Red Wolf_ A Novel Part 40

He fell silent.

'But you didn't,' Annika confirmed.

'Hanna did her national service at F21,' Thord said. 'She's an officer in the reserves; she's studying nuclear physics at Uppsala.'

'And your other daughter?'

'Emma lives on the same corridor as Hanna; she's doing a master's in politics.'

'You've done well,' Annika said, honestly.

He looked through the window. 'Yes. But the Beasts have always been with us. Margit thought about what she'd done every day. She never escaped it.'

'Nor you,' Annika said. 'You went to work every day knowing what had happened.'

He merely nodded.

'Why didn't she tell the police?' Annika said. 'Wouldn't that have been better, not having to deal with it alone?'

The man stood up. 'If only she could have,' he said with his back to Annika. 'When the Dragon disappeared Margit got a package in the post. There was a finger in it, a human finger, from a small child, and a warning.'

Annika felt herself heating up, could feel the blood drain from her head, thought she was about to faint.

'No one ever spoke about the Beasts, not ever. Margit heard nothing from them for all those years, not until this October.'

'Then what happened?' Annika whispered.

'She got the call, the symbol of the yellow dragon, summoning her to their meeting place.'

Annika could see before her the strange drawing the Minister of Culture had received, in that envelope posted in France.

'A meeting?' she said. 'When?'

Thord Axelsson shook his head and walked over to the sink, picked up a gla.s.s but did nothing with it.

'Then they contacted her, one of them called her at work, asking if she was going to the meeting to celebrate the return of the Dragon. She told them to go to h.e.l.l, said they'd ruined her life, and that she loathed the fact that she'd ever met them.'

His shoulders were shaking.

'She didn't hear from them again.'

Annika was struggling against a growing, sucking feeling of nausea. She sat for a long while, swallowing, watching the man weep, holding the gla.s.s to his forehead.

'I want them caught,' he said eventually, turning back to Annika, his face red and unlike itself. He sat down heavily on his chair again, and sat still for a while as the clock ticked and the antiseptic smell spread throughout Annika's body.

'Margit never got rid of her guilt,' he said. 'She paid for it all through her life. I can't go on like this any more.'

'Have you told the police now?'

He shook his head. 'But I'm going to,' he said. 'As soon as the Dragon's been caught and the girls are safe.'

'What do you want me to do?' she asked.

He looked at her blankly. 'I don't know. I just wanted to tell someone.'

He looked out through the window and stiffened. 'Hanna and Emma are coming,' he said. 'You have to go.'

Annika stood up without thinking, stuffing her pad and pen in her bag and hurrying out into the hall, where she pulled her jacket from the hanger and tugged it on. She went back into the kitchen, and saw the man sitting there motionless, his eyes blank.

'Thank you,' she said quietly.

He looked at her and tried to smile.

'By the way,' she said. 'Did Margit have very small feet?'

'Size thirty-six,' he said.

She left him by the pine table in the scrubbed kitchen with the untouched cups of coffee gradually cooling.

43.

The car had had time to get completely cold, so she kept her polar jacket on. For one panicky moment she thought the engine wasn't going to start, that she was going to freeze in her hire-car among the identical seventies houses, for ever held fast in the little white lies of the Axelsson family.

She turned the key so hard that the metal almost snapped. The engine started with a hesitant rattle, and as she exhaled she saw her breath freeze to ice on the inside of the windscreen. She found reverse as the gearbox protested and backed into the street, hoping she wasn't going to hit anything. She hadn't sc.r.a.ped the rear window.

The two daughters pa.s.sed close to her window. She attempted a smile and waved feebly as they looked curiously at her.

The rubber of the tyres creaked on the icy road as she rolled towards town. The nausea persisted, the smell of disinfectant still in her nostrils, the thoughts bouncing around her head and chest.

Was Thord Axelsson telling the truth? Was he exaggerating? Was he hiding anything?

She drove past the secondary school and the church and hlens department store, and was out of the town centre before she even realized she was in it.

He wasn't glossing over his wife's deeds, Annika thought, nor was he making excuses for her. On the contrary, he had stated soberly that she had set fire to the aviation fuel and caused the plane to explode. He hadn't even tried to present it as an accident.

If he had wanted to lie, he would have done so then.

The Beasts, she thought. The Yellow Dragon, ha! What a stupid idea. What a load of c.r.a.p! The Lion of Freedom, the Barking Dog, the Red Wolf, the Black Panther, the White Tiger The Yellow Dragon, ha! What a stupid idea. What a load of c.r.a.p! The Lion of Freedom, the Barking Dog, the Red Wolf, the Black Panther, the White Tiger.

Where are you now? she thought as she pulled out onto the deserted motorway again, heading towards Lulea. she thought as she pulled out onto the deserted motorway again, heading towards Lulea.

The Yellow Dragon, Goran Nilsson, professional hitman back on home soil. The Barking Dog, Margit Axelsson, murdered nursery schoolteacher. The Red Wolf, Karina Bjornlund, Minister of Culture making panicky last-minute changes to government proposals.

And the rest of you? Three middle-aged Swedish men, where have you hidden yourselves away? How much have you forgotten?

She drove past the exit to Norrfjarden, feeling the cold whirling round her feet. The temperature had fallen to minus twenty-nine degrees; the sun was already going down, spreading a pale yellow light on the horizon. It was one thirty in the afternoon.

A child's finger, she thought. Could that really have happened? Could that really have happened?

She swallowed, had to open the window for a few seconds to get some fresh air. Thord hadn't said what the accompanying warning had said, but no one had blabbed about the Beasts, not ever.

