Prime Time

by Liza Marklund

  ‘I think it’s awful that people like Michelle Carlsson are promoted as role models for young women,’ she said. ‘What good did she ever do? As long as I’ve known her all she’s done is drag other people down into the mud with her.’

  ‘And you would set a better example? A person who passes judgement on others, just because you think you’re so superior? Because you’re “to the manor born”, or could it be because you have the Holy Spirit on your side?’

  ‘I don’t judge people. That’s up to the Lord.’

  The words were harsh, but Mariana’s eyes looked frightened. Anne Snapphane knew that she was right: the truth had shattered the other woman’s protective veneer of contempt, making Anne feel even headier.

  ‘You can say what you like about God, but it would be great to have some of his PR people on your side,’ she murmured, on the verge of tears.

  ‘I’d buy it – at least when it comes to you,’ Stefan Axelsson suddenly said to Anne. ‘You pretend to be a free spirit, a liberated lady, but in truth you’re the most conservative one of us.’

  Rage swept through her like a red-hot flood.

  ‘What the hell do you mean?’

  ‘You flaunt your liberated relationship, how you and your boyfriend share a bed and have a child without any strings attached, acting like some kind of role model, letting the tabloids into your home …’

  The savageness of this attack cleared Anne’s mind, helping her make connections that she’d missed previously.

  ‘Holy shit,’ she said, her eyes wide. ‘You’re jealous too. Not only of Mehmed, who gets to be on TV, but it irks you that I was featured in the Sunday special as an example of the New Family. Poor Stefan.’

  ‘You’re out of your tiny little mind,’ he said. ‘I’m talking about duty, obligations, not letting others down …’

  ‘You were in love with Michelle,’ Anne murmured, taking a few steps closer to him. ‘You wanted to leave your wife and family for her, and she just laughed at you, didn’t she? All she really wanted was your respect, she wanted you to stop making fun of her in the control room, so she did the only thing she knew how to do, she used the only method she could think of, she screwed you and wrapped you around her little finger. But it all went wrong, didn’t it? You fell for her. Did you tell your wife? What did she say?’

  Axelsson had turned pale and stared at her with glassy eyes.

  ‘That’s … not what happened …’

  ‘Wasn’t it? Then why are you so damn bitter? You begrudge me a three-column picture spread in Kvällspressen and Mehmed his job as the host of a news show. He has degrees in law and journalism, and he’s a prizewinning journalist to boot – twice over! And you know as well as I do––’

  ‘Listen to me!’ Axelsson shouted, getting up with a strength that his lanky frame belied. ‘I saw you! I saw you by the bus at 3:15! What the hell were you doing there?’

  Speechless and breathless, Anne Snapphane stared at Stefan Axelsson.

  ‘Well, where were you at the time? And what were you doing?’ she asked.

  The technical director held up his hands.

  ‘Come on, people,’ Karin Bellhorn said in a voice that commanded attention. ‘That’s enough. Let’s all calm down. We’re talking without thinking. It’s up to the police to conduct the investigation. Being suspicious and blaming each other won’t do any good. What do you say?’

  They all looked in different directions, down at the floor, out through the windows, up at the ceiling or at the walls.

  ‘Today, all we’re going to do is take it nice and easy, discuss the upcoming memorial service on Tuesday and try to split up the work. For starters, does anyone need to see a psychologist? A therapist? A counsellor?’

  Everything had come to a standstill. Sebastian Follin stood in the doorway leading to the lounge, grey-suited and clutching a cup of coffee. Mariana von Berlitz, in a brazenly red dress, stood next to the sofa. Stefan Axelsson, in jeans and a sweatshirt, had rings of perspiration under his arms. The colour was slowly draining from Anne Snapphane’s face.

  ‘No takers? It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I think I’m going to talk to someone …’

  The producer closed her eyes for a moment and smoothed back her hair in an unconscious habitual gesture. Anne, her mind clouded by the heady quest for the truth, studied her for a few seconds. She realized that Karin Bellhorn was wearing much more make-up than usual. Her complexion was grey under the foundation. Her eyes had bags that no cosmetic in the world could conceal.

