Last Will (13 page)

“Do you happen to know who lives there?”

Ebba Romanova followed her gaze.

“That’s Wilhelm Hopkins, chairman of the villa owners’ association.”

She pulled a face.

“He’s a little eccentric,” she said with a laugh.

Annika couldn’t help joining in.

“Well, I’ll see you again soon,” the woman said, pulling on her glove and setting off along the road once more.

Annika raised a hand to stop her, there was one more thing, something she was wondering. But the woman opened her gate and disappeared, and Annika never got to ask her question.

Why is my garden full of tire tracks?

The traffic heading into the city was sluggish. She couldn’t find anywhere to park near Hantverkargatan and ended up down by the City Hall before she found a more or less legal space. The children were tired and cold, so she decided to take the number 3 bus the two stops up toward the flat.

She looked up at the sky. There were never any stars visible from the city. Never any real silence, and never any real darkness either.

I like this, she thought. It’s nice, never being alone.

And her eyes settled on the main entrance to the City Hall, some twenty meters away. The heavy gates were shut up; there hadn’t been any word yet about how long the banqueting halls would be closed off.

Only two days ago, she thought with a shudder.

They were home just in time for the daily installment of the television Advent calendar for children.

Annika went out into the kitchen and dialed Thomas’s cell phone; it rang but he didn’t answer. She lay the table and pulled out some leftovers from the fridge, some pork chops from yesterday and a bit of sausage Stroganoff from Thursday.

Just as she had put the sausage in the microwave the doorbell rang.

Thomas forgot to take his keys, she thought as she went to answer it.

But it was Anne Snapphane, her best friend.

“God, I hate moving,” Anne said, slumping down on the bench in the hall. “I can’t believe I’ve got so much stuff, I mean, I’m such an antimaterialist.”

“Hmm,” Annika said, glancing at her friend’s Armani jeans and Donna Karan top.

“Don’t you ‘hmm’ me,” Anne said. “I’ve almost unpacked everything now. Do you know, I’ve got eight cheese slicers, isn’t that ridiculous? And boxes full of old vinyl records … Which reminds me, I don’t suppose you want to see if there’s anything you want? Oh well …”

She sighed as Annika help up her hands defensively.

“No, you’ve never been one for music, really, have you?” Anne said.

“Is Miranda with Mehmet?” Annika asked, heading back into the kitchen were the microwave was bleeping.

Anne didn’t answer at once. She followed Annika and leaned back against the dishwasher with her arms folded.

“Playing happy families with him and his pregnant fiancée, yes,” she said quietly.

Annika poked at the sausage.

“Do you want anything to eat?” she asked.

“No, but I’ll take a big goddamn bottle of red,” she said.

When she saw Annika stiffen she laughed quickly.

“Only joking,” she said. “I’m not going to do that anymore. After all, I made a promise.”

“Do you like the flat?” Annika asked instead, filling a jug with water.

“I don’t know about ‘like,’” Anne said. “Obviously it’s good being able to live next to Mehmet, it’s closer for Miranda, but I’m not sure that art nouveau is really my style.”

Annika emptied the jug and refilled it with fresh, colder water. Her cheeks were glowing and for some reason she was feeling stupid. Anne Snapphane had moved into the city so her daughter could be closer to her dad, and so she would always be around the same school, the same friends. When Annika found herself suddenly awash with money it had been obvious to offer Anne an interest-free loan so she could sort her life out. When it turned out that the money wouldn’t show up before May, Anne had hit the roof. She had to move
now,
her dream flat was for sale
right now
, she couldn’t live
anywhere
else.

Annika had stood as a guarantor of a short-term loan until her reward was paid out. But now Anne seemed to think that the whole move had been nothing but a nuisance.

“Have you heard anything from TV Scandinavia?” Annika asked, to change the subject.

Anne snorted.

“My former employers have announced that they won’t be paying any severance, and that’s all I’ve heard from them. If I have any objections to this decision I’m welcome to put in a claim against them through the New Jersey courts. So hey, I wonder what to do, maybe I’ll get in my private plane and nip over …”

She sighed loudly.

“I have enough trouble scraping together the money for my monthly ticket for public transport here …”

“Kids,” Annika called toward the living room. “Food!”

“I’ve been thinking about doing some lecturing,” Anne said, hoisting herself up onto the kitchen countertop. “I think I’d be able to put together something good about how to sort your life out and all
that, there’s a hell of a market for developing leadership skills, self-realization, all that sort of rubbish. What do you think?”

“I can’t remember, did you say you wanted some food?” Annika asked. “We’re about to eat.”

“Sausage? No thanks.”

“I can do you a salad if you like?” Annika offered.

Anne shuffled on the countertop, irritated.

“Just tell me what you think of my idea!”

“Come on, before it gets cold,” Annika called toward the living room. “Well, lecturing would be good, but what would you talk about?”

“Myself, of course!” Anne said, throwing her arms out. “How I overcame my alcoholism, how I got out of the gutter when I lost my job as head of a TV station, how I manage to maintain a close and rewarding relationship with my ex-husband while he’s busy building a new family.”

The children came into the kitchen and scrambled up onto their chairs.

“Sausage frog enough, yum,” Ellen said.

“It’s called Stroganoff,” Kalle said. “And it’s just as good as the Nobel banquet, isn’t it, Mommy?”

Annika smiled at her son, while Anne raised her eyebrows.

“Of course, you got caught up in all that, didn’t you?” she said. “Poor you, having to cover that sort of nonsense, couldn’t you have refused?”

“It wasn’t too bad,” Annika said. “Until … well, you know.”

