Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [114]
Q was silent for several long seconds. ‘We haven’t exactly been dragging our feet, whatever you might think.’
‘No?’ She looked up at the ceiling. ‘You knew he lived in France; how hard can it be? Surely it’s just a question of getting out the vacuum cleaner and pressing the on button?’
‘The French police have big vacuum cleaners that suck up almost every sort of particle. This one kept getting through the filter, for all those years.’
Reality clarified and her free fall stopped. She was floating weightless and secure, calm.
‘How could he do that? If he’s as dangerous as you think, if he really was an international killer who took on assassinations for loads of money, how could he possibly get away with it? Why didn’t anyone catch him?’
‘We don’t know how much money was involved, or if there was any money at all. Maybe he killed out of pure, unadulterated conviction.’
‘But how do you know it’s him?’
‘There are a number of cases where we’re convinced, and several more where we’re pretty sure, and a whole heap of bodies where we’ve got nothing but our suspicions.’
She was safe now, secure in her work.
‘But why Ragnwald? Did he leave fingerprints? Little napkins with lipstick kisses at the crime scenes?’
‘Undercover agents,’ Q said. ‘The security apparatus.’
‘Ah,’ Annika said. ‘You mean rumours and speculation.’
‘Now you’re just being silly.’
They were silent for a few moments, her chest felt warm, as did the stone.
‘But there’s something I don’t understand,’ Annika said when the silence had grown so large that she suddenly feared that she was alone on the line. ‘Someone must have had some way of communicating with him, because otherwise how would he contact his employers?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Someone must have hired him for all those messy jobs. How did they get hold of him?’
The commissioner was quiet for a moment.
‘Off the record,’ he said, and she swivelled her head, ‘through ETA. For years the Spanish police have suspected a doctor in Bilbao of being his go-between, but they’ve never had enough evidence to charge him. This is sensitive stuff in the Basque Country. If their colleagues start openly harassing and accusing decent members of the civilian population, the whole region could ignite. The doctor in question is an unimpeachable family man, a professional with his own practice specializing in internal medicine.’
‘Couldn’t you have hired Ragnwald for something yourselves?’ Annika asked. ‘Lured him into a trap?’
A moment of hesitation.
‘Attempts may have been made, but I know nothing about that.’
So that’s where the boundary of his openness was. She decided not to press him, and rubbed her feet together, feeling the circulation coming back again.
‘But if he wasn’t in France, where was he?’
‘He most likely spent a lot of time in France,’ Q said, back on solid ground again, ‘but he didn’t live there. We don’t think he settled anywhere.’
‘So he’s spent thirty years camping?’
A short, weary sigh. ‘We believe he pretended to be from north Africa,’ Q said, ‘as part of the group of illegal immigrants who drift around the countryside looking for seasonal work.’
‘A farm labourer?’ Annika said.
‘They move from place to place, from country to country, wherever the crops are ready to harvest.’
Annika nodded unconsciously. ‘And no one says anything about anyone else,’ she said.
‘Total loyalty,’ Q said. ‘No one cares if someone disappears for a few weeks, or a few months, or for ever.’
‘And aren’t surprised if you turn up again,’ Annika filled in.
‘No questions,’ Q said.
‘Cash in hand at the end of the day.’
‘No bank accounts,’ Q said.
‘No rent to pay, no family to provide for.’
‘A lot of the seasonal labourers have families,’ Q said. ‘Some of them provide for their extended family as well, but not our Ragnwald.’
‘He picks grapes and oranges and shoots politicians in his spare time.’
‘When he’s not working in the docks or mines or somewhere else where he can be invisible and, in practical terms, unpaid.’
They were silent for a while.
‘But why haven