The Long Shadow Read Online Free Page A

would have thought she’d been cut off.
    ‘Does he know anything?’ Berit asked.
    Annika shook her head.
    ‘Killed by gas in a break-in?’ he said, and the traffic noise behind him changed. ‘Can I call you back?’
    Annika gave him her numbers. ‘What do you make of it?’ she said, once she’d hung up.
    Berit bit into an apple. She seemed to have given up on the coffee. ‘Crime on the Costa del Sol or this latest reorganization?’
    ‘The reorganization.’
    Berit put on her reading glasses and leaned towards the computer screen. ‘You just have to make the best of things,’ she said. ‘If someone else is responsible for my work, I get more time for the stuff I really want to do.’
    ‘Such as? Your own articles? Gardening? Deep-sea diving?’
    ‘I write songs,’ Berit said, and concentrated on the screen.
    Annika stared at her. ‘What sort of songs? Pop songs?’
    ‘Sometimes. Once we sent in an entry to the Eurovision Song Contest.’
    ‘You’re kidding. You made it to the
green room
? What was it like?’
    ‘The song didn’t get very far. The last I heard, it had been picked up by a local group in Kramfors who play it at gigs around south-east Ångermanland. Have you read Lilian Bergqvist’s report to the Court of Appeal?’
    ‘I haven’t had time. What’s it called?’
    ‘“Application for Judicial Review in the Case—”’
    ‘The song.’
    Berit took off her glasses. ‘“Absolutely Me”,’ she said. ‘One of the lines is the ground-breakingly innovative “To be or not to be”. Now, I’ve spent thirty-two years working on this paper, and if I’m lucky it’ll stay afloat for another ten. By then I’ll be sixty-five, and ready toretire. I like finding things out, writing articles, but I don’t really care who gives me the jobs or which desk I sit at.’ She looked at Annika intently. ‘Does that make me sound bitter?’
    Annika took a deep breath. ‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘I feel exactly the same. Not that I can retire any time soon, but we’ve changed direction so many times that I don’t even feel travel-sick any more. “To be or not to be”. What about the rest?’
    ‘“No more crying, no self-denying”,’ Berit said, putting her glasses back on and turning to the computer again. ‘What do you make of Filip Andersson’s chance of a pardon?’
    ‘The fact that it’s the attorney general herself requesting the judicial review adds weight to it,’ Annika said. She went onto the attorney general’s website and clicked through to the request.
    ‘You met him in Kumla Prison a few months ago, didn’t you?’ Berit said. ‘Do you think he’s innocent?’
    Annika glanced through the report. Reading about these murders always unsettled her. She had been in the patrol car that had been first on the scene that evening, and had wandered blithely among the victims. Then, last autumn she had come across Filip Andersson’s name several times when she’d been digging into the case of the murdered celebrity police officer, David Lindholm. Filip Andersson had been a reasonably successful financier, famous for his appearances in gossip magazines until he became known throughout Sweden as ‘the Södermalm Axe Murderer’. He had been a close friend of David Lindholm.
    ‘Those people were killed by Filip’s lunatic sister,’ Annika said. She shut the website. ‘How well do you know Rickard Marmén?’
    ‘I wouldn’t say I know him well,’ Berit said. ‘Mybrother-in-law, Harald – Thord goes fishing with him sometimes – has had a flat in Fuengirola since the late seventies. When the children were small we used to borrow it for a week every summer. Rickard’s the sort of guy you bump into sooner or later if you spend any time down there. I’m not so sure that Filip Andersson
is
innocent.’
    ‘He’s a fairly unpleasant character,’ Annika said, typing
Swedes Spain Costa del Sol
into Google. She clicked a link and found herself at www.costadelsol.nu. A moment