Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [116]
‘Have you got someone in from the FBI?’ Annika asked, swinging her legs off the side of the bed, warm feet against cold wood floor.
‘That was in the seventies,’ Q said. ‘We’ve been doing our own profiles of suspects for ten years.’
‘Sorry,’ Annika said. ‘What did the profiler come up with?’
‘You can pretty much guess. Male, older rather than younger, driven by hatred of a society that he has a partially warped view of, compensating for humiliations he’s suffered. Single, few friends, poor self-image, strong need for validation, restless, has difficulties holding down a job, fairly intelligent with good physical strength. More or less.’
Annika shut her eyes and tried to memorize the details, aware that he wasn’t telling her everything.
‘So why the quotes?’ she said. ‘Why that sort of scent-marking?’
‘On some level he wants us to know. He’s so incredibly superior to us that he can afford to leave these reminders of himself.’
‘Our Ragnwald,’ she said. ‘It feels almost like I know him. Imagine how it could have been – if that plane hadn’t blown up he might have been on his way to the Nobel dinner in the City Hall in three weeks’ time.’
She realized from the surprised silence that Q hadn’t followed her train of thought.
‘Karina Björnlund,’ she said. ‘Minister of Culture. She’s going to the Nobel dinner this year, or has at least been invited, and if Ragnwald hadn’t had to disappear they would have been married.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Q said.
‘Of course, there’s no way of knowing if the marriage would have lasted, but if it had . . .’
‘Listen,’ Q said. ‘Where the hell did you get that from?’
Annika twisted the phone cord.
‘The banns were published,’ she said. ‘They were due to have a civil wedding in Luleå City Hall at two o’clock on the Friday after the attack.’
‘Not a chance,’ Q said. ‘If that was true we’d know about it.’
‘Marriages had to be announced in those days, they had a note in the paper.’
‘And where was this note published?’
‘The Norrland News. I’ve got a bundle of cuttings from there about Karina Björnlund. Do you really mean to tell me you didn’t know they were together?’
‘A teenage fling,’ Q said. ‘Nothing more. Besides, she ended it.’
‘Retrospective adjustment,’ Annika said. ‘Karina Björnlund would do anything to save her own skin.’
‘I see,’ Q said. ‘Little Miss Amateur-Profiler has spoken.’
Annika was thinking about Herman Wennergren’s email, request for meeting to discuss a matter of urgency, and then the Minister of Culture’s last-minute amendment of the government proposal, so that the law on the deregulation of digital broadcasters would exclude TV Scandinavia, just like Herman Wennergren wanted, and the only outstanding question was what arguments her paper’s proprietors had applied to make her change her mind.
In her mind Annika could hear her own voice asking the Trade Minister’s press secretary to convey her request for a comment on the IB affair, and heard herself revealing the Social Democrats’ biggest secrets to Karina Björnlund. And just a few weeks later Björnlund was made a minister, in one of the most unforeseen promotions ever.
‘Trust me,’ Annika said. ‘I know more about her than you do.’
‘I’ve got to go,’ Q said, and she had nothing to add because the angels were gone now, they had withdrawn to their hiding place.
She put down the phone and hurried over to her laptop, switching it on and pulling on a pair of socks as the programs loaded. She typed in the new details from the conversation until the backs of her knees started to sweat and her ankles began to freeze.
41
The doorbell rang. Annika opened the front door cautiously, not sure what she would find out there. The angels started humming anxiously, but calmed down when she saw Anne Snapphane standing there breathless on the landing, lips white, eyes red.
‘Come in,’ Annika said, backing into the flat.
Anne Snapphane didn’t answer, just walked in, hunched and self-contained.
‘Are you dying?’ Annika asked, and Anne nodded, slumped onto the hall bench and pulled off her headband.