The Bomber

MONDAY 20 DECEMBER

Thomas left the house before Annika and the children woke up. He had a lot of work to get off his hands before the holiday, and today he was doing the nursery run early. They would take turns doing it during the week, preferably collecting them already by three. Partly because the children were tired and weary but also to get the house ready for Christmas. Annika had hung up an electric Star of Bethlehem made of copper and put out the Christmas candelabra, but that was all. They hadn't started with the Christmas shopping, either for food or presents, nor had they marinated the gravlax, glazed the ham, or chosen a Christmas tree, not to mention cleaning the house- they were six months behind on that. Annika wanted to hire a Polish cleaning woman, the one Anne Snapphane used, but Thomas refused. He couldn't be a manager at the Association of Local Authorities and hire workers off the books. She understood that, but she still didn't clean herself.

He stepped out and braved the slush. The holidays were ill-timed this year: Christmas Eve fell on a Friday and the days up to New Year's Eve were all normal working days. He should be pleased, being on the employers' side. Nonetheless he sighed again, wholly on behalf of himself, as he crossed Hantverkargatan to catch the 48 bus from the stop on the other side of Kungsholm's Square. He felt a dull pain in his lower back as he lengthened his strides; he often did when he'd slept in a funny position. Kalle had still been in their bed this morning, lying diagonally with his feet against Thomas's back. Thomas turned his torso from side to side, like a boxer, to bring some life into his stiff muscles.

The bus took an age to arrive. Thomas was completely soaked and frozen by the time it pulled up in the slush. He hated taking the bus, but the alternatives were even worse. The subway was just around the corner, but it was the blue Hjulsta line, which was halfway down to hell. It took longer getting through the tunnels down to the actual trains than walking all the way to T-Centralen. Then you had to change trains after only one stop. After that, new tunnels, escalators and walkways, and elevators that always reeked of urine. After that, another train to Slussen, steamed-up carriages, and a hundred elbows from Metro-reading commuters. Going by car was out of the question. He had kept his Toyota in the city at first, but when the monthly parking tickets began exceeding the daycare fees, Annika had had a fit and he'd deregistered it. Now the car was rusting away under a tarpaulin at his parents' house in Vaxholm. He wanted to buy a house outside the city, but Annika refused point blank. She loved their exorbitantly expensive rented apartment.

The bus was chock-full of people, and he had to jostle with the strollers and baby buggies by the middle doors. But already by City Hall the bus was emptying out and by the next stop he found a seat, at the back on top of the wheels, but a seat nonetheless. He pulled up his legs and glanced furtively at the government department buildings at Rosenbad as the bus drove past. He couldn't help wondering what it would be like to work there. And why not- his career, rising from accountant with the social services in Vaxholm to middle manager at the Association of Local Authorities, had been positively meteoric for that profession. That he'd been helped along by Annika and her work was something he did not admit even to himself. If things continued at this pace, he might have a job in the parliament or one of the government departments before he turned forty.

The bus rumbled on past Strömsborg and the House of Nobility. He felt impatient and restless but didn't want to admit that it was because of Annika. He had barely exchanged a word with her over the weekend. Last night he had thought she was on her way home when she didn't answer the phone at the paper. He had made toasted sandwiches and tea for her return. It took her several hours. He had finished his toast, the tea had a film on it, and he had read both Time magazine and Newsweek from cover to cover before he heard her keys in the door. When at last she tumbled through the double doors, she had had the phone earpiece in her ear and was talking to someone at the paper.

"Hello there, you've worked late," he said as he walked toward her.

"I'll call you back on another phone," she said, switched off the phone, and walked past him with a pat on the cheek. She'd walked straight over to her desk, let her coat drop in a heap by her feet, and called the paper again. She had been talking about some taxi journey that had to be checked with the police, and he had felt his irritation grow to the size of a nuclear bomb. When she'd hung up, she'd just stood there, holding on to the desk as if dizzy.

"I'm sorry I'm so late," she'd said quietly, without looking up. "I had to go to South Island for an interview on my way back."

He hadn't replied, had just stood there with his arms hanging down, looking at her back. She had been swaying slightly, looking absolutely done in.

"You'll work yourself to death," he'd said, in a drier tone of voice than he'd intended.

"I know," she'd said, putting her coat on the desk and going to the bathroom. He had gone into the bedroom, pulling the bedspread down while listening to the running water and the brushing of teeth. When she came to bed, he'd pretended to be asleep. She didn't notice. She had kissed him on the neck and stroked his hair, then she'd fallen fast asleep in two seconds. He had lain awake for a long time, listening to the cars in the street and her soft breathing.

He got off the bus at Slussen to walk the few blocks up to his office on Hornsgatan. A damp wind was blowing from the bay, and an early street vendor had already assembled his stall, selling straw Santas in front of the underground station.

"Some glogg for the early bird, sir?" said the hawker, holding out a steaming cup of alcohol-free mulled wine to Thomas as he passed.

"Well, why not?" Thomas said and fished out some money from his pocket. "And give me a gingerbread heart too, the biggest one you have."

"Can I ride too, Mom?" Kalle said and placed himself at the back of the stroller so it nearly overturned. Annika caught hold of it at the last moment.

"No, I think we'll leave the stroller at home today since it's so slushy outside."

"But I want to go in it, Mom," Ellen said.

Annika went back to the elevator, gently shoved her out, and closed the doors. She crouched on the carpet in the stairwell and gave Ellen a hug. The stiff beaver nylon of her snowsuit felt cold against her cheek.

"We'll take the bus today, and I'll carry you. Would you like that?"

The girl nodded and put her arms around her neck, hugging her tight.

"I want to be with you today, Mom."

"I know, but you can't. I have to go to work. But on Friday we'll all be together. Do you know what day that is?"

"Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve!" Kalle shouted.

Annika laughed. "That's right. And do you know how many days it is until then?"

"Three weeks," Ellen said and held up three fingers.

"Dimwit," Kalle said. "It's four days."

"Don't call people dimwits, but you're right, it's four days. Where are your mittens, Ellen? Did we forget them? No, here they are…"

Outside on the pavement, the slushy snow had turned to water. A thin drizzle was falling and the world was an absolute even gray. She carried the girl on her left arm and held Kalle's hand with the other. Her bag bounced on her back with each step she took.

"You smell nice, Mom," Ellen said.

She walked up Scheelegatan and took the 40 bus from outside Indian Curry House, rode two stops, and got off by the white 1980s palace where Radio Stockholm was housed. The children's daycare center was on the third floor. Kalle had been coming here since he was fifteen months old, Ellen since she was just over a year old. When talking to other parents, she realized they'd been lucky; the staff were long-serving and competent, and the manager was committed.

The hallway was full of people and noise, and the grit and the snow had collected in a mound inside the front door. There were screaming children and admonishing parents everywhere.

"Is it okay for me to join in the morning assembly today?" Annika asked and one of the staff nodded.

Her two children sat at the same table during meals. Despite all their fighting at home, they were good friends at daycare. Kalle protected his little sister. Annika sat with Ellen on her lap during the breakfast and had coffee and a sandwich.

"We're going on a trip on Wednesday so the kids need to bring a packed lunch," one of the staff said, and Annika nodded.

After breakfast, they gathered in a room filled with cushions where they held roll call and sang some songs. Quite a few children had already started their Christmas holidays. Those that were still there sang the old classics "I'm a Little Rabbit," "Fabian the Pirate," and "In a House at the Edge of the Wood." Then they talked a bit about Christmas and finished with a Christmas song.

"Now I have to go," Annika said as they all filed out. Ellen started crying, and Kalle clung to her arm.

"I want to stay with you, Mommy," Ellen wailed.

"Daddy is picking you up early today, after the afternoon snack," Annika said cheerfully while trying to free herself of the children's arms. "Won't that be fun? Then you can go home and do some Christmas stuff, maybe go and buy a Christmas tree. Would you like that?"

"Yes!" Kalle said, Ellen joining in like a little echo.

"See you tonight," she said, quickly shutting the door on the children's little noses. She paused for a moment outside the door, listening for any reaction inside. She heard nothing. With a sigh she opened the front door.

She caught the 56 bus outside the Trygg-Hansa building and didn't reach work until half past ten. The newsroom was full of babbling people. For some reason she could never get used to this. To her the normal state of the newsroom was when it was one big empty room with only a few people sitting quietly in front of flickering computer screens with some telephones ringing continuously for background noise. That was what it was like at the weekends and at night, but now there were close to ninety people here. She grabbed a copy of all the papers and started toward her own room.

"Nice job, Annika!" someone shouted, she couldn't tell who. She waved her hand above her head in acknowledgement.

Eva-Britt Qvist was clattering on her computer.

"Nils Langeby has taken paid leave today," she said without looking up.

Still sulking, in other words. Annika hung up her coat, went to get a cup of coffee, and walked past her pigeonhole. It was jammed. She groaned loudly and looked around for a bin to dump her coffee in; she'd never be able to take both the mail and the coffee without spilling it.

"Why this loud groaning?" she heard Anders Schyman say behind her, and she gave an embarrassed smile.

"Oh, it's just all this mail. Opening it is such a waste of time. We get more than a hundred press releases and letters every day. It takes forever to go through it all."

"But there's no reason you should sit there opening letters," Schyman said in surprise. "I thought Eva-Britt did that."

"No, I began doing it when the last chief went to New York and I've just kept on doing it."

"It was Eva-Britt's job before he became foreign correspondent. It makes more sense for her to take care of the mail, unless you want to control it. Do you want me to have a word with her?"

"Thanks, it would be a great relief."

Anders Schyman picked up the whole pile of letters and dumped it in Eva-Britt Qvist's pigeonhole.

"I'll speak to her right away."

