Vanished
Praise for Liza Marklund’s previous Annika Bengtzon thrillers,
The Bomber
and
Studio 69
‘Take the independence and determination of Peter Hoeg’s Miss Smilla, stir in the sharpness and honesty of Clarice Starling in
Silence of the Lambs . . .
and you begin to sense the qualities that make up Annika Bengtzon’
Daily Express
‘The story moves along at high speed and with gratifying directness’
Independent
‘An entertaining story, but it’s the portrayal of the newspaper office, with its internal bickering and its determination to stay ahead of its rival which particularly impresses’
Sunday Telegraph
‘A taut and well-paced read’
Observer
‘The pace never slackens’
Sunday Express
‘The efforts of the independent, gutsy reporter to establish the truth make for an enjoyable and fast-paced thriller’
The Times
‘This superbly written thriller exhibits a depth of characterisation, intelligence and energy that raises it above the competition’
Good Book Guide
Liza Marklund is a print and television journalist. She lives in Stockholm with her husband and three children. She is the author of the international bestsellers
The Bomber
and
Studio 69.
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2004
This edition first published by Pocket Books, 2004
An imprint of Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
A Viacom Company
Copyright © Liza Marklund, 2000
English language translation copyright © 2004
by Ingrid Eng-Rundlow
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention
No reproduction without permission
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved
Pocket Books & Design is a registered trademark of
Simon & Schuster Inc
The right of Liza Marklund to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
Africa House
64–78 Kingsway
London WC2B 6AH
Simon & Schuster Australia
Sydney
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0-7434-6907-0
eISBN 9-7818-4983-944-0
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Typeset by SX Composing DTP, Rayleigh, Essex
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Bookmarque Ltd, Croydon, Surrey
Contents
PARADISE
PROLOGUE
T
ime’s up
, she thought.
This is what it’s like to die.
Her head hit the tarmac, her consciousness getting a jolt. The terror vanished with the wounds. There was stillness.
Her thoughts were calm and clear. Stomach and groin pressed against the ground, ice and gravel against her hair and cheek.
Life’s weird. There’s so little that you can predict.
Who would have guessed this was where it would happen? On a foreign coast, in the far north.
Then she saw the boy before her again, reaching out to her; she felt the terror, heard the shots, and was overwhelmed by her shortcomings.
‘Forgive me,’ she whispered.
Forgive my cowardice, my miserable failings.
Suddenly she felt the wind again. It was tugging at her big bag, hurting her. The sounds returned and her foot ached. She became aware of the cold and the damp that had penetrated her jeans. She had only fallen, not been hit. Her mind went blank again. There were no thoughts.
Got to get away.
She pushed up onto all fours but the wind beat her back down; she struggled up again. The surrounding buildings made the gusts unpredictable, pounding up from the sea and along the street like relentless cudgels.
I’ve got to get out of here. Now.
She knew the man was somewhere behind her. He was blocking the way back into town. She was trapped.
I can’t stay here in the floodlights. I’ve got to get out. Away from here!
A new gust knocked the breath out of her. She gasped for air, turned her back. More floodlights, yellow, making gold of the shabby surroundings – where would she go?
She grabbed her bag and ran with the wind at her back towards a building by the water. A loading platform on one side, a lot of rubbish that had been blown about, some of it down onto the ground. What was that – a staircase? A chimney; pieces of furniture; a gynaecologist’s table; an old Model T Ford; the instrument panel from a fighter plane.
She threw the bag onto the platform and then pulled herself up. She weaved her way past old bathtubs and school desks, finding a hiding place behind an old desk.
He’ll find me here, she thought. It’s only a matter of time. He’ll never give up.
She was crouching low, swaying and panting, soaked through with sweat and from the slush. Realizing she’d walked into the trap. There was no way out of here. All he had to do was walk up to her, put the gun against the back of her head and pull the trigger.
She peered out from behind the desk. Saw nothing, only ice and warehouses bathing in the gold of the floodlights.
