Borderline (42 page)
‘Was she the one who worked here as a temp a few years back?’ Annika asked.
‘How many journalists do you know called Ronja?’ Schyman asked.
‘Too many,’ Annika said, leaning over his desk and turning the paper round, still open at ‘CLEARED!’ and the five photographs. ‘This is really nasty,’ she said.
Schyman sighed. ‘Annika …’
‘I’ve started looking into it,’ she said. ‘I’ve already spoken to Viveca Hernandez. Linnea’s abuse started when she got pregnant. All the classic signs were there. She got hit if she looked at him the wrong way, hit if she said the wrong thing. He threw her out into the stairwell naked once – that was when Viveca found out what was going on.’
‘Annika …’
Her hand paused on the newspaper, but she didn’t look up at him. ‘I need to work,’ she said. ‘Otherwise there’s no point in it all. Not for me, and not for those women. They deserve it.’
‘Annika, I’ve handed in my notice.’
Now she looked at him. ‘What? When are you leaving?’
‘In May,’ he said.
She sat back in her chair. ‘I wondered how long you’d be able to bear it,’ she said. ‘Patrik and all his crappy made-up reporting. You look like a worm on a hook every time you have to keep a straight face when he comes up with another of his ideas. I know you say it sells, but I think those successes are fleeting, and very short-term. People aren’t that stupid. They can see through this.’
He regarded her in silence for a few moments. ‘You’re wrong,’ he said, ‘on all counts. People are pretty thick. They believe everything they read – just look at all the crap online. Half of Media Time’s readers now think you eat little children.’ He stood up. ‘And as far as Patrik is concerned,’ he went on, ‘I’ve suggested to the board that he should be my successor.’
She sat where she was, gazing up at him with those big green eyes. ‘That’s never going to work,’ she said quietly.
He stood there in silence, feeling unease creep down his spine.
‘You won’t be declared a hero just because the newspaper collapses without you,’ she said. ‘Quite the reverse. You’ll be the scapegoat. The board aren’t going to take any responsibility. They’ll blame everything on you. Surely you can see that.’
She got to her feet, then picked up her bag and coat. Schyman could feel his heart pounding, and puffed out his chest to hide it. ‘Think about my offer,’ he said. ‘A column about you and Thomas and your new life together now that he’s home. You won’t get three million for it, but maybe enough for you and the family to get away for a break in the new year.’
She pulled on her coat and put her bag on her shoulder. ‘That would be a bit tricky,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to be living with Thomas from now on.’
He stood there with his mouth half open, unable to find any words.
‘Thomas doesn’t know yet. I’m going to tell him today – I’m on my way to the Karolinska now.’
She slid the door open, closed it behind her, and was gone.
* * *
The sky fills my whole window. It’s low, solid as concrete, cool and grey.
Sometimes I see a bird fly past, like a black silhouette against the light, but apart from that the view is empty. I might have wished for a tree, or just a few bare branches.
It’s deathly dull here.
My hand has started to ache, the hand that is no longer there. Sometimes it itches between the fingers, sometimes the palm. That’s normal, they say.
I’m going to get a prosthesis.
They say they’re very good, these days. Some are controlled by Bluetooth: they react to muscle contractions and respond to pressure and movement. Soon there might even be one that can feel things. That’s a Swedish invention.
Annika’s been so fantastic. She’s listened and listened.
I’ll never be able to forget.
It got so quiet outside my shack. They brought me no water, no food. In the end I kicked the sheet of tin away from the doorway.
All the men were gone, the cars and guns. My memories stop out in the savannah. I don’t remember anything about the refugee camp, only Annika’s face above me in the plane on the way home to Sweden.
They haven’t found the Dane. His daughter thinks he’s alive, even though I’ve explained that he’s dead. She thinks I made a mistake.
Annika saved me. She took all the money she had and tried to free me, but by then it was already too late.
Kalle didn’t dare look at my hand to start with, but Ellen wanted to take the bandage off at once and investigate. She’s inherited Holger’s doctor genes.
I miss Annika so much. She’s been here as often as she can, but there’s so much to do, what with the children and Christmas and everything. She’ll be here soon – she’s bringing mulled wine and gingersnaps.
They say I’ll be able to go back to work, but I don’t know if I want to. My boss, Jimmy Halenius, has been an incredible source of support. He’s come in several times to see me. The prime minister and the minister of justice have sent their best wishes.
She’ll be here soon. I asked her to bring some Lucia buns as well, fresh ones, with raisins and lots of saffron.
I want us to celebrate Christmas in Vaxholm. If we’re lucky we’ll get snow this year again, a white Christmas.
It isn’t over, it’s only just beginning.
They say I’m going to be fine. Completely fine. Just with a prosthetic hand.
