Red Wolf: A Novel (22 page)

‘Yep.’

‘Good. Three. Then you link Östhammar to Luleå and describe the police’s desperate search for the killer. You’ve got the front page, six, seven, eight, nine; and the centrefold for your old terrorist – we’ve already put him in.’

She made no response, just sat there in silence listening to the noises behind the editor’s voice, a newsreader speaking on the television, a phone ringing, the tapping of a keyboard. The press – a symphony of efficiency and cynicism.

She could see Gunnel Sandström in front of her, her wine-coloured cardigan and soft cheeks, and suddenly felt a huge, infinite sense of powerlessness.

‘Okay,’ she whispered.

‘Don’t worry about pictures,’ Jansson said. ‘We’ll fix that here. There was a bit of fuss about the fact that you went to Östhammar without a photographer, but I explained that you went on a hunch and had no idea you were going to get a hole-in-one. We’ve sorted pictures of the farm, the old girl didn’t want to be in them, but we’ve got the boy’s mother and the editor-in-chief of the
Norrland News
as next-of-kin. That reporter wasn’t much of a family man, if I’ve got that right?’

‘That’s right,’ Annika said quietly.

‘Any chance of a shot of the letters?’

‘Tonight? Difficult. But it wouldn’t be too hard to mock something up, you’ve got all the details.’

‘Pelle!’ Jansson yelled in the direction of the picture desk. ‘Studio shot of some letters, right away.’

‘Ordinary “Sverige” envelopes,’ Annika said, ‘stamps with an ice-hockey player on. The contents are just lined A4 pages from a pad, with slightly ragged edges like when you can’t be bothered to use the perforations, text written in ballpoint, every other line, filling up about half the page.’

‘Anything else?’

‘For God’s sake, make sure you say that the picture’s a mock-up.’

‘Yeah, yeah. When do we get your stuff?’

She looked at the time, on solid ground again.

‘When do you want it?’

Thomas emerged from the pitch-black interior of the jazz club onto the illuminated street, his legs soft with beer and his brain vibrating with music. He wasn’t really into jazz, was more of a Beatles man, but the band tonight were good, talented, tuneful, and had real feeling in their music.

Behind him he heard Sophia’s ringing laughter, her response to something the guy in the cloakroom had said. She knew everyone there, was a real regular, which is how they got the best table. He let the door swing shut, buttoned his coat and turned his back to the wind as he waited for her. The noise of the city had no rhythm, it sounded out of tune after the soft jazz. He looked up at the neon lights of the signs above him, feeling his skin reflecting pink and green and blue, fumes in his hair.

She was so at ease with life, so happy – her laughter ran like a silvery spring stream over the dark floor of the club, over the heavy conference table. She was ambitious and dutiful and quietly spoken and grateful for what life gave her. With her he felt happy, satisfied. She respected him, listened to him, took him seriously. He never had to justify who he was, she never moaned or nagged, she seemed genuinely interested when he talked about his
parents and childhood in Vaxholm. And she sailed as well; her family had a place on Möja.

He turned round to see her step out of the darkness and take a few tentative moves down the steps in her neat little boots and tight skirt.

‘There’s going to be a jam on Friday,’ Sophia said. ‘That gets massive sometimes. Once I was here until half six the next morning. It was brilliant.’

He smiled into her warm eyes, sucked into the sheer blueness of them. She stood in front of him and pulled up her shoulders, put her feet close together and burrowed her hands deep into her coat pockets, smiling up at his face.

‘Are you cold?’ he asked, noticing that his mouth was completely dry.

She carried on smiling as she shook her head. ‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘I’m perfectly warm.’

He gave in and pulled her to him. Her head was just under his nose. She was taller than Annika. Her hair smelled of apples. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight. A violent jolt went through his body, so hot and rigid that it took his breath away, making him gasp.

‘Thomas,’ she whispered against his chest, ‘if only you knew how much I’ve been longing for this.’

He gulped and closed his eyes, holding her even tighter, absorbing her smell, apples and perfume and the wool of her coat, then relaxed and saw her turn her face to his. He was breathing through his mouth as he stared into her eyes, saw the pupils contract, noticing that she was panting.

