Without a Trace (17 page)

Everyone knew that, and everyone knew how the criminals got round it. (He wasn’t thinking of the simple practice of sending so-called smurfs to pay five hundred dollars at a time into different bank accounts.) Using companies protected by legislation on business confidentiality in various tax havens, such as the aforementioned Cayman Islands or the considerably more convenient Gibraltar, the money was circulated via fake invoices and phoney companies until eventually genuine accounts showed actual money and real profits, possibly some properties built using unregistered labour, the materials bought for cash (the cement supplier had no trouble proving that he had acquired the money in an honest, legal way, because he really had been paid for his cement). Then the properties could be sold and the business would make a profit and, hey presto, the drug smuggler had an account containing money that was pure as the driven snow.

His task this time was to investigate the best way for police authorities in different countries to communicate in order to stop cross-border financial crime.

As if that was going to take eighteen months!

‘Send an email, for fuck’s sake!’ he felt like shouting. ‘Or pick up the phone and call them!’ If the lazy fuckers learned to speak English, that would be an end to the problem.

He chuckled to himself – it really was very straightforward. He drank the last of the coffee, then pulled a face: it wasn’t hot enough. He would have to replace the coffee machine: it clearly wasn’t up to the job.

Then he made himself more comfortable on his chair and surfed the net, checking sites he usually followed, reading up on what had happened in his favourite debates overnight. The thread ‘Gossip about media bitch Annika Bengtzon’ was his favourite site and where he always started. It was on one of the shadier discussion forums, not as well trafficked as the more established ones. And he hadn’t started the thread, which meant that there really were people out there who hated her. Sadly, there wasn’t much activity in it, nothing for at least a week now, even though he had written several posts saying that she was having an affair with an overweight Member of Parliament. No one had picked it up and run with it. That evening he would come up with something juicier, something that would make people react.

Sophia Grenborg’s Facebook profile had already been updated twice that morning – his former lover seemed to live the whole of her pathetic little life on Facebook. He clicked to like both posts, just to keep her simmering: he could have her back whenever he wanted. She had shown up at the hospital, crying and cradling him and kissing his cheeks until he had pushed her away. He hadn’t wanted her sympathy.

He checked a few dreary feminist sites, but when he got to the Light of Truth he found reason to pause. The crazy blogger had put together an ambitious summary of that morning’s reactions to his revelations about newspaper editor Anders Schyman, and it was a pretty impressive list. Even the traditional media had jumped on the story now. They were hiding behind phrases like ‘it is being claimed online’ and ‘one critical blog suggests’, but the meaning was clear enough. The most recurrent accusations were that Schyman was a hypocrite, a liar and open to bribes.

Thomas clicked his way quickly through the list of links. He had to make a real effort not to turn into Gregorius and join in with the discussions, but that would have to wait until he got home. Now that he actually thought about it, it seemed very likely that he might be feeling unwell after lunch.

There was movement in the corridor as his colleagues began to arrive. He opened his work on the investigation and kept it in the background as he went through the websites.

The most interesting comments weren’t anonymous, but signed ‘Anne Snapphane’, Annika’s arch-enemy and former friend who was now an editor at mediatime. She had written an account of the editor-in-chief’s hypocrisy that was magnificently sharp and to the point. She described what it was like working at the
Evening Post
, how reporters were pressured to exaggerate and lie (misrepresentation and distortion were described as ‘stylistic matters’), how Schyman had ruled the newsroom using nepotism and an iron fist. She also took the chance to give Annika a passing kicking, describing her as Schyman’s most prominent henchperson, the one most slavishly devoted to the
Evening Post
’s rancid policies …

There was a knock on his door, and Thomas jumped so hard that his hook hit the keyboard. He quickly clicked to hide Snapphane’s embittered rant and leaned over his work on the investigation. ‘Come in!’

Cramne, his boss, put his head round the door. He probably didn’t dare come in – perhaps he thought disability was contagious.

‘Hello, old man, how are you?’

Thomas smiled weakly. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Well, things are moving forward. I’m waiting for a response from the Spaniards …’

Cramne opened the door a little wider. ‘I mean with you … You were off sick for a few days?’

