Part 15 (1/2)

'Well, I have to say,' Sophia Grenborg said, standing next to him, 'you were really fantastic today.'

He looked up in surprise, aware that beads of sweat were breaking out on his forehead.

She didn't seem annoyed, in fact quite the reverse. Her eyes were beaming.

'Thanks,' he said.

'You really know how to present things and get the right decisions taken,' she said, taking another step towards him. 'You got everyone to go along with it, even Justice.'

He looked down in embarra.s.sment.

'It's an important project.'

'I know,' she said, 'and it shows that you think so. You really believe in what you're doing, and it feels so right to work with you on this . . .'

He took a deep breath, giddy with her perfume.

'Have a good weekend,' he said, picking up his briefcase and heading for the door.

18.

Annika dialled Inspector Suup's direct line, after nagging the receptionist to let her have the number, with a sense of foreboding in her stomach. The more she thought about it, the stranger he had seemed during their conversation that morning. Was he regretting letting her have the information about Ragnwald? Had he thought it would be in the next day's paper? Was he disappointed?

Her hands were damp with sweat as she listened to the phone ring.

'What's happened?' she asked him when he had picked up.

'Something really bad,' he said. 'Linus Gustafsson is dead.'

Her first reaction was relief: the name meant nothing to her. 'Who?'

'The witness,' Suup said, and the shutters went up in her brain, a blinding white light filled her head, guilt consuming all of her other turbulent thoughts. She heard herself gasp.

'How?'

'His throat was cut, at home in his bedroom. His mum found him in a pool of blood when she got home this morning.'

She was shaking her head violently. 'No, it can't be true,' she whispered.

'We believe that the killings are somehow connected, but we don't know how yet. The only common denominator so far is that the boy was a witness to the first murder. The methods are completely different.'

Annika sat, her right hand over her eyes, feeling the dead weight in her chest pounding, making it hard to breathe.

'Is this my fault?' she managed to say.

'What did you say?'

She cleared her throat. 'Linus told me that he thought he recognized the killer,' she said. 'Did he tell you who he thought it was?'

The inspector was no good at pretending. His surprise was genuine, and extreme. 'That's news to me,' he said. 'Are you sure?'

She forced herself to think logically and take her responsibility as a journalist.

'I promised him complete anonymity,' she mused out loud. 'Does that apply now that he's dead?'

'It doesn't matter any more. He came to us of his own accord, which releases you from your responsibility,' the police officer said, and Annika knew he was right. She breathed out.

'When I spoke to him he said that he might have recognized the murderer, but I didn't put it in my article. I didn't think it made sense to highlight that.'

'You were right not to,' the policeman said. 'It's a shame it wasn't enough.'

'Do you think he could have told anyone else?'

'We haven't asked, but I'll get on to it.'

The silence was oppressive; Annika felt the weight of her own conscience blocking their communication.

'I feel responsible,' she said.

'I can understand that,' the inspector said, 'but you shouldn't. Someone else is responsible for this, and we're going to get him. You can be sure of that.'

She rubbed her eyes, thinking hard.

'So what are you doing? Going door to door? Looking for fingerprints? Checking for footprints, cars, mopeds?'

'All that, and a whole lot more.'

'Talking to friends, teachers, neighbours?'

'To start with.'

Annika made some notes. Her body was shaking.

'Have you found anything?'

'We're going to be very careful with any information we get.'

Silence again.

'A leak,' Annika said. 'You think you've got a leak that revealed the boy's ident.i.ty.'

A deep sigh at the other end of the line. 'There are a few people who might have said something, including the boy himself. He never spoke to the ma.s.s media, but at least two of his friends knew he was the witness. His mum told her boss at work. Or what about you?'

'I haven't told anyone,' she said. 'I'm absolutely certain of that.'

There was silence again. She was an outsider, he didn't know much about her, what she was all about, a big city journalist who he may never meet again. Could she be responsible?