Last Will (34 page)

In his hand the boy held a plastic bucket that was standing in as the flying superhero. Ellen picked up a dump truck and followed her brother’s example, “vroom, vroom …”

“Would you like to do some more digging?” she asked, making an effort to sound cheerful. “What do you think about planting some nice flowers?”

The children dropped their toys and ran over to her, grabbing a leg each.

“I like you lots, Mommy,” Ellen said, hugging her thigh.

Annika crouched down and took both children in her arms.

“And you’re the best in the world,” she whispered, the pressure in her chest growing again. She rocked them, hugged them, loved them.

Then let go of them, and stood up and cleared her throat.

“Bring your spades and we’ll set to work doing some digging.”

She fetched her own spade from the basement and led the children over to the hole in the hedge where Wilhelm Hopkins drove in and out in his car. The Merc was parked with its front bumper just a meter from the boundary of her garden.

“Here,” she said. “We’re going to plant a really nice flower bed here.”

With the children milling around her legs, she quickly dug out a three-meter-long strip of the churned-up grass, laying the turfs as a barrier against her neighbor.

“There,” she said. “Now we can go and buy some flowers.”

The children rushed off toward her car, scrambling up onto the backseat without arguing. She locked the house up, putting the key in a boot outside the door so Thomas would be able to get in, jumped in the car, and drove off to Hortus out in Mörby.

There were masses of people at the garden center, and she had to keep telling the children to stay close to her. In return, she let them choose some of the plants they were going to put in the new bed.

Ellen chose pansies and summer phlox, while Kalle picked oxeye daisies and Busy Lizzies. Annika chose different sorts of marigold; her grandmother always used to grow trays of those on the windowsills of her flat in Hälleforsnäs before planting them out in front of her cottage at Lyckebo. A young lad helped her carry three big bags of compost out to the back of the SUV; then they were done.

When they got home, the children were tired of their gardening adventure. They ran back to the volcano and carried on digging with the Spiderman tractor.

Annika got the bags of compost onto the ground and started dragging them toward the new bed.

“You could have told me you were going out,” Thomas said behind her, making her jump and drop the compost.

He was sitting on the terrace at the back of the house reading the evening papers.

“I put the keys in one of the boots by the back door,” she said, bending down to take a new hold of the bag.

Thomas got up and walked around the house.

He’s going to help me, Annika thought. He’ll soon be back with the rest of the compost.

She tore open the bag and emptied the compost onto the flower bed, glancing over at the corner of the house around which Thomas had disappeared.

He’ll be pleased that I’m making an effort, she thought. We can have the house and garden as a shared project; together we’ll turn this garden into our own little oasis, a place to relax and recharge our batteries.

But Thomas didn’t come back. Instead she saw him walking about inside the kitchen, standing at the sink and talking into his cell phone.

For some reason the sight of him there made her feel like crying. Disappointment was forming a noose around her neck, making it hard to breathe.

Nothing she did was any good. No matter what she did, it was never good enough.

“Hello there!” Ebba called from the road. “What are you planting?”

Annika spun round and forced a smile, then drove the spade into the soil and walked over to the fence. Francesco started barking happily and wagging his tail when he caught sight of her.

“Hello boy,” Annika said, bending down to pet him and taking the opportunity to wipe her eyes and nose.

“Wilhelm won’t be very happy about where you’re putting your new bed,” Ebba said, looking over at the bare soil.

“Guess if that was the intention,” Annika said. “Would you like a cup of coffee, or some lunch? I was planning to do an omelette …”

“Thanks,” Ebba said, taking a few involuntary steps as the dog tugged her toward a squirrel, “that would be lovely, but I’m on my way to the Institute. Francesco! Come here!”

“You work on Saturdays?” Annika asked, trying to sound relaxed.

“The Nobel Assembly has organized a really interesting seminar,” Ebba said, “
The Global Challenge of Neuroprotection and Neuroregeneration
; then there’ll be drinks and nibbles. It’s become something of a tradition, open to staff and postdocs; it’s usually very popular.”

“A sort of staff party?” Annika said, glancing over at the house. She could no longer see Thomas through the windows.

“Yes,” Ebba said. “The Nobel Committee is meeting today to draw up its preliminary list, and that usually means there are a lot of heightened emotions. By the way, could I ask a favor?”

Annika looked back at Ebba.

“Of course,” she said, “no problem.”

“I’m going up to see my cousin in Dalarna tomorrow for a few days, and I was wondering if you could keep an eye on the house?”

Annika nodded, looking over at the huge villa.

“Of course,” she repeated. “What do I have to do? Water the plants, water the dog, bring in the mail?”

Ebba laughed and dug for something in her jacket pocket.

“Francesco’s coming with me, but it would be great if you could take the mail in once or twice. The plants should be okay. Here’s the key to the mail box … Thanks so much. Just call me if anything happens—my cell-phone number’s on my card.”

She handed Annika a small key ring and a business card, gave a little wave, and jogged after her dog, who was on his way into Hopkins’s garden.

“No, boy, not there, this way …”

Annika gulped and put the card and keys in her pocket, then looked over at her car again. The bags of compost were on the ground next to the open trunk.

No one was going to help her with them.

MONDAY, MAY 31

As Anton Abrahamsson stepped into the room, his knees felt like jelly. Early morning meetings at the top of the central building of the police complex on Kungsholmen were notorious, particularly the ones in the corner rooms with a view of the treetops in Kronoberg Park outside the window.

And now it was his turn.

