Studio Sex aka Studio 69 / Exposed

Eighteen Years, One Month, and Three Days

Love is often described in such dull and impassive terms, a monochrome rosy red. But to love another human being can involve all the colors on the palette, vary in strength and intensity, become black or green or a horrible yellow.

This has been hard for me to realize. I've been stuck at the light crystal colors, unable to absorb the stronger colors.

I know he does it to help me, still it shakes me to the core.

His theory is that I've experienced something in my childhood that stops me from letting go sexually. I've tried and tried to think of what it could be, but have come up with nothing.

We experiment to help me move on, united in our love. I sit on top of him, feeling him deep inside of me as he hits me hard in the face with the palm of his hand. I stop short, my eyes full of tears. I ask him why he does that.

He caresses my cheek and pushes hard and deep inside me. It's to help you, he says, hits me again, and then continues hard until he comes.

We talk about it in detail afterward- how we're to find the way back to the divine dimension of our relationship. It's lack of trust. I know that. I have to trust him. How else will I ever succeed?

We are the most important thing

there is

to each other.

Wednesday 1 August

Annika walked into the newspaper entrance hall just before 9 A.M. Tore Brand was at reception and gave her a glum greeting.

"Bombs and shootings," he said. "That's all they're interested in at this paper."

He nodded toward the Kvällspressen table of contents that was posted over by the elevator. Annika looked at it. It took her a few seconds to process the information. She felt the floor swaying beneath her feet. It can't be, she thought, grabbing the reception counter and reading the bill again: "Terrorist Act Last Night- Ninja Barbies Taunt the Police."

There was a big photograph of a burning car.

"Who wrote the story?" she whispered.

"Riots and scandals, that's all we do here," Brand muttered.

She walked over to the display and picked up a copy of the paper. Almost the whole front page was devoted to a photo of Minister for Foreign Trade Christer Lundgren. Next to him, arm around his shoulders, was the prime minister. Both men were smiling cheerfully. The picture had been taken eight months ago, when the minister was appointed and was being introduced to the media. Annika thought the headline was lame: "Under Fire." Above the newspaper masthead was the headline from the bill, referring to pages six and seven. She opened the paper to the spread with trembling hands. Her eyes flew across the page, looking for the byline. Carl Wennergren.

She let the paper drop.

"Isn't it a damn shame?" Tore Brand said.

"You're damn right it is," Annika said, and walked over to the elevators.

She sat down in the cafeteria with a big mug of coffee and a sandwich. The coffee went cold while she read the two stories, first the one about the Ninja Barbies and then the one about the minister accused of murder.

They got what they were after, she thought, and looked for a long time at the photo of the burning car. The car was turned on its side, the underside facing the photographer, who was Carl Wennergren. The caption noted that the car belonged to a Stockholm police commissioner. Behind the flames you could make out a sixties brick house. The Ninja Barbies got to deliver their puerile and violent message. Not a single critical word appeared in the entire article. Shame on him, she thought. Shame on him, the rotten bastard.

The copy about the minister was better. It took the accusations made on Studio 69 for what they were, unconfirmed allegations of vague suspicions. They hadn't been able to get hold of the minister himself for a comment, but his press secretary, Karina Björnlund, declared that all accusations were pure invention.

Annika didn't know what to think. The police had in fact interviewed Christer Lundgren; the press officer had confirmed that yesterday. But all other statements in the program were definitely wrong. And what about their suspicions about Joachim?

She threw the sandwich in the wastebasket without even removing the wrapping. She drank the cold coffee in three greedy gulps.

Spike was at his post, telephone glued to his ear. He didn't react to Annika' showing up on her day off; it was common for the covers to do that.

"You were way off the mark on the murder," he said as he put the phone down.

"You mean about the minister? The story doesn't make sense," Annika said.

"Oh, doesn't it? Why not?"

"I want to look into that today, if that's all right with you."

"We were lucky to have the scoop on the Ninja Barbies. Or we'd have been forced to make more of the murder and the minister. It would have looked a bit weird to have two different murderers in two days, don't you think?"

Annika turned red. She couldn't think of a response.

Spike's eyes were cold, watchful. "Thanks to Carl we landed on our feet." The news editor spun around in his chair, showing her the back of his balding head.

"Sure. Is Berit in yet?"

"She's gone to Fårö to look for the speaker. The IB scoop," Spike said without turning around.

Annika walked over to her desk and dropped her bag on the floor; her cheeks were burning. She wouldn't be getting a picture byline for a while.

She skimmed through the other papers to see what they had on the minister and the suspicions against him. No one had made a particularly big thing of it. The morning broadsheets only mentioned in brief that Minister Christer Lundgren had been interviewed regarding the murder of a woman in Stockholm. The Rival had given the items the same ranking as Kvällspressen.

How could Studio 69 be so sure of their information? Annika wondered. They've got to have more than they're letting on.

The thought of it made her stomach turn. Why do I feel so guilty? she asked herself.

Despite the air-conditioning, the room was stuffy and hot. She went out to the ladies' room and splashed cold water on her face.

I've got to get this straight, she thought. I've got to get the whole picture. What did I miss?

She leaned her forehead against the mirror and closed her eyes. The glass was ice-cold and the chill spread via her sinuses into the bone.

The woman, she thought. The fat woman with the dog, Daniella's neighbor.

She wiped her face dry with a paper towel. She left a sweaty mark on the mirror.

The new deputy editor, Anders Schyman, was troubled. Naturally, he was aware of the ethical difficulties that came with his new post, but he would have liked to have had a few days before having to do any acrobatics on the moral trapeze. What was this hysterical story Carl Wennergren had found? A feminist combat group that set fire to cars and sent threatening messages to police officers. What the hell was that? And not a single critical comment, only the extremely predictable statement from the police press officer that they took the incident seriously and had deployed all necessary resources to finding the perpetrators.

The deputy editor sighed and sat down on a couch with an orange flowery pattern that had come with his office. The upholstery reeked so badly of stale smoke that the couch smelled like an ashtray. He stood up again and sat by his desk instead. It was not a nice office. There were no windows; he only got indirect light from the newsroom through the glass walls. Beyond the sports desk he could just make out the contours of a multistory garage. Despondent, he looked at the mountain of boxes that had arrived from Swedish Television the night before.

Jesus, what a lot of crap a man can accumulate, he thought.

He decided to skip the unpacking for the time being. He spread out the paper before him. He slowly read through all the contentious articles. True, he wasn't legally responsible for the publication of the newspaper, but as of today, he knew that he had to learn the mechanisms that shaped it.

Something was not quite right about the terrorist article. How could the reporter be in the right place at exactly the right time? And why would the women speak to him? "He was tipped off about it," Spike had explained to him. That didn't make sense. If the group had wanted maximum publicity, they would have told all the media. But they wouldn't have had any control over the material. They must have made some kind of deal or made some special demands.

He would bring it up with the reporter.

The story about the minister wasn't that strange. Ministers could be interviewed for information in connection with various crimes. Personally, he thought the radio program had gone too far in singling out Christer Lundgren as a suspect. As far as he understood, nothing indicated this was the case. Still, a paper like Kvällspressen had to cover the story.

Schyman sighed.

He might as well get used to it.

Nobody came to the door. Annika pushed the doorbell over and over, but the woman pretended not to be at home. Through the mail drop she could hear the panting dog and the woman's heavy steps.

"I know you're in there!" she called through the mail drop. "I just want to ask a few questions. Please open the door!"

The footsteps disappeared but she could still hear the dog. She waited another five minutes.

Stupid woman, Annika thought. She rang Daniella Hermansson's doorbell instead. The young mother opened the door, the child on her arm and a bottle in her hand. "Oh, hi!" Daniella said cheerily. "Come in! The place is a mess, but you know what it's like when you have kids."

Annika mumbled something and stepped into the dark hallway. The apartment was long and narrow, meticulously decorated and tidy. Straight ahead were a mirror wall and a rustic-style chest of drawers, a vase of wooden tulips on top. Annika winced when she caught a glimpse of her own face. She looked pale and the skin was taut over her cheekbones. She quickly looked away and took off her shoes.

"Isn't it a marvelous summer we're having?" Daniella chirped from the kitchen. "Feel free to look around, see what our apartment looks like."

Annika dutifully had a quick look at the bedroom facing the yard and the living room facing the street. She said it was a lovely apartment. Do you own or rent, it must have been expensive. No- really? What a bargain!

"It's horrible, this thing with Christer Lundgren," Daniella said while the coffeemaker spluttered next to them on the kitchen table. The child clung to Annika's legs and dribbled on her skirt. She tried to ignore him.

"How do you mean?" She bit into a cracker.

"As if he'd be a murderer? It's so silly. Sure, I know he's tightfisted, but he's no killer."

"It sounds like you know him personally."

"Of course I do," the woman said, offended. "He's put off the repairs to the facade for a year now. Milk and sugar?"

Annika blinked. "I'm sorry. I'm not following you."

"It isn't really his apartment. It belongs to some Social Democratic local paper in Luleå. He's the chairman of the board and he's been using their overnight apartment. He's a real cheapskate." Daniella topped up Annika's cup.

"You mean he lives in this building!" Annika exclaimed.

"Left stairwell on the fifth floor. He's got a four hundred square foot studio apartment with a balcony. Nice little place. Our apartments are close to fifteen hundred kronor a square foot, you know."

Annika finished her second cup of coffee and leaned back.

"Jesus. Fifty yards from the murder scene."

"More coffee?"

"Tightfisted, you said. In what way?"

"I'm the secretary of the board of the condominium. Christer used to be a member of the board. Every time we'd discuss any form of improvements or repairs, he'd oppose them. He absolutely doesn't want the charges to go up. I think it's pathetic. He doesn't even pay for his apartment like the rest of us but is sponging off the party paper. All he pays is the monthly charge- Hello, Skruttis, so you want your momma now?"

Daniella took her son into her arms. He immediately tipped over his mother's cup so that the hot drink flowed over the table and down onto Annika's lap. It didn't burn her but made yet another stain on her skirt.

"It's okay," Annika said.

When Daniella came running with an evil-smelling dishcloth and tried to wipe her skirt, Annika quickly retreated to the hallway and put her shoes on.

"I have to go," she said, and left the apartment.

"I'm sorry, Skruttis didn't mean to do it…"

Annika took the stairs to the ground floor and pushed the button for the left elevator. It wasn't working. She groaned and started walking up the stairs. By the time she reached the fourth floor she was exhausted. She had to stop to catch her breath.

I should start taking vitamins, she thought.

She tiptoed up the last set of steps, breathing soundlessly with her mouth open while studying the eight apartment doors. Hessler. Carlsson. Lethander & Son Trading Co. Lundgren. Her eyes landed on the minister's mail slot. The nameplate was handwritten and taped to the mail slot. She approached the door slowly, listening for any noise. She placed her finger on the doorbell, hesitated. Instead she opened the mail slot. Warm air from inside the apartment washed over her face.

At that moment a telephone rang somewhere behind the door. Frightened, she dropped the slot, which closed without a sound. She put her ear against the door. The ringing signal wasn't repeated, so someone must have answered the phone. She caught the sound of a man's mumbling voice. Sweat trickled down her upper lip and she wiped it off with the back of her hand. She looked at the mail slot. She shouldn't be doing this.

But then the Social Democrats carried out burglaries and bugged people, she thought. So I can eavesdrop a little.

She stooped down and opened the mail slot again. The air hit her in the face. She turned her head and put her ear against the slot; the draft made a whistling sound.

"They want me to go back for another interview," she thought she heard the man's voice say.

Silence. She shifted her head to hear better.

"I don't know. It's not good."

New silence. The sweat trickled between her breasts. When the voice returned again, it was louder, more agitated.

"What the hell do you want me to do? The girl's dead!"

Annika shifted position to be more comfortable, going down on her knees. She thought she heard someone clearing his throat and steps, then the voice again, but softer now.

"Yes, yes, I know. I won't say anything… No, I'll never confess. Who the hell do you take me for?"

The door opposite, Hessler, opened slowly. Annika's heart jumped and she quickly and clumsily got to her feet. She resolutely put her finger on the doorbell and glanced at Hessler. The man had to be close to eighty years old, with a small white dog on a lead. He eyed Annika suspiciously.

Annika gave him a big smile. "Isn't it hot?"

The man didn't answer but walked over to the elevator.

"It's not working, I'm afraid." Annika pushed the doorbell again.

She focused on the gleaming spot in the middle of the peephole. Suddenly it went dark. Someone had got in the way of the light. She looked straight ahead at the peephole, trying to look reassuring. No one opened the door. She rang the bell again. The peephole gleamed brightly again. Nothing happened. She rang the bell for the fourth time.

"Hello?" she called through the mail slot. "My name is Annika Bengtzon and I'm from Kvällspressen. Could I ask you a few questions?"

Huffing and puffing, old man Hessler began walking downstairs, the dog straining at its lead ahead of him.

She rang the bell again.

"Go away," a voice said from inside the apartment.

Annika started breathing faster and realized she desperately needed the bathroom.

"You'll only make it worse for yourself if you don't make any comments," she said, and swallowed.

"Bullshit."

She closed her eyes and breathed. "I'm sorry, could I borrow your bathroom?"

"What?"

She crossed her legs. Daniella's weak coffee threatened to burst her bladder.

"Please! I really need to go," she pleaded.

The door opened. "I've never heard that one before."

"Where is it? Please."

He pointed at a light green door to the left. She staggered inside and pulled the door closed behind her. She sat down on the toilet, breathing a big sigh of relief. She flushed and washed her hands.

The apartment was extremely bright and unbearably hot. You could walk all around it from one room into another- from the kitchen into the dining recess, out into the big room and back into the hallway.

"Now you have to go," the minister said, standing in the doorway.

She scrutinized the man. He looked tired and pale, dressed in a white, unbuttoned shirt and crumpled black pants. His hair was untidy and he hadn't shaved. Good-looking, Annika thought.

She smiled. "Thanks. Necessity knows no law."

The words hung in the air. He turned around and walked inside the room. "Close the door behind you."

She followed him into the room.

"I don't think you did it."

"How did you find me?" he asked, sounding dog-tired.

"Research."

He sat down on the bed.

Annika went up and stood in front of him. "You saw something, didn't you? That's why they're questioning you, isn't it?"

The minister looked up at her with weary eyes. "Hardly anyone knows where I live. How did you know where to find me?"

Annika watched the man closely. "You're hiding something, aren't you? What is it you can't talk about?"

The minister got to his feet suddenly and walked up close to her.

"You don't know shit. Now go, before I throw you out!"

Annika swallowed, held up both her hands, and started backing toward the door. "Okay. I'm on my way. Thanks for letting me use the bathroom."

She quickly left the apartment, quietly shutting the door behind her. She caught up with Hessler on the second floor.

"Fantastic summer, isn't it?" she said to him.

The minister unbuttoned his shirt. He might as well go down to Bergsgatan straightaway. He sighed, sat down on his bed, and tied his shoes.

The tricks they get up to, he thought, and looked at the door the reporter had disappeared through. The bathroom- my ass!

He stood up and was in two minds about whether to put on a jacket. He chose one made of light linen.

How the hell did she find him here? Not even Karina Björnlund knew where he lived when he was in Stockholm. She always called him on his cell phone.

The telephone rang, the regular one, not his mobile. He answered it immediately. Only a handful of people had this number.

"How are you?"

His wife was worried about him. He slumped down on the bed again and to his amazement started to cry.

"Darling, tell me what's wrong!" She was also crying.

"Are you with Stina?"

"We arrived yesterday."

He blew his nose. "I can't tell you."

"These terrible stories, I mean, there's nothing to them…"

He rubbed his forehead with his hand. "How can you even ask me that?"

"But what am I supposed to think?" Offended, frightened, suspicious.

"Do you think that I could… kill someone?"

She hesitated. "Not of your own accord," she said eventually.

"But if…"

"There's nothing you wouldn't do for the party." A note of resignation was in her voice.

Q answered the phone. Annika was beside herself with joy, short-lived though it turned out to be.

"I can't say a word."

"Is the minister really a suspect?" Annika leaned back in her chair and put her feet on her desk.

He gave a coarse laugh. "What an intelligent question! Did you come up with that all by yourself?"

"There's something about him. He's scared of something coming out. What's he hiding?"

Q's laughter died out and was followed by a brief silence. "Where do you get your information?"

"I listen, check things out, observe. He lives very close to the murder scene, for one thing."

"You've figured that out."

"Does that have anything to do with it?"

"All the tenants at sixty-four Sankt Göransgatan have been interviewed."

"It's a condo."

"What?"

"They're not tenants, they own their apartments."

"Oh, for Christ's sake!" the captain exclaimed.

"Do you really think he did it?"

Q sighed. "It's not unthinkable."

Annika was at a loss. "But… what about the boyfriend? Joachim?"

"He's got an alibi."

Annika leaned forward in her chair. "So it wasn't… It seemed like you-"

"It would be better for everybody concerned if there wasn't so much speculating going on in the media. You make life very difficult for people sometimes."

Annika flared up. "You're one to talk! Who called a press conference at 10 P.M. on a Saturday evening so you could maximize the media coverage? Don't bullshit me. What do you mean 'make life very difficult'? Journalists never beat people up. The police have a lot more to answer for than the media!"

"I don't need to sit here and listen to this." The police captain hung up.

"Hello? Hello! Damn!"

Annika threw the phone down, which earned her an annoyed look from Spike.

"You're sitting at my desk."

A woman in a tailored suit was haughtily eyeing her.

Annika looked at her. "What?"

"Aren't you off today?"

Annika put her feet on the floor, stood up, and held out her hand.

"You must be Mariana. Nice to meet you. I'm Annika Bengtzon."

The well-dressed dragon had a complicated, aristocratic-sounding surname. Annika knew she was held to be a great talent.

"I'd be grateful if you could tidy up after yourself. It's not very pleasant to be met by this kind of thing when you go on your shift."

"I agree. I had to clear both the bookshelf and the desk after you when I came in last Thursday."

Annika quickly grabbed the papers she'd put on the desk.

"I'm getting something to eat," she said to the news editor, and took her bag and left.

