Vanished (16 page)

‘The hell it would be!’

‘That is, if there had been any vacancies there. But there aren’t. The waiting list is long. Very soon Sofia’s course of medical treatment will be concluded, but she will require around-the-clock assistance and intensive rehabilitation. That’s why we have to come up with other solutions in a hurry. That’s why I’m turning to you. Do you have any other suggestions?’

Annika’s mother licked her lips uncertainly.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘I have no idea – you always expect society to do right by you in a situation like this. That is why we pay taxes, after all . . .’

Annika stared down at her hands, her face burning.

‘Is there anything else available, somewhere else?’ she asked.

‘Possibly over in Bettna,’ the doctor replied.

‘But that’s miles from Hälleforsnäs, for goodness’ sake. It’s practically 200 kilometres from Stockholm,’ Annika said and looked up. ‘How are we supposed to be able to visit her?’

‘I’m not saying it’s ideal . . .’

‘What about Stockholm?’ Annika asked. ‘Could she get admitted to a place in Stockholm? Then I could visit her every day.’

She had risen to her feet again, the doctor motioned her to sit down.

‘If so, that would be the last alternative. First we have to try to find her accommodations within our own community.’

Annika’s mother didn’t say anything, merely fingering the hooks down the front of her fur. Annika was slumped in her chair, staring at the floor. The doctor regarded them in silence for a while: mother and daughter, the young woman in a state of shock, the older woman confused and worried.

‘This has been a terrible experience,’ the doctor said and turned to Annika. ‘It’s likely that you will be hit by a few side effects of this trauma. You might start having chills, crying spells and bouts of depression.’

Annika met the doctor’s gaze.

‘Great,’ she said. ‘So what do I do about it?’

The doctor sighed faintly.

‘Drink,’ she said and got up.

Annika stared at her.

‘Are you serious?’

The doctor smiled a little and stretched out her hand.

‘It’s a tried and true course of treatment in cases like these. I’m sure we’ll have reason to meet again soon. If you like, you can stay here for a while. I have to go and do my rounds.’

She left the two women in the small room and the door closed behind her. The silence grew to monumental proportions. Annika’s mother cleared her throat.

‘Have you spoken to the physiotherapist?’ she asked cautiously.

‘Of course, I’ve been here all night.’

Barbro got up, went over to Annika and stroked her hair.

‘I don’t want us to fight,’ her mother whispered. ‘We’ve got to stick together now that Mother is unwell.’

Annika sighed, hesitated and then put her arms around her mother’s ample waist and rested the side of her head against her stomach. She could detect a faint rumble.

‘No, of course we shouldn’t fight,’ she whispered back.

‘Go home and get some rest,’ Barbro said and fished in her pocket for her keys. ‘I’ll stay with Sofia.’

Annika let go.

‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘but I’d rather go back to Stockholm and sleep there. I can get back here in no time – the X2000 only takes fifty-eight minutes.’

She gathered her things and gave her mother a hug.

‘Everything will be all right, you’ll see,’ Barbro said.

Annika went out into the hospital corridor, so endless and cold.

Just like the doctor had predicted, she started to shiver when she was on the train. She had bought the papers – they were spread out on the table in front of her – but she didn’t feel up to reading them.

Drink
, she thought. Wasn’t that a great piece of advice?

She wasn’t planning on drinking. Her father had done enough of that to last the whole family the rest of their lives. He boozed it up until he died, drunk as a skunk in a ditch along the road to Granhed.

Annika curled up in her seat. Wrapped her jacket around her, to no avail. The chill came from within, from her heart.

Everyone I love dies
, she thought in a fit of self-pity.
Dad, Sven, maybe even Gran soon
.

No, she thought after that.
Not Gran. She’ll be fine, she’ll get back in pretty good shape. We’re going to find her a place that will get her back on her feet again
.

Annika fingered the papers, but still couldn’t conjure up the strength to read them. Instead she leaned back, closed her eyes and tried to relax. Only she couldn’t, her body jerked and trembled. She sat up again and sighed. Reached for one of the papers and went straight for the spread at pages six and seven, the main news coverage pages. A man in a picture, a bit out of focus, blown up as far as it would go, stared at her from the page. After a second she recognized him.
Where is Aida? Aida Begovic. I know she’s here
.

