The Bomber

SATURDAY 18 DECEMBER

The sound reached her deep into a bizarre sex dream. She was lying on a glass stretcher in a space shuttle, Thomas on top of and inside her. Three presenters from the radio program Studio Six were standing beside them and watching with vacant faces. She was desperate to go to the bathroom.

"You can't go now. We're on our way out into space," Thomas said, and she saw through the panoramic window that he was right.

The second ring tore the cosmos apart and left her thirsty and sweating in the dark. She tried to focus on the ceiling above her in the gloom.

"Answer, for God's sake, before it wakes the kids!" Thomas grunted from among the pillows.

She turned her head to look at the clock: 3:22. Her excitement was gone at a stroke. An arm, heavy with sleep, reached for the phone. It was Jansson, the night editor.

"Victoria Stadium has been blown up. There's one hell of a fire. The night reporter is there, but we need you for the early edition. How soon can you get there?"

She took a breath, letting the information sink in, and felt the adrenaline course like a wave through her body and into the brain. The Olympic arena, she thought, fire, shit… south of the city. The South Bypass or Skanstull Bridge.

"What's it like in town, are the roads okay?" Her voice sounded rougher than she would have wanted.

"The South Bypass is blocked. The exit next to the stadium has collapsed, that much we know. The South Tunnel may be cordoned off, so stick to the streets."

"Who's shooting?"

"Henriksson has gone out, and the freelancers are already there."

Jansson hung up without waiting for her to answer. For a few seconds Annika listened to the hum of the line before she dropped the phone onto the floor.

"What is it now?"

She sighed inwardly before replying.

"Some explosion at the Olympic stadium. I've got to get over there. It'll probably take all day."

She hesitated before adding: "And night."

He mumbled inaudibly.

Carefully she extricated herself from Ellen's sleepy embrace. She breathed in the smells of the child: the sweet skin, the sweat-dampened pajamas, the sour mouth where her thumb was always resting. She kissed her daughter's smooth head. The girl moved sensually, gave a stretch, then curled up into a ball; three years old and utterly self-possessed, even in sleep. With her heavy arm, she dialed the direct number to the taxi switchboard. She got out of the overpowering warmth of the bed and sat down on the floor.

"Could I have a car to 32 Hantverkargatan, please. Name of Bengtzon. I'm in a hurry… To the Olympic stadium… Yes, I know it's on fire."

She was dying for a pee.

It was freezing cold outside. She raised the collar and pulled down her hat to cover her ears. Her toothpaste-smelling breath was like a cloud around her. The taxi pulled up at the same moment as the door closed behind her.

"Hammarby Dock, the Olympic stadium, please," Annika said as she landed on the back seat with her big holdall.

The taxi driver glanced at her in the rearview mirror.

"Bengtzon from Kvällspressen, right?" he said with an uncertain smile. "I often read your articles. I liked your stuff on Korea; my kids come from there. I've been to Panmunjom, too, you know. You wrote it just like I saw it. Soldiers standing there face to face in the DMZ, not being allowed to talk to each other. That was good stuff."

As always, she listened to the praise without taking it in. Or resisted taking it in. If she thought she was too good herself, she might lose it: the magic, whatever it was that made the writing take off.

"Thanks, I'm glad you liked it. Can you take the South Tunnel, do you think? Or should we stick to the streets all the way?"

Like most of his colleagues, he was totally on the ball. If something happened anywhere in the country at 4 A.M., you made two phone calls: one to the police and one to the local taxi company. After that you'd be guaranteed to have a story for the first edition. The police could confirm what had happened, and a taxi driver would almost always be able to give you some kind of eyewitness account.

"I was on Götgatan the time of the explosion," he said, doing a U-turn across an unbroken double white line. "Shit, the streetlights were swaying! 'Jesus,' I said to myself, 'it's the Russians, they're bombing us!' I called in on the radio to ask what's going on. They told me that Victoria Stadium had been blown to shit. One of our boys was down there when it happened, he had a fare to an unlicensed club in those new buildings, you know…"

The car rushed toward City Hall while Annika fished out a pen and pencil from her bag.

"How is he doing?"

"Okay, I think. A piece of metal came flying through the side window, missed him by a couple of inches. A few cuts on his face, according to the radio."

The went past the Gamla Stan subway station and were fast approaching Slussen.

"Where did they take him?"

"Who?"

"Your colleague with the shrapnel?"

"Oh, him… Brattström's his name… South Hospital, I think, it's nearest."

"Got a first name?"

"Dunno, I'll ask on the radio…"

His name was Arne. Annika hauled out her cellphone, put the earpiece in her ear, and pressed Menu 1, the speed-dial number for Jansson's place at the news editor's desk in the newsroom. Even before he answered, the man knew it was Annika calling: He recognized her cellphone number on his phone display.

"A taxi driver was hurt, Arne Brattström. They took him to South Hospital," she said. "Perhaps we could visit him and make the first edition…"

"Okay," Jansson said. "We'll run a check on him."

He put the phone down and yelled to the night reporter:

"Run a check on an Arne Brattström, and check with the police whether his next of kin have been informed about his injury. Then call the wife if there is one!"

Back into the phone he said, "We've got an aerial photo. When will you be there?"

"Seven or eight minutes, depending on the police cordons. What are you doing?"

"We've got the incident itself, comments from the police, night reporters calling and talking to people in the houses opposite. One of the reporters is already there, but he'll be going home soon. Then we're doing a recap of earlier Olympic bombs, we've got the guy who was throwing firecrackers in various Stockholm and Gothenburg arenas when Stockholm first applied for the Olympics…"

Someone interrupted him. Annika could sense the rush of the newsroom even from the taxi. "I'll be in touch as soon as I've got something," she quickly said before she switched off.

"They seem to have cordoned off the warm-up area," the taxi driver said. "We're best off trying the rear entrance."

The taxi turned into Folkungagatan and sped toward the Värmdö Way. Annika dialed the next number on her cellphone. While listening to the ringing tone, she saw the night's drunken revellers stumbling homeward. There were quite a few of them, more than she would have thought. It was like that these days; the only time she was in town at this time of night was when a crime had been committed somewhere. She had forgotten that the city could be used for anything other than criminal activity or work. The city had another life that only was lived at night.

A tense voice answered at the other end of the line.

"I know that you can't say anything yet," Annika said. "Just tell me when you'll have time to talk. I'll call you back then. Just tell me when."

The man at the other end sighed. "Bengtzon, I really can't say now. I don't know. Call me back later."

Annika looked at her watch. "It's twenty to four. I'm doing a story for the first edition. How about seven thirty?"

"Yeah, fine. Call me at seven thirty."

"Okay, speak to you then."

Now she had a promise, he wouldn't be able to back out. The police hated reporters calling when something big had happened wanting to know everything. Even if the police did have some information, it was difficult to judge what could be made public. By seven thirty she would have her own observations, questions, and theories, and the investigators at the criminal investigation department, Krim, would know what they wanted to tell you. It would work.

"You can see the smoke now," the taxi driver said.

She leaned over the passenger seat and looked up to the right. "Oh yes. Look at that…" Thin and black, it trailed up toward the pale half-moon. The taxi left the Värmdö Way and turned onto the South Bypass.

The road had been blocked off several hundred yards from the opening of the tunnel and the arena itself. Some ten vehicles were already parked next to the barriers. The taxi pulled up behind them, and Annika handed over her taxi charge card.

"When are you going back? Do you want me to wait?" the driver asked.

Annika smiled wanly. "No thanks, this is going to take some time." She collected her notepad, pencil, and phone.

"Merry Christmas!" the taxi driver yelled as she shut the door.

My God, she thought, it's a whole week to Christmas. Is this "Merry Christmassing" business starting already? "The same to you!" she said to the rear window of the car.

Annika weaved her way through cars and people and up to the barrier. They weren't police barriers. Good. Those she would have heeded. She jumped over the wooden roadwork barriers and fell into a jog on the other side. She didn't hear the indignant shouts behind her but just stared up at the Olympic complex. She had driven past here many times and never failed to be fascinated by the enormous structure. Victoria Stadium was built into a rock; the hill where there used to be a ski slope had been hollowed out for it. Environmentalists had kicked up a fuss, of course, as they always did as soon as a couple of trees were chopped down. The South Bypass continued straight into the hill and underneath the stadium, but at the moment the tunnel entrance was blocked off by large concrete blocks and several vehicles from the emergency services. Reflections from the rotating lights on their roofs gleamed on the surface of the slippery asphalt. The North Stand normally jutted out like a giant mushroom over the tunnel entrance, but now it was damaged. The bomb must have gone off right there. The normally rounded shape stood jagged and torn against the night sky. She ran on, realizing that she probably wouldn't get much closer than this.

"Hey, where do you think you're going?" a fireman shouted.

"Up there!" she shouted back.

"The area's been sealed off!" he continued shouting.

"Oh yeah," she muttered to herself. "See if you can catch me!"

She continued straight on and to the right as far as she could. She could see that Sickla Canal was frozen. Above the ice-covered canal, there was a concrete platform, some kind of ledge that the roadway rested on before disappearing into the tunnel. She pulled herself up on the railing and jumped down, a drop of about three feet. The holdall bounced on her back as she landed.

She paused for a moment and looked around. She'd only been to the stadium twice before: at a press preview and on a Sunday afternoon last autumn with her friend Anne Snapphane. To her right lay what would become the Olympic Village, the half-finished blocks in Hammarby Docklands where the athletes would be staying during the Olympics. The windows were black holes; it seemed that every pane had been blown out. Straight ahead she could just make out a training facility in the dark. On her left was a thirty-foot-high concrete wall. Above this lay the forecourt in front of the main entrance to the stadium.

She ran along the road, trying to differentiate the sounds she could hear: a faraway siren, distant voices, the hissing of a water cannon or possibly a big fan. The emergency vehicles' lights were flashing across the road. She reached a set of stairs and started running up them to the stadium entrance. At the same moment, a police officer started unrolling blue-and-white tape to block the entrance.

"We're sealing off the area," he told her.

"My photographer's up there," Annika said. "I'm just picking him up." The officer waved her past.

I'd damn well better not be lying, she thought.