Annika went over to Ingvar Johansson who, as always, sat with the phone glued to his ear. He was wearing the same clothes as the day before and the day before that. Annika wondered if he got undressed before he went to bed.

"The police are pissed at you. Your piece about the security codes," he said when he'd hung up.

Annika stiffened. Fear pounded like a fist in her stomach and roared in her forehead.

"What? Why? Have I made a mistake?"

"No, but you've blown their best lead sky high. They say you'd promised not to mention the codes."

She felt the panic rising in her veins like a seething poison.

"But I didn't write about the codes! I didn't even mention the word!"

She threw away the coffee and frantically looked at a paper. "The Bomber Was Close to Christina, Suspect Taken in for Questioning" was the front-page headline. Inside she found the big black headline: "The Solution Lies in the Security Codes."

"What the fuck!" she shouted. "Who wrote this headline?"

"Hey, don't get hysterical," Ingvar Johansson said to her.

She felt her field of vision fill with something red and warm, her gaze landing on the smug man in the office chair. She could see how pleased he was behind the nonchalant face he had on.

"Who approved this?" she asked. "Did you?"

"I have nothing to do with the inside-page headlines, don't you know that?" he said and turned around to continue working. But she wasn't letting him off the hook that easily. She grabbed the back of his chair and swiveled it around so that his legs hit the desk drawer.

"Don't be an asshole," she said, making a hissing sound. "It doesn't matter if I'm screwed, don't you see? But it will damage the paper. It will hurt you, Ingvar Johansson, and Anders Schyman- and your daughter who works in the mail room in the summer. I'm going to find out who wrote this headline and on whose initiative it was done. Don't you worry. Who called?"

His smug grin was gone, replaced by an expression of distaste.

"Don't make such a big deal of it," he said. "That was the police press officer."

She looked at him with surprise. The police press officer had no idea of what promises she had made. He was probably pissed off with the story being leaked. And that headline was completely unnecessary. But she was not going to treat Ingvar Johansson to a rebuke for her having betrayed a confidence.

She turned on her heel and walked away, not noticing the way people were staring at her. Scenes like this were commonplace at the paper and people always found it interesting to listen in. Bosses fighting was always great entertainment. Now they were wondering what had made the crime editor blow up. They would open the paper on pages six and seven and look at Annika's piece but not see anything out of the ordinary, and with that the fight would be forgotten.

But Annika didn't forget. She placed Ingvar Johansson's deed on top of all the others in a pile of shit that was growing taller by the day. Any day now she feared the shit would hit the proverbial fan, and then no one in the newsroom would escape without getting it on their faces.

"Do you want your personal mail, or do you want me to handle that as well?" Eva-Britt Qvist was standing in the doorway with a couple of letters in her hand.

"What? No, put them here, thanks…"

The crime-desk secretary walked up to Annika's desk on clattering heels and threw down the letters.

"Here you are. And if you want me to start making coffee for you, you can tell me straight to my face instead of sending the editor-in-chief."

Surprised, Annika looked at her. The other woman's face was dark with contempt. Before Annika had a chance to reply, she turned around and stormed out.

Christ almighty, Annika thought, tell me this isn't happening! She's pissed off because she thinks I went behind her back and ordered her to start opening the mail. Oh, Lord, give me strength!

And the pile of shit grew a bit taller.

Evert Danielsson stared at his bookcase, his mind a blank. He had a strange feeling of being hollow. He gripped the desk tightly with both hands, trying to keep it, or himself, in place. It wouldn't work, he knew that. It was only a matter of time before the board would issue a press release. They didn't want to wait until a new assignment had been arranged for him; they wanted to show their strength and decisiveness without Christina at the helm. Deep down he knew that he hadn't been quite up to all aspects of the job during these years, but with Christina right above him, he'd been sheltered. Now that she wasn't there any longer he had nothing to hold on to. He was finished, and he knew it.

Some things he had learned in this time, however. What happened to people who were no longer wanted, for example. Often you didn't even have to make a decision to remove people because they would leave of their own accord. There were many ways of freezing someone out, and he was familiar with most of them, even if he hadn't personally made use of them very often. When the decision was made, by whoever it may be, the staff would be informed. The internal reaction was almost always positive: A person who was made to leave had seldom managed to retain any popularity. Then the public would be informed, and if the person was known, the media was turned loose. That was where the story could move in either of two directions. Either the media would side with the ousted person and let him or her have a good public cry, or they would gloat and crow, "It serves you right!"

The first category was composed of mainly women, unless they were too highly placed. In the second category, you found mostly men from the private sector who were given enormous golden handshakes. He suspected he would end up with the latter. In his favor was the fact that he'd been fired, that he'd been made the scapegoat for Christina Furhage's death. It might be possible to steer things in that direction. Evert Danielsson felt that, even without quite being able to formulate the words in his empty mind.

There was a knock on the door, and his secretary popped her head in. Her eyes were a bit swollen and her hair was disheveled.

"I've written the press release. Hans Bjällra is here to go through it with you. Can he come in?"

Evert Danielsson looked at his secretary. She had stayed loyal to him for many years. She was close to sixty and would never get a new job. Because that's how things went when someone left, their assistants went with them. No one wanted to take on someone else's underlings. It didn't work. There would never be any real loyalty.

"Yes, of course, show him in."

The chairman of the board came in, tall and dressed in a black suit. He was in mourning after Christina's death, the bastard- everyone knew he couldn't stand her.

"I think we should keep this as brief and civilized as possible," Bjällra said and sat down on the couch, uninvited.

Evert Danielsson nodded energetically. "Yes. Clean and dignified…"

"I'm glad we agree on that. The press release will say that you're leaving your post as director of SOCOG, the Stockholm Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games. The reason being that after the tragic death of Christina Furhage you will be given another assignment. What this will be is not clear at the moment, but the matter will be worked out in cooperation with you. Nothing about being fired or about your severance package. The board has agreed to keep quiet about that. What do you think?"

Evert Danielsson let the words sink in. It was a lot better than he'd dared hope. It almost sounded like a promotion. He let go of the desk with his hands.

"Yes, well, I think it sounds very good," he said.

"There are a few things I'd like to talk to you about," Annika said to Eva-Britt. "Could you come into my office for a second?"

"I'm really very busy."

"Now," Annika said and walked into her room, leaving the door open. She heard Eva-Britt demonstratively punch the keys on her computer for a few seconds. Then she came and stood in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest. Annika sat down behind her desk and pointed at the chair opposite.

"Shut the door and take a seat."

Eva-Britt sat down without closing the door. Annika sighed, got up, and closed the door. She noticed that she was shaking slightly; confrontations always were unpleasant.

"What's the matter, Eva-Britt?"

"Why? What do you mean?"

"You seem so… angry and upset. Has anything happened?"

Annika forced herself to sound calm and gentle, and the woman squirmed in her seat.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Annika leaned forward and noted how Eva-Britt crossed both her legs and her arms in an unconscious defensive posture.

"You've been so hostile to me this past week. And we really fell out yesterday…"

"So is this some kind of ticking off for me not being nice enough to you?"

Annika felt anger rising within. She struggled to keep calm. She couldn't keep blowing her top.

"No, it's about you not doing what you're supposed to do. You didn't prioritize the material yesterday, you didn't write a handover report, you went home without saying a word. I didn't know that handling the mail used to be in your job description. It wasn't me, but Schyman himself, who suggested you start doing that again. You have to cooperate with the rest of us, otherwise this desk won't function properly."

The woman looked at her coolly. "This desk was functioning perfectly well long before you joined it."

The conversation wasn't going anywhere. Annika rose to her feet.

"Okay, let's forget about this for now. I have to make a call. By the way, have you looked everywhere and been through absolutely everything there is about Christina Furhage. Archives, books, pictures, articles, databases…?"

"Every nook and cranny," Eva-Britt Qvist said and left the room.

Annika remained standing with a bitter taste in her mouth. That hadn't gone very well. She wasn't a good boss. She was a useless team leader who couldn't get the staff to go along with her. She sat down and beat her head against the keyboard. What was it she was going to do now? First things first. The police press officer, of course. She raised her head, took the phone and dialed his direct number.

"Surely you must understand that when you publish practically everything we know, you make our job more difficult," the press officer said. "Some things shouldn't be made public. They might obstruct the investigation."

"Then why do you tell us everything?" Annika said innocently.

The press officer sighed. "Some things we need to make known, but it's not the idea that it should all be in the papers."

"Please!" Annika said. "Then who decides what should be made public, and whose responsibility is it? It can't be me or my colleagues who should have to sit and guess what's best for the investigation? It would be unprofessional of us to even try."

"Yes, of course, that's not what I meant. But the security codes. It was a great shame it got in the paper."

"Yes. I'm really sorry about that. They're not mentioned anywhere in the text. The wrong words got in the headline. I'm sorry if this has caused any problems. That's why I think we should have an even closer dialogue in the future."

The press officer laughed. "Well, Bengtzon, you certainly know how to twist someone's words. If we were to get any closer to you, we'd have to give you an office next to the superintendent's."

"Not a bad idea," Annika said, smiling. She was off the hook. "So, what's happening today?"

The press officer turned serious. "Right now there's nothing I can tell you."

"Come on, it's seventeen hours to deadline; we're not publishing until tomorrow morning. There must be something you can tell me."

"Well, seeing as it's in the open, I may as well tell you now. We're looking at people with access to the security codes. The murderer is among them, we're sure of that."

"So the alarms at the stadium were primed that night?"

"Yes."

"How many people are involved?"

"Enough to keep us more than busy. Now I've got to take another call here…"

"Just one more thing," Annika added quickly. "Did Christina Furhage take a taxi after midnight the night she died?"

The police press officer breathed down the phone. Annika heard another phone ringing.

