The Long Shadow (37 page)

‘Are you going to be charged?’

She shook her head. ‘I only had a few grams for personal use.’

Ah, yes, Annika thought. Possession alone wasn’t a punishable offence. ‘So what were you doing at the party? What attracted you to that lifestyle?’

The waiter came over with their food, an enormous dish laden with grilled shellfish, swimming in oil, garlic and herbs.

‘
Ah, qué bueno!
’ Wilma exclaimed in delight, clapping her hands. She set about the food.

Annika peered suspiciously at the prawns, mussels and lobsters. She wasn’t fond of shellfish, and would much rather have meatballs with lingonberry sauce if she was given the option. She prodded a prawn tentatively.

‘I felt special, chosen,’ Wilma said. ‘Imagine, little me allowed to be here with all the beautiful and famous people. Princess Madeleine’s been – she stayed at the Marbella Club. I never met her, obviously, but I got to know a lot of other celebrities.’

‘Did you know Sebastian Söderström?’ Annika asked, trying not to sound too eager.

Wilma wolfed down half of a small lobster and nodded enthusiastically. ‘It was so awful what happened to him. Who could have imagined it? We were at his daughter’s birthday party a week or so before they died.’

Annika let the prawn drop. ‘You went to a child’s party?’ She couldn’t see Wilma eating birthday cake in My’s bedroom.

‘No, you
loca
, it wasn’t the little girl’s birthday. The other one, Suzette.’

‘When? Where?’

‘Actually in the same place that got raided a few weeks later. Above one of the nightclubs by the harbour. If you buy four bottles of vodka you’re automatically allowed to use it. It’s very popular.’

‘And that’s what Suzette did to celebrate her birthday?’

‘No,
loca
, it was her dad. He wanted Suzette to make friends, so he invited the lot of us, all the younger ones. Sebbe was always so generous, champagne, champagne, champagne all night long.’

‘Did you get to know Suzette?’

Wilma let out a deep sigh. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that young lady really didn’t want to be there. She sat in a corner trying not to talk to anyone. I don’t know when she left, but after a while she just disappeared.’

‘And when was this?’

‘Just after Christmas. Boxing Day, I think. There were a few girls snorting lines in the toilet and Sebastian was furious. He was really anti-drugs, and he threw them all out, just like that …’

‘You know Suzette’s missing?’

Wilma gathered together the last of the mussels. ‘I read about it. It’s just so awful.’

‘Have you any idea where she could be?’

‘No.’

‘Did she have any friends?’

‘I really don’t know. I only saw her that once.’

‘So she never used to hang around the harbour partying?’

Wilma shook her head firmly. ‘Maybe once or twice, but she wasn’t a party animal. If she was, I’d have known about it.’ She drank the last of her wine and refilled her glass.

‘So what do you do now?’ Annika asked. ‘Do you work, or study?’

‘Work,’ Wilma said. ‘I’m a consultant. I help Scandinavian companies to set up on the Costa del Sol.’

Annika stared at her. ‘You?’ she said. ‘Help Scandinavian companies? What with?’

‘Finance, and getting established,’ she said.

Annika tried to focus her thoughts. ‘And business is good?’

‘Are you kidding? I know every rich old man on the whole Costa del Sol.’

Wilma leaned forward so that Annika was confronted with her massive cleavage. ‘There’s just one simple rule,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘Never sleep with them. Because then they lose all respect for you.’

Annika drank what was left in her glass and ordered a mineral water. Wilma finished the rest of the bottle.

Annika asked some dutiful questions about Wilma’s background and childhood (Vikingshill outside Stockholm, parents IT consultants, two younger brothers), then asked what advice she had for young women who wanted to try their luck abroad, what they should look out for and what they should focus on.

When the plates had been cleared, Annika said, ‘Shall we take some pictures? Maybe down on the beach?’

Wilma was thrilled. ‘That’s a brilliant idea! How lucky that I’ve got my bikini with me!’ She pulled a tiny piece of cloth from her handbag and dangled it in Annika’s face.

‘Great,’ Annika said. ‘We’ll try some with the bikini, and some with clothes. Then the editors up in Stockholm can decide what works best.’ She paid the bill. The restaurant seemed basic, with its woven raffia roof and open sides, but their meal had cost more than her plane-ticket.