The stairs had three equally long landings. As she reached the top, she was forced to catch her breath. The entire forecourt was full of emergency vehicles and people running around. Two of the pillars supporting the North Stand had collapsed, and smashed green stadium seats lay scattered all over the place. A TV crew had just arrived. Annika saw a reporter from another tabloid- Kvällspressen's only serious rival on the market- and three freelance photographers. She turned her head upward and looked into the hole created by the bomb. Five helicopters were circling the area low, at least two from the media.

"Annika!" It was Johan Henriksson, the photographer from Kvällspressen, a twenty-three-year-old casual employee who had come from a local newspaper up north in Östersund. He was both talented and ambitious, two qualities of which the latter one was the more important. He came running toward her with two cameras bouncing on his chest and the camera bag dangling on his shoulder.

"What did you get?" Annika asked, pulling out her pad and pencil.

"I got here only half a minute after the fire brigade. I got an ambulance driving off with a taxi driver; he had some cuts. The fire brigade couldn't reach the stand with their hoses. They drove the engines inside the stadium. I've got pictures of the fire from the outside, but I haven't been inside the arena. A couple of minutes ago, the cops started running around like crazy. I think something's happened."

"Or they've found something," Annika said, putting away her pad. Holding her pencil like a baton, she began jogging toward where she remembered the furthermost entrance to be. If her memory didn't fail her, it was to the right, just under the collapsed stand. No one tried to stop her as she crossed the forecourt. There was too much chaos for anyone to notice. She weaved her way through chunks of concrete, twisted reinforcing rods, and green plastic seats. A stairway with four flights led up to the entry door; she was panting by the time she reached the top. The police had already cordoned off the doorway, but that didn't matter. She didn't need to see any more. The door was intact and seemed to be locked. Sticking to their routine, Swedish security companies could never refrain from putting silly little stickers on the doors of all buildings they'd been charged with guarding. Olympic stadium was no exception. Annika took out her pad again and jotted down the name and number of the company.

"Please clear the area! The building could collapse! I repeat…" A police car drove slowly across the forecourt below, the loudspeaker droning. People retreated to the training facility and the Olympic Village below. Annika trotted along the outside wall of the arena, which meant she could avoid returning to the forecourt. Instead she followed the ramp that descended gently to the left all the way along the building. There were several entrances, and she wanted to see them all. Not one of them seemed to have been damaged or forced open.

Eventually, Annika was stopped by a policeman. "Excuse me, madam, it's time to go home." The young officer put a hand on her arm.

"Who's the officer in charge?" she asked, holding up her press card.

"He's too busy to talk to you. You have to leave, we're evacuating the entire area."

Noticeably agitated, the officer started pulling her away. Annika wriggled free and stood in front of him. She chanced it: "What have you found inside the stadium?"

The policeman licked his lips. "I'm not sure, and I'm not allowed to tell you anyway."

Bingo! "Who can tell me, and when?"

"I don't know. Try the Krim duty desk. But you have to go now!"

The police sealed off the area all the way beyond the training facility, several hundred yards from the stadium. Annika found Henriksson over by the building that was going to house the restaurants and the cinema. An improvised media center was forming where the sidewalk was at its widest, in front of the post office. Journalists were arriving all the time, many of them walking around smiling, greeting their colleagues. Annika wasn't too keen on the backslapping of fellow journalists, people who would wander about scenes of accidents bragging about the parties they'd been to. She moved aside, pulling the photographer with her.

"Do you have to go to the paper now?" she asked. "The first edition is going to press."

"No, I've sent my rolls along with the other freelancers. It's cool."

"Great. I have a feeling something's about to happen."

An outside broadcast van from one of the TV companies pulled up alongside them. They wandered off in the other direction, past the bank and the pharmacy down toward the canal. She stopped and stood looking toward the arena. The police vehicles and fire engines were still on the forecourt. What were they doing? The wind from the sea was bitterly cold. Further out on Hammarby Inlet, the sea approach to Stockholm, a channel through the ice glowered like a black wound. She turned her back to the wind and warmed her nose in her gloved hand. Through her fingers she saw two white vehicles on the footbridge from Södermalm. Bloody hell, it was an ambulance! And a doctor's car! She looked at her watch, just gone twenty-five to five. Three hours until she could call her contact. She pushed the earpiece into her ear and tried the Krim duty desk. Busy. She called Jansson, Menu 1.

"What do you want?" Jansson said.

"An ambulance is coming up to the arena," Annika said.

"I've got a deadline in seven minutes."

She heard the clatter of his keyboard. "What are the news agencies saying? Any reports of injuries?"

"They've got the taxi driver, but they haven't talked to him. There's the destruction, comments from the Krim duty desk. They're saying nothing as yet, well, a lot of crap. Nothing important."

"The taxi driver was taken away an hour ago, this is something different. Aren't they saying anything over the police radio?"

"Nothing interesting."

"Anything scrambled?"

"Nope."

"And the radio news?"

"Nothing so far. There's a special Rapport bulletin on TV at six o'clock."

"Yes, I saw their van."

"Keep your eyes open, I'll call you when the front page goes to press."

He hung up. Annika dropped the call but kept the earpiece in her ear.

"Why do you have one of those?" Henriksson asked and pointed at the cord hanging down her cheek.

"Don't you know that your brain is fried by the radiation from cellphones?" she said, smiling. "It's handy. I can run and write and talk on the phone at the same time. And it's quiet; you don't hear when I make a call."

There were tears in her eyes from the cold, so she had to squint to see what was going on over by the stadium. "Have you got a mega telephoto lens?"

"They don't work when it's this dark," Henriksson replied.

"Then take the biggest one you've got and try and see what's going on over there," she said, pointing with her gloved hand.

Henriksson sighed a bit and put his camera bag on the ground. He looked through the lens. "I need a tripod," he mumbled.

The vehicles had driven up a grass slope and parked by the stairs to one of the big entrances. Three men stepped out of the doctor's car and stood talking behind it. A policeman in uniform approached them, and they shook hands. There was no movement in the ambulance.

"They don't seem to be in any hurry," Henriksson said.

Another two men went up to them, one a policeman in uniform, the other he assumed to be a cop in plain clothes. The men were talking and gesticulating with their hands, one of them pointing up toward the gaping bomb hole.

Annika's phone rang. She pressed the answer button. "Yes?"

"What's the ambulance doing?"

"Nothing. Waiting."

"What have we got for the next edition?"

"Have you found the taxi driver at the hospital?"

"Not yet, but we've got people there. He's not married, no partner."

"Have you tried contacting the Olympic boss, Christina Furhage?"

"Can't find her."

"What a disaster for her. She's worked so hard… We have to do the whole Olympic angle, too. What happens to the Games now? Can the stand be fixed in time? What does Samaranch say? All that stuff."

"We've looked into it. There are people here working on it."

"I'll do the story on the actual blast, then. It has to be sabotage. Three pieces: the police hunt for the bomber, the scene of the crime this morning, and…" She fell silent.

"Bengtzon…?"

"They're opening the back doors of the ambulance. They're taking out the stretcher, wheeling it up to the entrance. Shit, Jansson, there's another victim!"

"Okay. The Police Hunt, I Was at the Scene, and the Victim. You've got pages six, seven, eight plus the center spread." The line went dead.

She was on full alert as the ambulance people walked toward the stadium. Henriksson's camera was rattling. No other journalists had noticed the newly arrived vehicles; the training facility blocked their line of vision.

"Christ, it's cold," Henriksson said when the men had disappeared inside the arena.

"Let's go back to the car and make our calls," Annika said.

They went back toward the media gathering. People were standing around, freezing in the frigid air. The TV people were unrolling their cables, and some reporters were blowing on their ballpoint pens. Why don't they ever learn to use pencils when it's below freezing? Annika thought to herself and smiled. The radio people looked like insects with their sound equipment jutting out their backs. Everyone was waiting. One of the freelancers from Kvällspressen had returned from a trip to the newsdesk.

"They're having some kind of press briefing at six o'clock," he said.

"Live on the Rapport special bulletin- how convenient," Annika muttered.

Henriksson had parked his car way off, behind the tennis courts and the sports clinic.

"I took the route they first cordoned off to come here," he said apologetically.

They had some way to walk. Annika could feel her feet grow numb from the cold. A light snow had started falling- too bad, when you're planning to take photos in the dark with a telephoto lens. They had to brush the snow off the windshield on Henriksson's Saab.

"This is good," Annika said, looking toward the arena. "We can see both the ambulance and the doctor's car. We've got it all covered from here."

They got in and warmed up the engine. Annika started making her calls. She tried the Krim duty desk again. Busy. She called the emergency services control room and asked who had first raised the alarm, how many calls they had received, if anyone in the apartments nearby had been hurt by flying glass, and whether they had any idea as to the extent of the damage. As usual, the emergency people knew the answers to most of her questions.

She then dialed the number she had found on the sticker on the entrance doors of Victoria Stadium, the one belonging to the security company responsible for guarding the premises. She found herself at an emergency service switchboard in Kungsholmen in west-central Stockholm. She asked if they had received any alarms from the Olympic arena in the early morning hours.

"We treat all incoming alarm calls as confidential," said the man at the other end.

"I understand that," Annika said. "But I'm not asking about an alarm call you've received but about one you probably haven't received."

"Hey," the man said, "are you deaf?"

"Okay," Annika said. "Put it this way: What happens when you get an alarm call?"

"Eh… it comes here."

"To the emergency control room?"

"Yeah, where else? It's entered into our computer system and then it comes up on our screens with an action plan telling us what to do."

"So if there were an alarm call from the Olympic stadium, it would appear on your screen?"

"Eh… yeah."

"And then it says exactly what steps you should take concerning that alarm call?"

"Eh… right."

"So what has your company been doing out at the Olympic stadium tonight? I haven't seen a single one of your cars out here."

No reply from the man.

"Victoria Stadium has been blown up. We can agree on that, can't we? What's your company supposed to do if the Olympic area catches fire or is damaged in some other way?"

"It comes up on the computer," the man said.

"So what have you been doing?"

The man said nothing.

"You haven't received any alarm whatsoever from the arena, have you?" Annika said.

The man was quiet for a while before he replied.

"I can't comment on the alarm calls we don't get either."

Annika took a deep breath and smiled.

"Thank you," she said.

"You won't write any of what I've said, will you?" the man said anxiously.

"Said?" Annika said. "You haven't said a word. All you've done is refer me to your confidentiality policy."

