Studio Sex

by Liza Marklund

  The reporters and photographers stopped staring at her and resumed chatting among themselves. Annika noted that Bertil Strand was organizing an ice cream run.

  She threw her bag across her shoulder and slowly approached her colleagues, who didn’t seem to be paying her any attention now. Apart from the reporter from the rival tabloid, a middle-aged man who had his picture byline next to his stories, she didn’t recognize a single one of them. There was a young woman with a tape recorder marked Radio Stockholm; two photographers from two different picture agencies; the Rival’s photographer; and three other reporters that she couldn’t place at all. No TV teams were present— the public television local news only did a five-minute broadcast a day during the summer, and the local commercial stations only did agency stories. The morning broadsheets would probably get pics from the agencies and supplement with TT copy. The public radio news show Eko hadn’t sent anyone, nor would they, she knew that. One of Annika’s former colleagues at the local paper where she normally worked had been employed there as a casual one summer. Contemptuously, she had explained to Annika, “We leave murders and that kind of thing to the tabloids. We’re not scavengers.”

  Already, back then, Annika had realized that this statement said more about her colleague than about Eko, but sometimes she wondered. Why shouldn’t public radio find the curtailed life of a young woman worth covering? She couldn’t understand it.

  The rest of the people lining the cordons were curious passersby.

  She slowly moved past and away from the group. The police— both the Krim, the criminal investigation department, and the forensic people— were busy inside the fence. No ambulance was in sight. She looked at her watch: seventeen minutes past one. Twenty-five minutes since she had received the tip-off on Creepy Calls. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do next. It didn’t seem like a good idea to talk to the police now; they’d only get annoyed at her. She realized that they didn’t know much yet, not who the woman was, how she’d died, or who’d done it.

  She moved toward Drottningholmsvägen. There was a wedge of shade next to the houses on the west side of Kronobergsgatan; she went over and leaned against the wall. It was rough and hot. It was only fractionally cooler here and the air still burned her throat. She was thirsty beyond belief and pulled out the Pepsi bottle from her bag. The screw top had leaked and the bottle was tacky, making her fingers stick to the label. Damn this heat!

  She drank the warm, sugary liquid and then hid the bottle in a doorway among some bags with newspapers left out for recycling.

  The reporters over by the police line had moved to the opposite side of the street. They had to be waiting for Bertil Strand. For some reason, the situation made her sick. Ten yards away, the flies were buzzing around a dead body while the media people were looking forward to their ice cream.

  Her gaze wandered over the park. Its steep, grassy hills were dotted with clumps of large trees. From her place in the shade she could distinguish lime, beech, elm, and birch. Some of the trees were huge; others were newly planted. The trees growing among the graves were mainly gigantic lime.

  I’ve got to have something more to drink, she thought.

  She sat down on the sidewalk and leaned her head against the wall. Something had to happen soon. She couldn’t stay here much longer.

  She looked at the media scrum; it was beginning to thin out. The girl from Radio Stockholm was gone and Bertil Strand had returned with the ice cream. Berit Hamrin was nowhere in sight; Annika wondered where she’d disappeared to.

  I’ll wait for another five minutes, she thought. Then I’ll go and buy something to drink before I start talking to the neighbors.

  She attempted to conjure up a map of Stockholm in her head, placing herself on it. This was the heart of Stockholm, the stony city within the old tollgates. She looked at the fire station to the south. It lay on Hantverkargatan, her own street. She lived only about half a mile away from here, on Kungsholms Square, at the back of the block of a building scheduled for renovation. Still, she’d never been here. Underneath her lay Fridhemsplan’s subway station; if she concentrated, she could just about feel the trains’ vibrations spreading through the concrete and asphalt. Straight in front she could see a ventilation shaft for the tunnels, a urinal, and a park bench. Maybe the guy who phoned in the tip sat there speeding in the hot sun with the pal who later went to take a piss. Why didn’t he use the urinal? Annika asked herself. She thought about it for a while and eventually went over to take a look. When she opened the door, she knew why. The stench inside was absolutely unbearable. She recoiled and quickly shut the door.

