The Final Word (15 page)

The manager reached for a bun. She peeled off the paper and folded it into a tight little ball.

‘I’ll get hold of her medical records,’ Nina said. ‘It’s
just a matter of time. It’s up to you whether you choose to help me or not.’

‘Ingela is unusual,’ Evelina said. ‘Her diagnosis isn’t clear, but she has a number of handicaps – ADHD with elements of autism. She may have been deprived of oxygen at birth, but nobody knows. Her IQ is fairly high, almost normal, but she doesn’t function very well with other people. She gets on better with animals, but Peter is allergic to them so she can’t have a dog here, which is a great shame.’ She fell silent.

‘Do you want to be there when I talk to her?’ Nina asked. ‘You’ve every right to be present, but you don’t have to be.’

Evelina Granqvist closed her eyes tight. ‘She’s in her room,’ she said, and got to her feet.

Nina followed the manager out into the hall and up a flight of stairs. Someone had started singing in the dayroom.

Ingela Berglund’s room was the last but one in a dark corridor with doors on both sides. Evelina Granqvist knocked. ‘Ingela? You’ve got a visitor. There’s a lady here who’d like to talk to you. Can we come in?’

No answer.

She opened the door and a shard of light spread across the corridor. ‘Hello, Ingela,’ she said, walking into the room.

Nina hesitated in the doorway. The room was bright and nicely furnished in shades of pink and pale blue.

The manager went to a woman sitting at the window.
She put a hand on her shoulder, and leaned forward. ‘Ingela, you’ve got a visitor. There’s a lady here from Stockholm. She’s come to see you.’

The woman’s colouring and build were reminiscent of Ivar Berglund’s. She was relatively short and thick-set, light brown hair with traces of grey. She was dressed in a pink tracksuit. She turned her head and glanced shyly at Nina.

‘Hello, Ingela,’ Nina said. ‘My name’s Nina. I’d like to talk to you, if that’s all right?’

The woman had the same eyes as her brother, but with an entirely different resonance, shiny and shallow. She turned away quickly. ‘I don’t like strangers,’ she said.

She had the same accent as her brother and the manager.

Nina took out her mobile and began to record the conversation. ‘Interview with Ingela Berglund,’ she said, ‘in the Flower Garden care-home in Luleå, Wednesday, the third of June, at ten fifteen a.m. Also present is Evelina Granqvist, manager of the home.’

Evelina Granqvist flushed, but she didn’t protest.

Nina tucked her phone into her jacket pocket. The microphone was powerful and worked fine through the fabric. She fetched a rib-backed chair from the other end of the room and sat down next to her witness so that they could look out of the window together. The car park spread out below them. Nina could see her hire-car behind a gnarled birch tree. Ingela Berglund ignored her.

‘When I was little I had a dog called Zorro,’ Nina said, looking at her car. ‘Zorro means “fox” in Spanish. I was living in Spain at the time, and I thought my dog looked like a fox. He was red.’

She sat quietly, looking at her car. The room smelt stuffy and enclosed. After a while she felt Ingela Berglund look at her. ‘I used to play with Zorro every day,’ Nina said. ‘He was my best friend. He learned how to swim and fetch balls from the sea. Zorro liked all sorts of balls, but his favourite was a red one, maybe because it was the same colour as him.’

Now Ingela Berglund was staring at her, wide-eyed. Nina turned her head slightly and met the woman’s gaze. She looked away at once. ‘Do you like dogs?’ Nina asked.

Ingela Berglund nodded.

‘The witness is nodding,’ Nina said. ‘Have you got a dog at the moment?’

Ingela Berglund snorted. ‘Peter,’ she said. ‘Dogs make him ill, stupid bloody Peter.’

Evelina opened her mouth, presumably to correct the woman’s choice of words. Nina quickly raised a hand to stop her. ‘What was your dog called when you were little?’ she asked.

‘Buster,’ Ingela Berglund replied straight away.

‘Was he just yours, or Ivar’s as well?’

She snorted again. ‘Ivarandarne’s dog died.’

She pronounced her brothers’ names as a single word.

‘Ivar and Arne,’ Nina repeated. ‘It’s sad that their dog died.’

Ingela Berglund was staring out of the window.

‘Was it mostly Ivar’s dog, or Arne’s?’ Nina asked.

‘Ivarandarne,’ Ingela Berglund said. ‘Ivarandarne. They’re the same.’

