“Anything else?”
Berit thought about it for a moment. “They’ve always maintained that the foreign and domestic archives were destroyed at the same time and that there are no copies. We know that at least half of that is untrue.”
Annika looked closely at Berit. “How did you get the Speaker to admit to his dealings with IB?”
Berit rubbed her forehead and sighed. “The force of reason,” she said coyly.
“Can you tell me?”
Berit sat in silence for a while. She put two lumps of sugar in her coffee and stirred it.
“The Speaker has always refused to admit that he knew Birger Elmér,” she said in a low voice. “He claimed he hadn’t even met him. But I know that’s not true.”
She fell silent; Annika waited.
“In the spring of 1966,” Berit said at length, “the Speaker, Ingvar Carlsson, and Birger Elmér met in the Speaker’s home in Nacka. The Speaker’s wife was also present. They had dinner, and the conversation turned to the fact the Speaker and his wife didn’t have any children. Elmér thought the two should adopt, which they later did. I told the Speaker I knew about this meeting, and that’s when he began to talk.”
Annika stared at Berit. “How the hell do you know that?”
“I can’t tell you. You understand.”
Annika leaned back in her chair. It was mind-boggling. Jesus H. Christ! Berit had to have a source within the party leadership.
Neither woman spoke for a long time. They could hear the rain thundering outside.
“Where were the archives held before they disappeared?” Annika asked eventually.
“The domestic archive was at twenty-four Grevgatan and the foreign one at fifty-six Valhallavägen. Why do you ask?”
Annika had taken out a pen and paper and was writing down the addresses. “Maybe it wasn’t the Social Democrats themselves that made sure that the archives disappeared.”
“How do you mean?”
Annika didn’t reply and Berit crossed her arms. “Hardly anybody knew that the archives existed, let alone where they were kept.”
Annika leaned forward. “The copy of the foreign archives was found in the incoming mail at the Defense Staff Headquarters, right?”
“Right. The parcel arrived at their printing and distribution office. It was registered, entered in the daybook, and classified. The documents were not considered secret.”
“What day did they arrive?”
“Seventeenth of July.”
“Where did they arrive from?”
“The official record didn’t say. The sender was anonymous. It could have come from any dusty government department.”
“But why would they want to be anonymous in this case?”
Berit shrugged. “Maybe they found the documents deep inside an old storeroom and didn’t want to admit to having them all these years.”
Annika groaned, yet another dead end.
They sat in silence for a while and looked at the other customers in the restaurant. A couple of men in overalls were having an evening pizza. Two women were noisily drinking beer.
“Where were the documents when you looked at them?” Annika wondered.
“They’d just arrived at the archives.”
Annika smiled. “You’ve got friends everywhere.”
Berit returned her smile. “Always be nice to telephone operators, secretaries, registry clerks, and archivists.”
Annika emptied her glass. “And there was nothing that indicated where the documents came from?”
“No. They were delivered in two big sacks.”
Annika raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean, ‘sacks’? Like potato sacks?”
Berit sighed lightly. “I didn’t really pay much attention to what they were. I was interested in their contents. It was one of my all-time best tip-offs.”
Annika smiled. “I believe you. What did the sacks look like?”
Berit looked at her for a few seconds. “Now that you mention it, there was something printed on the sacks.”
“You didn’t see what it said?”
Berit closed her eyes, pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, and sighed, then rubbed her forehead and licked her lips.
“What?”
“It could have been a courier’s bag.”
“What the heck is a courier’s bag?”
“Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, there’s an article that deals with inviolability of the communication between a state and its foreign missions. Article twenty-seven, I think. The diplomatic mail is sent in a special bag that is immune to inspection. Diplomatic couriers carry the bags through customs. It could have been one of those.”
Annika felt the hair on her neck stand on end. “How could it have ended up at the Defense Staff Headquarters?”
Berit shook her head. “A Swedish courier bag would never be sent there. They always travel between the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the various embassies around the world.”
“But what if it were foreign?”
Berit shook her head. “No. I think I must be mistaken. Swedish courier bags are blue with yellow lettering and it says ‘Diplomatic’ on them. This was gray with red lettering. I really didn’t pay attention to what it said, I was trying to get an idea of how comprehensive the archive material was, whether it contained any original documents. Unfortunately there weren’t any.”
They were silent for a while.
Annika looked at her former colleague. “How do you know about all these things? Sections and conventions…”
Berit smiled at her. “You get to write about most things over the years. Some of it sticks.”
Annika’s gaze traveled out through the window. “But it could have been a foreign courier’s bag?”
“And it could have been a potato sack.”
“Can you see where this is heading?”
“Where?” Berit didn’t think it was going anywhere.
“I’ll tell you when I know for sure. Thanks for talking to me!”
Annika gave Berit a quick hug, opened her umbrella, and braved the rain.