"Why do you ask?"

"I was given that information. Is it correct?"

"Christina Furhage had a private chauffeur. He took her to the restaurant where the Christmas party was held. After that she dismissed him. He was actually at the party. Christina Furhage had a company charge card with Taxi Stockholm, but as far as we know she didn't use it."

"Couldn't she have paid cash? And where did she go?"

The press officer remained silent for a moment, and then said: "That's the kind of thing that shouldn't be made public, for the sake of the investigation. And for Christina Furhage's."

They hung up. Annika was more puzzled than ever. Several things didn't make sense. First, the security codes. If there were that many people with access to them, then why was it so damaging for that information to be disclosed? What was the dark secret of the perfect Christina Furhage's private life? Was Helena Starke lying about the taxi? She called her contact, but no one answered. If anyone had a reason to be angry, it was him.

She called reception and asked whether Berit and Patrik had said when they would come in today. About two, they had both said when they left last night.

She put her feet on the desk and started going through the pile of papers. The "highbrow" broadsheet had found an interesting passage in one of the legal briefs that regulated the franchise between SOCOG, i.e., the Stockholm Olympics, and the IOC, the International Olympic Committee. There were numerous legal agreements between SOCOG and the IOC, not just concerning the rights to the Games themselves but also for international, national, and local sponsorship. The paper had found a clause that gave the main sponsor the right to pull out if the Olympic stadium wasn't ready for use on the first of January the year the Games were being held. Annika couldn't be bothered to read the whole story. If she remembered correctly, there were several thousand clauses. She thought they were irrelevant. The writer of the story hadn't been able to reach the main sponsor for their view. Big deal.

The rival had talked to several of the people working for Christina, among them her private chauffeur, but not to Helena Starke. The chauffeur recounted how he'd driven Christina to the restaurant and that she was as happy and nice as always, not at all worried or tense, only focused and attentive as always. He mourned her enormously because she had been such a considerate employer and nice person.

"She'll be growing wings next," Annika muttered to herself.

For the rest, there was nothing new in the papers. It took forever to go through them, they were all packed with advertising. November and December are the best months financially for Swedish daily newspapers, January and July the worst.

She went to the ladies' room to pee out the coffee and wash the printing ink off her hands. She caught sight of her own face in the mirror, not a very pleasant experience. She hadn't had the energy to wash her hair that morning but had put it up with a clip at the back. Now it lay flat and lank, separated into brown furrows. There were dark rings under her eyes and light red spots from stress on her cheeks. She rummaged through her pockets for some foundation to cover the spots but found nothing.

Eva-Britt Qvist had gone to lunch, her computer switched off. She logged out as soon as she left her desk, terrified someone would send rogue messages on the office intranet from her computer. Annika went into her own office and smeared some moisturizer on the rash, then took a stroll round the newsroom. What did she need to find out? What was the next thing to check? She walked over to the shelves holding the reference books and looked up the Olympic supremo in the National Encyclopedia. Christina Furhage née Faltin, the only child of a good but poor family, partly raised by relatives in the far north of Sweden. Career in banking. Driving force behind the efforts to win the Olympic Games for Stockholm, MD for SOCOG. Married to business executive Bertil Milander. That was it.

Annika looked up. The information that Christina's maiden name was Faltin was new to her. Then where did she get the name Furhage from? She looked at the preceding entry: Carl Furhage, born at the end of the previous century to a landed gentry family in the northern city of Härnösand. Official in the forestry industry. Third marriage to Dorotea Adelcrona. Had made his place in history and the National Encyclopedia by instituting a generous scholarship for young men who wanted to study forestry. Died in the 1960s.

Annika slammed the book shut. She quickly went over to the computer terminal and typed the names "Carl" and "Furhage." Seven hits. Since they computerized the archive in the early 1990s, they had written about the man on seven occasions. Annika chose F6 for "show" and gave a whistle. Not a bad sum of money- a quarter of a million kronor was handed out every year. Carl Furhage wasn't mentioned in any other context.

She logged out, picked up her entry card, and walked out through a fire door next to the sports desk. A steep staircase took her two floors down; she went through another door that called for both entry card and a code. On the other side lay a long corridor with worn linoleum on the floor and hissing pipes in the ceiling. At the far end of the corridor was the paper's archive, with double steel fireproof doors. She went inside and greeted the staff who sat hunched over their computer terminals. The steely gray filing cabinets, with everything written in Kvällspressen and in its sister "highbrow" broadsheet since the 19th century, filled the enormous room. She started walking slowly between the cabinets. She reached the biography section and read A-Ac, Ad-Af, Ag-Ak, skipped a couple of rows of cabinets and found Fu. She pulled out a large box with surprising ease. She leafed her way up to Furhage, Christina, but there was no Carl. She sighed. She'd drawn a blank.

"If you're looking for the cuttings on Christina Furhage, most of them have already been picked out," someone said behind her.

It was the head archivist, a competent little man with firm opinions on how to do his job. The correct heading to file a story under was one of his favorite peeves.

Annika smiled. "I'm actually looking for another Furhage, a Director Carl Furhage."

"Have we written about him?"

"Oh, yes, he instituted a large scholarship. He must have been loaded."

"Is he dead?"

"Yes, he died in the 1960s."

"Then you may not find him under his name. The cuttings will still be there, but they could be filed under another subject field. What do you think we should start with?"

"No idea. Scholarships, perhaps?"

The archivist looked doubtful. "There are quite a lot. Do you need it today?"

Annika gave a sigh and started walking back. "Not really, it was just a hunch. Thanks anyway…"

"Could he have been photographed?"

Annika stopped short. "Yes, I guess so. Some special occasion or something like that. Why do you ask?"

"Then he'll be in the picture archive."

Annika went straight over to the other end of the room, past the sports archive and the reference section. She found the right box and leafed through it to Furhage. The envelopes with pictures of Christina filled almost an entire box, but on one flat little C5 envelope, frayed at the edges, she read: Furhage, Carl, director. The dust whirled when she pulled it out. She sat down on the floor and emptied the contents of the envelope onto the floor. Inside were four pictures. Two were little black and white portrait photos of a stern-looking man with thin hair and a firm chin: Carl Furhage, 50 years old, and Carl Furhage, 70 years old. The third was a wedding photo of an aging Carl and an old woman, Dorotea Adelcrona. The fourth was the largest of the photos. It was upside down. Annika turned it over and felt her heart do a somersault. The caption was taped to the picture. "Director Carl Furhage, 60 today, with his wife Christina and son Olof." Annika read the caption twice before believing her eyes. It was definitely Christina Furhage. A very young Christina. She must have been barely twenty years old. She was very slim and had her hair put up in an unbecoming frumpy hairdo, dressed in a dark suit with a skirt down to below the knees. She looked shyly into the camera, attempting a smile. On her lap was an adorable little boy of two with blond curls. The boy wore a light sweater and short trousers with suspenders. He was holding an apple in his hands. Carl Furhage was standing behind the couch with a determined look, a protective hand resting on his young wife's shoulder. The picture was extremely stiff and contrived, breathing turn of the century rather than the '50s, which was when it must have been taken. She hadn't read a word about Christina being married before or about her having a son. She had two children! Annika let the picture drop to her lap. She didn't know how or why, but somehow this was of vital importance; she felt it inside. A child couldn't disappear. This boy exists somewhere and was sure to have a thing or two to tell about his mom Christina.

She put the pictures back in the envelope, got to her feet and went over to the head archivist.

"I'd like to take this with me," she said.

"Sure, just sign this," he said without looking up.

Annika signed for the picture envelope and walked back through the corridor to her room. She had a feeling this would be a long afternoon.

The press release about Evert Danielsson's resignation was sent to the news agency TT at 11:30 A.M. After that, the Olympic Secretariat's press department faxed it first to all major newspapers, the morning broadsheets, and TV, then the radio, the evening tabloids, and the bigger local newspapers in descending order of importance. Danielsson wasn't a major player in the Olympics so the editors around the country didn't exactly fall on the information. Forty minutes after the release reached TT at Kungsholm's Square, a brief item was added to their news schedule about the head of the Olympic Secretariat leaving his current post to deal with the repercussions of Christina Furhage's death.

Evert Danielsson sat in his office while the fax machines rustled in the background. He would keep his office until his new assignment had been sorted out. His initial happiness at the wording of the press release was gone. Reality had set in. The anguish was beating like a hammer inside his forehead. He couldn't focus long enough to read a whole sentence in a report or a newspaper. He was waiting for the wolves to set upon him, for the frenzy to begin. He was fair game now; the mob would soon be snapping at his legs. But to his surprise, the phone wasn't ringing.

Somewhere inside him he'd expected the situation to be similar to the one after Christina's death, when all the telephones in the office had been ringing throughout the day. They didn't. One hour after the release had gone out, the "highbrow" broadsheet called for a comment. He heard his voice sound completely normal as he said he saw this more as a promotion and that someone had to bring order in the chaos that Christina Furhage's death had caused. The reporter had been satisfied with that. His secretary came in, had a little cry, and asked if she could get him anything. Coffee? A cookie? Maybe a salad? He said no, thank you, he wouldn't be able to get it down. He gripped the desk and sat waiting for the next call.

Annika was on her way down to the canteen to get something to eat when Ingvar Johansson came walking toward her with a paper in his hand.

"Isn't this one of your guys?" he said, handing her a press release from the Olympic Secretariat. She took it and read it.

" 'One of my guys' is putting it a bit strongly," she said. "He's answered the phone when I've called. Why, do you think we should do something with it?"

"I don't know, I thought it might be good for you to know."

"Sure. Anything else going on?"

"Not in your line of business," he said and walked off.

