They hastily put their clothes back on, giggling and fumbling. Then stood close together, their arms around each other's waist, smiling into each other's eyes.

'Thanks for today,' Sophia said, and kissed him on the chin.

He caught her mouth, biting her tongue.

'Thank you,' he breathed.

She pulled on her coat, picked up her briefcase and was about to leave when she suddenly stopped.

'Oh,' she said. 'I almost forgot what I came for.'

He was sitting on his chair, leaning back, feeling the sleepiness that always followed s.e.x. Sophia put her briefcase on his desk, opened and took out a folder of papers bearing the logo of the Ministry of Justice.

'I spent some time with Cramne this afternoon; we went through the outline for the action plan.' She smiled at him with an almost bovine look on her face.

He felt his face close up, the need for sleep vanish.

'What?' he said. 'I thought I was supposed to do that?'

'Cramne called me. He couldn't get hold of you because you were in a meeting. You can read it through this evening and call me early tomorrow morning, can't you?'

He looked at his watch.

'I have to pick up the kids,' he said. 'I don't know if I'll have time tonight.'

Sophia blinked, something pale falling across her nose. 'Okay.' Her voice was suddenly smaller and sharper. 'Call me when you can.'

And she turned and left the room, shutting the door behind her. Thomas stayed in his chair, suddenly aware of the stickiness around his groin.

How was the collaboration with the Federation of County Councils going? Sophia Grenborg, what was she really like?

He lunged forward, crumpled up the project doc.u.ment and threw it in the bin, left Sophia Grenborg's discussions with the department next to the mug of pens and hurried off to the nursery.

Annika's legs had almost gone to sleep on the uncomfortable chairs outside Anders Schyman's room when the editor-in-chief finally opened the door and let her in.

'I've got ten minutes,' he said, turning his back on her before she had chance to reply.

She stood up, trying to shake some life into her legs, and feeling strangely ill at ease. She followed Schyman's broad back into the room, taking nervous steps on the swaying floor. She was unnerved by his attempt to hurry her along, and sank into one of his visitor's chairs, putting her notes on top of some sort of diagram on his desk.

The editor-in-chief walked slowly back behind his desk and sank into his creaking chair. He leaned back.

'You're not letting go of this terrorist angle, then,' he stated, clasping his hands together over his gut.

'I've uncovered information that's extremely controversial,' Annika said, staring down at her notebook, realizing it was open on the wrong page. She quickly pulled the notes over to her and searched feverishly for the summary she had put together. Schyman sighed.

'Just tell me instead,' he said, and Annika put the book down in her lap. She was fighting against a stubborn sense of falling, which was making the floor sway like mad.

'The terrorist's name is Goran Nilsson,' she said. 'Born in Sattajarvi in the Torne Valley in nineteen forty-eight, the son of a Laestadian preacher.'

She picked up her notes and leafed through them.

'He moved to Uppsala to study theology at the age of nineteen, joined the Rebel movement in the spring of nineteen sixty-eight and became a Maoist. Abandoned his studies and moved back to Norrbotten where he worked for the Church. He joined Maoist groups in Lulea under the codename Ragnwald, and seems to have lost his faith, because he arranged a civil marriage ceremony. One way or another he was involved in the attack on F21, even if the police don't believe that he actually carried it out. He disappeared from Sweden on the eighteenth of November nineteen sixty-nine and hasn't been seen since then. The wedding, which was supposed to take place on the twentieth of November in Lulea City Hall, just two days after the attack, was cancelled.'

Schyman nodded slowly. 'Then he went to Spain and became a professional killer for ETA,' he filled in, glancing at the newspaper spread out on one of the side tables.

Annika raised her hand, putting her feet down hard to find solid ground.

'It's F21 that's the interesting bit,' she said.

'I thought you said the police had discounted him, that he didn't carry out the attack?'

She swallowed silently, nodded.

'So who blew up the plane?' Anders Schyman said in a neutral tone of voice, his hands still.

She was silent for a few moments before she replied.

'Karina Bjornlund,' she said. 'The Minister for Culture.'

The editor-in-chief didn't move a muscle. His hands remained clasped above his shirt b.u.t.tons, his back stayed at the same angle, his eyes didn't move, but the air in the room had suddenly turned grey, difficult to breathe in.

'I presume,' Schyman said after a silence of indeterminate length, 'that you have b.l.o.o.d.y good back-up for this accusation.'

Annika tried to laugh, but the noise came out as a dry sn.i.g.g.e.r.

'Not really,' she said, 'but the minister really is the most likely culprit.'

Schyman leaned forward quickly, heaving himself out of the chair with the help of the desk and walked across the floor, not looking at Annika.

'I don't know that I want to listen to this,' he said.

Annika was halfway out of her chair to follow him, but felt the whole room lurch. She sank back and picked up her notes.

'The footprints found at the scene were size thirty-six,' she said. 'They must have been made by either a child or a small woman, and of those two alternatives an adult woman with small feet is most likely. Women hardly ever turn to terrorism unless it's together with their men. Ragnwald planned the attack, his fiancee carried it out.'

