Red Wolf: A Novel (26 page)

Schyman nodded slowly. ‘Then he went to Spain and became a professional killer for ETA,’ he filled in, glancing at the newspaper spread out on one of the side tables.

Annika raised her hand, putting her feet down hard to find solid ground.

‘It’s F21 that’s the interesting bit,’ she said.

‘I thought you said the police had discounted him, that he didn’t carry out the attack?’

She swallowed silently, nodded.

‘So who blew up the plane?’ Anders Schyman said in a neutral tone of voice, his hands still.

She was silent for a few moments before she replied.

‘Karina Björnlund,’ she said. ‘The Minister for Culture.’

The editor-in-chief didn’t move a muscle. His hands remained clasped above his shirt buttons, his back stayed at the same angle, his eyes didn’t move, but the air in the room had suddenly turned grey, difficult to breathe in.

‘I presume,’ Schyman said after a silence of indeterminate length, ‘that you have bloody good back-up for this accusation.’

Annika tried to laugh, but the noise came out as a dry snigger.

‘Not really,’ she said, ‘but the minister really is the most likely culprit.’

Schyman leaned forward quickly, heaving himself out of the chair with the help of the desk and walked across the floor, not looking at Annika.

‘I don’t know that I want to listen to this,’ he said.

Annika was halfway out of her chair to follow him,
but felt the whole room lurch. She sank back and picked up her notes.

‘The footprints found at the scene were size thirty-six,’ she said. ‘They must have been made by either a child or a small woman, and of those two alternatives an adult woman with small feet is most likely. Women hardly ever turn to terrorism unless it’s together with their men. Ragnwald planned the attack, his fiancée carried it out.’

Schyman interrupted his restless wandering across the floor and turned to face her, hands by his sides.

‘Fiancée?’

‘They were due to get married, parish assistant Göran Nilsson from Sattajärvi and Karina Björnlund from Karlsvik in the parish of Lower Luleå. I’ve checked all the Göran Nilssons and Karina Björnlunds with their backgrounds against the historical information in the National Population Address Register, and they’re the only two.’

‘The terrorist and the culture minister?’

‘The terrorist and the culture minister.’

‘They were getting married two days after the attack?’

Annika nodded, watching her boss’s unfeigned astonishment, and felt the ground slowly solidify beneath her again.

‘How do you know that?’

‘A wedding announcement in the
Norrland News
published less than four weeks before the attack.’

Anders Schyman folded his arms, rocked back on his heels and looked out of the large, dark window towards the Russian embassy.

‘You’re quite sure that Karina Björnlund, in the autumn of nineteen sixty-nine, was planning to marry a man who ended up becoming a professional killer?’

She cleared her throat and nodded, and Schyman continued his reasoning. ‘And our Minister of Culture would have destroyed the property of the state, murdered one conscript and wounded another, all for love?’

‘I don’t know that, but it seems logical,’ Annika said.

The editor-in-chief went back to his chair and sat down carefully.

‘How old was she?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘Was she living with this bloke?’

‘She was still registered at her parents’ address in Karlsvik.’

‘What was her job?’

‘In the wedding announcement it said she was a student.’

Anders Schyman picked up a pen and wrote something on the corner of a diagram.

‘Do you know,’ he said, looking up at Annika, ‘this is the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard.’

He let the pen fall, the small sound of plastic on paper grew and echoed in the silence, the floor opened up beneath her and she was falling.

‘I’m glad that you came to me with this information,’ he went on. ‘I hope you haven’t mentioned this nonsense to anyone else?’

Annika felt the heat rising in her face, and her head was starting to spin.

‘No,’ she whispered.

‘Not to Berit? Not Jansson?’

He studied her close-up for a few seconds, then straightened his back.

‘Good.’ He turned away. ‘From now on you won’t be covering terrorism at all. You will not spend a minute more on Karina Björnlund or this bloody Ragnwald or
any explosions in Luleå or anywhere else. Is that understood?’

She jerked back against her chair, away from his breath, which had come extremely close again.

‘But isn’t it at least worth carrying on and checking?’ she said.