Asshole, Annika thought. She walked over to the cafeteria instead of the canteen. She wasn't really hungry anyway. She bought a pasta salad and a Christmas must, the special Swedish Christmas soft drink, and brought it back to her room. Annika ate the salad in four minutes flat, went back to the cafeteria, and bought another three bottles of must. She was into the second one when she dialed the Olympic Secretariat and asked to speak to Evert Danielsson. He sounded distant. He said that he really saw the change as a promotion.

"So what will you be doing?" Annika asked.

"That isn't quite decided yet," Evert Danielsson replied.

"So how do you know it's a promotion?"

The man at the other end went quiet.

"Well, eh, I don't see it as being fired," he finally said.

"Well, have you been?" Annika said.

Evert Danielsson reflected.

"It depends on how you look at it," he said.

"I see. Did you resign?"

"No, I did not."

"So whose was the decision that you should change jobs? The board's?"

"Yes, they need someone to bring order in the chaos after…"

"Couldn't you have done that in your capacity as head of the Secretariat?"

"Well, yes, of course."

"By the way, did you know that Christina Furhage had a son?"

"A son?" he said, confused. "No, she had a daughter, Lena."

"Well, she had a son as well. Do you know where he is?"

"I haven't got a clue. A son, you say? Never heard of him."

Annika paused and thought for a moment. "Okay," she resumed, "do you know which of the bosses at the Secretariat had an affair with a woman who had to leave seven years ago?"

Evert Danielsson felt his chin drop.

"Where did you get that information?" he said when he'd collected himself.

"From a news item in the paper. Do you know who it was?"

"Yes, I do. Why?"

"What happened?"

He thought for a moment, and then said: "What do you really want?"

"I don't know," Annika said, and Evert Danielsson thought she sounded perfectly sincere.

"I guess I just want to know how it all hangs together."

Annika was surprised, to say the least, when Evert Danielsson asked her to come over to the Secretariat so they could have a chat.

Berit and Patrik still hadn't arrived when Annika set out for Hammarby Dock.

"I'm on my cellphone," she said to Ingvar Johansson, who gave a curt nod.

She took a taxi and paid with her card. The weather was awful. All the snow had been washed away by the rain and left the ground in a state somewhere between mudhole and lake. Hammarby Dock was a sad part of town, with its empty, half-finished Olympic Village, gloomy offices, and busted stadium. The mud was flowing freely as the shrubs and flowerbeds planted last summer hadn't yet taken root. Annika jumped across the worst puddles but still got mud on her pant legs.

The reception area of SOCOG was spacious, but the offices inside were remarkably small and plain, Annika thought. She compared them with the only other administrative complex she was familar with, the Association of Local Authorities where Thomas worked. Their premises were nicer and more practical. The Secretariat was almost spartan: white walls, plastic floor, strip lights everywhere in the ceiling, white chipboard bookshelves, desks that could be from IKEA.

Evert Danielsson's office was halfway down a long corridor. It wasn't much bigger than the office clerks', something Annika found a bit odd. A sagging couch, a desk, and some bookcases, that was all. She had thought the head of a secretariat would have mahogany furniture and a window office.

"What makes you think Christina had a son?" Evert Danielsson said and invited her to sit on the couch.

"Thanks," Annika said, sitting down. "I have a picture of him."

She pulled off her coat but decided not to take out a pad and pen. Instead she took a closer look at the man in front of her. He was sitting at his desk, holding on to the desk firmly with one hand- it looked a bit strange. He was around fifty, with a good head of steely gray hair and quite a pleasant face. But his eyes were tired, and he had a cheerless line around his mouth.

"I have to say I find that highly unlikely," he said.

Annika pulled out a scan of the Furhage family photograph from her bag. She had returned the original to the archive since it wasn't allowed to leave the building, but nowadays you could scan a picture and have a paper copy within a minute. She handed the picture to Evert Danielsson who looked at it with obvious surprise.

"Well, I'll be damned…" he said. "I had no idea."

"Of the husband or the child?"

"Either, actually. Christina didn't talk about her private life."

Annika waited in silence for the man to continue. She didn't quite understand why he had asked her to come there. He was fidgeting in his chair. Then he said:

"You were asking about the secretary who got fired."

"Yes, I found a short piece about it in the archive. But there was no mention of her being a secretary or about being fired. All it said was she had worked here and had to go."

Evert Danielsson nodded. "That's how Christina wanted it. But Sara was an excellent secretary. She would doubtless have done well if it hadn't been for…"

The man fell silent.

"There is a rule within the Olympic organization saying that employees in the same workplace are not allowed to have a relationship," he continued. "Christina was adamant about it. She said it had a disruptive effect, disturbed people's focus, divided their loyalty. It subjected the others in the team to unnecessary stress; it made them play favorites."

"Who was the man?" Annika asked.

Evert Danielsson sighed heavily.

"It was me."

Annika felt herself raising her eyebrows.

"And whose rule was it?"

"Christina's. It applied to everyone."

"Still?"

Evert Danielsson let go of his desk.

"I don't know, actually. But one thing I do know. It's completely irrelevant to me now."

He covered his face with his hands. He was crying again. Annika waited in silence while the man collected himself.

"I really loved Sara, but I was married," he finally said, lowering one hand onto his lap and gripping the desk with the other. His eyes were dry but slightly red.

"You're not now?"

He gave a short laugh.

"Oh no. Someone told my wife about Sara, and Sara dropped me when I couldn't see to it that she could keep her job. I lost my wife and kids and lover at the same time."

He fell silent for a while and then went on, almost as if speaking to himself:

"Sometimes I wonder if she seduced me to forward her career. When it was clear I was dragging her down, she dumped me like a hot brick."

He gave another quick, bitter little laugh.

"So maybe she wasn't all that terrific, after all," Annika ventured.

He looked up.

"No, perhaps not. But what are you going to do with this? Are you going to write about it?"

"Not at the moment," Annika said. "Maybe never. Would you mind if I did?"

"I don't know, it would depend on what you wrote. What are you after, really?"

"Why did you ask me to come here?"

He sighed.

"There's so much that comes to the surface on a day like this. Thoughts and feelings. It's chaotic. I've been here since the beginning, there's so much I could tell…"

Annika waited. The man stared at the floor, lost in his own thoughts.

"Was Christina a good boss?" she asked in the end.

"She was a prerequisite for my being in this post," Evert Danielsson said, letting go of the desk. "Now she's not here any longer, and I'm finished. I think it's time for me to go home now."

He rose and Annika followed. She put her coat back on, hung her bag over her shoulder, shook his hand, and thanked him for seeing her.

"By the way, where was Christina's office?"

"Didn't you see it? Right behind the entrance. I'll walk you out and I can show you."

He put on his coat, wrapped a scarf around his neck, picked up his briefcase, and looked pensively at his desk.

"Today I don't need to bring a single paper with me."

He switched out the lights and left the office with his empty briefcase, conscientiously locking the door behind him. He popped his head in next door and said:

"I'm off now. If anyone calls you can refer them to the press release."

They walked side by side down the white corridor.

"Christina had several offices," he said. "You could call this her everyday office. Two of her secretaries were based here."

"And Helena Starke?" Annika queried.

"Her enforcer, you mean. Right, her office is next to Christina's," Evert Danielsson said, rounding the corner. "Here it is."

The door was locked, and the man sighed. "I don't have the key," he said. "Well, it's nothing special, a corner office with windows facing in two directions, a large desk with two computers, a couch and chairs and a coffee table…"

"You'd expect something grander," Annika said and recalled an archive picture from a magnificent palatial room with a period desk, dark wooden panel walls, and chandeliers.

"Well, this is where she did the spadework. Then she had her office downtown, just behind Rosenbad. That's where she had her third secretary, where all meetings and negotiations took place and where she received the press and various guests… Do you want a ride somewhere?"

"No, thanks, I'm going to say hello to a friend over at the old lamp factory," Annika said.

"You can't walk there in this mud," Evert Danielsson said. "I'll drop you over there."

He had a brand new company car, a Volvo- naturally. Volvo was one of the main sponsors. He unlocked the central locking, beep-beep, with a remote control, caressing the car roof before opening the door. Annika got in on the passenger side, put on the seat belt, and said:

"Who do you think blew her up?"

Evert Danielsson started up the car and revved it twice, carefully put it in reverse, and stroked the wheel.

"Well," he said, "one thing I know for sure. There were a lot of people with a reason for doing it."

Annika bounced. "What do you mean by that?"

The man didn't reply but drove in silence the five hundred meters to the old factory building. He stopped outside the gates.

"I want to know if you write anything about me."

Annika gave him her card and asked him to call her if there was anything he wanted to tell her, thanked him for the ride, and got out.

"One thing I know for sure," she quoted him, "this story keeps getting more and more complex."

She went up to the TV company where Anne Snapphane worked. Anne was still editing and seemed relieved to have a break.

"I'll be done soon," she said. "Do you want some glogg?"

"Nonalcoholic," Annika said. "Is there a phone I could use?"

"Take the one on my desk. I'm just…"

Annika went over to Anne Snapphane's desk and threw her coat on top of it. She started by calling Berit.

"I've talked to the limo driver, Christina's chauffeur," Berit said. "The rival already did that yesterday, but he had some new stuff to tell me. He confirmed that Christina had her laptop with her- she left it behind, so they had to go back and get it. He hadn't worked long for Christina, only about two months. She had a hell of a turnover of drivers."

"You don't say," Annika said.

She heard Berit turning over the pages on a pad.

"He also said that she was extremely worried about being followed. He was never allowed to drive straight from the Secretariat to her house. He also had to check the car carefully every day. Christina was scared of bombs."

"Well done!"

"What else was there… Oh, yes, he'd been given express orders never to let the daughter, Lena, anywhere near the car. Weird, eh?"

