Red Wolf: A Novel (Volume 1) - Couverture souple

1
 
 
Annika Bengtzon stopped at the entrance to the newsroom, blinking against the sharp white neon lighting. The noise crashed against her: chattering printers, whirring scanners, the tapping of nails against keyboards; people feeding machines endlessly with text, images, letters and commands.
 
She took a few deep breaths and sailed out into the room. The only activity over by the newsdesk was of the entirely silent, focused variety. Spike, the boss, was reading some pages with his feet crossed on his desk. The temporary head of news was staring at his computer screen with red-eyed attention – Reuters and French AFP, Associated Press and TTA and TTB; domestic and foreign, sport and financial, news and telegrams from all over the world, an endless stream. The exultant shouting hadn’t yet started; no noisy enthusiasm or disappointment about stories that had either worked out well or caused a stir, no excited arguments favouring one particular journalistic approach over another.
 
She slid past them without looking, and without being seen.
 
Suddenly a noise, a challenge, a voice breaking the electronic babble: ‘So you’re off again?’
 
She started, took an involuntary step to one side, letting her gaze swing towards Spike, and was blinded by his desk lamp.
 
‘I hear you’re flying to Luleå this afternoon.’
 
She hit her thigh on the corner of the morning team’s desk as she tried to get to her own desk too quickly. She stopped, shut her eyes for a moment, felt her bag slide down her arm as she turned around.
 
‘Maybe. Why?’
 
But the editor had already moved on, leaving her adrift, caught between people’s stares and the hum of the newsroom. She licked her lips nervously and hoisted her bag back on to her shoulder, feeling their scepticism stick to the nylon of her quilted jacket.
 
She was almost there. The glass of her aquarium-like office came ever closer. Relieved, she slid open the door and fled inside. Easing the door shut behind her, she rested the back of her head against the cool glass. At least they had let her keep her own room. Stability and security were becoming more and more important, she knew that much, both for her personally and for society in general.
 
She dropped her bag and coat on the visitors’ couch and switched on the computer. News reporting felt increasingly distant, even though she was sitting right in the middle of its pulsing, electronic heart. Things that led the front page today were forgotten tomorrow. She no longer had the energy to keep up with AP’s ENPS, the news beast of the digital age.
 
She ran her fingers through her hair. Perhaps she was just tired. She sat patiently with her chin on her hands as all the programs loaded, then opened up her material. She thought it was looking pretty interesting already, but the suits in charge weren’t so enthusiastic.
 
She recalled Spike out there, his voice above the waves. She gathered together her notes and prepared her presentation.
 
 
The stairwell was dark. The boy closed the apartment door behind him, listening intently. The loose window on the stairs up to old Andersson’s apartment was whistling as usual. The old boy’s radio was on, but otherwise it was completely quiet.
 
You’re useless, he thought. There’s nothing here. Wimp.
 
He stood there for a few moments, then set off determinedly for the front door. A real warrior would never behave like that. He knew from his video games that the was almost a master; ‘Cruel Devil’ was about to become a Teslatron God. He knew what mattered: you must never hesitate in battle.
 
He pushed open the door, the same plaintive creak. The endless winter snow meant that it opened only a fraction – no one had cleared the steps that morning. He forced his way out, squeezing through the gap. His rucksack caught on the door handle, though, and the unexpected jerk almost made him cry out with annoyance. He tugged and pulled until one of the seams split, but he didn’t care.
 
He stumbled down the steps, waving his arms frantically to keep his balance. At the bottom, he peered through the falling snow above the fence, and stopped still.
 
The whole sky was illuminated with blue flashing lights. They’re here now, he thought, feeling his throat tighten. This is for real.
 
He set off, but stopped next to a broken lawnmower that was barely visible under the snow, feeling his heart hammering, faster and faster, thud, thud, thud, thud. He screwed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to see, didn’t dare go up and look. He stood there, his hair-gel stiffening in the cold, hard snowflakes landing on his nose, his ears pricking. Every sound was wrapped in the cotton-wool of the snow, the sound of the ironworks barely audible.
 
Then he heard voices, a car engine, maybe two. He opened his eyes as wide as he could, looking over the fence towards the football pitch.
 
Police, he thought. Not dangerous.
 
He waited until he had calmed down before creeping towards the road and leaning carefully forward. Two police cars and an ambulance, people with confident postures and broad shoulders, with belts and uniforms.
 
Weapons, the boy thought. Pistols. Bang, bang, you’re dead.
 
They were standing there talking, walking about and pointing. One man had a roll of tape that he was unwinding; a woman closed the back doors of the ambulance before getting into the passenger seat. He waited for the sirens, but they didn’t come. No point rushing to the hospital.
 
Because he’s already dead, the boy thought. There’s nothing I could have done.
 
The sound of a bus accelerating down the road grew louder. He watched the number one go past, annoyed that he had missed it. His mum got so angry if he was late.
 
He ought to hurry, he ought to run, but his legs refused to move. He couldn’t go onto the road. There might be cars. Gold-coloured cars.
 
He sank to his knees, his hands shaking, and started to cry, thinking what a wimp he was, but he couldn’t stop.
 
‘Mum,’ he whispered, ‘I didn’t want to see anything.’

The inspiration for the hit film series, Annika Bengtzon: Crime Reporter, now available on Netflix.

Beneath a dark winter sky. . .death waits patiently.

A journalist is murdered in the frozen white landscape of a northern Swedish town. Annika Bengtzon, a reporter at a Stockholm-based tabloid, was planning to interview him about a long-ago attack against an isolated air base nearby, and now she suspects that his death is linked to that attack.

Against the explicit orders of her boss, she begins to investigate the event, which is soon followed by a series of shocking murders. Annika knows the murders are connected. At the same time, she begins to suspect that her husband is hiding something, and nothing can counteract the loneliness that has crept into her life.

Behind everything lurks the figure of the Red Wolf, a cold-blooded killer with the soul of a lover. In the end, she must discover the truth not only about the murders but also about the lies that are destroying her own family.