Vanished Read Online Free PDF Page A

under his nose.
    ‘I was working,’ she said. ‘So what’s going on in Frihamnen?’
    He looked at her for a few seconds, brushing the hair from his forehead.
    ‘No ID on the victims,’ he said, ‘no keys, money, weapons, chewing gum or condoms.’
    ‘So their pockets were emptied,’ Annika muttered.
    Sjölander nodded. ‘The police have nothing to go on; they don’t even know who the victims were. Their prints aren’t on any Swedish database.’
    ‘So they’ve got no ideas? What about their clothes?’
    The head of crime went over to his desk and switched on his computer.
    ‘Outer clothes, jeans and shoes from Italy, France and the US, but their underwear had Cyrillic writing on it.’
    Annika looked up.
    ‘Foreign designer clothes,’ she said, ‘but cheap, locally produced underwear. The former Soviet Union or Yugoslavia, or Bulgaria.’
    ‘You’re keen on crime stories, aren’t you?’ he said with a grin.
    He knew. They all knew. She shrugged.
    ‘You know how it is. You never lose the habit.’
    She turned and walked over to the night-desk. She could hear him chuckling behind her.
Why do I play along?
she wondered.
    She switched on the computer to the right of the night-editor, curling up her legs on the office chair and settlingdown with her chin on one knee. Maybe she ought to check if anything had happened. She waited patiently for the programs to load, then opened the news agency’s website, reading, checking, clicking.
    ‘Hey, Bengtzon, what’s your extension number?’
    She looked over her shoulder and saw Sjölander waving a phone at her. After she’d called out her number, he shouted back, ‘Some bird wants to talk about social services, something about women in trouble. I can’t take it right now. And it’s your sort of thing, isn’t it? Can you take it?’
    She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
    ‘My shift hasn’t really started yet,’ she said. ‘I was planning to—’
    ‘Are you going to take it or shall I get rid of her?’
    She sighed.
    ‘Okay, transfer her.’
    A voice, calm and cool: ‘Hello? I want to talk to someone in confidence.’
    ‘You’re always protected when you talk to a newspaper,’ Annika said, her eyes still checking the news agency website. ‘What’s this about?’
    Click, click, a draw in the local derby.
    ‘I’m not sure if I’m talking to the right person. It’s about a new organization, a new way of protecting people who have had death-threats.’
    Annika stopped reading.
    ‘Really?’ she said. ‘How?’
    The woman hesitated. ‘I’ve got information about a unique way of helping people under threat to get a new life. Most people don’t know about this way of doing it, but I’ve been given permission to release this information to the media. I’d like to do this in a calm, controlled way, which is why I was wondering if there’s anyone I could talk to at your paper.’
    She didn’t want to listen, and didn’t really care. She stared at the screen: ongoing power-cuts … a new rocket attack on Grozny. She leaned her head on her hand.
    ‘Could you send the information by post or fax?’ she asked.
    The woman was silent for a long time.
    ‘Hello?’ Annika said, ready to hang up with a sense of relief.
    ‘I’d prefer to meet the person I talk to face to face, in a secure setting,’ the woman said.
    Annika slumped over her keyboard.
    ‘That isn’t possible,’ she said. ‘There’s no one here right now.’
    ‘What about you, then?’
    She pushed her hair back, trying to think of an excuse.
    ‘We’d have to know what this is about before we send anyone out,’ she said.
    The woman at the other end fell silent again. Annika sighed and tried to end the call.
    ‘Well, if there wasn’t anything else, then—’
    ‘Did you know there are people living hidden lives, right now, here in Sweden?’ the woman asked quietly. ‘Woman and children who have been abused and threatened?’
    No
, Annika thought.
Not