Lifetime by Liza Marklund

never stoop that low just to be warm and dry. Instead, she looked around, searching for some kind of shelter or a roof, her gaze lingering on the greenhouse beyond the parking lot. Did they usually lock those things?
    The door didn’t even have a lock. Sliding a glass panel to one side, Annika entered a lush green world. The heat and the smells were so intense that her head began to swim. It struck her that she hadn’t eaten all day. Dizzy and soaked, she sat down on a gravel path between two rows of tomato plants in bloom, leaned back against a big wooden planter and gazed out through the glass wall. She had a pretty good view of the parking lot and the bridge leading up to the castle.
    The words she’d tried to push away all day came back to haunt her. Thomas’s voice, choked with rage:
    ‘Well, wasn’t this convenient!’ ‘A fine mother you are!’ ‘I’m never going to forgive you for this. Damn you!’
    Slowly, she exhaled until every last particle of air had left her lungs.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so sorry, but you knew I might have to . . .’
    For a few minutes Annika succumbed to guilt and self-pity. Both emotions struggled to gain the upper hand and left her feeling drained and miserable. Conjuring up the faces of her children, she felt strangely unaffected by the thought of them just then.
    She got up, found a tap and drank until her thirst was quenched. Then she browsed through rows of arugula and sugar-snap peas, trying to pick some without leaving any noticeable gaps.
    I’ll treat Thomas to dinner here, and I’ll leave a big tip , she promised herself to make up for her pilfering ways.
    Somewhat less dizzy now, she returned to her seat by the planter, hesitated a moment and then called Anne Snapphane. Right before the answering service kicked in, her friend picked up.
    ‘You sound blue,’ Annika said.
    ‘I wonder why,’ Anne whispered and turned up the volume of a radio in the background.
    ‘How are you doing?’
    Anne Snapphane’s voice was feeble and flat.
    ‘I’m having a hard time breathing,’ Anne replied. ‘Do you think you can develop asthma overnight?’
    Not wanting to encourage her friend’s hypochondriac tendencies, Annika said nothing.
    ‘It’s so awful,’ Anne went on. ‘I see her in front of me all the time, I feel like I’m to blame.’
    ‘Well, you can’t possibly––’
    ‘Don’t you tell me what I can or cannot feel. You’re not the one shut in here like a goddam killer.’
    Anne started to sob into the phone and Annika wished she hadn’t called her.
    ‘Do you want me to hang up?’ she asked gently. ‘Do you want to be left alone?’
    ‘No!’ Anne whispered back. ‘Please don’t hang up.’
    They sat in silence for quite a while, listening to the rattling base tones of the clock radio.
    ‘Have they told you when you’ll be able to go home?’ Annika asked.
    ‘No. All they’ve said was that they’ll let us leave as soon as they’ve finished questioning us. By the way, Q is here. He interrogated me. What a mean son of a bitch.’
    ‘Have you talked to Mehmed?’ Annika asked.
    Her friend sighed.
    ‘No. Could you give him a call and tell him I’ve been detained here? God, I miss Miranda.’
    ‘I bet she’s doing just fine,’ Annika said in her most soothing voice as she kept watch over the parking lot. ‘Are you allowed to use your cellphone?’
    ‘Not really. Are you out there somewhere?’
    ‘It’s pissing down, so I hid in a greenhouse. How about it, do you dare talk to me?’
    Annika heard her friend moving around, the sound of her footfalls and how she fiddled with the radio.
    ‘For a while, I guess.’
    ‘Could you help me out?’ Annika asked. ‘I’ve been through the cars in the parking lot and think I know who most of your companions are. Could you tell me if I’m right?’
    Anne Snapphane gave a tired laugh.
    ‘Always the journalist. So what do you want to know?’
    ‘Highlander, is he