If I do this there’s no way back
, he thought.
If I give in now I’m lost
.

And he leaned forward and kissed her, endlessly slowly and carefully. Her lips were cold and tasted of
gin and menthol cigarettes. Shivers ran up and down his spine. Then she took a little step towards him, almost imperceptible, but their teeth met and the warmth from her mouth entered his and a moment later he thought he was going to explode. Good God, he had to have this woman now.

‘Do you want to come home with me?’ she whispered against his neck.

He could only nod.

She let go of him and hailed a taxi, with her usual success. They stepped apart, she adopted a look that said sensible Federation of County Councils representative, adjusted her hair, and simultaneously sent him a radiant glance across the roof of the car. They climbed in their respective back doors; she gave the driver the address of her flat on Östermalm. Then they sat in their corners of the back seat with their hands clasped hard together beneath her handbag as the taxi rattled them through the city centre and up towards Karlaplan.

He paid with his business account, signing with trembling fingers.

She lived at the top of a magnificent building from 1898. The marble staircase was discreetly lit by soft brass lamps; a thick carpet swallowed their steps as she quickly pulled him towards the lift. They closed the ornamental gate and she pressed the button for the sixth floor, then pulled off his coat. He let it fall to the floor, not caring if it got dirty, and took off her coat and jacket and blouse, filling his hands with her breasts. She moaned gently against his shoulder, both of her hands massaging his groin. Then she found the zip, opened it and pulled his erection out of his underwear. He couldn’t help closing his eyes and leaning back, afraid he was going to faint.

Then the lift stopped with a jolt, she kissed him and laughed into his mouth.

‘Well, project leader, come on. We’re nearly there.’

They gathered their clothes and bags and briefcases and tumbled out of the lift. She hunted for the keys in her handbag, and he ran his tongue over the back of her neck as she unlocked the door.

‘I have to turn the alarm off,’ she whispered.

After a few bleeping sounds they were in her hallway, his hands caressing her naked waist. They moved upwards and found her breasts, she pressed her body against him before turning round and pulling him with her onto the floor of the hall.

Her eyes were radiant, her breathing light and urgent, and as he pushed into her she held his gaze and he was lost, drowning, wanted to carry on drowning until he died, then he died and everything went black for a moment when he came.

All of a sudden he was conscious of his own panting. He was lying with his knee in one of her shoes, and realized that they hadn’t even closed the door. A cold draught was making his sweaty skin shiver.

‘We can’t stay like this,’ he said, sliding out of her.

‘Oh, Thomas,’ Sophia said, ‘I think I’m in love with you.’

He looked at her lying beneath him with her blond hair spread over the parquet floor, lipstick smeared on her cheek, her mascara under her eyes. A sense of incredible awkwardness suddenly came over him, and he looked away and stood up. The room swayed a little. He must have drunk more than he thought. From the corner of his eye he saw her get up beside him, still wearing her bra, her skirt awry.

‘That was wonderful, wasn’t it, Thomas?’

He gulped and made himself look at her, slender,
slightly fragile in her half-nakedness, defenceless and breathless as a small child. He forced himself to smile at her, she was so sweet.

‘You’re wonderful,’ he said, and she stroked her hand quickly against his cheek.

‘Do you want coffee?’ she asked, closing the front door and unzipping the back of her skirt, letting it fall to the ground along with her bra.

‘Please,’ he said as she walked naked through the apartment. ‘Thanks.’

A moment later she was back, wrapped in an ivory dressing gown, and holding another one, wine-red.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘The shower’s on the left at the end.’

He took the dressing gown and considered the shower for a moment. Even if Annika was asleep when he got home, it wasn’t worth taking the risk.

Sophia had disappeared off to the right somewhere; he thought he could hear the hiss of an espresso machine. Cautiously he stepped into the room in front of him, and found himself in a studio with an eight-metre ceiling and huge windows facing the dull city sky. The walls were brick, the floor the same oiled oak as in the hall.

He couldn’t help being impressed. This was what an apartment should really look like.

‘Sugar?’ Sophia called from the kitchen.

‘Please,’ he said, and hurried towards the bathroom.

