Studio Sex

by Liza Marklund

  Annika swallowed. “Daniella Hermansson?”

  Picture Pelle clicked a third time. A tense Daniella with the boy in her arms looking up toward the park with frightened eyes.

  “Great,” Annika said.

  ” ‘It could have been me,’” Picture Pelle said.

  “How did you know that’s what she said?” Annika said in surprise.

  “That’s what they always say,” Pelle said smugly.

  Annika walked on.

  The doors at the editorial end of the office were all shut. She had not seen the editor in chief today. Come to think of it, she had barely seen him all week. The subeditors hadn’t arrived yet. The men responsible for the layout of the paper usually turned up after seven in the evening, sunburned and drowsy after a long afternoon in the Rålambshov Park. They would start the night by guzzling two pints of black coffee each, rant about all the mistakes in yesterday’s paper, and then set to work. They would try out headlines, cut copy, and clatter away at their Macs until the paper went to print at six in the morning. Annika was a little scared of them. They were loud and brash, but their skill and professionalism were great. Many of them lived for the newspaper; they worked for four nights and had four off, year in, year out. The schedule rolled on over Christmas, Easter, and Midsummer Day, four off, four on. Annika didn’t know how they could stand it.

  She walked over to the empty sports desk. The Eurosports Channel was showing on a TV in a corner. She stopped in front of the large windows at the far end and stood gazing at the multistory garage opposite. The concrete looked as if it were steaming in the heat. If she put her face right up to the windowpane and looked to the left, she could just make out the Russian embassy. She leaned her forehead against the glass and marveled at how cool it was. Her sweat left a sticky patch on the pane and she tried to wipe it off with her hand. She drank the last of the mineral water. It tasted metallic. She slowly walked back across the newsroom floor, an intense feeling of happiness gradually spreading inside her.

  She was here. She’d been accepted. She was one of them.

  It’s going to work, she thought.

  *

  It was after three and time to call the police.

  “We don’t know enough yet,” came the terse answer from a lieutenant at the duty desk of the criminal investigation department, Krim. “Call the press officer.”

  The police press officer had nothing to say.

  The police communications center confirmed that they had dispatched patrol cars to Kronoberg Park, but she already knew that. The emergency services control room reconfirmed that they had received a police call from a private person at 12:48 P.M. There was no telephone subscription at the care-of address the tipster had given.

  Annika let out a sigh. She pulled out her pad and leafed through it. Her eyes landed on the fleet number of the Hawaiian detective’s car. She gave it a moment’s thought, then phoned the police communications center again. The car belonged to Krim at the Norrmalm precinct. She called there.

  “That car’s out on loan,” the officer on duty informed her after checking a list.

  “To whom?” Annika wondered, her pulse quickening.

  “Krim, the criminal investigation department— they haven’t got their own cars. There’s been a death on Kungsholmen today, you see.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard about that. Do you know anything about it?”

  “Not my turf. Kungsholmen’s in the Södermalm District. My guess is it’s already with Krim.”

  “The guy who borrowed the car has short blond hair and was wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Do you know who that is?”

  “That must be Q.”

  “Q?” Annika echoed.

  “That’s what he’s called. He’s a captain in the Krim. There’s another call coming in…”

  Annika thanked the officer and ended the call. She phoned the switchboard again.

  “I’d like to speak to Q in the Krim.”

  “Who?” the operator said, puzzled.

  “A captain called Q who works in the Krim.”

  She heard the operator groan. It was probably as hot there as it was at the paper.

  “One moment, please…”

  The signals went through. Annika was just about to hang up when someone answered in a gruff voice.

  “Is this the Krim?” she inquired.

  Another groan. “Yes, this is the Krim. What’s this about?”

  “I’m looking for Q.”

  “Speaking.”

  Bingo!

  “I wanted to apologize. My name is Annika Bengtzon. I ran into you today in Kronoberg Park.”

  The man sighed. She heard a scraping noise in the background, as if he was sitting down on a chair.

  “Which paper are you with?”

  “Kvällspressen. I’m covering over the summer. I’m not quite sure how you go about these things, how you communicate with the media. Back home in Katrineholm, I always call Johansson at Krim at three o’clock, he usually knows everything.”

  “Here in Stockholm you call the press officer.”

  “But you’re in charge of the investigation?” Annika chanced it.

  “So far, yes.”

  Yes!

  “No prosecutor?” Annika quickly asked.

  “There’s no need for that at this stage.”

  “So you don’t have a suspect.”

  The man didn’t confirm it, then said, “You’re smarter than you look. What are you getting at?”

  “Who was she?”

  He groaned again. “Listen, I told you to speak to the—”

  “He says he doesn’t know anything.”

  “Then you’ll have to content yourself with that for now.” He was getting annoyed.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to put pressure on you.”

  “Yes, you were. Now, I’ve got a lot—”

  “She had silicone breasts,” Annika said. “She wore heavy makeup and had been crying. What does that suggest?”

  The man stayed silent. Annika held her breath.

  “How do you know all that?” he asked. Annika could tell that he was surprised.

