The Bomber

by Liza Marklund

  Nils Langeby closed his mouth and pulled his legs in under the edge of the sofa. While the significance of what was being said sank in, he turned to look at the office-block outside the window, clenched his teeth and swallowed.

  ‘We could help you to set up an office in the city. We would guarantee you the income from five days’ freelance work each month, plus tax and holiday pay, for five years. You’d continue to cover the areas you’re already working on, crime in schools and—’

  ‘It’s that fucking bitch, isn’t it?’ Nils Langeby said angrily.

  ‘Sorry …?’ Schyman said, losing a little of his calm façade.

  Langeby turned back to face the editor-in-chief, and Schyman was taken aback by the hatred in his eyes.

  ‘That bitch, that fucking cow. She’s behind this, isn’t she?’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Schyman said, and realized he was raising his voice.

  The reporter clenched his fists and was breathing hard through his nose.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ he said. ‘That bitch wants to get me fired!’

  ‘I haven’t said anything about firing you,’ Schyman started.

  ‘Bollocks!’ Langeby yelled, standing up so fast that his gut wobbled. His face was deep red and he was waving his fists in the air.

  ‘Sit down,’ Schyman said, quietly and calmly. ‘Don’t make this any more unpleasant than it already is.’

  ‘Unpleasant?’ Langeby roared, and Schyman stood up as well. The editor-in-chief took two steps towards Langeby and stopped right in front of his face.

  ‘Sit down, man; I haven’t finished!’ he snarled.

  Langeby ignored him and went over to the window, and just stared out through the glass. The air was clear and cold, the sun shining over the Russian Embassy.

  ‘Who are you referring to with all that misogynistic swearing?’ Schyman asked. ‘Your line manager, Annika Bengtzon?’

  Langeby let out a short, pathetic little laugh.

  ‘My line manager? Yes, for fuck’s sake, of course I mean her. The most incompetent bitch I’ve ever met. She has no idea! She can’t do anything! Everyone finds her utterly impossible to deal with. Eva-Britt Qvist thinks exactly the same as me! She yells and shouts at people. No one can understand how she got that job. She has no authority, no legitimacy and no editorial experience.’

  ‘Editorial experience?’ Anders Schyman. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Everyone knows about that man who died, you know. She never mentions it, but everyone knows.’

  The editor-in-chief took a deep breath, and his nostrils flared.

  ‘If you’re referring to what happened before Annika Bengtzon became a permanent employee here, the court made it very clear that that was an accident. Dragging that up now is pretty low,’ he said coldly.

  Nils Langeby said nothing, just rocked on his heels, trying to hold back the tears. Schyman decided to stick the knife in and give it a good twist.

  ‘I think it’s quite remarkable of you to express yourself in this way about your boss,’ he said. ‘Outbursts of the sort you just made are grounds for a written warning.’

  Nils Langeby didn’t react, merely carried on rocking over by the window.

  ‘We have to discuss your work here at the paper, Nils. Your so-called article yesterday was an absolute disaster. That in itself isn’t enough to justify a warning, but recently there have been numerous occasions when you have shown shockingly poor judgement. Take your article on Sunday about the police suspecting that the first explosion was the work of terrorists, for instance. You weren’t able to identify a single source.’

  ‘I don’t have to reveal my sources,’ Nils Langeby said breathlessly.

  ‘Yes you do, to me at least, because I’m the fucking publisher of this paper. If you’re wrong, I’m the one who takes the fall. Or maybe you never grasped that in all your years here?’

  Langeby carried on rocking.

  ‘I haven’t been in touch with the union about this yet,’ Schyman said. ‘I wanted to talk to you first. We can do this however you want to, with or without the involvement of the union, and with or without open hostility. It’s up to you.’

  The reporter raised his shoulders, but said nothing.

  ‘You can carry on standing there, or you can sit down and let me tell you what I have in mind.’

  Langeby stopped rocking, hesitated for a moment, then slowly turned round. Schyman could see that he had been crying. The two men took their seats again.