The radiator was on in spite of the time of year, radiating warm dust towards Nina’s face. ‘Ivar and Arne,’ she said. ‘Your brothers. They shared the dog between them?’

Ingela Berglund got up clumsily from her chair, then walked with short steps to her bed and lay down with her back to the room. Nina watched her, that thick-set body, the brown-grey hair.
They’re the same?

Evelina Granqvist hurried over to the woman and put a hand on her arm. ‘Ingela, are you okay?’

Nina stood up, walked to the bed and sat down. ‘What happened to Ivar and Arne’s dog?’ she asked.

‘He . . .’ The woman curled up. Her arms and legs began to shake. ‘The tools,’ she whispered. ‘Father’s tools, the saw . . .’

Nina held out her mobile. ‘What did Ivar and Arne do with the saw?’

Ingela was staring blankly at the ceiling. ‘Paws,’ she said. ‘He tried to walk without paws . . .’

Nina leaned over her.

‘The bomb,’ Ingela gasped. ‘They detonated the bomb. Over Nausta.’

‘What did you say? Naus—?’

The manager stepped in and pushed Nina away. ‘Ingela,’ she said loudly and clearly. ‘I’m here. I’m here,
Ingela.’ She sat down beside her and put her arms round the woman’s shoulders. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, nothing to worry about . . .’

The woman’s arms and legs were cramping badly now, and a gurgling sound was coming from her throat. She coughed and spluttered a few times, then began to scream.

She screamed and screamed and screamed as Nina walked slowly down the stairs to the ground floor, while the staff rushed in the opposite direction.

Thomas’s feet hit the tarmac at a steady speed of approximately seven minutes per kilometre. That wasn’t fast enough for him to be wheezing, like a truck along the quayside, but quick enough for his top to get sweaty and stick to his chest, and for his hair to hang down in front of his eyes in moist clumps.

He was getting sweaty because he was running in a long-sleeved top, with the hook in a relaxed posture, its fingers gently curled, just like his right hand. His legs were muscular and tanned – there was a solarium just a couple of doors away from his horrible flat, and he had got into the habit of using it a few times each week. The tan lent his appearance a pleasantly sporting touch.

He could feel people’s eyes on him, men’s and women’s. It was surprising how many people still remembered him, even though it was eighteen months since it had happened. Thousands of stories had passed through the television news and newspaper headlines since then, but
his was one that had stuck in people’s heads, the civil servant who was kidnapped and mutilated but managed to escape, a truly heroic story.

The American woman speaking from the app on his mobile informed him that he had run 2.1 kilometres in fifteen minutes; he was maintaining exactly the right tempo.

He lengthened his stride and picked up the pace slightly.

He wasn’t going to work today.

Just thinking about work sent an angry shudder through him.

Tomorrow he was supposed to have presented his report at the cabinet meeting. He would have sat at one end of the table with all the ministers, opposite the prime minister, explaining how important and well-considered his legislative proposal was. The government would have praised his work, and his report would have been sent out to fifty or so individuals and institutions who would have thought about his proposals and made suggestions and comments. He had been prepared for brickbats and plaudits, as well as constructive criticism, but Halenius had sabotaged his work.

There was a bitter taste in his mouth. His feet pounded the ground. The water of Riddarfjärden sparkled to his left as he ran past a woman with a pushchair.

He was to have held a big press conference in the main government offices, he and the minister who had officially led the inquiry, but as Thomas had done all the
work, he would have answered any questions. He would have appeared in all the television news bulletins, on the radio and in the morning papers too (but not the
Evening Post
: Annika’s gossipy little rag only covered murders and scandals, not serious stories about important changes to the law).

Now the press conference had been postponed.

He had been due to write a major article for
Dagens Nyheter
as well. In fact the text was almost finished: he had written a draft that Facelift had polished up very nicely – she was good at expressing herself. (Okay, so he hadn’t exactly been given the green light by
DN
, they wanted to read the text first, but he was convinced that the editor would have taken it.)

If it hadn’t been for his boss, Jimmy Halenius, the man who had taken his family away from him while he had been kidnapped by terrorists in Somalia, who had made sure he wouldn’t be able to watch his children grow up . . .

The woman in the app spoke again: he had run 2.6 kilometres in twenty minutes. He had slowed down. He speeded up: he had to stay in shape; he was no victim.

