Without a Trace (3 page)

‘Well, I can confirm that Ingemar Lerberg was found unconscious in the property behind me,’ the police officer said. ‘We have decided to make this information public, even though some of his family have not yet been informed.’

‘Who hasn’t been informed?’ a woman from the local television station shouted.

The policeman ignored her. A trickle of rainwater ran down his forehead. ‘Ingemar Lerberg has been taken to Södermalm Hospital, where he is currently being operated on. We’ve been told that the outcome is uncertain.’

‘Who made the emergency call?’ The television journalist again.

The policeman rocked on his heels. ‘A full investigation is now under way,’ he said. ‘The chief prosecutor in Nacka, Diana Rosenberg, has been appointed head of the preliminary stages. We will issue further information when—’

‘Who made the call?’ The woman wasn’t about to give up.

‘It was an anonymous tip-off,’ the police officer said.

‘Man or woman?’

‘I can’t answer that.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

The policeman had had enough. He turned to go back to the house. His hair was plastered to his head, and his jacket was streaked dark with rain.

‘Are you aware of any possible motives for the assault?’ the woman yelled after him. ‘Had Lerberg received any threats? Are there any signs of a break-in?’

The policeman stopped and looked at her over his shoulder. ‘The answer to all your questions is no,’ he said, then hunched his shoulders and hurried towards the house.

Annika put the camera down again and turned back to the group of people gathered by the police cars. There was no sign of Nina Hoffman.

‘Do you want a lift into the city?’ she asked the radio reporter.

‘Thanks, but I’ve got to do a live broadcast at two o’clock.’

‘Have you heard about Schyman?’ Bosse said.

Annika gave him a quizzical look. Bosse looked like a cat that had just caught a canary.

‘He faked his way to the Award for Excellence in Journalism – the series of articles about the billionairess who disappeared?’

Annika raised her eyebrows. ‘Says who?’

‘New information on the internet.’

Dear God, she thought. ‘It was a television documentary,’ she said, getting out her car keys.

Bosse blinked several times.

‘Schyman got the award for a documentary on television,’ she repeated. ‘On both occasions.’

She went to her car, gave Insect Man a wave and got in. While the fan dealt with the condensation on the windscreen, Nina Hoffman drove past and disappeared into the rain.

Editor-in-chief Anders Schyman studied Ingemar Lerberg’s familiar smiling face on the computer screen: chalk-white teeth, dimples, neon-blue eyes. He was standing on a quayside in front of a large oil-tanker wearing an open sports jacket, his shirt unbuttoned at the neck, wind in his hair.

They had known each other for ten years, possibly more. Fifteen? For a couple of years they had both been on the Rotary Club’s committee, but since the revelations about Lerberg’s tax affairs, contact between them had been sporadic. Schyman liked him, though, and wondered who on earth could have wanted to beat the crap out of him.

He refreshed the page to read the latest news on the attack. Annika Bengtzon had posted a picture of the crime scene on Twitter: media coverage of the case seemed to be pretty extensive. There was no motive, no acknowledged threat and no sign of a break-in.

He went back to Lerberg’s website – or, rather, his company’s, International Transport Consultancy. Lerberg was a smart businessman, active in shipping and sea transport, something to do with digital systems for the coordination of maritime shipments. He was also pushing for the development of a new marina in Saltsjöbaden, a luxury harbour for yachts and cruisers. But, of course, he was best known as a politician.

Schyman typed in a search for ‘lerberg politician saltsjöbaden’. A number of articles in the
Evening Post
came up – always a source of satisfaction to him, even if he knew that the search results were adapted to suit his own preferences. He glanced down the page, and found a thread on a discussion forum that made him lean forward: Gossip about powerful people in Saltsjöbaden. With Lerberg’s and several others, he found his own name: Anders Schyman, Crusader for Truth.

What was this? He didn’t usually Google himself, not often, anyway, but he’d never seen this before. Curious, he clicked on the link. A short video appeared on the screen, a lit candle and a picture of him taken at some party. He was standing with a glass in his hand, smiling broadly at the camera, his eyes and forehead glowing slightly. Could it have been taken after some debate at the Publicists’ Club?

