Free Borderline by Liza Marklund Page B

claws into you.
    When the bell rang she hurried into the hall and opened the door. Jimmy Halenius walked in and stumbled over her boots. Annika turned on the ceiling light, kicked her boots towards the bathroom and snatched up her jacket from the floor.
    ‘So what have you done with Hansel and Hansel?’ she asked. ‘Have you left them at home?’
    ‘Yep, busy making gingerbread,’ Halenius said, putting down his briefcase. ‘Have you had any calls?’
    She hung her jacket on a coat hook and shook her head.
    ‘Are the children at home?’
    ‘They’ll be back at five. That’s when I normally leave work. They don’t know I’m at home.’
    ‘You haven’t told them anything?’
    She turned to him. He took his own coat off and reached for a hanger, surprising her. She wouldn’t have thought him the sort of man who used hangers for his outdoor clothes.
    She shook her head again.
    He stood in front of her, and she was struck by how short he was. Only a few centimetres taller than her, and Thomas called her a pygmy. ‘It’s good that you haven’t said anything so far, but you’re going to have to tell them now. The story will be in the media this evening, tomorrow morning at the latest, and the children have to hear it from you.’
    She put her palms over her eyes. They smelt of salt. When she spoke her voice sounded flat. ‘What can I say?’
    Her hands dropped to her sides. Halenius was still standing there.
    ‘Be as vague as possible. Don’t mention any details about where they went missing, how long they’ve been gone, who the others are. You can say that a group of men are holding him captive. That’s what the man in the video says, and that’s what the media will spread.’
    ‘What was it he said again?’
    ‘That Fiqh Jihad have taken seven EU delegates hostage as punishment for the decadence of the Western world, more or less.’
    ‘Fiqh Jihad?’
    ‘A group nobody knows anything about. We haven’t had any intelligence about them before now. “Fiqh” means the expansion of Islamic law, the interpretation of the Koran and so on, and you probably know what “Jihad” means.’
    ‘Holy war.’
    ‘Yes, or just “struggle” or “striving”, but in this case we don’t believe the words themselves have any literal meaning. They’ve been chosen for their symbolic value. There are a couple of things I’d like to go through with you. Can we go in and sit down?’
    She felt her cheeks turn red – she really was a hopeless host. ‘Of course,’ she said, gesturing towards the living room. ‘Would you like coffee?’
    ‘No, thanks.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘The call to the Spaniard’s home number came precisely one hour and nine minutes ago. Just before I left the office I heard that the Frenchman’s family had also received a call, on his wife’s mobile.’
    He’d said ‘the office’ rather than ‘the department’.
    ‘We don’t have a lot of time,’ he added. ‘You could get a call at any moment.’
    The room lurched. She glanced at her mobile and gulped. ‘What did they say to the Frenchman’s wife?’
    ‘She was so shaken she couldn’t remember the amount of the ransom they wanted. Unfortunately she made several fundamental mistakes during the call. Among other things, she promised to pay the ransom at once, no matter how much they wanted.’
    ‘Isn’t that good?’ Annika said. ‘Being co-operative?’ She sank into the sofa.
    He sat beside her and looked into her eyes. ‘We don’t have kidnap insurance,’ he said, ‘but we’ve spent time with the FBI, learning how to handle a hostage situation. Hans and Hans-Erik have more experience of this sort of situation, but we didn’t feel that you and they had made much of a connection. So I was asked to come and talk to you.’
    She suddenly felt freezing, pulled her knees up under her chin and wrapped her arms round her shins.
    ‘We still aren’t entirely sure what sort of kidnapping this is,’ Halenius went on,