Borderline (15 page)

She clenched her jaw. She as a person didn’t matter a damn, but her bloated online savings account meant she got to jump the queue for financial advice.

Stop whining, she thought. Who had brought up the subject of that account? Who had used it as a stick to beat up the poor financial advice woman?

The path round the back of the Central Courthouse had been scraped smooth, and she slipped, straining her right thigh. She stopped to catch her breath as the pain flared, then subsided, her breath billowing in clouds around her face.

Where did all this anger come from? Why was she so unreasonable? Why had she taken Schyman’s generous offer as an insult? Why did she want to murder a woman at Handelsbanken who was tired because it was Friday afternoon and she couldn’t be bothered to have yet another idiot banging on about their personal finances?

She pulled off her glove and put her hand over her eyes. She had to get a grip or she’d fall to pieces.

They hadn’t heard any more.

Halenius was in constant communication with the relatives and employers of the other victims, but none had been contacted again.

She pulled on her glove and carefully set off.

She stopped abruptly, certain that she was being watched. She spun round and looked: the entrance to the underground, the fronts of buildings, a multi-storey car park, a few builders’ skips, parked cars, an elderly couple coming out of the café on the corner. No one looking at her. No one there. No one who cared about her.

She swallowed and headed towards Fleminggatan.

The bank was situated at the busy junction of Fleminggatan and Scheelegatan, a dull, brown brick building with orange awnings. It would have been a fairly safe bet to win ‘ugliest building in Stockholm’.

The personal finance adviser was a man. The woman who had answered the phone was probably a receptionist.

They sat down in a booth in a corner of the open-plan office. Annika said no to coffee, but accepted a glass of water, which the man went off to get from a machine.

There didn’t seem to be many customers in the bank, but plenty of employees. All around her people, in neatly ironed clothes, were talking into headsets in quiet voices, typing discreetly at their computers, occasionally getting up with a sheet of paper and moving among the tightly packed desks on high heels, or with gently swaying ties.

‘I understand that you wanted to discuss a loan,’ the man said, putting a plastic cup of water in front of her. He sat down on the other side of the desk and looked at her with rather weary eyes.

‘Erm,’ Annika said. ‘Yes. Possibly.’

‘You have a fairly sizeable amount in your online savings account.’

She looked at the expression on his face. Did he recognize her as the wife whose husband had been kidnapped by outlaws in Liboi on the border between Kenya and Somalia? Did he realize she was after ransom money?

Not a chance.

‘Yes,’ Annika said. ‘I know what I’ve got in that account. This would be a loan on top of that.’

The man cleared his throat and tapped at his computer. ‘Apart from your online savings account, you also have an ordinary account which has an overdraft facility,’ he said. ‘That would give you some room for manoeuvre if you have any unexpected expenses – if your dishwasher breaks down or you get tired of your sofa … You don’t think that would be enough?’

‘This would be a more substantial loan,’ she said.

He nodded understandingly. ‘We offer personal loans for slightly larger things, house renovation, new boilers, an extension, perhaps …’

‘How much could I borrow?’ she asked.

‘That depends on what sort of security you’re able to offer against the loan, perhaps a mortgage on a property or lease, or someone to guarantee the loan.’

She shook her head. ‘No guarantor,’ she said, ‘and no property. Not any more, anyway. How much would I be able to borrow like that?’

The man peered at his screen. His face was completely neutral. He was reading intently. The other staff were drifting around them, like fish, and she glanced at them from the corner of her eye. They lived their whole lives here. They came in every day, moved their documents about and typed at their computers, and then when the sun had gone down behind the courthouse they went into the underground and travelled home to a flat in a suburb, watched the news and maybe a quiz show, put their feet up on the coffee-table because they ached after all that tiptoeing around on the hard floor at the bank. They didn’t need to be kidnapped: they were already locked up for life, tangled in conventions and expectations and hopeless longings …

‘In that case we’ve got our Leisure Loan,’ the bank man said. ‘Up to three hundred thousand kronor, with credit available at twenty-four hours’ notice. That might be more suitable for you – you could buy a car, or perhaps a boat. Then you could use whatever you buy as security, and the interest is determined individually by us here in your branch. You fill in the application, you and the seller sign the agreement concerning the car or boat or whatever it might be, then the seller receives the money once he’s sent the signed contract to the bank.’

