Last Will by Liza Marklund

spread by people who’ve never been invited.”
    The conversation around her died and a group of men stared at her in surprise.
    “I see,” the overweight man said, looking hard at her black jeans and the jacket that was too big for her. “So you know better?”
    “The food’s warm. Inedible, but warm,” Annika said, then pulled the children with her out into the kitchen.
    That was full of people too, mostly women in sensible shoes and neat dresses. They were chatting and laughing and waving their wineglasses around, now filled with burgundy after the obligatory mulled wine.
    “Annika,” Doris, her mother-in-law, said. “Can you give me a hand to carry out these trays? I’d do it myself, but you know what my hip’s like …”
    Beside her stood Eleonor, Thomas’s former wife. Eleonor and her mother-in-law had kept in touch after the divorce, which only served to exacerbate Annika’s feelings of inadequacy.
    “The children need something to eat first,” Annika said, pretending not to see Eleonor. “Then I’ll be happy to serve your guests. Can I make some sandwiches?”
    Doris’s thin lips grew even paler.
    “But my dear,” she said flatly, “there’s plenty of food here.”
    Annika looked down at the trays on the countertops: herring canapés, prawn canapés, mussel canapés.
    She leaned down toward Kalle.
    “Have you seen Daddy?” she asked quietly, and her son shook his head.
    She took the children’s hands again and set off once more into the sea of people.
    When she finally found Thomas down in the wine cellar her back was sticky with sweat. He was standing talking to Martin, Eleonor’s new husband.
    Martin looked amused, but Thomas seemed ill at ease and slightly drunk.
    “The problem isn’t that the police are bugging criminal groups,” he said, slightly too loudly, spilling some of his fortified mulled wine as he tried to emphasise the importance of his argument. “The problem is that their activities aren’t regulated, and can’t be controlled, and we have no legislation governing how the police should handle the mass of surplus information they get these days …”
    “Thomas,” Annika said, trying to get his attention. “The children have to have something to eat. I’m going to go and buy something for them.”
    “Pretending that we don’t need any new legislation is just sticking our heads in the sand …”
    “Thomas!” Annika said. “Thomas, I’m going to take the children home now. Do you think you’ll be able to get a lift back into town with someone later?”
    He turned to look at her, annoyed at the interruption.
    “Why? Where are you going?”
    “The children have to eat. They won’t eat herring and mussels.”
    Martin followed the exchange with amusement, crossing his arms and leaning back, the rich entrepreneur enjoying the paltry concerns of the middle classes.
    “Can’t you give them something else, ask if you can make them a sandwich or something?”
    Thomas was evidently embarrassed at her showing up in the cellar. Annika swallowed her anger and sense of not being good enough.
    “Do as you like,” she said.
    She turned and walked away, with the children trailing after her.
    Annika stopped at the McDonald’s on the E18 on her way into Stockholm. The children got a Happy Meal each, but she couldn’t force herself to eat anything. After they had eaten most of their hamburgers and pulled their plastic toys apart, she sent them off to play in the ball pit.
    She bought a coffee and sat down with the evening papers next to the play area.
    The other paper had managed to put together a special supplement, and had a picture of the arrest of the family in Bandhagen on the front cover. Bosse had written the article. She traced his name with her fingertip, then looked round in embarrassment to check that no one had seen her.
    The Evening Post had nothing, at least not in the early edition she had gotten hold of. She had no illusions that her paper would have shown