Red Wolf: A Novel (39 page)

Was Thord Axelsson telling the truth? Was he exaggerating? Was he hiding anything?

She drove past the secondary school and the church
and Åhléns department store, and was out of the town centre before she even realized she was in it.

He wasn’t glossing over his wife’s deeds, Annika thought, nor was he making excuses for her. On the contrary, he had stated soberly that she had set fire to the aviation fuel and caused the plane to explode. He hadn’t even tried to present it as an accident.

If he had wanted to lie, he would have done so then.

The Beasts
, she thought.
The Yellow Dragon, ha! What a stupid idea. What a load of crap! The Lion of Freedom, the Barking Dog, the Red Wolf, the Black Panther, the White Tiger
.

Where are you now?
she thought as she pulled out onto the deserted motorway again, heading towards Luleå.

The Yellow Dragon, Göran Nilsson, professional hitman back on home soil. The Barking Dog, Margit Axelsson, murdered nursery schoolteacher. The Red Wolf, Karina Björnlund, Minister of Culture making panicky last-minute changes to government proposals.

And the rest of you? Three middle-aged Swedish men, where have you hidden yourselves away? How much have you forgotten?

She drove past the exit to Norrfjärden, feeling the cold whirling round her feet. The temperature had fallen to minus twenty-nine degrees; the sun was already going down, spreading a pale yellow light on the horizon. It was one thirty in the afternoon.

A child’s finger
, she thought.
Could that really have happened?

She swallowed, had to open the window for a few seconds to get some fresh air. Thord hadn’t said what the accompanying warning had said, but no one had blabbed about the Beasts, not ever.

She believed the finger had really existed.

The attack itself, three people involved, Margit and Göran and one other man. Did that make sense?

Margit had the same shoe size as the prints found at the site. Thord Axelsson’s story included enough detail to make her believe the basic chain of events, even if she would have to check the theoretical possibilities with the press officer at the base. So why should she doubt how many people were involved?

Karina Björnlund wasn’t there.

She was innocent, at least as far as the act itself was concerned. Of course she could have been involved in the planning, maybe even assisted in other ways. And, apart from anything else, she must have known about it.

How can you be sure of that?
Annika asked herself. If Thord is telling the truth, she may well have been ignorant of the attack. She had split up with Göran and wanted out of the group.

But in that case how could she be open to blackmail? Why was she allowing Herman Wennergren to scare her into changing government legislation?

And why had she put a marriage announcement in the local paper if she had broken up with him?

Maybe Karina herself hadn’t put the announcement in, she suddenly thought. Maybe the announcement was part of the jilted man’s strategy either to cause trouble or to get her back.

Annika rubbed her forehead, feeling suddenly thirsty, her lips dry. A few frozen houses from the thirties huddled in the twilight, plumes of smoke rising straight up from their chimneys, the wind had given up, the cold was clear as glass.

I have to talk to Karina Björnlund
, she thought.
I have to set things up so that she doesn’t get away. She
won’t wriggle out of this, lying and protecting herself at any cost
.

She pulled her mobile from the bag, and found she had no reception. She couldn’t be bothered to get cross, just carried on towards Luleå, looking forward to being back in civilization again.

At the turning to Gäddvik she picked up her mobile again, shut her eyes and replayed the scene in her head: the Post-it note on the registrar’s computer screen, the Minister of Culture’s mobile number. The number of the devil, twice, and then a zero.

She keyed in 070-666 66 60, stared at the number on the screen for a moment, then realized with a start that she was on the point of ignoring a right-hand bend.

What was she going to say?

Karina Björnlund will listen
, she thought. It was just a question of getting hold of her.

She pressed the call button, feeling the warmth of the mobile in her hand, and pressed in the earpiece as she slowed the car’s speed.

‘Hello?’

Annika braked in surprise, the first ring had hardly started before a woman’s voice answered.

‘Karina Björnlund?’ she said, pulling up at the side of the road and pressing the earpiece further in; there was a rushing, humming sound in the background.

‘Yes?’

‘My name’s Annika Bengtzon, I work for the
Evening Post
—’

‘How did you get this number?’

