Red Wolf_ A Novel Part 34

'Sophia Grenborg?' the man said, astonished. 'Is she supposed to have committed fraud?'

'I can't answer that,' Annika said apologetically. 'I was just wondering if you could keep me informed of the result of your investigation. Not that you should make public any costs that don't concern me, but please, just tell me if, or when, you decide to involve the police.'

The manager cleared his throat. 'Well, anything like that is a long way away at this point,' he said. 'Naturally, we shall have to begin by conducting a thorough internal investigation. We'll be contacting our auditors at once.'

Annika closed her eyes and swallowed. She wished the manager the best of luck and hung up. Then sat in silence wondering how long she ought to wait before the next call.

Not at all, she decided.

So she called the head of Economics & Devolution and started with hesitant questions about the Federation's policy regarding the involvement of employees in non-operating sham companies. When the man got angry and was on the point of hanging up she asked if they had investigated why Sophia Grenborg, one of their employees, had only been a.s.sessed for an income of 269,900 kronor for the previous calendar year.

The man was thoroughly taken aback.

She concluded with the question: 'The Federation of County Councils is funded by the tax-payers. Do you think it's acceptable for the Federation's employees to attempt to get out of paying tax?'

Naturally, he could only reply one way: 'Of course not.'

She promised to get back to him to find out how the internal investigation was progressing.

After that she got up, finding that the muscles in her legs were completely stiff, and she had cramp in the back of her thigh. The lump in her chest twisted and tore at her, its metallic sharpness had spread through her body and was threatening to paralyse her.

She slapped her legs with her fists until they obeyed her again, then heated up a mug of coffee in the microwave and made the third call, to the head of International Finance. She asked what the Federation thought of right-wing extremism among its employees. She had received information that one of their employees had previously been active in an extremist group, and that the employee's cousin had been convicted of incitement to racial hatred, and she was wondering how appropriate it was that this person was now involved in the project looking into threats, among them threats from the extreme right, against our political representatives.

The head of International Finance was unfortunately unable to comment on that at the moment, but he promised that the matter would be investigated and if she called him on Monday or Tuesday she could probably get some sort of comment.

Afterwards she slumped on the kitchen chair, feeling the floor sway, her head and limbs numb.

She had jumped.

Now she just had to land on her feet.

Sunday 22 November

39.

Thomas reached for the coffee-pot and found it was empty. He felt himself getting annoyed, his jaw clenching. He sighed quietly and glanced at his wife on the other side of the kitchen table. She was on her fourth mug, had drunk the whole pot, which he had made, before he had managed to get a single cup. She didn't notice his frustration, was deeply immersed in an essay by a professor of Islamic studies on the question of exactly who could be regarded as an Iraqi. She had pulled her hair into a messy knot on top of her head, idly brushing aside a stray lock that had fallen in front of her eyes. Her dressing gown was loosely tied; he could see her smooth skin beneath the towelling.

He looked away and stood up.

'Do you want more coffee?' he said sarcastically.

'No, not for me, thanks.'

She didn't look up, paid him no attention.

I may as well be part of the furniture, he thought. A means of her living comfortably and writing whatever d.a.m.n articles she feels like A means of her living comfortably and writing whatever d.a.m.n articles she feels like.

He composed himself and filled the little pan with more water. At home in Vaxholm they had always had an electric kettle, both at his parents' and during his marriage to Eleonor, but Annika thought that was unnecessary.

'Just another machine. We've got so little s.p.a.ce as it is. Besides, it's quicker to boil water on the gas stove than in a kettle.'

She was right about that, but that wasn't the point. The point was that his s.p.a.ce was shrinking. She took up so much b.l.o.o.d.y s.p.a.ce. The more she took, the less there was left over for him.

Before the business with the Bomber he hadn't seen it so clearly. Back then, everything happened slowly, his s.p.a.ce was stolen a piece at a time without him noticing. The children arrived and she got the editor's job and of course he did his bit, but then everything went back to normal while she was at home and could look after the apartment and the kids. And now he was suddenly expected to retreat to his little corner and hand over his life to her.

He looked at his wife as the pan of water began to bubble. Sharp and edgy, slight, with soft b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Vulnerable and fragile and hard as nails.

She must have felt him looking at her, because she looked up at him, confused. 'What?' she said.

He turned away. 'Nothing.'

'Right,' she said, picking up the paper and leaving the kitchen.

'Hang on,' he called after her. 'Mum rang and asked us to Sunday lunch. I said yes; hope that's okay?'

Why am I asking? he thought. Why am I apologizing for accepting an invitation to visit my own parents? Why am I apologizing for accepting an invitation to visit my own parents?

'What did you say?'

She walked sternly back into the kitchen, he turned and looked at her, standing there with the newspaper dragging on the floor.

'Twelve o'clock,' he said. 'Lunch in Vaxholm.'

She shook her head, steaming with disbelief. 'How can you say yes to something like that without even asking me?'

He turned back to the stove, pouring water into the cafetiere.

'You were on your mobile again; I didn't want to disturb you.'

'This is disturbing me more. I'm not going.'

He was seized by an overwhelming and unreasonable impulse to shake her until the knot of hair on the top of her head came loose and her teeth shook and the dressing gown slid from her shoulders.

Instead he closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing, addressing his reply to the ventilation unit. 'I'm not going to end up with the same c.r.a.p relationship with my parents that you've got with yours.'

He heard from the rustling of the newspaper that she'd left the kitchen.