  A woman with a stroller came walking from the playground toward Annika. The child in the stroller was holding a bottle containing a red liquid. Puzzled, the mother looked at the cordon along the sidewalk.

  “What happened?” she asked Annika.

  Annika straightened up and hoisted her bag higher up on her shoulder. “The police have cordoned off the area.”

  “I can see that. Why?”

  Annika hesitated. She glanced over to the other reporters and saw that they were watching her. She quickly moved a few steps closer to the woman.

  “There’s a dead woman in there,” she said quietly, and pointed at the cemetery. The woman turned pale.

  “No kidding?”

  “Do you live around here?”

  “Yes, just around the corner. We went down to Rålambshov Park, but the place was so crowded you couldn’t sit down, so we came here instead. Is she in there now?”

  The woman craned her neck and tried to see in between the lime trees. Annika nodded.

  “Jesus, that’s so creepy!” the woman exclaimed, and looked at Annika with big eyes.

  “Do you often come this way?”

  “Sure, every day. My son, Skruttis, goes to playgroup in the park.”

  The woman couldn’t tear her eyes away from the cemetery. Annika watched her for a few moments.

  “Did you hear anything out of the ordinary last night or this morning? Any cries in the park or stuff like that?”

  The woman pushed out her lower lip, gave it some thought, and then shook her head. “This neighborhood is always quite noisy. During the first few years I used to wake up every time the fire brigade turned out, but not anymore. Then there’s the drunks down on Sankt Eriksgatan. Not the winos that live in the hostel— they’re knocked out long before nighttime— but the regular drinkers going home. They can keep you awake all night. But the worst is the ventilation system at McDonald’s. It’s on all night and it’s driving me insane. How did she die?”

  “No one knows yet,” Annika said. “So there were no screams, no one crying for help or anything?”

  “Oh, sure there were. There’s always a lot of bawling around here on Friday nights. Here you go, honey…”

  The child had dropped its bottle and was whining; the mother picked it up and put it back in his hands. She nodded toward Bertil Strand and the others. “Are they the hyenas?”

  “Yep. The guy with the ice cream cone’s my photographer. And I’m Annika Bengtzon from Kvällspressen.”

  She held out her hand and the two women shook hands. Despite her contemptuous remark, the woman seemed impressed.

  “I’m Daniella Hermansson. Pleased to meet you. Are you going to write about this?”

  “Yes, or somebody else at the paper will. Do you mind if I take some notes?”

  “No, go ahead.”

  “Can I quote you?”

  “I spell it with two l’s and two s’s— just like it sounds.”

  “So you say it’s always noisy around here?”

  Daniella Hermansson stood on tiptoe and tried to peek at Annika’s notepad. “Oh, yeah, extremely noisy, especially on the weekend.”

  “So if someone were to cry for help, no one would react?”

  Daniella Hermansson pushed out her lower lip again and shook her head. “It would depend a bit on what time it was. By four, half past five, it calms dow
n. Then it’s just the ventilation system making a noise. I sleep with the window open all the year round— it’s good for the skin. But I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Do your windows face the front or the back?”

  “Both. We’re in the corner apartment on the third floor there. The bedroom faces the back, though.”

  “And you walk past here every day, you say?”

  “Yes, I’m still on maternity leave, and all the mothers in my parenting group meet in the playground every morning. But, darling…”

  The child had finished the red liquid and was howling like a siren. His mother bent down and with practiced movements put her middle finger down the back of the child’s diaper, then pulled the finger out and smelled it.

  “Whoops. It’s time for us to go home. A new diaper and a little snooze, eh, Skruttis?”

  Skruttis fell silent as he found a ribbon from his hat to chew on.

  “Could we take your picture?” Annika quickly asked.

  Daniella Hermansson’s eyes grew wide. “My picture? You’re kidding?” She laughed and pulled her hand through her hair.

  Annika looked her straight in the eye. “The woman lying in that cemetery has probably been murdered. We feel it’s important to give an accurate description of the neighborhood. I live down on Kungsholms Square myself.”