She bumped into Carl Wennergren by the elevators. He was with some of the other summer freelancers, and they all seemed to be laughing at something Carl had just said. Annika had been wondering how she would react when she next saw him. She'd been thinking about what she would say. Now she didn't need to puzzle about it any longer. She resolutely blocked the group's way.

"Could I have a word with you?" she said curtly.

Carl Wennergren pushed out his chest and flashed a smile that sparkled in his tanned face. His hair was still damp from his morning swim, his fringe tumbling onto his forehead.

"Sure, babe. What about?"

Annika started walking down the stairs. Carl, self-assured and relaxed, waved off his friends before he followed her. She waited for her colleague on a landing, her back against the wall, staring hard at him.

"I had an offer last Monday," she said in a low voice. "A group calling themselves the Ninja Barbies wanted to sell me a scoop. For fifty thousand in cash they'd let me be present when they carried out some kind of attack against a police official."

She watched Carl closely. The young man had stopped smiling. A blush spread over his face and out to his ears. He compressed his lips into a thin line.

"What do you mean?" he said, his voice a bit stifled.

"How did that story get into the paper?"

Carl tossed back his fringe. "What the hell's that got to do with you? Since when are you the editor in chief?"

She looked at him without saying anything. He turned around and started walking upstairs. Annika didn't move. After four steps he turned around and came back down, coming to a stop two inches from Annika's face.

"I didn't pay them a goddamn cent," he hissed. "Who the hell do you think I am?"

"I'm not thinking anything," she said, noticing that her voice was a bit shaky. "I just thought it was odd."

"They wanted to spread their message," Carl hissed, "but they couldn't sell the scoop. There isn't a paper in the world that's stupid enough to finance a terrorist attack on a police official. You know that."

"So they gave it to you for free?"

"Exactly."

"And then you thought it was cool to be in on it?"

Carl spun around and took the stairs two steps at a time.

"Did they wait for you to load the film before they started the fire?" she called after him.

The reporter disappeared into the newsroom without looking back.

Annika continued downstairs. Carl might be telling the truth. It would be pointless to start setting fire to cars if no one knew why they were doing it. The Ninja Barbies could have given him an ordinary tip-off.

But he hadn't known that the offer had been made to her first, she was sure of that. She had caught him off guard.

She walked out through the main entrance hall, pretending not to hear Tore Brand's complaints.

It was hotter than ever. The sun was beating down on the forecourt in front of the entrance and the asphalt was soft. She walked over to the kiosk on Rålambsvägen and bought a hot dog with mashed potatoes and shrimp cocktail, which she ate right there.

The early broadcast of Aktuellt didn't mention Josefin's murder, the minister, or the Ninja Barbies in the headlines. Maybe those stories would turn up later on in the program, but for the time being nobody at Kvällspressen was watching. But everything stopped dead when the electric guitar in the Studio 69 signature tune reverberated around the newsroom. Annika sat at Berit's desk, staring at the radio loudspeakers.

"The police investigation into the murder of nineteen-year-old Josefin Liljeberg grows increasingly complex," the program presenter announced over the music. "The young woman was a stripper at an infamous strip club, and Minister for Foreign Trade Christer Lundgren has been brought in for further questioning. More on these matters in today's current affairs program with debate and analysis, live from Studio 69."

Annika could feel the eyes on her from the news desk without even looking up, the gazes burning through the back of her head.

"Wednesday, August first. Welcome to Studio 69 from Radio House in Stockholm," boomed the voice of the program presenter.

"Josefin Liljeberg was a stripper at the notorious strip club that has taken the name of this radio program, Studio 69. In other media, principally in the tabloid Kvällspressen, she has been portrayed as a quiet family girl dreaming of a journalistic career and wanting to help children in need. The truth is quite different. We will now hear a recording of the woman's voice."

A tape began rolling in the control room. A young woman, trying hard to sound sensual, invited you to Studio 69, the most intimate club in Stockholm. She gave the opening hours: 1 P.M. to 5 A.M. You could meet gorgeous girls, buy them champagne, watch the floor show or a private show, watch movies or buy them.

Annika had difficulty breathing and hid her face in her hands. She hadn't known the voice was Josefin's.

The program carried on with information about the murder. The minister had been brought in for another interview at Stockholm police headquarters. They started up another tape, a door slamming shut and reporters shouting questions as Christer Lundgren entered the building.

Annika got up, hung her bag over her shoulder, and walked out the back door. The looks burning in her back ate away the oxygen from her. She had to have air before she died.

Patricia had set the clock radio for 17:58 on the P3 station. This would give her time to go to the bathroom and drink some water before Studio 69 started. She had slept a deep and dreamless sleep and felt almost drugged when she stumbled back to the mattress. Clumsily, she propped up the pillows against the wall. She listened in the dark behind her black curtains, Josefin's curtains. The man on the radio tore Jossie to pieces, dragging her name through the mud, sullying everything about her. Patricia cried. It was so unfair.

She switched off the radio and went to the kitchen. With trembling hands she made a pot of tea. Just as she was about to pour the first cup, the doorbell rang. It was the journalist.

"The fucking bastards!" Annika exclaimed, and stormed into the apartment. "How the hell can they make her out to be some kind of prostitute? It's insane!"

Patricia wiped away her tears. "Would you like a cup of tea? I've just made a pot."

"Please." Annika sank down on a chair. "I wonder if you can do something- report them to the press ombudsman or make a complaint to the Broadcast Commission, or something. They can't do this!"

Patricia took out another cup and put it in front of the journalist. She didn't look well. She was even paler and thinner than last time she'd seen her.

"Do you want a sandwich? I've got some flat bread." It was Jossie's favorite, with Port Salut cheese.

"No thanks, I've been eating all day." Annika pushed the cup away and leaned over the table, staring straight into Patricia's eyes. "Did I get it all wrong, Patricia? Did I get it wrong in my articles?"

Patricia swallowed and looked down. "Not that I know,"

"Tell me honestly, Patricia. Have you ever seen that minister, Christer Lundgren?"

"I don't know," she whispered. "Maybe."

Annika leaned back on the chair, resigned. "Jesus. So it could be true. A cabinet minister. Jesus Christ!" She got to her feet and started pacing up and down. "But it's fucking indefensible to depict Josefin as a hooker. And to play that tape with her voice- it's so awful."

"That wasn't Jossie." Patricia blew her nose.

Annika stopped and gaped at her. "It wasn't? Then who the hell was it?"

"It was Sanna, the hostess. It's her job to keep a check on the answering machine. Drink your tea, it's getting cold."

The journalist sat down again. "Those jerks at the radio don't know as much as they think."

Patricia didn't reply. She put her hands over her face. Her own life had disappeared along with Josefin's, replaced by an uncontrollable reality. She was being pulled further into an abyss each day.

"It's all a bad dream," she said, her voice muffled behind her hands. She felt the journalist's gaze on her.

"Have you talked with anyone about all this?"

Patricia let her hands drop from her face, sighed, and lifted her cup. "How do you mean?"

"A therapist or a counselor?"

Patricia looked affronted. "Why would I want to do that?"

"Perhaps you need to talk to somebody?"

Patricia drank her tea- it was tepid. She swallowed. "What could anyone do? Josefin is dead."

Annika looked at her intently. "Patricia. Please, tell me what you know. It's important. Was it Joachim?"

Patricia placed her cup on the saucer and looked down on her lap. "I don't know," she said in a low voice. "It could have been someone else. Some VIP…" Her voice trailed off; suddenly the kitchen was heavy with silence.

"Why do you think that?"

Tears welled up in her eyes again.

"I can't tell you," she whispered.

"Why not?"

She looked up at the journalist, tears rolling down her cheeks; her voice was squawky and shrill. "Because he'd know that it was me who'd ratted on him! Don't you get it? I can't! I won't!"

Patricia jumped to her feet and ran out of the kitchen. She threw herself on her mattress, pulling the cover over her head. The reporter stayed in the kitchen. After a while Patricia heard her voice over by the door.

"I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to upset you. I'll check if it's possible to report Studio 69 for the shit they've been circulating about Josefin. I'll call you tomorrow. Okay?"

Patricia didn't answer but stayed under the cover, breathing rapidly and shallowly, inhaling stuffy, clammy air that seemed to have lost its oxygen.

The journalist opened the front door and closed it quietly behind her. Patricia threw the cover to the side. She lay still, looking out through a gap in the black curtains.

Soon it would be night again.

Jansson was back, thank God! At least he had a brain, unlike Spike.

"You look tired," Jansson said.

"Thanks," Annika retorted. "Have you got a moment?"

He clicked away something on his screen. "Sure. Smoke room?"

They sat down in the glass cubicle next to the sports desk. The night editor lit up a cigarette and blew the smoke up toward the fan.

"The minister lives fifty yards from the murder scene. Everybody in the house has been interviewed."

Jansson whistled. "That puts it in a different light. Have you found out anything more?"

She looked down at the floor. "The boyfriend has an alibi. One of my sources tells me that it could have been someone important who killed her."

Jansson smoked and looked at the young journalist in silence. He couldn't figure her out. She was smart, inexperienced, and unbelievably ambitious. A not completely healthy combination.

"Tell me. What are your sources?"

She pressed her lips together. "You won't tell, will you?"

He shook his head.

"The murdered girl's roommate and the police captain in charge of the investigation at Krim. Neither of them will speak openly, but they do tell me things off the record."

Jansson's eyes widened a bit. "Not bad. How did you manage that?"

"I've been calling and hassling them. I went to the girl's house. Her name's Patricia. I'm a bit worried about her."

Jansson stubbed out the cigarette. "We'll go harder after the minister today. They've had him in for questioning three times now. There has to be something more than his apartment that's motivating them. That he lives so close is interesting, I haven't read that anywhere else. Let's do a story on that. How did you find out, by the way?"

"I had coffee with a neighbor. Then I rang on his door."

Jansson was taken aback. "And he opened the door?"

She blushed. "I needed to use the bathroom."

The night editor leaned back in his chair. "What did he say?"

She gave an embarrassed laugh. "He threw me out."

Jansson laughed heartily.

"Where's Carl?" Annika wondered.

"He got another tip-off about those Barbie dolls. They seem to have something new going on."

Annika stiffened. "What happened yesterday?"

"I don't know, actually. He just came in with the pictures around nine."

"Did you know he was bringing them in?"

Jansson shook his head and lit up again. "Nope. They came like a gift from the skies."

"Do you think it's ethically justifiable to stand around and watch people setting fire to police cars?"

Jansson sighed and stubbed the cigarette out after two drags. "That's too big a discussion for right now." He stood up. "Will you check with Carl to see if you should add anything to his story?"

Annika also got up. "Sure thing, babe."

Jansson hurried over to answer his phone.

"Hi, Berit! How the hell's it going?… No? The son of a bitch!"

Annika sat down at Berit's desk and wrote her pieces. The minister's association with the crime scene was tricky to string together. She didn't have much to make a show of. She just sat staring at the screen for a long while, then she lifted the phone and rang Christer Lundgren's press secretary.

"Karina Björnlund," the woman answered.

Annika introduced herself and asked if she was interrupting anything.

"Well, yes, I'm getting ready for a dinner party. Could you call back tomorrow?"

"Are you serious?"

"I told you I'm busy."

"Why are they questioning the minister?"

"I haven't the faintest idea."

"Is it because he lives right next to the murder scene?"

The press secretary's surprise sounded real. "He does?"

Annika groaned. "Thanks for letting me interrupt you," she said dryly. "It was very helpful."

"That was nothing," Karina Björnlund chirped. "Have a nice evening!"

Jesus Christ! Annika thought.

She called the switchboard and asked where Berit was staying in Gotland and got the number of a hotel. The reporter was in her room.

"No luck?" Annika said.

Berit heaved a sigh. "The Speaker refuses to admit any knowledge of the IB affair."

"What is it you're trying to dig out?"

"He was one of the principal players in the sixties. Among other things, his wartime posting was with IB."

"Really?"

"Formally, he was posted at the Defense Staff Headquarters intelligence outfit, but in reality he carried on with his normal political work. How are you doing?"

Annika paused. "So-so. Studio 69 reported that she was a stripper."

"Did you know that?"

Annika closed her eyes. "Yep."

"So why didn't you write about it?" Berit sounded surprised.

Annika scratched her ear. "I just described her as a person. It didn't seem relevant."

"Of course it's relevant, come on."

Annika swallowed. "You get a one-dimensional picture if you bring up that stuff with the strip joint: she's just a simple hooker. There was a lot more to her. She was a daughter and a sister and a friend and a schoolgirl-"

"And a stripper. Of course it matters, Annika."

The phone was silent.

"I'm going to report Studio 69 to the press ombudsman," Annika said in the end.

Berit's response was short but she sounded mad: "Why?"

"Patricia didn't know they were going to broadcast the information."

"Who's Patricia?"

"Josefin's best friend."

"Don't get pissed now, Annika, but I think you're taking the coverage of this murder a little too personally. Beware of mixing with the people involved. It never ends up well. You've got to keep a professional distance or you can't help anyone, least of all yourself."

Annika closed her eyes and felt she was turning pink. "I know what I'm doing," she said, a bit too shrilly.

"I'm not convinced you do."

They quickly finished the call. Annika sat with her face in her hands for a long while. She felt battered, on the verge of tears.

"Have you finished the apartment story?" Jansson shouted over from the news desk.

She quickly got ahold of herself. "Sure. I'm putting it on the server… now!"

She typed in the command and let the article zoom through the cables. Jansson gave her the thumbs-up when the copy landed on his screen. She collected her things and got up to leave. At that moment Carl Wennergren came galloping from the elevators.

"Get out my full picture byline, 'cause tonight I'm a star!" he shouted.

All the men around the news desk looked up at the reporter while he performed a war dance on the newsroom floor, pad in one hand, camera in the other.

"The Ninja Barbies have tried to set fire to the whorehouse where the stripper worked. Guess who's got exclusive rights to the pictures!"

The men around the desk all got up and went to slap Carl on the back. Annika saw the reporter's camera floating like a trophy above their heads. She quickly took her bag and left through the back door.

The temperature had dropped a few degrees but the air was thicker than ever. It felt like a real thunderstorm was on its way. Annika walked past the closed hot dog kiosk and ignored the bus stop. Instead she slowly walked toward Fridhemsplan and without noticing soon found herself in Kronoberg Park.

All the cordons were gone, but the mountain of flowers had grown. They were in the wrong place, next to the entrance of the cemetery, but that didn't matter. The truth about Josefin wasn't important, only that the myth lived on. People could project whatever they wanted onto it.

She turned to the right and reached Hantverkargatan, where blue lights of emergency vehicles were flashing in the night.

The Ninja Barbies' arson, she thought, and in the next instant, oh my God, Patricia!

Annika ran past Kungsholmen High School and down the hill. The three crowns on top of City Hall glowed in the last rays of the sun. A group of bystanders had collected, and she saw Arne Påhlson from the Rival hanging about over by one of the fire engines. She edged closer. One of the narrow lanes of the street was closed off, so the cars had to crawl past in one lane. Three fire engines, two police cars, and one ambulance were parked outside the anonymous entrance to Studio 69. The sidewalk and the facade were blackened with soot. She stopped behind a group of young men with beer cans in their hands excitedly discussing what had happened.

Suddenly the door to the club swung open and a plainclothes officer stepped outside. Annika immediately recognized him, even though he wasn't wearing a Hawaiian shirt this time. He was talking to someone who was obscured by the door. Annika pushed her way nearer to the front and saw a thin woman's arm point at something on the street.

"Where?" Annika heard the police captain say.

Patricia stepped out onto the sidewalk. It took a couple of seconds before Annika registered that it was her. She wore heavy makeup and had her hair in a high ponytail. She was dressed in a red, glittering bra and panties with a G-string. The men surrounding Annika started howling and wolf-whistling. Patricia winced and looked over at the group. She instantly recognized Annika, and Patricia's face lit up as their eyes met. She lifted her hand to wave and Annika stiffened. Without thinking she ducked behind the men and drew back. The men pushed forward, and she heard a woman crying out. She rushed into the nearest side street, one she'd never been in before, and ran over to Bergsgatan, past the police headquarters and its parking lot, and then turned into Agnegatan. She took the shortcut across the yard and reached the street door of her house, trembling and out of breath. The key in her hand shook so badly that she could hardly get it into the lock.

I'm losing it, she thought, and bowed her head when she became conscious of her cowardice.

She was ashamed of Patricia.

Eighteen Years, One Month, and Twenty-Five Days

When deepest trust vanquishes dread, that's when true confidence is born. Everything else is a failure; I know that.

He wants me to relive horrible old memories.

He pushes me into the bathroom and tells me to masturbate.

He opens the door while I'm sitting with the showerhead between my thighs, his face white with anger.

"So you can fuck with that, but not with me?" he screams.

The hotel corridor, the door that locks. Panic, pulling and tugging, naked and wet.

Voices, the pool area, daren't call out. Dark and quiet, the tiled floor cold under my feet.

I creep into the bushes, step on a big insect, and nearly cry out. Hate spiders, hate small creeping things. Crying, freezing, shaking.

It's all about overcoming your fear, defeating your demons.

At regular intervals I try the door.

He unlocks it just before dawn, warm, dry, hot, loving.

We are the most important thing

there is

to each other.

Thursday 2 August

The prime minister saw the news photographers in the distance and heaved a sigh. The journalists had formed an impromptu wall by the entrance to the government offices at Rosenbad. He knew they'd be there, of course, yet he'd been hoping, somehow, that he could avoid them. So far he hadn't commented on the suspicions surrounding Christer Lundgren. He'd referred the media to the young woman who was minister for integration, who was acting head of government during the summer holidays. He couldn't go on doing this any longer. The few days that constituted this year's holiday had shrunk to almost nothing. He gave another sigh and yawned. He always did that when he was nervous. People around him thought it gave a casual impression, which could be a positive thing. Like now- the men in the car had no idea about the turmoil going on inside him or the tight knot in his stomach. His intestines were twirling with the anxiety; he'd have to go to the bathroom soon.