He wouldn’t go to Sophia’s party: he had no desire to socialize with her stiff, standard-issue financial-industry acquaintances. Sophia might be attractive and wealthy, but there was something bland about her. He needed a woman with firm opinions. Someone like Annika, but with a bit of class and style.

His mobile started to vibrate in the back pocket of his
shorts. Runkeeper wasn’t the only reason he took his phone with him: it was important for his work that he could always be reached. Talk of the devil, he thought, as he looked at the screen.

‘Hello, Annika,’ he said, slowing to a walk.

‘Hello,’ his ex-wife said. ‘Am I interrupting anything?’

‘I can give you a minute,’ he said curtly.

‘Great,’ she said. ‘I was hoping to ask you about something.’

He swung the hook idly as he walked. ‘Sure.’

‘You’ve remembered the kids are coming to yours tonight?’

Shit. He’d forgotten. ‘I’m glad you’ve called,’ he said. ‘I was going to talk to you about that.’

‘Don’t tell me you’d forgotten about them again!’

‘I don’t know if Jimmy’s spoken to you about my inquiry, but a couple of things have cropped up and I—’

‘Thomas, if you don’t want to look after the kids, it would be much better if you just came out with it. Kalle is always so disappointed when you back out at the last minute.’

He gulped. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘It’s fine. The kids are more than welcome.’

‘Are you going to Sophia’s party?’

He stopped at a jetty. Two schoolgirls looked at him and giggled. He turned away, screening the hook with his body. ‘Are you?’ he asked.

‘I said I would, but I’m not sure I’m going to have time, and that’s what I’m really calling about. I’m at
Kastrup. I need to be in Denmark today, and Jimmy’s had to go to Brussels. There’s something I need a bit of help with . . .’

Oh, so it was okay to come crawling to him when she needed help? A shiver of anticipation ran through him. ‘What is it?’

‘Jacob and Serena can cook and feed themselves, it’s not that, but they’ve spent quite a bit of time at Sophia’s, and would like to see her on her birthday.’

He looked out across Lake Mälaren. He wouldn’t have wished his former lover a happy birthday if it hadn’t been for that email.

‘Okay, so how . . .?’

‘I know this is really last-minute and a bit of a nuisance, but if you could maybe take them with you to Sophia’s when you pick up Ellen and Kalle. What do you think?’

She was unbelievable! He was supposed to babysit Jimmy Halenius’s kids? Clearly it wasn’t enough that he and Annika had taken Thomas’s family away from him. And she was calling from an airport in another country. Talk about taking him for granted! Seriously, how bloody presumptuous could she be?

‘Sure,’ he said abruptly. ‘I suppose so. Seeing as I’ll be there anyway.’

‘God, that’s brilliant, thank you so much. You really have saved the day. See you tonight, then?’

They hung up, and the American woman told him he had run 2.7 kilometres in twenty-five minutes.

He walked between the furrows with a rolling gait, swaying rhythmically, the way Signar Allas had taught them when they followed the reindeer to their winter pasture. The soil wasn’t stony moraine, like it was at home, but stiffer, like clay, maybe even glacial. His body felt heavy but stable; he was sure of his feet and clear in his thoughts. The treetops above his head were singing, a lonely song that made him feel melancholic. He let his eyes roam up the trunks to the sky. They were all straight as flagpoles, evidence of very well-managed forest, scrupulously thinned out. They were between sixty and seventy years old, ready for cutting in another decade or so.

He took a deep breath, letting the smell of pine needles fill his lungs.

It was almost a shame that the forest needed to be cut down. If it was left to its own devices it would stand for several hundred years, as long again as dried pine, getting whiter and more brittle, until it collapsed and was swallowed into the earth, which would take another century.

A midge buzzed in his ear, and he slapped his head, leaving a bloodstain a centimetre across on his thumb. Who had the midge bitten? Not him, anyway. An animal? It must have been an animal: there wasn’t another human being within a three-kilometre radius, he was sure – he’d crossed the terrain several times in the past twenty-four hours. The forest tracks were closed to road traffic, and no one had cycled or walked there
recently, perhaps since the last mushroom and berry season.

The suitcase swung heavily from his left hand.

He thought about Signar Allas, the old man from Udtja Sámi village, who had taught them about the forest. He and his brother had liked Signar a lot. But Father had disliked the Sámi and their culture –
Bastard Lapps
, he used to call them.
Only fit for Lapps and seabirds
meant something was very bad, and he would swear about the Sámi as he sat on the sofa drinking his schnapps.