  “Well, she hadn’t been lying there for very long. The mascara was smeared, she had lipstick on her cheek. She must be at the forensic medical unit in Solna now, right? When will you tell me what you know?”

  “What makes you think she had silicone breasts?”

  “Ordinary breasts sort of float out to the side when you’re lying down. Plastic tits point straight up. It’s not that common on young girls. Was she a prostitute?”

  “No, absolutely not,” the police captain said, and Annika could hear him bite his tongue.

  “So you do know who she was! When will you publish the name?”

  “We’re not one hundred percent sure yet. She hasn’t been formally identified.”

  “But she will be soon? And what was wrong with her hand?”

  “Sorry, I haven’t got time now. Bye!”

  Q, the police captain in charge of the investigation, hung up. Not until the tone was in her ear did Annika realize she still didn’t know what his name was.

  *

  The minister shifted to fourth gear and sped into the Karlberg Tunnel. It was stifling hot inside the car, so he leaned forward and groped for the air-conditioning. The cooling system clicked on and turned to a hushed murmur. He let out a sigh. The road felt endless.

  At least it’ll cool down toward evening, he thought. He turned onto the North Circular and got in the lane for the tunnel leading to the E4. The different sounds of the vehicle echoed inside the car, becoming amplified and bouncing between the windows: the tires thundering against the asphalt road; the wheezing of the air-conditioning; a whining from a seal that wasn’t airtight. He switched on the radio to drown out the sounds. The blaring music on the P3 station filled the car. He looked at the digital clock on the dashboard: 17:53. Studio 69, the news and current affairs program, would be starting soon.

  A thought crossed
his mind: I wonder if I’m going to be on.

  His next thought: Of course not. Why would I be? They haven’t interviewed me.

  He moved over to the fast lane and overtook two French camper vans. The Haga North bus terminal flickered past, and he realized he was driving much too fast. That would be a pretty story, getting caught speeding, he reflected as he changed lanes. The vans filled his rearview mirror and hooted at his sudden braking.

  It was six o’clock, and he turned up the volume to listen to the Eko news. The U.S. president was concerned about the Middle East peace process. He had invited the parties for talks in Washington the next week. It wasn’t clear whether the Palestinian representatives would accept the invitation. The minister listened attentively; this could have repercussions for his own work.

  Then came a report from Gotland where a big forest fire was raging. Large areas of the eastern part of the island were threatened. The reporter interviewed a worried farmer. The minister noticed that his concentration was divided. He had passed the turnoff to Sollentuna— he hadn’t noticed driving past Järva Krog.

  Eko left Gotland and returned to the studio reporter. Air-traffic controllers were threatening industrial action; negotiations were going on and the deadline for the union representatives’ response to the employer’s latest offer was 7 P.M. A young woman had been found dead in Kronoberg Park in central Stockholm. The minister pricked up his ears and turned up the volume. There wasn’t much information, but signs indicated the woman had been murdered.

  Eko continued with a short piece on the former Social Democratic Party secretary who had written an op-ed article on the old IB affair in one of the broadsheets. There had been a scandal involving a clandestine intelligence outfit, the Information Bureau, in the service of the ruling Social Democratic Party. The minister got annoyed. Stupid old man! He should keep his mouth shut— they were in the middle of the election campaign.

  “We did it for the sake of democracy,” he heard the old party secretary say floridly over the radio. “We were all that stood between Sweden and the Marxist-Leninists.”

  The weather report followed. The high-pressure system would stay over Scandinavia for the coming five days. By now the water table was below normal in the whole country, and the risk of forest fires was high. The ban on the lighting of fires remained. The minister sighed.

  The studio reporter concluded the news bulletin just as the minister drove past the Rotebro Interchange and a hypermarket flashed by to the right. The minister waited for the howling electric-guitar signature tune of the current affairs program Studio 69, but to his surprise it didn’t come on. Instead they announced yet another program with hysterically shouting youths for hosts. Shit, it was Saturday. Studio 69 was only on Monday to Friday. Annoyed, he switched off the radio. The moment he did, his cell phone rang. Judging by the signal, it was somewhere deep inside a bag on the backseat. He cursed out loud and threw his right arm back. Swerving within his lane, he pulled the suitcase onto the floor and fished out the small overnight bag. A late-model, silver Mercedes beeped at him angrily as it drove past.

  “Capitalist swine,” the minister muttered.

  He turned the overnight bag upside down on the backseat and fished out the cell phone.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Karina. Hi.” His press secretary. “Where are you?”

  “What do you want?” he countered brusquely.

  “Svenska Dagbladet wants to know whether the new crisis in the Middle East peace talks will threaten the consignment of JAS fighter aircraft to Israel.”

  “That’s a trick question. We haven’t signed any contract for JAS deliveries to Israel.”

  “That’s not the question,” the press secretary said. “The question was whether the negotiations are threatened.”

  “The government won’t comment on potential negotiations with potential buyers of Swedish munitions or Swedish fighter aircraft. Lengthy negotiations with prospective buyers take place all the time and relatively seldom lead to any big purchases. In this case, there is no threat to any consignment, as there won’t be any— at least not to my knowledge.”

  The press secretary took down his words in silence.