He forced himself to swallow the angry retort that was on the tip of his tongue. ‘Just a cold,’ he said. ‘Nothing serious.’

‘Do you fancy lunch today? Fairly early? A few of us are thinking of heading to the Opera Bar.’

Ah, so they’d decided to make a collective show of sympathy towards the cripple. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘That sounds really great, but I’ve got a conference call booked with the Greeks at half past eleven and then …’

Cramne raised his hands in a gesture that showed he was both disappointed and disingenuously impressed. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Just say the word if it gets postponed or something. Those Greeks do have a tendency not to come up with the goods …’

Thomas laughed politely at the lame witticism until the door was closed. Then he sighed. Now he was going to have to organize a bloody conference call. What could they discuss this time?

‘I don’t want to wear this. It’s horrid.’ Ellen tugged at the zip of the raincoat.

‘I know you don’t like it,’ Annika said, ‘but you’ll be soaked before you get to school if you wear the other one.’

Kalle tutted by the door. Frustration bubbled inside Annika. Kalle was always ready on time, and ended up all sweaty and annoyed while Ellen made a fuss about insignificant things.

‘It’s got a scratchy zip,’ Ellen said.

Annika pulled it down a few centimetres so it wasn’t touching the little girl’s chin. ‘Would you rather have to sit in school all day when you’re wet and cold? And then get ill and not be able to go riding?’ She guided the child towards the door. ‘If you don’t catch the next bus you’re going to be late.’

The children still went to school on Kungsholmen, the one they had attended before she and Thomas separated, but they had to spend half an hour getting there when they were living with Annika. Ellen gave her a wounded look as she closed the front door. Annika heard their footsteps disappear down the stairwell.

She breathed out.

Jimmy had set off for work early that morning, so it was up to her to see that Jacob and Serena left home on time. They went to a school just a few blocks away, so didn’t need to leave for another quarter of an hour.

‘Jacob?’ she called down the corridor. ‘Serena? Are you nearly ready?’

No answer.

She went back into the kitchen and made another cup of coffee, got out her mobile and went onto the other evening paper’s website. While the coffee was filtering through the machine into the mug, she skimmed through their coverage of the Lerberg case. They were pushing hard with the missing wife, probably because they had managed to get hold of a genuinely charming picture of Nora and two of the children.

The machine fell silent, the signal that the coffee was ready. Jimmy had a machine that made coffee from small, coloured aluminium capsules, ridiculously expensive and presumably anything but environmentally friendly, but the coffee was good. (Mind you, who was she to judge that? She liked the tar that came out of the machine in the newsroom.) Once Jimmy had asked her to buy more capsules from the company’s concept store on Kungsgatan, which had been something of an otherworldly experience. The shop was like an aircraft hangar. When she’d stepped through the doors she’d been greeted by three young people with ambition to be models, dressed in Armani suits, competing to see who could give her the biggest smile. They were standing behind a counter made of metal and dark hardwood, and welcomed her in chorus. One handed her a queue ticket, with the sort of gesture that suggested she was being given a Fabergé egg. Then she was let into the shop itself – and gawped. To say that it was high-concept design was an understatement: marble floor, dark wood, large television screens on which George Clooney wandered about drinking coffee. Another twenty or so models in similar suits were standing behind a kilometre-long counter selling those little capsules at astonishing prices. All of a sudden she became aware of how wet and greasy her hair was, and how much mud she had on her shoes. She had walked out, unable to bring herself to buy their coffee, but drinking it was no problem at all.

‘Nora would never leave her children,’ she read in a headline on the other paper’s website. Bosse had written the article: he had managed to dig out a few other ‘friends’, similar to Annika’s group of mums. Bosse’s women – four in total, smartly dressed, neatly coiffed, holding pretty children in their arms – declared that Nora was very popular in the area, an example to them all in her devotion to her husband, children and housework. She had lived a quiet, unostentatious family life when she wasn’t socializing with neighbours and friends … Naturally they, like Annika’s mums, hoped that Nora would soon be home, and that Ingemar would recover, so that their community could settle down again and life could return to normal.