We know him, everyone knows him, our hero, the defender of reality, the Man Who Saves Us from Corruption and Abuses of Power, the great editor and legally accountable publisher of the
Evening Post
.

He leaned even closer to the screen. What the hell was this?

Admittedly, there are those who claim he sacrificed his ethics and morals on the altars of the paper’s proprietors and capitalism when he left state-funded television and took charge of the most frivolous, attention-seeking tabloid in Sweden, but the Light of Truth judges no one without giving them a fair hearing. We value tolerance and openness here, and we stick to verifiable facts.

Schyman glanced up at the top of the screen: yes, the blogger had evidently called the site ‘The Light of Truth’. It sounded ominous.

We’re all aware of his magnificent past achievements, his personal appeal, his considerable background in journalism: a university lecturer, chair of the Newspaper Publishers Association, the editor who made the
Evening Post
‘Sweden’s Biggest Daily Paper’ – as well as winning the Award for Excellence in Journalism twice! What an achievement! What a triumph! An (almost) unparalleled accomplishment! Let us all break out into a heartfelt chorus of hallelujahs!

Well, it was hardly that remarkable. Several other journalists had won the prize twice.

But the Light of Truth didn’t acquire that name for nothing. This is the home of the Light that illuminates Reality and What Really Matters. This is a haven for Critical Thinking and Counterintuitive Thought, Opposition to the ghastly Political Correctness of the Media Establishment. Feel free to call me the Scourge of Hypocrisy and Cant.

Let us take a closer look at Anders Schyman’s great journalistic achievements. Let us take a step closer to the Light, and examine these triumphs carefully …

What on earth was going on?

No one remembers the first time Our Hero was accorded the extraordinary honour known as the Award for Excellence in Journalism.

It is Anders Schyman’s second journalistic triumph that warrants proper illumination, his true media breakthrough, the documentary that led him to step out of the concrete grey shadows of state-funded television and into our cosily furnished living rooms. Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, let us shine the Light on Viola Söderland.

‘He’s still alive.’

Anders Schyman started. The head of news, Patrik Nilsson, was standing, legs apart, on the other side of the desk, his voice full of disappointment. Schyman clicked away from the blog with a quick, embarrassed gesture. He hadn’t heard the glass door slide open and was still seeing Viola Söderland before him in all her surgically enhanced elegance. ‘I was as certain as anyone could be,’ he said. ‘She disappeared of her own volition.’

Nilsson looked at him blankly. ‘Södermalm Hospital has just issued a new statement,’ he said. ‘Lerberg suffered a cardiac arrest during the operation and the staff had to use a defibrillator to get him going again. He’s being kept sedated because of the extent of his injuries.’

Schyman’s thoughts were running like lava through his head, but he tried to maintain a neutral expression. He cleared his throat and looked at the empty screen in front of him. The blog post had shaken him, and he felt as if its insinuations were written on his face.

‘Do you remember Viola Söderland?’ he asked.

Nilsson’s face shifted from expressionless to confused. ‘Who?’

Schyman stood up and went to the sofa. ‘The billionairess. Golden Spire.’ He sank down on the worn cushions.

Nilsson hitched up his jeans under his burgeoning beer-gut and glanced out at the newsroom on the other side of the glass wall. ‘The woman who disappeared? The one with the massive tax debt?’

At first Schyman was offended, then relieved. The Light of Truth had evidently over-estimated the level of general awareness of his journalistic triumph. No one cared any more. It wasn’t an issue. ‘The woman who disappeared,’ he confirmed.

‘What about her? Has she turned up?’

‘In a way. Is Lerberg going to make it?’ he asked.

‘What about the billionairess? Have I missed something.’

Schyman stood up again. Why could he never learn to keep his mouth shut? ‘So we’re not dealing with a murdered politician?’

