‘Who was that on the phone?’ Helena Starke asked as she put the diary back in the drawer.
The chairman noted that she shut it firmly and turned a key to lock all the drawers.
‘A journalist, from the Evening Post. A woman. I don’t remember the name.’
Helena put the key in her jeans pocket.
‘Why did you tell her we haven’t been able to get hold of Christina?’
‘What was I supposed to say? That she doesn’t want to comment? That she’s in hiding? That would only make things worse.’
Danielsson held out his hands.
‘The question is,’ the woman said, standing so close to him that he could smell the alcohol still on her breath, ‘the real question is, where on earth is Christina? Why hasn’t she come to the office? Wherever she is, it must be somewhere where she isn’t able to get any news at all, mustn’t it? And where the hell could that be? Any ideas?’
‘Her place in the country?’
Helena Starke looked pityingly at him.
‘Oh, please! And that terrorism stuff you were going on about at the press conference wasn’t very smart, was it? What do you think Christina’s going to say about that?’
Evert Danielsson suddenly flared up: the huge sensation of failure felt suffocatingly unfair.
‘Well, that’s the conclusion we reached, isn’t it? You were there. I wasn’t the only one thinking it – quite the opposite. We agreed that we had to take the initiative and try to shape public opinion from the start.’
Helena turned and started walking towards the door.
‘It was just a touch embarrassing when the police were so eager to refute everything you said. You came over as hysterical and paranoid on television, and that wasn’t particularly attractive.’
She turned round, her hand on the door-handle.
‘Are you staying, or can I lock up?’
The chairman of the Olympic Committee left Christina Furhage’s office without a word.
12
The editorial meeting that evening took place round the editor-in-chief’s conference table. The main television news would be on in fifteen minutes and everyone apart from Jansson was present.
‘He’s on his way,’ Annika said. ‘He’s just …’
‘He’s just’ was the accepted way of explaining delays caused by all manner of problems: reporters who didn’t know what they were doing, or a reader who insisted on expressing their opinion over the phone right there and then. It could also mean going to the toilet or getting a cup of coffee.
The others sat round the table and waited. Annika went through her notes of the things she wanted to raise during the meeting. Her list wasn’t as long as Ingvar Johansson’s, who was handing round a sheet detailing all the jobs currently underway. The picture editor, Pelle Oscarsson, was on his mobile. The editor-in-chief was rocking on his heels and staring blindly at the silent television screen.
‘Sorry,’ the night-editor said as he rushed into the room with a mug of coffee in one hand and a mock-up of the paper’s layout in the other. He looked as though he’d only just got up, and had only had time for one huge mug of coffee so far. Predictably, he spilled some of the second one as he closed the door. Anders Schyman watched him with a sigh.
‘Okay,’ he said, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the table. ‘We might as well start with the Bomber. What have we got?’
Annika started talking before Ingvar Johansson leapt at the chance. She knew the news-editor was more than happy to run through everything, including the subjects she was responsible for. And she wasn’t about to let that happen this time.
‘As I see it, there’ll be four articles from us in the crime section,’ she said. ‘We can’t get away from the terrorism angle entirely. Evert Danielsson raised the issue at the press conference, even if the police are trying to tone it down. That’s really a story in itself. Because we’ve found out that Christina Furhage, the head of the Olympics, has received some sort of threat. Her only details on the national database list her via the tax office in Tyresö. And no one knows where she is right now, not even the people she works most closely with in the Olympics office. I’ll be writing that one.’
‘What’s your headline?’ Jansson asked.
‘Something like “Olympic Boss Threatened”, and a subheading quoting Danielsson, “This is an act of terrorism”.’
Jansson nodded approvingly.
‘Then we’ve got the basic story itself, of course; we’ll have to do that in detail. We could do that with arrows and text boxes round a picture of the damage. Patrik’s got that one. We’ve got shots of the stadium in daylight, both from the air and from the roof of the old light-bulb factory, haven’t we, Pelle?’
The picture editor nodded. ‘Yes, but I think the helicopter shots were better. I’m afraid the pictures from the roof are just too dark. I’ve tried to lighten them digitally, but the focus isn’t great. I think we’ll go with the aerial shots.’
Jansson wrote something on his mock-up of the layout. Annika could feel herself getting angry: useless bloody amateur Armani-photographer, incapable of getting the exposure or the focus right.
‘Who took the roof shots?’ Anders Schyman asked.
‘Olsson,’ Annika replied bluntly.
The editor-in-chief made a note.
‘What else?’
‘Who’s the victim? Male, female, old, young? Coroner’s report, forensic evidence from the police, what are the lines of inquiry mentioned by the Chief Prosecutor at the press conference? Berit and I will do that one together.’
‘What have we got so far?’ Schyman asked.
Annika sighed. ‘Nothing much, I’m afraid. We’ll give it a real go this evening. We’ll get something.’
