Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [32]
Annika smiled, noting that the angels had gone quiet.
‘You’ve spent a long time dealing with the press,’ she said, ‘I can tell.’
‘Which is why I spoke to Pettersson at F21 about some information we’ve had for some time and have been wondering about releasing.’
She felt adrenalin slowly spreading out from the small of her back, up towards her chest.
‘For years now we’ve had a chief suspect for the attack,’ he said quietly. ‘A young man who came to Luleå from the south at the end of the sixties, but who was originally from somewhere in the Torne Valley. He was active in a couple of left-wing groups, went under the codename Ragnwald. We’ve had a couple of different suggestions of his real identity, but we don’t know for sure.’
Annika stared at the inspector in silence. The astonishing information was making her hair stand on end.
‘Do you mind if I take notes?’
‘Not at all.’
She took out a notebook and pen and scribbled down what the inspector had told her, shaking so much that it was almost illegible.
‘What makes you suspect this particular man?’ she asked.
‘Ragnwald disappeared,’ Suup said. ‘We believe he moved to Spain and became a member of ETA. He became a full-time terrorist, and the attack on F21 was his qualification.’
There was a knock on the door and Inspector Forsberg looked in.
‘Sorry, boss, but we’ve found something pretty weird.’
‘What?’
‘An unsigned letter, pretentious language, unclear content.’
He cast a look at Annika and fell silent.
She was thinking furiously and trying to look unconcerned.
‘Sounds like the usual sort of nutter’s letter,’ she said. ‘I’ve got eighteen bin-bags full of them.’
‘Read it out,’ Inspector Suup said.
Forsberg hesitated for just a second. Then he pulled out a sheet torn from a pad of A4, folded in four, which he held carefully with gloved hands.
‘There is no construction without destruction,’ he read. ‘Destruction means criticism and rejection, it means revolution. It involves reasoning things out, which means construction. If you concentrate on destruction first, you get construction as part of the process.’
Annika was scribbling furiously, got half the words down. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Forsberg lower the letter.
‘Does that ring any bells?’ he said.
Annika saw Inspector Suup shake his head and mechanically mimicked his movement.
‘We’ll be upstairs,’ Forsberg said, and disappeared again.
‘Can I go public with Ragnwald?’ Annika asked.
The inspector nodded.
‘And it won’t mess up any investigation if I write about it?’
‘Quite the reverse,’ Suup said.
Annika looked at the policeman, aware that he would be prepared to bend the rules if it would help the investigation. He could doubtless be pretty sly if he had to be, but that was just part of the job.
‘So why are you telling me?’ she said.
The man stood up surprisingly quickly. ‘The information is correct insofar as it matches our suspicions,’ he said. ‘We don’t know if he actually did it, but we believe he was involved. He may even have arranged the whole thing. He must have had accomplices; you know there were footprints found at the site. There aren’t many men with size thirty-six shoes.’
This last detail was new.
He left her sitting among the readers’ letters about rubbish collections and dogshit, with the distinct suspicion that she had been given more than just a scoop.
Slowly she filled in the letters she had missed in her notes.
There is no construction without destruction.
True enough, she thought.
If you concentrate on destruction first you get construction as part of the process.
God knows.
12
The taxi-drivers’ voices cascaded over her as she walked through the small airport, making her feel slightly hunted. Didn’t they ever work? Maybe they just stood by the entrance, in the