"What a mess you're making!" Beata exclaimed disapprovingly. "I should have you clean up after yourself."
Annika panted and felt the bile dripping from her mouth. I'm dying, she thought. I can't believe this is happening. Why had she followed this woman down here? It's never like this in the films.
"What the hell did you expect?" Annika croaked.
"See, your voice is returning," Beata said cheerfully. "That's good, because I'd like to ask you a few questions."
"Fuck you, you maniac," Annika said. "I'm not talking to you."
Beata didn't reply but leaned over and pushed something onto Annika's back, just underneath the ribs. Annika reflected, breathed in, smelled damp and explosives.
"Dynamite?" she asked.
"Yep. I'm fastening it to your back with masking tape."
Beata wound the tape around Annika's body and embraced her a couple of times. Annika felt this might be a chance for her to escape, but she didn't know how to. Her hands were still tied behind her back and the feet were fixed to a metal frame in the wall.
"There, that's it," Beata said and got to her feet. "The explosives are quite safe, but the detonator can be a bit unstable, so we'll have to be careful. Do you see this wire here? This is what I use to detonate the charge. I'm pulling it to over here, and do you see this? It's a battery from an ordinary flashlight. It's enough to set off the detonator. Amazing, isn't it?"
Annika watched the thin, yellow and green wire winding toward the small folding table. She realized that she didn't know the first thing about explosives; she couldn't say whether Beata was bluffing or telling the truth. At the murder of Christina, she had used a whole car battery. Why, if a flashlight battery was enough?
"I'm sorry it had to be like this," Beata said. "If you'd only stayed in the office yesterday afternoon we could have avoided all this. It would have been better for everyone concerned. Completion should take place in its proper place, and in your case that means the newsroom at
Kvällspressen.
Instead the bomb went off at the sorting office, and I'm not very happy about that at all."
Annika stared at the woman— she really was insane.
"What do you mean? Has there been another explosion?"
let out a sigh.
"Well, I didn't bring you here for fun. We'll just have to do it this way instead. I'm going to leave you now for a while. If I were you, I'd try to get some rest. But don't lie on your back, and don't try to pull the chain from the wall. Sudden movements could trigger the charge."
"Why?" Annika asked.
Beata looked at her with complete indifference for a few seconds. "See you in a couple of hours," she said and started walking toward the training facility on her clattering heels. Annika heard her steps disappear beyond the bend and then the light was gone again.
Annika carefully turned around, away from the vomit, and infinitely slowly lay down on her left side. She lay with her back toward the wall and stared into the darkness, hardly daring to breathe. Another explosion— had anyone died? Was the bomb meant for her? How the hell was she going to get out of this alive?
Lots of people were working on the stadium, Beata had said. That should be at the other end of the passage. If she screamed loud enough they might hear her.
"Help!" Annika cried as loud as she could, but her vocal cords were still damaged. She waited for a while and shouted again. She realized her cries wouldn't reach out.
She put her head down and felt panic creeping up on her. She thought she could hear the patter of animals around her but realized that it was only the sound of the chains around her feet. If only Beata had left the light on, she could have tried to get rid of them.
"Help!" she screamed again, this time with even less effect.
Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic…
"Help!!"
c Don't breathe too quickly, you'll only start cramping up. Nice and calm now, hold your breath, one-two-three-four, breathe, hold your breath, one-two-three-four, you're doing fine. Just take it easy, you'll be all right, everything can be sorted out…
Suddenly the first digital notes of Mozart's 40th Symphony sounded in the dark. Annika stopped hyperventilating from sheer astonishment. Her cellphone! It was working down here! God bless the cellphone! She got up on her heels. The sound was muffled and came from over on her right side. The music played on, bar after bar. She was the only one in town who used this particular signal: number 18 on the Nokia 3110. Cautiously, she started crawling toward the sound as the melody started from the beginning. She knew she was running out of time, soon the answering service would pick up the call. And then she ran out of chain— she couldn't reach her bag.
The telephone went dead. Annika was breathing loudly in the dark. She remained propped on her knees, thinking. Then she carefully moved back to the mattress; it was warmer and softer there.
"Everything'll be all right," she told herself. "As long as she isn't here, I'm all right. A bit uncomfortable, perhaps, but as long as I move around cautiously, I'm all right. I'll be fine."
She lay down and sang to herself, like an incantation, Gloria's old hit: "First I was afraid, I was petrified…"
Then she cried quietly, into the dark.
* * *
Thomas was walking away from the Central Station with long strides when his phone rang. He got hold of it in his coat pocket just before the answering service picked up the call.
"We told you we close at five today," one of the male staff at the daycare center said. "Will you be here soon?"
The traffic on Vasagatan was so loud that Thomas could barely hear himself think. He stepped aside and stopped in a shop's doorway, asking what was up.
"Are you on your way, or what?" the man said.
Thomas was shocked by the anger that hit him in his midriff. Christ, Annika! He'd let her sleep this morning, had taken the kids to the daycare center, and was coming back home on time— despite the leak on the regional bill— and she couldn't even pick up her own children on time.
"I'm so sorry. I'll be there in five minutes," he said and switched off.
Furious, he marched off toward Kungsbron. He turned the corner at Burger King, nearly bumped into a stroller loaded with Christmas gifts, and hurried up past the Oscar Theater. A group of men stood outside the jazz club Fashing. Thomas had to step out in the street to get past them.