He showered quickly and thoroughly, using the most neutrally scented soap he could find, scrubbing his crotch with a sponge. Took care not to get his hair wet.

She was sitting at a table of smoked glass in the designer kitchen when he came in wrapped in his wine-red dressing gown; she was smoking one of her menthol cigarettes.

‘You have to go home?’ she said, framing it as a question.

He nodded and sat down, wondering what he was feeling. Mostly he felt pleased. He smiled at her, touching her hand.

‘Right away?’

He sat for a moment, then nodded. She put the cigarette out, pulled her hands away and put them in her lap.

‘Do you love your wife?’ she asked, staring at the table.

He swallowed. He didn’t know what to say, didn’t actually know whether he did or not.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I think so.’

He let his subconscious conjure up images of Annika, and his response to her.

Once, when he was still living with Eleonor, he had dreamed about her, and in the dream she had had burning hair. Her head had been covered with flames, singing and dancing around her face, and she was quite unconcerned about it. Fire was her natural element, it ran like silk along her back and shoulders.

After that night he had often imagined her like that, as someone who dwelled in fire.

‘She’s boundless, somehow,’ he said. ‘Has none of the barriers normal people have, can put herself through pretty much anything if she’s set her mind to it.’

‘Sounds a bit uncomfortable,’ Sophia said.

He nodded slowly. ‘And fascinating,’ he said. ‘I’ve never met anyone like her.’

Sophia Grenborg smiled at him, a careful, friendly smile. ‘I’m glad you came.’

He smiled back. ‘So am I.’

‘Shall I call a taxi?’

He nodded again, then looked down at his hands, waiting quietly as she went out to the phone.

‘Five minutes,’ she said.

He drank his coffee; it was too strong and too sweet. Then he stood up and put the cup on the draining-board. He went out into the hall and quickly gathered together his clothes, pulling them on with concise, efficient movements.

Once he had pulled on his coat and found his briefcase she slid up behind him, a light shadow of perfume and apple-scent. She wound her arms round his waist, laid her cheek against his back.

‘Thanks for this evening,’ she whispered.

He blinked a few times, turned round and kissed her gently.

‘Thank
you
,’ he whispered.

She locked the door behind him, and he could feel her watching through the spyhole in the door until the lift carried him down with it.

His taxi glided up soundlessly through the thickening snow, and he jumped in when he suddenly noticed it. From the back seat he told the taxi-driver his address, Hantverkargatan 32.

He must have dozed off, because the next moment they were there. He fumbled for his business account card and paid, gathered his things with some difficulty, pushed the door shut and stopped to look up at the house.

The lights in the flat were still on. He glimpsed a shadow moving inside.

Annika was still up, even though she was always so tired in the evening, after all those years on the nightshift.

Why wasn’t she asleep? What was she doing, wandering from room to room?

There were only two reasons. Either she was still working or else she suspected something, and once
these thoughts had formulated themselves in his head the result was inevitable.

Guilt and regret hit him in the guts like the kick of a horse, the utterly fundamental paralysis that comes from unwelcome awareness. He couldn’t breathe; his diaphragm contracted and made him collapse.

Oh, good God, what had he done?

What if she found out? What if she understood? What if she already knew? Had someone seen something? Had someone called? Maybe someone had tipped off the paper?

He was breathing raggedly and with some difficulty, forcing himself to be sensible.

Tipped off the paper? Why the hell would anyone tip off the paper?

He was on the verge of losing his grip.

Slowly he straightened up, and looked up at the windows again. The sitting-room light was out now. She was on her way to bed.

Maybe she knows I’m coming
, he thought.
Maybe she’s trying to fool me into thinking she doesn’t know, even though she knows everything. Maybe she’ll pretend to be asleep when I go in and then kill me in my sleep
.

And he saw her in front of him with fire for hair, clutching an iron bar with both hands, poised to strike.

He felt like crying as he unlocked the front door, unable to think how he could bear to look at her. He walked up the two flights of stairs with silent steps and stopped outside the door, their door, the big double doors with the stained glass that Annika thought was so beautiful. And he stood there with the keys in his hand, shaking, a vibration in his stomach like a jamming jazz band, looking at the doors with strange eyes until his
breathing was calmer, something like normal, and he could move again.