  She feels awful, Anne thought. She seems to be in the worst shape of us all.

  ‘Why are you acting like nothing’s happened?’ she said.

  Karin swallowed and tried to smile.

  ‘I just offered to get help––’

  ‘Shut up!’ Anne screamed, flinging out her arms so that Sebastian Follin’s cup smashed into the glass wall. ‘Michelle’s dead! She’s on a gurney at the Medical Examiner’s office, being cut to pieces, and one of us probably put her there!’

  The ensuing silence was deafening. The air had turned frosty. The drip, drip, drip of Sebastian’s coffee filled the room. Finally expressed, the words remained suspended in the air.

  Anyone. One of us.

  ‘Have you started without me?’

  Highlander came walking from the direction of the elevator, freshly showered and swinging his briefcase.

  ‘I’ve been talking to London, and we’ve come to an agreement.’

  He smiled, sat down on an office chair, put the briefcase in his lap and unlocked it with twin clicks. He pulled out some papers, closed his case with a bang and put the stack of papers on top of it.

  ‘We’re going to kick off with a long show commemorating Michelle,’ he continued, his voice level but light-hearted. ‘It will include clips from her entire career, feature guests with testimonials, friends telling about her deep commitment to … to whatever she was committed to. We can make it long, use entertainers and actors, maybe a poem or two, or a short play … Only use commercials Michelle would have approved of. How about John Essex, Karin? Do you think he would consider making an appearance?’

  The atmosphere was tense when the CEO of TV Plus paused. The foundation could no longer conceal Karin Bellhorn’s true complexion. No one could bear to look anyone else in the eye. Shoulders were tensed, throats were dry.

  ‘Highlander,’ Karin said in a weak voice. ‘Who dreamed this up? The Big Boss in London?’

  The CEO’s smile faltered but didn’t die.

  ‘I just want to move on,’ he said. ‘To take the next step.’

  ‘Not so fast,’ Karin said, getting up, her ample form swaying as she walked up to her boss. ‘We’ve been talking this over – how we saw Michelle, sharing our thoughts. What do you have to say?’

  His smile evaporated, leaving Highlander’s face as vulnerable as it had been the day before. Sweat beaded his forehead, soaking his bangs.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About Michelle!’ Karin Bellhorn exclaimed.

  ‘Now calm down,’ he said. ‘All I want to do is make the best of this situation.’

  ‘He fired Michelle,’ Karin informed the others, pointing at Highlander and looking each of her associates in the eye, one by one. ‘He fired her after the last show was taped, and now he’s pretending that it didn’t happen.’

  Mariana von Berlitz got up slowly, her stare fixed on Highlander.

  ‘So that was it,’ she said. ‘That’s why Michelle was going to say––’

  ‘Shut up!’ Highlander shouted, trying to get up. But the briefcase in his lap stopped him.

  ‘She was going to say that the two of you had been involved,’ Mariana continued, unstoppable. ‘And we know what would have happened to you then.’

  Silence descended on the group again, with even greater force this time. Highlander had been kicked upstairs when his predecessor had had to leave quite suddenly. The reason for this quick exit was that numerous people had caught th
e man concerned in the act of having sex with one of the network’s celebrities during a Christmas party.

  Anne Snapphane stared at the CEO’s sticky hair and sensed his anguish, his fear of being caught beyond the pale.

  ‘She was lying,’ Highlander managed to say. ‘I would never, ever …’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Mariana said in a flat voice. ‘She would have gone to the press and that would have been the end of you.’

  Moisture dripped down the inside of the kitchen windows. The potatoes for Sunday’s lunch were boiling like mad and no one had turned down the heat.

  Thomas hurried over to the stove, as if it would make a difference. He yanked the saucepan off the hotplate and lifted the lid. Nearly all the water had evaporated and the fluffy new potatoes were partially burnt, sticking to the bottom of the pan. He swore under his breath. Somehow this would turn out to be his fault.

  ‘Oh dear! Thomas, what’s going on?’

  Leaning hard on her cane, his mother limped into the kitchen. There it was, more veiled criticism, now that she’d been so busy with the children and all.

