The Black Path (23 page)

And Inna gave Mikael only the briefest glance. You’re one of us. Our team. The winners. Upstarts like Gerhart Sneyers come running to us wanting meetings.

“As I was saying,” said Gerhart Sneyers to Mauri. “We’ve had our eye on you for a long time. But I wanted to see where you were going with Uganda. We didn’t know if you were intending to sell once the prospecting was done. I wanted to see if you were made of the right stuff. And you were, no doubt about that. Cowards haven’t got the nerve to invest in those areas, things are way too uncertain. But glory to the brave, isn’t that what they say? My God, there are some fantastic deposits there! A snotty kid with a plank and a rag can extract gold there, just imagine what we can do….”

He paused to give Mauri the chance to speak, but Mauri said nothing.

“You own some large mines in Africa,” Sneyers went on, “so we would be honored if you were interested in joining our little…adventurers’ club.”

It’s the African Mining Trust he’s talking about. An association of foreign mine owners in Africa. Mikael Wiik is aware of them. He’s heard Inna and Mauri talking about them. He’s heard them talking about Gerhart Sneyers as well.

Gerhart Sneyers is on Human Rights Watch’s blacklist of companies that deal with dirty money from the Congo.

“His mine in western Uganda is mainly a money laundry,” Mauri has said. “Militia groups plunder mines in the Congo, Sneyers buys gold both from there and from Somalia, and sells it on as gold from his own mines in Uganda.”

“We have many common interests,” Gerhart Sneyers went on. “Building up an infrastructure. Security arrangements. The members of the group can be flown out from a pocket of unrest in less than twenty-four hours. From absolutely anywhere. Believe me, if you haven’t encountered that kind of problem so far, you’re bound to do so sooner or later—either you or your staff.

“We take a long-term view as well,” he added, topping up Inna’s and Mauri’s glasses.

Inna had finished her own drink, swapped her glass with Mauri’s without anyone noticing, and finished his too. Gerhart Sneyers went on:

“Our goal is to bring European, American and Canadian politicians onto the boards of our companies; many of the group’s mother companies have former heads of state on their boards. This also gives us a way of applying pressure. Influential people in countries providing aid, you see. Just to stop the blacks being difficult with us.”

Inna excused herself and asked for the bathroom. When she had gone, Sneyers said:

“We’re going to have problems in Uganda. The World Bank is threatening to freeze the aid in order to force through democratic elections. But Museveni isn’t ready to let go of his power. And if he loses the aid, we’ll have a new Zimbabwe. No reason to maintain good relations with the West any longer, and the overseas investors will be out on their ear. And then we’ll lose everything. He’ll take the lot. But I’ve got a plan. Although it’ll cost money…”

“Oh yes?” says Mauri.

“His cousin Kadaga is a general in the army. And they’ve fallen out. Museveni has got it into his head that his cousin isn’t loyal to him. Which is essentially true. Museveni is reducing Kadaga’s power by not paying his soldiers’ wages. They don’t get any equipment either. Museveni has other generals whom he supports. It’s gone so far that his cousin is staying away from Kampala. He’s afraid he’ll be arrested and accused of some crime. It’s hell up there in the North right now. The LRA and other groups are fighting with government forces over the control of the mines in the Congo. We’ll soon be maneuvered out of northern Uganda, and then they’ll start fighting over those mines. In order to finance their wars, they need gold. If General Kadaga can’t pay his soldiers, they’ll desert. To whoever pays the best—other government troops or militia groups. He’s ready to negotiate.”

“What about?”

“He wants the financial resources to build up his forces again quickly. And to go into Kampala.”

Mauri looked skeptically at Gerhart Sneyers.

“A coup?”

“Not necessarily; a legal regime is better for international relations. But if Museveni were to be…eliminated, then you could put up a new candidate in an election. And that candidate would need the military behind him.”

“Who is this candidate? How do you know things would be better with a different president?”

Gerhart Sneyers smiled.

“Naturally I can’t tell you who he is. But our man will have the sense to keep in with us. He would know that we determined Museveni’s fate, and can do the same with him. And General Kadaga will support him. And if Museveni is gone, the majority of the other generals will join him. Museveni is a dead end. So…are you in?”