The media scrum caught sight of the car as it turned onto Fredsgatan. The entire group gave a start like one organism. The photographers struggled to hang the cameras with their long lenses around their necks. The prime minister watched them through the darkened windows. He could see radio, TV, and print reporters waving their little tape recorders in the air.

"They all look like toy figures," he said to the security man in the front seat. "He-Man with his detachable accessories. Don't you think?"

The security man agreed. All his people agreed with what he said. He gave a tired smile. If only the media and the opposition were so cooperative.

The car stopped with a soft rocking movement. The bodyguard was out of the car before the wheels had stopped, opening the back door and protecting the prime minister with his body.

The questions washed over the head of government.

"What do you think of the suspicions about the minister for foreign trade?"

"What are the effects on the party?"

"Will this change the focus of your election campaign?"

"Should Christer Lundgren resign?"

He wriggled out of the car and drew himself up full length. With all his extra weight, he could produce a highly theatrical sigh. Microphones, tape recorders, lenses, and film recorded this little exhalation. Everybody could see that the prime minister didn't look on the matter very seriously. He was dressed in a light-blue shirt that was open at the neck, crumpled trousers. His bare feet were in sandals.

"Now listen," the prime minister said, and stopped in the glare of a TV light. He spoke slowly and quietly, in a relaxed and somewhat long-suffering manner.

"Christer is not suspected of anything at all. And this business will have no effect whatsoever on our successful election campaign. I certainly hope that Christer will stay in the cabinet, for the sake of the government and for the sake of Sweden and Europe. We need people with energy to carry our policies as the twenty-first century progresses."

End of line one, he thought, and started walking toward the entrance. The media people followed him like limpets, as he knew they would.

"Why have you interrupted your holiday?"

"Who will be at today's emergency meeting?"

"Do you still have confidence in Christer Lundgren?"

The prime minister took a few more steps before answering, just as he'd done when practicing with the media coach. Time for his cue.

As he turned around to the group, he gave a wry grin. "Do I look like it's an emergency?" He tried to get a sparkle in his eyes. It seemed to work. Several of the limpets were laughing.

He reached the door and the security people were prepared to open it. It was time for the grand finale. He adopted his slightly concerned face.

"Joking apart, though," he said, his hand on the big brass handle of the door. "Naturally, I feel for Christer at a time like this. This kind of unwarranted media attention is always a trial. But I assure you, for the government- and the party- this business is of no consequence whatever. I suppose you've all seen Kvällspressen today. They've realized why the police have been interviewing Christer. He happens to have an overnight apartment next to Kronoberg Park. Even cabinet ministers have to have somewhere to live."

He gave a pensive smile and nodded at his own words of wisdom before he entered the security doors of the government offices. As the doors shut, he could hear the questions seeping in through the crack.

"… a reason for several police interviews?"

"… seen anything in particular?"

"… comment on the latest statements from…"

He focused on walking up the stairs slowly and calmly for as long as the journalists could see him through the glass door. Goddamn hyenas!

"Shit, it's hot in here," he burst out, and opened a few more buttons on his shirt. "If I have to sit here all day, at least you could see to it that I can breathe!"

He stepped into an elevator and let the doors slide shut before the security people had time to get in. He really had to get to the bathroom.

The shoelace broke and Annika cursed. She didn't have any new ones at home. With a sigh she sat down on the hallway floor, pulled the sneaker off, and made yet another knot. Soon there wouldn't be any lace left to tie the shoes with. She had to remember to buy new ones.

She ran downstairs cautiously, not wanting to put too much strain on her knees. Her legs felt stiff and numb; she'd neglected her running all summer.

The air in the backyard was stagnant and heavy. All the windows of the building were open wide, baring black holes in the dilapidated facade. Curtains hung tiredly, not moving an inch. Annika threw in a towel in the shared basement bathroom and slowly jogged out through the gateway to Agnegatan.

The newsstand on the corner of Bergsgatan already had the Kvällspressen table of contents up. Carl Wennergren had the lead story again with his Ninja Barbies. She jogged in place for a couple of seconds while reading the headlines.

EXCLUSIVE PICTURES IN KVäLLSPRESSEN:

STRIP CLUB ATTACK

Her pulse quickened and she began to sweat. In the picture, the door of the club was blown open, a fire blazing in the doorway.

I wonder where Patricia was when the explosion went off, she mused. Was she frightened?

She picked up a copy of the paper and skimmed the front-page story. There hadn't been any major damage to the club. She was relieved.

She put the paper back, turned around, and started jogging down Agnegatan toward Kungsholmsstrand. Down by the canal she turned left and increased the pace. Pretty soon her lungs started to ache. She was seriously out of condition. She let her feet slam down on the asphalt with increasing intensity, not minding the pain. When she saw Karlberg Palace ahead on her right, she moved into high gear. Her chest heaved like bellows, and the sweat ran into her eyes. She came back on Lindhagensgatan, through Rålambshov Park and up via Kungsholms Square. When she finally stepped into the shower, she was exhausted.

I have to take care of myself, she thought. I have to get regular exercise. As she returned up the stairs to her apartment, her legs were shaking.

She walked into the newsroom just before lunch. Berit still hadn't returned from Gotland, so Annika used her desk again.

Her own contribution for the day was the story on the minister's overnight apartment. The headline was eye-catching, "Kvällspressen Reveals: Why Police Questioned Minister."

She was happy with the intro: "Christer Lundgren lives next to the murder scene. He has a secret overnight apartment only 50 yards from the cemetery.

"Not even Lundgren's press secretary knew the apartment existed.

" 'How did you find me?' the minister asked when Kvällspressen yesterday visited him in the studio apartment."

Then followed a description of the apartment, the fact that everybody in the house had been interviewed, and then Daniella's words: "As if he'd be a murderer? It's so silly. He's no killer."

Annika had left out the part about his being a cheapskate.

Then she'd added a few cryptic lines about the police still taking a greater interest in the minister than the rest of the occupants in the building. She'd kept that paragraph brief as she didn't quite know what the police were after.

The bitch Mariana with the fancy surname had done a short piece on Josefin's having worked in a club called Studio 69.

Berit had a short piece on the Speaker's denial of any knowledge of the IB affair.

A stranger was sitting at the news desk with Spike's telephone receiver glued to his ear. Annika turned on her computer and peeked at him from behind her screen. Did he know who she was? It occurred to her that she should go up and introduce herself. She hesitated for a moment, smoothing down her half-dry hair. When he put down the phone, she hurried up to him. Just when she'd drawn breath to begin speaking behind his back, the phone rang again and he answered it. Annika was left standing behind his chair, looking around her. That's when she saw a copy of the Rival. The picture of Josefin in her white graduation cap dominated the front page. The headline was fat and black: "A Stripper." Annika held on to the news editor's chair and leaned over the paper. The caption added, "Murdered Josefin a sex worker."

"How the hell could we miss that angle? Maybe you can tell me that!"

Annika looked into the man's cold gaze. She wet her lips and held out her hand. "I'm Annika Bengtzon, nice to meet you," she said in a slightly hushed voice.

He released her eyes, quickly pressed her hand, and mumbled his own, Ingvar Johansson. He picked up the Rival and held it out in front of Annika.

"From what I hear, you've been covering this story. How the hell could we miss out on the fact that she was a hooker?"

Annika felt her pulse racing; her mouth was as dry as dust. She knew Johansson was the news editor. Her mind raced.

"She wasn't a hooker," she said with a trembling voice. "She danced in her boyfriend's club."

"Well, she wasn't dancing ballet. She was bare-assed."

"No, she wore panties. And the boyfriend was strictly legit."

Johansson stared at her. "So why didn't you write that if you knew all about it?"

She swallowed hard, her heartbeat thundering in her ears. "Well, I guess I was… wrong. I didn't think it mattered."

The telephone rang again and the news editor turned away. Annika swallowed and felt the tears welling up. Shit. Shit. Shit. She'd blown it. She'd fucked up.

She turned around and started walking toward Berit's desk, the floor rolling underneath her feet. She didn't seem to be able to do anything right.

Her telephone was ringing like mad. She hurried up to it, cleared her throat, and picked it up.

"Yes, hello, this is Lisbeth," she heard a mature woman's voice say.

Annika dropped down on the chair and closed her eyes. She was trying not to hyperventilate.

"Who?"

"You know, Lisbeth the counselor." The voice sounded reproachful.

Annika sighed soundlessly. "Oh, yes, of course, the youth club in Täby. What can I do for you?"

"The young people here are going ahead with their protest against violence today. They'll be leaving here at two P.M. in three coaches. They should be at the murder scene around two-thirty."

Annika swallowed and rubbed her forehead. "At two-thirty," she echoed.

"Yes, I thought you might want to know."

"Yeah, that's great. Thanks."

Annika hung up and went out to the ladies' room and ran cold water on her face and wrists. Slowly, the feelings of panic subsided.

It isn't that bad, she told herself. I've got to try to get things into perspective. Of course people might think I did the wrong thing- so what?

She smoothed down her hair and then went to the cafeteria and bought a sandwich. From a purely ethical point of view, it could be argued that she'd done the right thing. It was worth looking into.

She took the sandwich and a diet Fanta back to Berit's desk.

The press ombudsman was kind and patient: "You have to be a relation of the deceased to make a report, or have the consent of the family."

Annika thought about it. "This partly concerns a newspaper, partly a radio program. Would you deal with that?"

"We could look at the newspaper article but not the radio program. You'll have to go to the Broadcast Commission for that."

"I thought they only do impartiality and objectivity."

"It's true, but they also look at ethical and journalistic issues. The rules are roughly the same as for the print media. What form of publication is this about?"

"Thanks a lot for your help," Annika said quickly, and rang off.

She called the Broadcast Commission.

"Yes, we could look into that," said the chief administrative officer who answered the phone.

"Even if I'm the one bringing it up?" Annika asked.

"No, we only look into complaints from the public concerning impartiality and objectivity. When it comes to issues of intrusion into a deceased's family privacy, the complaint has to come from the people concerned."

Annika shut her eyes and leaned her head in her hand. "If that happened, what do you think would be your conclusion?"

The officer considered the question. "The outcome often isn't clear-cut. We've had a few cases, and in a couple of them the family's complaint has been upheld. Could you be a bit more specific?"

Annika drew a breath. "It's about a murdered woman. She's been depicted as a stripper in a radio program. Her family had not approved making this information public."

This wasn't strictly true; Annika hadn't talked to Josefin's parents. But as far as Patricia was concerned, she was like family.

"I see." The administrative officer hesitated. "It's not completely straightforward," she said in the end. "The commission would have to receive a complaint and then consider the case. There is the public interest to take into account."

Annika gave up. She felt she wouldn't be getting any further. She thanked her and hung up.

But I'm not completely talking through my hat, she thought. There might be a privacy case to be made.

The lunchtime Eko started. Annika put her feet on the desk and listened absentmindedly to Berit's transistor radio. They headlined five stories: the Middle East, the prime minister's comment on the Christer Lundgren affair, and three other things that Annika forgot about as soon as she'd heard them. She let her thoughts roam free while they droned on about the Middle East. When they announced the prime minister, she turned up the volume.

The familiar voice sounded mischievous: "Do I look like it's an emergency?"

The reporter described the prime minister as having been relaxed and in excellent spirits when arriving at Rosenbad this morning. He wasn't the least worried about the accusations against Foreign Trade Minister Christer Lundgren, but was looking forward to the forthcoming election campaign with confidence. He did feel sympathy for his colleague, however, and knew what he was going through.

The prime minister again: "Naturally, I feel for Christer at a time like this. This kind of unwarranted media attention is always a trial. But I assure you, for the government- and the party- this business is of no consequence whatever."

That was the end of the report. The next item was about some official report from the Association of Local Authorities. Annika turned the radio off. If one thing really bored the pants off her, it was Local Authorities' reports.

"Is it you who's been talking all this rubbish?"

Patricia blinked sleepily at the strip of light between the curtains. She tried to sit up straight on the mattress and moved the receiver to the other ear.

"Hello."

"Don't try to get out of it. Just tell me the truth!" The shrill voice broke.

Patricia coughed and rubbed her eyes, wishing the pollen season would soon be over.

"Is that you, Barbro?" she said cautiously.

"Of course it's me! Who else would it be? One of your porn friends, perhaps!"

Josefin's mother was raging down the phone, a rant so inarticulate and incoherent Patricia hadn't even recognized her voice at first. Patricia took a deep breath and tried to collect her thoughts. The words entwined, mixed up, and blurred. Spanish took over, as it sometimes did when she was under stress.

"No entiendo…"

"Do you understand what you have done?" Josefin's mother yelled. "You've blackened her memory forever. How could you?"

Patricia's mind cleared- something was wrong. "What's happened? What are you talking about?"

The voice on the phone dropped to a whisper. "We know what you are. You're a greaseball whore. Do you hear that? And as if that weren't enough, you had to drag Josefin down with you!"

Patricia stood up and shouted back, "That's not true! Not at all! I didn't drag Josefin into anything!"

"Now listen to me," Barbro Liljeberg Hed hissed. "I want you out of my apartment today. Pack your dirty things and go back to Africa or wherever you came from."

"But-"

"I want you gone before six o'clock."

Click. The line went dead. Patricia listened to the empty noise for a while. Then she slowly put the phone down and sank down on the mattress. She sat down with her chin on her knees, her arms around her legs, and began rocking slowly back and forth, back and forth.

Where would she go?

The phone rang again. She flinched, as if from a slap. Without thinking she grabbed the phone, ripped the cord from the socket, and hurled it out in the hallway.

"Fucking bitch!" she screamed, and started to cry.

Annika let it ring for a long time. Patricia ought to be home by now. Maybe she was asleep, but she should still hear the telephone.

What if something had happened to her?

Worry mingled with the shame that lingered from the day before. First for being associated with the woman and then for her betrayal.

She walked restlessly around the newsroom, had a cup of coffee, and watched CNN for a while. When she came past the news desk, she realized that she had forgotten to tell them about the demonstration at the murder scene.

"You'll have to do it," Ingvar Johansson said curtly. "All the other reporters are busy."

She walked over to Picture Pelle and booked a photographer for 14:15.

"Pettersson will go with you," Pelle said. "He's on his way in."

Annika smiled nicely but groaned inwardly. The clapped-out VW again.

"I'll wait outside," she said, and went to pick up her bag.

She took the elevator down, walked outside, and sat down on one of the concrete foundations outside the multistory garage. The air was boiling and electrically charged; her lungs crackled as she breathed. She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of the city; they might not be hers for much longer.

When she opened her eyes, she couldn't make sense of the image at first. The woman walking into the entrance looked familiar, but it took her a second to recognize her.

"Patricia!" Annika called out, and ran after her. "What on earth are you doing here?"

Confused, the woman looked around and saw Annika. She walked outside and nearly got caught between the automatic sliding doors. Tore Brand yelled something and Patricia stopped.

"What's happened?"

"They're throwing me out."

Annika breathed freely again. "But that's just as well. You'll soon find a new job."

Patricia looked at her, taken aback. "Not the club. The apartment."

"Josefin's parents?"

Patricia nodded and wiped away the tears. "Jossie's mother's a real bitch. A racist bitch."

"Where will you go?"

The young woman tossed her hair back defiantly and shrugged. "Don't know. Maybe I'll shack up with some guy. There's plenty of sugar daddies around."

Without really thinking about it, Annika rummaged around in her bag. "Here." She put her keys in Patricia's hand. "Thirty-two Hantverkargatan, across the yard, top floor. Have you got any money? Make some copies, my boyfriend has my extra set."

"What?"

"I've got an extra bedroom. It's an old maid's bedroom behind the kitchen. You can have it. Do you have a mattress?"

Patricia nodded.

"What about the other furniture in the apartment?"

"The bed belongs to Joachim, and the table Jossie bought secondhand."

"Are you working tonight?"

She nodded again.

"Do you work every night?"

"Almost," she said in a low voice.

"Okay, that's your business. Just don't mess the place up. That would make me unhappy."

Patricia looked at her with wide eyes. "How do you know you can trust me? You don't know me."

Annika smiled wryly. "There's nothing to steal."

At that moment Pettersson came driving along Gjörwellsgatan; Annika could hear that by the way he stalled at the entrance.

"Take the bus over there on Rålambsvägen. Number sixty-two will take you all the way down Hantverkargatan."

Patricia stood there looking at the keys.

Annika left her and walked toward the photographer.

"We'll have a thunderstorm tonight," Pettersson said through the window.

Patricia waved good-bye and walked off. Annika forced a smile in Pettersson's direction. He was some freaking weather prophet too.

"Let's park a little ways away," she said as she climbed into the passenger seat.

"Why?"

"I'm not a hundred percent sure they're going to like us being there."

They drove in silence over to the cemetery. The car only stalled twice. They parked in a garage that had its entrance down by Fleminggatan.

Annika slowly walked along Kronobergsgatan up to the park. They were out in good time; the coaches would only have just left Täby. She sat down on a doorstep where she had a good view of the cemetery. The photographer wandered around on the other side of the street.

In the winter I'll wish I was back in this heat, she mused. When the wind is blowing hard and the snow falling, when I'm scraping the ice off the windshield in the morning- then I'll be longing for these days. When I drive into Katrineholm to cover yet another council meeting and talk to some angry women about the closure of another post office, then I'll be remembering this. Here and now. Chaos and murder. The hot city.

She looked straight up at the sky- it was bluer than blue. Beyond the park it was a shade of steely gray, shiny and sharp.

So maybe Pettersson was right, she thought. Maybe we'll have a thunderstorm.

The first coach drove up along Kronobergsgatan at twenty past two. Annika stayed in the doorway while the photographer put on a telephoto lens and started snapping the youngsters as they stepped out of the coach. The other two coaches appeared a few minutes later. Annika got to her feet and brushed off her pants. She swallowed; her mouth was dry. Damn it, she always forgot to bring water with her on assignments. She approached the group slowly, looking out for Martin Larsson-Berg, Lisbeth, and Charlotta. She didn't see them.

The youngsters were loud and seemed aggressive. Several of them were crying. She came to a stop in Sankt Göransgatan. She didn't feel good about this. Despite the distance, she could see that many of the kids looked tired. Their faces were gray with lack of sleep. She crossed the street to Pettersson's side.