  Daniella Hermansson’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Murdered? Jesus Christ! Here, on our block?”

  “No one knows exactly where she died, only that her body was discovered here.”

  “But this is such a good neighborhood,” Daniella Hermansson said, and bent down to pick up her son. The boy lost his ribbon and began howling again. Annika held on to her bag and started walking over to Bertil Strand. “Wait here,” she said to Daniella over her shoulder.

  The photographer was busy licking the inside of the ice cream wrapper when Annika reached him.

  “Can you come with me for a moment?” she said quietly.

  Bertil Strand slowly scrunched up the wrapper in a ball and pointed to the man next to him. “Annika, this is Arne Påhlson, reporter at the Rival. Have you met?”

  Annika cast down her eyes, held out her hand, and mumbled her name. Arne Påhlson’s hand was moist and warm.

  “Have you finished your ice cream?” Annika asked tartly.

  Bertil Strand’s suntan got one shade darker. He didn’t like being rebuked by someone who wasn’t even on the staff of the paper. Instead of replying, he just bent down and picked up his backpack. “Where are we going?”

  Annika turned around and walked back to Daniella. Annika glanced up at the cemetery; the plainclothes police were still there talking to each other. The child was still bawling, but his mother wasn’t paying him any attention. She was busy painting her lips with a lipstick from a little light green box with a mirror on the inside of the lid.

  “So how does it feel to find out that a dead woman’s lying outside your bedroom window?” Annika asked with her pen poised on the pad.

  “Awful,” Daniella said. “I mean, all the nights my girlfriends and I have returned home after a night out. It could have been any one of us.”

  “Will you be more careful now?”

  “Definitely,” Daniella said without hesitation. “I’ll never walk through that park at night again. Sweetheart, what’s the matter now?”

  Daniella bent down to pick up her boy again. Annika took notes and felt the hair on her neck stand on end. This was quite good, actually. It might even make a headline if she cut it a bit.

  “Thanks a million,” she said quickly. “Can you look at Bertil? What’s your boy’s name? How old is he? How old are you? And how would you like us to refer to you?… ‘On maternity leave.’ Okay. Maybe you shouldn’t look quite so happy…”

  Daniella Hermansson’s practiced movie-star smile, the one she probably adopted for all holiday and Xmas snaps, faded. Instead, she looked confused and lost. Bertil Strand was snapping away, circling the woman and her child with short, cautious dance steps.

  “Can I call you later if anything comes up? What’s your phone number? And the code for the door from the street? You know, just in case.”

  Daniella Hermansson put the child in the stroller and walked off alongside the police cordon. To her annoyance, Annika saw Arne Påhlson from the Rival stop the woman as she walked past. Luckily, the child was by now howling so badly that the woman wouldn’t wait for a second interview. Annika breathed again.

  “Don’t try to teach me my job,” Strand said to Annika.

  “Fine. But tell me, what would have happened if they’d taken the body away while you were busy buying ice cream for the competition?”

  Bertil Strand gave her a contemptuous look. “In the field we’re not competitors. Out here we’re colleagues.”

  “I think you’re wrong. We lose out if we hunt as a pack. We ought to keep more to ourselves, all of us.”

  “No one would gain anything by that.”

  “Well, I think it would help our credibility with our readers.”

  Bertil Strand swung the cameras onto his shoulder. “Well, thanks for telling me. I’ve only been at the paper for fifteen years.”

  Shit! Annika thought as the photographer walked back to his “colleagues.” Why can’t I ever keep my big mouth shut?

  She suddenly felt dizzy and weak. I’ve got to get something to drink, and fast, she thought. To her great relief, she saw Berit walking toward her from the direction of Hantverkargatan.

  “Where have you been?” Annika called out, moving in her direction.

  “I went back to the car to make some calls. I ordered up the cuttings on the other murder and had a chat with a few police contacts.”

  In vain, Berit was trying to cool herself by waving her hand in front of her face. “Anything happen?”

