Without a Trace Read Free Page B

Parliament, I mean.’
    ‘Something to do with tax,’ Annika said. ‘One of his companies, I think.’ She gestured towards some unmarked cars inside the cordon. ‘National Crime?’
    ‘I think so,’ the reporter said.
    Annika looked up at the house again. Another floodlight was switched on upstairs, and the acid bluish-white light made the dampness outside the window seem to crackle. ‘If National Crime are here, things must be pretty terrible inside,’ she said.
    ‘Unless the Nacka Police are just covering their backs,’ Insect Man said.
    Recent graduates weren’t stupid these days, she thought.
    ‘Annika Bengtzon,’ a voice said behind her.
    Her heart sank. ‘Hello, Bosse,’ she said. She couldn’t understand why she’d once found the idiot attractive.
    ‘Changing the world at this time in the morning?’
    She could either ignore him, which would amount to a declaration of war, or talk to him – he really wasn’t worth getting upset about. She turned and smiled. ‘It’s all food on the table, Bosse. We can’t all live off the dividends from our investments.’
    Bosse was fond of holding court at the Press Club, where he would bang on about his risky investments, often made with borrowed money. But the joys of hunting in the stock-market jungle were seldom long-lived. Now his smile became rather more strained. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘here you are, still trudging about in the mud with the rest of us mere mortals.’
    Annika raised her eyebrows quizzically.
    ‘You should be sitting in some state-owned palace in Norrköping, shouldn’t you, now that Jimmy Halenius – your new boyfriend – is about to take charge of the Migration Authority?’ Bosse went on.
    Annika had heard Jimmy had been offered the post. She sighed theatrically. ‘Bosse,’ she said, ‘you disappoint me. I thought you were a man with his eye on the ball.’
    ‘Something’s happening up there,’ the radio reporter said.
    Annika pulled out the video-camera and focused on the house. A group of police officers, two in uniform and three in plain clothes, were standing on the porch steps. One of the detectives was a young woman, broad shoulders, slim legs and a long, poker-straight brown ponytail. Annika’s breath caught – could it be …?
    ‘That’s Nina Hoffman,’ Bosse said, nodding at the woman. ‘She was involved in the David Lindholm murder case. I thought she’d been pensioned off.’
    The two reporters went on talking, but Annika didn’t hear what they said. Nina Hoffman had lost weight since she and Annika had last met. Now she was pulling off pale blue plastic bootees and walking towards one of the unmarked police cars, ignoring the media.
    The officers on the steps were still talking, and one of the detectives was gesticulating wildly. Then he headed towards the reporters. He stopped a metre or so from the cordon and Annika aimed her camera at him as, beside her, the radio reporter held out his microphone.
    ‘Well, I can confirm that Ingemar Lerberg was found unconscious in the property behind me,’ the police officer said. ‘We have decided to make this information public, even though some of his family have not yet been informed.’
    ‘Who hasn’t been informed?’ a woman from the local television station shouted.
    The policeman ignored her. A trickle of rainwater ran down his forehead. ‘Ingemar Lerberg has been taken to Södermalm Hospital, where he is currently being operated on. We’ve been told that the outcome is uncertain.’
    ‘Who made the emergency call?’ The television journalist again.
    The policeman rocked on his heels. ‘A full investigation is now under way,’ he said. ‘The chief prosecutor in Nacka, Diana Rosenberg, has been appointed head of the preliminary stages. We will issue further information when—’
    ‘Who made the call?’ The woman wasn’t about to give up.
    ‘It was an anonymous tip-off,’ the police officer said.
    ‘Man or woman?’
    ‘I can’t answer