Nineteen Years, Four Months, and Thirty Days
He can sense the chasm like a shooting sensation in the dark; he’s walking on the edge without being aware of the abyss. It’s manifested in desperate demands and hard lips. He licks me and sucks until my clitoris is big as a plum, maintaining that I cry from pleasure and not pain. The swelling remains for days, rubbing when I move.
I’m groping my way. The darkness is so vast. Depression hangs like a gray dampness inside me, impossible to exhale. My tears lie just below the surface, constantly present, unreliable, harder and harder to keep in check. Reality shrinks, contracted from the pressure and the cold.
My only source of warmth is spreading icy brutality at the same time.
And he says
he will never
let me go.
Wednesday 5 September
You can’t fucking live here. No hot water, not even a damned toilet! When are you going to come home?”
Sven was sitting in the kitchen eating yogurt, dressed only in his briefs.
“Put some clothes on,” Annika said, tightening the sash around her dressing gown. “Patricia’s sleeping in there.”
She walked over to the stove and poured herself some coffee.
“Yeah, and what the hell is she doing here?”
“She needed a place to stay. I had a room available.”
“That stove, it’s lethal. You’ll set fire to the entire building.”
Annika sighed inwardly. “It’s a gas stove, it’s no more dangerous than an electric one.”
“Bullshit,” Sven said truculently.
Annika didn’t reply, just drank her coffee in silence.
“Hey, listen,” Sven said in a conciliatory voice after a couple of minutes. “Stop what you’re doing and come back home. You’ve had a go at it here and you can see it’s not working. You�
��re not a big-time reporter, you don’t belong in this city.”
He got to his feet, walked behind her chair, and started massaging her shoulders.
“But I love you anyway,” he whispered, leaning forward and biting her earlobe. His hands slipped down along her neck and gently cradled her breasts.
Annika got up and poured out her coffee in the sink. “I’m not coming back yet,” she said warily.
Sven gave her a penetrating look. “What about your job? You’re going back to Katrineholms-Kuriren again after the election, right?”
She drew a sharp breath and swallowed. “I’ve got to get going. I’ve got things to do.”
She quickly left the kitchen and got dressed.
Sven stood in the doorway watching her while she put on a pair of jeans and a sweater. “What do you do during the day?”
“Find out about things.”
“You’re not seeing someone else?”
Annika’s arms fell down in a gesture of resignation. “Please. Even if you think I’m a terrible journalist, there are others who think I’m okay—”
He interrupted her by taking her in his arms. “I don’t think you’re terrible. On the contrary— I get mad when I hear them bad-mouthing you on the radio when I know how wonderful you are.”
They kissed fiercely and Sven started opening her zipper.
“No,” Annika said. “I’ve got to get going if I’m to—”
He shut her up with a kiss and moved her down onto the bed.
*
The archive of the highbrow broadsheet newspaper was located next door to the entrance of Kvällspressen. Annika walked quickly through the door, her eyes firmly on the ground. She didn’t want to bump into anyone she knew. She walked past the reception and in among the shelves. Three men were standing over by the microfilm desk and the big table. She put her bag on the small table.
Issue nine of Folket i Bild Kulturfront, 1973, that Berit had mentioned had come out at the beginning of May. Annika pulled out the file containing the broadsheet from April the same year and began looking through it. She had to admit it was a long shot. She tore out the note from her pad and put it in front of her.
Domestic archive, 24 Grevgatan.
Foreign archive, 56 Valhallavägen.
The newspaper pages were yellowed and torn in places. The print was tiny, no more than seven points, and hard to read. The editing was untidy. The fashion ads made her want to laugh out loud, people looked so silly in the early seventies.
But the subject matter of the articles felt surprisingly familiar. Millions of people were threatened with starvation in Africa; young people had difficulties fitting into the labor market; Lasse Hallström had made a new TV film called Are We Going to My Place, Your Place, or Each to Our Own?
The world ice hockey championships were in progress, it seemed, and Olof Palme had made a speech in Kungälv. Wars were being fought in Vietnam and Cambodia, and the Watergate scandal was unfolding in Washington. She sighed. Not a single line about what she was looking for.
She moved to the next file, from the April 16–30 to April 1–15.
Monday, April 2, was the same as every other. Guerrillas in Cambodia had attacked government forces in Phnom Penh. A Danish lawyer by the name of Mogens Glistrup was successful with a new one-man party called the Progressive Party. The former American attorney general John Mitchell had agreed to testify before a Senate committee. And then at the bottom left of page 17, next to the short item “Bright Aurora Borealis over Stockholm,” she found it:
“Mysterious BreakIn at Office Building.”
Annika’s pulse quickened, racing until it thudded through her head and filled the entire room.
According to the short piece, an office at 24 Grevgatan had been searched sometime during the weekend, probably Sunday night. But strangely, nothing was missing. All office equipment had been left untouched, but all cabinets and drawers had been gone through.
I know what was stolen, she thought. Good God, I know what disappeared!
She found the second item in Section 2, at the top left of page 34. An office in 56 Valhallavägen had been vandalized over the weekend. It was a short piece, squeezed in between a picture of Crown Prince Carl Gustaf, who had caught two trout in the Mörrum River, and a piece about Gullfiber AB in Billesholm closing down.