She switched off. Yes, she had her angle now. She drew a deep breath and stared out through the windshield. One of the fire engines pulled off, but the ambulance and the doctor's car remained. The explosives experts had arrived; their vehicles were dotted around the forecourt. Men in gray overalls were lifting things out of the cars. The fire had been extinguished, so she could hardly make out any smoke.

"How were we tipped off this morning?" she asked.

"Smidig," Henriksson replied.

Every newsroom has a number of more or less professional tipsters who keep an eye on what's happening on their particular newspatch. Kvällspressen was no exception. Smidig and Leif were the best police informers; they slept with the police radio on by their beds. As soon as anything happened, big or small, they called the newspapers and told them. Other informers would pore over the records of the different legal institutions and other government authorities.

Annika, lost in thought, slowly let her eyes travel over the facility. Straight ahead lay the ten-floor building where the technical operations of the Games would be conducted. From the roof of this building was a footbridge up to the rock. Strange, who would want to walk there? She followed the footbridge with her eyes.

"Henriksson," she said, "we've got another pic to take."

She looked at her watch. Half past five. They'd make it to the press conference. "If we climb up next to the Olympic flame, at the top of the hill, we should be able to see quite a lot."

"You think so?" the photographer said, unconvinced. "They've built the walls so high no one can sneak in or see inside."

"The actual grounds are probably hidden from view, but maybe you can see the North Stand. That's what we're interested in now."

Henriksson looked at his watch.

"Do we have time? Hasn't the helicopter taken all that? Shouldn't we be watching the ambulance?"

She chewed on her lip.

"The helicopter isn't here right now. Maybe the police ordered it down. We'll ask one of the freelancers to keep an eye on the ambulance. Come on, let's go."

The rest of the journalists had discovered the ambulance, and their questions were buzzing in the air. The Rapport team had moved their OB van nearer to the canal to get a better picture of the arena. A frostbitten reporter was rehearsing his stand-up for the six o'clock bulletin. There were no police around. After Annika had given the freelancers instructions, they were on their way too.

It was further to get up the hill than she'd thought. The going was hard- the ground was slippery and stony. They stumbled and cursed in the dark. On top of everything, Henriksson was lugging a large tripod. They didn't encounter any cordons and got up there in time but only to be faced with a seven-foot-high concrete wall.

"I don't believe it," Henriksson groaned.

"Maybe this'll work in our favor," Annika said. "Get up on my shoulders and I'll hoist you up. Then you can climb up on the actual flame. You should be able to see something from there."

The photographer stared at her.

"You want me to stand on the Olympic flame?"

"Yes, why not? It's not alight, and it hasn't been cordoned off. I'm sure you can get on top of it; it's only another yard up from the wall. If it's to hold the eternal flame, it should be able to hold you. Come on, let's go!"

Annika passed up the tripod and the camera bag to him. Henriksson crawled up on the metal frame.

"It's full of little holes!" he shouted.

"Gas holes," Annika said. "Can you see the North Stand?"

He stood up and looked out over the stadium.

"Do you see anything?" Annika shouted.

"You bet I do," the photographer said. He slowly raised his camera and started snapping.

"What?"

He lowered his camera without taking his eyes off the stadium.

"They've lit up part of the stand," he said. "There are about ten people down there walking around picking things up and putting them in little plastic bags. The guys from the doctor's car are there. They're also picking stuff up. They seem to be extremely meticulous about it." He raised his camera again.

Annika felt the hair on her neck stand on end. Shit! Was it really that bad? Henriksson opened up the tripod. After three rolls of film, he had finished. They alternately ran and slid down the hill, shocked, slightly nauseated. What would doctors be picking up and putting in little bags- explosive residue? Hardly.

A couple of minutes before six they were back down with the media scrum. The TV cameras' bluish lights were illuminating the whole scene, making the snowflakes sparkle. Rapport had their link in place, and the reporter had powdered his face. A group of police officials, led by the officer-in-charge, headed their way. They lifted the cordon but couldn't get any further. The wall of journalists was solid. There was silence when the officer screwed up his eyes against the camera lights. He glanced at a paper in his hand, raised his eyes, and began talking.

"At 3:17 A.M. an explosive charge went off at Victoria Stadium in Stockholm," he said. "It's not known what kind of explosives were used. The explosion badly damaged the North Stand. It's not clear at the moment whether it will be possible to repair it."

He paused, consulting his papers. The still cameras were clattering, and the TV cameras were rolling. Annika was standing far out to the left so that she could keep an eye on the ambulance while following the press conference.

"The explosion caused a fire, but this is now under control." Another pause.

"A taxi driver was injured as a piece of a reinforcing rod penetrated the side window of his car," the police officer continued. "The man has been taken to South Hospital and is in stable condition. Some ten buildings on the other side of Sickla Canal have had damage to their windows and facades. These buildings are under construction and not yet occupied. No further personal injuries have been reported."

Another pause. The officer looked very tired and somber as he continued.

"This is sabotage. The explosive device that destroyed the arena was powerful. We are in the process of securing evidence that may lead to the identification of the perpetrator. We are assigning all available resources to the search. That is all for the moment. Thank you."

He turned round and ducked under the cordon. A wave of voices and calls made him stop.

"…any suspects?"

"…other victims?"

"…the doctors at the scene?"

"That is all for the moment," the officer repeated and left. Shoulders hunched, he walked off with determined steps, followed by his colleagues. The media pack dissolved. The Rapport reporter entered the camera lights and ran through his piece to the camera, then handed over to the studio. Everyone was punching his or her phone and trying to get his or her pen to work.

"Right," Henriksson said, "that didn't tell us much."

"Time to go," Annika said. They left one of the freelancers behind and walked up toward Henriksson's car.

"Let's go past Vintertullstorget and get some eyewitness stories."

They visited the people who lived closest to the arena. They met families with children, seniors, a couple of drunks, and some club kids. They spoke of the bang that woke them up, if it had, the shock, and how frightening it was.

"That's enough now," Annika said at a quarter to seven. "We've got to pull things together."

They drove back to the office in silence. Annika composed intros and captions in her head. Henriksson mentally leafed through negatives, sorting them through, figuring which shots might work, pushing the film, and dodging the prints.

The snow was coming down heavily now. As a result, the temperature had risen and made the road surface dangerously slippery. They drove past four cars in a pileup on the West Circular. Henriksson stopped to take some shots.

They arrived at the newsroom just before seven. The atmosphere was composed but charged. Jansson was still there; on weekends the night editor also handled the suburban editions. Normally on a Saturday it was a question of changing the odd story, but they were always ready to change the whole paper around entirely. This was what was happening right now.

"Does it hold?" he asked, standing up the instant he spotted them coming in.

"I think so," Annika said. "There's a dead body on the Olympic stand, in pieces. I'd bet my life on it. Give me half an hour and I'll know for sure."

Jansson rocked to and fro on his feet. "Half an hour- not sooner?"

Annika threw him a glance over her shoulder while wriggling out of her coat. She picked up a copy of the early edition and walked into her office.

"Okay then," he said and went back to his chair.

First she wrote the news article, which was nothing but a supplemented rewrite of the night reporter's work from the first edition. She added quotations from the neighbors and the statement that the fire was under control. After that she set about writing the "I Was There" story, adding descriptions of sounds and other details. Twenty-eight minutes past seven she called her contact.

"I can't say anything yet," he began.

"I know," Annika said. "I'll do the talking and you say nothing, or tell me if I'm wrong…"

"I can't do that this time," he interrupted her.

Shit. She took a breath and chose to go on the offensive.

"Listen to what I have to say first," she said. "This is how I see it: Someone died at the Olympic stadium last night. Someone has been blown to bits on that stand. You have people there picking up the pieces as we speak. It's an inside job; all the alarms were disarmed. There must be hundreds of alarms at a stadium like this: burglar alarms, fire alarms, motion-sensor alarms- and they were all disarmed. No doors had been forced open. Someone with a key went inside and switched off the alarms, either the victim or the perpetrator. At this moment you are trying to find out who."

She fell silent and held her breath.

"You can't publish that now," the police officer at the other end said.

Quick release of breath. "What part?"

"The insider theory. We want to keep it secret. The alarms were fully functional but had been disarmed. Someone has died, that's true. We don't know who yet." He sounded completely exhausted.

"When will you find out?"

"Don't know. It could prove difficult to establish the victim's identity visually, if I may put it that way. But we do seem to have certain other leads. That's all I can say."

"Man or woman?"

He hesitated. "Not now," he said and hung up.

Annika darted out to Jansson. "The death has been confirmed, but they still don't know who it is."

"Mincemeat, eh?" Jansson said.

She swallowed and nodded.

Helena Starke woke up with a hangover that was out of this world. As long as she stayed in bed it was all right, but when she got up to get a glass of water she threw up on the mat in the hallway. She stayed panting on all fours for a while before she could make it into the bathroom. There she filled the toothbrush glass with water and gulped it down. Dear God, she was never going to drink again. She lifted her gaze to meet her bloodshot eyes among the toothpaste specks in the mirror. Christ, would she never learn? She opened the bathroom cabinet and fumbled with the Tylenol container. She swallowed three with a great deal of water and prayed she'd keep them down.

Helena staggered out into the kitchen and sat down by the table. The seat was cold against her naked thighs. How much did she drink last night? The brandy bottle stood on the worktop, empty. She leaned her cheek against the tabletop and searched for memories of the night before. The restaurant, the music, peoples' faces- it was all one big flashback. Christ, she couldn't even remember how she got home! Christina was with her, wasn't she? They left the restaurant together, didn't they?

She groaned, stood up, and filled a jug with water that she took with her to the bedroom. On her way to the bedroom, she scrambled together the hall mat and threw it in the laundry basket in the wardrobe; she nearly threw up again from the stench.

The clock radio by the bed said five to nine. She groaned. The older she got, the earlier she woke up, especially if she'd been drinking. In years gone by she'd been able to sleep it off for a whole day. Not any more. Now she woke early, sick as a dog, and then spent the rest of the day sweating in bed. She'd drift off for short periods, but she couldn't sleep. Mustering all her energy, Helena reached for the jug. She piled the pillows up against the headboard and settled herself against them. Then she saw her clothes from last night folded up in a neat pile on the chest of drawers by the window, and a shiver went up her spine. Who the hell had put them there like that? Probably she did. That was the scariest thing about having blackouts when you drank: You went around like a zombie, doing normal things without having a clue. She shuddered and switched on the radio. She might as well listen to the news while waiting for the Tylenol to kick in.

