Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [39]
She nodded emphatically on the screen, and the unseen reporter was evidently expecting her to go on. Karina Björnlund cleared her throat, leaned towards the microphone and said: ‘For knowledge. Equality. Potential. For knowledge.’
The reporter withdrew the microphone with his gloved hand and asked, ‘Doesn’t this initiative tread on the toes of local accountability?’
The microphone came back in a shot, as Karina Björnlund bit her lip.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘this is an issue that has been debated over many years, but we are proposing new state subsidies of twenty-five million kronor for the purchase of books for public and school libraries.’
‘God, she’s mad, isn’t she?’ Annika said, turning the volume down again.
Anne raised her eyebrows, seemingly unconcerned. ‘I don’t understand why you’re so against it,’ she said. ‘That proposal she’s talking about is what’s making my TV channel possible.’
‘She should never have been made a minister,’ Annika said. ‘Something went wrong after the whole Studio Six business. She was only the Trade Minister’s press secretary back then – Christer Lundgren, you remember him . . . ?’
Anne frowned, thinking hard.
‘And she didn’t make a very good press secretary either, and then she gets to be Minister of Culture after the election.’
‘Aah,’ Anne said, ‘Christer Lundgren, the minister everyone thought killed that stripper.’
‘Josefin Liljeberg, exactly. Even though he didn’t do it.’
They sat in silence again, watching Karina Björnlund talk soundlessly. Annika had an idea of why the press secretary had become a minister, and suspected that she herself, entirely innocently, had been a contributing factor to her appointment.
‘Do you mind if I turn it off?’ she asked.
Anne shrugged. Annika considered getting up and fetching something else, anything else, to eat or drink or look at, something to consume, but she stopped herself, gathered her thoughts, allowed the grey anxiety to wash over her, and hopefully go away.
‘I got a load of really sensitive information from a policeman in Luleå today,’ she said. ‘About a bloke from the Torne Valley who probably blew up that plane at F21 and went on to become an international terrorist. What would make anyone leak that after thirty years?’
Anne let the words sink in.
‘Depends on what the policeman said,’ she replied. ‘I don’t suppose he was stupid, so there’s a reason behind the leak. What do you think he was after?’
Annika played with her glass of water.
‘I’ve been wondering that all day,’ she said. ‘I think the terrorist has come back, and the police want him to know that they know.’
Anne frowned, then her gaze cleared, intoxication fading. ‘Isn’t that a bit of a long shot?’ she said. ‘Maybe they want to scare someone who knows him. His old friends. Warn political groups, left and right alike, against God knows what. You can’t possibly know what the police’s motives are.’
Annika took a sip of water, swallowed with difficulty, then put the glass down.
‘The officer said he’d checked with the press officer at the airbase, which means the military have discussed it, so this is something they’ve been planning for a while. But why now, and why me?’
‘Well, I don’t know why now,’ Anne said, ‘but why you is pretty obvious, isn’t it? How many famous crime reporters are there on Swedish papers?’
Annika thought in silence for a few seconds, as an emergency vehicle drove past outside.
‘But what if this has something to do with Benny Ekland’s murder. It all fits too neatly.’
‘Well, it’s not impossible,’ Anne said. ‘Are you going to run the story?’
‘I suppose so,’ she said with a sigh, ‘although it’s up to Schyman to decide. I think he’s starting to get tired of me.’
‘Maybe you’re just getting tired of him,’ Anne said, taking a biscuit.
Annika’s face was impassive. She pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms round her legs.
‘I just want to be left to get on with my job.’
14
The young waiter put two gin and tonics on the table,