Red Wolf: A Novel (16 page)

‘Do you think he could have told anyone else?’

‘We haven’t asked, but I’ll get on to it.’

The silence was oppressive; Annika felt the weight of her own conscience blocking their communication.

‘I feel responsible,’ she said.

‘I can understand that,’ the inspector said, ‘but you shouldn’t. Someone else is responsible for this, and we’re going to get him. You can be sure of that.’

She rubbed her eyes, thinking hard.

‘So what are you doing? Going door to door? Looking for fingerprints? Checking for footprints, cars, mopeds?’

‘All that, and a whole lot more.’

‘Talking to friends, teachers, neighbours?’

‘To start with.’

Annika made some notes. Her body was shaking.

‘Have you found anything?’

‘We’re going to be very careful with any information we get.’

Silence again.

‘A leak,’ Annika said. ‘You think you’ve got a leak that revealed the boy’s identity.’

A deep sigh at the other end of the line. ‘There are a few people who might have said something, including the boy himself. He never spoke to the mass media, but at least two of his friends knew he was the witness. His mum told her boss at work. Or what about you?’

‘I haven’t told anyone,’ she said. ‘I’m absolutely certain of that.’

There was silence again. She was an outsider, he didn’t know much about her, what she was all about, a big city journalist who he may never meet again. Could she be responsible?

‘You can trust me,’ she said quietly. ‘Just so you know. How much of this can I write about?’

‘Don’t mention the cause of death, we haven’t released that. You can quote me saying that the murder was extremely violent and that the Luleå police are shocked at its brutality.’

‘Can I mention his mother? The fact that she found him?’

‘Well, that’s logical, so you can say that, but don’t try to contact her. She probably isn’t home anyway; I think my team took her off to the hospital suffering from shock. She had no one apart from the boy. The dad seems to have been a tragic case, one of the gang that sit and drink outside the shopping centre and terrorize the shopkeepers along the main street.’

‘It couldn’t have been him?’

‘He was in a cell, drunk, from five o’clock yesterday afternoon. Taken off to dry out in Boden at seven this morning.’

‘That’s what I call an alibi,’ Annika said. ‘Is there any way I can help? Are you looking for anything in particular that we could draw people’s attention to in the paper?’

‘The last witness with a definite sighting of the boy was the driver of the last bus out to Svartöstaden last night, and that reached the last stop just after ten. The preliminary report says the boy died shortly after that, so if anyone saw him around that time we’d like to hear from them.’

‘You’ve checked out the bus-driver?’

Suup gave a deep sigh. ‘And all the passengers,’ he said. ‘We’re going to get this bastard.’

A thought occurred to her from out of nowhere. ‘In his bedroom, you said? How did the killer get into the flat?’

‘No signs of a break-in.’

Annika thought, forcing herself to outpace the guilt until the burden was out of reach, gone for ever, and she knew she was running needlessly. She was well aware of what little effect adrenalin and will-power have on a guilty conscience.

‘So he might have let him in himself,’ she said. ‘It could have been someone he knew.’

‘Or else the killer went in without knocking, or was waiting for him in the dark. The lock on the flat was pretty hopeless, one good pull and it comes open.’

She made herself think clearly and sensibly, getting lost in the familiarity of the inspector’s tone.

‘What can I write?’ she asked once more. ‘Can I mention this?’

The policeman suddenly sounded very tired. ‘Write whatever you want,’ he said, and hung up.

And Annika was left holding the phone, staring at the list of questions she had written about Ragnwald in her notebook.

She had hardly replaced the receiver in its cradle before it rang again, an internal call that made her jump.

‘Can you come and see me?’ Anders Schyman asked.

She didn’t move, paralysed, and tried to get a grip on reality again. She let her eyes roam over the mess on her desk, the pens and notepads and newspapers and printouts and a mass of other stuff. She took hold of the edge of the desk and squeezed it hard.

It was her fault; oh God, she had persuaded the boy to talk.

She was at least partially responsible for this; her ambition had been decisive in determining the boy’s fate.

I’m so sorry
, she thought.
Please, forgive me
.

And gradually it eased, the pressure on her lungs grew lighter, the cramp in her hands stopped, she could feel her fingers aching.

