WEDNESDAY 22 DECEMBER
It was Annika's turn to do the nursery run, so she could stay in bed for a while after Thomas had left. Only two days remained until Christmas Eve. She was in the home stretch. It was amazing how little was required for her to win back her courage to face life. After an hour in town, some gingerbread baking, and a good fuck, she was ready to face the vultures afresh. For once, she'd had a whole night without any kids in the bed, but now they were awake and came rushing into the bedroom. She scooped them up and romped about in bed with them for so long they were late leaving for daycare. Ellen had invented the "Meatball Game," which consisted of tickling each other's toes while screaming "meatballs, meatballs!" Kalle liked playing airplane, with Annika lying on her back and balancing him on her feet high above. The plane would crash at regular intervals amid shouts of joy. Finally, they built a house with all the pillows, the duvet, and Thomas's big pajamas. Then they quickly ate their strawberry yogurt with honey puffs and made sandwiches for lunch. They just made it in time for morning assembly. Annika didn't hang around.
It was still snowing. The dirty sludge lay in drifts along the side of the road. Ever since the City Council had been divided into smaller district councils, all ploughing had ceased. She wished she had the energy to be politically active.
She was lucky with the bus. She picked up the paper by the entrance and took the elevator upstairs. Annika greeted the postboys outside the newsroom entrance. When she saw one of them dragging in the second lot of the day's mail, she felt gratitude toward Schyman. Things
had
been easier since Eva-Britt Qvist had resumed her mail-opening job.
She picked up a copy of the rival tabloid by the newsdesk and grabbed a coffee on the way to her office. Eva-Britt was in her usual place and said a surly "hello." Everything was normal, in other words.
Berit had done a fantastic job on the wife of Stefan Bjurling. The story was the center spread with one single picture of the woman and her three children sitting on the family leather couch in the suburban terraced house. "Life Must Go On," was the headline. The woman, who was thirty-seven and called Eva, looked collected and serious. The children, who were eleven, eight, and six years old, were looking wide-eyed straight into the camera.
"Evil appears in many shapes here on earth," Eva said in the piece. "It would be foolish to think we're exempt from it here in Sweden just because we haven't had a war since 1809. Violence crops up where you least expect it."
She had been making pancakes when the police had rung the doorbell to bring her the news of her husband's death.
"You simply can't break down when you have three kids," Eva was quoted. "Now we have to make the best of it and get on with our lives."
Annika studied the picture for a long while. A feeling of something being wrong nagged her. Wasn't this woman a bit too calm and collected? Why didn't she express any feelings of grief and despair? Oh, well, the text was good and the picture worked. It was a good piece. She pushed away her feeling of unease.
As usual, Patrik had done a solid job with the technical analysis and the police hunt. The hypothesis that the same person lay behind the two bombings was still valid, even though the explosives hadn't been exactly the same. "The blasting action was considerably smaller this time," the police press officer said. "Preliminary lab reports seem to suggest the explosive agent was either of a different kind or that a different configuration was used."
At the next meeting of the senior editors she would recommend they gave Patrik a permanent contract.
Her own piece with Johan Henriksson's photo of the builders in Sätra Hall had been given a whole page. It was okay.
She leafed on, leaving the Bomber behind and reaching the WAK section, short for Women and Knowledge. Within the office, these pages were of course never referred to as anything other than the "wank" pages. Today, the wank pages had employed the reliable trick of writing about some new American pseudo-psychological book, spicing it up with examples of some well-known Swedish women. The title of the book was
The Ideal Woman,
written by a woman with a hyphenated name and very thin nose, the kind you only get by surgically removing half of it. Apart from a small photo of the author, the story was accompanied by a five-column photo of Christina Furhage. The readers were told of a book that AT LAST gave all women a chance to become a truly IDEAL WOMAN. Next to this was a small piece outlining the main facts about Christina Furhage. Annika realized that the myth of the murdered Olympic supremo was germinating. Christina Furhage, it said, was a woman who had succeeded at everything. She had a fantastic career, a beautiful home, a happy marriage, and a gifted daughter. Furthermore, she had taken good care of herself; she was slim and fit and looked fifteen years younger than her age. Annika got a stale taste in her mouth, and it wasn't only from the cooling coffee. This was not quite right. Christina's first marriage had gone to pot, her first child had died or disappeared some way or another, her second child was a pyromaniac, and she herself was blasted to smithereens in a deserted sports stadium by someone who hated her. That was the reality. And this person also hated Stefan Bjurling, she could swear to it.
She was about to go for a second mug of coffee when the phone rang.
"Come here," a man said. "I'll tell you everything." He was crying. It was Evert Danielsson.
Annika bagged a pen and a pad and called a taxi.
* * *
Helena Starke woke up on the kitchen floor. At first she didn't know where she was. Her mouth felt like sandpaper. She was cold and her hip hurt. The skin on her face felt tight after all the tears.
She sat up laboriously, leaning her back against a cupboard and looking at the falling snow through the dirty window. She was breathing slowly and consciously, forcing air into her lungs. They also felt like sandpaper— she wasn't used to smoking. Funny, she thought, life feels completely new. My brain is empty, the sky is white, and my heart is calm. I've reached the bottom.
A sense of peace rose within her. She sat on the kitchen floor for a long time, watching the wet snow gather on the windowpane. Memories of the past days hovered like gray ghosts at the back of her mind. She thought she must be quite hungry. As far as she could remember, she hadn't eaten for ages, only drunk a bit of water and one beer.
