Borderline by Liza Marklund Page A

He was standing in the living room, balancing the phone, the gadget and Annika’s laptop in his arms, and smiled at the children. The top button of his green shirt was undone and his hair was a mess. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘My name’s Jimmy, and I work with your dad.’
    Kalle stiffened and frowned at him suspiciously.
    ‘Jimmy’s here to help us,’ Annika said, crouching down. ‘You see—’
    ‘Sorry to interrupt, Annika, but is there anywhere you could take a call without being disturbed?’
    She pointed towards her and Thomas’s bedroom. ‘There’s a phone socket under the desk,’ she said, then turned back to the children. Ellen was twirling a lock of hair and cuddling up to her, but Kalle was still stiff and unapproachable.
    ‘What’s happened to Daddy?’ he asked.
    Annika tried to smile. ‘He’s been taken prisoner in Africa.’
    Ellen twisted in her arms and stared up at her. ‘In a castle?’ she asked.
    Kalle’s eyes were wide with confusion.
    ‘I don’t know, darling,’ Annika said. ‘We only found out this afternoon. Some men in Africa have taken Daddy and some other people prisoner.’
    ‘Will he be coming home on Monday?’ Ellen asked.
    ‘We don’t know,’ Annika said, kissing her daughter’s hair. ‘We don’t know anything, darling. But Jimmy from Daddy’s work is here to help us.’
    ‘What about the others?’ Ellen said. ‘Aren’t they going to be set free?’
    ‘Oh, yes, them too. Kalle, come here.’
    She reached out to the boy, but he ran past her into his and Ellen’s room. He slammed the door.
    The phone rang.
    ‘I’ll answer!’ Ellen cried, trying to wriggle out of her arms.
    ‘No!’ Annika shouted, loud and desperate, grabbing the top of her daughter’s arm hard. Tears sprang to the child’s eyes.
    The phone sounded again. She heard the bedroom door close.
    ‘No,’ she said, trying to sound normal again, and letting go of Ellen’s arm. ‘It might be the kidnappers. You and Kalle mustn’t answer the phone for a while.’
    Ellen was rubbing her arm. ‘You hurt me.’
    The phone rang a third time and the receiver was picked up.
    Annika swallowed and stroked the child’s hair. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. But it’s very important that you don’t answer the phone. Do you understand?’
    ‘But I could talk to the kidnappers,’ Ellen said. ‘I could tell them that they’re silly, and that Daddy has to come home.’
    ‘No,’ Annika said firmly. ‘Only grown-ups are allowed to talk to them. Do you understand?’
    Ellen’s lower lip started to tremble. Annika sighed. She wasn’t making a very good job of this.
    Halenius came back into the living room.
    Annika stood up and the world spun. ‘What did they say?’ she managed to gasp.
    ‘It was a woman called Anne Snapphane. She wanted to know if you’d heard anything from Thomas.’
    Relief.
    ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I had to talk to someone.’
    ‘Have you told anyone else?’
    She shook her head.
    ‘What sort of mobile phone have you got?’
    She pointed at the coffee-table, where both mobiles were lined up beside each other.
    Halenius picked up her personal phone. ‘This makes your recording equipment look almost modern. Impressive.’
    ‘Don’t make fun of my Ericsson,’ she said, taking it from him.
    When she’d got home from Washington she had been given a magnificent new mobile, which, to judge by her colleagues’ enthusiasm, could tap-dance, do the ironing and win the Olympic long jump. And maybe it was brilliant if you wanted to create dance music or film forest fires, but as a phone it was hopeless. She hardly ever managed to answer it when it rang because she managed to nudge the wrong part of the screen and the call was cut off; sending a text was so fiddly it took half the day. She’d kept hold of her Ericsson, which was so ancient that it was still called Ericsson rather than Sony, but it was a nuisance having to charge two mobiles, and she kept hoping iPhone was about