She fell silent and gestured pointedly toward the children with her fork.

“So, what do you think?” Anne said. “Do you think I’d be able to earn a living?”

“Sure,” Annika said. “It’s pretty specialized, but you’d be really good at lecturing. It’s great listening to you tell your stories. I think a lot of people would come out stronger after a session with you.”

Anne smiled broadly and jumped down from the countertop.

“That’s exactly what I think,” she said. “Listen, you haven’t got a spare five hundred I could borrow, have you? The move and everything cost so much and I’ve got a feeling I really need to go to the cinema.”

“The cinema?” Annika said.

“Yes, I can’t go and have a drink now, so what else am I supposed to do?”

“No, I suppose not,” Annika said, getting up from the table. “Hang on, I’ll go and get it.”

And she pulled her last five hundred from her purse and gave it to Anne, thinking that Thomas would be furious with her now that she didn’t have any cash left twelve days before Christmas.

“Oh, you’re a darling,” Anne said, and danced out into the hall.

Annika heard the door close behind her friend, and felt an unfamiliar and unwelcome chill run through her.

And Thomas wasn’t answering his cell phone.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 14

The plane landed at Bromma Airport at 5:32 on Monday morning. It was a Raytheon Hawker 800XP, registration number N168BF, a small business jet that usually carried from six to eight passengers.

On this cold, starlit morning the plane would only be carrying one passenger, however. His name was Jemal Ali Ahmed, a forty-seven-year-old father of two, living in Bandhagen to the south of Stockholm.

Anton Abrahamsson, an officer with the Swedish security police, and two of his staff were in place to oversee the extradition of the suspected terrorist on behalf of the Swedish authorities. They had bundled the prisoner into a room inside the airport terminal. He was cooperative and extremely tired.

Anton Abrahamsson had gone out to wait for the plane. “I’m heading out to talk to the Yanks,” he had told his subordinates.

This was the first time he had led a group on this sort of operation.

It’s not surprising they picked me, he thought, stamping his feet to keep his circulation going.

He had been involved the whole way, from the first call out to the City Hall, through to the raid on the apartment. It was really entirely logical that he should see this through to the end.

He felt strangely agitated by the whole situation, even though there was really no reason to feel that way. The Swedish police cooperated with foreign police authorities every day; it was entirely routine. The government had decided on extradition the previous evening, and everything was in order. Admittedly, the decision had been made very quickly—that sort of thing was usually dealt with during routine cabinet meetings on Thursday mornings—but there was nothing to stop such decisions being taken at any other time. It was the whole setup that was getting to him.

He liked the dark airport, the ungodly hour, his unambiguous task. The Americans had promised to come and pick the terrorist up and take him back to Jordan, and no one protested, seeing as the Yanks were passing through anyway and it saved taxpayers’ money. Besides, there was supposed to be a risk that the prisoner might try to escape, although he hadn’t been told exactly how, but it all helped make this a matter of urgency.

It was possible that his memories of the terrorist’s capture were contributing to his general sense of satisfaction. Anton Abrahamsson had been standing in the stairwell when the attack team had broken down the front door and thrown in the grenade, and he himself had been affected by shock and momentary paralysis even though he was standing a long way from the detonation itself. The terrorist had evidently managed to find his way out of the room in spite of the grenade, which indicated a degree of professional training as well as extreme motivation. A real tough nut, in other words.

It’ll be good to get rid of him, Anton Abrahamsson thought, and for a fleeting second the image of his colic-addled baby son ran through his head.

The plane taxied in and stopped immediately in front of the weakly lit terminal building. Anton Abrahamsson backed away instinctively against the wall. The jet engines were roaring so hard that the windows of the building were rattling.

The air was full of ice and aviation fuel. He stamped his feet a bit harder to get his circulation going again. All of a sudden he felt very alone. The airport had just opened, but routine flights wouldn’t start for another couple of hours.

Then a man was coming toward him, heavily built and clean shaven, wearing a heavy-duty parka and sturdy boots.

“
Howdy
,” the man shouted, taking him by the hand.

The jet engines finally powered down, making conversation possible.

The man presented himself as George, and explained that he worked in the service of the American state. His eyes were clear and friendly.

“We really appreciate that we can collaborate on this and solve this issue in such a efficient way,” the man said in a folksy, leisurely accent.

Anton smiled broadly and said something similar.

“This isn’t like transporting any sort of freight, of course,” the American said. “We’ve got a few guys from the CIA with us to keep an eye on the prisoner during the flight. We don’t want to risk anything while we’re in the air.”

Anton Abrahamsson blinked against the cold a few times and nodded. Okay, so it was like that, then. Well, in the air the captain and international aviation regulations were in charge, so whatever happened inside the plane wasn’t anything for him to have an opinion about.

“Our guys will have hoods on, for their own security, naturally.”

Anton nodded again.

“And of course we need to conduct our own security check of the prisoner, as I hope you’ll appreciate.”

Now Anton was starting to find this conversation troubling, in spite of the American’s reassuring manner.

“Well,” he said, “we’ve already had our doctors examine the man, and I can assure you that …”

“It’s like this,” the American said calmly. “We’d really appreciate the opportunity to build up our own picture of that, okay?”

Anton Abrahamsson opened, and then closed, his mouth.

“I see,” he said finally. “In that case, I will have to be present throughout the examination.”

“No,” the American said amiably. “As soon as the plane landed we took over responsibility. I thought that was clear.”

Now Anton felt obliged to protest.

“I represent the Swedish police,” he said in a slightly louder voice. “We are on Swedish territory now, and Swedish police are responsible for the exercise of all official authority here.”