The headline was as big and dark as the man outside the hotel room had been the other night.

The leader of the cigarette ring
, it said, and the caption read:
His name is Ratko and he came to Sweden in the 1970s. He’s been convicted of bank robbery and kidnapping. Currently, he’s being charged with war crimes in the former Yugoslav Republic. The Swedish police believe he is the brains behind the cigarette smuggling rings that operate in Sweden
.

Annika folded up the paper, her teeth chattering, the pinched finger with its three stitches hurting. The nausea was back.

Anders Schyman slapped the paper on the table in front of Ingvar Johansson.

‘Let’s hear an explanation,’ he said.

The fuzzy man on the pages of the newspaper glared at the two men unseeingly. The news-desk editor took his eyes off his computer screen.

‘What do you mean?’

‘My office, right now.’

Sjölander was there already, hovering in a dusty spot where the couch had once been. Schyman sat down heavily in his chair and it groaned under his weight. Ingvar Johansson pulled the door shut.

‘Who made the decision to run Ratko’s name and picture?’ The deputy editor’s words filled the room.

The two men, who were standing, exchanged glances.

‘I go home when my shift is over and I wouldn’t know . . .’, Ingvar Johansson started to say, but Schyman cut him off at once.

‘That’s bullshit,’ he said. ‘I recognize a daytime contribution when I see one. And I’ve already talked to Jansson and Torstensson. The editor-in-chief hadn’t been informed about the decision to publish this information at all, while Jansson was sincerely surprised and said that the entire spread was a contribution from the day team. Sit down.’

In unison, Sjölander and Ingvar Johansson sat down on their chairs. No one said a word.

‘This is unacceptable,’ Schyman said in a low voice when the silence had grown oppressive. ‘Going public with the names of non-convicted criminals has legal implications. It’s a decision that belongs to the publisher – something that shouldn’t come as a surprise to either of you, for God’s sake.’

Sjölander looked down at the floor. Ingvar Johansson squirmed.

‘We’ve run his name before. It isn’t news that he’s a mobster.’

Anders Schyman sighed heavily.

‘We didn’t merely write that he was a mobster. We tied him to the double homicide at the free port, indirectly fingering him as the killer. I’ve already talked to our legal staff and if Ratko sues us we’re going down, not to mention what the Press Ethics Committee will say.’

‘He won’t sue,’ Ingvar Johansson said, dead certain. ‘He’ll see this as an advertisement of his services. And we did try to get hold of the guy for comments. Carl Wennergren went to the Yugo-run clubs last night, to talk—’

Anders Schyman banged his palm on his desk and both men on the opposite side jumped.

‘I bet you did,’ he roared. ‘That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about this paper’s cavalier high-handedness with journalistic ethics! The two of you don’t have the authority to make decisions like this! That authority belongs to the publisher alone! For God’s sake, how hard is that to understand?’

Sjölander flushed and Ingvar Johansson turned pale.

Anders Schyman could tell by their reactions that he finally had their attention. He reined in his temper and concentrated on regaining a normal tone of voice.

‘I assume that you have more information than what was in the paper,’ he said. ‘What do we know?’

This triggered the discussion that should have taken place twenty-four hours earlier.

‘The police have found shell casings and one bullet,’ Sjölander said. ‘The ammunition is out of the ordinary. It’s 30.06 calibre and an American brand, Trophy Bond. The casings are nickel-plated, shiny, and they look like mushrooms. Practically all the other types of casings are made of brass.’

Schyman took notes. Sjölander relaxed slightly.

‘The bullet was found lodged in the asphalt between the silos,’ he went on. ‘It’s not possible to conclude where the shooter was standing, since the bullet slammed into all sorts of stuff in the guy’s head and changed direction several times. The casings were found behind an empty warehouse.’

‘What about the gun?’ Schyman asked.

Sjölander sighed.

‘The police might have more details, but they haven’t told me,’ he said. ‘But they have come to a number of conclusions. For example, the killer was very particular about his choice of weapon. These guns are extremely lethal, the kind you use for big game.’

