Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [120]
The man didn’t answer for a long time. If it wasn’t for the sound of a television in the background she would have thought he’d hung up.
‘Have any other journalists called?’ she asked eventually.
She heard the man swallow, an uneven sigh into the mouthpiece that made her move the receiver away from her ear.
‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Up here they know what they think.’ He paused, maybe he was crying. She waited in silence.
‘They wrote that I was taken in for questioning but released due to lack of evidence.’
Annika nodded mutely, no one calls a murderer.
‘But it wasn’t you,’ she said. ‘The police are certain about that.’
The man gave a deep sigh, his voice trembling when he spoke. ‘That doesn’t matter up here,’ he said. ‘The neighbours saw me being taken away in a police car. From now on I shall be known as Margit’s murderer to people round here.’
‘Not if they catch the culprit,’ Annika said, hearing the man start to sob. ‘Not if they get hold of Göran Nilsson.’
‘Göran Nilsson,’ he said, blowing his nose. ‘Who’s that?’
She paused, biting her tongue, not sure of how much the man knew.
‘He’s also known under his alias,’ she said. ‘Ragnwald.’
‘You mean . . . Ragnwald?’ the man said, spitting the name out. ‘The Yellow Dragon?’
Annika started. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’
‘I know of him,’ Thord Axelsson said warmly. ‘The mad Maoist who ran around Luleå as a revolutionary in the late sixties, I know he’s back. I know what he’s done.’
Annika grabbed a pen and a sheet of paper.
‘I’ve never heard the codename Yellow Dragon used for him before,’ she said. ‘Ragnwald was the name he used in the Maoist groups that used to meet in the basement of the library.’
‘Before the Beasts,’ Thord Axelsson said.
Annika stopped for a moment. ‘Before the Beasts,’ she repeated, making notes.
The line fell silent again.
‘Hello?’ Annika said
A deep sigh confirmed that the man was still there.
‘The girls are here,’ he said, his mouth close to the phone. ‘I can’t talk about this now.’
Annika thought quickly for a couple of seconds.
‘I’m coming up to Luleå on some other business tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Could I visit you at home so we can talk undisturbed?’
‘Margit’s dead,’ the man said, the sounds coming out broken and distorted. ‘There’s nothing for her to be afraid of any more. But I shan’t let her down, ever. You need to understand that.’
Annika kept making notes even though she didn’t understand him.
‘I just want to understand the context,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to hang Margit or anyone else out to dry.’
The man sighed again and thought for a moment.
‘Come at lunchtime. The girls have an appointment with the police, so we can be alone then.’
He gave her the address and directions, and told her to come around twelve o’clock.
Afterwards she let the receiver sit in its cradle for a long minute. The angels were quiet, but there was a sharp buzzing sound in her left ear. The shadows in the room were long and irregular, jumping jerkily over the walls as vehicles passed and the streetlamp swayed.
She had to find the right way of explaining this to her editors.
She phoned reception and she was in luck, Jansson was on duty.
‘How the hell are you?’ he asked, blowing smoke into the phone.
‘I’m on to something,’ she said. ‘A real human-interest story, a poor man in a nice suburb outside Piteå whose wife has been murdered and the whole town thinks he did it.’
‘But . . . ?’ Jansson didn’t sound particularly interested.
‘Definitely didn’t do it,’ Annika said. ‘He was at work sixty kilometres away from the scene of the crime, with three colleagues, at the time of the murder. And the police think they know who was responsible, but that hasn’t made any difference for this man. His neighbours saw him being taken away in a police