It was a colleague of his from the a.s.sociation of Local Authorities.

'I've got the brochures from the printers,' Sophia Grenborg said. 'I know you've gone home, but I'm guessing you want to see them straight away.'

It was like champagne corks going off in his brain.

'G.o.d, thanks so much for calling,' Thomas said. 'I'd love to see them. Can you courier a few home to me, Hantverkargatan?'

He went back to the kitchen and opened the window to air the room and get rid of the smell of fish.

'Aha,' Sophia said distractedly, as though she was writing something down. 'On Kungsholmen, isn't it?'

He told her the door-code so the courier could get in.

'They just rang from the department,' she went on, 'Cramne's wondering if we can bring forward the evening meeting and do it tomorrow instead.'

Thomas stopped, looking down into the back yard. He'd miss his tennis.

'Hmm,' he said. 'My wife's away, back tomorrow afternoon. Next Monday would be much better.'

'He was pretty insistent that Monday didn't work for him,' Sophia said. 'Do you want us to go ahead without you?'

The thought of being left out made him speechless at first, then offended.

'No,' he said quickly, 'no, that's all right. Annika should be back soon after five, so seven o'clock will be fine . . .'

'Okay, I'll pa.s.s that on. See you tomorrow evening . . .'

He sat down, still clutching the mobile, the humming sound of the ventilator in the back yard filtering gently through the gap in the window.

The department, again. This new project was a real stroke of luck. After the investigation into the question of regional representation, which had been a huge success, he had pretty much been able to take his pick among the new jobs at the a.s.sociation. It had been Annika who had suggested he look into threats to politicians. There had been other, more prestigious areas that he could have taken over, but she had seen the bigger picture.

'You want to move on,' she had said in her usual unsentimental way. 'Why p.i.s.s about with some pretentious project at the a.s.sociation if you've got a chance to make a load of good contacts in the wider world?'

So he had opted for social openness and access to politicians, and the threat inherent in this.

There was a cold draught around his feet. He got up and closed the window.

The reason behind the project was a survey that had shown one in four local authority heads and one in five committee chairs had suffered either violence or the threat of violence in the course of their political activity. The threats were mostly made by individuals, but threats from racist or xenophobic groups were also relatively common. The results of the survey led to the formation of a high-powered group to investigate threats and violence aimed at politicians.

He sat down heavily on his chair, thought about picking up the paper again but decided against it.

The project had no great status within the a.s.sociation, and several eyebrows had been raised when he'd chosen that one. The task of the group was to promote an open and democratic society and to come up with suggestions for how elected representatives should behave in threatening situations. Amongst other things, they were supposed to develop a training course, and hold regional conferences in a.s.sociation with the Office for Integration and the Committee for Living History.

He and Sophia from the Federation of County Councils were the convenors, and even though the project had only been running for a couple of months he knew he had made the right choice. The support they had received from the Justice Ministry so far had been fantastic. His dream of getting a government job before he was forty no longer seemed impossible.

Suddenly his mobile started to vibrate in his hand again. He answered before it had time to ring.

'You ought to be here,' Annika said. 'I'm driving past the West Checkpoint of the steelworks in Svartostaden outside Lulea, and it's so beautiful. I'm opening the window now, can you hear the noise?'

Thomas leaned back and closed his eyes, hearing nothing but the noise of a bad line established by a Swedish-American capitalist.

'The steelworks?' he said. 'I thought you were going to the airbase?'

'Yep, I've been there, but I met a young lad who-'

'But you'll make it okay?'

'Make what?'

He had no answer. In the gap between them he really could hear the noise in the background, some sort of low rumbling. He felt the distance between them like a dead weight.

'I miss you,' he said quietly.

'What did you say?' she yelled above the noise.

He took a quick, silent breath.

'How are you, Annika?' he asked.

'Really good,' she replied, too quickly and too firmly. 'Have you eaten?'

'It's in the oven.'

'Why don't you do it in the microwave? I put them-'

'I know,' he interrupted. 'Can I call you later? I'm in the middle of things here right now . . .'

Then he was sitting there again holding his mobile, feeling an irrational anxiety that threatened to turn into anger.

He didn't like Annika going away, it was as simple as that. She didn't deal with it well. But when he raised the subject with her she became cold and dismissive. He wanted her here beside him so he could make sure everything was all right, that she was safe and happy.

After that terrible Christmas, once the worst of the attention had died down, everything had seemed pretty good. Annika had been quiet and pale, but okay. She'd spent a lot of time playing with the children, singing and dancing with them, cutting and gluing. She'd spent a lot of time on the new residents' a.s.sociation, and on a small extension to the kitchen that they could have done now that they'd bought the freehold on the flat. The thought of the bargain they had got, buying the flat for less than half the market price, made her childishly excited, but then she had always been broke. He had tried to regard the purchase more soberly, aware that money came and went. Annika never let him forget that he'd lost his last savings on shares.

He glanced at the oven, wondering if the food was hot yet, but made no move to take it out.

When Annika started work again she seemed to slip out of reach more and more, becoming distant, unknown. She would stop in the middle of a conversation, her mouth open, eyes staring in horror. If he asked what was wrong she would look at him like she'd never seen him before. It gave him gooseb.u.mps.

'Daddy, I can't get the computer to work.'

'Try turning it off and on again, then I'll come and look.'

