this little piece of Russia was gloomy and oppressive. The cold of the window made her shiver.

  24

  ‘Alles gut?’ Jansson said behind her, his voice fresh from sleep, as he spilled a bit more coffee on the editor-in-chief’s carpet. ‘My last night with the gang, then I’m off for three days. Where the hell’s Ingvar Johansson?’

  ‘Here! Shall we start?’

  Annika sat down at the table and noted that Ingvar seemed intent on taking control today. That suited her fine; she had done all her talking the day before.

  ‘Yes, let’s get going,’ Anders Schyman said as he hung up. ‘What have we got and where are we going with it?’

  Ingvar Johansson began to speak as he passed round copies of his outline.

  ‘I think we should run with Nils Langeby’s piece: the police are confident it was a terrorist attack. They’re hunting a foreign group of terrorists.’

  Annika was struck dumb.

  ‘What?’ she spluttered. ‘I didn’t even know that Nils was here today. Who called him in?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Johansson said, irritated. ‘I presumed that you must have done, seeing as you’re his boss.’

  ‘Where the hell has he got that stuff about terrorism from?’ Annika said, aware that she was on the brink of losing control of her voice.

  ‘What makes you think you can ask him to give up his sources, when you never do?’ Ingvar Johansson countered.

  Annika felt the blood rise to her face. Everyone round the table was watching her reaction. It suddenly struck her that they were all men apart from her.

  ‘We have to synchronize our work,’ she said in a muffled voice. ‘I’ve been told the exact opposite by my source, that the attack was definitely not an act of terrorism, but aimed at Christina personally.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Ingvar Johansson said, and Annika knew she had no way out of this.

  If she told them what she knew, Jansson and Ingvar Johansson would demand that she wrote an article about the alarm codes. There wasn’t an editor in the world who would let an opportunity like that slip by. If she kept quiet … But she couldn’t do that – they’d take her apart if she tried. She quickly came up with a third option.

  ‘I’ll call my source again,’ she said.

  Anders Schyman was looking at her thoughtfully.

  ‘We’ll wait before deciding if we’re going to go with the terrorism angle,’ he said. ‘Let’s move on.’

  Annika sat in silence, waiting for Ingvar Johansson to go on. Which of course he was happy to do.

  ‘We’re doing a supplement: Our Christina. Her Life in Words and Pictures. We’ve got loads of good quotes, from the King, the White House, the government, the President of the Olympic Committee, loads of sports stars, TV celebs, and so on. They all want to have their say. It’s going to be pretty impressive, powerful stuff …’

  ‘So what about the sport supplement?’ Anders Schyman asked quietly.

  Ingvar Johansson was nonplussed.

  ‘Well, yes, we’re using those pages for the memorial supplement, sixteen pages of full colour, so we’ll add extra pages to the main paper for sport.’

  ‘Full colour?’ Anders Schyman said thoughtfully. ‘Doesn’t that mean that we’re taking a load of colour pages from the main paper for this supplement? Which means that the main paper will be almost entirely without colour?’

  Ingvar Johansson was practically blushing.

  ‘Well, yes, when you put it like that …’

  ‘Why wasn’t I told about this idea?’ Anders Schyman said calmly. ‘I’ve been here pretty much all day. You could have come and discussed this with me at any time.’

  The news-editor looked like he wanted the floor to swallow him up.

  ‘I can’t really explain. Everything happened so quickly.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ Schyman said, ‘because we aren’t going to publish a full-colour supplement on Christina Furhage. She wasn’t some sort of national heroine. She was an elitist business leader, admittedly one who was greatly admired by people in certain circles, but she wasn’t royalty, no one elected her, and she wasn’t a TV star. We’ll do the memorial stuff on some extra pages inside the main paper instead and give up any idea of a supplement. I take it that sport haven’t got anything for their own supplement now?’

  Ingvar Johansson was staring down at the table.

  ‘What else have we got?’

  No one spoke. Annika waited in silence. The atmosphere was incredibly uncomfortable.

  ‘Bengtzon?’

  She straightened her back and looked at her notes.

  ‘We can put together a good piece on the hunt for the killer. Patrik’s found out that Furhage’s laptop is missing, and I have a good source for the theory that it was an inside job …’

  She fell quiet, but when no one else said anything she went on: ‘Berit is doing Furhage’s last day, and I’ve been to see her family.’

  ‘Ah, yes. What have you got from that?’ Schyman said.

  Annika thought for a moment.

  ‘The husband was pretty confused. The daughter was completely unhinged; I didn’t even try with her. The question is whether we should publish any of it. We could get attacked for approaching the husband at all.’

  ‘Did you trick him into talking?’ Anders Schyman asked.

  ‘No, absolutely not.’

  ‘Was he at all reluctant?’

  ‘Not at all. He invited us over so he could talk about Christina. I’ve written up what he had to say, but it doesn’t amount to much. It’s on the filestore.’

  ‘Have we got pictures?’ Schyman said.

  ‘Henriksson got some great shots,’ Pelle Oscarsson said. ‘The old boy standing at the window, eyes moist with tears, really lovely.’