The head of the Security Police and Bertstrand, his departmental boss, were standing by the window, talking quietly. The early morning sun reflected off the façade of the building opposite, casting uneven shadows on their faces. They were stirring their coffee cups and seemed to be talking in confidence.

“Well,” Anton Abrahamsson said, rubbing his hands together to warm the cold sweat on them, “so this is what it looks like up here …”

The men by the window looked up at him, put their cups down on a small, round wooden table, and walked toward him.

“Welcome,” the head of the Security Police said. “Coffee, or perhaps some water?”

He gestured toward a side table with a range of refreshments.

Anton Abrahamsson shook hands with Bertstrand, then went and poured himself a glass of Ramlösa. His hand felt slightly unsteady and he didn’t want to risk spilling any coffee.

I wonder if everyone gets this nervous before meetings to discuss a promotion, he thought.

“Sit yourself down, Abrahamsson,” said the head of the Security Police.

They settled onto a group of low armchairs, comfortable, dark-blue fabric. Anton stretched his legs out.

“I hope all’s well with your family?” his boss said.

Anton couldn’t help laughing—they were actually interested!

“Thanks, yes,” he said. “Our lad’s getting big now, nine months old … We had a bit of trouble for a while with colic and so on …”

Bertstrand leaned forward and clasped his hands together.

“Anton,” he said, “we’d like to talk to you about the extradition from Bromma back in the winter.”

Anton Abrahamsson nodded and smiled—yes, he remembered that very well indeed.

“A tricky job,” he said. “I’m just glad it went so well.”

His superiors exchanged a quick glance which for some reason made Anton feel a little uncomfortable.

“The report you wrote,” the head of the security police said, “I presume it was accurate?”

Anton took a sip of water and nodded thoughtfully—yes, indeed, it was entirely accurate.

“There are a few details we’ve been wondering about,” Bertstrand said. “We’re hoping you can help to clarify the course of events for us.”

Anton grinned and let his knees fall apart.

“Shoot,” he said.

“At what point did you realize that there were members of the American CIA present at the extradition?”

At what point?

At what point?

“Well,” he said, slightly hesitantly, “it must have been when George said that he’d brought with him some men from there to look after the transportation.”

“George?” the head of the Security Police said.

“The man who presented himself as the head of the American team,” Bertstrand clarified.

“George?” the head of the Security Police repeated, looking blankly at Anton.

“He was very polite and correct,” Anton said.

The head of the Security Police shuffled awkwardly, the chair’s upholstery creaking slightly.

Bertstrand moved to the very edge of his seat.

“Were you wearing a mask at any point?” he asked, looking at Anton in a slightly accusing way.

A mask?

“At any stage in the proceedings?”

Absolutely not.

“Absolutely not, why would I have been?”

“You didn’t react to the fact that all the American personnel had masks over their heads?”

“Not George,” Anton said quickly. “He wasn’t wearing a mask. He was very …”

Polite and correct, he was going to say, but of course he had already said that.

His bosses exchanged a glance, and Bertstrand shook his head.

“One more thing,” Bertstrand said, looking back at Anton again. “Why did you walk out?”

Walk out? When?

“Why did you and your colleagues leave the room while the CIA were conducting their humiliating treatment of the prisoner?”

“We stayed,” Anton Abrahamsson said. “We stayed almost the whole way through.”

“Yes,” Bertstrand said very gently and very slowly, “but why did you walk out when you did? I mean, toward the end?”

Anton heard the prisoner’s screams echoing round the room, in this grand meeting room at the top of the central building on Kungsholmen, the rattle of ankle chains, the slicing of scissors through thick fabric. He heard the crying and calls for help, saw bloodshot eyes stare at the ceiling as the man’s naked body tensed while his anus was invaded.

“I thought it was actually rather unpleasant,” he said.

The head of the Security Police stood up and walked over to stare out across the treetops in the park.

“Anton,” Bertstrand said, “there is a legal problem with this extradition, as you can probably understand.”

Anton blinked.
A legal problem
?

“You were responsible for the extradition, yet the fact of the matter is
that you handed over official control to the Americans,” Bertstrand said. “And that isn’t permitted under Swedish law. There will have to be an investigation, and the result will, sooner or later, be made public. Do you understand what this means?”

Anton was suddenly gripped by an extremely unpleasant suspicion.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he said. “There was nothing I could do.”

Bertstrand nodded understandingly.

“I quite understand your situation,” he said. “We will have to help one another to get to the bottom of this.”

“I wasn’t the one who authorized the transportation,” Anton said. “That was the Foreign Ministry. The foreign minister.”

“Yes,” Bertstrand said, “but it isn’t the transportation per se that’s the problem.”

“I could hardly help it if something happened once they were in the air—then it’s the captain who …”

“Abrahamsson,” the head of the Security Police said, turning to face him again. “
George
is the problem. Haven’t you grasped that?”

He walked slowly toward the chair where Anton was sitting.

“How the hell,” he said slowly, “are we going to explain that you handed over official control at a Swedish airport to the
American fucking CIA?
”

He shouted these last three words.

Anton pushed back hard in his chair and clutched the armrests.

“Let’s deconstruct this,” Bertstrand said. “The government decided that the terrorist needed to be extradited, so we’re in the clear on that. Whatever might have happened to him after that is also regulated by legislation that only the government can call upon, so we’re fine there as well. We might be able to make the transportation itself the issue here, in which case it would be the Foreign Ministry’s problem.”

“The American fucking CIA?”
the head of the Security Police shouted once more, staring red-eyed at Anton.
“George?!”