"Hey," she said. "Let's give this one a miss."

The photographer lowered his camera and looked at her, surprised. "Why, for Christ's sakes?"

Annika nodded toward the coaches. "Look at them. They're hysterical. I don't know if it's healthy to encourage mass psychosis like they do at that youth club. These kids probably haven't been home since last Sunday."

"But they called us."

Annika nodded. "Yeah, they did. This is probably very important to them. But it's our responsibility to use our brains, even if they can't."

The photographer was getting impatient. "Goddammit. I'm not going to ditch a job just because you've suddenly developed a conscience."

The group of youngsters was milling around, spreading out around the cemetery. Annika was still wavering.

At the same moment, Annika saw the car from the rival newspaper drive up and park in Sankt Göransgatan. Arne Påhlson stepped out.

That settled it. "Come on, then. Let's go closer," she said to Pettersson.

She approached the cemetery with the photographer in tow, aiming at the wrought-iron arches of the fence. Her mouth was dry as dust as she swallowed, her pulse quickening. When she was a few yards away from the kids, one pointed at her and started screaming.

"There they are. They're here! The vultures! The vultures!" Everybody's attention was directed at the two journalists.

"Is Lisbeth here?" Annika asked, but her voice didn't carry over the noise.

"Beat it, fucking assholes!" a boy of no more than thirteen or fourteen screamed at them. He took a few hostile steps toward Annika, who drew back instinctively. The boy's face was swollen from crying and lack of sleep, his whole body shaking with adrenaline and fury. She stared at him, speechless.

"Listen," she said, "we didn't mean to intrude-"

A big girl stepped forward and gave Annika's shoulder a hard shove. "Fucking hyenas!" she bawled, the spit flying.

Annika stumbled backward. She tried to catch the girl's furious gaze with calm. "Please. Let's try to talk about this-"

"Fucking hyena!" the girl screamed. "Asshole!"

The group of young people surrounding Annika grew denser. She was frightened. Someone pushed her in the back so she stumbled forward and collided with the big girl.

"What are you doing, bitch?" the girl screamed. "Are you starting something?"

Annika frantically looked around for Pettersson. Where was he?

"Pettersson!" she cried out. "Pettersson, where the hell are you?"

His voice reached her from somewhere over by the garage entrance.

"Bengtzon!" he yelled in panic. "They're trying to take my cameras!"

Suddenly one voice could be heard above all the others. Menacing and frenzied, it cut through the noise.

"Where? Where are they?"

A girl who had grabbed hold of Annika's bag let go of it and turned her attention toward the voice. Annika saw a copy of Kvällspressen bobbing above the heads of the youths. The group parted and she saw several kids opening up newspapers. Charlotta from Josefin's class was making her way forward through a passage in the crowd. Annika drew back another few steps at the sight.

The girl was on the verge of collapse. Her eyes were red and the pupils were dilated and dark, and her movements were jerky and uncoordinated. Her hair was dirty and messy and her breathing ragged.

"You… scavenger!" she screamed, and made a lunge at Annika. "You scumbag!"

With all her might, Charlotta whacked Annika over the head with the paper. Annika instinctively held up her hands as the blows rained down on her. The papers hit her on the arms and across her back while the screams around her rose to a collective roar.

Annika felt all thoughts disappear from her mind as she turned around, pushed kids out of the way, and started running. Away, God help her, away from here, and she heard her own steps thudding on the street. The green of the park flashed past on the right. She sensed Pettersson somewhere behind her, but so were the youths.

The slope down to the garage was pitch-dark after the strong sunlight in the park, and she stumbled.

"Pettersson!" she cried. "Are you there?"

She had reached the car, and once her eyes had grown used to the dark, she could see the photographer running down the ramp. He had his cameras in one hand, his photographer's vest hung loose from one shoulder, and his hair stood on end.

"They tried to tear my clothes off," he said, visibly disturbed. "That was fucking stupid, walking up to them."

"Just shut the fuck up," Annika shouted. "Get into the fucking car and let's get out of here!"

He opened the door, got in, and opened her door. Annika jumped in; it must have been a hundred degrees inside the car. She quickly wound down the window. Unbelievably, the car started on the first try, and Pettersson drove toward the exit on screeching tires. Outside, the light hit them and Annika was momentarily blinded.

"There they are!"

The howls reached her through the open side window and she saw the mob rushing toward them like a wall.

"Step on it, damn it!" she screamed, and wound up the window.

"It's a one-way street," the photographer wailed. "I've got to drive past the cemetery!"

"No way!" Annika yelled at him. "Just drive!"

Pettersson had just reached Kronobergsgatan when the car stalled. Annika wound up the window, locked her door, and put her hands over her ears. Pettersson turned the ignition key repeatedly. The starter went around and around without igniting. The mob reached them, surrounding them on all sides. Someone tried to climb up on the roof. They were thumping the car with their fists.

Annika saw a copy of Kvällspressen pushed against the windshield, open to her article about the mourning youth in Täby. The picture of the girls with their poems left marks of printing ink on the window.

Someone crumpled up the paper on the hood and set fire to it. Annika yelled, frantic.

"Just get the fucking car started, damn it! We've got to get out of here!"

At once, there were more burning papers, pictures of girls and poems went up in flames. The car was rocking, they were trying to turn the car over. The noise from the thumping fists grew louder. Pettersson roared and suddenly the car started. It jumped forward as the photographer pushed the clutch down and revved the engine. He leaned on the horn and slowly, slowly the car crept through the crowd. The kid on the roof jumped off the car. Annika leaned forward toward her knees, closed her eyes, and blocked her ears with her hands. She didn't look up until the car turned into Fleminggatan.

Pettersson was shaking so badly he could barely drive. They drove in the direction of the city center and stopped in front of a hot dog place half a mile away.

"We shouldn't have gone up to them," he sobbed.

"Stop your blubbering," Annika said. "It was your idea. What's done is done."

Her hands were trembling, she felt listless, numb. The photographer was no younger than herself, but she felt it was her responsibility to see things through.

"Relax," she said in a more sympathetic tone of voice. "We're all right."

She rummaged through her bag and found an unopened pack of tissues. "Here, blow your nose. I'll buy you a cup of coffee."

Pettersson did as he was told, grateful to Annika for taking command. They went into the hot dog place, which turned out to have coffee and cakes.

"Shit, that was scary," Pettersson mumbled, and bit into his marzipan bar. "That's the worst thing that ever happened to me."

Annika gave a wry grin that was mostly meant for herself. "You're lucky then."

They drank their coffee in silence.

"You should get that car fixed," she said eventually.

"No shit."

They had a refill of coffee.

"So what do we do with this?" he wondered.

"Nothing, and we hope that no one else will do anything on it."

"Who would?" Pettersson said in disbelief.

"Trust me, there are some people that would."

They drove back to the paper, taking a long detour past the Old Town and South Island. Going anywhere near Kronoberg Park was out of the question.

It was almost half past four when they returned to the newsroom.

"How did it go out there?" the news editor Ingvar Johansson asked.

"All hell broke loose," Annika said. "They attacked us. They pretty much tried to set fire to the car."

Johansson blinked in disbelief. "Come off it."

"It's the truth," Annika said. "It was bad."

All of a sudden she felt she had to sit down. She sank down on the news desk.

"No interviews? No pictures?" the news editor said disappointedly.

Annika looked at him, feeling as if a thick Plexiglas screen were between them.

"That's right. There was nothing to write about. The kids were just getting a kick out of it. They'd worked themselves up into some kind of mass psychosis. We were lucky- they could have turned over the car and set fire to it."

Johansson looked at her, then turned around and reached for his phone.

Annika got up and went over to Berit's desk. She suddenly noticed her legs were shaking.

Christ, I'm turning into a real wimp, she thought.

She sat down and read the TT wires and some obscure trade journals until she heard the signature tune to Studio 69 start playing.

Afterward, she would remember this hour as if it were a surreal nightmare. For the next ten years it would recur in her dreams. She could invoke the feeling she had had when the electric guitar started playing, how exposed and unprepared she had been, how naively she had just stood there and let them take aim at her.

"The tabloids have today reached a new low-water mark in their sensationalism," the studio reporter intoned. "They parade mourning teenagers in the paper, spread false rumors about family members, and are the tools of politicians with the purpose of pulling the wool over the public's eyes. More about this in today's current affairs program with debate and analysis, live from Studio 69."

Annika heard the words without really registering them. She had a feeling but didn't quite want to comprehend.

The electric guitar faded out and the studio reporter returned.

"It's Thursday, August second. Welcome to Studio 69 in Stockholm Radio House," he droned on.

"Today we'll be looking into the tabloid newspaper Kvällspressen's coverage of the murder of the stripper Josefin Liljeberg. With us in the studio are two people who knew Josefin well, her best friend, Charlotta, and the deputy principal of her school, Martin Larsson-Berg. We have also talked to her boyfriend, Joachim…"

A dizziness like a slow rolling movement established itself in her consciousness. The realization of what was coming was reaching her. She reached out to turn off the radio but stopped herself.

It's better to listen to what they say than to hear about it secondhand, she thought.

Afterward, she would regret that decision many times. The words were to become stuck like a mantra in her speech center.

"Let's start with you, Charlotta. Could you describe to us what the paper Kvällspressen has done to you?"

Charlotta started bawling in the studio. The studio reporter must have thought it made good radio because he let it go on for almost half a minute before he asked her if she was okay. She stopped immediately.

"Well, you know," Charlotta said, giving a sob, "this reporter, Annika Bengtzon, called me at home. She wanted to wallow in my grief."

"In what way?" the studio reporter asked, sounding concerned and empathetic.

"My best friend had died and she called me in the middle of the night, going, 'How do you feel?'"

"That must have been very difficult for you!" the studio reporter exclaimed.

Charlotta gave another sob. "Yes, it's the worst thing that's ever happened to me. How can you move on after something like that?"

"Was it the same for you, Martin Berg-Larsson?"

"Larsson-Berg," the deputy principal corrected him. "Well, on the whole. I wasn't a close friend of the girl, of course, but I am close to the family. Her brother is a very gifted student. He graduated last spring and will be going to the USA to study this fall. We are always very pleased at Tibble High School when our students go on to a higher education abroad."

"So how did you feel being confronted with these questions in the middle of the night?"

"Well, I was shocked, naturally. At first I thought something had happened to my wife, who was out sailing-"

"How did you react?"

"It's all a bit muddled…"

"Was this the same reporter who thrust herself on Charlotta, Annika Bengtzon?"

"Yes, that's right."

The studio reporter made a rustling noise with a newspaper. "Let's hear what Annika Bengtzon wrote. Listen to this…"

In a mocking tone, the man began reading from Annika's articles about Josefin, her dreams and hopes, the quotes from Charlotta and finally the grief-stricken youth of Täby.

"So what do you think of this?" he said in a lugubrious voice.

"It's terrible that people can't leave you alone in your grief," Charlotta whimpered. "The media never shows respect for people in times of crisis. And then today, at our demonstration against violence, she intruded again!"

Martin Larsson-Berg cleared his throat. "Yes, but from the point of view of the media, we do have a very good crisis management team in Täby. We like to see ourselves as an inspiring example-"

The studio reporter cut him off. "But Kvällspressen and Annika Bengtzon haven't stopped at that. The tabloid has actively tried to clear the cabinet minister Christer Lundgren of suspicion. Dancing unquestioningly to the Social Democratic tune, she has thrown the blame on the person who was closest of all to Josefin, her boyfriend. Our reporter met him for an interview."

"I loved Josefin. She was the most important person in my life," said a high-pitched male voice that sounded young and vulnerable.

"What did it feel like to be practically accused of being a murderer in the newspaper?" the reporter asked cautiously.

The man sighed. "It's impossible to describe the feeling. What can you say? To read that you've… No, it's beyond comprehension." There was a catch in his voice.

"Have you considered suing the paper?"

Another catch. "No, everybody knows it's pointless. Giants like that can put up any amount of money to crush a person. I'd never win a case against the press. Besides, it would bring back too many memories."

The studio reporter returned, now with another reporter in the studio who seemed to play the part of some kind of expert.

"This is a problem, isn't it?" the studio reporter said.

"It certainly is," the commentator said in a concerned voice. "A young man is branded a murderer by a summer temp who's put on her Sunday best to do a piece of investigative journalism, and a lie is established as truth. Justice will rarely be done in a case like this. It would cost an enormous sum of money to pursue a libel case against a newspaper. However, we'd like to point out to anybody who feels used or abused by the media that you can receive legal aid to get at journalists who tell lies."

"Could this be something for Joachim to think about?"

"Yes, it could. One just has to hope he has the energy to take the matter to court. It would be very interesting to see what would be the outcome of a case like this."

The studio reporter rustled his papers. "But why would a young journalist do a thing like this?"

"One explanation might be that she would stop at nothing to get a permanent job with a tabloid. Kvällspressen lives off its newsstand circulation. The juicier the front page, the more copies they sell and the more money they make. Unfortunately, the reporters that stoop to this kind of work can benefit financially from their sordid activities."

"So the more salacious the front page, the higher the salary for the reporter?"

"Yes, you could say that."

"But do you think it's that simple, that she's sold herself to the highest bidder?"

"No, regrettably, the underlying motives may be even more dubious."

"And what might they be, do you think?"

The commentator cleared his throat. "The fact is, that there are up to ten thousand lobbyists in Stockholm. And these lobbyists are only after one thing: to get the decision makers and the media to do their employers' bidding. They influence the media by 'planting' news. You dupe or buy a journalist with a planted piece of news and the reporter becomes your tool."

"Do you think that has happened in this case?"

"Yes, I'm absolutely convinced it has," the commentator said authoritatively. "It's obvious to someone with any kind of knowledge of this trade that Annika Bengtzon's pieces about Christer Lundgren constitute a case of planting."

"How do you know?" the studio reporter asked, sounding impressed.

"I'd like to play you a tape that proves my case. It's a clip from this morning outside Rosenbad," the commentator said triumphantly.

The voice of the prime minister filled the air: "Naturally, I feel for Christer at a time like this. This kind of unwarranted media attention is always a trial. But I assure you, for the government- and the party- this business is of no consequence whatever. I suppose you've all seen Kvällspressen today. They've realized why the police have been interviewing Christer. He happens to have an overnight apartment next to Kronoberg Park. Even cabinet ministers have to have somewhere to live."

Back in the studio. "There we heard it plainly," the commentator said. "The prime minister refers directly to the statements in a newspaper, clearly wanting other media to follow suit."

"What exactly is the responsibility of the government in a case like this?"

"Well, they should obviously be censured for taking advantage of such a young and inexperienced journalist. It is unfortunately a lot easier to manipulate the summer freelancers."

The studio reporter took over again. "We tried to get hold of the editor in chief to offer him the chance to comment on our report, but were told that he wasn't available…"

Annika got up and walked toward the ladies' room; the floor under her feet was rolling. It got worse when she entered the corridor behind the newsroom. She had to support herself against the wall. I'm going to break, she thought. I can't do it. I won't make it. I'll throw up right here on the floor.

She made it to the bathroom and threw up in the disabled toilet, causing a blockage in the drain when she tried to flush it. She looked at her face in the mirror and was surprised to find that she was still in one piece, that she looked the same. She was still breathing and her heart was still working.

I can never show my face again, she thought. I'm disgraced. I'll never get another job. They won't even want me back at Katrineholms-Kuriren; I'm going to get fired. She couldn't think if what they had said had any validity. She had been skewered on national radio.

She started to cry.

Christ, where am I going to live? If I can't pay the rent, then where do I go?

She sank down on the floor, sobbing into her skirt.

Lyckebo, she thought suddenly and stopped crying. I'll move to Grandma's. No one will find me there. Grandma will move into her apartment in Hälleforsnäs in October and I could just stay in the cottage.

She blew her nose on some toilet paper and wiped away the tears.

Yes- of course that's what she'd do! Grandma had promised to stand by her; she wouldn't let her down. And Annika was a union member, so she'd get unemployment benefits at least for a year and then she could see. She could go abroad, a lot of people before her had done that. Pick oranges in Israel or grapes in France- or New Zealand?

She got to her feet. There were lots of alternatives.

"You can do it," she said out loud.

She'd made up her mind. Never again was she going to set foot in a newspaper office, especially not this one. She would take her bag and box up her notes and leave journalism behind her forever. Determined, she opened the door.

The feeling of being out on a rough sea wouldn't quite go away. She stayed close to the wall so she wouldn't fall over.

Once she reached Berit's desk she quickly gathered her things and put them in her bag.

"There you are! Could you come into my office for a moment?"

She recognized the voice of the new deputy editor, Anders Schyman.

Surprised, she turned around. "Who, me?"

"Yes, I'm in the fish tank with the hideous curtains over there. Come on in when you've got a minute."

"I can come right now."

She felt the furtive glances of the newsroom as she walked over to the boss's office. One thing I know for sure, she thought- it can't get any worse.

It wasn't a nice office. The tired curtains really were hideous and the air was dank and stale.

"What's that god-awful smell? Haven't you emptied the ashtray?"

"I don't smoke. It's the couch. Don't sit on it, the smell gets into your clothes."

She remained standing in the middle of the floor while he sat on his desk.

"I've called Studio 69," he said. "I never heard the likes of such a personal attack, and we didn't even get a chance to respond. I've already faxed a complaint to the Broadcast Commission. The editor in chief may be away, but I've been here all day. Did they call you?"

She didn't answer, just shook her head.

"I know that so-called commentator. He worked for a while on my current affairs program, but I had to get rid of him. His behavior really was beyond the pale. He was forever conspiring and dissing people until the office nearly fell apart. Fortunately, he wasn't on staff but was freelancing, so once I'd decided, I could ask him to leave."

Annika stared at the floor.

"And on the subject of planting," Schyman said, pulling out a fax from the mess that had already accumulated on his desk, "we've received an anonymous tip that the leader of one of the other parties in Parliament has been interviewed by the police in connection with the Josefin case."

He held out the fax to Annika, who looked at it, stunned. "Where was it sent from?"