Mauri Kallis was trying to digest what he’d just heard.

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

“Don’t think too long. And while you’re thinking, move your money to a place where you can pay out without it being traced back to you. I’ll give you the name of an extremely discreet bank.”

Inna came back from the bathroom. Gerhart Sneyers filled up their glasses again and fired his final salvo:

“Look at China. They couldn’t give a damn that the World Bank won’t lend money to undemocratic states. They go in and borrow billions for industrial projects in developing countries. And then they own enormous interests in the growing economies of tomorrow. I don’t intend to sit on the sidelines and watch. We’ve got our chance in Uganda and the Congo right now.”

Mikael Wiik’s train of thought was interrupted by Ebba Kallis coming into the kitchen. She was still wearing her riding clothes, and gulped down a glass of juice in one go.

Mauri looked up from his newspaper.

“Ebba,” he said. “Tomorrow night’s dinner party, everything ready?”

She nodded.

“And then I was going to ask you to take charge of Inna’s funeral,” he said. “Her mother, well, you know how it is…It’ll take her a year to come up with the perfect guest list. Besides which, I presume I’m the one that’s going to end up paying for it all, so I’d prefer it if you were dealing with things and not her.”

Ebba nodded again. She didn’t want to do it, but what choice did she have?

He knows I don’t want to take care of her funeral, she thought. And he despises me because I’ll do it anyway. I’m his cheapest member of staff. And it’ll be me that has to deal with her mother when she turns up with her impossible requests.

I don’t want to organize any funeral, thought Ebba Kallis. Can’t we just…chuck her in a ditch or something?

She hadn’t always felt like that. Inna had seduced her too, at the beginning. At first Ebba had been totally charmed.

It’s a night at the beginning of August. Mauri and Ebba are newly married, and have just moved into Regla. Inna and Diddi haven’t moved there yet.

Ebba wakes up because somebody is staring at her. When she opens her eyes, Inna is leaning over her bed. She raises her finger to her lips to silence Ebba, her eyes shining with mischief in the darkness.

The rain is hammering against the window and Inna is soaked to the skin. Mauri mutters in his sleep, and turns on his side. Ebba and Inna look at each other, holding their breath. When his breathing is calm and even, Ebba gets up carefully and steals down the stairs to the kitchen after Inna.

They sit in the kitchen. Ebba fetches a towel. Inna dries her hair with it, but refuses dry clothes. They open a bottle of wine.

“But how did you get in?” asks Ebba.

“I climbed in through your bedroom window. It was the only one that was open.”

“You’re crazy. You could have broken your neck. But what about the gate? The guard?”

A local smith has just installed the remote-controlled iron gates. Inna doesn’t have a remote in her car. The wall around the estate is two meters high.

“I parked the car outside and climbed. And Mauri might want to consider changing his security firm.”

Lightning flashes across the sky. A second later comes the crash of thunder.

“Come on, let’s go down to the lake for a swim,” says Inna.

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

Inna smiles, raising her shoulders up toward her ears.

“Yes.”

They run down to the jetty. There are two jetties on the property. The old jetty is a little way off, you have to go through a dense wood. Ebba has been thinking of building a pool house down there in the future. She has so many plans for Regla.

It’s pouring with rain. Ebba’s nightdress is sodden, clinging to her thighs. They strip naked on the jetty. Ebba is slender and flat-chested. Inna is as curvaceous as a film star from the fifties. Lightning splits the sky. Inna’s teeth gleam white through the darkness and the rain. She dives from the jetty. Ebba stands there shivering, hesitating on the edge. The rain is whipping up the surface of the water so that it looks as if it’s boiling.

“Jump in, it’s warm,” yells Inna, treading water.

And Ebba jumps.

The water feels strangely warm, and she stops shivering at once.

It’s a magical feeling. They swim around in the water like two children. Back and forth. Down beneath the surface, puffing and panting back up again. The rain pelts down on their heads, the night air is chilly, but beneath the surface of the water it’s warm and pleasant, just like a bath. The storm passes over them, sometimes Ebba hardly has time to count one elephant between the lightning and the thunder.

Perhaps I’ll die here, she thinks.

And at that particular moment it doesn’t really matter.