The editor-in-chief nodded and Annika went on, ‘Then we’ve got the murder mystery, the hunt for the Bomber, the trail, the theories, the evidence. Who was the dark-clad man outside the stadium just before the explosion? What does the witness have to say about him? Patrik’s writing that. We haven’t got hold of the Tiger, but neither have the police. According to Lindström, he isn’t under suspicion, but that’s bullshit. They may well put out a national alert for him this evening or later on tonight, you’ll have to keep an eye on that. And of course there’s the whole Olympics angle, and you’re covering that, Ingvar …’
The news-editor cleared his throat.
‘Yes, yes we are. The security arrangements for the Games, we’ve got quotes from the President of the International Olympic Committee at the headquarters in Lausanne, he has full confidence in the Swedish Olympic Committee’s abilities to host the Games; he has the greatest possible faith in the Swedish police being able to apprehend those responsible, blah, blah, blah … And he goes on to say that the Games aren’t under threat, so we’ll push hard with that. Then we’ve got the “what happens now?” stuff, put together by Janet. The stadium will be repaired immediately. They’re pretty much going to start work the moment the forensics team moves out. They reckon they’ll be finished in seven or eight weeks. Then there’s the wounded taxi-driver, we’ve got the exclusive on him so we’ll run hard with that. And we’re doing a run-through of previous Olympic attacks, including the Tiger, assuming we don’t get hold of him tonight. If we do, then he’ll get a piece to himself.’
‘His home number’s in the database,’ Annika put in. ‘I’ve left a message on his machine, so he might get in touch.’
‘Okay. Nils Langeby is working on reactions around the world; we can run a side-column on that. And we’ve got reaction within Sweden, of course – the lines for “Have Your Say” have just opened.’
He fell silent and leafed through his notes.
‘Anything else?’ the editor-in-chief said.
‘Well, we’ve got the pictures Henriksson took from the torch,’ Annika said. ‘They were in the later editions yesterday, but they didn’t make the national edition. He took several; maybe we could use a different shot for the article about t
he victim in tomorrow’s edition? A bit of recycling?’
Pelle Oscarsson nodded. ‘Yes, there are loads of pictures. We’ll find something that looks a bit different.’
‘Right, the news is starting,’ Ingvar Johansson said, turning up the volume on the remote.
They all turned to face the television, to see what the national broadcaster made of the story. They were leading with shots from the press conference in police headquarters, then worked their way back to the early morning when the stadium was still burning. There were interviews with all the obvious candidates: Chief Prosecutor Lindström, Evert Danielsson from the Olympic Committee, one of the detectives, an old lady who lived close to the stadium and had been woken by the blast.
‘They haven’t got anything new,’ Ingvar Johansson said, and turned over to CNN.
They resumed their meeting, with Ingvar Johansson running through everything else they’d got for the paper the next day.
The television was on low volume as CNN went through its Breaking News. A reporter popped up at regular intervals doing a piece to camera in front of one of the roadblocks in the Olympic village. They had another reporter at police headquarters, and a third at the head office of the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne.
The live reports were interrupted every now and then by recorded segments about the Olympics and various violent disturbances over the years. A series of international celebrities gave their opinion, and a White House spokesman gave a statement condemning the terrorist act in Sweden.
Annika realized she was no longer listening to Ingvar Johansson. When he got to the entertainment pages she excused herself and left the meeting. She made her way to the cafeteria again and ordered a pasta dish with prawns, bread and a beer. As the microwave behind the counter whirred, she sat down and stared out at the darkness. If she focused properly, she could see the building opposite. If she relaxed, she could only see her own reflection in the glass.
When she was finished she gathered her own little team, consisting of Patrik and Berit, in her office.
‘I’ll do the terrorism piece,’ Annika said. ‘Have you got anything about the victim, Berit?’
‘Well, a bit,’ the reporter said, looking through her notes. ‘The forensics team found a number of items they think belonged to the victim. They’re badly damaged, but they’ve been able to identify a briefcase, a Filofax and a mobile phone.’
She fell silent, and noticed that Annika and Patrik were staring at her, wide-eyed.
‘Bloody hell,’ Annika said. ‘So they know who the victim was?’
‘Maybe,’ Berit said, ‘but they’re not letting on. It took me two hours to get this much out of them.’
‘But this is brilliant,’ Annika said. ‘Fantastic! God, you’re good! I haven’t heard a peep about this anywhere else.’
She leaned back in her chair, laughing and clapping her hands together. Patrik was grinning.
‘How are you getting on?’ Annika asked him.
‘I’ve done the basic chain of events; you can take a look if you like. It’s laid out around the shot of the stadium, like you said. As for the hunt for the Bomber – well, I’m afraid I haven’t got much on that. The police have been knocking on doors around the harbour all day, but the new-builds around the Olympic village are still mostly empty, so there aren’t many people to talk to.’
‘So who was that shadowy figure? And who’s the witness?’
‘I haven’t made much headway on that,’ Patrik said.
Suddenly Annika remembered something her taxi-driver had said on the way out to the stadium early that morning.
‘There’s an underground club out there,’ she said, sitting up. ‘The injured taxi-driver was on a job out there when the bomb went off. There must have been people there, guests as well as staff. That’s where we’ll find the witness. Have we spoken to anyone there?’
Patrik and Berit looked at each other.