This is what he got for being so understanding and equal-handed. His children were left waiting at a municipal institution the day before Christmas Eve because his wife, who was supposed to pick them up, let her work come before her family.
They'd been through this before. He could hear her voice through the city's noise.
"My work is important to me," she used to say.
"More important than the children?" he'd shouted once. Her face had turned pale and she'd said, 'of course not,' but he'd barely believed her. They'd had a couple of furious arguments on the issue, especially once, when his parents had invited them to celebrate Midsummer at their summer house. There had been a murder somewhere and naturally she was going to abandon all plans and take off.
"I'm not doing it just because I enjoy it," she had said. "I
do
enjoy going off on a job, but I'll also get a whole week's extra holiday out of them if I take on this assignment."
"You never think of the children," he'd fumed, and then she'd gone all cold and stand-offish.
"That's completely unfair," she'd said. "This will give me a whole week's extra holiday to be with them. They won't miss me for a second out on the island; there'll be loads of people there. You'll be there, gran and grandad, and all their cousins…"
"You're so damn selfish," he'd said to her.
She had been absolutely calm when she'd replied:
"No, it's you who are selfish. You want me to be there to show your parents what a nice family you have and to prove I'm not always working. I know your mother thinks I do. And she believes the children spend far too much time at the daycare center. Don't contradict me. I've heard her say it myself."
"Your work always comes before your family," he'd blurted out, intending to hurt her.
She had given him a disgusted look, and then said:
"Who stayed at home for two years with the kids? Who stays at home when they're ill? Who drops them at the daycare center every day, and who picks them up most of the time?"
She'd walked right up to face him.
"Yes, Thomas, you're absolutely right. I
am
going to put my work before my family this time. For once I'm going to do just that, and you'll just have to lump it."
Then she'd turned on her heel and walked out the door taking not so much as a toothbrush with her.
The Midsummer weekend had of course been ruined. For him, not the kids. They didn't miss Annika for a second, just as she'd predicted. Instead they were overjoyed when they returned home and found Mommy waiting at home with freshly baked buns and presents. In retrospect, he had to admit she was right. She didn't often put her work before her family, only sometimes, just like he did. But that hadn't stopped him from being furious. And the past two months everything had revolved around the paper. Being a manager wasn't good for her: The others tore into her and she just wasn't prepared for it.
He'd seen another sign of her not feeling well: She wasn't eating. Once, covering a mass murder, she was away for eight days and came back having lost ten pounds. It took her five months to put them back on. The company doctor had warned her about the risks associated with being underweight. She took it as praise and proudly told all her friends on the phone. All the same, she still got it in her head to go on a diet now and then.
He turned off Fleminggatan and took the steps down past the restaurant Klara Sjö, along the canal, approaching the daycare center the back way. The children were waiting inside the door, dressed and ready to go. They were tired and hollow-eyed; Ellen was holding her blue teddy in her arms.
"Mommy's picking us up today," Kalle said dismissively. "Where's Mommy?"
The nursery teacher who had stayed behind with the children was really annoyed.
"I'll never be able to get compensation for these fifteen minutes."
"I'm incredibly sorry," Thomas said, noticing how out of breath he was. "I don't understand where Annika's disappeared to."
He hurried away with the kids, and after a quick run, they managed to get on the 40 bus outside the lunch restaurant Pousette å Vis.
"You shouldn't run for the bus," the driver said irritably. "How are we going to teach children that if their parents do it?"
Thomas almost punched the idiot in the mouth. He held up his travel pass and shoved the kids toward the back of the bus. Ellen fell over and started to cry. I'm losing my mind, Thomas thought to himself. They had to stand up, jostling with Christmas shoppers, dogs, and strollers. Then they nearly didn't get off at their stop. He groaned out loud when he pushed the street door open, and as he was stamping the snow off his shoes, he heard someone speak his name.
He looked up in surprise and saw two uniformed police officers walk toward him.
"You must be Thomas Samuelsson. I'm afraid we're going to have to ask you and the children to come with us."
Thomas stared at them.
"We've been trying to get hold of you all afternoon. Haven't any of our messages reached you? Or any from the paper?"
"Where are we going, Daddy?" Kalle asked and took Thomas's hand. All at once Thomas realized something was terribly wrong. Annika! Christ!
"Annika. What's happened? Is she…?"
"We don't know where your wife is. She disappeared this morning. The officers in charge of the investigation will tell you more. If you'd be so kind as to come with us…"
"Why?"
"Your apartment may be booby-trapped."
Thomas bent down and picked up both the children, one on each arm.
"Let's get away from here," he said in a stifled voice.
* * *
The Six Session at the paper was the most tense in many years. Anders Schyman felt panic lurking just beneath the surface. His instinct told him they shouldn't be publishing a paper; they should be out looking for Annika, giving support to her family, hunting for the Bomber— anything.
"We're going to sell one hell of a lot of papers," Ingvar Johansson said as he entered the room. He didn't sound smug or triumphant; it was more a sad statement of fact. But Anders Schyman went through the roof.
"How dare you?" the editor-in-chief shouted and grabbed Ingvar Johansson so violently that the news editor dropped his mug, spilling hot coffee down his leg. Ingvar Johansson didn't even feel the burn, he was so shocked. He had never seen Anders Schyman lose his cool like this. The editor-in-chief breathed in the other man's face for a few moments, then got a grip on himself.