  ‘I have no wish to humiliate you,’ the editor-in-chief said quietly. ‘I want to make this as dignified as possible.’

  ‘You can’t fire me,’ Nils Langeby sniffed.

  ‘Yes, I can,’ Schyman said. ‘It would cost three years’ salary at an industrial tribunal, maybe four. That would be a horribly messy and unpleasant orgy of recrimination and accusation, and neither you nor the paper deserves that. You’d probably never work again afterwards. The paper would end up looking like a harsh and heartless employer, but that wouldn’t be particularly damaging. It might even be good for our reputation. We would be able to give very good justifications for firing you. You would receive a formal written warning immediately, today, and we would refer to that in our case.

  ‘We would claim that you have sabotaged our work, have bullied and undermined your line manager with crude sexual insults. We would provide evidence of your incompetence and poor judgement – we would only have to refer to what has happened in recent days, and count the number of articles in the archive that have been written by you. How many have there been in the past ten years? Thirty? Thirty-five? That’s three and a half articles per year, Nils.’

  ‘You said … you said on Sunday that I could carry on working on lead articles for the Evening Post for years … Was that just crap?’

  Anders Schyman sighed.

  ‘No, not at all. That’s why I’m making you this offer, to carry on working for the paper in a different way. We’ll set up a company and premises for you, and purchase five days of your time each month for five years, on a freelance rate, plus tax and holiday pay. That would provide more than half your current salary for five years, and would leave you free to do as much work as you like elsewhere.’

  Langeby wiped the snot from his upper lip with the back of his hand, and stared down at the carpet. After a couple of minutes’ silence he said, ‘And if I get another job?’

  ‘Then we’d arrange to pay the same amount as retirement compensation. We can’t give more than that.’

  ‘You said five years!’ Langeby said, suddenly combative.

  ‘Yes, but that’s if you’re producing work for us. The freelance contract isn’t a parachute payment. We expect you to continue to work for us, just on new terms.’

  Langeby looked down at the floor again. Schyman waited for a few minutes, then moved on to his next point: tidying up the mess.

  ‘I know you haven’t been happy here for a while, Nils. You haven’t really come to terms with the new culture. I don’t like the idea of you being unhappy with developments in your place of work. This is a very good way for you to build a solid foundation for your own business, and get going on a whole new stage of your career. You don’t like working under Annika Bengtzon, and I think that’s a shame. But Annika isn’t going anywhere; I’ve got big plans for her. I don’t agree with your evaluation of her at all. I think she’s courageous, and highly intelligent. She flares up a bit too easily sometimes, but that will wear off with time. She’s been under a lot of stress recently, and a lot of that is down to you, Nils. I want to keep the skills that you both have here at the paper, and I think that this sort of offer is the best way of achieving that for all concerned …’

  ‘That’s only twice my annual salary,’ Nils Langeby said.

  ‘Yes, it’s twice your full salary, and you get that with no strings attached. No one even has to know about it. You can just say that you’re moving on in your career and starting up you
r own business as a freelance journalist. The paper will express its sorrow at losing such an experienced colleague, but is happy that you will continue to work for us under the terms of a new fixed contract …’

  Nils Langeby looked up at the editor-in-chief with an expression of intense loathing.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ he said. ‘What a devious fucking snake you are. Fuck you!’

  Without another word Nils Langeby got up and walked out. He slammed the door hard behind him, and Anders Schyman listened to his footsteps as they blended into the noise of the newsroom.

  The editor-in-chief went over to his desk and drank another glass of water. The last tablet had taken the edge off his headache, but his forehead was still throbbing angrily. He gave a deep sigh. That had gone pretty well, all things considered. He might even have won already. One thing was certain: Nils Langeby was on his way out. He would be gone from the newsroom, and would never be allowed to set foot here again. Sadly there was no way he would ever resign voluntarily. He would carry on poisoning the atmosphere in the newsroom for another twelve years, doing nothing but sabotaging their efforts.

