Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [50]
‘I haven’t told anyone,’ she said. ‘I’m absolutely certain of that.’
There was silence again. She was an outsider, he didn’t know much about her, what she was all about, a big city journalist who he may never meet again. Could she be responsible?
‘You can trust me,’ she said quietly. ‘Just so you know. How much of this can I write about?’
‘Don’t mention the cause of death, we haven’t released that. You can quote me saying that the murder was extremely violent and that the Luleå police are shocked at its brutality.’
‘Can I mention his mother? The fact that she found him?’
‘Well, that’s logical, so you can say that, but don’t try to contact her. She probably isn’t home anyway; I think my team took her off to the hospital suffering from shock. She had no one apart from the boy. The dad seems to have been a tragic case, one of the gang that sit and drink outside the shopping centre and terrorize the shopkeepers along the main street.’
‘It couldn’t have been him?’
‘He was in a cell, drunk, from five o’clock yesterday afternoon. Taken off to dry out in Boden at seven this morning.’
‘That’s what I call an alibi,’ Annika said. ‘Is there any way I can help? Are you looking for anything in particular that we could draw people’s attention to in the paper?’
‘The last witness with a definite sighting of the boy was the driver of the last bus out to Svartöstaden last night, and that reached the last stop just after ten. The preliminary report says the boy died shortly after that, so if anyone saw him around that time we’d like to hear from them.’
‘You’ve checked out the bus-driver?’
Suup gave a deep sigh. ‘And all the passengers,’ he said. ‘We’re going to get this bastard.’
A thought occurred to her from out of nowhere. ‘In his bedroom, you said? How did the killer get into the flat?’
‘No signs of a break-in.’
Annika thought, forcing herself to outpace the guilt until the burden was out of reach, gone for ever, and she knew she was running needlessly. She was well aware of what little effect adrenalin and will-power have on a guilty conscience.
‘So he might have let him in himself,’ she said. ‘It could have been someone he knew.’
‘Or else the killer went in without knocking, or was waiting for him in the dark. The lock on the flat was pretty hopeless, one good pull and it comes open.’
She made herself think clearly and sensibly, getting lost in the familiarity of the inspector’s tone.
‘What can I write?’ she asked once more. ‘Can I mention this?’
The policeman suddenly sounded very tired. ‘Write whatever you want,’ he said, and hung up.
And Annika was left holding the phone, staring at the list of questions she had written about Ragnwald in her notebook.
She had hardly replaced the receiver in its cradle before it rang again, an internal call that made her jump.
‘Can you come and see me?’ Anders Schyman asked.
She didn’t move, paralysed, and tried to get a grip on reality again. She let her eyes roam over the mess on her desk, the pens and notepads and newspapers and printouts and a mass of other stuff. She took hold of the edge of the desk and squeezed it hard.
It was her fault; oh God, she had persuaded the boy to talk.
She was at least partially responsible for this; her ambition had been decisive in determining the boy’s fate.
I’m so sorry, she thought. Please, forgive me.
And gradually it eased, the pressure on her lungs grew lighter, the cramp in her hands stopped, she could feel her fingers aching.
I have to talk to his mum. Not now, but later.
There was a future, tomorrow was a new day, and there would be others after that, if only she allowed there to be.
If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the bodies of your enemies float by.
She let out a sob, smiling at the Chinese proverb Anne Snapphane often quoted.
You’re not dying, she thought. It just feels like it.
The editor-in-chief was standing by the window