Ebba got herself a cup of coffee and a big bowl of fruit salad. Mauri and Mikael Wiik were talking about the security arrangements for Friday’s dinner party. They were receiving overseas guests. Ebba stopped listening and allowed her thoughts of Inna to return.

They’d been friends at first. Inna had made Ebba feel special.

Nothing unites two women like sharing experiences of their crazy mothers. Their mothers were obsessed with family, and collected rubbish. Inna had talked about her mother’s kitchen cupboard. Stuffed with old East Indies china, held together with glue and metal clamps. Plus all the broken bits that definitely couldn’t be thrown away. Ebba had matched that with her tales of the library at Vikstaholm; you could hardly even get through the door. There were steel shelves crammed with old books and handwritten manuscripts that nobody could take care of, giving everybody a guilty conscience because they knew they’d handled them without gloves and the wasps were munching their way through the cellulose and they were in a worse and worse state with every passing year.

“And I don’t want her old crap.” Ebba had laughed.

Inna had helped her ward off her mother’s attempts to offload a certain amount of this cultural heritage in return for certain economic considerations; her new son-in-law had money, after all.

She was like a sister and a best friend, thought Ebba.

Things had changed later. When Ebba and Mauri had their first child. He was traveling more than he used to. When he was at home, he was always on the telephone. Or lost in his own thoughts.

She had been at a loss to understand it. The fact that he didn’t seem to care about his own son.

“You’ll never have this time again,” she’d said to him. “Don’t you understand that?”

She remembered her frustrating attempts at conversation. Sometimes she was angry, accusing. Sometimes calm, measured. He hadn’t changed at all.

The renovation of Inna’s and Diddi’s houses was complete, and they moved into Regla.

Inna lost interest in Ebba at the same time as Mauri did.

They’re at a cocktail party at the American Embassy. Inna is standing out on the terrace chatting to a group of middle-aged men. She’s wearing a low-cut dress. One of her black stockings is torn. Ebba goes over to them, laughs at some joke, and whispers discreetly in Inna’s ear.

“You’ve got a huge ladder in your stockings. I’ve got a spare pair in my bag, come to the ladies’ room and you can change.”

Inna gives her a quick look, her expression impatient and annoyed.

“Don’t be so insecure,” she says crossly.

Then she turns her attention to the rest of the group, pushing her shoulder forward imperceptibly so that Ebba almost ends up behind her.

This effectively excludes her from the conversation, and she lopes away to look for Mauri. She longs to get home to her baby. She shouldn’t have come.

She has the strangest feeling that Inna stood there in the ladies’ and tore her stocking deliberately. That huge ladder makes the women gasp in horror. But it doesn’t bother the men. And Inna is as open and natural as ever.

It’s a signal, thinks Ebba. That ladder in her stocking. It’s a signal.

It’s just that Ebba can’t work out what kind of signal. And who it’s aimed at.

Ebba got up to fetch another cup of coffee. At that moment there was a knock at the door, and they heard Diddi’s wife, Ulrika, shout “Hello” out in the hallway.

A second later she appeared in the doorway. She had the baby on her hip. Her hair was caught up in a ponytail so no one would notice that it hadn’t been washed. Her eyes were red-rimmed.

“Have you heard from Diddi?” she asked in a voice that was on the point of breaking. “He didn’t come home on Monday after you’d been to Kiruna. And he hasn’t been home since. I’ve tried calling his cell phone, but…”

She shook her head.

“Maybe I ought to call the police,” she said.

“Absolutely not,” said Mauri Kallis, without looking up from the paper. “The last thing I need is that kind of attention. On Friday evening representatives of the African Mining Trust are coming…”

“You’re out of your mind!” yelled Ulrika.

The child in her arms burst into tears, but she didn’t appear to notice.

“I haven’t heard from him, do you understand that? And Inna’s been murdered. I know something’s happened to him. I can feel it. And you’re thinking about a business dinner!”

“It’s those ‘business dinners’ that put food on your table and pay for the house you live in and the car you drive. And I know Inna’s dead. Does it make me a better person if I lose my grip on everything and let us go under? I’m doing everything I can to hold myself and this company together. Unlike Diddi! Wouldn’t you say?”