Without a Trace by Liza Marklund

issued, a portrait from the family album, with a description attached: ‘Nora Maria Andersson Lerberg, twenty-seven years old, 1 metre 68 centimetres tall, long, ash-blonde hair, grey-blue eyes, normal build, weight approximately 65 kilos. Probably wearing a crucifix round her neck, plus wedding and engagement rings, plain, eighteen-carat gold. Clothing at time of disappearance: unknown. Healthy skin, doesn’t use makeup. Takes Levaxin for thyroid problems. No other medication, no allergies.’
    ‘I’d be happy to tag along,’ he said, taking the picture and studying it for a moment. ‘I’ve just got one question first.’
    Annika logged into Facebook. At the top of her newsfeed she read that Sjölander, a colleague who was sitting on the other side of the partition, had eaten breakfast with a secret source at the Sheraton. (If you really wanted to describe a source as secret, why write on Facebook where and when you met them?)
    Valter Wennergren opened the paper again. ‘On page thirteen.’
    Annika looked away from the screen.
    ‘It’s about Gustaf Holmerud,’ Valter said.
    She pushed the laptop away and grabbed a copy of the paper. Entire mornings could pass now without her ever leafing through it. ‘What is it you’re wondering about?’ she asked, turning to pages twelve and thirteen. Twelve was an advert for a new type of scratch-card. Thirteen was dominated by two pictures. One showed a man smiling, wearing a crayfish-party hat and bib, and the other a young woman in a school-graduation cap.
     
I KILLED JOSEFIN
Serial killer confesses new crime
     
    Annika looked at the photograph of the blonde girl, Hanna Josefin Liljeberg, from Täby kyrkby, nineteen years old when she was found murdered on Kungsholmen in Stockholm. Suddenly the past fifteen years vanished and Annika was back there, her first summer temping job at the
Evening Post
, that scorching Saturday afternoon at the end of July, peering in at the crime scene through black iron railings. Josefin’s eyes staring straight into hers, clouded and grey, her head thrown back, mouth open in a silent scream. The bruise on her right breast, the green tinge to her stomach. The blunt grey of the stone behind her, the muted vegetation, the shadow play of the foliage, the closeness and heat, the nauseating smell.
    ‘Why isn’t anyone else writing about this?’ the young man wondered.
    Annika put her hand on the girl’s smiling face. ‘Maybe we’ve got better sources,’ she said quietly.
    Sjölander had written the article. The bulk of the text was an ecstatic account of the fantastic breakthrough in the hunt for Josefin’s unknown killer: at last, the mystery surrounding the young woman’s murder could be solved after fifteen years of uncertainty!
    Annika looked at the rain streaming down the window. ‘It was that scorching hot summer,’ she said. ‘You know, when Sweden was a banana republic: forty degrees centigrade, ridiculously high interest rates, and we were really good at football …’
    Valter Wennergren blinked, totally uncomprehending. He had probably still been at nursery school then.
    ‘Josefin was found behind a gravestone in the little Jewish cemetery in Kronoberg Park. She was naked, strangled … Her boyfriend had done it. His name was Joachim. He was never convicted.’
    ‘But now Gustaf Holmerud has claimed responsibility. Will it go to trial?’
    She closed the paper, finished her coffee and stood up, still holding the plastic cup. ‘Probably not. There’s a new prosecutor looking after Holmerud, now that the last one’s been promoted. I’m going to get some more. Do you want any?’
    She waved her cup, and he looked horrified. ‘Do you really drink that stuff?’
    Her intercom crackled. It was Anders Schyman. ‘Annika, can you pop into my office?’
     
    *
     
    He watched Annika Bengtzon stride towards the coffee machine. He really ought to follow through on his idea of introducing a dress code for the newsroom – he