their job last winter, something like that?”
Another long shot, based on something Security Mia had said. People have lost their job for less. But Julia could tell from the evasive look in the young woman’s eyes that she’d guessed right.
She leaned over the counter and held out her police ID. She saw the woman’s eyes open wide.
“It’s vital that we talk to that person, right away.”
* * *
The man looking out from the gap in the door was wearing underpants, a T-shirt, and a grubby dressing gown, even though it was late afternoon. His eyes were red and a cloying, burned smell that Julia recognized all too well drifted out across the crooked front steps. She cautiously took hold of the door handle from the outside.
“Eskil Svensson?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Food delivery from Isa in the kiosk.” She held up the plastic bag and let it dangle from her forefinger. The smell from it made her stomach rumble.
The man in the robe seemed just as hungry as she was. He reached out one hand for the bag without letting go of the door with the other.
At that moment Julia tugged the door toward her, which made the man lose his balance and tumble out onto the porch, where he landed at their feet. Before he had time to react, she put one knee against the back of his neck and twisted his arm behind his back. Then she winked at Amante.
“Police,” he said, sounding rather breathless. “We’d like to ask you some questions.”
“The girls are watching television. I was thinking of going for a run round the Altorp track. I’ll be gone an hour at the most. Then I thought we could have a nice, cozy evening together.”
Stenberg’s wife came into his study with a cup of coffee in her hand. She put it down at a safe distance from the keyboard, leaned over, and kissed him on the head.
“You look tired.” She ran her hand through his hair, forcing him to look up from the screen. “Is it anything in particular? Anything you want to talk about?”
“No,” Stenberg muttered. “Just a lot going on.”
“Is the prosecutor general causing trouble again?”
He nodded absentmindedly and looked at the screen again.
“The prime minister trusts you, Jesper, now more than ever. The fact is that the whole party trusts you, so you can’t let little things like that get in your way. We need a modernized justice system; we’ve needed one for ages. Otherwise people will gradually lose faith in the system. The contract between citizens and the state, all the things we discussed ad infinitum at law school. You already had a vision back then, a conviction that made people take notice of you. It made me notice you.”
“I know, darling. But trying to reform state institutions is a constant uphill struggle: various government and other entities everywhere having their say on things, with everyone terrified of losing influence.”
“What about Wallin? Can’t you let him do some of the heavy lifting?”
Stenberg felt his jaw tighten. Even here at home in his study, his inner sanctum, Wallin cast his baleful shadow.
Karolina raised her eyebrows. “Is it Wallin who’s the problem?”
Damn. She knew him far too well. Noticed the slightest change in his expression. She could even hear things he didn’t say. Keeping his affair with Sophie Thorning secret all those years had taken all his willpower and concentration. Yet he knew he probably wouldn’t have been able to lie if Karolina had confronted him, if she’d asked straight out if he was being unfaithful and looked at him the way she was right now. Fortunately she never had.
He filled his lungs, then slowly breathed out through his mouth.
“What’s this all about?” Her tone of voice was perfect, a fitting combination of concern and empathy. Karolina would have been a brilliant lawyer, but instead she had put his career ahead of her own. Taken on the role of supportive wife and mother to his children. Her grandfather had been foreign minister; her father, Karl-Erik, was a member of the party’s inner circle. She had opened doors for him that he could never even have dreamed of. And how had he thanked her? With betrayal, lies, and infidelity.
For a couple of moments the feeling he had had last winter was back, the conviction that he ought to tell her everything. Beg for her forgiveness. But he couldn’t ask that of her. It wasn’t Karolina’s responsibility to lighten his burden.
“Oscar Wallin …” He took a sip of his coffee to make what he was thinking of saying sound less loaded. “He’s very ambitious. You saw him with John Thorning. Wallin is forming new alliances, and, to be honest, I’ve started to have doubts about his loyalty.”
Karolina leaned against the edge of the desk.
“Wallin couldn’t be national police chief. We agreed on that. You, me, and Daddy. Appointing Eva Swensk gained you support within the party, support you’re going to need in the future. We’re going to need …”
She paused and stroked his hair again. He liked her hands, even though she herself didn’t. Those long, strong fingers. The hands of a person who could be practically anything she wanted to be.
“Right now it’s more important than ever to think strategically. You have to see things in a longer perspective, not just focus on the present. If you’re convinced that the goal is the right one, you mustn’t hesitate to make unpalatable decisions. Keep your eye on the prize.”
He shut his eyes. He’d seen this trick before and was starting to get a bit tired of it. Karolina’s lips were moving, but the voice coming out of her mouth belonged to someone else.
“If we win the election, the prime minister will probably step down at the next party conference. Go out at the top. And if we lose …”
She pulled out a chair and sat down next to him.
“If we lose, he’ll have to accept the consequences and resign at once. Either way, the party will be looking for a younger, more energetic successor. Someone whom can reform politics the way he’s reforming the justice system.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Stenberg said, but more and more often these days he wasn’t sure whom he was replying to: Karolina, or her father.
* * *
Julia Gabrielsson held up the little plastic bag of marijuana she’d found on Eskil Svensson’s coffee table. Waved it slowly in front of his pallid face.
“So, to sum up: a mysterious man calling himself Frank contacted you early in February and paid you to take messages to and from Sarac inside the home, and then a bit more for helping Sarac escape. But that’s as much as you know.”
Eskil was sitting on the sofa between her and Amante,