  “Okay,” she then said. “Have I got this right? ‘The answer is no. No consignments are threatened, as no contract has been signed.’”

  The minister passed his hand over his tired brow. “No, no, Karina. That’s not at all what I said. I didn’t answer no. It’s an unanswerable question. Since there are no planned consignments, they can’t be threatened. Answering no to the question would mean that the consignments will be made.”

  Karina breathed quietly down the phone. “Maybe you should talk to the reporter yourself.”

  Goddamn it, he had to fire this woman. She was brain-dead. “No, Karina. It’s your job to formulate this in the appropriate manner so that my intention is conveyed with an accurate quotation. What do you think you’re being paid forty thousand kronor a month to do?”

  He switched off before she had time to reply. To be on the safe side, he turned off the phone and threw it into the bag.

  The silence was oppressive. Slowly, the sounds of the vehicle increased inside the car: the whining of the seal, the asphalt, the wheezing of the fan. Exasperated, he tore open his top two shirt buttons and turned on the radio again. He couldn’t stand the prank phone calls on P3 so he pressed a station at random and got Radio Rix. Some old hit rolled out of the speakers; one he recognized from his youth. He had some kind of memory related to this tune but couldn’t place it. Some girl, probably. He resisted an impulse to switch the radio off— anything was better than the racket the car was making.

  It was going to be a long night.

  *

  The subediting crowd tumbled in just before seven, noisy as ever. Their chief, Jansson, parked himself opposite Spike at the desk. Annika and Berit had just returned from the canteen— known as the Seven Rats— both having eaten beef stew.

  The food sat heavily with Annika and gave her a stomachache. The boisterous subs weren’t helping. She wasn’t getting anywhere with her calls. She couldn’t get hold of the tipster. The police press officer was kind and had the patience of a saint, but he didn’t know anything. She’d spoken to him three times during the afternoon. He didn’t know who the woman was, when or how she had died, or when he would find out. It all made Annika nervous and probably contributed to the stomachache.

  She had to find out something about the woman for the front page, or her name wouldn’t be getting on it either.

  “Take it easy,” Berit advised her. “We’ll get there. And tomorrow is another day. If we don’t get hold of the name, no one else will either.”

  Of course, TV2’s Rapport at 7:30 P.M. led with the Middle East crisis and the U.S. president’s appeal to resume the peace talks. The story lasted forever and was interspersed with questions to the Washington correspondent via satellite. Lengthy narratives in officialese were spread over agency footage from the intifada.

  Next came the Gotland forest fire, with exactly the same news assessment Eko had made. The aerial footage was undeniably stunning. First, they interviewed the director of the emergency-and-rescue services, a chief fire officer from Visby. Then they showed an impromptu press conference, and Annika smiled when she spotted Anne Snapphane jostling at the front with her tape recorder in the air. Last, they interviewed a worried farmer; Annika thought she recognized his voice from Eko.

  After the fire, there wasn’t much in the way of news. There was a labored piece on the election campaign’s making a false start. Annika thought they could have run this about six months ago. The Social Democratic prime minister, hand in hand with his new wife, was walking across the square in his Södermanland hometown. Annika smiled when she saw the sign of her old workplace in the background. The prime minister gave a brief comment to the former party secretary’s article about the IB affair.

  “It’s not an issue we want to drag with us into the twenty-fi
rst century,” he said wearily. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this matter. If the need arises, we shall order a review.”

  Then they’d dug out a feature they must have had on file. The public service network, Sveriges Television, had sent their masterly Russia correspondent to the Caucasus to report on the long and bloody conflict in one of the old Soviet republics there. This is the advantage of the silly season, Annika thought. They show things on the news programs that you’d never get to see normally.

  The aging president of the republic was interviewed. He surprised the reporter by answering the questions in Swedish.

  “I was posted in the Soviet embassy in Stockholm from 1970 to 1973,” he said with a strong accent.

  “Amazing,” Annika said.

  The president was deeply concerned. Russia was supplying the rebels with arms and ammunition, whereas he suffered under the international weapons embargo imposed on his country by a UN decree. He had been the target of repeated assassination attempts, and on top of all this he had a heart condition.

  “My country is suffering,” he said in Swedish, and stared straight into the camera. “Children are dying. This is wrong.”

  Christ, what a world, Annika thought, and went to get a mug of coffee. When she returned, the news program had moved on to the smaller domestic news items: a car crash in Enköping; a young woman found dead in Kronoberg Park in Stockholm; the strike among air-traffic controllers that had been averted after the union had accepted the final offer of the arbitrator. The bulletins were read in rapid succession, accompanied by nondescript archive footage. Some cameraman had apparently dragged himself over to Kungsholmen as a few seconds of blue-and-white police tape and park foliage appeared on the screen. That was all there was.

  Annika gave a sigh. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  *

  Patricia was cold. She hugged herself and pulled her feet up on the seat. A combination of exhaust fumes and pollen was being whisked around by the air-conditioning. She sneezed.

  “Have you got a cold?” the guy in the front passenger seat asked. He was kind of cute but he was wearing a hideous shirt. No style. She liked older guys, though; they were less eager.