Last Will Read Free Page B

into an indeterminate future, their impending nervous breakdowns on hold.
    “Have the police said anything?” Anders Schyman asked. “Terrorism, extremists, any suggestion of a threat?”
    “They’ve announced a press conference, but not until 1:00 AM …”
    Someone shouted in the background and Jansson disappeared for a moment.
    “Well,” he said when he came back on the line, “things are pretty hectic here. I need some quick decisions: how many extra pages can we add? Can we hold back some of the ads? And who do you think we should get in to do the lead article?”
    The darkness hung heavily outside the editor in chief’s living room; he could see his own reflection in the glass and heard his wife running a tap out in the kitchen.
    I’m starting to get old, he thought. I’d rather spend the evening with Antonio Banderas and Carmen Maura.
    “I’m on my way,” the editor in chief said.
    Jansson hung up without replying.
    His wife was standing by the counter making a cup of tea; she turned around and kissed him when she felt his hands on her shoulders.
    “Who’s been killed?” she asked.
    “Don’t know,” he whispered.
    “Wake me up when you get home,” she said.
    He nodded, his lips touching the back of her neck.
    The Kitten changed to a higher gear and accelerated cautiously. The little motorbike growled encouragingly, its headlight playing over the graveled tarmac of the path.
    This really was too damn easy.
    She knew that any sense of superiority wasn’t good, it increased the risk of carelessness.
    But in this case there were no more difficulties. The rest was just a walk in the park.
    The job itself had been presented to her as a challenge, and that was what had interested her. After an initial check she had realized how simple it would be, but that wasn’t something she had any intention of revealing to her employer. Negotiations had taken place with the understandingthat the job was extremely dangerous and difficult, which had obviously had a decisive effect on the size of her fee.
    Ah well, she thought. You wanted it to be spectacular. Okay, hope you like it.
    She swung into a narrow bikeway. A branch struck her helmet; it was black as the grave. Stockholm was usually described as a major city, a metropolis with glittering nightlife and a functioning security service, which was a laughable exaggeration. Everything outside the city center itself seemed to consist of scrappy patches of woodland. There was a chance that the couple with the dog had seen her and her wingman head off in different directions on their bikes, but since then she hadn’t seen a single person.
    A major city, she thought scornfully, as she rode past a deserted campsite.
    She rolled her shoulders; she was still freezing. Her thick jacket couldn’t really thaw her out, and the boat trip in her evening gown had practically frozen her.
    Well, now that wretched silk outfit was at the bottom of the lake together with her bag and eight bricks. The sack was made of netting, so the water would rinse through the material, and any biological evidence would be washed away in a few hours. She still had the gun, as well as the one shoe and the cell phone. She was planning to get rid of those somewhere in the middle of the Baltic.
    The thought of the other shoe preyed on her mind.
    It had her fingerprints on it, she was sure of that. The shoes had been clean of evidence when she set out on the job, but before that last sprint she had taken it off, held it in her hand.
    God knows where she’d dropped it.
    There was light ahead of her and she realized she had reached the only inhabited road along the whole of the shore. She forced that damn shoe out of her mind, changed down a gear and turned off the path and up onto the road. Streetlights shone among the tightly packed houses. She let the motorbike roll down the slope, following the shoreline. A few youngsters were hanging about by a jetty; they glanced idly at her, then went on