The conversation with the newswoman last Monday had broken down all barriers. For the first time in her life, Helena Starke had felt deep and genuine grief. The hours that had passed since then had made her realize that she actually had loved someone— for the first time in her life. The realization that she was capable of loving had slowly dawned on her during the long hours of last night, making her grief all the more profound. She had loved someone and now she was dead. Her disorientation and feelings of loss had developed into a massive self-pity, which she understood she would have to learn to accept. She was the classic widow-in-mourning, with the difference that she never would receive any support or understanding from the world around her. These expressions of sympathy were reserved for the established institution of heterosexual relationships.
She struggled to her feet. She really was stiff. She had been sitting at the kitchen table, chain-smoking one cigarette after another, lighting one on the stub of the other. In the small hours of the morning, she hadn't been able to sit upright on the chair any longer, so she had moved down on the floor. She must have dropped off finally.
She grabbed a glass from the worktop, rinsed it under the tap, filled it with water, and took a sip. She felt her stomach turn. She remembered what Christina used to say, almost hearing her voice inside her head:
You have to eat, Helena. Take care of yourself.
She knew she'd been important to Christina, perhaps
the
most important person in the Olympic supremo's life. But she knew Christina's darker sides. She had no illusions what that might mean. People simply weren't important to Christina.
She opened the fridge and found— miracle of miracles— a small pot of yogurt only two days past its eat-by date. She took a spoon, sat down at the table, and started eating. It was vanilla, her favorite. She looked out at the sludge; it really was dreary. As the traffic rumbled on as usual in the busy street below, she wondered how she could stand it here. All at once she realized she didn't have to anymore. She was worth more than this. She had plenty of money in the bank and could go anywhere she liked in the world. She put down the spoon on the table and wiped the last of the yogurt from the pot with her finger.
It was time to move on.
* * *
Restaurant Sorbet lay on the eighth floor in the old lamp factory in Hammarby Dock. They served Swedish and Indian food. The owners of the establishment weren't fussy about opening hours. They let Evert Danielsson come in and served him coffee, although they didn't open for another fifty minutes.
Annika found the head of the Secretariat behind a trellis on the right-hand side of the room. His face was completely gray.
"What's happened?" Annika asked and sat down opposite him. She pulled off her scarf, gloves, and coat and threw them on the chair next to her with her bag.
Evert Danielsson looked down on his hands. As was his custom, he was holding on firmly to the table.
"They lied to me," he said in a strained voice.
"Who?"
He looked up.
"The board," he said.
"About what?" Annika asked.
The man gave a sob.
"The board. Hans Bjällra. They all lied. They said I would get another assignment, that I would be handling practical matters after Christina's death. But they lied to me!"
Embarrassed, Annika looked around. She didn't have time to nanny bureaucrats.
"Now tell me what's happened," she said gruffly, gaining the desired effect: The man pulled himself together.
"Hans Bjällra, the chairman of the board, promised me I'd be involved in the formulation of my new assignment, but that won't happen now. When I came into the office today, a letter was waiting for me. It had been couriered over early in the morning…"
He fell silent and stared down at his white knuckles.
"And…?" Annika said.
"It said I should vacate my office before lunch. SOCOG doesn't intend to make use of my services anymore. Consequently, it's not necessary for me to be at the disposal of the organization. I'm free to seek employment elsewhere. My severance packet will be paid out on 27 December."
"How much?"
"Five annual salaries."
"Poor you," Annika said tartly.
"I know— it's horrible," Evert Danielsson said. "And while I sat there reading the letter, a guy from the service department came in. He didn't even knock, just stepped right in. He said he'd come for my keys."
"But you had until lunch to clear out?"
"The car keys, they took my car from me!"
He bent over the table and started crying. Annika looked at the top of his head. His hair looked a bit stiff, as if he blow-dried it and used hairspray. She noticed it was thinning at the top.
"You can always use some of your severance pay and buy yourself a car," Annika suggested. As she said it, she realized it was pointless. You can't tell someone whose pet has just died that he should get a new one.
The man blew his nose and cleared his throat. "I see no reason to remain loyal. Christina is dead. I can't harm her."
Annika picked up her pen and pad from the bag.
"What was it you wanted to tell me about?"
Evert Danielsson gave her a tired look.
"I know everything about Christina," he said. "She was never the obvious candidate to head SOCOG or even the campaign to get the Games for Stockholm. There were other people, mainly men, who were considered more suitable."
"How did you get to know Christina?"
"She started in banking; you probably knew that already. I got to know her about eleven years ago when I was head of administration at the bank where she was the deputy managing director. Christina was pretty much hated by the rank and file; she was seen as hard as nails and unfair. The first was true, but not the latter. Christina always acted consistently; she would never carpet anybody who didn't deserve it. Though she did like public executions, which meant people were scared of not making the grade. It's possible it had a positive effect on profits, but it was devastating for the working atmosphere at the bank. The union was talking about staging a vote of no confidence in her; such things are not common in the banking business, I'll tell you that. But Christina put a stop to that. The union representatives behind the move resigned and left the bank the same day. I don't know how she managed to get rid of them, but there were no more calls for a vote."
A waiter brought coffee for Annika and gave Evert Danielsson a refill. Annika thanked him. She thought she recognized his face from a commercial for a credit card. She had a good memory for faces, so she was probably right. The TV companies in the building often used extras close at hand.
