The Final Word by Liza Marklund

this?’
    ‘Be my guest.’
    She screwed the camera to the tripod, adjusted thewhite balance, then checked that the old prosecutor was in frame. She got a pen and notepad out of her bag as he poured coffee. ‘So, you’re interested in Josefin Liljeberg?’ he said, screwing the top back on the flask.
    ‘Do you mind if I ask you about something entirely different before we start the interview?’ she said.
    The prosecutor raised his eyebrows as he dropped a sugar lump into his coffee. ‘Go ahead.’
    ‘When do you think is the right time to report someone missing?’
    He looked at her in surprise. ‘Missing? That depends. Are we talking about a child or an adult?’
    Annika hesitated. ‘My sister, actually,’ she said. ‘She didn’t come home from work the day before yesterday.’
    He stirred his coffee. ‘It’s not against the law to leave home. Adults can come and go as they wish without it being a criminal offence.’
    ‘But if something really has happened?’
    ‘If there’s a risk to her life, or health, that puts matters in a very different light. Is she in a relationship?’
    ‘She has a husband and child,’ Annika said.
    ‘Perhaps the missing person doesn’t want to be found. Perhaps she just wants to be left alone for a while.’
    ‘I thought that too. But she me sent me a text, asking me for help.’
    He sipped the coffee. ‘Then I think you should go to the police,’ he said. ‘The duty officer at the Regional Crime Unit will decide whether or not to set up aninvestigation.’ He put the cup down. ‘But I don’t think you have any reason to be concerned,’ he said. ‘Almost everyone who disappears comes back fairly quickly.’
    Annika nodded. ‘I’ll probably contact the police this afternoon.’
    The prosecutor reached for his cup again and looked out across his garden. Annika followed his gaze. The flowerbeds in front of the fence next to the road contained a mixture of perennials and annuals, including marigolds and lobelia. A large clump of bleeding hearts swayed in the breeze in the corner beside the drive.
    ‘I remember Josefin very well,’ Kjell Lindström said. ‘It was a terribly tragic story.’ He turned his head to look towards his house, painted green with white detailing, and ornamental carving around the windows and front steps.
    Annika waited, her notepad in her lap.
    ‘Of course all murders are tragic,’ he said slowly, ‘but the young victims, the ones who never really got started in life . . . Taking someone’s life from them is the very worst thing one person can do to another, and the worst form of blasphemy, pretending to be God and making decisions about life and death. No one, in any culture, has the right to take on the role of God.’
    ‘Except for the president of the United States, perhaps,’ Annika said.
    Kjell Lindström chuckled. ‘True enough. Our penal code is designed around that. If you kill someone by mistake, you won’t necessarily be sentenced to prison, but aconviction for murder can get you a life sentence. It’s the
intent
that is criminal, not necessarily the act itself.’
    Annika looked at her pad. ‘How does it feel, as the head of a preliminary investigation, when you think you know who the perpetrator is but can’t prosecute him?’
    Lindström picked up a bun and took a small bite. ‘In this case we had a suspect,’ he said. ‘We ended up charging him with a series of financial offences instead. He received a severe custodial sentence.’
    For years, Annika thought, looking towards the house. Dishonesty to creditors, false accounting, tax fraud, tax crime and obstructing tax control.
    The prosecutor turned to her. ‘The tip-off about his double accounting came from someone inside the club, I seem to remember.’
    Annika lowered her gaze and blushed. She had taken a job at the sex club, looking after the roulette table. Joachim had given her Josefin’s old work outfit, a sequined pink bikini – they had been the same