Anders Schyman looked at her with such incredulous astonishment that she felt her throat burning.

‘That Sweden’s most sought-after terrorist for more than three decades happens to be a teenage schoolgirl from a village in Norrbotten who lived with her mum and went on to become a minister in a Social Democratic government?’

Annika was breathing fast through her mouth.

‘I haven’t even spoken to the police—’

‘So much the fucking better.’

‘They must have questioned her, maybe there’s an entirely innocent explanation—’

An angry signal from the intercom silenced her.

‘Herman Wennergren is here now,’ Schyman’s secretary said over the crackling speaker.

The editor-in-chief took three long strides to the intercom and pressed the button.

‘Ask him to come in.’

He released the button and glanced over at Annika with a look that condemned her to the underworld.

‘I don’t want to hear another word about this,’ he said. ‘Get out.’

Annika stood up, surprised that she hadn’t collapsed completely. She grabbed her notebook with hands that didn’t feel like they were her own, and aiming for the door at the end of a long tunnel, fumbled her way out.

Anders Schyman watched the door close behind Annika Bengtzon, disappointment burning in his gut. So incredibly sad. Annika was so thorough, so ambitious. Now she had evidently lost her grip completely. Lost touch with reality and fled into some sort of fantasy world with terrorists in government and professional killers involved with local politicians in Östhammar.

He had to sit down, and turned his chair so that he ended up looking at his own reflection in the dark glass, trying to make out the contours of the concrete buildings spread out below the Russian flag.

What were his responsibilities as her boss in a position like this? Should he tell human resources? Was Annika Bengtzon a danger to herself or anyone else?

He saw himself gulp as he sat there in his office chair.

He hadn’t noticed any suicidal tendencies or signs of violence. The only thing he knew for sure was that her articles were no longer reliable, and that was something he was paid to deal with. Bengtzon needed to be managed much more strictly, both by him and by the other editors.

Sad
, he thought again. There had been a time when she was very good at digging up stories.

The door flew open and Herman Wennergren strode into his room without knocking, as usual.

‘It’s a good idea to pick wars you can win,’ the chairman of the board said through clenched teeth, dropping his briefcase on the sofa. ‘Can I have some coffee?’

Anders Schyman leaned forward, pressed the button on the intercom and asked his secretary to bring two cups. Then he got up and walked slowly, back straight, towards the sofas where Wennergren had sat down, still wearing his coat, unsure what this unannounced visit meant.

‘A bad day on the battlefield?’ he said, settling down on the other side of the table.

The chairman of the board fingered the lock of his briefcase, his nails clicking against the metal in an unconscious and irritating way.

‘You win some, you lose some,’ he said. ‘I can give you good news that I appear to be winning on your behalf. I’ve just come from a meeting of the Newspaper Publishers’ Association, where I proposed you as new chair after the New Year. The last chap hasn’t worked out at all, so we all agreed we need a change, and my suggestion met surprisingly little resistance. No one had any objections, neither publishers nor directors.’

Wennergren seemed genuinely surprised.

‘Maybe they were just shocked,’ Schyman said, as his secretary brought in a coffee-tray full of cups and biscuits.

‘I don’t think so,’ the chairman said, grabbing a ginger biscuit before the tray had reached the table. ‘The managing director called you a collective capitalist. What do you think he meant by that?’

‘Depends if the tone was positive or negative, and what values you attach to the description,’ Schyman said, avoiding the question.

Herman Wennergren took a careful sip from the china cup with pouting lips and his little finger sticking out. He swallowed a small mouthful, then said, ‘It’s possible that the other groups are gathering their forces. We shouldn’t crack open the champagne just yet, but I think I can get you through as chair. And once you’re there, at the board’s first meeting, I want you to raise a particular question that’s of the utmost importance to our proprietors.’

Anders Schyman leaned back in his chair and concentrated on keeping his expression completely neutral, as the true nature of his elevation dawned on him: he was expected to be the proprietors’ weapon on the ostensibly unbiased and apolitical forum that the Newspaper Publishers’ Association purported to be.