Annika sighed lightly.

"Christina seems to have been a bit paranoid. But it'll make for one hell of a story, Christina afraid of being blown up. The bit about the daughter we'll have to leave out."

"Absolutely. I'm chasing the police for a comment right now."

"What's Patrik doing?"

"He hasn't showed up yet. He worked almost right through last night. Where are you?"

"At my friend Anne Snapphane's. I've had a little chat with Evert Danielsson. He's out."

"Booted out?"

"Well, not quite. He wasn't quite sure himself. It's not really anything to write about. I mean, who cares? He's not going to cry on our shoulders, but he isn't going to blast anyone either. Doesn't seem capable."

"So what did he say?"

"Not much. He was the guy who had an affair at the Secretariat. We talked about that, mostly. And he hinted that Christina had a lot of enemies."

"Well, well, it's all coming out now," Berit said. "What else are we doing?"

"Christina was married before and had a son. I'll see what I can find on that."

"A son? But I wrote her life history last night. I didn't know she had a son."

"She's hidden him well. I wonder if there are any other secrets in her closet…"

They hung up and Annika fished out her pad. On the back of it she had noted Helena Starke's telephone number. She dialed the number, starting 702, which they often did on Ringvägen, and hoped for the best.

Helena Starke had had another lousy night, waking up repeatedly from ghastly nightmares. When at last she'd gotten out of bed and looked out the window, she nearly went straight back to bed again. It was raining, a gray drizzle that killed all the colors in the street outside. The stench from the closet had become unbearable, so she had put on a pair of jeans and gone down to the laundry room to book a time. Things are very organized in Sweden. Needless to say, there wasn't a single slot available before the new year. So she quickly emptied one of the running machines, threw the dripping load in a basket and went and collected her mat. She shoved it into the machine, poured in too much washing powder, and hurried away. She took a long shower to finally get rid of the smell of vomit from her hair and then scrubbed the closet and the floor in the hallway. She considered collecting the mat but refrained; it was better to wait until tonight and let the old bags downstairs rant and rave first.

She went into the kitchen to have a cigarette. Christina didn't like her smoking, but that didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore. She stood by the kitchen table in the dark, having had the second deep drag on the cigarette when the phone on the windowsill rang.

It was the woman from last night, the bitch from Kvällspressen.

"I don't know if I want to talk to you," Helena Starke said.

"You don't have to, of course… Are you smoking?"

"So what if I am? Yes, I'm smoking. What's it to you?"

"Nothing. Why do they call you Christina's enforcer?"

Helena didn't know what to say.

"What the hell do you want from me?"

"Nothing really. It's Christina I'm interested in. Why wouldn't she acknowledge her son? Was she ashamed of him?"

Helena Starke's head was spinning. She sat down and put out the cigarette. How could she know about Christina's son?

"He died," she said. "The boy died."

"Died? When?"

"When he was… five."

"Really? That's terrible. Five, just like Kalle."

"Who?"

"My son, he's five. How awful! What did he die of?"

"Malignant melanoma, skin cancer. Christina never got over it. She didn't ever want to talk about him."

"I'm so sorry I… Sorry, I had no idea…"

"Anything else?" Helena Starke said, trying to sound as cold as possible.

"Yes, quite a lot, actually. Do you have a moment?"

"No, I'm doing my laundry."

"Laundry?"

"Yeah, what's so strange about that?"

"No, it's just that I… I mean… Well, you knew Christina really well, you were so close to her." Annika pushed it. "It must be difficult to think about doing ordinary stuff like laundry so soon after…"

"Yes, I knew her well!" Helena Starke shouted, and the tears started running. "I knew her best of all!"

"Apart from her family, perhaps."

"Right, her fucking family! That senile old man and her crazy daughter. You know she's a pyromaniac? Cuckoo bird. Spent most of her teens in a psychiatric ward. Set fire to anything she could lay her hands on. That special home in Botkyrka that burned down six years ago, do you remember? That was her, Lena. Talk about nutcase, you couldn't have her in the house."

She cried straight into the phone, loud and uncontrolled, hearing how awful she sounded, like some strange trapped animal. She put the receiver down and let her arms drop onto the kitchen table, her forehead landing among the breadcrumbs, and then she cried and cried and cried until everything was black out there and everything inside her had run out.

Annika could hardly believe what she had just heard. For a long while, she sat with the receiver held out from her ear, listening to the silence after Helena Starke's unbearable scream.

"What's up? Why are you sitting like that?" Anne Snapphane said, placing a coffee mug full of glogg and a stack of ginger biscuits on the desk next to Annika.

"Bizarre…" Annika said, putting the phone down.

Anne Snapphane stopped nibbling at her biscuit.

"You look wretched. What happened?"

"I just spoke to a woman who knew Christina Furhage. It was kind of over the top."

"How so?"

"She started crying loudly, really howling. I always feel awful when I go too far."

Anne Snapphane nodded sympathetically and pointed at the mug and the stack of biscuits.

"Come with me to the editing suite and I'll show you the beginning of our New Year's show. Things We Remember- That They'd Rather Forget is the title. It's about celebrity scandals. Delicious!"

Annika left her coat but hung her bag on her shoulder and followed Anne, balancing the glogg and the biscuits. The TV offices were empty of people. The season's productions were finished, and they wouldn't start on the next until after the holidays.

"Do you know what you're doing next season?" Annika asked while they stepped down the spiral staircase to the editing suite.

Anne Snapphane pulled a wry face. "What do you think? Fat chance. I'm hoping to get away from Women's Sofa. I've done it backwards and forwards a million times now. He cheated on me with my best friend, my best friend cheated on me with my son, my son cheated on me with my dog… Count me out…"

"So what do you want to do instead?"

"Anything. I might go to Malaysia with this new show in the spring. People living on a desert island for as long as possible without being voted out by the audience. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?"

"Sounds damn boring to me," Annika said.

Anne Snapphane looked at her with mock scorn and continued down another corridor.

"Luckily you're not head of the program. I think it'll be great. People love that shit. Here we are."

They stepped into a room filled with TV monitors, Digibeta players, keyboards, consoles, and cables. The room was considerably larger than the little cubicles they called editing suites at the state television newsroom. There was even a couch, two armchairs, and a coffee table in the corner. The editor was sitting on a swivel chair in front of the main console- a young guy who handled the technical side of putting together the program- staring at a screen where images were rushing past. Annika greeted him and then went and sat down in one of the armchairs.

"Run the opening sequence," Anne said and sat down on the couch.

The editor reached out for a large Digibeta tape and fed it into one of the players. The screen on the largest monitor flickered and a countdown clock appeared. Then the show started and the well-known presenter stepped out on the studio floor. The audience cheered. He presented the program that would feature a politician who had thrown up in the head waiter's booth at the famous Café Opera, the most talked about divorces of the year, TV gaffes we remember, and other important items.

"Okay, you can turn down the volume," Anne said. "What do you think? Isn't it good?"

Annika nodded and took a sip from her mug. The glogg was pretty strong. "Do you know someone called Helena Starke?"

Anne let her cookie drop and thought about it.

"Starke… it sounds really familiar. What does she do?"

"She works at the Olympic Secretariat with Christina Furhage. Lives in South Island, around forty, short black hair…"

"Helena Starke, now I know! Sure. She's a lesbian activist. Butch dyke type."

Annika looked at her friend with skepticism in her eyes.

"Come on, what do you mean 'butch dyke'?"

"She's active in the National Swedish Association for Sexual Liberation- writes articles and stuff like that. She's trying to make lesbians look less soft. Complains about 'vanilla sex,' for example."

"How do you know this?"

It was Anne Snapphane's turn to look skeptical.

"What do you think I do all day? There isn't a single activist in this country I don't have the private phone number of. How do you think we make these programs?"

Annika raised her eyebrows apologetically and finished her glogg.

"Has Starke been on your show?"

"Nope, no way would she come on. Come to think of it, we've asked her a couple of times. She says she stands for her sexuality but won't have it exploited by the media."

"Sensible woman," Annika said.

"Luckily for me, not everyone thinks like she does, or there wouldn't be a Women's Sofa program. More glogg?"

"No, I've got to get back to the snake pit. They'll all be wondering what happened to the little rabbit."

Anders Schyman's afternoon had been tedious. He'd been in a meeting with two guys from the marketing department: a circulation analyst and a number-cruncher. Two economists whose job it was to interfere with everything that wasn't their business. They had both rejected his pitch for more investigative social journalism. The analyst had gone over his overhead transparencies and pointed at various charts, columns, and figures comparing the three largest evening tabloids, day by day.

"Here, for example, the rival sold exactly 43,512 copies more than Kvällspressen," he said, pointing at a date at the beginning of December. "The kind of serious news we had on that particular day didn't stand a chance against the competition."

The number-cruncher got in on the act.

"That whole focus on heavy pieces in early December hasn't worked very well. We're hardly increasing our circulation at all compared with last year. And you've been using resources that were allocated for other items."

Anders Schyman had been pensively twirling a pen while the economists talked. When they had finished, he answered circumspectly:

"Yes, you've got a point, of course. I mean, yes, in retrospect we can see that the lead in question wasn't particularly spectacular, but what was the alternative? The defense budget being overspent wasn't exactly the scoop of the decade, but we were the only ones to have it and got credit for it in other media. The rival had a special pull-out with Christmas gift bargains that day. And that TV celebrity who came clean about his eating disorder. From a circulation perspective, it would have been hard to beat that day with anything."

The editor got up and walked over to the window facing the Russian Embassy. It really was completely gray out there.