The main news this morning made her throw up again. She also knew that there would be no more rest for Helena Starke today.

After flushing her vomit down the toilet, she picked up the phone and called Christina.

The news agency TT ran Annika's information at 9:34 A.M. So, Kvällspressen had been first with the report of a victim at the Olympic blast. Their headlines ran: OLYMPIC BLAST KILLS ONE and THE HUNT IS ON FOR THE BOMBER.

The last one was a gamble, but Jansson argued it would hold. Henriksson's picture from the Olympic flame dominated most of the center spread. It was a striking image: the illuminated circle beyond the hole made by the bomb, the men bent forward, the falling snowflakes. It was extremely nasty without being macabre. No blood, no body, only the knowledge of what the men were doing. They had already sold the picture to Reuters. TV2's Rapport quoted Kvällspressen, while the radio news program Eko pretended the story was theirs.

When the city edition had gone to press, the crime reporters and news editors gathered in Annika's office. Boxes with her ring binders and files with cuttings of her old articles were still piled up in the corners. The couch had been inherited, but the desk was new. For two months now Annika had been crime editor; the office had been hers for as long.

"There are of course a number of things we have to go through and parcel out among ourselves," she said, putting her feet on the desk. Tiredness had hit like a rock to the back of the head when the paper went to press and she came to a halt. She leaned back and reached for her coffee mug.

"One: who is the corpse on the stand? Tomorrow's major splash, which could become several. Two: the hunt for the killer. Three: the Olympic angle. Four: How could it happen? Five: the taxi driver; no one has talked to him yet. Maybe he saw or heard something."

She looked up at the people in the room, reading their reactions to what she had said. Jansson was half asleep; he was going home soon. The news editor Ingvar Johansson looked at her with an expressionless face. The reporter Nils Langeby, the oldest on the crime desk at 53, was, as usual, unable to hide his hostility toward her. The reporter Patrik Nilsson was listening attentively, not to say rapturously. The third reporter, Berit Hamrin, calmly paid attention. The only one not there from the crime desk was the combined secretary and research assistant, Eva-Britt Qvist.

"I think the way we approach these things is disgusting," Nils said.

Annika sighed. Here we go again. "What approach would you suggest?"

"We're far too focused on this type of sensationalist violence. What about all the environmental crime we never write about? Or crime in schools."

"It's true that we should improve our coverage of that type of…"

"We damned well should! This desk is sinking into a shit hole of women's sob stories and bombs and biker wars."

Annika drew a deep breath and counted to three before replying. "You've brought up an important point, Nils, but this is maybe not the right time to discuss it…"

"Why not? Am I incapable of determining when I can raise a subject for discussion?" He raised himself up in the chair.

"Environmental and school crime is your beat, Nils," Annika said calmly. "You work full time on those two issues. Do you feel we're tearing you away from your patch when we pull you in on a day like this?"

"Yes, I do!" the man roared.

She looked at the furious man in front of her. How the hell was she going to deal with this? If she didn't call him in, he'd be pissed off for not having a part in the Bomber story. If she did give him an assignment, he'd first refuse and then screw it up. But if she kept him on standby, he'd argue that he was being cold-shouldered.

She was interrupted when the editor-in-chief, Anders Schyman, walked in the room. Everybody, including Annika, said hello and sat up straighter in their chairs.

"Congratulations, Annika! And thanks, Jansson, for a great job this morning," the editor said. "We beat the others. Outstanding! The center-spread picture was fantastic, and we were the only ones to have it. How did you do it, Annika?" He sat down on a box in the corner.

Annika told the story. She got some applause, cheers even. Standing on the Olympic flame and all! This would be a classic at the Press Club.

"What are we doing now?"

Annika put her feet on the floor and leaned over the desk, ticking off items on a list while talking. "Patrik, you take the hunt for the murderer, the forensic evidence, and all contacts with the officers on duty and the people in charge of the investigation. It's likely they'll hold a press conference this afternoon. Find out when and get the pics ready now. I'm sure we'll all have a reason to be there."

Patrik nodded.

"Berit, you take the victim angle, who is it and why? Then there's the old Olympic bomber, the Tiger, he was called. He's got to be a suspect, even if his bombs were firecrackers compared with this. What's he doing these days, and where was he last night? I'll try and get hold of him, since I interviewed him at the time. Nils, you do the Olympic security aspects. How the hell could something like this happen just seven months away from the Olympic Games? How has the security situation looked up to now?"

"That's just background. You could get an intern to do that. I'm a reporter," Nils Langeby said.

"It's not background," Anders Schyman said. "I think it's one of the most important and wide-ranging questions you can ask on a day like this. Get to the bottom of this type of action from a social and global perspective. How will this damage sports as a whole? That'll be one of today's most important stories, Nils."

The reporter didn't know how to react, whether to be honored to be assigned one of the most important jobs or to resent being told off. He chose, as always, the most self-important option. "Naturally, it all depends on how you do it," he said.

Annika looked gratefully at Anders Schyman. "Perhaps the night shift can do the Olympic angle. What's up with the taxi driver?" she said.

Ingvar Johansson nodded. "Our people are taking him to a hotel in town as we speak. He lives in the south suburbs, but the rest of the media could find him there. We'll keep him hidden at the Royal Viking until tomorrow. Janet Ullberg can hunt down Christina Furhage. A picture of her in front of the bomb damage would be just the thing. We've got students from the School of Journalism manning the phones for Ring and Sing…"

The paper often held phone-in polls for major news stories. It made people feel like they were part of the process. Schyman liked that.

"What's the question?" he asked, reaching for a paper.

" 'Should the Olympics be canceled? Call in tonight, between 5 and 7 P.M.' It's obvious that this is an attack by the Tiger or some group that doesn't want Sweden to host the Games."

Annika hesitated for a moment.

"Of course we should cover that angle, but I'm not so sure that's what's going on here."

"Why not?" Ingvar Johansson asked. "We can't dismiss it. Besides the victim, the terrorist angle's got to be tomorrow's big thing."

"I think we should be careful not to beat the terrorist drum too loudly," Annika said, cursing her promise not to say anything about the insider lead. "As long as we don't even know the identity of the victim, we can't speculate about what or who the bomb was directed against."

"Of course we can," Ingvar Johansson objected. "We'll have to get the police to comment on the theory, but that won't be too difficult. They're not in a position to confirm or deny anything at the moment."

Anders Schyman broke in. "We shouldn't settle on anything at the moment. Or toss anything out. Let's keep our options open and get on with things before we decide on tomorrow's stories. Anything else?"

"Not with what we've got right now. Once the victim has been identified, I suppose we'll have to approach the members of the family."

"In the nicest way possible," Anders Schyman advised unnecessarily. "I don't want people pissed off at us for intruding on their grief."

Annika smiled faintly. "I'll do it myself."

When the meeting was over, Annika called home. Kalle, her five-year-old, answered the phone.

"Hi, darling, how are you?"

"Fine. We're going to McDonald's, and you know, Ellen spilled orange juice all over 101 Dalmatians. I think that was really silly, 'cause now we won't be able to watch that again…" The boy fell silent and a sob was heard.

"That's a shame, yes. But how could she spill juice on it? What was it doing on the kitchen table?"

"No, it was on the floor in the TV room, and Ellen kicked over my glass. She was going to the bathroom."

"But why did you put your juice on the floor in the TV room? I've told you not to bring your breakfast into the TV room. You know that!" Annika felt the anger rising. Christ, every time she left the house unexpectedly something got broken. Nobody ever stuck by the rules.

"It wasn't my fault!" the boy wailed. "It was Ellen! Ellen ruined the videotape!" He was crying loudly now. He dropped the phone and ran off.

"Kalle, hello! Kalle!" Why the hell did this have to happen now? She had meant to call the kids to salve her conscience. Thomas picked up the phone.

"Christ, Annika, what did you say to him?"

She sighed. She was getting a headache. "Why were they having breakfast in the TV room?"

"They weren't," Thomas said. Annika could tell he was struggling to keep calm. "Kalle was allowed to bring his juice in, nothing else. Not smart, considering the consequences, but I'm going to bribe them with lunch at McDonald's and a new video. Don't imagine everything depends on you all the time. You just concentrate on your stories. How's it going?" He was making peace.

She swallowed. "A really nasty death. Murder, suicide, or an accident, maybe. We don't know yet."

"Yeah, I heard. You'll be late, I guess?"

"That's just the beginning of it."

"I love you," he said.

Unexpectedly, she felt tears welling up. "I love you, too," she whispered.

Her contact had worked through the night and gone home, so she had to rely on the normal police channels. Nothing further had happened during the morning; the body still hadn't been identified, the fire-fighting operation was done, and the forensic investigation was in progress. She decided to go back to the arena with a new photographer, a casual called Ulf Olsson.

"I've got the wrong clothes for this assignment," Ulf said in the elevator down to the garage.

Annika looked at the man. "How do you mean?" He was dressed in a dark gray woollen coat, ordinary shoes, and a suit.

"I'm dressed to take pictures of a first-night audience at the theater. You could've told me earlier we were going to a murder scene. You must've known for hours."

The freelancer was looking at her imperiously. Her headache was worse. Now this.

"Don't fucking tell me what I should have done! You're a photographer. You photograph what we need pictures of. This is a bit more important than a first night. If you don't want to shoot mincemeat in your Armani suit, keep some overalls in your camera bag!" She kicked the door open to the garage. Fucking amateurs!

"I don't like the way you're talking to me," the man whimpered behind her.

Furious, Annika turned on her heel. "Grow up," she hissed. "Besides, there's nothing stopping you from finding out for yourself what's going on. Do you think I'm some fucking valet service for your wardrobe?"

Ulf swallowed hard, clenching his fists. "I think you're being really unfair," he sniveled.

"For God's sake," Annika groaned, "stop whining! Get in the car and drive to the stadium, or do you want me to drive?"

The photographer usually drove when a team went out on an assignment, even if it was in the newspaper's car. In many places, a newspaper's cars were in fact the photographers' company cars. But the fuss made over the expense of this perk meant that Kvällspressen had given up the practice.

So now Annika got the wheel and drove out onto the West Circular. Neither Annika nor Ulf said a word during the drive out to Hammarby Dock. Annika took the road past Hammarby industrial estate. She planned to get into the complex from the back, but it was no use. The entire Olympic Village had been cordoned off. Annika felt frustrated. Ulf Olsson was relieved. He wouldn't have to get his shoes dirty by sneaking about around the back of the stadium.