Annika stared at the red-painted wall of a Norrbotten farmhouse and adopted a neutral tone of voice.

‘I was wondering if the Red Wolf had met the Yellow Dragon recently?’ she said, and listened intently to the
noise on the line, voices talking, a metallic clattering in the background, a tannoy announcing something, then a second later the line went dead.

Annika looked at the display. She pressed redial and got an impersonal electronic answering service, and ended the call without speaking.

Where had Karina Björnlund been when she took the call? What was the metallic voice saying over the tannoy in the background?

She shut her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her temples.

‘Last call for SK009 to Stockholm, gate number five’?

A flight announcement, that much was certain. But SK? Didn’t that mean an SAS flight?

She called directory inquiries and asked to be put through to the Scandinavian Airlines System for business customers, and waited in a queue for thirty seconds until the call was picked up.

‘SK009 is the afternoon flight from Kallax to Arlanda,’ the sales assistant at SAS told her.

Annika felt the adrenalin pumping.

Karina Björnlund was at the airport just five kilometres away and either was on her way back down to Stockholm or had just arrived and was collecting her bags. She considered booking her return flight to Stockholm but decided to wait, said thank you and ended the call.

Then she drove towards the roundabout, turned right and glided along frozen roads towards Kallax Airport.

Because of the taxi strike, anyone who didn’t have their own car was forced to take the bus from the airport into Luleå. Annika could see the queue trail back outside the terminal, huddled figures fighting against the cold
and their own luggage. She was about to drive past the airport bus towards the hire-car parking lot when she caught sight of Karina Björnlund.

The minister was at the back of the queue, patiently waiting her turn.

Thoughts ricocheted round Annika’s head.
What was Björnlund doing here?

She pulled up by the kerb, putting the car in neutral and pulling on the handbrake, stared at the minister and picked up her mobile again. She dialled the department and asked to speak to the minister’s press secretary. She was told that Karina Björnlund had taken the day off.

‘I have a question about the proposal being presented tomorrow,’ Annika said, her eyes glued to the woman at the end of the queue. ‘I have to talk to her today.’

‘I’m afraid that isn’t possible,’ the press secretary said amiably. ‘Karina’s away and won’t be back until late this evening.’

‘Isn’t it a bit odd for a minister to take time off the day before a major proposal is presented to parliament?’ Annika said slowly, staring at Karina Björnlund’s dark fur-coat.

The press secretary hesitated. ‘It’s a private matter,’ she said quietly. ‘Karina was called to an urgent meeting that couldn’t be postponed. It’s very unfortunate timing, I have to agree with you. Karina was very upset that she had to go.’

‘But she’ll be home this evening?’

‘That’s what she was hoping.’

What sort of meeting would make a minister abandon their work? A sick relative, a partner or child or parent? A meeting in Luleå, something she couldn’t avoid, something that took priority over everything else.

The Red Wolf.

The meeting to celebrate the return of the Dragon.

Annika’s fingers started to tingle, and sweat broke out along her back.

‘Thank you,’ she said, and ended the call.

She drove past the bus, and watched in the rear-view mirror as the minister climbed on, then let the bus pass her and stayed a hundred metres behind it. Just before the Bergnäs bridge she decided it was time to get closer.

You’re sitting in there
, Annika thought, staring at the vehicle’s filthy back window.
You’re on your way somewhere that you don’t want to be seen, but I’m here
.

And the angels starting singing gently to her, slowly and mournfully.

‘Oh, shut up!’ Annika yelled, hitting her head with the palm of her hand, and the voices disappeared.

She followed the bus over the bridge and entered the frozen city, driving past panelled houses and banks of snow and frozen cars, and turned off at a junction by a petrol station.

The airport bus stopped just across the street from the City Hotel’s heavy façade. She braked and leaned forward to watch the passengers getting off. Her breath misted the widescreen, and she wiped it with her sleeve.

Karina Björnlund was the second last off. The Minister of Culture stepped carefully out of the bus with a black leather bag in her hand. Annika could feel herself on the verge of hyperventilating.