"There was a lot going on early December. Remember?" he went on. "That plane crashed coming in to Bromma Airport, the soccer star who got caught drunk driving and his club threw him out, a TV star was convicted of rape. Our circulation figures in December last year were enormous. And this year we're up. Even with investigative news stories, we've been reaching and improving upon last year. Losing the race against the rival on one particular day doesn't mean that our scrutiny of the powers that be is misguided. I think it's too early to draw that conclusion."

"Our financial health is based on successful sales on particular days," the number-cruncher remarked dryly.

"Well, superficially, yes. But look at the bigger picture," Anders Schyman said and turned to face the two men. He must have given this speech nineteen times. "We have to concentrate on building up our credibility with the readers. It's been neglected for a long time. We'll have big-selling front pages with blondes and car crashes, but we have to stick to our long-term investment in quality."

"Well," the number-cruncher said, "it's really a matter of what kind of resources we invest."

"Or how we invest them," Schyman countered. "Juggling the budget within the limits prescribed- I have the board's full endorsement to allocate resources. At my discretion."

"And that is something that could well be worth looking at again," the number-cruncher said.

Anders Schyman sighed. "Do we have to talk about that again?" It seemed like the bean counters sat in his office every month and went on about this.

"I think we should," said the number-cruncher, waving his transparencies in the air. "We have the formula for a successful tabloid right here. It's in our data."

A business degree and six months in the sales department and these jerks thought they had invented the business. The numbers were good; he just wasn't doing it according to the right theory.

"Well, I disagree. Why do you think I'm sitting here? Why don't they just put a computer in this office and save my salary? If all that matters is the formula? Tabloids and front pages aren't made by analyzing computer breakdowns of circulation figures. They're made with your heart. With experience. I wish you guys would concentrate on marketing. When are our circulation figures at their highest? How come? Could we change distribution? Should we change our printing schedule? Can we save time printing via satellite in other cities? You know about that stuff. Leave the editing to me."

"We've already been through all that," the number-cruncher replied shortly.

"Then do it again, and better," said Schyman.

He'd let out a sigh when the men closed the door behind them. This kind of discussion could be quite rewarding, sometimes. It wouldn't have been possible ten years ago. In those days there was a sharp dividing line between the marketing department and the editors. Now he saw it as his job to at least build a few bridges between the Numbers and the Words. The marketing people mustn't think that they could start dictating the editorial content. But he needed them. He was sure about that. He knew that the circulation statistics for separate issues were extremely important; he spent many hours every week going over the figures with the circulation analyst. But that didn't mean the number-crunchers should try to do his job.

A tabloid's circulation is an extremely sensitive mechanism affected by a near infinite number of factors. Every morning around 4 A.M., analysts come in to calculate the number of copies to be sent to the thousands of outlets around the country. All the basic variables would already be in the computer: the season, the day of the week, holidays. If it was going to rain, for example, the copies were moved from the beach kiosks to the IKEA stores. People did their weekly shopping on Thursdays and would buy the paper then. So, more papers to the supermarkets on Thursdays. And if it was the Christmas holidays and people were on the roads, they would increase the number of copies along the highways.

A big event in a small place would generate localized stories and increase local sales. It was then up to the analysts to figure it out; not just add ten percent across the board. For a kiosk in the sticks that normally sold ten copies, ten percent would mean one extra copy. There you would have to increase the circulation by four hundred percent.

The last factor of the circulation breakdown was what was going on the front page. It was of marginal importance, unless the King got married or there was a plane crash.

Besides the circulation breakdown, other variables were involved. If a big story broke up north, the analyst might have to make a quick decision to get extra planes to deliver the papers. This was obviously a financial question: How much the air delivery would cost compared with the revenue of the extra newspapers sold. But a disappointed reader who went to the rival instead was also worth taking into consideration. Usually they put on the extra plane.

Schyman sat down in front of his computer and logged into the TT news agency's database. He quickly scrolled through the menu of cable copy that had been filed over the past twenty-four hours. There were a couple of hundred items, covering sports, domestic, and international news. All Swedish newsdesks rely on this wire copy. Their selection of both domestic and international news is governed by what TT puts out.

Anders Schyman thought back to another of the number-cruncher's lectures. The demographics were lousy. He presented the Reader, a standardized profile of the Kvällspressen readership. The Swedish stalwart, the Man in a Cap, 54 years of age, blue-collar guy, who had been buying the paper since he was in his twenties. All tabloids had their loyal readers, those who would, the paper liked to think, go through fire and water to get hold of their copies. They were called elephant hides and were, in the case of Kvällspressen, a dying breed. Anders Schyman was painfully aware of that.

The next category was called Loyal Readers, a group of people who would buy the paper several times a week. If these Loyal Readers stopped buying the paper just one time a week, it would have a disastrous effect on the circulation. That's how the crisis started a couple of years ago. Now they were working toward finding a new readership. Anders Schyman was sure they were succeeding, but these new readers had not yet supplanted the Man in a Cap. But it was only a matter of time. He needed senior staff with a new way of thinking. They couldn't go on relying on men over 45 to make the paper. Anders Schyman knew this, and he was clear how he would go about making the changes that had to be made.

Annika was feeling a bit dizzy from the mulled wine when she reached the paper. Not a very pleasant feeling. She concentrated on walking in a straight line. She didn't talk to anyone on the way to her office. Eva-Britt Qvist's chair was empty. She had already gone home, even though her working hours were until 5 P.M. Annika threw her coat and scarf on the couch and went and collected two mugs of coffee. Why had she drunk that damned glogg?

She started by calling her contact. Busy signal. She hung up and started writing down what she had found out about Christina's children, that the son had died and the daughter was a pyromaniac. She finished her first mug of coffee and brought the other one with her to the computer terminal where she ran a search of the archives. Yes, a children's home in Botkyrka had burned down six years before. A fourteen-year-old girl had started the fire. Nobody was hurt but the building had been completely destroyed. So far the details of Helena Starke's outburst tallied.

She went back to her office and called her contact again. This time the call went through.

"I know you have a right to be angry with me about the security codes," was the first thing she said to him.

The man sighed. "What do you mean, 'angry'? Are you serious? You blew our best lead sky-high, and you ask me if I'm angry? I was fucking furious. Mostly with myself for talking about it in the first place."

Annika closed her eyes and felt her heart sink deep into her shoes. It was pointless to try and find excuses about editors writing headlines they shouldn't have. The only thing that would work here was to go on the offensive.

"Oh, please," Annika said in as reproachful a tone of voice as she could muster. "Who revealed what exactly? I had the whole story and sat on it for twenty-four hours. Just like you asked. I think you're being unfair."

"Unfair? This is a murder investigation, for Christ's sake! What's fair got to do with it?"

"It wouldn't have taken a total genius to figure out that there were security codes involved. You shouldn't have let me write anything at all," Annika said dryly.

The man exhaled slowly. She had him.

"Okay, give me your apologies and let's be done with it."

Annika took a breath. "I'm sorry that the words 'security codes' got in the headline. As you may have noticed, they were nowhere in the actual text. The editor wrote the headline sometime in the early morning. He was only trying to do a good job. He didn't know."

"Damned editors," the police officer said. "Well, what is it you want now?"

Annika smiled.

"Have you questioned Christina's daughter, Lena Milander?"

"About what?"

"About what she was doing last Friday night?"

"Why do you ask?"

"I've found out about her pyromania."

"Fire fixation," the man corrected her. "Pyromania is an extremely rare condition. It's very precise. A pyromaniac has to meet five distinct criteria that largely have to do with a person having a pathological fascination with, and being excited by, both fire and everything connected with fire, like fire brigades, fire extinguishers…"

"All right, fire fixation, then. Have you?"

"Yes, we've checked her out."

"And?"

"That's all I can say."

Annika fell silent. She wondered whether she should say anything about the son that died but decided not to. A dead five-year-old had nothing to do with this.

"So what's happened with the security codes?"

"Do you think I should tell you?"

"Come off it," Annika said.

The man paused.

"We're working on it," was all he said.

"Do you have a suspect?"

"No, not at this stage."

"Any leads?"

"Yes, of course, what the hell do you think we do up here?"

"Okay," Annika said and looked at her notes. "How about this: You're still looking into the security codes- I can write that now that it's out in the open, can't I? That you've had several people in for questioning without finding a particular suspect but that you're working on several leads at the moment."

"That sounds about right," her contact said.

Annika hung up with a taste of bitter disappointment in her mouth. The idiot who had written that headline had ruined years of work for her. What she had found out now was nothing, nada, the usual bullshit. Now she had to rely on her colleagues and their sources.

At that moment Berit and Patrik popped their heads in the door.

"Are you busy?"

"No, come right in. Take a seat, just chuck my clothes on the floor. They're so dirty, it won't make any difference."

"Where have you been?" Berit asked and hung Annika's coat on a hook.

"In the mud outside the Olympic Secretariat. I hope you've had better luck than I have today," she said cheerlessly and gave them a brief outline of the conversation with her contact.

"Accident at work," Berit comforted her. "Shit happens."

Annika sighed. "Well, let's get started. What have you got today, Berit?"

"I've told you about my interview with the chauffeur; he's quite good. And I've been making calls about that taxi tip off. It's odd. No one wants to say anything about where Christina disappeared to after the Christmas party. We don't know what she was doing between midnight and 3:17."

"Right, so you have two things: Christina was afraid of being blown up, according to her private chauffeur, and her missing hours. Patrik?"

"I just got here, but I've made a couple of calls. Interpol is putting out an alert for the Tiger during the evening."

"Really?" Annika said. "Global?"

"I think so. Zone two, they said."

"That's Europe," Berit and Annika said simultaneously, and laughed.

"Any particular country?"

"Don't know," Patrik answered.

"Okay, so you can deal with stuff that comes in this evening," Annika said. "Unfortunately I don't have much that's worth writing about, but I've discovered a couple of things."