"We have to have a shot of the stand in daylight," Annika said, making a U-turn at the plastic tape on Lumavägen. "I know someone at a TV company that has its offices out here. If we're lucky, someone'll let us on the roof."

She fished out her phone and called her friend Anne Snapphane, who produced talk shows for women on one of the cable channels.

"I'm editing. What do you want?" Anne hissed. "Who is it?"

Five minutes later, they were on the roof of the old lamp factory in Hammarby South Dock. The view of the lacerated stadium was fantastic. Olsson used a telephoto lens and shot one roll. That was enough.

Not a word was spoken on the drive back.

"The press conference starts at two!" Patrik yelled when she walked back into the office. "I've got the photos sorted."

Annika waved a reply and went into her office. She hung up her things, threw the holdall on the desk, switched batteries in her phone, and put the old one in the charger.

Annika thought about her outburst against the photographer. Why did she react so strongly? Why did she feel bad about it? She hesitated for a moment, then punched the speed dial number to the editor.

"Of course I've got a minute for you, Annika," he said.

She walked through the open-plan cubicles toward Anders Schyman's corner office. Activity on the floor was almost at zero. Ingvar Johansson was eating a salad with the phone pressed to his ear. The picture editor, Pelle Oscarsson, was absentmindedly flipping through pictures in Photoshop. One of the sub-editors was arranging the following day's pages on his computer.

As Annika closed the office door behind her, the opening chimes of the lunchtime Eko news peeled from the editor's radio. Eko focused on the terrorist angle: that the police were hunting for a group with something against the Olympic Games. And that was as far as they got.

"The terrorist theory doesn't hold water," Annika said. "The police think it was an inside job."

Anders Schyman whistled. "Why?"

"No doors had been forced and all alarms had been disarmed. Either the victim disarmed them or the Bomber. Either would mean the perpetrator's on the inside."

"Not necessarily- the alarms could have been broken," Schyman said.

"They weren't," Annika said. "They were fully functional, but disarmed."

"Someone could've forgotten to prime them," the editor persisted. Annika gave it a moment's thought and nodded. That could be the case.

They sat down on the comfortable couches along the wall, half listening to the radio. Annika looked out over the Russian Embassy. The day was fading even before it had properly arrived; a gray haze made the windows look dirty. Someone, at long last, had put a few Christmas decorations up in the editor's office- some red poinsettias and two Christmas candelabra.

"I lost my rag with Ulf Olsson today," Annika said in a low voice.

Schyman waited.

"He complained about having the wrong clothes for the Hammarby Dock assignment and blamed it on me, saying I should have warned him earlier that we would be going there." She fell silent.

Anders Schyman watched her for a moment before replying. "You don't decide which photographer goes on which assignment, the picture editor does. And reporters and photographers should be dressed to tackle any kind of assignment, at any time. That's part of the job."

"I swore at him," Annika said.

"That wasn't very clever," the editor said. "If I were you, I'd apologize. Throw him a bone. Give him some advice. And find out how we're handling the sabotage hypothesis. We mustn't fall in the terrorist trap if it's wrong."

Schyman stood up, indicating that they were done. Annika was relieved, partly because she'd had support for her attitude to the Olympic coverage, partly because she got herself to tell her superior about the outburst. People got angry with each other every day at the paper, but she was a woman and new as an editor, so she had to be prepared to take some stick.

She picked up a large holdall with the company logo and took it to the photo room. Ulf Olsson was alone in the room, reading a magazine.

"I want to apologize for swearing at you," Annika said. "Here you are, it's a bag to fill with winter clothes. Put some long underwear, warm shoes, a hat, and gloves in it, and put it in your locker or in the trunk of your car."

The man gave her a glum look. "You should have told me earlier that we were going…"

"You'll have to take that up with the picture editor or the editor. Have you developed the pictures?"

"No, I was…"

"Well, then do it."

She left the room, feeling his glare on her back. On the way back to her office, it struck her that she hadn't eaten all day, not even breakfast. She passed by the cafeteria and bought a meatball sandwich and a Diet Coke.

The news of the explosion at the Olympic stadium had by now broken worldwide. All the major TV companies and international newpapers had sent correspondents to the 2 P.M. press conference at the police headquarters: CNN, Sky News, BBC, the Nordic TV companies; Le Monde, the European, the Times, Die Zeit, and many more. The TV companies' cellphone units were blocking most of the driveway up to the entrance.

Annika arrived with four others from her paper: reporters Patrik and Berit, plus two photographers. The room was packed with people and equipment. Annika and the other reporters stood on chairs at the back, while the photographers elbowed their way further forward. As always, the TV people had parked themselves right at the front of the podium, blocking everyone else's view. People were tripping over their endless miles of cable coiling all over the floor, and everyone would have to make allowances for them having to put their questions first. Their camera lights glared across the room in all directions, although most were directed at the podium where the police officials would soon address the nation. Several of the TV companies were transmitting live, including CNN, Sky, and the Swedish Rapport. The reporters were rehearsing their stand-ups, scrawling in their scripts; the still photographers were loading their cameras; radio reporters were twiddling the knobs of their DAT recorders, mumbling "testing, testing, one-two…" The murmur of voices sounded like a waterfall. The heat was already unbearable. Annika groaned, dropping her coat and scarf in a heap on the floor.

When the police officials walked in through a side door next to the podium, the murmur subsided and was replaced by the snapping of cameras. Four men stepped onto the podium: the Stockholm police press officer, the Chief District Prosecutor Kjell Lindström, a Krim investigator whose name Annika couldn't remember, and, finally, Evert Danielsson from the Olympic Secretariat. They took their time to get seated at the table, then sipped from the mandatory glasses of water.

The press officer opened with the established facts: An explosion had taken place, leaving one person dead; the extent of the resulting damage was reiterated; and the forensic investigation was in progress. He already seemed tired and careworn. What would he look like once this has been going on for a couple of days? Annika mused.

Then the Chief District Prosecutor took over. "We haven't as yet been able to identify the victim at the arena. Progress has been hampered by the state of the body. We do, however, have some leads that could assist in establishing the identity of the victim. The explosive residues have been sent to London for analysis. We haven't had any definite results from them yet, but we can say at this point that the explosive is probably civilian-made. The explosives used were not from a military source."

Kjell Lindström drank more water. The cameras were clattering.

"We are also looking for the man who was convicted of two bomb attacks against sports arenas seven years ago. This man is not under suspicion at the moment, but will be brought in for questioning."

The chief prosecutor looked down at his papers for a moment, seemingly hesitant. When he resumed, he looked straight into Rapport's camera:

"A person wearing dark clothes was seen near the arena just before the explosion. We appeal to the public to contact us with any information that may be relevant to the bombing of Victoria Stadium. The police want to talk to anyone who was in the area between midnight and 3:20 A.M. Information that might appear irrelevant to the general public may provide the police with vital clues."

He rattled off a couple of telephone numbers that would soon appear on the Rapport news.

When the chief prosecutor was done, Evert Danielsson of the Olympic Secretariat cleared his throat.

"Well, this is a tragedy," he said nervously. "Both for Sweden as the host nation of the Olympic Games and for the world of sports as a whole. The Games symbolize competition on equal terms regardless of race, religious creed, politics, or sex. It makes it all the more lamentable that anyone would target this global symbol, the arena of the Olympic championships themselves, and commit an act of terrorism."

Annika craned her neck to see above the CNN camera. She watched the reaction to Danielsson's Olympic lament on the faces of the police officers and the prosecutor. As might have been expected, they flinched as, right in front of their eyes, the head of the Olympic Secretariat produced both a motive and a method: The explosion was an act of terrorism directed at the Games themselves. Yet they still didn't know who the victim was. Or did they? Didn't the head of the Secretariat know what had already been confirmed to Annika, that the attack had probably been staged by someone on the inside?

The prosecutor interrupted, trying to silence Danielsson, who went on regardless. "I appeal," he continued, "to everybody who thinks he or she may have seen something to contact the police. It is of the utmost importance to apprehend the perpetrator of… What?" Bewildered, he looked at the chief prosecutor, who must have pinched or kicked him out of sight of the reporters.

"I just want to point out," Kjell Lindström said while leaning toward the microphones, "that at the present time, we can in no way identify a motive." He glared sideways at Evert Danielsson. "There is nothing, I repeat, nothing, which indicates that this is an act of terrorism directed at the Olympic Games. There have been no threats delivered to either the facilities or the Secretariat. As matters stand, we remain open to various lines of enquiry and motives."

He sat back in his chair. "Any questions?"

The TV reporters were prepared and raring to go. As soon as the reporters got the floor, they would shout out their questions. A face-off it's called, from the ice-hockey term. The first few questions were about facts that were already known but which had been said too slowly or in a too complicated manner for a segment of 90 seconds. That was why TV reporters always asked the same things all over again, hoping to get a straighter and simpler answer.

"Do you have any suspects?"

"Do you have any leads?"

"Has the victim been identified?"

"Could it be an act of terrorism?"

Annika sighed. The only reason for going to this kind of press conference was to study the behavior of the investigators. Everything they said was reported in other media, but to observe the facial expressions of those who weren't on camera was often more rewarding than the usually predictable answers. Now, for example, she could see just how angry Kjell Lindström was with Evert Danielsson for shooting his mouth off about "acts of terrorism." If there was one thing the Swedish police were extremely keen to steer clear of, it was for the world to put the taint of terrorism on Stockholm and the Olympic Games. The terrorist angle was probably totally off the mark. For once, though, they actually had released some new information. Annika scribbled some questions in her notepad. There was the bit about a person wearing dark clothes having been seen near the arena- when and where? If there was a witness, who was it and what was he or she doing there? The explosives had been sent to London for analysis- why? Why wasn't the forensic lab in Linköping dealing with it? And when were the results of the analysis expected? How did they know the explosives were civilian-made? What were the implications for the investigation? Did it narrow it down or widen its reach? How easy are civilian-made explosives to come by? How long would it take to repair the North Stand? Is the arena insured, and if so, by whom? And who was the victim? Did they know? And what were the lines of enquiry Kjell Lindström had been talking about that might help them in the investigation? She sighed again. This could become a very long, drawn-out story.