They went down to the beach. Wilma wanted to start with the bikini shots, and Annika didn’t object. She pulled off her T-shirt and Annika noted that the scars from her surgery were in her armpits. She slipped on the bikini top, wiggled her hips until the thong was in place, then posed cheerily on a sunbed with Estepona in the background. They wouldn’t be able to use any of those pictures, but Annika snapped a sequence to keep Patrik happy.

‘We should probably take a few of you looking more serious as well,’ she said.

Wilma suddenly looked as stern as anyone wearing a minuscule bikini possibly could.

‘And now a few with clothes on.’ She told Wilma to walk along the shore with her heels in her hand, gazing out to sea with a thoughtful expression. It all worked very well. The sun looked hot and merciless, and Wilma was alone and vulnerable on the long, white beach.

They said goodbye outside the bus station and Annika sat down to wait for the next bus to Puerto Banús.

There was no sign of Lotta in the hotel lobby. Annika had no interest in any further confrontations on the subject of photography, so she went quickly to her room.

It was a quarter past six. She dropped her bag on the floor. An hour and forty-five minutes before she was due to meet Thomas. The thought made her stomach knot. She lay down and pulled the bedspread over her head. She remained there, quite still, for a while, listening to her own heartbeat. She and Thomas hadn’t sat down to talk to each other since the divorce. On one occasion he had come up to the flat in Agnegatan, that Sunday evening after she’d got back from Spain the first time. It had been a rather strained meeting. Annika had been keen to make a good impression and the children had rushed round like mad things, chasing each other through the rooms, yelling and laughing, until Thomas had told them to behave. He’d thought the flat was ‘nice’. She’d said it was ‘nice of him to call in’.

She’d cried for ages that evening, and now she was going to meet him again.

She looked at the time: an hour and half to go.

She pushed off the bedspread, got up, sat down at her laptop, logged into the hotel network and surfed randomly around the Swedish news sites. The
Evening
Post
was leading with earth-shattering news: ‘Ten fine wines to make your May Day party go with a swing’. And there was me thinking it depended on the people you were with, she thought.

Below the wine story there were two financial articles: the first expressed outrage at how careful with his money Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea, was; the second was horrified that this year’s Swedish Eurovision entry was using a private plane for a publicity tour. It wasn’t entirely clear which of these was most deplorable.

The other evening paper was running with ‘Pay-day shopping in the sun!’, then ‘How to escape the luxury gap’. She gave up and went into her Facebook page. It had been a while since she had last logged in. She had eight new messages, all of them from Polly Sandman, Suzette’s best friend back in Blackeberg. Most were long musings about life, death and love, but occasionally Polly wrote short messages or just wanted the answer to a specific question.

Annika worked through them from the top, which meant she read the most recent one first. It contained a short, blunt question: ‘Is the moon full at the same time all over the world?’

Annika blinked at the screen. She didn’t actually know. It couldn’t be, could it? Maybe it could. She made a mental note to find out.

The next message was a long story about a reality soap-star who became an astronaut.

The third consisted of three sentences: ‘Suzette’s mum has sold their flat. She’s thrown out all Suzette’s things. I don’t know where she’s moved to.’

Annika read the message twice and felt her throat tighten. Suzette meant nothing. She was in the process of being erased. Everything she had been, thought and liked was being wiped away, and nobody cared. The
message was dated 16 April. I really must keep a closer eye on this inbox, she thought.

The following three messages all contained gloomy poems about missing friends.

The penultimate one was short, just two sentences: ‘I’ve had a really weird email. I think it’s from Suzette.’

Annika’s heart started to pound.

I think it’s from Suzette.

She glanced quickly at the bottom of the page: Polly Sandman was online. She clicked on Chat, which brought up Facebook’s own instant message facility, and typed ‘Hi, Polly, Annika Bengtzon here! What was the weird email you got? Why do you think it’s from Suzette?’

She sent the message, then stared at the screen. Rolle in Mellösa wanted to add her as a friend. It was a few seconds before she realized that Rolle in Mellösa was Roland Larsson, the boy who had had a crush on her at school, Jimmy Halenius’s cousin. She stared at the screen and wondered if he was serious. How many grown men voluntarily spent their free time on this sort of thing? On the other hand people spent their working lives helping fraudulent businessmen to avoid tax by registering companies in places like Gibraltar.

