Exposed (19 page)

‘What do you mean?’ Annika said, smiling back.

‘Making such a success of things, of course! Everyone’s noticed! They keep coming up and congratulating me when I’m at the till. Such wonderful articles! The front page and everything.’

Annika lowered her head.

‘Oh, it wasn’t so hard,’ she said. ‘I got a good tip-off. So how are you?’

Her mother’s face lit up. ‘Wait till you see this,’ she said, getting up. The smoke from her cigarette formed swirling dragons in the air as she drifted over to her worktable. Annika was staring at the smoke as her mother came back. She spread out a pile of photocopies in front of Annika.

‘I like this one best,’ she said, tapping the table and sitting down, then taking a deep drag on the cigarette.

Annika looked at the sheets of paper with a gentle sigh. They were the details of different houses in Eskilstuna.
The top one, the one her mother liked, came from the Association of Estate Agents. She read:

‘Why do they shorten “with”?’ Annika asked.

‘What?’ her mother said.

‘They shorten the shortest word in the sentence,’ Annika said. ‘It doesn’t make any sense.’

Her mother wafted away the smoke between them, irritated.

‘So what do you think?’ she said.

Annika hesitated. ‘It’s rather expensive, isn’t it?’

‘Expensive?’ her mother said, grabbing the sheet. ‘Marble-floored hall, clinker tiles in the kitchen, and there’s a bar in the cellar. It’s perfect!’

Annika sighed quietly. ‘Of course it is. I suppose I was just wondering if you can afford it. That’s a lot of money.’

‘Look at the others,’ her mother said.

Annika leafed through the other details. They were all luxury villas close to Eskilstuna. And they all had more than six rooms, and large gardens.

‘But you don’t like gardening,’ Annika said.

‘Leif’s an outdoor person,’ her mother said, putting out the half-smoked cigarette. ‘We’re thinking of buying a place together.’

Annika pretended not to hear.

‘How’s Birgitta?’ she asked instead.

‘Oh, fine,’ her mother said. ‘She gets on well with Leif. You’d like him too, if you ever get to meet him.’
Her voice carried a hint of accusation and annoyance.

‘Is she going to stay on at Right Price?’

‘Don’t change the subject,’ her mother said, straightening up. ‘Why don’t you want to get to know Leif?’

Annika stood up and went over to the fridge. The inside was sparking clean, but fairly empty.

‘Of course I’d be happy to meet him, if it would make you happy. But this summer’s been a bit busy, as I’m sure you can understand.’

She didn’t care if she sounded sarcastic.

Her mother stood up as well.

‘Don’t go digging around in the fridge,’ she said. ‘We’ll be eating soon. You can set the table.’

Annika took a small pot of yogurt and closed the fridge door.

‘I haven’t got time,’ she said. ‘I’m going out to Lyckebo.’

Her mother’s lips thinned and went white. ‘It’ll be ready in a few minutes. Surely you can wait that long?’

‘See you in a bit,’ Annika said.

She hoisted her bag onto her shoulders and hurried out of the apartment. Her bicycle was still there, but the air had gone out of the back tyre. She pumped it up, squashed her bag onto the parcel rack and cycled off in the direction of Granhed.

The ironworks glided past on her right, and she glanced at it from the corner of her eye. That bloody factory, the once-beating heart of the little town. Forty thousand square metres of abandoned industrial premises. Sometimes she hated it, for what it had done to her youth. Twelve hundred people had worked there when she was born. When she left school that number was down to a couple of hundred. Her father lost his job when the workforce was cut back to just 120. Now there were only eight. She cycled past the car park: three cars, five bikes.

Her father couldn’t handle being unemployed. He had lived for that shitty job. He never got another job, and Annika could guess why. Bitterness is hard to hide, and not very pleasant to employ.

She passed the entrance to the canoe club, and sped up unconsciously. That was where he was found, half an hour too late. His body was too cold. He lived for another twenty-four hours in the Mälar Valley Hospital in Eskilstuna, but the alcohol had already done its job.