I have to talk to his mum. Not now, but later
.

There was a future, tomorrow was a new day, and there would be others after that, if only she allowed there to be.

If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the bodies of your enemies float by
.

She let out a sob, smiling at the Chinese proverb Anne Snapphane often quoted.

You’re not dying
, she thought.
It just feels like it
.

The editor-in-chief was standing by the window with a printout in his hand, staring down at the Russian embassy. Annika glanced at the conference table – at least he had rolled up his sales graphs and diagrams today.

‘Sit down,’ he said, looking back at the room and indicating a chair.

She sat down, feeling extremely uncomfortable.

‘I’ve read your outline about Ragnwald,’ Anders Schyman said. ‘I see what you meant when you said it wasn’t an article, just an idea.’

Annika crossed her arms and legs. Then, realizing she was adopting an extremely defensive position, she tried to relax, straightening her arms and legs instead.

‘And I’m not convinced by the article you wrote about Benny Ekland. It was speculative to an extent that felt rather unfortunate.’

She could no longer resist the temptation to fold her arms.

‘How do you mean?’

Schyman leaned back, his shirt coming loose above his navel.

‘I think you’re applying the term terrorism with pretty broad strokes these days,’ he said. ‘Not all criminals are terrorists, and not all violence is terrorism. We have to keep a bit of distance and relevance in our journalism, not give in to sensationalism and always use the most powerful words. We’ll have to use those words for real events, probably sooner than we imagine . . .’

She heard herself let out a deep sigh, and threw her arms out. ‘Oh, please,’ she said. ‘Don’t preach to me about press ethics.’

He clenched his jaw so hard that a vein started to throb in his neck.

‘I’m not preaching, I just want to point out—’

‘I thought you supported me in my role as an independent reporter,’ Annika said, leaning forward, feeling the blood rush to her head. ‘That you trusted my judgement about what’s important.’

‘Annika, believe me, I do, but—’

‘There’s something here, I can feel it. This guy had stumbled across something he shouldn’t have.’

‘If you’ll just let me finish, I’d like to stress that I support you completely in your role, but in spite of that I am also legally responsible for what gets published, so I take the decisions about whether or not we should identify people as terrorists. That’s why I’m explaining my position to you, to save you making a load of trips and doing masses of work for nothing.’

Annika had stopped in the middle of a gesture, almost standing, leaning across the editor-in-chief’s desk, mouth open, her face livid. In the silence left by his words the thoughts were racing through her head, trying to find solutions and explanations.

‘It’s Spike,’ she said. ‘Has Spike said something about my trips?’

Schyman sighed and stood up. ‘Not at all. I’m just pointing out that this business with terrorism and terrorists has started to take up a great deal of your time.’

‘Well, perhaps they’ve been fairly important subjects in recent years.’

Annika sat down, and Schyman walked around her chair and over to the conference table.

‘I’d just like you to consider whether there might be some other reason why you should be particularly interested in these things.’

‘What do you mean?’

Schyman sighed again, running his fingers over the tubes containing the graphs.

‘That I’m identifying myself with the terrorists, is that what you mean? That I’ve killed someone myself, and that makes my brain conjure up compulsive killers where there aren’t any? Or do you mean the tunnel, the dynamite the Bomber tied me up to? Has that made me so crazy that I’m seeing Bombers behind every bush?’

Anders Schyman raised both hands in a placatory, soothing way. ‘Annika,’ he said, ‘I don’t know. All I can say is that this story is really peculiar. I can’t run a story about a Ragnwald who might be dead and buried, or a gardener in Moscow, or a diver for the coastguards, or whatever the hell he might be, because this is serious stuff, serious allegations.’

‘Ragnwald is his codename, he isn’t identified anywhere.’

‘Maybe he’s better known as Ragnwald than his real name. We just don’t know, do we?’

She didn’t answer, feeling her teeth grind as she stared into the curtains that hid the embassy compound.

‘Besides,’ he said, ‘common sense suggests that the idea behind your article isn’t very sensible. The Swedish countryside isn’t exactly famous for producing fullblown terrorists, is it?’