She believed the finger had really existed.

The attack itself, three people involved, Margit and Goran and one other man. Did that make sense?

Margit had the same shoe size as the prints found at the site. Thord Axelsson's story included enough detail to make her believe the basic chain of events, even if she would have to check the theoretical possibilities with the press officer at the base. So why should she doubt how many people were involved?

Karina Bjornlund wasn't there.

She was innocent, at least as far as the act itself was concerned. Of course she could have been involved in the planning, maybe even a.s.sisted in other ways. And, apart from anything else, she must have known about it.

How can you be sure of that? Annika asked herself. If Thord is telling the truth, she may well have been ignorant of the attack. She had split up with Goran and wanted out of the group. Annika asked herself. If Thord is telling the truth, she may well have been ignorant of the attack. She had split up with Goran and wanted out of the group.

But in that case how could she be open to blackmail? Why was she allowing Herman Wennergren to scare her into changing government legislation?

And why had she put a marriage announcement in the local paper if she had broken up with him?

Maybe Karina herself hadn't put the announcement in, she suddenly thought. Maybe the announcement was part of the jilted man's strategy either to cause trouble or to get her back.

Annika rubbed her forehead, feeling suddenly thirsty, her lips dry. A few frozen houses from the thirties huddled in the twilight, plumes of smoke rising straight up from their chimneys, the wind had given up, the cold was clear as gla.s.s.

I have to talk to Karina Bjornlund, she thought. I have to set things up so that she doesn't get away. She won't wriggle out of this, lying and protecting herself at any cost I have to set things up so that she doesn't get away. She won't wriggle out of this, lying and protecting herself at any cost.

She pulled her mobile from the bag, and found she had no reception. She couldn't be bothered to get cross, just carried on towards Lulea, looking forward to being back in civilization again.

At the turning to Gaddvik she picked up her mobile again, shut her eyes and replayed the scene in her head: the Post-it note on the registrar's computer screen, the Minister of Culture's mobile number. The number of the devil, twice, and then a zero.

She keyed in 070-666 66 60, stared at the number on the screen for a moment, then realized with a start that she was on the point of ignoring a right-hand bend.

What was she going to say?

Karina Bjornlund will listen, she thought. It was just a question of getting hold of her.

She pressed the call b.u.t.ton, feeling the warmth of the mobile in her hand, and pressed in the earpiece as she slowed the car's speed.

'h.e.l.lo?'

Annika braked in surprise, the first ring had hardly started before a woman's voice answered.

'Karina Bjornlund?' she said, pulling up at the side of the road and pressing the earpiece further in; there was a rus.h.i.+ng, humming sound in the background.

'Yes?'

'My name's Annika Bengtzon, I work for the Evening Post Evening Post-'

'How did you get this number?'

Annika stared at the red-painted wall of a Norrbotten farmhouse and adopted a neutral tone of voice.

'I was wondering if the Red Wolf had met the Yellow Dragon recently?' she said, and listened intently to the noise on the line, voices talking, a metallic clattering in the background, a tannoy announcing something, then a second later the line went dead.

Annika looked at the display. She pressed redial and got an impersonal electronic answering service, and ended the call without speaking.

Where had Karina Bjornlund been when she took the call? What was the metallic voice saying over the tannoy in the background?

She shut her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her temples.

'Last call for SK009 to Stockholm, gate number five'?

A flight announcement, that much was certain. But SK? Didn't that mean an SAS flight?

She called directory inquiries and asked to be put through to the Scandinavian Airlines System for business customers, and waited in a queue for thirty seconds until the call was picked up.

'SK009 is the afternoon flight from Kallax to Arlanda,' the sales a.s.sistant at SAS told her.

Annika felt the adrenalin pumping.

Karina Bjornlund was at the airport just five kilometres away and either was on her way back down to Stockholm or had just arrived and was collecting her bags. She considered booking her return flight to Stockholm but decided to wait, said thank you and ended the call.

Then she drove towards the roundabout, turned right and glided along frozen roads towards Kallax Airport.

Because of the taxi strike, anyone who didn't have their own car was forced to take the bus from the airport into Lulea. Annika could see the queue trail back outside the terminal, huddled figures fighting against the cold and their own luggage. She was about to drive past the airport bus towards the hire-car parking lot when she caught sight of Karina Bjornlund.

The minister was at the back of the queue, patiently waiting her turn.

Thoughts ricocheted round Annika's head. What was Bjornlund doing here? What was Bjornlund doing here?

She pulled up by the kerb, putting the car in neutral and pulling on the handbrake, stared at the minister and picked up her mobile again. She dialled the department and asked to speak to the minister's press secretary. She was told that Karina Bjornlund had taken the day off.

'I have a question about the proposal being presented tomorrow,' Annika said, her eyes glued to the woman at the end of the queue. 'I have to talk to her today.'

'I'm afraid that isn't possible,' the press secretary said amiably. 'Karina's away and won't be back until late this evening.'

'Isn't it a bit odd for a minister to take time off the day before a major proposal is presented to parliament?' Annika said slowly, staring at Karina Bjornlund's dark fur-coat.

The press secretary hesitated. 'It's a private matter,' she said quietly. 'Karina was called to an urgent meeting that couldn't be postponed. It's very unfortunate timing, I have to agree with you. Karina was very upset that she had to go.'

'But she'll be home this evening?'

'That's what she was hoping.'

What sort of meeting would make a minister abandon their work? A sick relative, a partner or child or parent? A meeting in Lulea, something she couldn't avoid, something that took priority over everything else.