  ‘Someone put on the potatoes and forgot all about them,’ Thomas said as he scraped the contents of the pot into the recycling bin for organic matter. ‘Are there any more potatoes?’

  ‘Now they won’t be ready on time,’ his mother complained as she sank down heavily on a chair by the kitchen table. ‘Could you set the table, Thomas?’

  ‘Sure,’ he replied, sticking his head into the pantry and locating a bag of tiny golden new potatoes. Under a stream of cold water, he scrubbed them in the sink and tossed them into the pan. ‘How many for lunch?’

  ‘Eleonor and Martin have left, but Sverker will be here. Where are the kids?’

  ‘They’re with Holger, in the boat.’

  ‘Goodness, are they with Holger? Are they wearing life jackets?’

  Her hands fluttered with worry. Thomas forced himself to remain calm.

  ‘Yes, they are, Mother. Just you rest. Which plates would you like me to use?’

  ‘Take the East India set, it’s a summer lunch. Have you checked the roast? It should only reach seventy-five degrees, you know.’

  ‘Yes, Mother …’

  He grabbed a pot-holder, opened the oven door and saw that the meat thermometer setting had reached ninety-two degrees.

  ‘It’s done,’ he said whipping out the thermometer and rinsing it quickly with some cold water. ‘Would you like me to make some gravy?’

  ‘Yes, please, dear. And fix the salad too …’

  Thomas set the roast on the range to cool off a bit. The burnt bits could be trimmed away. Next, he added water to the baking dish, then transferred the pan drippings to a saucepan, thickened the mixture with cream and corn starch, then added beef stock, thyme and garlic.

  ‘You’ve turned into quite a good cook, Thomas,’ his mother said.

  ‘I always have been,’ Thomas said as he selected some vegetables from the fridge.

  His mother didn’t answer. She studied him with weary eyes from her vantage point by the kitchen table.

  ‘I wish I could help you out more,’ she said as he drizzled olive oil over the salad.

  ‘I’m almost done,’ he said.

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  He sighed gently and put down the bottle of olive oil.

  ‘Mom,’ he said. ‘I’m fine. I don’t need to be saved.’

  The old woman slowly shook her head.

  ‘Thomas,’ she said, ‘the one who always has to do everything his own way. Sometimes I’m afraid that you’re in over your head.’

  His adrenalin level rising, Thomas put down the balsamic vinegar with a bang.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘Only you seem to have so much to do, with the kids and the apartment, and all … By the way, do you know if you get to keep your job?’

  Thomas placed his palms on the counter, feeling the coolness of the slab radiate to his forearms. His breathing became more rapid.

  ‘No, but I might find out this coming week.’

  ‘Isn’t it peculiar that they don’t let you know such a thing in time?’ his mother said indignantly. ‘I mean, people have to be able to plan their lives. Particularly when you have a family.’

  He really shouldn’t have got angry. Her words could have been considerate and supportive, but he knew better.

  ‘If there’s something I really don’t need,’ he said in a rather aloof voice as he put the gravy boat on the table, ‘it’s to worry about unemployment.’

  ‘But how would you support yourself?’

  Her quavering voice expressed so much more than a fear of insufficient funds.

  ‘Well, Mother,’ he said cheerfully, ‘I might have to settle for a job as an accountant with Social Services again. That wouldn’t be so bad, now would it?’

  He knew that his mother would love to see him back at a nice secure job like that, particularly in affluent Vaxholm, in a position as the chief financial officer, the man in charge of public funds.

  ‘Jobs like that don’t grow on trees, you know,’ she said, a bit indignantly.

  Thomas laughed.

  ‘If you only knew what offers I’ve had.’

  ‘You don’t have to pretend, Thomas.’

  Something burst inside him, all the countless dammed-up protests he’d suppressed, and he was suddenly livid, slamming the roast on the table so that the china rattled. He shouted:

  ‘I’m satisfied with my life! I love my children and I love Annika. She’s real, not a dried-up old pussy like Eleonor …’

  ‘Watch your language!’ his mother said, shocked.