‘He might die before we go to print,’ Nilsson said hopefully. ‘We’ll hold the front page for the time being.’

A somewhat premature front page on which the man was declared dead was evidently ready to print. Well, it wasn’t up for debate: meeting the deadline was the only thing that mattered.

‘We’ll just have to hope we need a new one,’ Schyman said, which Nilsson took as a sign that it was time to go back to work. He slid the door open and left, failing to close it properly behind him. The sounds of the newsroom flowed in through the narrow gap: a discordant jumble of voices, keyboards, the jingles of television news channels, the dull whirr of the ventilation system.

And soon it would be over, at least for him. The newspaper’s board had been informed and had accepted his resignation. In little more than a week his departure would be made public, and the hunt for his successor would roll into action.

He wasn’t leaving things in a bad state. The figures from the past year had remained strong, confirming the
Evening Post
as the biggest newspaper in Sweden. He’d beaten off the competition and now it was time to relax.

Schyman went back to his computer and looked at the screen-saver, a black-and-white photograph taken by his wife of the rocks on their island out in Rödlöga archipelago. It wasn’t much more than an outcrop. No water or drainage, electricity supplied from a generator at the back of the house, but for them it was Paradise.

Maybe a wind turbine down by the shore, he mused. Then they could live there all year round. A satellite dish to keep in touch with the rest of the world. A jetty for a larger boat. A few solar panels on the roof to heat water, and a satellite phone for emergencies.

He decided to look into planning permission for a wind turbine.

*

Nina parked the car in a reserved space next to the main entrance to Södermalm Hospital. It was pouring with rain. The hospital was the largest emergency medical centre in Scandinavia, and during her time as a sergeant on Södermalm she had been there several times each month, sometimes several times a week – everything tended to blur together, with the exception of the morning of 3 June almost five years ago. The morning when David Lindholm, the most famous police officer in Sweden, had been found dead (
when she had found David dead
), and his wife Julia was admitted to intensive care in a catatonic state.

She got out of the car and walked through the vast foyer, with its glass roof and polished stone floor, showed her ID at Reception, explained why she was there, and was referred to a Dr Kararei, the senior consultant in the intensive-care unit. Fourth floor, lift B.

It smelt as it always did. The corridors were scrubbed clean and poorly lit. She passed medics in rustling coats and patients shuffling along in slippers.

She rang the bell outside ICU and had to wait several minutes before it was opened by Dr Kararei himself. He turned out to be a large man with short fingers and only a trace of an accent.

Nina introduced herself. It felt odd saying she was from National Crime – the words didn’t seem to sit right in her mouth. ‘Is it possible to conduct a short interview with the victim?’ she asked.

‘Perhaps we should discuss this in private,’ the doctor said, and ushered her into an empty consulting room. It was cool, almost cold. The doctor didn’t switch the lights on. The light from the window was heavy and grey.

‘The patient is still in the operating theatre,’ he said, sitting heavily on a small desk. He gestured to Nina to take the patient’s chair.

‘How is he?’

‘I’d say his chances of survival are extremely uncertain.’

If Lerberg died, the police would have the murder of a politician to deal with. Not a prime minister or foreign minister, admittedly, but a high-profile violent crime. She mustn’t mess up. She shifted on the chair, cleared her throat, took out the brand new mobile, provided by Lamia, and searched for the recording function. Her fingers seemed to swell above the screen and she did something wrong. She went back to the start menu and began again.

‘So his injuries are life-threatening?’ she said, once the timer indicated that the phone was recording properly.

‘Possibly not in themselves. But it’s the combination that makes his condition so complicated, along with severe dehydration.’

He reached for a chart containing the patient’s notes.

‘So the victim had gone without food and water for some time?’ Nina said, glancing at her phone’s screen. ‘How long?’ She put the phone on the desk beside the doctor.

He turned a page and studied the information, then read some out quietly to himself: ‘Severe metabolic disruption, principally electrolytes and salts, sodium and potassium, as well as erratic base oxygen values … At least three days, I’d say.’