Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [62]
‘And?’ Annika said.
‘Another Mao quote. Why have you written them down?’
Annika had to sit down.
‘They’re letters,’ she said. ‘Anonymous letters to murder victims. The destruction one was sent to Benny Ekland’s workplace a couple of days after the first murder, the peasants’ movement was sent to a local councillor in Östhammar the day after his presumed suicide.’
Berit sat down on Annika’s desk, her face pale. ‘What the . . . ?’
Anna shook her head, pressing her hands to her forehead. ‘I have to speak to Linus Gustafsson’s mother,’ she said.
The phone rang out into the echoing, frozen space a thousand kilometres north. Her hand was sweating as she pressed the phone to her ear.
‘Should I go?’ Berit mouthed, pointing first at herself, then at the sliding door.
Annika shook her head, closed her eyes.
In the middle of a ring the phone was picked up. The voice that answered sounded newly woken, confused.
‘My name’s Annika Bengtzon, I’m calling from the Evening Post in Stockholm,’ Annika said in the slow, clear tone of voice she had learned to use in her years as a night editor, the shift when most phone calls reached people who were fast asleep.
‘Who?’ the woman on the phone said.
‘I wrote about Linus in the paper,’ Annika said, suddenly feeling tears welling up. ‘I just wanted to call to say how very sorry I am.’
Suddenly the boy was in front of her, his spiked hair and watchful eyes, his defensive body language and uncertain voice; she couldn’t help a sudden and audible sob.
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I—’ She put her hand over her mouth to cover her sobs, ashamed that Berit, who was now sitting down in one of the chairs, should see her like this.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ the woman said, still sounding sleepy.
‘Are you his mum?’
‘I’m Viveka.’ She pronounced it unusually.
‘I feel horribly guilty,’ Annika said, realizing that the phone call wasn’t turning out as she had imagined. ‘I shouldn’t have written about Linus.’
‘We’ll never know,’ the woman said flatly. ‘But I thought it was a good thing that you got it out of him. I couldn’t work out what was wrong with him. He was a different person after it happened, and he refused to tell me what it was.’
‘Well,’ Annika said, ‘but what if—’
The woman interrupted her, rather sharply. ‘Do you believe in God, Annika Bengtzon?’
Annika hesitated as the tears dried up. ‘Not really,’ she managed to say.
‘Well, I do,’ the woman said slowly, and with slightly forced emphasis. ‘It’s helped me through many trials over the years. The Lord called Linus to Him; I don’t understand why, but I accept it.’
Sorrow travelled like an ice–cold wind down the phone line from Luleå, making Annika shiver. The destructive power of human loss, where God’s love might provide the flickering flame that prevented the definitive final chill.
‘My grandmother died,’ Annika said. ‘Seven years ago. I think of her every day. I can’t even begin to imagine your loss.’
‘I have to continue my time on earth without Linus,’ his mother said, ‘even if I can’t see right now how I’m going to manage. But I’m firm in my faith that God the Father is doing what is best for me, that His hand rests above me.’
The woman fell silent, Annika could hear her weeping. She waited, not sure if she should try to end the conversation and hang up.
‘In time I may come to understand why,’ the woman went on suddenly, in a clear, lucid voice. ‘And I shall meet Linus again, of course, in the House of Our Lord. I know this to be true. It gives me the strength to carry on living.’
‘I wish I had your God,’ Annika said.
‘He is there for you, too,’ the woman said. ‘He is there, if only you want to take Him to you.’
The silence that followed could have been difficult, but to her surprise Annika found it warm.
‘There was something else I wanted to ask,’ she said. ‘Have you had anything strange