She told them about Christina Furhage's first husband, the wealthy old forestry official, about her dead son and pyromaniac of a daughter, Evert Danielsson's devastating love affair at work and his uncertain future, about Helena Starke's unexpected outburst, and the fact that she was a militant lesbian.

"Why are you poking about in all that?" Patrik said skeptically.

Annika gave him a look of mild indulgence.

"Because, dear boy, this type of general research into the human nature sometimes produces something. Cause and effect. An understanding of the individual and her impact on society. As you'll learn when you've been around here as long as I have."

Patrik looked like he didn't believe her.

"Whatever. I just want to get my copy onto the front page," he said.

Annika smiled slightly.

"Great. Shall we pack it in?"

Berit and Patrik left. She listened to Eko before she went into the evening news conference, the handover that the rank and file called the Six Session. The radio news pursued the morning broadsheet's discovery of the legal technicality and then went to town on the parliamentary elections in India. Annika switched off.

She went past the kitchen and drank a big glass of water before joining the meeting. The dizziness from the glogg had thankfully worn off.

The editor was alone in his office when she entered. He seemed to be in a good mood.

"Good news?" Annika asked him.

"Hell, no. Numbers aren't good enough. I've just had a meeting with the marketing people, that always cheers me up. How are you doing?"

"The headline with the security codes in today's paper was unnecessary. I want to bring that up at the meeting. It's a bit of a catastrophe for me. Then I've found some skeletons in Furhage's closet. I can tell you about it afterwards if you have a minute…"

Ingvar Johansson, Pelle Oscarsson, and Spike, the other night editor, entered at the same time. They were loud and noisy, laughing among themselves in the way men among equals do. Annika sat silently waiting for them to sit down.

"There's something I want to say," Anders Schyman said briskly, pulling out a chair and sitting down. "I know that no one in this room had anything to do with it, but I want to deal with it officially. It's about the headline on pages six and seven in today's paper. 'The Solution Lies in the Security Codes.' We weren't supposed to mention the codes. There could have been no doubt about that after yesterday's discussion. Still the headline ended up in the paper. A big fuck-up. I'll be calling Jansson straight after this meeting to find out how the hell it could happen."

Annika felt her cheeks go redder and redder while the editor was speaking. She struggled to look unmoved, but without great success. It was clear to everyone in the room whose brief he was holding and whose side he was on.

"It's amazing to me that I should even have to say this. I thought it was clear that we act in accordance with the decisions made in these meetings and with the directives I give. There are certain times we know of things that we don't write about. I decide when this is so. Annika's deal with her contact was to not mention the codes, which she didn't. Even so, it ended up like this. How was that possible?"

No one replied. Annika stared down at the table. To her annoyance, she felt the tears welling up, but she swallowed hard and forced them back.

"Right," Schyman said, "since no one seems to have an explanation for this, I think we should learn from it and make sure it never happens again. Agreed?"

The men mumbled inaudibly. Annika swallowed again.

"Let's go through today's list," the editor said. "Annika, what do you have at the crime desk?"

Ingvar Johansson's lips tightened as she straightened up and cleared her throat.

"Berit has two stories: She's met the chauffeur who told her Christina was afraid of being blown up, and she's looking into Christina's last hours. Patrik says Interpol will put out an international wanted alert of the Tiger tonight. He'll have to write something about the hunt for the killer during the night. I'll get the cold shoulder from my sources from now on. I met Evert Danielsson, Furhage's nearest subordinate, who's been shown the door…"

She fell silent and looked down at the table.

"Sounds promising, but we're not leading with the blast tomorrow," Schyman said, thinking of the number-cruncher. According to their calculations, no story sold for more than two, at the most three days, regardless of its significance. "We're into the fourth day and it's time to change the track. What have we got to lead with instead?"

"Should we really let go of the terrorist angle already?" Spike said. "I think we've lost that part of the story completely."

"How?" the editor asked.

"All the other papers have had accounts of the different terrorist attacks against Olympic facilities over the years, looking at which terrorist groups could be behind this. We haven't even touched on that."

"I know you haven't been in the last few days, but surely you get the paper in the northern suburbs," Schyman said patiently.

Spike swallowed the bitter pill. Once again the editor felt he was addressing a bunch of recalcitrant children.

"We did the list of past Olympic attacks in both the Saturday and Sunday papers. We deliberately refrained from unethical speculation on different terrorist groups. We've had our own stuff, which has been unrivaled. All we can hope for is that today's moronic headline hasn't put a stop to that in the future. Instead of barking up the terrorist tree, we've been leading the news, and that's something to be proud of. Our sources tell us that this was not an attack on the Olympics, neither the event itself nor the arenas. According to our information, this was a private attack on Christina Furhage, and we have confidence in ourselves. That's why we won't be doing any lists of possible terrorist groups tomorrow either. But what should we lead with, Mr. News Editor?"

Ingvar Johansson instantly put on an air of importance and started going through his voluminous list. Annika had to admit he was efficient and usually had sound judgement. While he talked, she could feel Spike's hostile gaze on her. She was relieved when the meeting ended and the men left the room.

"So what have you found out today?" Schyman asked her.

Annika told him what she knew and showed the picture of the young Christina, her first husband, and young son.

"The deeper I dig into her past, the darker it gets," she said.

"Where's it going?" the editor asked.

She hesitated. "What I have so far can't be published. I'm sure there's an explanation for it all somewhere in her closet."

"What makes you think the truth can't be published?"

Annika blushed. "I don't know. I just want to find out how it's all connected and be one step ahead. Then I can ask the police the right questions that will give us the answers before anyone else."

The editor smiled. "Great," he said. "I'm really pleased with the work you've done these past few days. You don't give up, that's a good quality, and you're not afraid of confrontation if need be. That's even better."

Annika cast down her eyes and blushed even more. "Thanks."

"Now I'm going to call Jansson and ask what happened with that fucking headline."

She walked over to her office and suddenly realized she was starving. She went over to Berit and asked if she'd like to go to the staff canteen. She did, so they picked up their coupons and set off. They were serving Christmas ham with potatoes and apple sauce tonight.

"Christ, it's all starting now," Berit said. "They won't change the menu until after New Year's Eve."

They skipped the ham and chose the salad bar instead. The big canteen was almost empty, and they took a table in the corner.

"What do you think Christina did after midnight?" Berit said and bit into a piece of carrot.

Annika thought about it while shoveling sweet corn into her mouth.

"She left the restaurant in the middle of the night, together with a well-known lesbian. Did they go somewhere together?"

"Helena Starke was drunk as a skunk. Maybe Christina helped her home?"

"How? On the night bus?"

Annika shook her head and continued her reasoning: "She had both a taxi charge card, money, and approximately two and a half thousand employees who could see to it that a colleague got home in a car. Why should she, the MD of the Olympic Games, Woman of the Year, drag a plastered lesbian down to the subway? It's not logical."

The thought hit them both at the same time.

"Unless…"

"Is that possible…?"

They started laughing. The thought of Christina Furhage being gay seemed far-fetched.

"Maybe they went to register their partnership," Berit said, and Annika smiled.

"No, really. Could they have been having a relationship?"

They chewed on their lettuce leaves and thought about it.

"Why not," Annika said. "Helena Starke said she knew Christina best of all."

"Doesn't mean they slept together."

"True," Annika said. "But it could mean that."

One of the busboys approached their table.

"Excuse me, but is either of you Annika Bengtzon?"

"I am," Annika said.

"They want you in the newsroom. They're saying the Bomber has struck again."

They were already sitting in the editor's office when Annika returned. No one looked up as she entered, with some corn still wedged between her teeth and her bag slung over her shoulder. The men were planning a strategy to squeeze as much as possible out of the terrorist angle.

"We're lagging hopelessly behind," Spike said louder than called for. Annika still got it. She had heard fragments of what had happened on her way up from the canteen. She sat down at the far corner of the table, the chair making a clattering noise when she wedged in her legs.

"Sorry," she said, and the word hung in the air. She'd be apologizing for more than scraping her chair. She'd have to eat some. An hour before she'd sat at this very table and insisted that the Bomber was after Christina Furhage personally, that there was no connection to the Olympics at all, and then bang! Another blast, at another Olympic facility.

"Do we have anyone there?"

"Patrik Nilsson has gone over," Spike said with authority. "He should be at Sätra Hall in ten minutes."

"Sätra Hall?" Annika said in surprise. "I thought an Olympic arena had been blown up."

Spike gave her a supercilious look.

"Sätra Hall is an Olympic arena."

"For what? A training room for the shot-putters?"

Spike averted his gaze.

"They're holding some events there. Don't know what."

"The question is how we should proceed," Anders Schyman interspersed. "We'll have to recap what other media have been doing on the terrorist angle. Make it sound like we've been in on it all along. Who'll do that?"

"Janet Ullman has the night shift. We can call her in early," Ingvar Johansson said.

Annika felt a giddiness grip her and pull her down to the floor and up the wall. Nightmare, nightmare. How could she have been so wrong? Had the police really been lying to her all along? She had staked her entire professional reputation on the paper covering the story along her lines. Could she really stay on as a chief after this?

"We have to go around and check security at all the other facilities,"

Spike said. "We'll need to call in some extras, the second night team, the second evening team…"

The men turned their chests toward each other and their backs against Annika where she was sitting in the corner. The voices dissolved in a cacophony; she leaned back and struggled to get air. She was finished, she knew she was finished. How the hell could she stay at the paper after this?

The meeting was brief and to the point; everyone was in total agreement. They all wanted to get to work and deal with the terrorist attack. Only Annika remained in the corner. She didn't know how she could leave it without falling to pieces. She had a lump the size of a brick in her throat.