She looked at him in astonishment. ‘Are you kidding? Or are you just ignorant? The letter bomb was invented by a man from Toreboda, and the first one blew up in the hands of director Lundin on Hamngatan in August nineteen hundred and four.’

‘Look,’ he said, his tone suggesting that he wanted to placate her. ‘Things are going really well for the paper right now. We can’t put ourselves in a position where we risk the credibility we’ve built up with our readers with some vague accusations of terrorism.’

She leaped up, adrenalin pumping. ‘Credibility? You mean you think people buy the paper for our serious and cutting-edge journalism?’

She let out a short burst of laughter.

‘Anne Nicole Smith on the front page three days in a row last week,’ she said. ‘A boy who masturbated on a reality show on Saturday. The Crown Princess kissing her boyfriend on Sunday. What is this? Can’t you see what you’ve done to this paper? Or are you kidding yourself as well?’

She could see he wanted to explode but was choosing not to.

‘I thought you were happy about the progress the paper’s been making,’ he said, his voice slightly strained.

‘Working with sale signals on the front cover and billboards, isn’t that what you call it? Do you know what I call it? Focusing on crap and shit.’

‘We’re a second paper. We have to push tabloid stories harder than a first paper. Or don’t you want us to get ahead?’

‘Not at any cost. I think it’s a tragedy that you’ve dropped all quality control on this paper.’

‘That’s not true,’ he said in a very controlled tone of voice. She was surprised at how angry he seemed. ‘We are still running bloody serious investigative journalism inside the paper, you know that perfectly well. Be fair.’

‘That doesn’t stop me from regretting the way journalism is going. Along with the other tabloids we’re writing about reality television as if it was the most
important and relevant thing going on right now. Now that can’t be right, can it?’

‘You’re forgetting Cain and Abel,’ Schyman said, trying to smile.

‘What about them?’

Annika folded her arms on her chest, waiting.

‘Being seen, the most important thing for human beings, didn’t you once say that? About television, actually? Being in a reality show that’s being filmed and shown on the internet twenty-four hours a day is like being seen by God, all the time.’

‘So who’s God?’ Annika said. ‘The camera lens?’

‘Nope,’ Schyman said. ‘The viewing public. When did any of us last have the chance to be God?’

‘You get to be God every day, at least on the paper,’ Annika said. ‘Just as omnipotent, unjust and full of poor judgements as the real God was with Cain and Abel.’

Now it was Schyman’s turn to be speechless. Annika could hear her accusations echo in the silence, and wished she’d bitten her tongue.

‘I’m just extremely bloody upset that my story about Benny Ekland’s murder was thrown off the front page,’ she said, in an effort to excuse her remarks.

He snorted, shook his head, and walked over to the window.

‘Benny Ekland wasn’t a name,’ Anders Schyman said, towards the glass of the window. ‘And besides, the link to terrorism was extremely vague.’

‘And how much of a name is Paula from Pop Factory?’

‘Paula came second in the competition last spring and released a single that got to number seven in the charts. She’s reported the incident to the police and is prepared to have her name and picture published, even in tears,’
Anders Schyman said, without sounding the slightest bit ashamed.

Annika took two steps towards his back.

‘And why does she do that? Because she’s fallen out of the charts. Surely we ought to think for a moment before we start doing the bidding of two-bit celebrities like her?’

‘Do you know, Annika,’ he said, ‘I can’t be bothered to argue with you about this. I don’t need to justify to you the priorities that are actually responsible for saving this paper from closure.’

‘So why are you doing it, then?’

‘What?’

She gathered her papers, tears bubbling under the surface.

‘I’m going to carry on,’ she said, ‘if you’ve no objection. But I know that you have to prioritize. If Ozzy Osbourne throws another T-bone steak into his neighbour’s garden, I realize that I’m fucked.’

She walked out before he could see her tears of rage.

They were sitting in front of the television, two glasses of wine in front of them. Annika was staring at the flickering picture without registering it. The children were asleep, the dishwasher was rattling away in the kitchen, the vacuum cleaner was waiting for her out in the hall. She felt completely paralysed, staring at a man walking to and fro in the foyer of a hotel, as the day, the week, hammered against the inside of her skull, heavy pressure weighing on her chest.