Annika couldn’t recall ever having lived a ‘normal’ life. As for calm, where on earth could she find that?

‘Jacob, can you come here?’ she heard Serena call from the bedroom corridor.

She lowered her mobile, hesitated, then put her cup down and went to Serena’s room.

The girl had chosen a patterned cotton dress with buttons up the back, and she couldn’t reach the two top ones.

‘Hang on, I’ll give you a hand,’ Annika said, forcing herself to sound cheerful.

Serena spun round and took a step back. ‘Get out,’ she said.

Annika stopped. ‘I just want to—’

‘Jacob can help me. We don’t need you.’

Annika felt all the air go out of her lungs. She gasped. She ought to say something, but what? She bit her lip and moved aside to let Jacob into the room. Serena turned round and Jacob fastened the two top buttons. ‘Thanks, Jacob,’ she said airily, then pushed past Annika and headed for the hall.

Annika stayed in the room until she heard the front door close. She shut her eyes for a few seconds, waiting for the pressure in her chest to ease, but it didn’t.

What have I ever done to you, you little bitch?

That thought eased the pressure slightly, and made it easier to breathe again.

Then she started to cry.

*

Ingemar Lerberg was lying in an ordinary hospital bed, slightly raised at the head, his arms lying slightly away from his body, elbows bent. Nina looked at him through the glass panel in the hospital door. The ventilator had been disconnected, but there were a number of tubes leading from his body to a drip and various monitoring devices. He was dressed in a white hospital gown, no socks. A white blanket covered his legs and torso, but his feet were bare. She couldn’t help staring at the soles of his feet. They were badly swollen and discoloured blue, yellow and green, criss-crossed with wounds and covered with thick, black scabs. He had a dark patch over one eye.

Senior consultant Kararei came hurrying along the corridor.

‘Is he awake?’ Nina asked.

‘He regained consciousness intermittently during the night. He’s had some sleep this morning, but he was awake a short while ago.’

Nina studied his body. ‘He’s not bandaged,’ she said.

‘Only over the scars from his operation,’ the doctor said. ‘You can’t bandage ribs, and the soles of the feet heal best if they’re left uncovered.’

‘Can he talk?’

‘He understands what we say, but he’s been intubated and had a tracheotomy in his throat for the ventilator, so his larynx is badly swollen. You can have a few minutes with him, but no more than that.’

‘Why is the patch black?’

The doctor looked at her quizzically.

‘Everything else is white,’ Nina said. ‘Why is the patch over his eye black?’

Dr Kararei blinked. ‘I honestly don’t know,’ he said, pushing the door open and walking into the room.

Nina followed him. A cool breeze swept past her out into the corridor.

‘Ingemar,’ the doctor said, walking over to the man. ‘I’ve got a police officer here who’d like to talk to you. They’re trying to find whoever did this to you. Do you feel up to seeing her?’

The man in the bed turned his head slightly and his single eye, hazy and bloodshot, focused on Nina.

‘My name’s Nina Hoffman,’ she said. ‘I’m from the National Crime Unit.’

The eye stared at her.

‘I understand that it’s hard to speak,’ she said. ‘Can you nod your head?’

The man didn’t move.

‘Can you blink?’

The man blinked his swollen eyelid. She breathed out, suddenly conscious that she had been holding her breath.

‘Blink once for yes, and shut your eye completely for a few seconds if you want to say no,’ Nina said. ‘Can you do that?’

The man blinked once.

‘Do you feel up to answering some questions?’

Another blink.

Nina straightened her back. She had only a few minutes so she would take her own theories as a starting point. ‘Were you assaulted by two men?’

The man blinked.

‘Did you recognize them?’

He closed his eye. Nina waited. No. He’d never seen them before.

‘Did they want information from you?’

A blink.

‘Were you able to give it to them?’

The eye closed, and remained shut. A tear trickled out and ran down past his ear.

They had asked for information Ingemar hadn’t been able to give them, something concerning him or a third person, someone close, possibly someone who was missing.