None of the paper’s editors had spotted a connection between the two breakins; maybe the police hadn’t either.
She copied the two pieces and put the file back on the shelf.
I’m on the right track, she thought.
She left the archive and took the 62 bus to Hantverkargatan.
*
Sven had left and Patricia was still asleep. Annika sat down with her pad and the phone in the living room.
What are the areas of responsibility of the minister for foreign trade? she wrote.
Trade and export, she thought. Promoting trade with other countries. What government department would pay for such travels? The Swedish Trade Council, she wrote.
What does Sweden export? Cars. Timber. Paper. Iron ore. Electricity. Nuclear power, perhaps?
The Nuclear Power Inspectorate, she wrote.
What else? Pharmaceuticals.
The National Board of Health and Welfare, she wrote.
Electronic products. Weapons.
Weapons? Yes, the arms export was the foreign trade minister’s responsibility.
The War Matériel Inspectorate, she wrote, and then looked at her list. These were the ones she could think of; there had to be lots of other departments that she didn’t know of.
What is there to think about? she said to herself, and looked up the Trade Council.
The information officer wasn’t available; some other woman took the call.
“We’re not a public authority. You can’t get any documents from us,” she said curtly.
“Are you sure? Do you think you could ask the information officer to call me later?” Annika gave her name and number.
“I’ll give him the message, but he’ll give you the same answer.”
Jerk, Annika thought.
Instead she looked up the Nuclear Power Inspectorate and noted that they were located at 90 Klarabergsviadukten. They were closed until 12:30. She couldn’t find the War Matériel Inspectorate, so she called directory assistance.
“They’ve changed names to the National Inspectorate of Strategic Products,” the operator informed her.
The registrar there was out to lunch. Annika sighed, put the pen down, and leaned back on the couch.
She might as well have something to eat.
*
Number 90 Klarabergsviadukten was a relatively new glass complex on the Kungsholm side of the bridge. Annika stood outside the entrance and read the list of companies and organizations housed there: the AMU Group; the National Environmental Protection Agency; the Nuclear Power Inspectorate; the Inspectorate of Strategic Products— ISP.
I can kill two birds with one stone, Annika thought.
She rang the bell for the Nuclear Power Inspectorate but got no reply. Instead she pushed the bell for the inspectorate with a new name, ISP.
“Block A, fifth floor,” a hesitant voice said in the loudspeaker.
She stepped out of the elevator on the fifth floor and saw herself in numerous versions in a hall of burnished steel mirrors. There was only the one door, for the ISP. She pushed the bell.
“Who are you here to see?” The blond woman who opened the door was friendly but reserved.
Annika looked around. It seemed to be a small and informal outfit with corridors leading in two directions. There was no reception desk, and the woman who had opened the door apparently occupied the room nearest to the door.
“My name is Annika Bengtzon,” Annika said nervously. “I’d like to have a look at an official document.”
The woman looked concerned. “Almost ninety percent of our documents are classified,” she said apologetically. “But you can always make
a request, and we’ll investigate whether we can hand over the document.”
Annika sighed quietly. Sure. She could have figured that out for herself.
“Do you have a registrar here?”
“Yes.” The woman pointed down the corridor. “She’s down that way, the second door from the end.”
“I don’t suppose you have an archive here, do you?“Annika prepared to leave.
“Oh, yes, we do.”
Annika stopped. “So travel-expenses invoices that are five, six weeks old— do you keep them here?”
“Yes, though not in the archive. I deal with the invoices. I keep them in my office so we can balance the books. I’m the one who books all trips. There are quite a lot of them, actually, as the ISP takes part in a number of international meetings.”
Annika looked at the woman closely. “Are the invoices secret?”
“No. They are part of the ten percent that we do hand out.”
“How often do cabinet ministers take part in these meetings?”
“To the extent that any cabinet ministers take part on behalf of the inspectorate, it’s usually the Ministry for Foreign Affairs who picks up the tab.”
“And what if the minister for foreign trade goes?”
“Well, then it’s the Ministry for Foreign Affairs that pays.”
“But he falls under the Ministry of Industry, Employment, and Communications.”
“Oh, right. Well, then the invoice should be sent there.”
“Would it always?”
The woman suddenly became more reticent. “Not quite always.”
Annika swallowed. “I was wondering if you received any invoices from Christer Lundgren from the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth of July this year.”
The woman gave Annika a searching look. “Yes, as a matter of fact we did get one.”
Annika blinked. “Could I have a look at it?”
The woman licked her lips. “I think I’d have to talk to my boss first.” She backed into her office.
“Why? You told me that travel-expenses invoices were official documents.”
“Yes, but this one was special.”
Annika could hear her pulse thunder in her ears. “In what way?”
The woman hesitated. “Listen. When the invoices from a cabinet minister turn up on your desk, especially without any warning, it’s a surprise.”
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