"I was hoping to get some shopping done today," Annika said.
"I'll buy chocolates for my mother on the plane," Patrik said.
He was spending Christmas with his parents in Småland, in southern Sweden. Berit's two grown-up children were visiting her. She had a daughter in the U.S.A. and a son in Malmö.
"We've worked our butts off these past few days. Why don't we organize it so that we can all have some time off the next few days?" Annika suggested.
"Cool. I'd love to have Thursday off," Patrik said. "I could catch an earlier flight."
"I'd like to get some cleaning done tomorrow; Yvonne and her family are arriving on Thursday."
"Perfect!" said Annika. "I'll leave early today and early-ish on Thursday."
They moved to Annika's office to run over what had to be done. Patrik went off to get a copy of the rival.
Annika and Berit took their usual places, Berit on the couch, Annika with her feet on the desk. A second later Patrik came rushing in like a hurricane.
"They got the test back. They know what blew up Furhage!"
He waved the police press release in the air.
"Okay," said Berit. "What does it say?"
Patrik read in silence a couple of seconds. "It was dynamite," he said, disappointedly.
"What kind of dynamite?" Annika asked and reached for the press release. Patrik pulled it away.
"Hang on, hang on. This is what it says: "The analysis of the explosives used at the detonation at Victoria Stadium, Stockholm, at 3:17 on blah-blah… when the MD for SOCOG, Christina Furhage, was killed, has now been completed. The substance used was a gelatinous explosive mixture containing nitroglycerine, as well as nitroglycol. It is marketed under the trade name Minex and is available in a number of weights and forms. The charge in question is estimated to have been approximately fifty pounds made up of fifteen plastic-wrapped cartridges, 50 x 550 millimeters in size…' "
"Fifty pounds, that's a lot of explosives," said Annika.
"Especially when it's above ground," Berit said. "I'm not surprised the blast was felt all the way to South Island."
Patrik continued, demanding attention: " 'The batch in question was manufactured in Poland, sometime in the past three years. It is characterized by its high power, high density, and high V of D, velocity of detonation. It's soft in consistency and has a relatively mild smell. The substance is characterized by its low sensitivity…' What the hell does that mean?"
"Something to do with safety," Berit said. "It's a safe explosive."
"How do you know that?" Annika was impressed.
Berit shrugged. "I'm good at crosswords, too."
" 'It has a high energy level, the volume of detonation gas being slightly above average, the power is 115 percent of ANFO and the density approximately 1.45 grams per cubic centimeter. The velocity of detonation is 5,500–6,000 m/s.' "
"Okay, what does
that
mean?" Annika wondered.
"Take it easy. Just technical stuff. I'm coming to the important part. 'Minex is one of the most widely used dynamite brands in Sweden. The general agent in Nora has sold it to more than a hundred building projects in the last three years. Including some Olympic sites. It has not been possible to ascertain to this point which lot the charge in question originated from.' "
"So it was common building dynamite," Berit said.
"What do you
build
with dynamite?" Annika asked.
"They use it for all kinds of things. You blast to prepare for roads; in mines, in opencast mining, you make gravel out of rock with the help of dynamite, you make the ground level for building… We hired a blaster when we installed a new septic tank at our country cottage. It's done every day."
"I guess so," Annika remembered. "They were blasting away like crazy when they built that new housing development next to us."
"Listen, there's more here: 'The charge was initiated with the help of electric detonators. The firing switch of the device was a timer connected to a car battery.' "
Patrik put the paper down and looked at his colleagues.
"Well," he said, "we're really talking premeditation here."
They sat in silence for a while, digesting the information. Annika took her feet off the desk and shook herself.
"This is a creepy one," she said. "So, who's doing what? Berit, you've got the victim's family; Patrik, can you do the analysis and the police hunt?"
Both of the reporters nodded and Annika went on: "I've written a column on the builders who came to their workplace and held a minute's silence for their dead colleague. That will show how much they're mourning their friend."
"What was it like out there?" Berit wanted to know.
"Well, there was a woman who just cried and cried. She was rambling on about guilt and punishment and evil— it was a bit spooky. I've left her out completely because it didn't seem right to expose her."
"I'm sure you're right," Berit said.
"Have we forgotten anything? Was there anything else?"
The reporters both shook their heads and went out to their telephones and computers. Annika filed her copy on the server, put her coat on and left. It was only half past one, but she wasn't going to sit around any longer.
* * *
The snow was still falling as Annika walked to the bus stop. Since the temperature was hovering around the freezing point, the snowflakes turned into a grayish brown slush the instant they reached the sidewalk. But the snow was managing to stick in other places, forming a fairly white cover on the grassy slope outside the Russian Embassy.
She sat down heavily on the bench by the bus stop. There was no one else there, which made her think that she'd just missed a bus. On top of that, she'd sat on something wet, a puddle or a snow patch. She sat on a glove.
They were spending Christmas in town. Thomas's parents would be with them on Christmas Eve. She had hardly any contact with her own family. Her father was dead and her mother still lived in Hälleforsnäs, the small town where Annika grew up. Her sister lived in Flen nearby and worked part time at the checkout at the Right Price. They hardly ever saw each other. She didn't mind; they had very little in common any more, apart from the time they'd shared growing up in the dying industrial community. Though Annika sometimes wondered whether they really ever had been in the same place all that time. Their experiences of the small town were utterly different.