‘We have to get out there and talk to them!’ Annika said.
‘An underground club?’ Berit said sceptically. ‘How keen do you reckon they’re going to be to talk to us?’
‘Fuck knows,’ Annika said. ‘You can never tell. They can talk anonymously, or even off the record, if they like, as long as they tell us what they saw.’
‘That’s not a bad idea,’ Patrik said. ‘It might shed some light.’
‘Have the police spoken to them?’
‘I don’t actually know; I haven’t asked,’ Patrik said.
‘Okay,’ Annika said. ‘I’ll call the police while you get over there and try to get hold of people at the club. Call the injured taxi-driver to find out exactly where the club is – we’ve got him hidden in the Royal Viking. The club’s not likely to be open tonight; it’s probably inside the cordon. But check with the driver anyway; see if he knows the name of the customer he took out there. He may even have recommended the club because he knows someone there, you never know.’
‘Right, I’m on my way.’ Patrik grabbed his jacket and rushed out.
Annika and Berit sat in silence when Patrik had left.
‘What do you really think about all this?’ Annika eventually asked.
Berit sighed. ‘I can’t really believe it was terrorism,’ she said. ‘Who would it have been aimed at, and why? To stop the Olympics? If so, why start now? Isn’t it a bit late for that?’
Annika doodled on her notepad.
‘Well, there’s one thing I do know,’ she said. ‘It’s absolutely vital that the police catch this bomber, or else the whole country will end up in the sort of trauma we haven’t had since Olof Palme was shot.’
Berit nodded, gathered up her things and went back to her desk.
13
Annika called her source but couldn’t get hold of him. She emailed an official statement from the police about the underground club to Patrik. Then she pulled out the official government directory and looked up the head of the tax office in Tyresö. She found out his name and year of birth. Because his name was such a common one she couldn’t find him in the phonebook, so she had to look on the national database instead. She managed to get a home address, which meant she could get his phone number through Directory Inquiries.
He answered on the fourth ring, and sounded pretty drunk. It was Saturday night, after all. Annika switched on the tape-recorder.
‘I can’t tell you anything about why Christina Furhage’s details are protected,’ he said, and it sounded like he was about to slam the phone down.
‘Of course not,’ Annika said calmly. ‘I’d just like to ask a couple of general questions about data protection, threat levels, that sort of thing.’
In the background she could hear a large group of people laughing. She must have called in the middle of a dinner party or something.
‘You’ll have to call the office on Monday,’ the tax official said.
‘But the paper will have gone to press long before that,’ Annika said smoothly. ‘Our readers have a right to a comment tomorrow. What reason should I give for you not wanting to answer?’
Annika could hear the man’s breathing down the line. She could sense him considering the matter. He knew that she was referring to the fact that he’d been drinking. Obviously she would never write something like that in the paper, you just didn’t do that sort of thing. But if people in public positions of power were playing hard to get, she wasn’t afraid to manipulate the situation to get her own way.
‘What do you want to know?’ he asked coldly.
Annika smiled.
‘What does it take for someone’s details to be protected?’ she asked.
She already knew, but the way he described the process would be a description of Christina Furhage’s case.
The man sighed and thought for a moment. It wasn’t exactly at the forefront of his mind.
‘Well, there needs to be some sort of threat. A serious threat,’ he said. ‘Not just a threatening phone-call but something worse, something more serious.
’
‘A death threat?’ Annika said.
‘For instance, yes. But it usually takes something more than that, even: the sort of thing that would convince a judge to issue a contact prohibition.’
‘An actual incident? Some sort of violence?’ Annika asked.
‘Yes, that sort of thing.’
‘Could you impose data protection for anything less than what you’ve just described?’
‘No, I couldn’t,’ the man said firmly. ‘If the threat is of a less serious nature, the details would stay on the database but would just be hidden from general view.’
‘How many people have had the higher level of data protection during your time in Tyresö?’
He thought for a few moments, then said, ‘Well, three.’
‘Christina Furhage, her husband and their daughter,’ Annika reasoned.
‘I didn’t say that,’ the man said.
‘Would you like to make any comment on the protection of Christina Furhage’s details?’
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ he replied abruptly.
‘What sort of death threat did Christina Furhage receive?’
‘I can’t comment on that.’
‘What sort of violence led to this level of protection in her case?’
‘I can’t tell you any more about this. Right, that’s enough,’ he said, and hung up.
Annika grinned. That was all she needed. Without saying a word about Christina, the man had confirmed everything.
After a few more phone-calls to check the details, she put together her article about the potential threat, keeping the terrorism angle at a relatively low level. She was finished shortly after eleven, but Patrik still hadn’t got back. That was a good sign.
She left her text with Jansson, who was now in full flow out at the news desk. His hair was a mess and he was talking non-stop on the phone.
She decided to walk home, in spite of the cold and the darkness and the emptiness in her head. Her legs ached, which always happened when she was too tired. A quick walk was the best medicine, so that she wouldn’t have to take painkillers when she got home. She tugged on her coat and pulled her hat firmly onto her head before she had time to change her mind.
The Bomber Page 6