"My question, exactly. Do you see the caller ID in the corner? That's the phone number of the Social Democrats' public relations office."

"That's so cheap."

"Isn't it? Brazen too. They don't even care we'd know right away who sent it."

They fell silent.

Then Annika steeled herself. "Nobody planted anything with me."

Anders Schyman looked at her attentively, waiting for her to continue.

"I haven't discussed my coverage with anyone, except a little with Berit and Anne Snapphane."

"With the news editors?"

Annika shook her head. "Not much," she said quietly.

"So you've handled this all on your own?"

He sounded a bit skeptical; Annika felt a bit edgy.

"Well, almost," she said, tears welling up in her eyes. "I can't blame anyone else."

"Oh, no," Schyman hastened to say, "that's not what I meant. I think your coverage has been okay, good, even. The only thing you missed out on was the strip joint. You knew about that, didn't you?"

She nodded.

"We should have run that sooner. But to do what the Rival and Studio 69 have done, practically making the girl out to be a prostitute, that's a hell of a lot worse. How did you find out about the minister's overnight apartment?"

Annika heaved a sigh. "I had coffee with his neighbor."

"Great!" Schyman said enthusiastically. "And what really happened with those youngsters in Täby?"

There was a quick gleam in Annika's eyes. "That is just too much. They called us themselves and invited us to the youth center. They also told us about the rally in the park, or whatever that was."

"Things got a bit out of hand there, I heard."

Annika dropped her bag on the floor and threw up her hands in a gesture of exasperation. It felt good to be talking about this at last.

"They're in mourning so you can't have a serious conversation with them. We're supposed to feel sorry for them but not to go near them in any way. You're not allowed to breathe a word about anything in this country that's the least bit unpleasant or controversial. We think that death and violence and suffering will go away if we just bury them and never discuss them. That's wrong! It's getting worse every day! Those kids were crazy, they would have set fire to us!"

"I don't think they would have gone that far." Annika was worked up and Schyman thought he should try to calm her down.

"Yes, they would. You weren't there," Annika shouted. "Those pathetic social workers took control of the grieving process. 'Crisis management team'- my ass! All they've done is to work the kids into a frenzy. I bet most of them hadn't so much as spoken to Josefin! What are they doing joining in an orgy of grief for a whole goddamn week? They were in some kind of a trance, Schyman, they didn't know what they were doing. They made us into Evil. As though we were to blame. They offered us up as scapegoats. Don't tell me I'm exaggerating!" Her face was blotchy from agitation and anger, her breathing sharp and hard.

The deputy editor eyed her with interest. "I think you may be right."

"Of course I'm right, for fuck's sake." Annika was holding nothing back because that's exactly how much she had to lose.

He smiled. "It's a good thing you don't swear like that in your copy."

"Of course I don't."

Anders Schyman started laughing.

Annika took a step forward. "It's no laughing matter. It's serious. Those youngsters at the cemetery were like a lynch mob. I can't say for sure they would have harmed us, but they gave us a fucking good scare. We should report them to the police, really. Pettersson's car got badly banged up, not that you can tell with that wreck, but still. We should make it clear that people can't behave like that, even if they are grieving."

"There are crisis management teams that do a fantastic job," the deputy editor said gravely.

Annika didn't respond and the man watched her for a while in silence.

"You've been working quite a lot lately, haven't you?"

She immediately was on the defensive. "I'm not overreacting because I'm overworked," she snapped.

The deputy editor got to his feet. "That's not what I meant. Are you on your regular shift now?"

She cast down her eyes. "No, I'm on next on Saturday."

"Take the weekend off. Go away and take a rest, you could do with some peace and quiet after what just happened."

She turned around and left the room without saying a word.

On her way out from the newsroom she heard Jansson cheering out loud, "Holy smokes, are we putting out a great newspaper or what! 'The Speaker admits, "I was in charge of IB." ' We've got a comment from the prime minister on the murder suspicions, and the Ninja Barbies have been arrested, of which we have the exclusive pictures!"

Annika quickly stepped into the elevator.

Not until she was standing outside her apartment block did she remember she didn't have any keys. She needed a key to open the door from the street as there was no code lock. She almost began to cry again.

"Fuck!" she said, and pulled at the door in exasperation. To her surprise, the door opened. A small piece of light-green cardboard fell to the ground. Annika bent down to pick it up. She recognized the pattern; it came from the box of a Clinique moisturizer she had.

Patricia, Annika thought. She knew I wouldn't be able to get in so she put the piece of paper in the lock.

She walked up the stairs, a short journey that felt interminable. Taped to the front door was an envelope; the keys jangled inside when she took it off.

Thank you so much for everything. Here are your keys, I've made copies. I'm at the club and will be back early tomorrow morning.

P.S. I've done some shopping, I hope you don't mind.

Annika opened the door. She was met by the fresh smell of floor cleaner. The voile curtains flew dramatically in the draft. She shut the door and the curtains sank back down. She wandered slowly through the rooms, looking around.

Patricia had cleaned the whole apartment, except for Annika's room, which was as messy as ever. The fridge was full of fresh cheeses, olives, hummus, and strawberries, and on the counter were plums, grapes, and avocados.

I'll never be able to eat all this before it goes bad, Annika thought. Then she remembered there were two of them now.

She opened the door to the maid's room a crack. Patricia's mattress lay in a corner, neatly made with flowery bedclothes. Next to it was a carryall with clothes and, on a hanger on the wall, Josefin's pink suit.

I want to stay here, Annika thought. I don't want to go back to my old apartment. Neither do I want to spend the rest of my life in Grandma's cottage at Lyckebo.

That night she dreamed for the first time about the three men from the radio program Studio 69: the studio reporter, the field reporter, and the commentator. Silent, faceless, and dressed in black, they were standing at her bedside. She could feel their malice like a cramp in her stomach.

"How can you say it was my fault?" she cried out.

The men drew nearer.

"I've thought it through! Maybe I did the wrong thing, but at least I tried!"

The men tried to shoot her. Their weapons thundered inside her head.

"I'm not Josefin! No!"

All together they leaned over her, and when she felt their icy cold breaths, she was woken up by her own scream.

The room was pitch-dark. The rain was pouring down outside. The rolls of thunder and flashes of lightning were almost simultaneous. The bedroom window was banging in the wind and the room was quite cold.

She struggled to her feet to close the window; it was hard to push it against the wind. In the silence after the rain outside, she felt the trickle down her leg. Her period had started. The bag with sanitary napkins was empty, but she had a few loose ones in her handbag.

While the storm went by, she lay crying in her bed for a long time, curled up in a little ball.

Eighteen Years, Six Months, and Fourteen Days

He feels deeply offended and my protests seem so feeble. I know he's right. No one could ever love me the way he does. There is nothing he would hesitate to do for me, and yet I care more about the outside world than I do about him.

My despair grows, my imperfection blossoms: poisonous, ice-cold, blue. It's so demoralizing, never to be up to standard. I want to watch TV when he wants to make love, and he twists my arm out of joint. The big void gets the upper hand, black and wet, shapeless, impenetrable. He says I let him down, and I can't find a way out.

We have to work together, find the way back to our heaven. Love is eternal, fundamental. I will never doubt it. But who says it should be easy? If perfection were universal, then why should anyone strive for it?

I can't give up now.

We are the most important thing

ever to happen

to each other.

Friday 3 August

Anders Schyman got soaked running the short distance to his car. It was teeming down, avenging all the boiling-hot days in one single cloudburst. Squeezed in behind the steering wheel, the deputy editor swore as he tried to wrestle out of his jacket. His shirt was soaked through on his back and shoulders.

"It'll dry off," he said to himself.

His breath had already misted up the windows, so he put the defroster on full blast.

His wife was waving from the kitchen window. He wiped the side window, blew her a kiss, and started his journey into town. He could hardly see a thing, even though the windshield wipers were on full speed. He had to wipe the inside of the windshield constantly to see anything at all.

Traffic was flowing reasonably well on Saltsjöbads Way, but once he was past Nacka, it came to a standstill. An accident on Värmdö Way had caused a five-mile backup. Schyman groaned out loud. Exhaust fumes rose like a fog into the rain. In the end he turned the engine off and let the defroster recycle the air.

He couldn't quite work Kvällspressen out. He'd been reading it closely for four months now, ever since he was asked to step into the driver's seat. Certain things were a given. The paper was always teetering on the brink of what was morally and ethically defensible, for example. Any self-respecting tabloid should be like that. Sure, there were occasional transgressions, but they were surprisingly few. He had analyzed complaints to the press ombudsman and the Press Council, and obviously the tabloids had far more complaints against them than all the other papers, which was as it should be. It was their job to provoke a reaction in the reader. And still, only a few complaints per year were upheld. He had been surprised to learn that the articles singled out for censure often came from small-town papers around the country that hadn't been able to judge where to draw the line.

He concluded that Kvällspressen was an extremely smart publication with well-balanced articles, front pages, and headlines. It was committed to openness and a dialogue with its readers.

So it was in theory at least. The reality was distant from that.

The people at Kvällspressen often didn't have a damn clue what they were doing. For instance, they'd sent that country girl out among the dead bodies and lynch mobs, expecting her to make clear and rational assessments of the situation. He'd spoken to the news and night editors the night before, and none of them had really discussed the coverage of the murder of Josefin Liljeberg with her. In his eyes, that was both irresponsible and incompetent.

And then there was the peculiar affair with the female terrorist group. None of the editors seemed to know how the story had got into the paper. A summer freelancer waltzed into the newsroom with the sensational pictures in his hand, and everybody just cheered and published them without a moment's thought.

It couldn't go on like that. To be able to sail that close to the wind, you had to know exactly which way it was blowing. A disaster was just waiting to happen; he could smell it. The radio program the day before was a first sign that Kvällspressen was becoming fair game. If the newsroom started bleeding, the vultures would soon be circling. The competition would line up to tear the paper apart. It wouldn't matter what they wrote or how they wrote it, it would all be wrong. Unless the general level of awareness of all the staff was raised, and quickly and thoroughly, they were ruined, in terms of the circulation, journalism, and finances.

He sighed. The cars were beginning to move in the lane next to his. He started the engine and let it run, but he left the parking brake on.

There was a lot of professionalism in the newsroom, there was no doubt about it. But there was a lack of leadership and overall responsibility. All the journalists at the paper had to be made aware of their specific job and what they were expected to do. The overall direction of the paper had to be clearer.

This had made him realize yet another function he was expected to fill: he would be the searchlight sweeping over the barbed wire, looking for intruders. Part of that would take the form of discussions, seminars, focus meetings, and new practices.

The cars to his left swished by faster and faster while he wasn't moving forward an inch. He swore and tried to look behind him but couldn't see a thing. In the end, he indicated and turned left without looking. The driver he'd cut off leaned on his horn.

He muttered something in the direction of the rearview mirror.

At that very moment the traffic came to a halt again. The cars to his right, in the lane he'd just left, started moving and soon picked up speed.

He put his forehead on the steering wheel and groaned out loud.

Annika cautiously put her head around the door of Patricia's room. She was asleep. Annika closed the door and quietly set about making coffee. She tiptoed out into the hall and picked up the morning paper, which she threw on the kitchen table. It fell open on a page with the column header "Yesterday on the Radio." Annika's eyes were drawn to the headline, and she read the radio columnist's words with a mounting feeling of sickness.

"The most lively and informative newsmagazine program on the air at the moment is undoubtedly Studio 69 on P3. Yesterday they focused on the continual dumbing down of the tabloids and the ruthless exploitation of bereaved individuals. Sadly, this is a debate that never ceases to be topical and…"

Annika crumpled up the paper into a ball and pushed it into the trash can. Then she went to the phone in the living room, called the newspaper, and canceled her subscription.

She tried to eat half an avocado, but she gagged on the rich green flesh. She tried a few strawberries but with the same result. She could manage some coffee and orange juice but threw away the avocado and a few strawberries so that Patricia would think she'd eaten them. Then she wrote a note telling her that she was going to Hälleforsnäs for the weekend. She wondered to herself whether she'd ever return. If not, then Patricia could have the apartment. She needed it.

The rain formed a wall outside the door when she went to leave. She just stood staring toward the house opposite, which was barely visible behind the curtain of rain.

Perfect, she thought. No one will be out and about. No one will see me. Mum won't have to feel ashamed.

She stepped out into the heavy rain and was soaked to the skin before she'd even reached the communal refuse room. She threw the half-full trash bag away with the paper, strawberries, and bits of avocado and slowly walked toward the subway station.

She'd heard in a movie that you reach a point when you can't get any wetter.

When she got to the railway station, she found out she'd have to wait nearly two hours for a train that went past Flen. She sat down on a bench in the roomy, brightly lit hall. The noises from the travelers, the trains, and the station loudspeakers all fused into a cacophony of city chaos.

Annika closed her eyes and let the sounds bombard her brain. After a while she felt cold, so she went to the ladies' room and stood with her hands under a hand dryer until people got pissed off with her taking too long over it.

At least they don't know who I am, she thought. They don't know that I'm the big loser. Thank God, I never got a picture byline.

She took a small regional train that quickly got packed with people. Opposite her was a fat man wet with perspiration and rain. Breathing hard, he unfolded a copy of Kvällspressen that Annika tried to avoid looking at.

She couldn't help noticing that Berit had got the Speaker to admit his involvement in the IB affair.

"I was posted with Elmér during the war," said the front-page story.

Oh, well, she thought. That's none of my business anymore.

At Flen she had another hour's wait for the bus to Hälleforsnäs. The rain was still pouring down, and a small lake had formed in the street behind the bus stop. She sat facing the waiting room wall in the railway station, not wanting any contact with anyone.

It was afternoon when the bus pulled up at the foot of Tattarbacken. The water-filled parking lot next to the co-op lay deserted, so no one saw her step off the bus. Tired and shaky, she made her way up to her house on legs that ached after the previous day's run.

Her apartment was dark and smelled of dust. Without lighting any lamps, she pulled off her wet clothes and crept into bed. Three minutes later she was asleep.

"It's only a matter of time," said the prime minister.

The chief press secretary protested, "We can't know that for sure. Nobody knows where the media pack chooses to stop."

The chief press secretary knew what he was talking about. He had been one of the toughest and most experienced political reporters in the country. Nowadays his job was to spin the media coverage in a favorable direction for the Social Democrats. He was, together with the election strategists from the United States, the most influential person outlining the election campaign for the governing party. The prime minister knew he voted Liberal.

"I have to admit I'm worried," the prime minister said. "I don't want to leave this to chance."

The big man got to his feet and walked restlessly over to the window. The rain was like a gray screen outside, hiding the view over the water.

The press secretary stopped him. "You shouldn't be standing there brooding in full view of everyone in the street. Pictures like that make a brilliant illustration of a government in crisis."

Vexed, the prime minister stopped himself. His bad temper grew even worse, and he abruptly turned to his foreign trade minister and barked, "How the hell could you be so damned stupid?"

Christer Lundgren didn't respond, just went on staring at the lead-gray sky from his place in the corner.

The prime minister moved closer to him. "Goddammit, you know we can't go interfering in the work of a government authority!"

The minister looked up at his superior. "Exactly. Neither the police or anybody else's."

The prime minister's eyes narrowed behind his glasses. "Don't you realize the predicament you've put us in? Do you recognize what the consequences of your actions will be?"

Christer Lundgren jumped to his feet and rushed up face-to-face with the prime minister and yelled, "I know exactly what I've done! I've fucking saved this goddamn party, that's what I've done!"

The press secretary stepped in. "We can't undo what's already been done," he said in a conciliatory tone. "We have to make the best of the situation. Going in and altering documents after the fact could end in disaster. We simply can't do that. I really don't think the journalists are capable of locating those receipts of yours." He circled the two ministers. "The most important thing is to cooperate with the police without giving them too much information."

In a gesture of conciliation, he put a hand on the shoulder of the minister for foreign trade. "Christer, it all depends on you now."

The minister shrugged off the hand. "I'm a murder suspect," he said in a strained voice.

"Yes, it's ironic," the press secretary said. "The death business is your responsibility in the cabinet. As far as arms sales are concerned. I suppose it wasn't meant literally."

It was evening by the time she woke up. Sven was sitting next to her on the bed, watching her.

"Welcome home," he said, and smiled.

She returned the smile. She was thirsty and had a headache.

"You sound as if I've been gone for ages."

"It feels like it," he said.

She pushed away the bedcover and got out of bed, feeling dizzy and queasy. "I don't feel well," she mumbled.

She staggered out to the bathroom and took a Tylenol. She opened the bathroom window to get some air. The rain had eased off but not stopped completely.

Sven came and stood in the doorway. "Shall we go and get a pizza?"

She swallowed. "I'm not really hungry."

"You've got to eat something. Look at you, you've gotten so thin."

"I've been busy." She walked past him and into the hallway.

He followed her out to the kitchen. "I heard they gave you a hard time on the radio."

She poured herself a glass of water. "Have you started listening to the current affairs program with debate and analysis?" she said tartly.

"No. Ingela told me."

She paused with the glass next to her mouth. "The sperm bucket?" she said with surprise. "Are you seeing her?"

He got angry. "That's such a mean old nickname. She hates it."

Annika smiled. "It was you who came up with it."

He grinned. "Yeah, right." He chuckled.

Annika drank the water in big gulps, and he came up to her and hugged her from behind.

"I'm cold. I've got to put some clothes on." She wriggled free.

Sven kissed her. "Sure. I'll call Maestro in the meantime."

Annika went into the bedroom and opened her closet. The clothes she'd left here were creased and smelled musty. She heard Sven call the local pizzeria and order two quattro stagioni. He knew she didn't eat mussels.

"You'll stay here now, won't you?" he called out to her after hanging up.

She searched through her clothes. "Why do you think that? My contract lasts until the fourteenth of August. I've got a week and a half left."

He leaned against the doorpost. "Do they still want you, though, the way you were disgraced like that?"

Her cheeks were burning. She rummaged deeper inside the closet. "The paper doesn't give a damn about what they say in a ridiculous radio program like that."