‘I see,’ Schyman said blankly. ‘What question would that be?’

Wennergren was chewing a caramel slice. ‘TV Scandinavia,’ he said, brushing some crumbs from the corners of his mouth. ‘Are we really going to allow American capital onto our airwaves without any real debate?’

The second front
, Schyman thought;
the one being lost. The old boy really is worried
.

‘I thought it was being debated everywhere,’ he said, not sure if he should be annoyed at the attempt to direct him as a lobbyist, or if he should pretend it was bad news.

‘Of course,’ Herman Wennergren said, wiping his fingers on a napkin. ‘How many articles have we had about it in the
Evening Post
?’

Anders Schyman stood up rather than raise his voice, and went over to sit at his desk.

Never before had the family that owned the paper exerted any pressure on him to write on issues where
they had economic interests. He understood immediately what a large and sensitive issue the launch of the American channel must be for them.

‘A precondition of me enjoying any sort of respect in the publishing community is that I maintain a critical and independent line towards our proprietors in all circumstances,’ he said, picking up a pen without using it.

‘Naturally,’ Herman Wennergren said, getting to his feet. He picked up his briefcase and buttoned his coat. ‘An independent line, of course, to anyone looking on. But you’re not stupid, Schyman. You know who you work for, don’t you?’

‘Journalism,’ Anders Schyman said, feeling his temper fraying. ‘Truth and democracy.’

Herman Wennergren gave a tired sigh. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘But you also appreciate what’s at stake. How the hell are we going to get shot of TV Scandinavia?’

‘Make sure they don’t get a broadcasting licence,’ Schyman said at once.

Wennergren sighed louder. ‘Obviously,’ he said. ‘But how? We’ve tried everything. The government is completely unshakeable. This American consortium fulfils all the criteria for access to the digital broadcast network. The proposal is up in parliament next Tuesday, and the Ministry of Culture isn’t going to change its conditions just because we want it to.’

‘As soon as that?’ Schyman said. ‘So it must be done and dusted then?’

‘All the committee stages and consultation were finished long ago, but you know what Minister Björnlund is like. She has trouble getting anything done, let alone on time. We’ve checked with the parliamentary print office, and they haven’t received the text yet.’

Schyman looked down at his desk, and in one corner of
the latest balance sheet were the words he had scribbled down as he had considered how hard he should be on Annika Bengtzon.

Karina Björnlund engaged terrorist Ragnwald, blew up plane F21????

He stared at the words, feeling the pressure rise.

What did he want the media landscape in Sweden to look like in the future? Did he want the Swedish media to continue its long tradition of pursuing issues like democracy and freedom of expression? Or could he let them be stifled by a global, dollar-rich entertainment giant? Could he deliberately put the
Evening Post
, the
Morning News
, the publishing companies, radio and television channels at risk, purely because he insisted on maintaining his form of mute and stereotypical ethics? Ethics that no one would ever know that he followed, nor at what cost?

And ultimately: was he prepared to sacrifice his own career?

Anders Schyman picked up the balance sheet containing the notes and looked at the chairman of the board.

‘There is something,’ he said. ‘Something that Karina Björnlund really doesn’t want made public.’

Herman Wennergren raised his eyebrows, intrigued.

The winter sleet hit Annika in the face, making her gasp for breath. The doors slid shut behind her, the sucking sound mixed with the crunch of ice caught in the mechanism. She put her hand over her eyes to block the light of the paper’s illuminated logo above her head. In front of her the street and the world stretched out, vast and impassable. Her centre of gravity sank, through her stomach, past her knees. How could she possibly take another step? How was she going to get home?

This is the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard . . . I hope you haven’t mentioned this nonsense to anyone else?

At the back of her head the angels were tuning up their mournful voices, no words, just notes, reaching her through eternities of emptiness.

From now on you won’t be covering terrorism at all. You will not spend a minute more on Karina Björnlund or that bloody Ragnwald
.

How could she have been so wrong? Was she really going mad? What had happened to her head? Was it because of her experience in the tunnel? Was something up there broken beyond repair?