Never Safe and Sound, Ch. 1
"You're never safe and sound until all your doors are closed,
When you're awake on your own,
Shadows turn into ghosts
Soon it will all fall apart
And their roads will have no way"
- Ghosts, Gabrielle Aplin
Officers milled about, going around as if no one was remembering what had happened a year ago. Twelve months ago, everything was normal, up until Anne-Britt Hoglund died, no one really knew how she died since no one talked about it. A month after her death, Kurt Wallander's team broke apart and the newbies were brought in. Magnus Martinsson and the plump Gustav Nyberg stayed by his side while Louise Riley, Eleanor Christoph, and Carl Edenholm were chosen from a few applicants in the main police force. Anna Bystrom and the notorious Brigid Wright had been taken from the main forensic laboratory in Linköping and relocated to Ystad.
Now, the team was sitting around the large, wooden table that had papers scattered all over it. Coffee cups sat in front of their respective owners, and the two original detectives looked utterly depressed. The other five sat quietly, shuffling papers around to fill the awkward silence. No one wanted to express their condolences and bring the devastating event up in a conversation, but they knew it would come to light eventually. Suddenly, Anna's phone vibrated with a phone call, which she answered immediately.
"I'll be right back." She mouthed to her friends at the table, a few nodded and she walked out of the room, answering the phone as she closed the door behind her. "Hello?"
"Hey, it's Linda."
"Oh, hey, how are you?"
"Fine, fine. How's my dad? I've been worried about him, he's been thinkin' about Anne-Britt lately. It's not healthy."
"I think he's okay." Anna looked through the glass wall at Kurt, who sat silently with a grim face as he went through the papers from the case they were working on. "No one's mentioned Anne yet, I don't think we will. I mean, none of us knew her well, except for Magnus and your dad. I knew her, but she was just a friend before I joined Ystad."
"Okay, well, please keep an eye on him, I want to know how he's handling it."
"Sure, sure, I'm sure Nyberg and him will go out for a drink later or something of that sort."
"Just as long as he has someone with him. I don't want him doing something stupid."
"Look, I have to go, okay? I'll call you if anything happens."
"Alright, thanks, you're the best Anna."
"Don't mention it. Bye." She hung up without a second thought and went back into the room to sit at her seat.
"Who was that?" Louise nosed, watching her intently.
"Oh uhm, no one."
"By the way you were talking, it was definitely someone." A small smile spread across Magnus's lips, and Anna felt a blush creep across her face.
"It was Linda, just calling to say 'hi'." Kurt's head popped up, eyeing her suspiciously.
"Why did Linda call you?"
"We're friends."
"She failed to mention that." He grumbled and focused back on his work, the other detectives followed and continued shuffling their papers around. No one was in the mood to make a comment and upset him, so they stayed quiet for an hour or so before it was time for lunch. A few stomachs grumbled and they all started to get restless. Louise and Carl stood up to stretch, Anna let out a yawn, and Eleanor, voicing her plans to the team, had decided to go out to lunch.
"Would anyone like to come with me? Magnus?"
"No, thanks I brought my lunch."
"I'll come along, if you don't mind." Carl smiled and she nodded, he yanked his coat off the back of his chair and stuffed his arms into the sleeves. Nyberg, Kurt, and Louise all politely declined.
"I'll stay here, Anna and I will be eating in the lab. We have work to finish." Brigid gathered up her own papers and bag, then exited the conference room to go down to the laboratory.
"Mph, I guess I'm eating in the lab. Maybe next time." Anna shrugged and grabbed her own papers as well as her tote bag that was stuffed with more scraps of paper than she could count, then stalked out of the room, a bit furious at Brigid for dragging her along. She had to go eat lunch in the basement, the spacious laboratory was high-tech and modern, quite nice to look at really…if you were into looking at machines all day, but she wanted to look out the windows and watch the odd squirrels find food. Honestly, she didn't want to sit with Brigid discussing dead bodies and blood samples, she wanted an intriguing conversation with Louise or Magnus.
As she shoved her finger at the elevator button, she felt someone walk up towards her. She spun around and immediately blushed. It was Magnus. If it was Carl, she would've blushed too, it was awful for her to be around cute guys like them, they made her cheeks grow red and her chest grow warm with happiness, giggles, and butterflies.
"Hey, mind if I eat with you?" Her auburn eyes widened, and her mouth opened but nothing happened.
"Oh uhm yeah yeah sure. That would be nice." Oh my shit, why did I say that? Okay, just don't say any other idiotic stuff and you'll be fine.
"So what did you do this weekend?" I went to the doctor's office, slept, and ate chocolate.
"I went to the doctor's office and tried out a new cake recipe." She looked down, and he smirked at how embarrassed and shy she was around him. "What about you?"
"Eh, I watched Doctor Who." He shrugged. "You should invite all of us over, you seem like a very talented cook."
"Oh, mh, maybe. I only bake cakes though. Wouldn't be much of a meal." The elevator doors open and the two of them stepped in. She violently pressed the basement button and then shifted her bag's straps onto her shoulder. There was an awkward silence before she finally spoke up again. "I'm sorry about Anne-Britt, I know you and Kurt were friends with her."
"Thanks." He gently smiled at her and stuffed his hands in his pockets, letting out a sigh, "I still can't believe she's dead…It was just…I would've never thought she'd die like that. I thought she'd be shot or something, not die from being hit in the head."
"How are you handling?" He looked up, a bit taken back by her question.
"Fine, I guess…W-Why are you bringing this up?"
"Linda called me, she wanted to know how you and Kurt were doing."