‘That might not be so strange after all,’ Schyman said. ‘If you really want to kill somebody, you might as well do a thorough job.’

Now Sjölander was excited. He leaned across the desk.

‘That’s the strange thing,’ he said. ‘Why would he shoot the victim in the head? Anywhere in the chest or the back would have killed the guy within seconds due to the systemic shock. There’s something damn fishy about this killer. He’s after something beyond efficient killing – he’s driven by a huge ego that needs to show off: hate, revenge. Why go for an expert shot when any shot would kill?’

‘Why isn’t this in today’s paper?’ Schyman asked.

Sjölander leaned back.

‘Because it would interfere with the investigation,’ he said.

‘Fingering Ratko as the killer, how does that affect the investigation?’ the deputy editor asked.

Silence returned.

‘We’ve got to talk about it,’ Schyman said. ‘The future stability of this paper depends on it, for crying out loud. Who supplied the tip about Ratko?’

Ingvar Johansson cleared his throat.

‘We have access to a police source who felt we should go public with the guy’s picture. The cops are convinced that he has something to do with this; they wanted to smoke him out.’

‘And you obliged the police?’ Anders Schyman said in a strained voice. ‘You jeopardized the credibility of this paper, you took upon yourselves the authority that rightfully belongs to the publisher, and you were errand boys for the police. Get out of here, right this minute!’

He turned away from the men sitting in front of him, switched on the news bulletins from TT. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the two men quickly and silently slink off into the newsroom.

He relaxed, not quite sure exactly how the conversation had gone. One thing was pretty damn certain, though; it was high time he put his foot down.

The spectacle he’d made of himself during the board meeting had weighed on Thomas Samuelsson’s chest like a brick lodged under his breastbone all night and the sensation wouldn’t go away. He smoothed the front of his suit jacket, hesitated a moment and then went over to knock on the unit supervisor’s door. She was in.

‘I’ll get straight to the point,’ he said. ‘There is no excusing my behaviour yesterday, but I would like to give you an explanation.’

‘Have a seat,’ his supervisor said.

He sank down in the chair and took a few quick breaths. ‘I’m not feeling well,’ he said. ‘I’m just not myself, there’s been too much going on lately.’

The supervisor silently regarded the young man. When he didn’t continue she asked him quietly: ‘Does this have anything to do with Eleonor?’

His supervisor was a part of their circle, though not a close friend. She had been to dinner at their house a dozen times.

‘No, not at all,’ Thomas replied. ‘It’s me. I . . . question everything. Is this all there is? Won’t things get any better than this?’

The woman behind the desk gave him a slightly wistful smile.

‘A mid-life crisis,’ she declared. ‘But aren’t you running ahead of schedule? How old are you?’

‘Thirty-three.’

She sighed.

‘Your outburst yesterday was inexcusable, but I suggest we put it behind us. I hope it won’t happen again.’

Thomas shook his head, got up and left. Outside the door he stopped, struck by a thought, and went over to the office of the social worker who had presented the proposal about the Paradise Foundation.

‘I’m rather busy,’ she said curtly, obviously still miffed.

He tried to smile disarmingly.

‘So I see,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to apologize for my behaviour yesterday. I was way out of line.’

The social worker tossed her head and wrote something down.

‘Apology accepted,’ she said in a frosty voice.

His smile widened.

‘I’m glad. You see, I had a few questions about this arrangement. Such as what their corporate registration number is.’

‘I don’t have it.’

Thomas regarded her for such a long time that her cheeks started to burn. Obviously she didn’t know a darn thing about this foundation.

‘I can find out,’ she offered.

‘I think you’d better do that,’ he replied.

Once again there was silence. Finally he asked: ‘What’s this all about?’

She gave him a stern look.

‘I’m not at liberty to tell you that, you know.’

He sighed.

‘Come on, we’re on the same team. Do you think I would tell tales?’

The woman hesitated momentarily and then pushed her papers away.

‘It’s an emergency situation,’ she said. ‘This young woman, a Bosnian refugee, is being stalked. This man has threatened to kill her. Her case came up yesterday, and it’s urgent. We’re talking about a life-and-death matter here.’