Anders Schyman went to his desk and made a call. Annika could hear his voice rising and falling. Then he came over and sat down next to her.

"Annika," he said, trying to catch her eyes. "Don't worry, okay? It's all right."

She turned away and blinked away the tears.

"Everybody can be wrong," the editor continued in a low voice. "That's the oldest truth of them all. I was wrong, too. I reasoned just like you. Now we have to rethink. We just have to make the best of it, right? We need you here for that. Annika…"

She drew a deep breath and stared down at her lap.

"Yes, of course, you're right," she said. "But I feel like such an idiot. I was so sure I was right…"

"Well, maybe you are," Schyman said circumspectly. "It does seem improbable, I admit, but Christina Furhage could have a personal connection with Sätra Hall."

Annika couldn't help laughing. "Hardly," she said and smiled.

The editor put his hand on her shoulder and stood up.

"Don't let it get you down. You've been right about everything else on this."

She pulled a face and got to her feet, too.

"How did we find out about the explosion? Did Leif call it in?"

"Yes, he or Smidig in Norrköping. One of them."

Schyman sat down with a heavy sigh on the chair behind his desk.

"Will you go out there tonight?" he asked.

Annika pushed the chair in and shook her head.

"There's no point. Patrik and Janet will have to deal with it tonight. I'll get started on it tomorrow instead."

"When all this blows over, I think you should take a holiday. This weekend you must have collected more than a week off in overtime."

Annika smiled wanly. "Yes, thank you, I think I will."

"Go home and get some sleep."

The editor picked up the phone. Their talk was over. She picked up her bag and left the room.

The newsroom was on the boil, the way it always was when something really big had happened. Everything seemed calm enough on the surface, but you could see the tension in the watchful eyes of the senior editors and in the straight backs of the sub-editors. The words flying in the air were clipped and concise, reporters and photographers were purposefully moving to the phones or toward the exits. Even the receptionists were pulled into the flow, their tone of voice deepening and the fingers dancing more resolutely over the switchboard. Annika usually enjoyed the feeling, but now she felt uncomfortable crossing the floor.

Berit came to her rescue.

"Annika! Come and listen to this!"

Berit had brought her salad with her from the canteen and was sitting in the radio room, the booth next door to the crime desk, which had access to all the Stockholm police channels and one of the national channels. One of the walls was covered with loudspeakers and their respective switches and volume controls. Berit had switched on the ones for the South Stockholm and City police districts, those dealing with the explosion at Sätra Hall.

Annika could only hear crackling noise and blips. "What?" she said. "What's happened?"

"I'm not quite sure. The police arrived there about a minute ago. They started calling to the control room for a scrambled channel."

At that moment, the babbling resumed. The Stockholm police had two secure channels that were scrambled. You could hear that someone was talking, but the words were completely unintelligible. It sounded like Donald Duck talking backwards. These scrambled channels were rarely used, and then mainly by the drugs squad. The County Police Division might sometimes use them during big operations where they suspected that the criminals had access to police radio. A third reason for using them was when the information was so sensitive that they wanted it kept secret.

"Can't we get a descrambler?" Annika said. "We could miss out on big stuff this way."

The chatter died out while the blips and noise from the other channels continued. Annika's eyes traveled along the loudspeakers. The eight police districts in Stockholm County used two different radio systems, System 70 and System 80.

System 70 had channels from 70 megahertz and upwards, and System 80 was called that because it came into use in the 1980s. They were supposed to have transferred over to System 80 already ten years ago, but they hadn't managed it yet.

Annika and Berit listened expectantly to the noise and the electronic tones for a minute, and then a male voice on Channel 2 South dispersed the electronic mist:

"This is 2110."

The call was from a police car from the southern suburb of Skärholmen.

The response came after a second: "Yes, 2110. We read you."

"We need an ambulance to the address in question, a bag car, really…"

The noise took over for a moment. Annika and Berit looked at each other in silence. "Bag car" was another phrase for hearse. The "address" had to be Sätra Hall because nothing else was happening in the south suburbs at that moment. The police often used that kind of language when they didn't want to spell things out over the radio. They'd say "the place" or "the address" and suspects were often called "the subject."

The control room replied: "2110, ambulance or bag car? Over."

Annika and Berit both leaned forward. The answer was crucial.

"Ambulance, over."

"One dead, but not quite as badly smashed up as Furhage," Annika said.

Berit nodded.

"The head is still attached to the body, but the person's dead," she commented.

For a police officer to be authorized to pronounce someone dead, the head has to be severed from the body. It was a pretty reliable indicator of someone's demise. This was obviously not the case here, even if it was evident that the victim was dead. Otherwise the police officer wouldn't have talked of a hearse, the "bag car." Annika went out to the desk.

"There's a victim," she said.

Everyone around the desk where the paper was edited during the night stopped whatever he or she was doing and looked up.

"What makes you think that?" Spike said woodenly.

"The police radio," Annika replied. "I'll call Patrik."

She turned around and went to her office. Patrik answered on the first signal, as always; he must have been holding the cellphone in his hand.

"What's it like?" Annika asked.

"Shit, the place is crawling with cop cars!" the reporter roared.

"Can you get past the cordons?" Annika said, forcing herself not to raise the level of her voice above normal.

"Not a chance in hell," Patrik bellowed. "They've cordoned off the entire complex and grounds around it."

"Any reports of casualties?"

"What?"

"Any reports of casualties?!"

"Why are you shouting? No, no casualties, there are no ambulances or hearses here."

"There's one on its way. We heard it over the radio. Stay put and report to Spike. I'm going home now."

"What?" he roared down the line.

"I'm going home now. You report to Spike!" Annika yelled back.

"Okay!"

Annika hung up and then saw Berit in the doorway, grinning.

"You don't have to tell me who you were talking to," she said.

She came home to the apartment on Hantverkargatan just after eight. She'd taken a taxi and had been seized with a severe dizziness in the backseat. The driver was angry because of something the paper had written and was going on about the responsibility of reporters and the autocratic ways of politicians. That was the problem with the company charge card. Half the drivers felt obliged to sound off as soon as they knew they had someone from the paper on board.

"Talk to one of the editors. I'm just the cleaner," Annika had said, closing her eyes and leaning her head back. The dizziness turned into a feeling of sickness as the car weaved its way through traffic on Norr Mälarstrand.

"Are you not feeling well?" Thomas asked when he appeared in the hallway with a dish towel in his hand.

She sighed heavily. "I'm just a bit dizzy," she said and pushed the hair away from her face with both hands. Her hair felt greasy- she had to wash it in the morning. "Any food left?"

"Didn't you eat at work?"

"Half a salad. A news break got in the way."

"It's on the table- fillet of pork and roast potatoes."

Thomas flipped the dish towel onto his shoulder and started walking back to the kitchen.

"Are the kids asleep?"

"An hour ago. They were wiped out. Ellen might have caught something. Was she tired this morning?"

Annika tried to remember. "Not particularly. A bit clingy, perhaps. I had to carry her to the bus."

"You know, I can't take any time off work right now," Thomas said. "If she gets ill, you'll have to stay home with her."

Annika felt anger surge up within.

"But I can't stay at home right now, surely you know that. There's been another Olympic killing tonight, didn't you hear the news?"

Thomas turned around.

"Shit! No, I only heard the afternoon Eko. They said nothing about a murder."

Annika entered the kitchen; it looked like a bomb site. But a plate of food was waiting for her on the table. Thomas had put potatoes, meat, gravy, sautéed mushrooms, and iceberg lettuce on her plate. Next to the plate was a beer, which a couple of hours ago would have been ice cold. She put the plate in the microwave and set it for three minutes.

"You won't be able to eat the lettuce," Thomas said.

"I've been wrong all along," Annika said. "I've made the paper suppress anything about terrorism because I've been getting the opposite information from the police. It seems I've been well and truly conned. There's been another explosion at Sätra Hall tonight."

Thomas sat down at the table, throwing the dish towel on the worktop.

"That place? It barely has stands, you couldn't have any Olympic events there."

Annika poured a glass of water and removed the towel.

"Don't put that on here. It's filthy. Every damn arena in town seems to have been taken over by the Olympics. There are about a hundred facilities associated with the Games one way or another: arenas or training facilities or warm-up tracks."

The microwave beeped. Annika took out the plate and sat down opposite her husband. She ate in silence, greedily.

"So how was your day?" she asked, opening the tepid beer.

Thomas sighed and stretched his back.

"Well, I had hoped to finish off getting ready for the advisory committee on the 27th, but I didn't manage it. The phone never stops ringing. The regional question's coming on, and I'm happy about that, but it seems some days all I do is sit in meetings and talk on the phone."

"I'll do the nursery run tomorrow. Maybe you can get some of the work out of the way," Annika said, suddenly feeling a pang of guilt. She chewed the fillet; the microwave had made it tough.

"I was going to look at one of the interim reports now. One of my guys has been working on it for months. It's probably totally unreadable. It usually is when someone spends too long working on it. Hundred percent jargon."

Annika smiled feebly. Sometimes she was overwhelmed by these feelings of guilt. Not only was she a useless boss and a terrible reporter, but she was also a bad wife and an even worse mother to boot.

"You sit down and read, honey. I'll clear up here."

He leaned across the table and gave her a kiss.

"I love you," he said. "The Christmas ham is in the oven. Take it out when it reaches 167 degrees."

Annika's eyes opened wide.

"You found the cooking thermometer!" she exclaimed. "Where was it?"

"In the bathroom, next to the family thermometer. I took Ellen's temperature when we came home, and there it was. I think Kalle put it there. Logical, really. He denies putting it there, of course."

Annika pulled Thomas close and kissed him with her mouth wide open.

"I love you, too," she said.