  Schyman regarded the picture editor expressionlessly.

  ‘I see. Well, I want to see the pictures before we decide to use one.’

  ‘Of course,’ Oscarsson said.

  ‘Good,’ Schyman said. ‘There’s one other subject I’d like to get out of the way, now that we’re all here.’

  He ran his fingers through his hair and stood up straight, reaching for his coffee but changing his mind. Annika felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickling. Had she done something else wrong?

  ‘We’ve got a killer on the loose,’ the editor-in-chief said. He clearly had a sense for the dramatic gesture. ‘I want us to bear this in mind when we publish pictures and interviews with people who knew Christina Furhage. Most murders are committed by people close to the victim. And that seems to be the case this time – the Bomber might well be someone who wanted to take some sort of personal revenge on Christina.’

  He fell silent and looked round the table. No one else spoke.

  ‘Well, you understand what I’m saying, don’t you?’ he said. ‘I’m thinking in particular of the Bergsjö murder, which I’m sure you all remember? The little girl found murdered in the cellar, and the mother crying all over the papers while the father was under suspicion. And then she turns out to be guilty after all.’

  He raised his hand against the protests.

  ‘Yes, yes, I know, we aren’t the police and it isn’t our place to judge, but I just think we ought to bear that in mind in this case, that’s all.’

  ‘Statistically, it ought to be her husband,’ Annika said drily. ‘Almost all murdered women are killed by their husbands and partners.’

  ‘Is that a possibility in this case?’

  Annika thought for a moment.

  ‘Bertil Milande
r was old, tired. I can’t see him running around a stadium with his arms full of explosives. Mind you, he needn’t necessarily have done it himself. He could have hired someone.’

  ‘Are there any other suspects we can think of? Anyone in the Olympic office?’

  ‘Evert Danielsson, chairman of the committee,’ Annika said. ‘The people in charge of the various divisions there: accreditation, transport, the stadiums, the sports themselves, the Olympic village. There are quite a few of them. The chairman of the Board, Hans Bjällra. The members of the Board – including politicians and ministers …’

  Schyman sighed. ‘Well, there’s no point thinking about that right now. What have we got for the rest of the paper?’

  Ingvar Johansson ran through the rest of his list: a pop star who had got planning permission for a conservatory in spite of his neighbours’ protests, a cat that survived a full cycle in a tumble-drier, a thrilling indoor hockey derby, and record viewing figures for Saturday-night television.

  The meeting broke up soon after that, and Annika hurried back to her office. She shut the door behind her, and realized that she felt quite giddy. She had forgotten to have any dinner, but she was also aware that the power struggles of editorial meetings got her down. She clung to the desk as she made her way round to her chair. She had only just sat down when there was a knock on the door and the editor-in-chief came in.

  ‘What does your source say?’ Anders Schyman asked.

  ‘That the motive was personal,’ Annika said, opening the bottom drawer of her desk. If she remembered rightly, there was a cinnamon bun down there.

  ‘Against Furhage herself?’

  The bun was mouldy.

  ‘Yes, not aimed at the Games. The alarm codes were only known to a fairly small group. The threat against her had nothing to do with the Olympics. It came from someone close to her.’

  The editor-in-chief let out a whistle.

  ‘How much of that are you allowed to write?’

  She pulled a face. ‘Nothing, really. It’s difficult to say anything about the serious threats to her and her family without the family commenting, and they don’t want to say anything. I asked them today. And I promised not to say anything about the alarm codes. Those codes, together with the missing laptop that Patrik found out about, are pretty much all the police have to go on.’

  ‘As far as the police are telling you, anyway,’ Schyman said. ‘We can’t be sure they’re telling you everything.’

  Annika looked down at her desk.

  ‘Well, I’m going to find Langeby and ask what the hell he thinks he’s playing at. Don’t move; I’ll be right back.’

  He stood up and closed the door quietly behind him. Annika sat still, her head empty, her stomach even more so. She had to eat something before she fainted.

  25

  Thomas didn’t get home with the children until almost half past six. All three of them were soaking wet and exhausted, but exhilarated. Ellen had almost fallen asleep on the sledge on the way home from the park, but a bit more singing and a few snowballs had soon got her laughing again.

  They collapsed in a heap in the hall, helping each other out of their wet clothes in a tangle of arms and legs. The children each took hold of one of Thomas’s boots, but weren’t strong enough to pull them off, just kept tugging and tugging in different directions until Thomas pretended to split down the middle. He got them into a hot bath, where they splashed about as he prepared some semolina porridge for them all. Good Sunday-night food, with lots of cinnamon and sugar, then ham sandwiches. He took the opportunity to wash Ellen’s long hair, using the last of Annika’s conditioner – Ellen hated having her hair washed. He let them eat in their dressing gowns, then they all got into the big double bed and read a bedtime story about Bamse the Bear. Ellen fell asleep after two pages, but Kalle listened wide-eyed right to the end.

  ‘Why is Bamse’s daddy always so stupid?’ he asked afterwards. ‘Is it because he hasn’t got a job?’

  Thomas thought before replying. He ought to be able to answer that – after all, that was what he did at the Association of Local Councils.