"Really? She wanted to know about me too?" Anna nodded, even though it wasn't true, she just didn't want to sound stupid. "That's nice of her."
"Do you like her?" She blurted out, biting her lip afterwards to keep any other outbursts in.
"Oh, well, as a friend uhm yeah, she's nice. Why?"
"N-no reason, she just uhm, seemed uh concerned. That's all." She shrugged and clutched her folders stuffed with papers closer to her chest, trying to get her anxiety out by squeezing the life out of her papers. The elevator doors open and she bolted out towards the laboratory where Brigid already was eating lunch.
"I'm going to get my lunch from the break room, you need anything?" Magnus watched Anna who looked up, a bit startled.
"No." Brigid answered before Anna had any time to react.
"No thanks." He nodded and walked off towards the break room, leaving Anna alone at her desk, sorting her papers and shuffling through her bag to try and find her lunch. Suddenly, Magnus darted back in, holding up his phone.
"We've got a case, no body or blood, but maybe you'd like to tag along?"
"Oh, no thank you, I need to eat, besides, I need to get these blood samples finished up. Can't keep Kurt and the others waiting!"
"Alright, if we get evidence, I'll bring down."
"Cool, see ya later." Anna blushed and took out her lunch bag as he left again, but something felt off. Brigid was staring her down, her little nose upturned as usual and her lips in a thin line.
"You like him." She said all too plainly.
"Maybe-"
"It's unprofessional."
"It's not like I'm going to outright go and date him, jeez, he doesn't even like me. I'm just the newb, he treats me like I'm an injured puppy, they all do." She shrugged and pulled out her sandwich. "Besides, that's what I am." Nothing more than an injured puppy.
"I think you're more of a strong beagle rather than just a puppy."
"Thanks…that's…nice of you to say."
"You're welcome." Honestly though, I don't know how you or anyone for that matter, could see me as strong. "Now, where did you put those blood samples?"
"Which ones?" She scoffed, frowning at her. There were at least a dozen samples on her own desk, and possibly more on the large table were all of the samples were placed before they shoved them to the counter to be processed.
"The ones from the Pruit case."
"Be a little more specific."
"Two or three samples from the crime scene, probably a few weeks ago."
"Already processed, I'm on the ones from last week, finally." She nodded towards the other large table with stacks of files that were neatly arranged, then shrugged. "Should be there." She took out her ham sandwich and rested her elbows on her desk, positioning her sandwich in front of her mouth before taking a large bite. Brigid rolled her eyes and went over to the table. "The most recent ones are closest to the lab table."
"Thanks." Her sarcastic tone encouraged Anna to silently mock her, mouthing 'thanks' and making a goofy face. Her face turned serious as she turned towards her desk and she continued eating her sandwich, a smile plastered in her mind at how Brigid hadn't seen what she was doing. Suddenly, the landline phone that sat on Brigid's desk started ringing, forcing her to roll her eyes and pick up the phone.
"Brigid Wright, Ystad Forensics Department. Ho- Oh, hey Lis…okay, sure…come on down...See ya soon…No, no, it's fine, cool, bye." She hung up and turned towards Anna, "Well, that was Lisbeth, she's comin' down here soon, wants to talk about some computer junk or something. I think she's supposed to be updating the computers." She shrugged and sat down at her desk, then stuck her hand underneath her desk, searching blindly for her lunch bag, which she found with ease. When she started eating, Anna had already finished her sandwich and was working on a bag of Doritos and some Sprite.
"That's unhealthy." Brigid commented, earning a glare from her.
"I don't care, I eat healthy at home." She shrugged and popped a chip in her mouth before licking her finger, making a popping noise when she pulled it out of her mouth.
"That stuff's gonna kill you."
"Okay, thanks for letting me know." She scrunched her nose and then returned her focus on her chips. Truth was, Anna did actually eat healthier at home. Raspberries, blueberries, salads, and lots of nuts of all types.
Ten minutes later, Lisbeth Salander entered through the main entrance, boring a striking resemblance to a dead raccoon. Her black Mohawk, numerous piercings and tattoos, as well as her spiked bracelets made Anna weary of her presence. Her friend, Dee, had a couple tattoos and an odd hair color, but at least she was much more pleasant to be around, Lisbeth seemed make the room temperature drop a few degrees and send shivers down Anna's spine.
"Hey." Lisbeth nodded to Anna, not even a smile crossed her firm lips.
"Hi." Anna did her famous finger wave that Lisbeth despised, and Lisbeth invited herself to plop down at Brigid's chair to work on the computers.
"How have ya been?"
"Fine." No personality whatsoever, great person to work with, I bet. Anna made a face to herself and then turned towards the computer that sat on the left side of her L-shaped desk. The shape was convenient for her due to the fact that she liked to have two separate areas to work with, the papers area and the computer area, no mixing allowed.
"What grisly murder are you guys working on now?" Anna picked her head up when she heard Lisbeth's voice. Good to know that she actually makes conversations.
"Nothing interesting, just the jealous wife cases and those simple ones." She shrugged and then started typing up her report on one of the blood toxicology reports that she had failed to type up the other day due to her awful muscle pains. They were becoming more frequent, with varying intensity, that really made her question her good health.
"Gotta love those." She let out a little huff as she continued typing away, her fingers blazing away on the keyboard. Leaning in closer to the screen, her typing ceased, and was replaced with frequent mouse clicks. "I think you guys might have a problem."
"What?" The two scientists voiced in unison.
"These firewalls aren't all that advanced, it's easy to hack into if you know the shit. Looks like someone decided to put their skills to good use. Might wanna tell your superiors that you're fucked."