Part 14 (1/2)

'Get out!' Her voice was cracking with rage.

Their daughter appeared in the doorway, looking from one to the other in surprise. 'Are you angry?' she said, a half-eaten m.u.f.fin in her hand.

Mehmet stood up, strong and lithe as a hunter. He went over to the child and kissed her hair.

'See you next Friday, darling.'

'Why is Mummy sad? Have you been horrid to her?'

Anne shut her eyes and heard his steps disappear down the stairs. She waited until the front door had closed before running to the window to watch him go. He walked to the car without looking up, taking out his mobile from his inside pocket and dialling a number. To her, Anne knew. He was calling his fiancee to tell her what had happened, that it was done, that it had been unpleasant, that she had got upset and aggressive. I don't think she'll let Miranda go without a fight.

17.

Berit Hamrin knocked on her gla.s.s door, opening it a crack and sticking her head in.

'Hungry?'

Annika let her hands drop from the keyboard, and thought for a moment out of duty.

'Not really.'

Berit opened the door wider and came into the room.

'You need to eat,' she said firmly. 'G.o.d, the state in here how can you work in this mess? You do have somewhere to hang your things, you know.' Berit hung up Annika's outdoor clothes. 'It's lasagne in the cafeteria today, I've already asked for two portions.'

Annika logged out of the system so that no one got the idea of reading her notes or sending false emails from her account.

'What are you up to today?' she asked, attempting to distract her colleague from the chaos she had surrounded herself with.

Berit was on temporary secondment from the crime section to the political team ahead of the impending EU elections.

'Oh, writing up the latest p.i.s.sing contest,' she said with a sigh. 'Nothing's happening, but people are taking up positions, talking across party boundaries, looking for differences of opinion where there aren't any.'

Annika laughed, following Berit out into the main office.

'I can see the headline: The secret EU game, and a low-resolution shot of lights in the window of a government building.'

'You've been working here too long,' Berit said.

Annika shut the door behind her and headed off towards the canteen. As she followed Berit, the world seemed manageable, safe, the floor stable, no need for any doubts.

The cafeteria was half-empty, the lighting subdued. Most of the light came from the row of windows at the far end of the room. No faces were visible, just dark silhouettes.

They sat at a table overlooking the car park with their steaming plates of microwaved lasagne.

'What are you working on?' Berit said, once she'd got to the bottom of the plastic dish.

Annika sliced suspiciously at the layers of pasta.

'That journalist's murder,' she said, 'and the attack on a plane at F21. The police have a suspect, have had for years.'

Berit raised her eyebrows, catching a piece of meat that was trying to escape from the corner of her mouth, and waved her fork in the air encouragingly.

'His name's Ragnwald, someone who fled the Torne Valley for the south, came back and became a terrorist, then went to Spain and joined ETA.'

Berit looked sceptical. 'And when is this supposed to have happened?'

Annika leaned back and folded her arms. 'End of the sixties, early seventies.'

'Hmm,' Berit said. 'The delightful age of revolution. There were a lot of people who thought they could liberate the ma.s.ses through terrorism, and not just in our circle.'

'Which one was your circle?'

'The Vietnam Bulletin,' Berit said, sc.r.a.ping at the oil at the bottom of the dish. 'That's how I got started as a journalist; I must have told you?'

Annika checked quickly in her failing memory.

'Which circles wanted terrorism, then?'

Berit was staring at Annika's half-eaten dish. 'Are you done with that?'

Annika nodded. Berit sighed, put down her knife and fork.

'I'll get coffee,' she said, and stood up.

Annika stayed where she was, watching her colleague queue up, her short hair sticking out at the back, radiating patience. She smiled as Berit came gliding back with two cups of coffee and some biscuits.

'Now you're spoiling me,' Annika said.

'Tell me about your terrorist,' Berit said.

'Tell me about the sixties,' Annika countered.

Berit put the cups carefully on the table and looked sharply at Annika.

'Okay,' she said as she sat down and stirred two lumps of sugar into her coffee. 'It was like this. In nineteen sixty-three there was the official break between the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Chinese Communist Party. The split affected every communist movement around the world, including ours. The Swedish Communist Party split into three groups.'

She waved her left index finger.

'The right-wing group,' she said, 'led by C-H Hermansson. They distanced themselves from both the Stalinists and the Maoists, and ended up with a sort of old-fas.h.i.+oned revisionism that we may as well call Social Democracy. They're today's Left Party, with almost ten per cent of our parliamentary seats.'

Berit took a sip of coffee, then raised her middle finger.

'Then there was the centre,' she said, 'led by the chief editor of Northern Lights Northern Lights, Alf Lowenborg, who lined up on the Soviet side.'

She changed fingers.