  “I talked to a neighbor. That’s all.”

  “Have you had anything to drink? You look a bit pale.”

  Annika wiped the sweat from her brow. Suddenly she felt close to tears. “I really stuck my foot in it with Bertil Strand just now,” she said in a subdued voice. “I said that we shouldn’t mingle with our competitors at a crime scene.”

  “I agree with you. Bertil Strand doesn’t, I know that. He can be a bit difficult to work with sometimes, but he’s a good photographer. Why don’t you go and get something to drink? I’ll hold the fort.”

  Annika gratefully left Kronobergsgatan and walked down along Drottningholmsvägen. She was in line to buy a bottle of mineral water in the kiosk on Fridhemsplan when she saw the ambulance turn left on Sankt Göransgatan and head for the park.

  “Shit!” she cried out, and ran straight out into the traffic, forcing a taxi to slam on the brakes. She crossed Sankt Eriksgatan and headed back to the park. She thought she was going to faint before she reached it.

  The ambulance had stopped at the top of Sankt Göransgatan; a man and a woman got out.

  “Why are you so out of breath?” Berit asked.

  “The car! The body!” Annika panted, bending over with her hands on her knees, gasping for air.

  Berit sighed. “The ambulance will be here for a while. The body isn’t going to disappear. Don’t worry— we won’t miss anything.”

  Annika dropped her bag onto the sidewalk and straightened up. “I’m sorry.”

  Berit smiled. “Go and sit down in the shade. I’ll go and buy you something to drink.”

  Annika slunk away and sat down. She felt like an idiot. “I didn’t know,” she mumbled. “I don’t know how this works.”

  She sat down on the sidewalk and leaned against the wall again. The ground burned her through her thin skirt.

  The man and the woman from the ambulance were waiting inside the cordon, just inside the entrance to the cemetery. Three men remained inside the iron fence. Annika guessed that two of them were forensic people and the third one a photographer. They moved with great care, bending over, picking things up, straightening up. She was too far away to see exactly
what they were doing.

  A few minutes later Berit returned with a big, ice-cold Coke. Annika unscrewed the top and drank so quickly that the bubbles rose the back way and came out of her nose. She coughed and spluttered, spilling Coke on her skirt.

  Berit sat down next to her and took out a bottle of her own from her bag.

  “What are they doing in there?” Annika asked.

  “Securing evidence. They use as few people as possible and move around as little as they can. Usually there’s only two crime scene technicians and maybe an investigator from Krim.”

  “Could that have been the guy in the Hawaiian shirt?”

  “Maybe,” Berit said. “If you look closely, you’ll see that one of the technicians is holding his hand close to his mouth. He’s using a Dictaphone, recording everything he sees at the scene. It could be an exact description of the position of the body, the way the clothes are creased. Things like that.”

  “She wasn’t wearing any clothes.”

  “Maybe the clothes were scattered around, they record that kind of thing too. When they’ve finished, the body will be moved to the forensic medical unit in Solna.”

  “For autopsy?”

  Berit nodded. “The technicians will stay behind and comb the whole park. They’ll go over it inch by inch to secure any traces of blood, saliva, hairs, fibers, semen, footprints, tire imprints, fingerprints— anything you can think of.”

  Annika watched the men inside the fence in silence. They were leaning over the body; she could see their heads bob up and down against the background of the gray tarpaulin. “Why did they cover the fence instead of the body?”

  “They don’t cover up the body at the scene of a crime unless it’s going to rain or snow. It’s all about evidence; they’re trying to disturb the area as little as possible. The screen is only to shut the place off from people’s view. It makes sense.”

  Then, suddenly, the technicians and the photographer all stood up.

  “It’s time,” Berit said.

  All the journalists got up simultaneously. Everybody went up to the cordon as if at a given signal. The photographers all loaded the cameras that hung around their necks. A few new journalists had joined the group; Annika counted five photographers and six reporters. One of them, a young guy, had a laptop marked TT, the news agency, and a woman was holding a notepad with the logo of the broadsheet Sydsvenskan on it.