  ‘Why should I?’ he roared. ‘You never think before you speak, you say whatever you damn well please. Haven’t you noticed how much you hurt Annika with your carping? When you compare her to Eleonor? When you compare our apartment to the house? When you talk about our vacations? You criticize our kids, too – they’re never good enough for you, are they? Because Annika is their mother and not Eleonor. Well, guess what, Mother? She didn’t want to have any! Eleonor didn’t want to have kids! I never would, have been a dad, and you wouldn’t have been a grandmother …’

  The colour had drained from his mother’s face. Her cheeks were ashen and she clutched at her chest as she tried to get up.

  ‘I think …’ she stammered. ‘I think … I’d better go and lie down …’

  Thomas caught her as she fell, supporting her around the waist.

  ‘Holger!’ he shouted. “Holger!’

  ‘What a ruckus,’ his brother said from the hallway. Holger looked into the kitchen, quickly assessed the situation, and rushed to his mother’s side. The two of them carried their mother to the living room and set her down on the sofa. Holger’s partner Sverker, a physician, bent over the older woman to check her pulse and her breathing.

  ‘What happened?’ he said.

  ‘We … had an argument,’ Thomas said, suddenly dizzy and faint.

  His mother made a gesture in the air with one hand. Her eyelids fluttered and she moaned.

  ‘You’ve got to be careful, you know,’ Sverker said, not bothering to conceal his disapproval.

  Thomas walked past his children and headed outdoors, into the rain.

  The phone receiver had become all slippery with perspiration. Annika dried her ear off between two calls.

  ‘It wasn’t like she wasn’t smart. On the contrary. Restless, maybe, and a bit too loud. But I never would have dreamed that she would buy into the white-supremacy movement.’

  Annika took notes as she listened to Hannah Persson’s junior high school teacher describe the girl: her solid family background, the brother who became a skinhead, her inability to concentrate and the lack of social skills that isolated her from the other girls.

  ‘I think she wanted attention,’ her teacher said. ‘She wanted to be acknowledged and get some kind of response, and you know what they say, if you can
’t be loved, you crave admiration; if you can’t be admired, you demand respect; if you aren’t respected, you choose to be feared …’

  ‘That’s no excuse,’ Annika said.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ the teacher said. ‘But it could be an explanation.’

  Hannah Persson’s classmates were less charitable and the conversations were less pleasant in tone. ‘Bland,’ one person said. ‘So needy that she seemed spineless. A loner that nobody bullied – she acted out without inspiring others to join in.’

  She was dismissed as stupid by one of the boys in her class.

  ‘Ugly as sin,’ said another.

  ‘A royal pain,’ one of the girls declared.

  Annika studied the class picture taken in ninth grade, the only old picture of the neo-Nazi girl that the newsroom staff had been unable to unearth. A tiny girl with a slouch, a grinning mouth and frightened eyes. She compared it to the picture that Bertil Strand had taken yesterday; in just a few years Hannah’s face had gained character and definition. If it hadn’t been for the disfiguring swastika, she might even have been pretty. She stood tall and there was a challenging expression in her eyes.

  Well then, she found herself an identity, Annika thought. Anything’s better than being homeless.

  The girl had studied various subjects in high school, but had quit school without graduating. At present she was the secretary of the Katrineholm Nazi Party. She was listed as residing at her mother’s address, but she probably didn’t live there. As far as anyone knew, she didn’t have a boyfriend. Somehow she had got hold of a replica of an antique revolver made in the US.

  Berit had already completed her presentation of the neo-Nazi movement in Sweden today and was reading a fax as she walked up to Annika.

  ‘TV Plus sent over an invitation to a press conference and memorial service for Michelle Carlsson on Tuesday, 26 July, in the conference room over at Zero Television. At this time we will be notified as to the airing of Summer Frolic at the Castle and other programmes pertaining to Michelle Carlsson’s career in journalism. This event will be broadcast live on TV Plus.’

  Annika rolled her eyes.

  ‘I’ve been talking to the DA,’ Berit said, lowering the fax. ‘She’s lifting the impound order on the bus and its equipment – the cameras and tapes and all that.’