I’ve go to wait
, she thought.
I’ve got to know where he is. Then I can try to sneak away.
The backs of her knees started aching after a couple of minutes. Her thighs and lower legs went numb, her ankles throbbed, especially the left one. She must have sprained it when she fell. Blood was dripping from the cut on her forehead and down onto the platform.
Then she saw him. He was standing by the edge of the dock, only ten feet away, his sharp profile dark against yellow light. The wind carried his whisper to her.
‘Aida.’
She shrank back and shut her eyes tightly, making herself small, like an animal. Invisible.
‘Aida, I know you’re there.’
She breathed with her mouth open, soundlessly. Waiting. The wind was on his side, muffling his steps. The next time she looked up, he was walking along the fence on the other side of the wide street, holding his gun discreetly inside his jacket. She was breathing faster now, in ragged gasps; it made her dizzy. When he disappeared round the corner and into the blue warehouse she got up, jumped down on the ground and ran. Her feet pounding – treacherous wind. Her bag bouncing on her back, her hair in her eyes.
She didn’t hear the shot but sensed the bullet whistling past her head. She began zigzagging in a sharp illogical pattern. Another whistle, another turn.
Suddenly she ran out of ground where the roaring Baltic Sea took over. Waves as big as sails, as sharp as glass. She only hesitated for a moment.
The man walked up to the edge where the woman had jumped in and looked out over the water. He screwed his eyes up, gun at the ready, trying to spot her head in between the waves. Useless.
She’d never make it. Too cold, the wind too fierce. Too late.
Too late for Aida from Bijelina. She grew too big. She was too alone.
He stood there for a while, letting the cold bite into him. He had the wind in his face; it was throwing lumps of ice straight at him.
The sound from the truck starting up behind him was swept away, never reaching him. The juggernaut rolled off in the golden light, soundlessly, without a trace.
PART ONE
OCTOBER
I’M NOT AN EVIL PERSON.
I
’m the product of my circumstances. All human beings are born into the same life, their circumstances being all that differ: genetic, cultural, social.
I have killed, it’s true, but that’s of no consequence here. The question is whether the person who is no longer alive ever deserved to live. I know what my own position is on this, but it may not correspond to anybody else’s.
I may be perceived as violent, which doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with evil. Violence is power, just like money or influence. Anyone who chooses violence for a tool can do so without being evil. You will always have to pay the price, though.
Taking to violence does not come free of charge; you have to pledge your soul. That way, the stakes are raised; for me there wasn’t much to give up.
The void is then filled with the prerequisites for having the strength to use violence: evil is one of them, despair another, revenge a third, fury a fourth, the desire of the sick.
And I’m not an evil person.
I’m the product of my circumstances.
SUNDAY 28 OCTOBER
T
he security guard was on the alert. The devastation after the previous night’s hurricane was visible everywhere: trees blown down, bits of sheet metal from roofs, scattered pieces of the warehouses.
When he arrived at the free-port compound, he slammed on the brakes. On the open space facing the sea lay the interior of an airplane cockpit, miscellaneous hospital equipment, parts of a bathroom. It took the security guard a few seconds before he realized what he was looking at – detritus from the props storage of one of the major TV stations.
He didn’t see the dead bodies until he had switched off the engine and removed his seat belt. Strangely enough, he felt neither fear nor terror, only genuine surprise. The black-clad bodies lay stretched out in front of a broken staircase from some old TV soap. He knew the men had been murdered before he’d even stepped out of the car. It didn’t take any major powers of deduction; parts of their skulls were missing and something sticky had run out on the icy tarmac.
Without regard for his own safety, the guard left his car and walked up to the men. They were only a few yards away. His reaction was one of wonder. The bodies looked really weird, like Marty Feldman’s kid brothers: eyes partly popped out of their sockets, tongues lolling. They both had a small mark high up on the head and both of them were missing an ear, as well as big chunks of the backs of their heads and necks.