should take a look at your finances. We could reach a point where you need to pay a ransom. Have you got any money?’
The insurance money from the villa in Djursholm, she thought.
It had finally been paid out almost two years after the fire, almost six million kronor in an account with Handelsbanken, something like a million dollars. She had two hundred thousand or so in another account, which she had saved while they were in the USA.
‘They won’t get in touch again until tomorrow evening at the earliest. But, if it’s okay, I’ll come over as soon as I wake up. There’s a lot of preparatory work to get done.’
‘Haven’t you got a job to do?’ she asked.
‘Yep,’ he said. ‘And that’s exactly what I’m doing.’
The hanger rattled as he pulled his coat off it. She got up from the sofa on legs of lead and stood in the hall doorway. He looked tired. His hair was thinner than she remembered.
‘What sort of preparatory work?’
He scratched his head, making his brown hair stand on end. ‘That depends on what you want to do, whether you do the rest yourself or need help from us.’
A flash of panic ran through her. ‘Not myself,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘We need to set up a command centre, where we can keep our equipment and notes.’
‘Would the bedroom work?’
‘We need to start a log covering everything that happens. Agree on our respective roles. I’d suggest that I handle the negotiations and you deal with the logistics. Your job will be to make sure that the equipment works, that we’ve got food and coffee, that our mobiles are charged. Is that okay?’
So, she was moving from kidnap negotiator to coffee maker in 0.2 seconds.
‘If your landline rings while I’m not here, make sure to start recording before you answer,’ he said. ‘If it’s them, don’t say you’re Thomas’s wife. Tell them you’re the child-minder and that everyone else is out. Then call me at once. You’ve got all my numbers in that email I sent you.’
‘Do you remember what I said to you the very first time we met?’ she asked. ‘The very first sentence?’
Jimmy Halenius zipped up his coat and tucked his briefcase under his arm. He was concentrating on putting his gloves on as he answered. ‘“I thought only small-time gangsters had names ending in Y,”’ he said. ‘That’s what you said. And “How come there are never any escaped prisoners called Stig-Björn?”’
He flashed her a quick smile, then opened the front door and disappeared.
DAY 3
FRIDAY, 25 NOVEMBER
Chapter 7
Swedish
Father of Two
THOMAS
HOSTAGE
IN KENYA
Anders Schyman polished his glasses with his shirt-sleeve and examined the front page with a stern and reasonably neutral gaze.
This was one of their best covers all year. Not just because they were the only paper who had the Swedish angle but because Thomas Samuelsson was very photogenic. Blond, handsome, sporty, dignified and smiling, the sort of man all Swedish men wanted to be and all women wanted to have.
Admittedly, the headline was a slightly modified version of the truth. That Thomas had children probably wasn’t his defining characteristic, and nobody was sure what country he was actually in, but the headline writers always preferred even lines, and Somalia would have made the bottom line too long. But those were just details, hardly the sort of thing the press ombudsman would penalize them for.
The articles inside the paper had been written largely by Sjölander, the veteran reporter who had previously been head of crime and editorial, US correspondent and online editor. He was one of the rare members of staff who had adapted to the new age without a huge fuss; he produced short film sequences on his mobile with the same enthusiasm as he covered world exclusives. The fillers around the main story (fact boxes, summaries, background information and other things that could be dressed up to look like news) had been written by the evening shift at the newsdesk,
The insurance money from the villa in Djursholm, she thought.
It had finally been paid out almost two years after the fire, almost six million kronor in an account with Handelsbanken, something like a million dollars. She had two hundred thousand or so in another account, which she had saved while they were in the USA.
‘They won’t get in touch again until tomorrow evening at the earliest. But, if it’s okay, I’ll come over as soon as I wake up. There’s a lot of preparatory work to get done.’
‘Haven’t you got a job to do?’ she asked.
‘Yep,’ he said. ‘And that’s exactly what I’m doing.’
The hanger rattled as he pulled his coat off it. She got up from the sofa on legs of lead and stood in the hall doorway. He looked tired. His hair was thinner than she remembered.
‘What sort of preparatory work?’
He scratched his head, making his brown hair stand on end. ‘That depends on what you want to do, whether you do the rest yourself or need help from us.’
A flash of panic ran through her. ‘Not myself,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘We need to set up a command centre, where we can keep our equipment and notes.’
‘Would the bedroom work?’
‘We need to start a log covering everything that happens. Agree on our respective roles. I’d suggest that I handle the negotiations and you deal with the logistics. Your job will be to make sure that the equipment works, that we’ve got food and coffee, that our mobiles are charged. Is that okay?’
So, she was moving from kidnap negotiator to coffee maker in 0.2 seconds.
‘If your landline rings while I’m not here, make sure to start recording before you answer,’ he said. ‘If it’s them, don’t say you’re Thomas’s wife. Tell them you’re the child-minder and that everyone else is out. Then call me at once. You’ve got all my numbers in that email I sent you.’
‘Do you remember what I said to you the very first time we met?’ she asked. ‘The very first sentence?’
Jimmy Halenius zipped up his coat and tucked his briefcase under his arm. He was concentrating on putting his gloves on as he answered. ‘“I thought only small-time gangsters had names ending in Y,”’ he said. ‘That’s what you said. And “How come there are never any escaped prisoners called Stig-Björn?”’
He flashed her a quick smile, then opened the front door and disappeared.
DAY 3
FRIDAY, 25 NOVEMBER
Chapter 7
Swedish
Father of Two
THOMAS
HOSTAGE
IN KENYA
Anders Schyman polished his glasses with his shirt-sleeve and examined the front page with a stern and reasonably neutral gaze.
This was one of their best covers all year. Not just because they were the only paper who had the Swedish angle but because Thomas Samuelsson was very photogenic. Blond, handsome, sporty, dignified and smiling, the sort of man all Swedish men wanted to be and all women wanted to have.
Admittedly, the headline was a slightly modified version of the truth. That Thomas had children probably wasn’t his defining characteristic, and nobody was sure what country he was actually in, but the headline writers always preferred even lines, and Somalia would have made the bottom line too long. But those were just details, hardly the sort of thing the press ombudsman would penalize them for.
The articles inside the paper had been written largely by Sjölander, the veteran reporter who had previously been head of crime and editorial, US correspondent and online editor. He was one of the rare members of staff who had adapted to the new age without a huge fuss; he produced short film sequences on his mobile with the same enthusiasm as he covered world exclusives. The fillers around the main story (fact boxes, summaries, background information and other things that could be dressed up to look like news) had been written by the evening shift at the newsdesk,
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