Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [144]
‘You’re so frozen you’re shaking,’ Forsberg said.
‘I think he’s dead,’ she whispered.
The paramedics returned and went over to Göran Nilsson, checked his breathing and pulse.
‘I think he broke his leg,’ Annika said. ‘And he’s ill; he said he was going to die soon.’
They put him on a stretcher and carried him quickly out of the building.
Karina Björnlund stepped out from the shadows, leaning on a paramedic. Her face had dissolved in tears, her nose still bleeding.
Annika looked at her swollen face and memorized it.
Karina Björnlund stopped right next to her and whispered so low that no one else could hear. ‘I’m going to say everything myself,’ she said. ‘You can forget all about your exclusive.’
And then the minister went out to the floodlights and police cars and ambulances.
48
Inspector Forsberg had a cramped, messy office on the second floor of the yellow-brown monstrosity that was the police station. Annika was dozing off on one of the chairs, but gave a start and sat up straight when the door flew open.
‘Sorry you’ve had to wait. No milk or sugar,’ the police officer said, putting a steaming-hot plastic cup in front of her on the desk, then went round and sat on his swivel-chair.
Annika picked up the cup, burning her hands and blowing on the drink. She took a cautious sip. Machine coffee, the worst sort.
‘Is this an interrogation?’ she asked, putting the cup down.
Forsberg looked through a drawer without answering.
‘Witness questioning, I suppose we should call it. Where the hell have I put it? There it is!’
He pulled out a little tape-recorder and a mess of cables, straightened up, looked Annika in the eye and smiled.
‘You’re not too frozen, then?’ His gaze held hers.
She looked away.
‘Oh, I am,’ she said. ‘But I learned to dress properly the hard way. How are the others?’
‘Ragnwald is dead, like you thought. Yngve Gustafsson is in intensive care, his body temperature was down to twenty-eight degrees. He’ll make it though. Did you know he was the father of Linus, the boy who was killed?’
Annika looked up at the police officer, a lump in her throat, and shook her head.
‘And Karina Björnlund?’ she said.
‘She’s having her face patched up, and she’s got frostbite in her feet. So what happened?’
He leaned forward and switched on the tape-recorder.
‘Okay,’ she said, ‘do you want the full story?’
He looked at her thoughtfully for a few moments, then looked away and pulled out her personal details.
‘Witness questioning of Annika Bengtzon,’ he said, ‘of Hantverkargatan thirty-two in Stockholm; location: questioner’s office; conversation begins . . .’
He looked at his watch.
‘. . . at twenty-two fifteen. How did you come to be in an abandoned compressor shed near Swedish Steel in Luleå this evening?’
She cleared her throat towards the microphone, which was standing on a memo from the National Police Commissioner.
‘I wanted to interview the Minister of Culture, Karina Björnlund, and happened to catch sight of her at Kallax Airport, and I followed her.’
The inspector looked at her and smiled. ‘Interview her?’ he said. ‘What about?’
She tried to smile back but discovered that she was too exhausted.
‘The imposition of the new library regulations,’ she said.
He sat in silence, pondering her reply for several seconds, then leaned over and switched off the tape-recorder.
‘Better now?’ he said, blinking flirtatiously.
She nodded and reached for the plastic coffee, prepared to give it another chance.
‘What happened?’ he said.
‘Just so we get this straight from the start,’ she said, sipping the drink again and suppressing a grimace, before putting the cup down for good. ‘I’m a journalist. All my sources are protected by law. You represent an official authority and you would be breaking the law if you made any attempt to find out what I know and who I learned it from.’
He stopped smiling. ‘And I have a case to solve. Can you tell me why you came to Luleå in the first place?’
‘I was here on a job,’ she said. ‘I got it into my