Schyman interrupted his restless wandering across the floor and turned to face her, hands by his sides.

'Fiancee?'

'They were due to get married, parish a.s.sistant Goran Nilsson from Sattajarvi and Karina Bjornlund from Karlsvik in the parish of Lower Lulea. I've checked all the Goran Nilssons and Karina Bjornlunds with their backgrounds against the historical information in the National Population Address Register, and they're the only two.'

'The terrorist and the culture minister?'

'The terrorist and the culture minister.'

'They were getting married two days after the attack?'

Annika nodded, watching her boss's unfeigned astonishment, and felt the ground slowly solidify beneath her again.

'How do you know that?'

'A wedding announcement in the Norrland News Norrland News published less than four weeks before the attack.' published less than four weeks before the attack.'

Anders Schyman folded his arms, rocked back on his heels and looked out of the large, dark window towards the Russian emba.s.sy.

'You're quite sure that Karina Bjornlund, in the autumn of nineteen sixty-nine, was planning to marry a man who ended up becoming a professional killer?'

She cleared her throat and nodded, and Schyman continued his reasoning. 'And our Minister of Culture would have destroyed the property of the state, murdered one conscript and wounded another, all for love?'

'I don't know that, but it seems logical,' Annika said.

The editor-in-chief went back to his chair and sat down carefully.

'How old was she?'

'Nineteen.'

'Was she living with this bloke?'

'She was still registered at her parents' address in Karlsvik.'

'What was her job?'

'In the wedding announcement it said she was a student.'

Anders Schyman picked up a pen and wrote something on the corner of a diagram.

'Do you know,' he said, looking up at Annika, 'this is the biggest load of c.r.a.p I've ever heard.'

He let the pen fall, the small sound of plastic on paper grew and echoed in the silence, the floor opened up beneath her and she was falling.

'I'm glad that you came to me with this information,' he went on. 'I hope you haven't mentioned this nonsense to anyone else?'

Annika felt the heat rising in her face, and her head was starting to spin.

'No,' she whispered.

'Not to Berit? Not Jansson?'

He studied her close-up for a few seconds, then straightened his back.

'Good.' He turned away. 'From now on you won't be covering terrorism at all. You will not spend a minute more on Karina Bjornlund or this b.l.o.o.d.y Ragnwald or any explosions in Lulea or anywhere else. Is that understood?'

She jerked back against her chair, away from his breath, which had come extremely close again.

'But isn't it at least worth carrying on and checking?' she said.

Anders Schyman looked at her with such incredulous astonishment that she felt her throat burning.

'That Sweden's most sought-after terrorist for more than three decades happens to be a teenage schoolgirl from a village in Norrbotten who lived with her mum and went on to become a minister in a Social Democratic government?'

Annika was breathing fast through her mouth.

'I haven't even spoken to the police-'

'So much the f.u.c.king better.'

'They must have questioned her, maybe there's an entirely innocent explanation-'

An angry signal from the intercom silenced her.

'Herman Wennergren is here now,' Schyman's secretary said over the crackling speaker.

The editor-in-chief took three long strides to the intercom and pressed the b.u.t.ton.

'Ask him to come in.'

He released the b.u.t.ton and glanced over at Annika with a look that condemned her to the underworld.

'I don't want to hear another word about this,' he said. 'Get out.'

Annika stood up, surprised that she hadn't collapsed completely. She grabbed her notebook with hands that didn't feel like they were her own, and aiming for the door at the end of a long tunnel, fumbled her way out.

30.

Anders Schyman watched the door close behind Annika Bengtzon, disappointment burning in his gut. So incredibly sad. Annika was so thorough, so ambitious. Now she had evidently lost her grip completely. Lost touch with reality and fled into some sort of fantasy world with terrorists in government and professional killers involved with local politicians in osthammar.

He had to sit down, and turned his chair so that he ended up looking at his own reflection in the dark gla.s.s, trying to make out the contours of the concrete buildings spread out below the Russian flag.

What were his responsibilities as her boss in a position like this? Should he tell human resources? Was Annika Bengtzon a danger to herself or anyone else?

He saw himself gulp as he sat there in his office chair.

He hadn't noticed any suicidal tendencies or signs of violence. The only thing he knew for sure was that her articles were no longer reliable, and that was something he was paid to deal with. Bengtzon needed to be managed much more strictly, both by him and by the other editors.

Sad, he thought again. There had been a time when she was very good at digging up stories.

The door flew open and Herman Wennergren strode into his room without knocking, as usual.

'It's a good idea to pick wars you can win,' the chairman of the board said through clenched teeth, dropping his briefcase on the sofa. 'Can I have some coffee?'

Anders Schyman leaned forward, pressed the b.u.t.ton on the intercom and asked his secretary to bring two cups. Then he got up and walked slowly, back straight, towards the sofas where Wennergren had sat down, still wearing his coat, unsure what this unannounced visit meant.