Prime Time by Liza Marklund Page B

she called out.
    Waving in relief, Annika hurried over to her.
    ‘They’re not going to release the witnesses,’ she told Berit, ‘but I’d like to hang around for a while longer. Could you come back for me later?’
    Berit flashed her a thumbs-up. Annika acknowledged her gesture with a quick grin and ran over to the photographer, taking him aside.
    ‘Go with Berit, get the car and check into the motel at the Statoil station in Flen. It’s called the Loftet,’ she said. ‘Berit will come back for me later on. I want to do some snooping around.’
    ‘What? What are you going to do?’
    Annika shrugged and looked around.
    ‘There are a few things I’d like to check out,’ she said.
    ‘Like what?’
    She turned away, leaving the parking lot and passing the bell tower before turning a corner and reaching the building known as the Stables. Down by the shore of Lake Långsjön there was a hen house, some laundry facilities and a few tennis courts.
    The door to the laundry facilities was locked. Annika leaned against the wall and surveyed her surroundings. It had almost stopped raining; all that remained was a mist hovering around the buildings.
    Suddenly she was aware of the scents of summer: newly mown grass, roses in bloom, the dampness and the crispness. She dumped her bag on the steps, flipped her pad to a fresh page and placed it on the steps to protect her jeans from getting wet. Then she sat down on it and leaned her back against the door. At least two cars drove off. All she had to do was wait.
    ‘ A fine mother you are! I’m never going to forgive you for this. Damn you! ’
    Annika swept back her hair. He hadn’t meant what he’d said. It was the kind of thing you said when you were disappointed and upset. He would come around, and it wasn’t all that strange that he had overreacted. He’d had a rough time at work. The project he had been working on, one that had taken three and a half years, had to be wrapped up by the end of the month, only he wasn’t ready. And he had no idea if the end of this project signalled the end of his employment with the Swedish Association of Local Authorities. His supervisors had mentioned a few possible future projects, but they hadn’t said anything definite.
    Annika sighed, knowing how hard it was on Thomas to be unable to plan. He couldn’t accept her assurances that it would work out and he wouldn’t listen to her analysis of the situation. That there were other jobs out there, other employers. Whenever she showed him an ad in the paper for a position such as a senior accountant within the Social Services sector or a financial officer, he got testy and sullen.
    Actually, she knew what the problem was. Thomas wanted to have a fancy job. He wanted to have a position that topped being the chief financial officer of the city of Vaxholm. He wanted to show his parents and his old friends that his career had moved up a notch or two, even though the rest of his life might have gone downhill.
    Annika looked out over the park and noticed that it had stopped raining. She was aware that Thomas saw his life in this light. She was a step down. Nothing she was, had or did could compete with Eleonor, his wife, the banker, in that sumptuous house in Vaxholm. They had never discussed it, but a certain tenseness around his mouth told her that was how he felt. Her efforts weren’t good enough, and never would be.
    For the first two years they had lived together in her apartment, in an old building that the landlord was planning to tear down, where there wasn’t any elevator. In addition to this there was no toilet inside their flat and no hot water. As long as it had been just the two of them living there, it had worked out. But once Kalle was born things had become almost intolerable. Annika had worked like the dickens and had done a lot of crying, but she had never complained. She knew that the day she complained would be the day when Thomas walked out. She was the one who stayed