Chief District Prosecutor Kjell Lindström strode down the corridor leading from the conference room. His face was pale and taut. He gripped the handle of his briefcase so tight his knuckles were white. He felt sure that unless he managed to keep his hands in check, he would strangle Evert Danielsson. Behind him followed the rest of the participants in the press conference, plus three uniformed cops who had been standing in the background. One of them pulled the door closed, shutting out the last of the persistent reporters.

"I don't see why it should be so controversial to say what everyone is thinking," the director said from behind him. "It's perfectly obvious to everyone that it's a terrorist attack. The Olympic Secretariat believes it's important to quickly establish an opinion, a force that can withstand any attempt to sabotage the Games…"

The prosecutor spun around to face Evert Danielsson, inches from his face.

"Read my lips: There is no suspicion whatsoever of a terrorist act. Okay? The last thing the police need right now is a big fucking debate about terrorist control. That would place demands on the security of arenas and public buildings that we just don't have the resources for… Do you know how many arenas are connected with the Games in one way or another? Yes, of course you do. Don't you remember what happened when the Tiger was doing his thing? He let off a couple of charges and every frigging reporter in the country went sniffing around unprotected arenas in the middle of the night. Then they wrote sensationalist stories about the shitty security."

"How can you be so sure it's not a terrorist attack?" Danielsson said, somewhat intimidated.

Lindström sighed and resumed. "Believe me, we have our reasons."

"Such as?" the director persevered.

The prosecutor stopped again. Calmly, he said, "It was an inside job. Someone in the Olympic organization did it. Okay? One of your lot, mate. That's why it's extremely unfortunate for you to go mouthing off about terrorist attacks. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Evert Danielsson turned pale. "That's not possible."

Kjell Lindström started walking again. "Oh, yes, it is. And if you would follow the investigators up to the Serious Crimes Division, you can tell them exactly who in your organization has access to all entry cards, keys, and security codes for Victoria Stadium."

The moment Annika entered the newsroom after the press conference, Ingvar Johansson waved to her from behind the office modem computer.

"Come and see if you can make any sense of this," he called.

Annika passed by her office and dumped her bag, coat, scarf, and mittens. Her sweater felt sticky in the armpits, and suddenly she was conscious of not having had a shower that morning. She pulled the jacket tighter around her, hoping she didn't smell.

Janet Ullberg, a young freelance reporter, and Ingvar Johansson were both leaning over one of the newsroom computers that had a fast modem installed.

"Janet hasn't been able to get hold of Christina Furhage all day," he said while typing something. "We've got a number that's supposed to work, but there's no answer. According to the Olympic Secretariat, she's in town, probably at home. So we wanted to look up her address and go and knock on her door. But when we enter her data, nothing happens. She's not in there."

He pointed to the information on the screen. No Christina Furhage- "The name does not exist for the given data." Annika squeezed in behind Janet and sat down on the chair in front of the keyboard.

"Of course she's here, everybody is," Annika said. "You've done a too narrow search, that's all."

"I don't get it," Janet said in a faint voice. "What are you doing?"

Annika explained while typing away. "The Public Register, the government department for citizen information- people's births, deaths, marriages, and addresses- usually goes under the name of the PubReg. It's not even state owned anymore; they sold it to some Anglo-French company. Anyway, here you can find every person in the country- their identity numbers, addresses, previous addresses, and places of birth of Swedes and immigrants who've been given identity numbers. Before, you'd be able to find family ties as well- children and spouses- but that was stopped a couple of years ago. Now, using the modem, we log in to something called the Info Market, look… You can choose from a number of databases, the National Vehicle Register and the Register of Limited Companies, for example, but we want the PubReg. Look here- you type " 'pubreg" up here where the prompt is…"

"I'll go back to my desk. Call me when you're done," Ingvar Johansson said and left in the direction of the newsdesk.

"…and, hey, presto! We're in. Here we can choose between a number of different functions, things we want to enquire about. See? Use F2 if you have the personal number and want to know whose it is, F3 if you have a birth date but not the four ID digits, F4 and F5 are off limits- family ties- but we can use F7 and F8. To find out where a person lives you hit F8, name enquiry. Voilà!"

Annika pressed the command and a document appeared on the screen.

"So, we're looking for Christina Furhage, living somewhere in Sweden," she said, typing in the necessary data: sex, first and second names. She left the fields for approximate date of birth, county code, and postal code empty. The computer did its thinking, and after a few seconds, three lines appeared on the screen.

"Okay, one at a time," Annika said, pointing at the screen with her pen. "Look here: 'Furhage, Eleonora Christina, born 1912 in Kalix, hist.' That means the data is historical. The old lady is probably dead. Dead people stay in the register for about a year. It can also mean that she has changed her name; she could have married an old geezer from the home. If you want to check that, you highlight her name and press F7, for historical data, but we won't do that now."

She moved her pen down to the bottom line.

" 'Furhage, Sofia Christina, born 1993 in Kalix.' A kid. Presumably a relative of the first one. Unusual surnames often pop up in the same place."

She moved the pen again. "This will be our Christina."

Annika typed a "v" in front of the line and gave the command.

"My God…!" she said, leaning closer toward the screen as if she didn't believe her own eyes. A very rare piece of information appeared.

"What?" Janet said.

"The woman is off the record," Annika said. She typed "command p" and went over to the printer. With the printout in her hand, she walked over to Ingvar Johansson.

"Have we ever written anything about Christina Furhage having bodyguards? That she's received death threats or anything like that?"

Ingvar Johansson leaned back in his chair and considered her question. "Not that I know of. Why?"

Annika held out the computer printout. "Christina Furhage must have received some serious threats. No one but the director of the local tax office knows where she lives. You know, there are only about a hundred people in Sweden who have this protection."

She handed the paper to Ingvar Johansson. He looked at it blankly.

"What do you mean? Her personal data isn't protected. Her name is here."

"Right, but check the address: 'c/o loc dir Tyresö'."

"What are you talking about?" Ingvar Johansson said.

Annika sat down.

"There are different levels of protection the authorities can use when people are at risk," she explained. "The lowest protection is when you have a security flag in the Public Register. That's not too unusual; there are about five thousand people whose personal info is classified. That's when it says 'protected data' on the screen."

"Yeah, I know all that. But it doesn't say that here," Ingvar Johansson said.

Annika pretended not to hear. "To have a security flag against your data, there has to be some form of tangible threat. The decision to classify data is made by the director of the local tax office in the area where the person is officially living."

Annika tapped her pen on the printout. "This, on the other hand, is really unusual. This level of protection is much tighter and a lot harder to get than being merely flagged. You're invisible in the Public Register. Furhage simply isn't listed in the register, except like this, with a reference to the director of the local tax office in Tyresö outside Stockholm. He's the only civil servant in the entire country who knows where she lives."

Ingvar Johansson gave her a skeptical look. "How do you know all this?"

"You remember my work on the Paradise Foundation- articles on people living underground in Sweden?"

"Of course, I do. So what?"

"The only other time I've come across this was when I was searching for people the government had done their best to hide deep down."

"But Christina Furhage isn't hidden, is she?"

"We haven't found her, have we? What telephone number do we have for her?"

They searched the newspaper's contacts book, which could be found on all the computers in the newsroom. Under the name Christina Furhage, title Olympic Boss, there was a GSM cellphone number. Annika dialed the number and got connected to an automated answering service.

"Her phone's not on," she said. She called directory enquiries to find out in whose name the subscription was. The number was ex-directory.

Ingvar Johansson sighed. "It's too dark anyway for my picture of Furhage in front of the arena," he said. "We'll save it till tomorrow."

"We still have to find the woman," Annika said. "It's obvious that she'll have to comment on what's happened."

She stood up and started toward her room.

"What are you going to do now?" Ingvar Johansson asked.

"I'm calling the Olympic Secretariat. They've got to know what the hell is going on here."

Annika dropped into her chair with a thud and leaned her forehead on the desk. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a cinnamon bun that had been sitting there since the day before. She took a bite. It was stale, but she mixed it in her mouth with the dregs of the Diet Coke she'd had at lunch. Having collected the crumbs with her fingers, she dialed the switchboard of the Olympic Secretariat. Busy. She tried once again, this time changing the last digit from nought to one, an old trick to bypass the switchboard and get straight on to someone's desk. Sometimes you had to try a hundred times, but sooner or later you'd end up on the desk of some poor bastard working late. Not so this time: Amazingly, she was successful at the first attempt. The director of the Secretariat himself, Evert Danielsson, answered.

Annika deliberated for half a second before she decided to skip the small talk. She'd try to beat him up a bit. "We want a comment from Christina Furhage," said Annika, "and we want it now."

Danielsson groaned. "You've called ten times already today. We have promised to pass on your questions."

"We want to talk to her ourselves. Surely you must appreciate she can't hide on a day like this? How would that look? They're her Games, for Christ's sake! She's never been afraid to talk before. Why is she hiding? Come on, give her to us now."

Danielsson breathed down the phone for several seconds. "We don't know where she is," he said in a low voice.

Annika felt her pulse quicken. She switched on the tape recorder next to her phone. "Haven't you been able to reach her either?" she said slowly.

Danielsson swallowed. "No," he said, "not all day. We haven't been able to reach her husband either. But you won't write about this, will you?"

"I can't tell," Annika said. "Where could she be?"

"We thought she was at home."

"And where is that?" Annika asked, thinking about what she'd found on the computer.

"Here in town. But no one's answering the door."

Annika breathed in. Why was he telling her this? He sounded desperate; Annika pressed on and quickly asked:

"Who's been threatening Christina Furhage?"

The man gasped. "What? What do you mean?"

"Come off it!" Annika said. "If you want me to not write about it, you'll have to tell me what's really going on here."

"How did…? Who said…?"

"She's off the record on the Public Register. Which means the threat against her is so serious that a court of law would issue a restraining order against the assailant. Has this happened?"

"My God," Danielsson said. "Who told you this?"

Annika groaned inwardly. "It's in the Public Register. If you know the language, all you have to do is to read the screen. Has a restraining order been issued against someone who's threatened Christina Furhage?"

"I can't talk any longer," the man said stiffly, and hung up.

Annika listened for a few seconds to the hum of the line before she sighed and put the phone down.

Evert Danielsson stared at the woman standing in the doorway. "How long have you been there?"