Annika could feel the walls tumbling over her, shutting her in. She reached for the water and drank some. It tasted of money and mildew and didn’t help. She was falling and falling.

‘And then there’s our Direct Loan, up to a hundred and fifty thousand without any security, available within—’

‘Sorry,’ she said, standing up and scraping the chair on the floor. ‘Sorry. I’m going to have to think about this, thank you, sorry …’

The man started to get to his feet behind the desk, and was saying something, but she stumbled out of the bank and found herself on the wide pavement with cars rushing past, from Barnhusbron and towards Kungsholmstorg, or from Fridhemsplan and towards the central station and the city centre. They hid her from the world with their roaring engines and shrieking brakes, and she breathed their ice-cold exhaust fumes into her lungs and felt the ground solidify.

It was almost dark now.

When the Co-op on the corner of Kungsholmsgatan and Scheelegatan had first opened, back in the mists of time, Annika had been impressed by the service, the quality, the range. Her mother had worked behind the till (well, she’d helped out when she was needed) in the Co-op in Hälleforsnäs, and Annika thought she knew a fair bit about grocery stores, but this Co-op was a monster. Hadn’t it been awarded ‘Supermarket of the Year’?

Since then things had gone steadily downhill.

The automatic doors slid open with a groan and she stepped into the slush-spattered entrance. She turned right, took a trolley and found herself confronted by a large sign above the vegetables, saying, ‘Cucumber, Swedish, great for aioli! 19.90/kilo’.

That seemed fairly indicative. Maybe they couldn’t spell tzatziki.

She let her gaze roam over the fruit and vegetables, and tried to conjure an image of the inside of her fridge. She could see liver pâté, yoghurt and eggs, but the milk rack was alarmingly empty, there was no cream and no raspberries.

What were they going to have tonight? The children had gone off with Berit, but presumably she and Halenius would have to eat. She was in charge of logistics, after all, responsible for food and charging mobile phones.

She knew the layout of the shop like the back of her hand, and glided off with her squeaking trolley, past nappies and dog food and Christmas cards and all the freezers. She got some pork chops, broccoli, rocket salad, cherry tomatoes, French goat’s cheese and raspberry balsamic vinegar. Carrots and batteries of various sizes, instant coffee and marker pens.

At the checkout she noticed that the carrots were mouldy and asked if she could change them.

‘They’re organic,’ the boy behind the till said, as if that were a justification.

She checked the cherry tomatoes, then changed them as well.

‘I hope things work out with your husband,’ the boy said.

She pulled her hat down over her ears.

The bags were heavy even though she’d tried not to buy too much. She had to walk very slowly on the icy pavements. The load felt reassuring, as if the weight of the bags was keeping her on the ground.

Her back was sweaty by the time she reached the door of the flat on Agnegatan.

‘The ICA shop on Kungsholmstorg is actually closer,’ she panted, when Halenius met her in the hall, ‘but I refuse to shop there. The Co-op by the courthouse is fairly shit, but at least it doesn’t pretend to be a delicatessen for the upper classes.’

She stopped when she saw the look on his face and let go of the bags. ‘What?’ she said.

‘It’s not about Thomas,’ Halenius said, ‘but I’ve got bad news about one of the other hostages.’

Annika grabbed the doorframe. ‘Who?’

‘The Frenchman. Come in and close the door. Give me those bags. Do you want coffee?’

She shook her head.

‘Go and sit down in the living room,’ he said.

She took off her coat and did as she’d been told.

He had lit the lamps in the windows and turned the television on with the sound down. The news in sign language was on. A tank rolled across the screen – maybe it was an item about Afghanistan.

She sat on the sofa. Halenius came into the room with a mug of coffee in his hand, and sat beside her. ‘Sébastien Magurie has been found dead,’ he said.

The Frenchman, the MEP, hadn’t Thomas mentioned him at some point? He used to tell her about the other delegates at his conferences when he called home (but never about the women, or not the young, beautiful ones), which used to annoy Annika: what did she care if a Belgian was being arrogant or some Estonian was brilliant?