  Schyman sat down behind his desk and looked out over the embassy complex. Some children were trying to sledge down the mud on the slope in front of it.

  That morning the managing director had promised Schyman that he could reallocate a couple of posts in his budget, and use the money to buy out Nils Langeby – offering him up to four times his annual salary. Which was cheaper than paying for twelve years, which they would have to do if he stayed. If Nils Langeby was smart, which of course he wasn’t, he would take what was on offer. If he didn’t, there were other, more drawn-out, methods available. He could be moved to an early-morning post doing proof-reading. That would mean industrial relations trouble, but the union wouldn’t be able to stop it. They’d never be able to prove that the company had done anything wrong. Reporters were assumed to be competent proof-readers, so there wouldn’t be any formal grounds for complaint.

  The union wouldn’t really have much of a case. Anders Schyman had simply made the reporter an offer. People were often offered this sort of deal when they approached retirement, even if it didn’t happen very often at this paper. All the journalists’ association could do was support its members through the negotiations and make sure they got as good a deal as possible.

  But if everything fell apart, one of the paper’s lawyers, an expert in employment law, was ready to launch proceedings in an industrial tribunal. An ombudsman from the journalists’ association would represent Langeby in court, but there was no way the paper could lose. Schyman’s one and only aim was to get rid of the bastard, and he was going to get his way, come what may.

  The editor-in-chief took another sip of water, then picked up the phone and asked Eva-Britt Qvist to come and see him. He had torn Spike off a strip last night, and was pretty sure he wouldn’t be a problem in future. It was just as well to deal with the whole lot of them in one go.

  The call from Leif, the tip-off merchant, came at 11.47, just three minutes after it had happened. Berit took the call.

  ‘Stockholm Klara has been blown up, at least four people injured,’ Leif said, and hung up. Before the information sank into Berit’s brain, Leif had already called the next paper. He had to be first with the information – otherwise he wouldn’t get paid for it.

  Berit held on to the receiver, but pressed the cradle to end the call, then dialled the direct number to police central control.

  ‘Is it true there’s been a bomb in the central sorting office?’ she asked quickly.

  ‘We don’t know anything yet,’ an extremely stressed police officer said.

  ‘Is it true? Has there been another explosion?’ Berit said.

  ‘It looks like it,’ the policeman said.

  They hung up and Berit threw the remains of her lunch in the bin.

  At noon, Radio Stockholm were the first to announce the news publically.

  57

  Annika left Tungelsta with a warm feeling in her soul. The human psyche had a wonderful capacity for healing itself. She waved to Olof Furhage and Alice as she pulled out onto Älvvägen, heading towards Allévägen. She cruised slowly through the charming streets towards the main road. She could actually imagine living out here. She drove past Krigslida, Glasberga and Norrskogen on her way back to the Västerhaninge junction and the motorway up to Stockholm.

  Once she was safely in the right lane on the Nynäshamn road, she picked up her mobile from the passenger seat. The display read ‘1 missed call’, so she clicked to see the number. The call was from the paper. She sighed and put the phone back on the seat. Thank goodness it was nearly Christmas.

  She switched on the radio and sang along to Alphaville’s ‘Forever Young’.

  Just after the Dalarö junction the mobile rang again. She sighed and turned the radio down, put in her earpiece and pressed ‘answer’.

  ‘Annika Bengtzon? Yes, hello, this is Beata Ekesjö, we spoke on Tuesday. We met out at the sports centre and then I called you that evening …’

  Annika groaned silently to herself. Great, the crazy construction manager.

  ‘Hello,’ Annika said, overtaking a Russian lorry.

  ‘I was wondering if you’ve got time for a chat …’

  ‘Not really,’ Annika said, pulling in ahead of the lorry.

  ‘It’s important,’ Beata Ekesjö said.

  Annika sighed again.

  ‘I see. What’s it about?’