"What are you doing in here?" Helena Starke replied, crossing her arms.

The director got up from Christina Furhage's chair, looking around distractedly, as if not having noticed until now that he was sitting at the Managing Director's desk. "Well, I was… checking Christina's diary to see if she'd made a note of where she was going or something… but I can't find it."

The woman looked hard at Evert Danielsson. He met her gaze.

"You look like shit," he said before he could stop himself.

"What a truly sexist comment," she said with a disgusted look, walking up to Christina Furhage's desk. "Since you asked, I got drunk as a skunk last night and threw up on the doormat this morning. If you say that was unusually unladylike, you're dead.

"Christina is spending the day with her family," Helena Starke said while pulling out the second drawer of the Olympic boss's desk with practised movements. "That means she's working from home rather than here at the office," she explained.

The director saw Helena Starke pull out a thick diary, opening it near the end. She leafed through it, the paper rustling.

"Nothing. Saturday, December 18 is completely empty."

"Maybe she's doing her Christmas cleaning," Evert Danielsson said, and now both he and Helena Starke smiled. The thought of Christina in a housecoat with a feather duster in her hand was funny.

"Who called?" Helena Starke asked, putting the diary away in the drawer. The director noted that she pushed it firmly shut and turned a key in the upper right-hand corner of the drawer unit.

"Some journalist from Kvällspressen. A woman. I don't recall her name."

Helena put the key in her jeans pocket. "Why did you tell her we haven't been able to reach Christina?"

"What was I supposed to say? That she has no comment? That she's hiding? That would make it even worse." Danielsson flung his hands out to the sides in a gesture of helplessness.

"The question is…" the woman said, coming so close that he could smell the stale alcohol on her breath. "The question is: where is Christina? Why hasn't she come in? Wherever she is, has to be in a place where she hasn't been getting any news whatsoever, right? Where the hell could that be? Any ideas?"

"Her country cottage?"

Helena looked at him with pity. "Please… And that terrorist bullshit you came out with at the press conference wasn't very smart, was it? What do you think Christina will say about that?"

Evert Danielsson lost his temper now; the overwhelming feeling of failure felt stiflingly unjust. "But that's what we agreed on. You were there when we discussed it. It wasn't only my view. On the contrary, we were going to seize the initiative and direct public opinion straight away. We all agreed on that."

Helena turned away and started walking toward the door.

"It got a bit embarrassing when the police denied it all with such emphasis. On TV you appeared hysterical and paranoid- not particularly becoming."

She turned around in the doorway and put a hand on the doorpost. "Are you staying in here or can I lock up?"

The director left Christina Furhage's room without a word.

The evening news meeting took place around the large conference table in the editor's office. TV1's Aktuellt news would start in fifteen minutes. Everybody except the night editor Jansson was present.

"He'll be here," Annika said. "He's just…"

"He/she is just" is the code for delays caused by general disturbances or other b.s.- reporters who don't know what they're supposed to do or readers on the phone who simply have to state their opinions at that very moment. It can also mean you've gone to the toilet or to get coffee.

The participants around the table were preparing or waiting. Annika went through her list of points to be presented during the meeting. She didn't have a long list like Ingvar Johansson, the news editor, who was handing out slips of paper with the different jobs in progress to the people around the table. The picture editor, Pelle Oscarsson, was on his cellphone. The editor was rocking to and fro on his feet, staring unseeing at the muted TV.

"Sorry," the night editor said as he hurtled into the room, coffee mug in one hand and the dummies for all the pages of the paper in the other. He was barely awake and was into his second mug. Naturally, he spilled some coffee on the floor as he shut the door. Anders Schyman noticed and sighed.

"Okay," he said, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the table. "Let's begin with the Bomber. What have we got?"

Annika didn't wait for Ingvar Johansson but started talking straight away. She knew the news editor liked to go through the whole lot, including her patch. She wasn't going to sit around and wait for that.

"The way I see it, there'll be four stories from us on the crime desk," she said. "We won't be able to escape the terrorist angle. Evert Danielsson himself brought it up at the press conference, but the police want it toned down. That in itself could be a story. The fact is that we have discovered that Christina Furhage has been on the receiving end of some kind of intimidation. She is off the PubReg, and her address is care of the Tyresö local tax office. Furthermore, no one knows her whereabouts, not even her closest colleagues at the Olympic Secretariat. I'll take care of that one."

"What headline did you have in mind?" Jansson asked.

"Something like 'Olympic boss living under threat' and then a pull-quote from Danielsson, 'This is a terrorist attack'."

Jansson nodded approval.

"Then we have the main story, which has to be really thorough. We could put it together with graphics and captions around a big photo of the devastation. Patrik will take care of that. We've got daylight pictures of the stadium, both aerial and from the roof of the lamp factory, haven't we, Pelle?"

The picture editor nodded. "Yes. I think the helicopter pictures are better. The rooftop pictures are a bit underexposed, unfortunately; they're simply too dark. I've tried to brighten them up on the Mac, but they're a bit out of focus, so I think we should go for the aerial shots."

Jansson wrote something on his dummy page. Annika felt the anger surge within her like fire, fucking Armani photographer who couldn't even set the focus or the right aperture!

"Who took the rooftop pictures?" Anders Schyman asked.

"Olsson," Annika responded curtly.

The editor made some notes. "What else?"

"Who's the victim? Man, woman, young, old? The pathologist's report, the forensic investigation, what are the lines of enquiry the Chief District Prosecutor mentioned at the press conference? Berit and I are looking into this."

"What have we got so far?" Schyman said.

Annika sighed. "Not much, I'm afraid. We'll continue our digging during the evening. I'm sure we'll find something."

The editor nodded and Annika continued. "Then there's the mysterious murder, the hunt for the Bomber, the leads, the theories, the evidence. Who was the man outside the arena just before the explosion? Who was the witness who saw him? Patrik is doing that. We haven't been able to locate the Tiger; neither have the police. According to Lindström, he's not a suspect, but that's bullshit. They may put out a nationwide alert for him this evening or during the night; you'll have to keep an eye on that. And then, of course, there's the Olympic angle, and you've got all that covered, Ingvar…"

The news editor cleared his throat. "Right. The security surrounding the Olympic Games- we've talked to Samaranch at the IOC in Lausanne. He has full confidence in Stockholm as host for the Games and fully believes that the Swedish police will apprehend the perpetrator very soon, blah blah… Then he says that this in no way jeopardizes the Games, which I think we should emphasize. Then we've got the 'what now' stuff, Janet has done that. The stand will be rebuilt immediately. The work will start as soon as the police technicians have left the place and is estimated to be done in seven or eight weeks. Then there's the injured taxi driver; we're alone on that one, so we'll blow it up. We're doing a color piece with a retrospective of infamous Olympic attacks, the Tiger among others, unless we get hold of him during the night. Then I suppose we'll do a separate piece on him."

"His home telephone number's in the contacts book," Annika said. "I've left a message on his answerphone; it's possible he'll be in touch."

"Okay. Nils Langeby is working on world reactions; that will be an additional tie-in. And then we've got the vox pop on the attack, the Ring and Sing has just begun.

He stopped speaking and leafed through his papers.

"Anything else?" the editor said.

"There's Henriksson's pictures from the Olympic flame," Annika said. "We ran them in the early editions this morning, but they haven't been printed nationwide. He shot several rolls, so maybe we could do a variation on that to accompany the story about the victim in tomorrow's paper- a bit of recycling?"

Pelle Oscarsson nodded. "Yep, there are plenty of pics. I'm sure we could find one that isn't all that similar."

"Aktuellt is on," Ingvar Johansson said, turning up the TV with the remote.

They all turned their attention to the TV to see what Swedish Television had cooked up. They opened with footage from the police press conference, then went back to the morning when the arena was still on fire. After this, interviews followed with all the obvious people: Chief District Prosecutor Lindström, Evert Danielsson from the Olympic Secretariat, a Krim investigator, and an old lady who lived next to the arena and who woke up from the explosion.

"They've got nothing new," Ingvar Johansson stated and switched to CNN.

The meeting resumed and Ingvar Johansson ran through the rest of the contents of tomorrow's paper. They kept the TV on low while CNN ran their Breaking News. A CNN reporter appeared at regular intervals doing stand-ups from outside the cordons around the Olympic Village. They had another reporter in front of the police headquarters and a third one at the International Olympic Committee's headquarters in Lausanne. The live broadcasts were interspersed with recorded segments about the Olympics and various acts of violence that had hit the Games throughout the years. They had comments from internationally known celebrities and a condemnation of the attack by a White House press spokesperson.

Annika realized she wasn't listening to what Ingvar Johansson was saying. When he got to the soft-news pages, she made her excuses and left the meeting. She went back to the cafeteria and ordered a prawn pasta and a low-alcohol beer. While the microwave was humming behind the counter, she sat down and stared into the darkness. If she strained her eyes and focused hard, she could see the windows of the building opposite. When she relaxed, all she saw was her own reflection in the window.

Having finished her meal, she assembled the members of her own little desk, Patrik and Berit, and compared notes with them in her office.

"I'll do the terrorist story," Annika said. "Have you got anything on the victim, Berit?"

"A little," the reporter said, leafing through her notes. "The technicians have found some stuff inside the arena they believe belonged to the victim. It was pretty badly damaged, but they've established that there's a briefcase, a Filofax, and a cellphone."

She fell silent and noticed that both Annika's and Patrik's eyes were wide open.

"Christ!" Annika exclaimed. "That must mean they know who the victim is."

"Possibly," Berit said, "but they're not saying a word. It took me two hours just to get this from them."

"But that's great," Annika said. "Fantastic! You've done really well. Really! I haven't heard this anywhere else."

She leaned back in her chair, laughing and clapping her hands. Patrik smiled. Annika turned to him: "And how are you getting on?"

"I've done the blast itself. You can look at it for yourself; it's on the server. I've matched it to the picture of the arena, like you said. But I don't have much on the actual hunt for the murderer, I'm afraid. The police have done door-to-door interviews around the Docklands during the day, but not many people have moved into the apartments of the Olympic Village yet, so the place is quite empty."

"Who is the dark man, and who is the witness?"

"I haven't been able to get anything on that," Patrik said.

Suddenly Annika remembered something her driver had said in the car on the way out to the stadium early that morning. "There's an unlicensed club out there," she said, straightening up in her chair. "The injured driver had a fare there when the bomb went off. There must've been people there, both guests and staff. That's where we'll find our witness. Have we talked to them?"