He came up to her and hugged her again. "I don't care what they say about you," he whispered. "To me you'll always be the best, even though all the others say you're worthless."

She pulled on a pair of old jeans that were too big for her now and an old sweater.

Sven shook his head disapprovingly. "Do you have to look like that? Haven't you got a dress?"

She closed the door of the closet. "How long will the pizzas be?"

"I mean it. Put something else on."

Annika stopped, breathed. "Come on," she begged him. "I'm hungry. The pizzas will get cold."

Eighteen Years, Ten Months, and Six Days

I long to return to the light and bright times. When days floated into shadowy nights like a spirit: clean, clear, fragrant, and soft. Time was a hole, weightless. The elation, the first touch, the wind, the light, and the feeling of absolute perfection. More than anything else in the world I want that moment to return.

His darkness blocks out the horizon. It isn't easy to navigate in the dark. The circle is round and evil. I bring out in him the darkness that cloaks our love in a fog. My steps grow unsteady and I stumble on our path. His patience gives out. I pay the price.

But we are the most important thing

there is

to each other.

Monday 6 August

The water boiled over and then, pouring it into the filter, she spilled some and scalded herself.

"Shit!" she cried out, jamming her burned finger into her mouth.

"Did you hurt yourself?"

A drowsy Patricia was standing in the doorway to the maid's room, dressed in T-shirt and panties, her hair tousled.

Annika was immediately gripped by a pang of guilt. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to wake you up. I'm really sorry."

"What's the matter? Did something happen?"

Annika turned around and poured the rest of the water on the coffee. "My job's hanging by a thread. Do you want some coffee, or are you going back to bed?"

Patricia rubbed her eyes. "I'm off tonight. I'd love a cup."

She put on a pair of shorts and disappeared into the stairwell to go to the bathroom. Annika quickly blew her nose and wiped her eyes. She took out a couple of slices of bread from the freezer, put them in the toaster, and put cheese and marmalade and margarine on the table. She heard Patricia come back in and close the front door.

"What happened?"

Patricia was staring at Annika's legs, and Annika herself looked down at them.

"I was chased by a lynch mob last Thursday. They almost set fire to the car as we were driving away."

Patricia gaped. "Jesus, sounds like a James Bond movie!"

Annika laughed. The toaster clicked and threw the slices up in an arc, and as they caught one each, Patricia laughed too.

They sat down at the kitchen table and made breakfast. Annika missed the morning paper. She looked out the window; the rain was pattering on the windowsill.

"So how was the countryside?"

Annika let out a sigh. "Just what you'd expect in this weather. I spent Friday night with Sven, my boyfriend, and then I went to my grandmother's. She's got a cottage that's part of Harpsund. She can rent it for as long as she likes, as she was the housekeeper there for thirty-seven years."

"What's Harpsund?"

Annika poured the coffee. "It's an estate between Flen and Hälleforsnäs. A man called Hjalmar Wicander donated it to the government when he died in 1952. The condition was that the prime minister could use it as a recreational residence."

"What's a recrea… residence?"

"It's a summerhouse but it has reception rooms." Annika smiled. "Harpsund has been a big hit among prime ministers, especially the present one. He's from Sörmland and most of his family still lives there. I met him there on Midsummer Eve a couple of years ago."

Patricia was impressed. "You've been there?"

"I often went with Grandma when I was a kid."

They ate in silence.

"Are you working today?" Patricia asked.

Annika nodded.

"You've got a really hard job, don't you?" Patricia said. "And dangerous- if there are people trying to set fire to you."

Annika gave a lopsided smile. "Someone set fire to your workplace too."

"That wasn't personal."

Annika sighed. "Still, I wish I could stay."

"Why do you have to go in?"

"My contract ends next week. Only one or two of the summer freelancers will get to go on working at the paper."

"Couldn't you be one of them? You've written a lot."

Annika shook her head. "They've got a recruitment meeting with the union tomorrow, and after that we'll find out who gets to stay. What are you doing today?"

Patricia's gaze turned inward and disappeared out in the rain. "I'm going to think about Josefin. I'm going to speak to the spirits and look for her on the other side. When I make contact with her, I'm going to ask her who did it."

Anne Snapphane was at her desk when Annika walked into the newsroom.

"So you're alive," Annika established.

"Barely. It's been a goddamn awful weekend. The bosses have been completely nuts. Any assignments the news editor has handed out during the day, the night editor has trashed at night. I've had five stories spiked."

Annika dropped down at her desk. The dragon had left behind a battlefield of empty coffee mugs, wire copy, and used Kleenex tissues.

"I did think twice before I came in," Annika said. "Now I know why."

Anne began to laugh. Annika swept everything on the desk, including five notepads, two books, and three mugs marked Mariana, into the wastebasket. "Take that, you upper-class bitch."

Anne laughed so hard she fell off her chair.

"It wasn't that funny, was it?"Annika said.

Anne sat up again and tried to stop laughing. "No, it wasn't that funny," she said, chuckling. "It won't take much to make me laugh today. I know that I'm going to be getting out of here."

Annika stared at her. "You've got a job? Where?"

"With a TV production company in Hammarby Dock. I'll be researcher on a cable-station talk show aimed at women. It starts in about five weeks. It could be really trashy. I'm really looking forward to it."

"What if you get a job here?"

"Christ knows if I want to. Besides, the TV job is a permanent post."

"Congratulations." Annika walked around the desk to give her friend a hug. "I'm so happy for you!"

"Hey, could you dykes spare a minute to do some work?"

Spike was back in the news editor's chair.

"Shove it, you randy old goat!" Anne shouted at him.

"Are you crazy?"Annika said under her breath.

"Who cares? I'm leaving." Anne got up.

Anne got the assignment, a story about a kitten rescued by the Norrköping police. It had been living at the station for two weeks and now it had to be put to sleep.

"We've got to get a photo of the stupid cat in a cell," Anne said. "Just imagine the headline: 'Puss on Death Row.'"

Spike looked at Annika. "I've got nothing for you right now. Stand by for the time being."

Annika swallowed. She got it. The fridge door had slammed shut.

"Okay," she said. "I'll read the papers."

She walked over to the archive shelves and picked up all the Kvällspressen issues since last Friday. She had neither read a paper nor watched TV all weekend. She would never listen to the radio again unless she was forced to.

She started with Berit's IB piece. Without beating about the bush, the Speaker now admitted he'd used his contacts with Birger Elmér at the IB domestic bureau to escape a military posting, a training assignment, in the autumn of 1966.

It was in the middle of an election campaign, and the Speaker was the deputy chairman of the Young Social Democrats at the time. The posting came at an inconvenient moment so Elmér set him up with a war job at IB.

This meant he could go on as usual with his political work, while doing his military service at the same time.

According to the records that Berit had dug up, the Speaker had been called up for service at the Defense Staff Intelligence Division, which could be another name for the IB. In 1966 he was thirty-three years old and he was never called up again.

Annika let the paper drop. How did Berit get the Speaker to admit all of this? He'd been denying all involvement for three decades, and now suddenly he'd come clean about everything. Weird.

The following spread showed some sensational pictures of the arrest of the Ninja Barbies, all of them taken by Carl Wennergren. In the article the readers were told that the group had decided to attack a judge's house in the leafy Stockholm suburb of Djursholm. The judge had recently acquitted a suspected pedophile for lack of evidence. The police had been tipped off and had sent in the terrorist squad. They had evacuated the surrounding houses and set up roadblocks. Parts of the squad had taken up position in the Stockhagen sports field right next to the judge's house; the rest had hidden in the garden.

The Ninja Barbies were taken completely by surprise and had surrendered after two of the women were shot in the leg.

The article gave Annika a bad taste in her mouth. Gone was the uncritical reiteration of the Ninja Barbies' grievances that had been the framework of the earlier articles; now the police were the heroes. If any articles in Kvällspressen ever merited analysis, it was these, she thought.

"We're going to drown in the tears of readers wanting to take care of little Puss," Anne Snapphane said.

Annika smiled. "What's the cat's actual name?"

"It said Harry on the collar. Have you had lunch yet?"

The minister drove into the little village called Mellösa. He slowed down and looked left through the rain. His turn should be somewhere here.

A large yellow house appeared in the grayness down by the water, and he slowed further; it didn't seem quite right. The car behind beeped.

"Calm down, for Christ's sake!" the minister cried out, and slammed on the brakes. The Volvo behind him braked, swerved, and missed him by an inch.

His rented car coughed and died; the fan hissed and the windshield wipers continued to squeak. He noticed that his hands on the wheel were shaking.

Jesus! What am I doing? he thought. I can't risk other people's lives just because…

The irony in his reasoning hit him full force. He started the car and slowly drove on. Two hundred meters farther on he saw the sign: Harpsund 5.

He turned left and crossed the railway. The road wound past a church, a school, and farms in a landscape that belonged to another time; manor houses with sunporches and fir hedges drifted past in the mist.

Here the landowners had sucked the working class dry for a thousand years, he mused.

After a few minutes he drove through the massive stone gateposts that marked the entrance to the prime minister's summer residence. A large, well-kept barn lay on the left, and behind it he glimpsed the main house.

He parked to the right of the entrance and sat in the car for a moment, looking at the building. It was two stories high with a mansard roof, built in the 1910s. A Caroline pastiche. He fished out his umbrella, opened the car door, and ran to the door.

"Welcome. The prime minister called. I've prepared some lunch for you." The housekeeper took his wet umbrella and jacket.

"Thanks, I'm fine. I had lunch on the way. I just want to go to my room."

The woman didn't express any disappointment. "Of course. This way, please."

She walked ahead of him up to the second floor and showed him to a room with a view over the lake. "Just call if you want anything."

The housekeeper closed the door without making a sound, and he took off his shirt and shoes. The prime minister was right- they'd never find him here.

He sat down on the bed with the telephone on his lap and took three deep breaths. Then he dialed the number for Karungi.

"It's over," he said when she answered.

He listened to her for a long time.

"No, darling," he said. "Don't cry. I'm not going to jail. No, I promise."

He stared out the window, hoping he wasn't lying.

The afternoon dragged. She didn't get any assignments. She took the hint, which wasn't even particularly subtle. She was taken off everything to do with the Josefin murder and the minister suspect. Carl Wennergren got all those jobs.

In an attack of boredom she called Krim and asked for Q. He actually answered the phone.

"They were hard on you on the radio last Thursday," he said.

"They were wrong. I was right. They got the wrong end of the stick."

"I don't know if I agree," he said genially. "You can be damned pushy."

"I'm smooth as a ballet dancer!"

He laughed out loud. "That's not exactly the metaphor that comes to mind when you call," he snorted. "But you can handle that, I expect. You're a tough nut, so you'll take it in your stride. You have to take a few on the chin."

Amazingly enough, she felt he was right.

"Now listen," she said, "I have a few questions about the Ninja Barbies."

He immediately turned serious. "What?"

"Did they have any cash on them when they were arrested?"

She heard the police captain draw a breath. "Why the hell do you ask that?"

She shrugged and smiled. "Just wondering, that's all…"

He thought about it for a long while. "Do you know anything about this?" he said in a low voice.

"Maybe."

"Well, give it to me, baby."

She laughed coarsely. "You'd like that, wouldn't you!"

"They didn't have anything on them."

Annika's heart started beating faster. "But in the car? At home? In the basement?"

"In the house of one of them."

"Like around fifty thousand?" Annika said innocently.

He sighed. "I wish you'd tell me straight."

"I could say the same to you."

"Forty-eight thousand five hundred. In an envelope."

He'd done it, the bastard!

"Maybe you could tell me where it came from," he said, trying to sound sweet.

She didn't reply.

When she heard the signature tune to Studio 69, Annika turned off the radio and went down to the canteen. She'd just finished filling a plate with rabbit food from the salad bar when a counter attendant with a prominent perm called out her name.

"You've got a call," the Perm said.

It was Anne Snapphane.

"You should listen to this," she said in a low voice.

Annika closed her eyes and felt her heart sink deep into her shoes. "Why would I want to listen to them rip me again?"

"No, no. It's not about you. It's about the minister."

Annika took a deep breath. "Qué?"

"It seems he did it after all."

Annika hung up and walked toward the exit with her salad plate.

"Hey, you!" the Perm shouted after her. "You're not allowed to take the plate with you!"

"So call the police," Annika retorted, pushed the door open, and walked out.

The newsroom was deathly quiet. The voice of the studio reporter resounded from the loudspeakers in the open-plan office, and all the journalists at the paper were leaning forward, taking in the message.

Annika gingerly sat down at her desk. "What's up?" she whispered to Anne Snapphane.

Anne leaned over toward her. "They've found the receipt," she said quietly. "The minister was at the strip club on the night of Josefin's murder. She rang up his check half an hour before she died."

Annika went completely pale. "Jesus Christ!"

"It all adds up. Christer Lundgren attended a conference with German Social Democrats and trade union representatives here in Stockholm on Friday, July twenty-seventh. He spoke about trade and cross-border cooperation. Afterward he took the Germans out on a spree."

"What a loser," Annika said.

"The Studio 69 reporters have found the receipt. And he noted down the names of the Germans on the reverse."

"Has he resigned yet?"

"Do you think he will?" Anne Snapphane said.

"Well, it doesn't look very good. You can picture the headline. 'Social Democrat Spends Taxpayers' Money at Strip Joint.'"

A man from the proofreading desk hushed them. Annika switched on her radio and turned up the volume.

"Our reporter found the fateful receipt from the strip club in the archive of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. But by then the police were already on the minister's track."

The man's voice was full of restrained triumph. He was milking it, speaking slowly in an ominous voice.

"There was, it appears… a witness."

A reporter began speaking, sounding as if he were standing in an empty hallway. The echo bounced around between the walls.

"I'm standing in the stairwell of the house where Minister for Foreign Trade Christer Lundgren has his overnight apartment," the reporter whispered excitedly. "Up to a few days ago, no one knew about it, not even his press secretary, Karina Björnlund. But there was one thing the minister failed to reckon with: the neighbors."

A sound effect faded in, shoes walking up marble steps.

"I'm on my way up to the woman who was to become a key witness in the investigation into the murder of the stripper Josefin Liljeberg," the reporter said, slightly out of breath.

The elevator must be out of order again, Annika thought.

"Her name is Elna Svensson, and it was her early-morning routine and razor-sharp observations that were to nail the minister."

A doorbell rang; Annika recognized it. He was at 64 Sankt Göransgatan, no doubt about it. The door opened.

"He was coming into the building when Jasper and I were on our way out," Elna Svensson said.

Annika immediately recognized the whining voice. The fat woman with the dog.

"Jasper likes to play in the park for a while before I have my morning coffee. Coffee and a plain bun, that's what I have for breakfast."

"And this particular morning you met Minister for Foreign Trade Christer Lundgren on your way out?"

"Yes, as I said."

"And he was on his way in?"

"He came in, looking agitated. He nearly stepped on Jasper, and he didn't apologize either."

Agitated? Annika noted the word down on her pad.

"What time was this?"

"I rise at five o'clock, every day of the week. It was just after that."

"Did you see anything strange in the park?"

The woman sounded more nervous. "Absolutely not. Nothing at all. Neither did Jasper. He did his business and we came back in."

The studio reporter returned, now with the commentator in the studio. They discussed when the minister would resign, the impact on the election campaign, the future of Social Democracy. They even touched on national security. No issues were too important for Studio 69 on a day like this.

"It pisses me off," Anne Snapphane said.

"What does?" Annika said.

"That it had to be them of all people that found the receipt. Why didn't I go up to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and ask to see it?"

"The question is how they knew it was there to be asked for."

"We have tried to get hold of Christer Lundgren for a comment," the studio reporter said, "but the minister has gone underground. Nobody knows where he is, not even his press secretary, Karina Björnlund, who claims not to have known about the strip club visit either."

Karina Björnlund's nasal voice streamed out of the radio: "I haven't got the slightest idea where he was that night. He told me he was having an informal meeting with some foreign representatives."

"Could that have been the German union leaders?" the reporter insinuated.

"I couldn't say," she said.

"And where is he now?"

"I've been trying to get hold of him all day."

Anne Snapphane rolled her eyes. "She doesn't sound like the sharpest knife in the drawer."

Annika shrugged.

"The prime minister has declined to comment on our latest disclosures," the studio reporter said. "Instead he referred us to a press conference at Rosenbad, tomorrow at eleven A.M."

"Do you think Lundgren will resign then?" Anne asked.

Annika frowned. "It depends," she said thoughtfully. "If the Social Democrats want an end to the discussion, they'll drop him like a hot potato. They'll appoint him county governor or vice president of some bank or something else equally boring up in the tundra."

Anne wagged her finger at Annika. "Watch it, you, you're talking about my backyard."

"Provincialist," Annika retorted. "That, however, would mean that the government would be admitting the minister was a murderer, even if he's never convicted. So if all Social Democrats have a clear conscience, the minister should stay."

"Despite the receipt from the strip club?"

"I bet my boots they'd come up with a great excuse. It was all probably his driver's fault." Annika grinned.

The radio hosts were now ready to sum up and did so with authority. Annika reluctantly admitted to herself that the new disclosures were both sensational and well presented. They'd done a good job.

"A minister in the Social Democrat cabinet takes seven German union leaders to a strip club," the reporter said. "A busty, blond stripper rings up the check at half past four in the morning. The minister signs it and carefully notes down the names of his German guests on the reverse. Half an hour later he returns to his house, agitated, and nearly steps on his neighbor's dog. The stripper is later found murdered fifty yards from the same house. She died between five and seven A.M. that same morning. The minister has been interviewed by the police on several occasions and has now disappeared…"

The last words hung in the air when the electric guitar music began. Annika switched off.

The senior editors had gathered over by the news desk. She saw Spike and Jansson; Ingvar Johansson; Picture Pelle and the sports editor; Anders Schyman and the editor in chief. Their backs were turned to the newsroom.

"Check that out for an image," Annika said. "They're in the process of sinking the paper with that damned wall of backs."

"Whatever they're talking about, we're not involved," Anne Snapphane said. "It'll be golden boy who gets this treat."

And true enough, the group moved as one in Carl Wennergren's direction.