The bus was nearly empty. Annika took a seat at the very back and went into Hötorget in the city center. She went to the PUB department store and bought toys on her Visa card for 3,218 kronor, trying to comfort herself with the bonus points she would earn. She bought a cookbook on sauces and a shirt for Thomas and a woollen scarf for his mother. Thomas would have to buy something for his father— he usually only wanted brandy anyway. She was back in the apartment at two thirty. After a moment's hesitation, she hid the gifts at the back of the big walk-in closet. True, last year Kalle had found all the presents there, but she didn't have the energy to think of another place at the moment.
She went out in the slush again and on a sudden impulse walked over to a nearby antiques shop. They had the most amazing collection of diamanté jewelry, necklaces, and earrings, big like those on 1940s film stars. She went in and bought a classic gold-plate brooch with garnets for Anne Snapphane. The neat gentleman behind the counter wrapped it in shiny gold-colored paper and tied a glittering blue ribbon around the little parcel.
The children joyously rushed toward her when she stepped into the daycare center. Her guilty conscience stabbed her like a knife in the heart. This was what a real mother should do every day, right…?
They went to the Co-op supermarket and bought marzipan, cream, treacle, chopped almonds, gingerbread dough, and cooking chocolate. The children were twittering like little birds:
"What are we making, Mommy? What will it be? Will we get candy today, Mommy?"
Annika laughed and hugged them both while they stood in the checkout queue.
"Yes, you'll get candy today— we're making our own, won't that be fun?"
"I like Liquorice Cats," Kalle said.
When they arrived home, she put big aprons on the kids. She made a conscious decision to ignore the outcome and let them enjoy themselves. First, she melted the chocolate in the microwave to a creamy sauce, in which they rolled little balls of marzipan. The marzipan balls that survived were few in number and not pretty. Her mother-in-law would surely turn up her nose at them, but the kids were having fun, especially Kalle. She had planned to make toffee as well, but she realized the kids couldn't help because the mixture was far too hot. Instead she started the oven and set about the gingerbread dough. Ellen was blissfully happy. She rolled out dough and cut out little figures and ate the dough between them. In the end, she was so stuffed she couldn't move. They made enough for a couple of baking trays, and they were quite acceptable.
"You're so clever!" she said to the children. "Look how well you've done, all this yummy gingerbread."
Kalle swelled with pride and had a biscuit and a glass of milk, even though he was quite full himself.
She placed the children in front of a video while she cleared up the kitchen. That took forty-five minutes. She joined the children on the couch when the film was at its scariest, the scene when Simba's father died. When the kitchen was clean, there was still some time to spare before
The Lion King
ended, so she took the opportunity to call Anne Snapphane. Anne lived alone with her little daughter on the top floor of a house in Lidingö. The girl, Miranda, lived with her father every other week. They were both there when Annika called.
"I haven't had the energy to start the Christmas shit yet," Anne groaned. "How come you always manage and I don't?"
Annika could hear the music of
The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
They were watching Disney in Lidingö, too.
"I'm the one who never manages," she said. "Your house is always spotless. I get a guilty conscience just visiting you."
"All I say is Tonia from Poland," Anne said. "Are you okay otherwise?"
Annika sighed. "I'm having a hard time at work. The same bunch of people always trying to put me down."
"It's fucking awful when you first become a manager. I thought I was going to die during my first six months as a producer. My heart hurt every day. There's always some bitter and twisted little bastard out to spoil you."
Annika chewed on her lip.
"Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. This is what I should be doing: baking with the kids and sitting with them when there's something scary on TV…"
"You'd go crazy within a week," Anne said.
"I know. But the kids still matter most, you can't get away from that. The woman who was murdered, Christina Furhage, she had a son who died when he was five. She never got over it. Do you really think her work and success could erase that memory? Could make up for that?"
"That's terrible," Anne said. "What did he die of?"
"Malignant melanoma, skin cancer. Pretty gruesome, eh?"
"No, Miranda, get down from there!… How old did you say he was?"
"Five. Just like Kalle."
"And died from malignant melanoma? Who told you that? It's not possible."
Annika was lost. "What do you mean?"
"He couldn't have died from malignant melanoma if he was only five years old. That's just impossible."
"How do you know?" Annika said in amazement.
"Annika, we talked about it, remember. I had all my moles removed. I don't have a single one left on my body. I did all that research into skin cancer at the time. Do you think that I, of all people, would be mistaken about a thing like that? Annie, please…"
Annika felt confusion mounting within. Could she have misunderstood what Helena Starke said to her?
"Well, refresh my memory. Why couldn't he have had malignant melanoma?" she asked.
"Because the malignant, the fatal, variety of melanoma never appears before puberty. But he may have entered puberty very early. That's called…"
Annika racked her brains. Anne Snapphane was sure to be right. She was a full-blooded hypochondriac; there wasn't a disease she hadn't been through. Countless times she'd had herself rushed in an ambulance to the Accident & Emergency Department at Danderyd Hospital; even more times she'd visited the city's various emergency departments, public as well as private. She knew everything about all forms of cancer, could list the differences between the symptoms of MS and familial amyloidosis. She wouldn't be mistaken. Consequently, Helena Starke was wrong, or she lied.
"Annika…?"
"Listen, I've got to go. I'll talk to you later."