Patrik and Berit looked at each other.

"We've got to go to the docks and talk to them," Annika said.

"An unlicensed club?" Berit was skeptical. "How keen will they be to talk to us?"

"What the hell," Annika said, "you never know. Let them speak anonymously or off the record- they can just tell you if they saw something or know anything."

"Sounds like a good idea," Patrik said. "It could be productive."

"Have the police talked to them?"

"I don't know. I didn't ask," Patrik said.

"Okay," Annika said. "I'll call the police. You get out there and try to find the club. Call the injured driver. We've got him hidden away at the Royal Viking. Ask him exactly where the club is. They won't be open tonight, I presume; the place is probably inside the police cordons. Still, talk to the driver and see if he had a name for the customer he drove there. Maybe it was he who recommended the club because he knows someone there, you never know."

"I'll go right now," Patrik said. He picked up his jacket and was gone.

Berit sighed. "I can't really believe it was a terrorist attack," she said. "Why? To put a stop to the Games? Then why start now, it's a little late in the day."

Annika doodled on her pad. "One thing I do know," she said. "The police better catch this Bomber person, otherwise this country will have a hangover it hasn't seen since Olof Palme was killed."

Berit nodded, picked up her things, and went out to her desk.

Annika called her contact, but he wasn't available. She e-mailed an official police communication about the illegal club to Patrik. Then she went and picked up a copy of the Government's official yearbook and looked up the name of the director of the local tax office in Tyresö. It gave his name and the year of his birth. His name was much too common to be easily found in the phone directory, so Annika had to Reg him first. This way she got his home address, then information found him quick as a flash.

He answered on the fourth ring and sounded quite drunk. It was Saturday night after all. Annika switched on her tape recorder.

"I can't say a word about Christina Furhage," the tax director said, sounding like he was about to hang up on her straight away.

"Naturally," Annika said calmly. "I'd just like to ask a few general questions about people being off record and about threat scenarios."

A group of people burst out laughing simultaneously in the background. She must have called in the middle of a dinner party or a Christmas drinks party.

"You'll have to call me at the office on Monday," the tax director said.

"But the paper will have gone to print long before then," Annika said in a silky voice. "The readers have a right to a comment tomorrow. What reason shall I give for you not answering?"

The man breathed silently down the line. Annika could feel him debating with himself. He understood that she was alluding to his intoxication. She wouldn't ever write anything like that in the paper; you just don't. But if an official was awkward, she didn't hesitate to use a few tricks to get her way.

"What do you want to know?" he said icily.

Annika smiled. "What does it take for a person to be off record?" she asked.

She knew that already, but the man's words when describing it would be a recapitulation of Christina's case.

The man sighed, giving it some thought. "Well, there has to be a threat. A real threat," he said. "Not just a telephone call, but something more, something serious."

"Like a death threat?" Annika said.

"For example. Though there has to be more, something to make a court issue a restraining order."

"An incident? Some kind of violent act?" Annika asked.

"You could put it that way."

"Would someone be made off record for less than what you've described to me?"

"No, they wouldn't," the man said firmly. "If the threat were of a less serious nature, it would suffice to have a security flag in the Public Register."

"How many people have you approved for going off record during your time in Tyresö?"

He pondered the question then said, "Uh… three."

"Christina Furhage, her husband, and her daughter," Annika declared.

"I didn't say that," the tax director said.

"Can you comment on Christina Furhage being off record?" she swiftly continued.

"No, I cannot," the man said in a surly tone.

"What kind of death threat was directed at Christina Furhage?"

"I can't comment on that."

"What was the act of violence behind your decision to grant her off-record status?"

"I can't say anything more in the matter. We'll end the interview here," the man said and hung up.

Annika smiled happily. She was home and dry now. Without saying a word about Christina, the man had confirmed it all.

After another couple of verifying calls, she wrote her copy on the threat scenario, keeping the terrorist theory at a reasonable level. Just after 11 P.M. she was done. Patrik still hadn't returned. That boded well.

She gave her copy to Jansson, who was now in full swing out by the desk, ruffling his hair and continually speaking on the phone.

She decided to walk home, despite the cold and the dark, despite her empty head. Her legs were aching; they always did when she was exhausted. A brisk walk was the best remedy, then she wouldn't have to take a painkiller when she got home. She quickly put on her coat and pulled the hat over her ears before she had time to change her mind.

"I'm on my cellphone," was all she said to Jansson on her way out. He waved to her without looking up from the phone.

The temperature had really shifted up and down today; now it was just below freezing again and large snowflakes were slowly falling. They were nearly hanging still in the air, wavering back and forth on their way to the ground. The snow wrapped all sounds and deadened them. Annika didn't hear the 57 bus until it drove past right next to her.

She took the stairs down to the Rålambshov Park. The path across the wide lawn was muddy and cut up by prams and bicycles; she slipped and nearly fell, swearing to herself. A startled hare leapt away from her into the shadows. Amazing that there were so many animals in the middle of the city. Once Thomas had been chased by a badger on their own street on his way home from the pub. She laughed out loud in the dark at the memory.

The wind was stronger here than up among the buildings, so she pulled her scarf tighter around her neck. The snowflakes were wilder and wet her hair. She hadn't seen her kids all day. She hadn't called back since the morning; it would only have been painful. Usually she felt okay working in the week, since all the kids in Sweden were at daycare centers then and her conscience could rest. But on a Saturday like today, the last one before Christmas, you were supposed to be at home making toffee and baking saffron buns. Annika sighed, and the snowflakes whirled around her. The problem was that when she did organize a baking session or some other big activity it was never much fun. At first both children thought it was great and would quarrel about who would stand next to her. By the time they'd fought over the dough and messed up the whole kitchen, her patience would be giving out. It would be worse if she'd had a hard time at work; she'd end up blowing her top. It had ended that way on more occasions than she cared to think of. The kids would sulk in front of the TV, while she finished the baking at lightning speed. Then Thomas would put them to bed while she cleaned the kitchen. She let out another sigh. Maybe this time it would have been different. No one would have burned their fingers on the sticky toffee and they could all have eaten freshly baked saffron buns together in front of the fire.

When she reached the footpath along the water by Norr Mälarstrand, she quickened her pace. The pain in her legs was already easing and she was forcing herself to keep a steady, resolute stride. Her breathing increased and the heart found a new, more intense rhythm.

She used to think it was more fun to be at work than to be at home. As a reporter she would see quick results, get everyone's appreciation, and have a picture byline several times a week. She had full command of her beat and knew exactly what was expected of her in different situations; she could swing things and make demands. At home the demands were more numerous, harder, and less explicit. She was never sufficiently happy, horny, calm, efficient, parental, or rested. The apartment was always more or less in a mess, the laundry basket always on the verge of overflowing. Thomas was very good with the kids, almost better than she was, but he never, ever wiped the cooker or the worktop, hardly ever put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, and always left clothes and unopened letters lying in mounds on the bedroom floor. It was as if he thought the dirty dishes found their own way into the dishwasher and the bills paid themselves.

But it wasn't as much fun to go to work anymore, not for the past eight weeks since she became an editor. She hadn't had the faintest idea of how strong the reactions to her promotion would be. The decision hadn't even been particularly controversial. In practice she'd been running the crime desk alongside her job as a reporter for the past year. Now she was paid for it; that's how she saw it. But Nils Langeby had hit the roof, of course. He considered the job his. He was 53, Annika only 32. She had also been astounded by how people felt they had a right to openly discuss her and criticize her over all kinds of matters. Suddenly people would comment and question her dress, something they'd never done before. They would say things about her character and abilities that were completely insulting. She hadn't realized that she became public property when she put on the editor's hat. Now she knew.

She quickened her pace further. She longed to be at home. She looked up at the houses on the other side of the street. The windows gave out a warm, welcoming glow over the water. Nearly all of them were decorated with Christmas lights or Christmas candelabra. It looked beautiful and safe. She left the bank and turned into John Erics-sonsgatan, up toward Hantverkargatan.

The apartment was quiet and dark. Carefully she wriggled out of her boots and coat and tiptoed into the children's room. They were sleeping in their little pajamas, Ellen's with Barbie on them and Kalle's with Batman. She sniffed them slightly, as Ellen moved in her sleep.

Thomas was in bed but not yet asleep. A reading lamp cast a discreet light over his side of the bed. He was reading The Economist.

"Exhausted?" he asked, after she had pulled off her clothes and kissed him on his hair.

"So-so," she answered from inside the walk-in closet where she was pushing her clothes into the laundry basket. "This explosion has turned into a nasty business."

She was naked when she came out of the closet and crept in beside him.

"You're freezing cold," he said.

All of a sudden Annika noticed how cold her thighs were. "I walked home."

"The paper didn't pay for a taxi? You've worked for twenty hours, a whole Saturday!"

A feeling of irritation immediately hit her. "Of course the paper would have paid for a taxi. I wanted to walk." She was almost shouting. "Don't be so bloody critical!"

He put the magazine on the floor and switched off the lamp, demonstratively turning his back.

Annika sighed. "Come on, Thomas, don't sulk."

"You're away the whole Saturday and then, when you finally come home, you swear and shout at me," he said wearily. "Are we just here to take shit from you?"

She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes, tears of fatigue and inadequacy. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to fly off the handle at you. It's just that they're at me all day at work, and it's really hard. And then I feel guilty for not being at home with you and the kids. I'm so scared you'll think I'm letting you down, but the paper won't allow me to let them down, and so I'm caught in the middle of some crossfire…"

She started crying for real now. She could hear him sighing on the other side of his back. After a few moments, he turned around and took her in his arms.

"There, there, damn it. Come on, darling, you'll be all right. You're better than the whole lot of them… Shit, you're cold as ice! I hope you don't catch cold, just before Christmas."

She laughed through her tears and cuddled up in his arms. Silence fell over them in a warm and safe mutual understanding. She leaned her head back onto her pillow and blinked. Up there in the dark, the ceiling was floating. Suddenly she remembered the image from the morning and the dream she was woken up from by the telephone.

"I dreamed of you this morning," she whispered.

"I hope it was a dirty dream," he mumbled, half asleep.

She laughed quietly. "And how! In a space shuttle, no less. And the men from Studio Six were watching."

"They're just envious," Thomas said and went to sleep.