‘Thomas didn’t like him,’ Annika said.

‘He was lying in a street in Mogadishu. The Djibouti embassy had a phone call telling them where the body was.’

‘Djibouti?’

‘The country to the north of Somalia – I think it’s the only country in the world that has an embassy in Mogadishu, these days. The embassies of all the Western countries have been abandoned. Sweden’s ambassador to Somalia is based in Nairobi.’

‘How did he die?’

Halenius hesitated, and she got up without waiting for the answer. ‘Annika …’

‘You always do that,’ she said, backing away from him. ‘You always go quiet when you have something really dreadful to say. I’m not made of china, you know.’

‘The body was found in a bin-bag in a street next to the building that used to house the French embassy. Close to the harbour in the old part of Mogadishu, an area that’s supposed to be completely abandoned. It’s only a kilometre or so from Djibouti’s—’

‘You haven’t answered my question. How did he die?’

He took a deep breath, then let the air out in a sigh. ‘Machete, probably. His body was dismembered. It’s still not one hundred per cent certain that it is the Frenchman they’ve found, but everything suggests that it is.’

‘Because?’ she said.

‘The remains of the clothes found in the bag match the description of the clothing he was wearing when he disappeared. His wedding ring was still on his hand. An appendix scar on the torso matches his medical records.’

‘But?’

‘His head is missing.’

She sank on to the sofa.

‘This means we’re in a worse position,’ Halenius said. ‘It suggests that the kidnappings are political, after all. The Frenchman’s wife was busy trying to put together forty million dollars, but the kidnappers weren’t willing to wait. And presumably the rest of the captives are in Somalia as well, not Kenya, which also makes things more difficult for us. Kenya is a functioning society, but Somalia is a nightmare.’

Annika looked out into the semi-darkness of the living room, at the warmth of the ornamental lighting, the DVDs on the bookcase next to the television, the books piled up by the radiator. ‘Dismembered how?’ she asked. ‘And why?’

Halenius studied her face. ‘Arms, legs, trunk,’ he said.

‘Bodies are usually dismembered to make it easier for the killer to move them without anyone noticing,’ Annika said. ‘That could hardly apply here.’

Halenius frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, why was he chopped up? Doesn’t that suggest excessive brutality, extreme aggression?’

‘Who knows what these madmen are driven by?’

‘If they’re ordinary madmen,’ Annika said, ‘the sort of madmen who kill people here in Sweden, then excessive brutality usually suggests that the killer is motivated by extremely personal reasons. Had the Frenchman been in Kenya before?’

Halenius shook his head. ‘Before he became a politician he was a civil servant at the nuclear power station in Agen. He’d hardly ever been abroad.’

Maybe the killer didn’t like nuclear energy, Annika thought, but said nothing. ‘The idea that the wife of a civil servant could get her hands on forty million dollars isn’t particularly realistic,’ she said instead. ‘The kidnappers might have realized that, and decided not to bother negotiating with her.’

‘They would have killed him before now, if that was the case,’ he said.

Annika sat up. ‘The kidnappers had seven hostages, didn’t they? Maybe they’re sacrificing one to put pressure on the rest of us. Maybe they saw it as a smart investment. Kill one in an attention-grabbing way, then the rest of the negotiations would go faster, better?’

Halenius was looking at her warily.

‘Otherwise they wouldn’t have called the Djibouti embassy and told them where to find the body,’ Annika went on. ‘They wanted it to be found, and there was a reason behind the dismemberment. And that phone call – they’re trying to tell us something. And they dumped the bag outside the former French—’ She stood up. ‘What did the man in the turban say in his video? That Frontex should be scrapped, the borders opened, and trade tariffs abolished? Is France particularly active in Frontex?’

‘They’ve got a president who talks openly about clearing the rubbish from the streets, in other words throwing out the immigrants, and they’ve got Le Pen who fights elections with racism as an ideology, but all the Mediterranean countries have been more or less equally involved.’

‘And the headquarters are in Poland, so that can’t be the reason,’ Annika mused, pacing back and forth in front of the television. She sat down again. ‘This can’t just be political. Do we know who the turban is?’