She clicked to accept Roland as her friend, then looked at the time. Maybe Polly wasn’t at her computer. Maybe it was just on in her room while she was out with her friends or something.

The chat-box pinged. ‘Do you believe in messages from the other side? In the olden days the dead used to speak through spirits. Maybe they use email these days.’ Annika replied briefly and bluntly: ‘Not a chance. What did she say?’

There was a short pause. Then: ‘The message was from Gunnar Larsson. There was nothing in it.’

Annika’s pulse slowed. What was this nonsense? ‘Gunnar Larsson?’ she wrote back. ‘Who’s he?’

The reply came quick as a flash. ‘That’s a secret.’

‘Polly,’ Annika wrote, deciding to be dramatic. ‘If this has anything to do with Suzette, you have to tell me. It could be a matter of life and death.’

It was several minutes before the reply arrived. ‘Gunnar Larsson was our maths teacher in year nine. He was so stupid and old that Suzette and I wanted to play a trick on him. We set up an email account for him, then sent dirty emails to some of the girls in the class. We don’t know exactly what happened, but Gunnar Larsson had to leave the school.’

Annika read the message twice. ‘He was fired because of the emails you sent?’ she asked.

‘Don’t know. He was only a supply teacher, so maybe he had to leave anyway. But we got really scared. We swore we’d never tell anyone about Gunnar Larsson’s emails.’

Annika’s heart speeded up again. ‘And now Mr Gunnar Larsson has got in touch?’

It was eight minutes before the answer came. Annika had time to chew off most of her thumbnail.

‘Only me and Suzette know the password to Mr Gunnar Larsson’s email. I have to go, we’re going out for dinner. Bye for now!’ She went offline.

Annika stared at the screen with a faint buzz in her ears. A blank email from a hotmail address? That it had come from hotmail meant the sender had had to know the password for the account. That it was empty suggested they were in a hurry. It didn’t necessarily mean anything, but it might be a sign of life.

She clicked to open Polly’s last message, which turned out to be the start of the story about the reality soap-star/astronaut.

Annika sat in front of her laptop for a minute or so. Then she wrote a short reply: ‘Here’s my mobile number. If Gunnar Larsson emails you again, I want you to call me.’

She typed her mobile number, sent the message and shut down her laptop. She’d have to hurry if she wanted a shower.

He was standing in the lobby with his back to the lifts, wearing the same suit as when she had bumped into him at the conference centre, the slightly shiny Italian one that fitted so well across his hips. She walked up behind him, breathing in the smell of his aftershave. He had showered, too, and shaved. ‘Hello,’ she said quietly.

He turned and ran his eyes over her. No direct sign of appreciation, but no attempt to distance himself either. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Shall we go?’

She walked past him and out onto the street. She was wearing her jeans and the old sweater, and had her bag with her, as usual. She had brought her best dress with her to Spain, a bright red, sleeveless thing she’d bought on impulse in the Christmas sales, but she’d had Niklas Linde in mind when she’d packed it, not Thomas. She had put it on earlier, but felt overdressed. As if she were trying too hard.

He had his hire car parked outside the hotel. He unlocked it by remote, then opened the passenger door for her.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘I’ve booked a table at a place just above here.’

‘Not in Istán?’

‘What?’ he said, clearly confused.

‘Nothing,’ she said.

He got in beside her, just as he had done hundreds of times before, fumbling with the key and checking the
gears were in neutral, then pausing a moment before turning the key. Breathed out, tested the accelerator, looked in the rear-view mirror, and forgot to release the handbrake before pulling away.

He headed up towards Nueva Andalucía. She was looking straight ahead through the windscreen, intensely aware of his presence: long arms and legs, narrow fingers, broad shoulders. She shivered and wrapped her arms round herself.

‘The porter at the hotel recommended this place, and gave me directions,’ he said. ‘Apparently they specialize in grilled meat. I assumed you wouldn’t want fish or shellfish.’

She didn’t answer.

They swept past the bullfighting arena.

‘How are your articles going?’ he asked.