  ‘Not having a job doesn’t make you stupid or mean,’ he said. ‘But if someone’s stupid and mean enough, they might not be able to get a job. Because no one would want to work with someone like that, would they?’

  The boy thought about this.

  ‘Mummy sometimes says I’m mean to Ellen. Do you think I’ll get a job?’

  Thomas hugged the boy to him and blew on his still damp hair, rocking him slowly back and forth, feeling the warmth of his little body.

  ‘You’re a lovely little boy, and you can have whatever job you want when you’re grown up. Mummy and I just get a bit sad when you and Ellen fight, and sometimes you do tease her. There’s no need for any teasing or fighting. You and Ellen love each other, after all, because you’re brother and sister. It would make everything even nicer for the whole family if we could all be friends …’

  The boy curled into a little ball and put his thumb in his mouth.

  ‘I love you, Daddy,’ he said, and Thomas felt a warm, overwhelming happiness spread through him.

  ‘I love you too, champ. Do you want to sleep in the big bed?’

  Kalle nodded, and Thomas pulled off the boy’s damp dressing gown and put his pyjamas on. He carried Ellen to her own bed and put her nightdress on. He stood and watched her sleeping in her little bed, aware that he would never get tired of looking at her. She was the image of Annika.

  Kalle looked just like he himself used to at that age. The pair of them were proper little miracles. It was a cliché, but it was true.

  He turned out the light and closed the door quietly. The children had hardly seen Annika all weekend. He had to admit that it annoyed him when she spent this much time at work. She threw herself into her work in a way that wasn’t entirely healthy. She got swallowed up by it, and everything else had to take second place. She lost her temper with the children, couldn’t think of anything but her articles.

  He went into the TV room, picked up the remote and settled into the sofa. This business with the explosion and Christina Furhage’s death was undoubtedly a big deal. It was on all the channels, including Sky, the BBC and CNN. One of the Swedish channels was showing a programme about the Olympics boss, with loads of people in a studio discussing the Olympics and Christina’s life’s work, cut with extracts of an interview with the dead woman from a year or so ago. Christina Furhage really had been pretty smart, and very funny. He watched for a while, fascinated. Then he called Annika to see if she was on her way home.

  Berit looked in through the doorway.

  ‘Have you got a minute?’

  Annika waved her in as the phone started to ring. She looked at the caller-display, then went back to typing.

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer?’ Berit wondered.

  ‘It’s Thomas,’ Annika said. ‘He’ll want to know when I’m going to be finished. He tries to sound sweet about it, but I still hear the reproach in his voice. He’ll be happier if I don’t answer, because he’ll think I’m on my way home.’

  The telephone stopped ringing and her mobile started up instead, playing an electronic tune that Berit vaguely recognized. Annika didn’t answer that either, letting it go to voicemail.

  ‘I can’t get hold of that Helena Starke woman,’ Berit said. ‘Her number’s ex-directory, and I’ve asked her neighbours to try her door, and to leave notes for her, asking her to call us, all the usual, but she hasn’t got in touch. I haven’t got time to go out there now, because I’ve got to tidy up the Christina Furhage story—’

  ‘Why are you doing that?’ Annika said in surprise, looking up from her screen. ‘I thought one of the copy-editors was going to do that?’

  Berit gave a wry smile.

  ‘He was, but he suddenly got a migraine when he heard the supplement had been scrapped, so I’ve got three hours of editing ahead of me.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ A
nnika said. ‘I’ll drop in on Starke on my way home. She lives on Södermalm, doesn’t she?’

  Berit gave her the address. As the door closed behind her Annika tried calling her police source again, without result. She groaned silently. She had to pull her piece together anyway now; she couldn’t sit on this information any longer. She performed various stylistic somersaults to avoid writing the words ‘alarm codes’, but the meaning was still pretty clear. It turned out better than she expected. Her angle, after all, was that the attack was an inside job. She was allowed to write that the alarms at the stadium were switched off, and that there were no signs of a break-in. She quoted other sources outside the police about access to pass-cards, and ways of getting into the stadium at night. She was also able to say that the police were looking at a fairly limited number of people who, entirely theoretically, might have been able to carry out the attack. What with this and Patrik’s piece, they had two really excellent stories.

  Once she was finished with that, she moved on to a separate piece about how the police had already interviewed the person who had made threats against Christina Furhage a couple of years ago. She was almost done when Anders Schyman appeared again.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he said, sitting down on the sofa. ‘Who’d be editor-in-chief?’

  ‘So which way are we going?’ Annika said. ‘Is it time to start checking out international terrorist groups, or are we pointing the finger at Olympic headquarters?’

  ‘I think Nils Langeby is slightly deranged,’ Schyman said. ‘He swears his article is accurate, but refuses to reveal a single source or be specific about what they told him.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ Annika said.

  ‘We’re going with the insider theory, of course. I just want to read it first.’

  ‘Fine, here it is.’

  Annika clicked open the file. The editor-in-chief pulled himself up and went over to her desk.

  ‘Do you want to sit down?’

  ‘No, no, I’m fine …’

  He looked through the text.