Part 28 (1/2)

He sat on the chair by the door and struggled to take off his shoes. His diaphragm was really hurting now, and bending down made him feel sick. He groaned and leaned back against the chair, shutting his eyes for a moment.

His other daughter, Barking Dog, had been noisy and difficult in the sixties, but so much could have happened. It would be interesting to meet her. Maybe it was she who really deserved her inheritance.

He went over to the wardrobe to check that the duffel bag was still there.

Thursday 19 November

32.

The front door clicked shut with a bang and silence spread through the apartment. Annika was alone again. She lay in bed with her head burrowed into the pillow and her knees drawn up to her chin, the duvet cover damp with anxiety. The angels were humming in the background, monotonous and powerless.

She had to get up today, at least to pick up the children. She wasn't ill often; Thomas wasn't used to being responsible for them, both dropping them off and picking them up as well as preparing food and reading to them and putting them to bed. It made him grouchy and irritable and made her feel guilty.

She snuggled deeper under the covers.

Things could be worse, she thought.

If the children got sick. If Thomas left her. If the paper was shut down. If war broke out in Iraq, all of that would be worse. This is nothing This is nothing.

But it was something. It was like a big hole where the foundation of her professional confidence had been.

She had trusted Schyman. Trusted his judgement.

Something had happened, either to him or to her. Maybe to both of them. Maybe it was because of the story; maybe it was too big for them.

Or maybe she really had gone mad in that tunnel. She knew that this was a real possibility.

Had she lost the ability to judge relevance and probability? Was she on the verge of losing her grip on reality?

She pulled the covers over her head and let the thought creep up on her. It stopped beside her, settling down on her pillow. She looked at it and realized that it really wasn't dangerous.

The story was what it was, and she was right. There was something there. Schyman may have been right before, but not this time.

She threw off the duvet and gasped for air. She hurried naked into the bathroom and brushed her teeth and showered, in rapid succession.

The apartment echoed desolately without Thomas and the children. She stopped in the doorway to the kitchen and looked at the mess they had left behind them from breakfast, without really acknowledging it. Instead she listened to the sound of silence, sounds she never appreciated when they were all home and she had another function apart from just being an individual. When she became part of something bigger than herself, the little, insignificant things didn't get through to her. In her role as Responsible Adult, only the most persistent cries reached her, like 'Food!' and 'Sticky Tape!' and 'Where's Tiger?'

Now she was just her own self, off sick, holed below the waterline, a used-up reporter who had pa.s.sed her sell-by date, and the nuances submerged her, making her listen in mute astonishment.

The fridge was rumbling, deep and steady, a half-tone lower than the ventilation unit on the roof of the next building. The smell of frying was creeping in from somewhere, a restaurant in the block heating up pans and griddles and preparing lunch of the day. The buses at the stop down on Hantverkargatan sighed and groaned, sirens from the fire engines stationed by Kron.o.berg Park rose and fell.

Suddenly the panic struck.

I can't bear it.

All the muscles in her body strained, sound and breathing vanished.

There's nothing wrong, she thought. It just feels like it. I'm not suffocating, but the opposite. I'm hyperventilating, it'll pa.s.s, just wait, calm down It just feels like it. I'm not suffocating, but the opposite. I'm hyperventilating, it'll pa.s.s, just wait, calm down.

And the floor came closer and pressed against her thighs and elbows until she ended up staring under the dishwasher.

He completely invalidated me as a person, she thought, a moment of clarity that brought back sound and colour. Schyman wasn't just seeing me as a reporter; he took away my honour and value as a person. He's never done that before. He must be under serious pressure from an unlikely desire to be accepted. I'm not accepted. He can't go into battle on my side right now, because it would cost too much Schyman wasn't just seeing me as a reporter; he took away my honour and value as a person. He's never done that before. He must be under serious pressure from an unlikely desire to be accepted. I'm not accepted. He can't go into battle on my side right now, because it would cost too much.

She got up, noticing that she had banged her knee. Her arms and feet ached, a sign that she had absorbed too much oxygen. Her panic attacks had disappeared for several years. She hadn't had any since the children were born, until the Bomber got her. Now they came at irregular intervals, with the same violence and terror as they had before.

I wonder if I need happy pills, she thought.

She knew that Anne Snapphane had a large bottle hidden in her bathroom cabinet.

But it's all my imagination, she thought. I'm scared of my own fear. It's all in my head. Drag these thoughts into the light and they'll vanish, let them out and look at them and they'll just disappear I'm scared of my own fear. It's all in my head. Drag these thoughts into the light and they'll vanish, let them out and look at them and they'll just disappear.

And she stood there with her hands on the dishwasher, feeling her body stabilize.

She knew she was right. There was a link between Ragnwald, the Minister of Culture, the attack on F21 and the deaths of the boy, the journalist and the councillor.

She had also clearly understood that she was not allowed to look into the story any more, under any circ.u.mstances.

I don't want to hear another word about this.

At work, no, she thought. But if I make a few calls when I'm off sick at home, then it doesn't count But if I make a few calls when I'm off sick at home, then it doesn't count.

So she went into the bedroom and got dressed, then went back into the kitchen and made coffee, without clearing the mess left by Thomas and the children, just pushed all the dirty crockery into a corner of the table and sat down with her mug of coffee, her pad of paper and a ballpoint pen from the a.s.sociation of Local Authorities.

She needed to know more about both the terrorist and the minister in order to see the bigger picture. She had the internet at home, but only via an old modem. Thomas had wanted to get broadband but she had refused, because he spent too much time on the computer already.

Check the church records, she wrote; backgrounds and parents.

Ask for the minister's public records, start with the post, then journeys, representations, declarations, property register, company register, and so on.

Read more about ETA and Laestadianism.

She looked at the short list.

That would be enough for today.

She picked up the phone and asked directory inquiries to put her through to the parish office in Sattajarv and discovered that there wasn't one. She asked for the numbers of all parish offices covered by the local code for Pajala, and, apart from Pajala itself, was given numbers for Junesuando and Tarendo.

Sattajarvi was covered by Pajala.

Goran Nilsson was born 2 October 1948, the only son of Toivo and Elina Nilsson. His mother's birthplace was given as Kexholm. The couple married 17 May 1946. Father died 1977, mother 1989.

She wrote all of this down and thanked them.

Kexholm?

She would have to go online after all.