You can even learn to tie shoelaces, they say.
She’s here now. I can hear her coming – I recognize her footsteps in the corridor, her heels on the cork floor.
She’ll soon be here with me.
Let me start by repeating what I have said since I wrote my very first ‘author’s acknowledgements’ in the autumn of 1997: this is fiction. All the characters are entirely the creation of my own imagination. Although I conduct an almost absurdly comprehensive amount of research, the whole of Annika Bengtzon’s world takes shape inside my head. This means, for instance, that I am able to position American junior schools where they don’t actually exist, to describe invented routines and decision-making processes at newspapers, to rearrange the layouts of existing buildings, and to invent Sunday schools where they may never have existed.
There is, however, one thing that I want to emphasise quite specifically:
I don’t know if the Swedish government (or any other government, for that matter) has insurance that covers the kidnap of any members of its staff. I haven’t tried to find out. IF that is the case, and IF – against all expectation – they were to tell me about it (which is extremely unlikely), I wouldn’t have been able to write about it. Because to do so would increase the risk of Swedish personnel being kidnapped, both in Sweden, but even more so in other countries, and it would push up the ransom demands. Nor do I know if the Swedish government has paid for kidnap training from the FBI. IF they – against all expectation – have done so, I have no idea if an under-secretary of state would have received such training. But in this novel I have stuck to a fictitious scenario that may lie somewhere close to the truth, or possibly nowhere remotely near it. It is safer for all concerned if we don’t know which.
In order to put myself in the position of a kidnap victim, I read stacks of memoirs written by people who have been held hostage for varying amounts of time. The biographies often describe in minute detail the routines and conditions of different stages of their captivity, which in the long run can be, frankly, incredibly monotonous. Few writers have truly managed to express the feeling of desperation and madness that they are actually trying to convey.
The outstanding exceptions are Terry Anderson’s
Den of Lions
, in which the former head of the Associated Press bureau in Beirut describes his almost seven years of captivity with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Ingrid Betancourt’s
Even Silence has an End
, in which she describes her years with the FARC guerrillas in Colombia.
I have also found a number of academic books about kidnapping very useful, as well as books about the art of negotiating a ransom amount. The most important of these was
Kidnap for Ransom – Resolving the Unthinkable
by Richard P. Wright.
I would also like to thank the following people (their titles below refer to the positions they held at the time of my investigation):
Peter White, the pilot who flew me to Liboi.
Peter Rönnerfalk, senior consultant at Södermalm Hospital in Stockholm, who has once again helped me with medical details.
Cecilia Roos Isaksson from the National Bank of Sweden, Bengt Carlsson from Handelsbanken, Anna Urrutia from Forex Bank and Jonas Karlsson from Swedish Customs’ crime prevention unit, for information about the rules governing international money transfers.
The staff at
Expressen
newspaper in Stockholm, for allowing me to visit them for research purposes.
Sara Löwestam, my fellow author, for help with Swahili.
Nikke L., from whose blog (at reco.se) I borrowed the splendid remark about cucumber in aioli.
Anna Laestadius Larsson, from whom I borrowed the parallel between dirty toilets and child abuse.
Niclas Salomonsson, my agent, and his staff at the Salomonsson Agency in Stockholm.
Emma Buckley, my British editor, all the dedicated staff at Transworld Publishers.
Neil Smith, who translated it all into English.
Thomas Bodström, lawyer, author, and former Minister of Justice, for legal expertise and forensic editorial advice.
Tove Alsterdal, my editor and very first reader since autumn 1984: without your unfailing support, wise advice and unflappable calm, there wouldn’t be any books.
Liza Marklund
is an author, publisher, journalist, columnist, and goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. Her crime novels featuring the relentless reporter Annika Bengtzon instantly became an international hit, and Marklund’s books have sold over 15 million copies in 30 languages to date. She has achieved the unique feat of being a number one bestseller in all five Nordic countries, as well as the USA.
She has been awarded numerous prizes, including the inaugural Petrona award for best Scandinavian crime novel of the year 2013 for
Last Will
, as well as a nomination for the Glass Key for best Scandinavian crime novel.
Neil Smith
studied Scandinavian Studies at University College London, and lived in Stockholm for several years. He now lives in Norfolk.
THE LONG SHADOW
LIFETIME
LAST WILL
VANISHED
THE BOMBER
EXPOSED
RED WOLF
POSTCARD KILLERS
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
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BORDERLINE
A CORGI BOOK: 9780552161978
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN: 9781409043492
Originally published by Piratförlarget in Swedish in 2011
as
Du gamla, du fria
First publication in Great Britain
Corgi edition published 2014
Copyright © Liza Marklund 2011
English translation copyright © Neil Smith 2014
Liza Marklund has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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