  ‘I think I know who killed Christina Furhage.’

  Annika came close to driving off the road.

  ‘Really? How could you possibly know that?’

  ‘I’ve found something,’ Beata Ekesjö said.

  Annika’s brain was working overtime.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘Have you told the police?’

  ‘No, I wanted to show you first.’

  ‘Me? Why?’

  ‘Because you’ve written about all this.’

  Annika slowed down to give herself space to think, and was overtaken by the Russian lorry. A swirl of snow kicked up in its wake covered the road.

  ‘But I’m not the one investigating the murder, that’s the police’s job,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t you want to write about me?’

  The woman wasn’t giving up; she was evidently desperate to get in the paper.

  Annika weighed up the pros and cons. The woman was crazy, and probably didn’t have anything, and she just wanted to get home. But at the same time you couldn’t just hang up when someone said they could give you the solution to a murder.

  ‘Tell me what you’ve found and I’ll tell you if I’m going to write about it.’

  The snow being kicked up by the lorry was a real nuisance, so Annika pulled out and overtook it again.

  ‘I can show you.’

  Annika groaned silently and looked at the time. Quarter to one.

  ‘Okay, so where is it?’

  ‘Here, at the Victoria Stadium.’

  Annika was driving past Trångsund; she would practically be driving right past the Victoria Stadium on her way back to the paper.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I can be there in quarter of an hour.’

  ‘Great,’ Beata said. ‘I’ll be waiting for you out in front—’

  The telephone gave three short bleeps and the call was cut off. It was out of battery. Annika found the in-car phone charger in the bottom of her bag and plugged it in. She turned up the volume again and discovered to her great delight that they had just started playing Gloria Gaynor’s old feminist anthem, ‘I Will Survive’.

  58

  A group of journalists and reporters had already gathered at the central sorting office by the time Berit and Johan Henriksson arrived. Berit looked up at the futuristic façade, the sun glittering in the glass and chrome.

  ‘So our bomber is ringing the changes,’ she said. ‘He’s never used letter bombs before.’
<
br />   Henriksson checked his cameras as they climbed the steps up to the main doors. The other journalists were standing in the airy entrance hall. Berit looked round as she walked in. The building was a fairly typical 1980s construction: marble, escalators, ridiculously high ceilings.

  ‘Is there anyone from the Evening Post here?’ asked a man over by the lifts.

  Berit and Henriksson looked at each other in surprise.

  ‘Yes, here,’ Berit said.

  ‘Would you mind coming with me?’ the man said.

  The cordons had been removed, the approach road had been cleared of snow, and Annika was able to drive right up to the steps in front of the stadium. She looked around, the sun making her squint, but she could see no signs of life anywhere. She sat in the car for a while with the engine idling, listening to the end of Dusty Springfield’s ‘I Only Want To Be With You’. When there was a knock on the window she almost jumped out of her skin.

  ‘God, you scared me,’ Annika said as she opened the door.

  Beata Ekesjö smiled.

  ‘No need to worry,’ she said.

  Annika turned off the engine.

  ‘You can’t park here,’ Beata Ekesjö said. ‘You’re bound to get a ticket.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning to stay long,’ Annika protested.

  ‘No, we have to take a bit of a walk. There’s a nine-hundred-kronor fine for parking here.’

  Annika groaned to herself.

  ‘Where should I park, then?’

  Beata pointed.

  ‘Over there, on the other side of the walkway. I’ll wait for you here.’

  Annika got back in the car. Why do I let people mess me about? she thought as she drove back the way she had come and parked among the other cars alongside a residential block. Oh well, a short walk in the sunshine would do no harm, it didn’t exactly happen every day. The main thing was to make sure she wasn’t late picking the children up. Annika unplugged her mobile. The battery showed it was a quarter full, as the screen flashed up ‘1 new message’. She pressed ‘c’ to clear the screen and called the nursery. They were closing at five, an hour earlier than usual, but still later than she had thought.