A bag to breathe into
, she thought, realizing that she didn’t have one. Instead she held her breath and counted to ten three times, and her heartbeat slowed down.

It was getting dark, but the sunset was as slow and gradual as dawn had been, and she watched Karina Björnlund stand and freeze at the bus-stop, a thickset, dark woman in a fur-coat and no hat.

The Red Wolf
, Annika thought, trying to make out
the features of her face in the shadows, imagining that she could see a pair of anxious, sad eyes.

What are you doing here?

Her mother lives on Storgatan
, she thought.
Maybe she’s on her way there
.

Then realized:
this is Storgatan
. Why would she be standing at a bus-stop to go somewhere else? She hasn’t come to visit her mother.

Suddenly her back window was filled with the headlights of one of the local buses. She put the car in gear and rolled forward a few metres to let the bus pull in, passing the little gaggle of people waiting in the queue. In her rear-view mirror she watched as Karina Björnlund picked her bag up and climbed on board.

I’ll follow the bus to see where she gets off
, Annika thought, and rolled a bit further until she realized she was heading into a pedestrianized street. People were walking slowly in front of the car, challenging her with their stares. She looked up and noticed a sign indicating that all vehicles apart from public transport were forbidden. She felt herself starting to panic again, grappled with the gear-stick to find reverse, and saw the bus gliding slowly towards her. She turned the wheel as hard as she could and swerved on crunching tyres.

The bus slid past and she felt the sweat sticking her legs to the seat. She was about to lose sight of the minister, and had no idea where she was heading.

Bus number one
, she thought. The bus that Linus Gustafsson usually took.

Svartöstaden.

East, towards Swedish Steel.

And she drove down towards the harbour, turning right towards the ironworks. She pulled over to the side and waited; if she was right the bus would have to pass
her here. Four minutes later the bus glided past her and carried on towards Malmudden.

She just had time to register the name of the street, Lövskatan, as the bus turned right; wasn’t that where Margit Axelsson used to live? Another sign, Föreningsgatan, and the bus carried on along the edge of a messy and desolate industrial estate, huddling in the shadow of an enormous jet-black mound of iron-ore. On the left was a row of identical two-storey apartment blocks from the forties, and up ahead loomed a huge, abandoned industrial building that seemed to have grown into the side of the mountain of iron-ore. Dark windows sent warnings into the twilight, cold cries into the darkness. She followed the bus as the road swung up and left and ran alongside the railway line. An immense steel pipe hung high above, and below lurked a row of graffiti-covered and ramshackle industrial units, surrounded by pipes, steel girders, tyres, pallets. No sign of life anywhere.

The bus indicated and pulled in at a bus-stop. Annika braked and pulled up behind an abandoned car twenty metres further down the hill.

Karina Björnlund got off, clutching her leather bag. Annika slumped down in her seat and stared at her.

The bus pulled away, and the Minister of Culture was left staring out at the railway track, her breath drifting like clouds around her. She seemed to hesitate.

Annika switched off the engine and pulled out the key, waiting inside the warm interior of the car without taking her eyes off the woman.

Then Karina Björnlund suddenly turned round and started walking towards the crown of the hill, away from the industrial units.

Annika stiffened, fumbled with the ignition key, biting the inside of her cheek.

Should she get out and follow the minister? Drive up and offer her a lift? Wait and see if she came back?

She rubbed her eyes for a moment.

Wherever Karina Björnlund was going, she evidently didn’t want company.

Annika opened the car door, pulling her hat and ski-gloves from her bag, pushed the door shut and locked the car with a bleep. She gasped for breath, reeling from the cold; how was it possible to live in a climate like this?

She blinked a few times; the cold was making the air incredibly dry, hurting her eyes.

The daylight was dark grey now, almost gone. The sky was distant, clear and entirely colourless; a few stars twinkled above the mounds of ore. Two streetlamps further down the road spread a dull, hopeless light in a small circle around their own feet. Karina Björnlund had disappeared over the crown of the hill, and there was no other sign of life anywhere. The rumble from the steelworks was carried through the cold along the railway track, reaching her like a dull vibration.