Borderline by Liza Marklund Read Free Book Online Page B

time of the Crown Princess’s wedding a year or so ago, he had introduced a new dress-code at the paper. Torn jeans, micro-skirts, washed-out college shirts and tops cut down to the navel were banned, and a certain degree of style expected. Annika hadn’t had to change much of her wardrobe. She usually wore fairly good labels, but still managed to look as if she’d fallen into them by accident. He often got the impression she’d put on one of her husband’s shirts without noticing. Today was worse than usual. She was wearing a shirt with a tanktop, a style that had been fashionable when he was still at junior school.
    Most people put on weight in the USA, but not her. She was, if possible, even more angular and sharp-boned now. If it weren’t for her generously proportioned bust she could easily have been mistaken for a long-haired teenage boy.
    ‘That woman who was found dead outside the nursery school in Hägersten,’ she said. ‘She’d reported her husband for aggravated harassment, but the investigation was dropped because the offences had passed the statute of limitations.’
    ‘Don’t forget your gloves,’ Schyman said, pointing at a number of things that had fallen out of her bag on to the floor of the taxi. He stepped out, walked up to the brushed brass panel embossed with three crowns to the left of the entrance, pressed it and the door swung open. Annika trailed three steps behind him up the white marble stairs, through the white marble foyer, with its pillars and vaulted ceiling, to the security desk at the far left-hand side. From the corner of his eye Schyman saw her stop and stare at one of the statues by the wall.
    With a sudden pang of loss he remembered his time as a political reporter, how a gust of wariness would sweep through these government buildings whenever he appeared (walking, striding, even forging forward) with his television crew. Politicians, businessmen and press secretaries had treated him respectfully, occasionally even fearfully. What was he doing today?
    He glanced back at Annika. ‘ID,’ he said.
    She went to the security desk and tossed over her driving licence.
    A human-resources manager, that was what he was. And a profit machine for the family that owned the paper. An exploiter of modern life, an explorer in the boggy outer reaches of journalism.
    Alien hand syndrome.
    The guard was a young woman who was doing her best to exude authority. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun and she was wearing a tie. She asked him rather pompously for his own ID and carefully read his press card. She evidently didn’t recognize him. She probably didn’t follow current affairs. Then she tapped at a computer, picked up a phone to check that they had authorization to proceed, and instructed them to head up the stairs towards the lifts.
    Thank you very much. He knew perfectly well where to go.
    ‘We’ll take the one on the right,’ Schyman said. ‘The one on the left is a goods lift that stops at every floor.’
    Annika didn’t seem remotely impressed by his local knowledge.
    * * *
    So this was where he worked.
    Thomas’s really, really, really important job.
    Annika avoided looking at her reflection in the lift. She had never been here before. She’d never come to pick him up from work, had never been for coffee in the staff cafeteria, had never surprised him with tickets to the theatre or cinema, then gone out for a pizza afterwards.
    Thomas had allied himself with the state, and it was her job to hold it to account.
    They got out on the sixth floor, one below the Cabinet Office. Thomas was based on the fourth. Every time he had to come up to the sixth floor he would talk about it over dinner with a note of respect in his voice. This was where the real power lay: the minister, the under-secretary of state, the directors-general for legal affairs, the office manager, head of administration and political advisers. White walls, thick, pale grey carpets, doors ajar. The smell of