"Does Jansson work all the time?"Annika wondered.

"Three ex-wives and five kids on the installment plan," Anne replied.

Annika slowly ate her wilting salad. Maybe that's where you end up in this job, she thought. Maybe it's just as well I'm out before I've become like those guys, a bunch of addled old hypocrites with brains that can only think in 72-point Bodoni.

"You take care of Creepy Calls," Spike said to her when he walked past.

One and a half weeks left, Annika thought, held her tongue, and walked off to return her plate to the cafeteria.

"I could do with a quiet night," she said when she returned to her desk.

"Ha!" Anne said. "That's what you think. Look at the weather. All the loons will be calling."

Anne was right.

"Immigration's gone too far," a voice said. It resonated with testosterone and the southern suburbs.

"Do you think?" Annika said. "In what way?"

"They're taking over. Why the hell can't they solve their own problems wherever it is they come from instead of bringing all their shit over here?"

Annika leaned back in her chair and sighed soundlessly. "Could you be a bit more precise?"

"First they rape and kill each other at home, then they come over here and strangle our girls. Take that dead girl in the park, for example."

At least there was someone who didn't listen to Studio 69.

"Well," Annika said, "I'm not so sure the police share your suspicions."

"See! That's what really pisses me off. The cops are protecting the fuckers!"

"So what do you think should be done about it?" Annika asked in a silky voice.

"Throw them out. Just send them all back to the jungle, goddammit!"

Annika grinned. "I find it a bit hard to share your opinion as I'm black myself."

The man on the phone went quiet. Anne stopped writing and looked up at her, and Annika had problems keeping a straight face.

"I want to talk to someone else," the man said when he'd collected himself.

"Sorry, there's no one else here."

"Who is that idiot you're talking to?" Anne asked.

"There is," the man said. "I can hear another woman in the background."

"Oh, yes, of course, there's Anne. She's Korean. Hang on and I'll put you through to her."

"Oh, fuck it!" the man exclaimed, and hung up.

"What an asshole!" Annika said.

The phone rang again.

"So, I don't have to tell you my name, right?" The voice belonged to a frightened young girl.

"Yeah, sure." Annika said. "What's it about?"

"Well, you know, this TV guy, this program presenter…" The girl gave the name of one of Sweden's most popular and highly esteemed TV journalists.

"What about him?"

"He dresses up in women's clothes and he gropes young girls."

Annika groaned. She'd heard this one before. "People can dress up however they want in this country."

"He goes to sex clubs too."

"And we have freedom of opinion and religion and freedom of association."

The girl on the phone lost the thread. "Oh, so it's nothing you'll write about?"

"Has he done anything illegal?"

"No…"

"Groped, you said. Has he forced himself on anyone?"

"No, not really, they wanted to-"

"Has he bought sexual favors with public money?"

The girl was confused. "What do you mean?"

"Does he buy prostitutes with taxpayers' money?"

"I don't know…"

Annika thanked her for the tip-off and terminated the call. "You're right," she said to Anne. "Loon night."

The tip-off phone rang a third time. Annika grabbed it.

"My name is Roger Sundström and I live in Piteå. Are you busy, or do you have a minute?"

Annika sat down. This crazy man was actually polite.

"I've got time. What's it about?"

"Well," the man said in broad Norrland dialect, "it's about this minister, Christer Lundgren. "They're saying in this radio program, Studio 69, that he was at a strip club in Stockholm, but that's not true."

Annika pricked up her ears; something in the man's voice made her take him seriously. She found a pen beside the keyboard. "Tell me, what makes you think that?"

"Well, we went to Majorca on holiday, the whole family. Silly, 'cause it's been warmer in Sweden than in Spain, but we couldn't have known that when we… Well, anyway, we were on our way back to Piteå. We'd booked flights with Transwede from Stockholm, as they're a bit cheaper…"

A child laughed in the background and Annika heard a woman singing.

"Go on."

"That's when we saw the minister. He was at the airport when we were there."

"When was this?"

"Friday the twenty-seventh, at twenty oh five in the evening."

"How can you be that exact?"

"I remembered it was the time our plane was supposed to leave. It says on my ticket."

Of course! "But what makes you think the minister wasn't at the strip club? The check that the reporters on Studio 69 are talking about was rung up at half past four the following morning. And a neighbor saw him."

"But he wasn't in Stockholm then."

"How do you know?"

"Because he got on the plane. We saw him at the check-in counter. He had a briefcase and a small suitcase."

Annika felt the hair on her neck stand up; this could be important. Yet, she was doubtful. She had to be sure.

"How come you paid such close attention to the minister? How come you recognized him?"

The children in the background started singing a silly song. Roger Sundström gave an embarrassed laugh.

"I tried to talk to him, but he was too stressed-out. I don't think he even registered me."

"Stressed? In what way?"

"He was in a sweat and his hands were shaking."

"It was very hot that day, everyone was sweating."

Sundström patiently replied, "Yes, but he didn't look like he normally does. His eyes were sort of staring."

Annika felt the excitement drop. Sundström was probably imagining things. "How do you mean, staring?"

The man paused. "He was all tense, and he's always so self-assured and relaxed."

"What do you mean 'always'? Do you know him?" That's what she thought he was implying.

"Oh, yes. Christer's married to my cousin Anna-Lena. They live somewhere in Luleå, and their twins are the same age as our Kajsa. We don't meet up very often- the last time was at Granddad's funeral, I think. But Christer sure doesn't look like that normally, not even at funerals."

He fell silent, feeling that Annika didn't believe him.

Annika was at a loss but for the time being decided the man was telling the truth. At least he believed what he was telling her.

"Did you see him on the plane as well?"

Roger Sundström hesitated. "It was one of those big planes and it was packed. No, I don't think I saw him."

Annika closed her eyes and thought about the claim on Studio 69 that there were ten thousand lobbyists in Stockholm; maybe they had a local office in Piteå.

"There's something I want to ask you, Roger, and I want you to be absolutely honest with me. It's extremely important."

"Right, what's that?" Annika sensed a note of suspicion and fear in his voice.

"Did anyone ask you to make this call?"

Again, there was a pause. "Well, I talked it over with Britt-Inger first. She thought I should call you."

"Britt-Inger?"

"My wife."

"And why did your wife think you should call?"

"Because they're wrong on Studio 69." Sundström was getting more assertive. "I called them first, but they wouldn't talk to me. But I know what I saw. Britt-Inger saw him too."

Annika frantically racked her brains. "And nobody else asked you to call?"

"Nobody."

"You're absolutely sure about that?"

"Now listen-"

"Okay," Annika said quickly. "What you're saying is very interesting. It puts the allegations on Studio 69 in a completely different light. I'll see whether I can use it in one way or another in the future. Thank you very much for…"

Roger Sundström had already hung up.

The moment she put the Creepy Calls phone down, her own phone started ringing.

"You've got to help us." It was Daniella Hermansson.

"What's happened?"

"They keep calling Auntie Elna. She's here with me now. There are fifteen journalists with TV cameras and God knows what outside our door, and they won't stop ringing the bell. What can we do?"

Daniella was in a real state. Annika heard the child screaming in the background and assumed her calmest tone of voice.

"You have absolutely no obligation to let anyone in if you don't want to. Neither you, nor Elna, has to talk to any journalists. Are they phoning too?"

"Constantly."

"When we hang up, take the phone off the hook. They'll only get the busy signal. If you feel threatened by the journalists outside your door, call the police."

"The police? Oh, I daren't."

"Do you want me to do it?"

"Could you? Please…"

"You just hold the line and I'll call them on another phone."

Annika picked up the Creepy Calls phone and dialed the direct number to the police control room.

"Oh, hi, I'm calling from sixty-four Sankt Göransgatan," she said. "The press have invaded. They're scaring the pensioners to death. They're yelling and shouting, ringing on all doors. The people from the radio are the worst. I've got five terrified pensioners with me right now. It's the stairwell to the right, third floor."

She changed receivers. "They're on their way."

Daniella breathed freely again. "Oh, thank you so much. How can I ever thank you? That was really good of you, I'll-"

Annika wasn't listening. "Why did Elna talk to the reporter from Studio 69?"

"She says she hasn't talked to any reporters."

"She must have, I heard her on the radio. It would have been today or yesterday."

Daniella put the phone down and talked to someone in the room.

"Auntie Elna says absolutely not."

Annika pondered her words. "Listen, is Aunty Elna okay? Does she ever get a little confused?"

The answer came fast and assuredly. "Not a bit, she's completely with it. No reporter, she's positive."

"Well, she talked to someone, unless I and the entire pack of hacks outside your door have been hallucinating."

"A policeman. She spoke to a police officer this morning. He said he wanted to clarify a few points from a previous interview."

"Did he record their conversation?"

"Did he record your conversation?" Daniella asked.

A long mumbling conversation followed.

"Yes," Daniella said into the phone. "He wanted a transcript. The documentation of all interviews is very important, the policeman said."

They have absolutely no shame, Annika thought to herself.

"And she's sure about the day and the time? About when she bumped into the minister?"

"Yes, she's absolutely sure."

"How can she be?"

"Can I tell her?" Daniella asked her neighbor.

Mumbling and muttering. Then back into the phone: "No, I can't tell you why, but she is. Oh, something's happening outside! Hang on, let me check…"

Daniella dropped the phone; Annika could hear her footsteps. She was probably looking through the peephole. Then the steps returned.

"The police are here now. They're clearing out the stairwell. Thanks a million for all your help."

"Don't mention it."

Annika hung up, her head spinning. Creepy Calls rang again.

"You take it, please," Annika said to Anne Snapphane, and walked off to the cafeteria. She bought a bottle of mineral water and sat down by a window, looking out at the rain. It was a dark and heavy night. Not even the lights at the Russian embassy could penetrate the gloom.

I wonder when Josefin's funeral is, she mused. I guess it'll be some time. The medical examiners and the police will want the chance to look at her body now so they won't have to dig her back up.

She thought about the minister, wondering what window he was staring out of.

Talk about being up shit creek, she thought. How can you be so damn stupid to hand in the receipt from a strip joint to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs?

He's just tightfisted, that's how.

While she finished her water, her thoughts returned to Josefin. The dead girl had been completely forgotten in all this. From the moment she was exposed as a stripper, she became nothing but a piece of meat, a men's toy. Annika thought about her parents.

I wonder how my mom would have reacted if it had been me, she mused. Would she have cried to a journalist from the local paper?

Probably not. Her mother disliked journalists. People should mind their own business was what she thought. She'd never said it straight out, but she wasn't happy with Annika's choice of profession. She'd gone along with Sven, who thought Annika shouldn't accept her place at college.

"It's a really tough job," Sven had said. "Confronting people and challenging them isn't for you. You're such a soft touch."

She got to her feet, annoyed, and walked back to her desk in the newsroom.

"I've had enough of this for today," she said to Anne Snapphane, and took her bag and left.

Patricia jumped when the front door opened. Annika was a black silhouette against the sharp light in the stairwell.

"Were you asleep?"Annika turned on the light.

Patricia blinked at the light. "I was letting the energies flow."

"And I sent them packing," Annika said with a wan smile.

Patricia returned the smile. "They're always there."

Annika hung up her things in the hall. Her jacket was wet.

Patricia sat up on the couch. "Josefin had one of those jackets," she said, amazed. "Exactly the same."

Annika gave a surprised look. "It's several years old. From H and M, I think."

Patricia nodded. "So was Jossie's. It's still hanging in the hall in Dalagatan. 'I'll always wear this jacket,' she used to say. She often said stuff like that, big exaggerations. 'I'll always.' 'I'll never ever.' 'This is the biggest one of all.' 'You're the best friend I've ever had.' 'I'll hate him till I die.' Till I die…"

Patricia started crying and Annika sat down next to her on the couch.

"Did you listen to Studio 69?"

Patricia nodded.

"What do you think? Was it the minister?"

Patricia looked down at her hands through the tears. "It could be one of the bigwigs- they left shortly after Jossie. They paid with one of those fancy government cards. And then the Germans- you know what they're like. Dad often talked about them."

Annika stayed silent while Patricia cried. "Everyone important to me dies."

"Oh, come on," Annika tried.

"First Dad, then Jossie…"

"Surely that's not 'everyone'? What about your mom?"

Patricia fished out a tissue and blew her nose. "She doesn't want anything to do with me, calls me a whore. And she's got the whole family on her side."

Annika went to get two glasses of water from the kitchen. She gave one to Patricia.

"So why do you work there?"

"Joachim thinks I'm good in the bar," she said defiantly. "And I make good money- I put away ten thousand every month. When I've got enough, I'm going to open a shop. I already know what I'm going to call it, The Crystal. I checked it. The name's available. I'm going to sell tarot cards and tell people's fortunes, help people find the right path-"

"You've seen the minister in the photographs. Was he with those guys at the club?"Annika interrupted.

Patricia shrugged. "They all look the same, you know."

Annika recognized her words, she'd heard them somewhere else before. She looked at the woman on the couch. Doubtless, she avoided looking at the men altogether.

"Did the police ask you about this?"

"Of course. They've asked about everything a million times."

"What, for example?"

Patricia got to her feet, irritated. "Everything, a thousand different things. I'm tired now. Good night."

She quietly closed the door to her room behind her.

Eighteen Years, Eleven Months, and Five Days

We don't know where we're headed. The truth that was behind the clouds has drifted off into space. I can't see it any longer, can't even sense its presence.

He cries over the emptiness. All I feel is flat and cold. I'm unmoved: indifferent, sterile.

Resignation is next door to failure. The will that is either too strong or too weak; the love that is either too demanding or too pale.

I can't back out now.

We are, despite everything,

the most important thing there is

to each other.

Tuesday 7 August

She's got to go," said the first one.

"How do we get rid of her?" said the second one.

"Shoot her?" said the third.

The men from Studio 69 were sitting around her kitchen table. Annika wasn't going to stay on at the newspaper, that much was clear.

"But you haven't asked me!" Annika called out.

They continued mumbling among themselves at the table, and Annika couldn't catch their words.

"Hey, listen!" she called to them. "Maybe I don't want to go with you! I don't want to go to Harpsund!"

"Do you want some breakfast?"

When Annika opened her eyes, she was looking straight at Patricia.

"What's that?"

Patricia's hands flew up to her mouth. "Oh, I'm sorry, you were still sleeping. I thought… You were talking. It must have been a dream."

Annika closed her eyes and smoothed back her hair. "Weird."

Annika got out of bed, put on her dressing gown, and padded down to the toilet. She returned just as Patricia was pouring out coffee.

"Didn't you sleep well?"

Annika sat down with a sigh. "They make their decision today."

"I think they'll let you stay on." Patricia smiled.

Annika pondered. "I have a chance. I'm a member of the Union of Journalists, so I've got them behind me. Even if the senior editors have been influenced by Studio 69, the union will back me up."

She had a bite of her roll, her expression lighting up. "Of course, that's what'll happen. It's possible the bosses will want to drop me, because they're really out of touch. But the union will stand up for me."

"There you go," Patricia said, and this time Annika returned the smile.

The rain had stopped. Nevertheless, his first breath filled his lungs with dampness. The fog was so dense he could barely make out his rental car.

He stepped out onto the crunching gravel, dropping the heavy door behind him. The sounds were muffled, as if wrapped in cotton wool. He passed his hand through the veils. They danced.

He walked around the house and emerged at the back. You couldn't guess that the lake was only a few hundred yards away. He knew the fog would lift during the morning, but if he was to get any fresh air today, it would have to be now.

A car drove past in the road, but he couldn't see it.

Talk about a perfect hiding place, he thought.

He sat down on a park bench and the damp immediately penetrated the seat of his pants. He didn't care.

The feeling of failure burned in his lungs as he drew deep, misty breaths. The view over the lake was as clear as his future. The prime minister was unwilling to discuss what he'd be doing after it was all over. All his energy was now aimed at salvaging the election campaign. Nothing must jeopardize that. The prime minister would get rid of him today in a public axing, on some invented pretext, and he'd grovel to the media. The amoebas, as he called them, controlled the election campaign, and it took precedence over everything else.

Except the truth, he reflected.

This realization had the same effect on his future as if the sun had suddenly broken through the thick clouds and made the fog lift in a moment.

It was that simple!

He suddenly laughed out loud.

He could choose to do damn well anything he wanted.

As long as no one found them out.

His laughter froze, the fog swallowed and drowned it.

"He resigned," Anne Snapphane hollered. "The news flash just came in from TT."

Annika dropped her bag on the floor. "And?"

" 'At a press conference the prime minister announced that the minister for foreign trade has resigned,'" Anne read on her screen. " 'The prime minister expressed regret at Christer Lundgren's decision but understands his motives.'"

"Which were?" Annika sat down at her own desk and switched on her computer.

"Family reasons."

"Of course he'd say that. They always say that. But it's not that straightforward."

"Oh, you," Anne said, "you're just imagining things."

"And what's the alternative? That he really is the murderer?"

"There's a lot that's pointing toward that now."

Annika didn't respond. She clicked onto the list of cable copy on the TT page on her computer. They had already reached "Minister resigns 5." No one had been able to get hold of Christer Lundgren himself for a comment. The prime minister had once again pointed out that the minister wasn't suspected of any form of criminal act and that the police interviews had been routine.

"So why did he resign?" Annika muttered.

She read that an internal committee was at present looking at the former minister's receipt from Studio 69.

She let go of the mouse, leaned back in her chair, and looked out over the newsroom. "So where are all the führers?"

"At the recruitment meeting," Anne said.

Annika's heart jumped. "I'm getting some coffee," she said abruptly, and got to her feet.

Jesus, I'm so nervous, she thought.

She went to get a copy of today's paper, opened it to page six and seven, and burst out laughing.

She was looking at a photograph of a small cat sitting on a dark green, plastic mattress in a jail cell. He was wide-eyed and dazed, maybe from the camera flash. The tip of his tail lay neatly on top of his front paws.

"Puss on Death Row" read the headline across all of page seven.

"It's a good thing that the media, at least once in a while, takes on the really important issues," Annika said when she'd pulled herself together.