When things were at their worst, she thought it was probably just as well. If she thought about it, which she rarely did, she realized that she had never really allowed herself to mourn his death.

Even so, she thought, he’s the one I take after. She brushed the thought away.

After the turning to the lake, the road got narrower and bumpier as it wound through the trees. She never liked the colour of the forest in late summer. The dense vegetation was so full of chlorophyll that it was all exactly the same shade of green.

Paths led off into the forest to left and right. Those off to the left were all blocked off: that was the boundary of the Harpsund estate.

The road went up a hill, and she had to stand up and pedal, breathing hard. Her armpits were running with sweat, and she could have done with a swim.

The turning to Lyckebo crept up on her, just as it always did. She almost rode past it, and the bike skidded as she braked hard. She pulled her bag off the back and leaned the bike against the barrier, then crept under it and waded off through the tall grass.

‘Whiskas!’ she called. ‘Where’s my little boy?’

A couple of seconds later she heard the sound of miaowing in the distance. A little sandy-coloured cat appeared through the grass, its whiskers glistening in the sunlight.

‘Oh, Whiskas!’

She dropped her bag in the grass as the cat jumped up into her arms. She sat down among the ants and rolled around with the cat, tickling him on his tummy and stroking his back.

‘Look, you’ve got a tick. Hold on, I’ll get it off for you.’

She took a firm grip on the insect that had burrowed in under the cat’s chin, and gave it a sharp tug. It didn’t break. She smiled happily. She still had the knack.

‘So is Grandma home?’

She could see the old woman sitting in the shade
under the oak tree. Her eyes were closed and her hands were folded over her stomach. Annika picked up her bag and went over to her, as the cat wound around her legs, miaowing and wanting to play.

‘Are you asleep?’

Her voice was little more than a whisper.

‘Oh no, I’m just listening to the forest.’

Annika gave her grandmother a long hug.

‘You just get thinner and thinner,’ her grandmother said. ‘Are you eating properly?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Wait till you see what I’ve got.’

She let go of her grandmother and hunted through her bag.

She pulled out a box of handmade chocolates from a small factory out in Gärdet in Stockholm. Her grandmother clapped her hands.

‘Oh, how kind!’ she said. ‘But you really shouldn’t have.’

Her grandmother opened the box and they each took a chocolate. It was slightly too bitter for Annika’s taste, but then she wasn’t very fond of chocolate anyway.

‘So how are you getting on?’ her grandmother asked.

Annika looked down at her lap.

‘It’s pretty tough,’ she said. ‘I hope I get to stay on at the paper. Otherwise I don’t know what I’ll do.’

The old woman looked at her warmly.

‘You’ll be fine, Annika,’ she said. ‘You don’t need that job. Things will turn out just fine anyway.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ Annika said, feeling that she was on the verge of crying.

‘Come here.’

Her grandmother held out her hand and pulled Annika down onto her lap. Annika sat down carefully and leaned her forehead against the woman’s neck.

‘I don’t know if I can do it,’ she said.

‘Well, you know what I think you should do,’ her grandmother said seriously.

The old woman hugged her granddaughter, rocking her gently. The wind was getting up and the leaves were rustling above them. Annika could see the lake glittering through the trees.

‘I’m always here, you know that,’ her grandmother said. ‘I’m here for you, whatever happens. You can always come back here.’

‘I don’t want to get you involved,’ Annika said.

‘Silly girl,’ her grandmother said with a smile. ‘What sort of talk is that? I don’t do anything useful these days, so helping you would be the least I could do.’

Annika kissed her on the cheek.

‘Are there any chanterelles yet?’

Her grandmother laughed. ‘You won’t believe how many! All that rain in the spring, and now this heat. The forest is full of them. Get two bags!’

Annika jumped up.

‘I just want to have a quick swim first!’

She pulled off her skirt and blouse on the way down to the jetty. The water was warm and the bottom of the lake was muddier than ever. She swam towards the rocks, pulled herself out and lay there for a while, catching her breath.

The wind pulled at her wet hair, and she looked up at the cirrus clouds floating past a couple of thousand metres above. She slid down into the water again and floated slowly towards the jetty on her back.

