Vanished by Liza Marklund Read Free Book Online Page A

than me.’
    ‘The Turks used to deal in heroin, but in recent years that’s gone over to the Kosovan Albanians. The Russians are into money laundering: so far they’ve invested half a billion kronor in property over here. The Yugoslavians are big in tobacco and alcohol smuggling. They run a few gambling dens and protection rackets. Sometimes with restaurants as their cover. Will that do?’
    ‘Keep going,’ Annika said.
    ‘The biker gangs do debt collection and provide muscle for hire. They’re all Swedes and other Scandinavians. The porn mafia is run by Swedes as well, but you already know all about that …’
    ‘Ha ha,’ Annika said drily.
    ‘Financial crimes are almost always carried out by Swedish men. They often collaborate on things like asset-stripping, VAT fraud, that sort of thing. A few of them use heavies. We’ve also had a few Gambian gangs dealing in heroin.’
    ‘Okay,’ Annika said. ‘That’s enough for a fact-box.’
    ‘Always nice to be able to help,’ he said sourly and hung up.
    Annika smiled. He was a sweetie.
    ‘What are you doing?’ Jansson asked as he came over holding a plastic cup.
    ‘Something creative,’ Annika said.
    She typed up the material for the fact-box, added her name and sent the file to the shared filestore.
    ‘I’m going to stretch my legs,’ she said.
    Jansson didn’t respond.
    The feeling of pointlessness tightened across her chest again.
7
    The woman coughed, quietly but persistently. Her head was aching like mad, a throbbing pain from the wound in her forehead. She assumed she must have a slight temperature, to judge by how feverish she felt, and guessed that she might have some sort of infection in her chest or lungs. She had taken the first tablet of a course of broad-spectrum antibiotics at lunchtime. The glowing numbers on the clock-radio beside her bed indicated that it was time to take the second one.
    She staggered out of bed, shivering, and looked through her medicines. She found the antibiotics under the plasters, and took a couple of paracetamol for the pain. The pills were old, she’d had them since Sarajevo, and the best-before date was several years ago. It couldn’t be helped, she didn’t have any choice.
    She decided to try to sleep it off and crept back into bed, but she couldn’t get back to sleep. A sense of failure gnawed at her. Various scenes flashed before her mind’s eye, people died, strange fantasies began to materialize; her fever seemed to be getting worse. And in the end the little boy appeared, arms outstretched, always in slow motion, running, screaming, death in his eyes.
    She got up, annoyed, coughed, drank half a litre ofwater. She had to get rid of this before they found her. She didn’t have time to be ill.
    She pulled herself together. What was a little cold compared to what could have happened? The sea had closed over her head, ice-cold and black, all darkness and pain. She had fought against panic, forced her body into action, swimming underwater as far from the quayside as she could, coming up for air, diving again. The waves had thrown her the last few metres towards the quay on the other side of the harbour, her shoulder crashing against the concrete, and she had turned to see him standing there, staring out across the water, a black silhouette against the illuminated warehouse.
    She had scrambled up into the oil terminal, laid down between two yellow bollards, and lost consciousness for a while. Fear and adrenalin had shaken her out of her torpor. She had got out of the wind and checked the contents of her bag. After a few tries she had managed to get her mobile working, and ordered a taxi to Loudden oil terminal. The wretched taxi-driver hadn’t wanted to let her in his car because she was so wet, but she had insisted and had finally got him to drive her to this shabby motel.
    She shut her eyes and rubbed her forehead.
    The taxi-driver was a problem. He was bound to remember her, and would probably talk if he