"We're getting a storm of protests from the readers," Anne said. "My assignment for the day is to choose where Puss's new home will be." She waved a big bundle of telephone message notes in the air. "The switchboard will sift out all callers outside of Östergötland. How does Arkösund sound to you? Does Puss look like an archipelago cat to you?"

Anne leaned forward, studied the picture for a few seconds, and gave the answer herself. "Nah. I don't see him as a herring lover. I think he likes mice and birds. Haversby sounds like a real rat-hole, doesn't it? Is that where he should go?"

Annika got to her feet again, fidgety.

Why didn't Christer Lundgren attend his own press conference? And how come the prime minister announced his resignation and not him? Didn't he want to resign? Or did the election campaign managers think he'd shoot his mouth off?

Both, perhaps, Annika thought. In any case, it all pointed to some kind of cover-up.

She walked over to the bulletin board; the recruitment meeting had started at ten o'clock. They should be done soon. She needed to go to the bathroom, again.

When she came out, she saw Bertil Strand standing talking to Picture Pelle over by the picture desk. She knew that the photographer sat on the executive committee of the local branch of the union. They must have taken part in the meeting. Without being aware of it, she half ran over to him.

"What's the decision?" she said, out of breath.

Bertil Strand slowly turned round. "The union executive is united," he said coldly. "We think you should leave immediately. Your careless way of handling the public has compromised the credibility of the entire newspaper."

Annika wasn't taking it in. "But, do I get to stay on?"

He narrowed his eyes. His voice became icy cold. "Aren't you listening? You should leave right away."

The blood drained from Annika's face. She had to grab hold of the photo desk to keep from falling over. "Leave?"

Bertil Strand turned away and she let go of the table. Oh, dear God, get me away from here, Jesus Christ, how do I get out, I'm going to throw up. The whole newsroom was heaving up and down, the walls were swaying.

Rage surged up inside her, crimson and razor-sharp.

Shit, she thought. I've had it with these idiots. I'm not the one who's been behaving like an ass. It's not my fault the paper is going to hell. How can they say that to me, my own union representatives!

"How dare you?" she said to Bertil Strand.

The man's back stiffened.

"It's people like me who pay for your dinners with the executive committee," she said. "You're supposed to be there for me. How the hell can you stab me in the back like this?"

He turned around again. "You're not a regular member of this union branch," he said tersely.

"No, because I don't have a permanent job. But I pay exactly the same dues as everybody else. How come I don't have the same rights? How the hell can the union recommend firing one of its own members? Are you completely out of your minds?"

"Don't say anything you might regret," the photographer said, his gaze drifting away above her head.

She took a big step nearer to him, making him take a frightened step back.

"It's you who should watch what you say," she said in a low voice. "I've made some mistakes, but none as big as the one you're making right now."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Anders Schyman walking toward his fish tank with a mug of coffee in his hand. She fixed her gaze on the back of his head and set off toward him. Computers, people, bookshelves, and plants moved past like fragments until she was face-to-face with him.

"Are you kicking me out?" she said, her voice much too shrill.

The deputy editor steered her into his room and drew the curtains. She flopped onto the tobacco couch and stared at him.

"Of course we aren't."

"The union wants to," she said, her voice trembling. Don't start blubbering now, she thought.

Schyman nodded, then sat down next to her on the couch. "I just can't make them out. They don't give a damn about their members. All they want is power."

She eyed him suspiciously. "Why are you saying this to me?"

He looked at her calmly. "Because that's what it's about in this case."

She blinked.

"Unfortunately, the truth is there's no opening for you at the moment. We can't hire everybody who's good, and there's only one available contract this fall."

"Oh, let me guess, that went to Carl Wennergren?"

"Yes." The deputy editor looked at the floor.

Annika laughed. "Well, congratulations! This newspaper certainly backs the people it deserves." She stood up.

"Please sit down."

"Why should I? There's no reason for me to stay in this building for another second. I'll be leaving immediately, just like the union wants me to."

"You've got a week and a half left. Stick it out."

She gave a short laugh again. "So I can eat more shit?"

"In small quantities and at the right moments, it can be good for one's character," Anders Schyman said with a smile.

She pulled a wry face. "I've got compensatory leave to take."

"You do. But I'd rather you stayed and worked."

She walked toward the door but checked herself and stopped. "Just tell me one thing. Would this paper pay for a tip-off from a terrorist group?"

"What do you mean?" He got to his feet.

"Exactly what I say- pay money to be present during a terrorist act."

He crossed his arms and gave her a searching look. "Do you know something?"

"I never disclose my sources," she said mockingly.

"You're employed by this newspaper, and I'm your boss."

She fished out her pass from her pocket and put it on his desk. "Not any longer, you're not."

"I want to know what made you ask."

"Answer my question first," she retorted.

He looked at her in silence for a few seconds. "Of course not. It would be out of the question. Never."

"If the paper had done this since you started, you would know about it?"

"I take that for granted."

"And you can guarantee that this hasn't happened?"

He slowly nodded.

"Okay," she said in a light tone. "Then I'm satisfied. Well, then… It was short but sweet."

She held out her hand nonchalantly.

He didn't take it. "What are you going to do now?"

Annika looked at the deputy editor with slight contempt. "And what's that to you?"

He answered calmly, "I'm interested."

"I'm going to the Caucasus. Actually, I'm leaving tomorrow."

Schyman blinked. "I don't think that's a good idea. There's a civil war down there."

"Oh, don't worry about me. I'll be with the guerrillas, so I'm cool. See, the government has no weapons. The international community has seen to it that the slaughter is one-sided. Well, good luck getting this newspaper back on its feet. You've got a hell of a job ahead of you. The bosses here don't know what the fuck they're doing."

She put her hand on the door handle, paused. "You've got to get rid of that couch. It really stinks."

She left the door wide open behind her, Anders Schyman watching her weave her way through the newsroom. As she walked toward her desk, her movements jerky and angry, she didn't stop to speak to a single person.

Anne Snapphane wasn't at her desk.

Just as well, Annika thought. I have to get out of here without breaking down. I'm not going to give them that.

She threw her things together, a few boxes of pens, a pair of scissors, and a stapler thrown in. That was the least this shitty rag could give her.

She left the newsroom without looking round. In the elevator down, she suddenly felt a heavy pressure across her chest. She had difficulty breathing as she stared at her face, bluish pale as usual, in the wall mirror.

Damned lighting, she thought, and it's summer. I wonder what you look like in this elevator in the winter.

I'll never find out was her next thought. This is the last time I'll ever use it.

The cage stopped with the familiar jerk. She pushed the door open, heavy as lead, and walked toward the fog outside. Tore Brand must have gone on holiday; a woman she didn't recognize was behind the reception desk. The entrance doors slid closed behind her and that was the end of that.

She stood for a while on the forecourt of the newspaper building, drawing the damp air into her lungs. It was raw and unpleasant.

She recalled her words to Schyman.

Where the hell did the idea about the Caucasus come from? she wondered. But maybe going abroad wasn't such a bad idea, to just grab a last-minute trip anywhere.

A figure emerged from the veils of fog in the street. Carl Wennergren was carrying two heavy bags full of bottles. Of course he was going to celebrate!

"Congratulations," Annika said tartly when he walked past her.

He stopped and put the bags down. "Yeah, I feel great." He flashed a wide smile. "Six months, that's the longest contract they give you. Any longer and they would have to employ the person permanently."

"It must feel good, to get in here like that, by your own efforts- and with your own money."

The man smiled hesitantly. "What do you mean?"

"Daddy's little rich boy. Did you have the money to hand, or did you have to sell some stock?"

His smile immediately faded and he looked away with a sneer on his face. "So they chucked you out?" he said nonchalantly.

Her answer was shrill. "I'd rather eat cat food than buy my job from terrorists."

His contemptuous gaze swept across her body. "Well, bon appétit. You look a bit scrawny, actually. You could use something to eat."

He picked up his bags and turned around to go inside the newspaper offices. Annika saw that they were filled with Moët & Chandon bottles.

"And not only did you buy a scoop and a contract, you also gave up your own sources. That's quite a triple."

He stopped dead and looked around. "That's bullshit." She could see a hint of anxiety stirring around his eyes.

She moved closer to him. "How the hell could the police know the Ninja Barbies would hit that place at that time? How the hell did they know to evacuate that particular block? And how could they know exactly where to hide?"

"I don't know." Carl licked his lips.

She took another step toward him and hissed straight in his face, "You sold out your own sources. You cooperated with the police to get pictures of the arrest, didn't you?"

He raised his eyebrows, leaned his head back, and gave her a contemptuous look. "And…?"

She lost her head and started yelling. "You are such a fucking asshole! Fuck you!"

He turned around and stumbled toward the entrance. "You crazy bitch!" he yelled over his shoulder.

He disappeared through the glass doors and Annika felt the tears welling up in her eyes. Screw them! He gets to go in with the champagne while they throw me out on the street.

"Hey, Bengtzon, do you want a lift?"

She spun around and saw Jansson sitting in a clapped-out old Volvo at the exit to the street.

"What are you doing here?" she called to him.

"The recruitment meeting." He switched off the engine. She walked over toward the car and the night editor stepped out.

"You look tired," she said.

"Yeah, I was on last night. But I really wanted to go to this meeting. To do my bit of lobbying for you."

She gave him a skeptical look. "Why?"

He lit up a cigarette. "I think you're the best cover we had this summer. I thought the six-month contract should go to you. So did Schyman."

Annika raised her eyebrows. "Really. So why didn't it?"

"The editor in chief said no. He's a real idiot. He's shit-scared of criticism. And you had the union against you."

"Yeah, I know."

They stood there for a while in silence, Jansson smoking his cigarette.

"Are you leaving right away?"

Annika nodded. "No point in prolonging the agony."

"Maybe you could come back."

She laughed quietly. "I wouldn't bet my last dollar on it."

The night editor shrugged. "So, can I drop you anywhere?"

She looked into the man's dog-tired face and shook her head. "Thanks, I'll walk. Enjoy the fantastic weather."

They both looked around into the fog and laughed.

Her clothes stank of stale tobacco. She pulled them off and left them in a heap on the floor in the hallway. She put on her dressing gown and sat down on the couch.

Patricia had gone out somewhere. Just as well. She reached for the telephone directories.

"You can't leave the Union of Journalists just like that," an administrator at the union central office told her reproachfully.

"I can't? So how do I do it?"

"First you have to write to your local branch and withdraw your name from the union, and then you have to write to us here at the central office. Then, after six months, you have to confirm your withdrawal, both locally and centrally."

"You must be kidding."

"The waiting period is counted from the first day of the following month. So you can't leave the union until the first of March next year at the earliest."

"And I have to pay my dues in full until then?"

"Yes, unless you stop practicing journalism."

"Well, that's exactly what I'm going to do. As of this moment."

"So you've left your present employment?"

Annika sighed. "No, I've got a permanent job on the Katrineholms-Kuriren."

"Then you can't leave the union just like that."

I'm going to reach down the telephone wire and strangle the woman. "Now listen. I'm leaving the union now. Today. Forever. What I'm doing is none of your damned business. I won't pay another cent. Just strike me off the register right now."

The woman on the phone got angry. "Obviously I can't do that. And it's not our union, it's your union."

Annika laughed out loud.

"You're too much! Well, then, if I can't leave, I just won't pay the full dues, only the unemployment benefit fund contribution. Just send me a form."

"Well, that's not the correct procedure."

Annika closed her eyes and swallowed. Her brain was about to explode.

"Okay. Tell you what. Forget it. I'll leave the unemployment benefit fund as well. Just go to hell."

She hung up, searched the phone directory, then phoned the syndicalist union, the SAC, the Swedish Workers Confederation.

"I'd like to join the unemployment benefit fund… Oh, great! Sure, I'll send you the papers straightaway."

Things could be so simple.

She went into the kitchen and made a sandwich, ate half of it, and threw the rest away. Then she went and got her notepad and settled down. She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, then she wrote both the letters. She could buy envelopes and stamps at the corner shop.

It was evening when Patricia got home and stepped on the heap of clothes on the floor.

"Hello?"she called out. "Have you been to a bar or something?"

Annika popped her head around the kitchen door. "Why?"

"Your clothes smell like an ashtray."

"I've been fired."

Patricia hung up her jacket and walked into the kitchen. "Have you eaten?"

Annika shook her head. "I'm not hungry."

"You've got to eat."

"Or what, I get bad karma?"

Patricia smiled. "Karma is sins from previous lives that strike you in your present life. This is called hunger. People die from it."

She went up to the stove and started cracking eggs. Annika looked out the window; the rain pattered, emphasizing the dark gray of the evening.

"It'll be fall soon," Annika said after a couple of minutes.

"Here you are, a mushroom omelette." Patricia sat down opposite her.

To her surprise, Annika finished the omelette.

"So, tell me, what do you mean, you've been fired?"

Annika stared down at her empty plate. "I didn't get another contract. The union wanted me out right away."

"Idiots," Patricia said with such force that Annika started laughing.

"Yes, they are actually. I've left the union."

Patricia cleared the table and did the dishes.

"So what are you going to do?"

Annika swallowed. "I don't know," she said quietly. "I've just resigned from my job at Katrineholms-Kuriren and given my landlord in Hälleforsnäs notice. I posted the letters this afternoon."

Patricia opened her eyes wide. "How are you going to make any money?"

Annika shrugged. "It'll be a month before I get unemployment benefits. I've got some money in the bank."

"Where are you going to live?"

Annika threw her arms out. "Here, for the time being. It's only a short lease, but it could be for as long as a year. After that, I'll have to see."

"We always need people at the club."

Annika gave a shrill, cheerless laugh. "Well, I've got the main qualifications: tits and a pussy. Mind you, I have spun the roulette wheel a few times in my day."

"Really?"

"I worked as a croupier at the Katrineholm Hotel while I was at college. I can spin the wheel eleven times. I used to be able to make the ball land on thirty-four if I snapped the ball out from zero just right."

"Actually we need someone for the roulette table."

"I'm going to go away for a while."

"Where to?"

Annika shrugged. "I can't remember what it's called. It's in Turkey, by the Mediterranean."

"That sounds nice."

They sat in silence for a long while.

"You should find out where you're going," Patricia said.

"Sure."

"Hang on, let me get my cards."

Patricia got up from her chair and padded into her room. Annika heard her unzip her bag. A few moments later, Patricia appeared in the doorway, holding a small brown box.

Patricia put the box on the kitchen table and opened it. Inside was a bundle wrapped in black material that she slowly untangled.

"What's that?"

"Tarot is an ancient source of knowledge." Patricia placed the deck on the table. "It's a philosophy described in esoteric images on cards. A tool for moving toward greater awareness."

"I'm sorry, but I don't believe in this kind of stuff."

Patricia sat down. "It's not about believing. It's about listening. Opening up and gazing into one's inner realm."

Annika couldn't help smiling.

"Don't laugh, this is serious," Patricia said sternly. "Look, there are seventy-eight cards, the Major Arcana, the Minor Arcana, and the court cards. They represent different insights and perspectives."

Annika shook her head and got to her feet.

"No, sit down." Patricia caught Annika's wrist. "Let me tell you your fortune!"

Annika hesitated, sighed, and sat down. "Well, all right. What do I have to do?"

"Here." Patricia placed the deck of cards in Annika's hand. "Shuffle and cut."

Annika shuffled the cards, cut the deck, and held it out to Patricia.

"No. First you cut it three times and then you shuffle again and cut it twice."

Annika gave her a skeptical look. "Why?"

"For the energies. Go ahead."

Annika sighed inwardly and shuffled and cut, shuffled and cut.

"Good," Patricia said. "Now, don't put the two piles together but choose one of them with your left hand and shuffle it again."

Annika rolled her eyes and did as she was told.

"Great. Now you have to concentrate on the question you want an answer to. Are you facing a great change?"

"Jesus, you know I am," Annika said sharply.

"Okay, then I'll do a Celtic cross."

Patricia laid out the cards all over the table.

"Nice pictures," Annika said. "Weird-looking creatures."

"The deck was designed by Frieda Harris, after sketches by Aleister Crowley. It took five years to finish the whole deck. The symbols have their roots in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn."

"Whatever that is," Annika said incredulously. "And now they're going to show me my future?"

Patricia nodded gravely and pointed at a card that lay underneath another. "Here, in the first position, is the card that represents your present situation. Tower Struck by Lightning, the sixteenth card in the Major Arcana. As you can see, it's falling down. That's your life, Annika. Everything that has stood for security in your world is crumbling- I don't need to tell you that."

Annika gave Patricia a searching look. "What else?"

Patricia moved her finger and pointed at the card that lay on top of the tower. "Five of Disks crosses your present situation, obstructing or promoting it. The card signifies Mercury in Taurus- depression and fear."

"And?"

"You're afraid of the change, but there's no need to be."

"Right, and then what?"

"Your view of the situation is what might be expected, Aeon, the twentieth card, which stands for self-criticism and thoughtfulness. You feel you've failed and are searching yourself. But your unconscious interpretation is much more interesting. Look here, Knight of Swords. He's a master of creativity. He's trying to break away from all the narrow-minded idiots."

Annika leaned back in her chair, and Patricia continued, "You come from the Seven of Disks, limitation and failure, and you are moving toward the Eight of Swords, interference."

Annika sighed. "Sounds like hard work."

"This is you. The Moon. That's funny- last time I told my own fortune I also got the Moon. The female sex, the final test. I'm sorry but it's not a good card."

Annika didn't reply. Patricia looked at the remaining cards in silence, then said, "This is what you're most afraid of. The Hanged Man. Rigidity, that your own spirit should be broken."

"But how's it going to end?" Annika sounded a little less dismissive.

Hesitating, Patricia pointed at the tenth card. "This is the outcome. Don't be afraid. It's only a symbol. Don't take it literally."

Annika leaned forward. The card showed the figure of a black skeleton wielding a scythe. "Death."

"It doesn't necessarily signify physical death but rather a radical change. Old relationships need to be dissolved. Death has two faces. One that tears down and destroys, another that sets you free of old bonds."

Annika stood up abruptly. "I don't give a damn about your cards. It's bullshit," she said, and marched off to her room, shutting the door behind her.