'Okay,' she said expressionlessly from the hall. 'Take the children, but I'm not going.'

'Of course you're coming,' he said, still to the ventilation unit.

She came back into the kitchen. He looked at her over his shoulder; she was naked apart from her socks.

'And if I don't?' she said. 'Are you going to hit me over the head and drag me there by my hair?'

'Sounds good,' he said.

'I'm going to have a shower,' she said.

His eyes were drawn to her b.u.t.tocks as she walked back down the hall. Sophia was much more curvy, and her skin was pink. Annika's had a green tint; in the sun she quickly went a deep olive-colour.

She's an alien, Thomas thought. A little green woman from another planet, scratchy and shapeless and unreasonable A little green woman from another planet, scratchy and shapeless and unreasonable. Was it possible to live with an alien? He shook off the thought with a gulp. Why was he making everything so d.a.m.ned hard for himself? There was a way out. He had a choice. He could get back the life he missed, living with a soft and pink woman with humanity and apple hair who would welcome him into her attic apartment.

Good grief, he thought, what am I going to do? what am I going to do?

The next second the phone rang.

No, he thought. It's her. What's she ringing here for? I said she could never call here It's her. What's she ringing here for? I said she could never call here.

A second ring.

'Are you going to get that?' Annika called from the shower.

A third.

He grabbed the phone with throbbing temples, trying to find some saliva in his mouth.

'Thomas and Annika,' he heard himself say with a dry mouth.

'I have to talk to Annika.' It was Anne Snapphane. She sounded like she was suffocating, and he felt such a huge sense of relief that he could feel it in his b.a.l.l.s.

'Of course,' he said, breathing out. 'I'll get her.'

Annika climbed out of the bathtub, grabbed a towel and left a trail of wet footprints behind her as she walked to the phone. The sharp stone twisted and turned in her chest, the angels humming anxiously in the background. She avoided looking at Thomas as she pa.s.sed him and picked up the phone, his coolness made her keep her distance from his back.

'Have you read the paper this morning?' Anne Snapphane said, her voice hoa.r.s.e and tight.

'Have you got a hangover?' Annika said, pushing the cheese away to make a place on the kitchen table. Thomas sighed loudly and moved two millimetres to make s.p.a.ce for her.

'Like a b.i.t.c.h, but that doesn't matter. Bjornlund has shut down the channel.'

Annika pushed the bread away to make more room.

'What are you talking about?' she said.

'The Minister of Culture has just made me redundant. Says so in the paper.'

Thomas demonstratively turned ninety degrees away from her, his shoulders screaming out that he was actively distancing himself.

'What? I've just read it.'

'Top of the front page.'

Annika leaned forward and took hold of the first part of the paper as Thomas was reading it to peer at the front page. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it away in irritation.

'Hang on,' Annika said, 'can I just take a quick look? Bjornlund changes terms for digital broadcast rights Bjornlund changes terms for digital broadcast rights. And?'

'The board were told last night, they got the last plane from New York and landed half an hour ago. They've already announced that the launch is being postponed. There's an official board meeting at two thirty, and all our planning's going to be stopped and TV Scandinavia wound down. I'm going to end up as the arts reporter for Radio Sjuharad.'

'But we shouldn't think the worst,' Annika said, hitting Thomas on the knee to get more room. Why can't you become a satellite channel, or a cable channel?'

Anne started crying and the seriousness of the situation hit Annika, as well as guilt.

'Hang on, I'm going to change phones,' she said.

She put the receiver down and accidentally knocked Thomas as she jumped down from the table.

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l,' he said, crumpling the paper in his lap.

'Just carry on, I'm moving,' Annika said and skipped down the hall and into the bedroom with her towel round her, then dropped it on the floor. She crept under the covers and picked up the phone by the bed.

'There's got to be a solution somewhere,' was the first thing she said. 'What's the problem?'

Anne pulled herself together. 'I told you before,' she said grouchily, and Annika interrupted her.

'I know I haven't been a good listener. To me it's always seemed a bit technical, like if I started telling you about print timings and plate changes. Tell me again.'

She sat up among the pillows and Anne took a deep breath.

'The whole point of TV Scandinavia is, or was, to reach the whole of Scandinavia. That's twenty-five million potential viewers, roughly a tenth of the population of the USA. And to reach that many people you need to be available in every household in Sweden, and that means broadcasting from Teracom's transmitters. Advertisers in the American market aren't interested in target groups smaller than that.'

'Teracom?'

'The national broadcast network, it used to be part of the old nationalized Televerket but got turned into a profit-making public company instead, along with everything else.'

The angels were silent, completely beaten by Anne Snapphane's despair.

'And there are no other masts? You're not allowed to put up your own?'

'Are you joking? Teracom is heading for bankruptcy even though all the masts already exist.'

Annika relaxed and tried to think of a solution, happily grasping this distraction Anne had provided, and leaving Thomas and Sophia and the children and Vaxholm behind.

'But hardly anyone can watch digital television,' she said. 'You have to have one of those boxes, don't you? Is it really such a big deal?'

'In a couple of years digital television is all we'll have. The government proposition is the big deal. When the terrestrial digital network works with the same criteria as the rest of the business the world of satellite and cable then the market will explode.'

Ellen's excited yell penetrated the bedroom door a couple of seconds before the girl herself ran in, Kalle only a metre or so behind, growling in a deep voice and making claws with his fingers.

'Mummy, help! The tiger's after me!'