The lake was surrounded by thick forest, with not a living creature to be seen, apart from Whiskas, who was waiting for her on the jetty. You could easily get lost in these woods. She had managed it when she was little. A team from the orienteering club had found her
a long way away on the far side of the road, crying and half frozen.

She started sweating as soon as she clambered ashore and pulled on her clothes without drying herself.

‘I’m borrowing your boots,’ she called to her grandmother, who was busy with her knitting.

She tucked one plastic bag into the waist of her skirt, and held another in her hand. Whiskas followed her as she marched into the forest.

Her grandmother was right. There were great clumps of mushrooms growing beside the path. She found ceps, parasol mushrooms and masses of hedgehog mushrooms as well.

Whiskas danced around her feet the whole time, hunting ants and butterflies, jumping at gnats and eating a baby bird. She crossed the road to Granhed and carried on past Johannislund and Björkbacken. She turned off towards Lillsjötorp to say hello to Old Gustav. His lovely little cottage was bathed in sunlight, great walls of pines behind it.

The silence was deafening: there were no sounds of wood-chopping from the woodshed, which probably meant the old man was out in the forest doing the same as her.

The door was locked. She carried on towards the White Hills, where she clambered up an old elk-hunting tower for a rest. An area of cleared woodland spread out beneath her. If she shouted, there would be a great echo.

She closed her eyes and listened to the wind. It was loud, almost hypnotic. She sat for a long while until a snapping sound made her jump.

Carefully she looked over the edge of the platform

A thickset man was cycling down from Skenäs. He was panting for breath and weaving slightly. A dried
pine twig had got caught in his back wheel, and he stopped right under the tower to pull the twig out. He sighed deeply and then carried on his way.

Annika blinked in astonishment. It was the Prime Minister.

Christer Lundgren stepped into his overnight flat with a feeling of unreality. He could sense disaster like a cloud on the horizon, feeling the heady winds starting to blow around his face. The electric charge in the air made him appreciate the reality of the threat: stormy weather was heading his way. And he was going to get absolutely soaked.

The heat inside the little flat was incredible. The sun had been pouring through the windows all day, making him angry. Why weren’t there any blinds?

He put his overnight bag down in the hall and opened the balcony door wide. The air-conditioning unit in the yard rumbled and shrieked.

Wretched bloody hamburger chain, he thought.

He went into the little kitchen and poured himself a large glass of water. The sink smelled awful, of sour milk and apple peel. He rinsed it as best he could.

His meeting with the party chairman and secretary of state had been terrible. He was under no illusions about the position he was in. It was all crystal clear.

Taking the glass of water with him, he sank heavily onto the bed and pulled the phone onto his lap. He took several deep breaths before calling his wife.

‘I’m going to have to stay down here for a while,’ he told her.

His wife held her fire. ‘Next weekend too?’

‘You know I don’t want to,’ he said.

‘You promised the children,’ she said. He shut his eyes and put a hand over his forehead. He could feel tears prickling behind his eyelids.

‘I want you so much I feel ill,’ he said.

This worried her.

‘What’s happened?’

‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ he said. ‘It’s a complete nightmare.’

‘But, Christer, just tell me what’s happened!’

He gulped, then said, ‘Listen to me. Take the children and go to Karungi. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

‘I’m not going without you,’ she said quickly.

His voice hardened. ‘You have to. Things are going badly wrong here. You’ll be besieged if you stay in town. The best thing would be if you could leave this evening.’

‘But Stina isn’t expecting us until Saturday!’

‘Call her and ask if you can go a bit earlier. Stina’s always happy to help.’

His wife waited in silence.

‘It’s the police,’ she said finally. ‘It’s because of the police calling.’

He could hear the twins laughing in the background.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Partly. But that’s not all.’

Annika was back in time for the 5.45 news on the radio.

‘You’ve no idea who I saw in the forest. The Prime Minister!’

She emptied the contents of the two bags on the table as the news bulletin began.

‘He’s decided to lose some weight,’ her grandmother said. ‘He does a lot of cycling round here.’