Suddenly he felt quite powerless. He glanced one last time at the paper, realizing that another day of journalistic effort was about to go straight in the recycling. With limbs heavy as lead he lay the table, threw the children's dirty overalls in the washing machine, made a salad and showed Kalle how to restart the computer.

Just as they were sitting down to eat, the courier arrived with the brochures they were going to discuss and evaluate the following evening.

While the children chattered and made a mess he read through the advice on how threatened politicians should behave. All the way through, and then once more.

Then he thought about Sophia.

10.

Annika switched off the car engine outside the darkened door of the Norrland News Norrland News. The yellow streetlamps threw an oblique light on the dashboard.

The time she had spent at home had given Thomas s.p.a.ce which he had soon made his own. In three months he had got used to total service from her, with the children as accessories; his evenings free for tennis and work meetings, weekends for hunting and hockey trips. Since she had started work again, she was still doing most of the work at home. He criticized her for working, under the pretext that she needed to rest.

In fact, he just wanted to avoid heating up the meals she had prepared, she thought, surprised at how angry the idea made her.

She threw open the car door, picked up her bag and laptop and stepped onto the snowy street.

'Pekkari?' she said over the intercom. 'It's Bengtzon. There's something I have to talk to you about.'

She was let in, and felt her way through the dark entrance hall. The night editor met her at the top of the stairs.

'What's this about?'

She recoiled from the smell of stale alcohol on his breath, but stood as close as she could and said quietly, 'Benny may have come across something he shouldn't have.'

The man's eyes opened wide, the broken veins evidence of genuine sorrow.

'F21?'

She shrugged. 'Not sure yet. I need to check with Suup.'

'He always goes home at five sharp.'

'He isn't dead as well, is he?' Annika said.

She was shown to the letters-page editor's room, where she cleared away the neat piles of angry handwritten correspondence on the desk and unpacked her laptop. She switched it on as she called the police station; Inspector Suup had indeed left at precisely 17.00.

'What's his first name?' Annika asked.

The duty officer sounded surprised by his own reply: 'I don't actually know.'

She heard him call, 'Hey, what's Suup's name, apart from Suup?' Muttering, the sc.r.a.ping of chairs.

'He's down as L.G. on the files.'

She called directory inquiries from the phone on the desk, only to find that the number was blocked. It had been the same on the Katrineholm Post Katrineholm Post, too, a subscription to a number service had been too expensive. She pulled the plug out of the back of the phone and connected her laptop instead, changing the settings to get a connection, then went in on the Evening Post Evening Post's server.

On Telia's website she discovered there was no Suup with the initials L.G. in the phonebook for Lulea, Pitea, Boden, Kalix or alvsbyn. He could hardly commute further than that each day, she reasoned. Instead she went into the national census results, which, thank G.o.d, were now online. There was a Suup, Lars-Gunnar, born 1941, on Kronvagen in Lulea. Back to Telia again, Kronvagen in the address box, and voila voila! A Suup had two lines at number 19. She signed out, unplugged the lead and put it back in the phone.

No sooner had she done that than her mobile rang, and she put a hand to her forehead.

'I'm so f.u.c.ked up,' she said to Anne Snapphane. 'Why on earth don't I call from this phone instead?'

'Que?' Anne said.

The noises behind her suggested alcohol and minimalist decor.

'Where are you?' Annika asked.

The line crackled and hissed.

'What?' Anne said. 'h.e.l.lo? Are you in the middle of something?'

Annika spoke slowly and clearly. 'I've uncovered the murder of a reporter. Call me at midnight if you're still awake.'

She hung up and called the first of Suup's numbers, but reached a fax machine. She called the second and heard the theme-music of the evening news.

'So you're the sort of person who disturbs people at home?' Inspector Suup said, not sounding particularly upset.

Like Benny Ekland, Annika thought, shutting her eyes as she asked: 'That Volvo you found in Malmhamnen, was it a V70? Gold?'

The newsreader's reliable tones filled the line for a few seconds, then the volume of the television was abruptly turned down.

'Okay, you've got me really curious now,' the inspector said.

'There's no leak,' Annika said. 'I spoke to a potential witness. Is the information correct?'

'I can't comment on that.'

'Off the record?'

'Can I switch phones?'

He hung up. Annika waited for an eternity before he picked up again, this time with no television in the back-ground.

'You might have got the duty officer to read out the details of cars stolen from Bergnaset on Sat.u.r.day night,' he said.

'So it's correct, then?'

His silence was all the confirmation she needed.

'Now I'd like you you to tell to tell me me something,' he said. something,' he said.

She hesitated, but only for the sake of it. Without the inspector she didn't have a story.

'I spoke to someone,' she said, 'who says they saw Benny Ekland get run down on Skeppargatan in Svartostaden. There was a gold-coloured Volvo V70 parked in the entrance to the football pitch, the front facing the road, with a man at the wheel. When Benny Ekland stumbled past the engine started, the car pulled out and drove at Ekland at full speed. My witness says Ekland tried to get out of the way, running from one side of the road to the other, but the car followed him. The collision happened more or less in the middle of the road.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l,' the inspector muttered.

'It gets worse,' Annika said. 'Ekland hit the car twice, and was thrown into the air, landing in the middle of the road. The car stopped, reversed and drove over him again, and then over his head. After driving over his skull the driver stopped definitely a man got out of the car and dragged the body up the slope towards the football pitch. There he wiped down the body somehow, then drove off towards what's it called? Sjofartsgatan, down towards LKAB's ore terminal. What was the damage to the car?'