‘Of course, naturally,’ the policeman said, and stepped into the corridor.
The bed was big, with a two-metre-high headboard made of dark wood. The covers with which the father had tried to stop the gas were no longer on the floor. The police had bundled them into a heap in the middle of the bed.
That’s where they spent the last night of their lives, where they woke up to the howl of the gas detector, where they died, unable to get to their children …
She took a picture of the bed. Then she aimed the mobile at the desk and the air-vent and took a couple more.
She hurried out into the corridor. The constable made sure the door was closed properly behind her. They went back down the stairs together. Carita was waiting by the terrace door.
‘Just one more,’ the policeman said, turning left through the hall.
They passed the kitchen, a rustic affair with a heavy wooden table in the middle and dark shelves along the walls, covered with painted ceramics.
He stopped outside a door beside the kitchen. A sign hung on it: ‘Suzette’s Room’.
Who’s Suzette? Annika thought, but obviously she couldn’t ask.
‘Where is Suzette?’ she said instead. ‘She wasn’t here when it happened, was she?’
The policeman opened the door. Annika looked in at a tidy teenage bedroom. The bed was made, the bedspread arranged neatly. A laptop like hers was on the desk, but switched off. Beside the door a sun-bleached poster of Britney Spears was pinned to the wall.
The policeman consulted his watch. ‘Señora,’ he said, ‘I must ask you to leave now.’
Annika nodded. ‘Thank you for being so kind,’ she said, and walked back quickly towards the kitchen.
When she got back to the hallway she glanced at the other rooms. She could see a large living room, with dark-brown leather furniture, and a library, with built-in bookcases.
‘Muchas gracias,’ Annika said, then she and Carita stepped out onto the terrace again.
The downpour had stopped, leaving the ground steaming, water trickling off the stonework.
They walked slowly back towards the road and the policeman opened the gate for them.
‘Did you get what you wanted?’ Carita asked.
Annika leaned against the car and closed her eyes. ‘Your powers of persuasion are astonishing,’ she said. ‘How did you do it?’
‘I was thinking of invoicing for it under “sundry expenses”. You don’t imagine he let us inside the house just because we were nice and he was kind?’
I really am incredibly naïve, Annika thought.
‘A hundred euros was enough,’ Carita said. ‘After all, you were only a grieving friend. He’d never have let a reporter in, but no one’s ever going to know the difference. The evening papers might be available down here, but their sales are hardly impressive. Where are we going now?’
‘Do you know anything about a Suzette?’ Annika asked.
The interpreter shook her head. ‘Who is she?’
‘There was another child’s room, a teenager’s, next to the kitchen. It said “Suzette’s Room” on the door … Hang on, didn’t someone mention a Suzette yesterday? That woman who was a Swea with Veronica?’
‘Another child?’ Carita had paled.
‘I need to check this out,’ Annika said, opening the car door. ‘How do we get back to the hotel?’
She dropped the umbrella on the floor, tossed her bag onto the bed, her jacket onto the floor, and leaped at her laptop. Fingers trembling, she opened the other evening paper’s website.
Before she had set off they hadn’t managed to post anything about either the gassings or her and Halenius, but now both stories were there. The gassings were at the top, but she felt obliged to start with herself and the under-secretary of state.
The picture taken outside the Järnet restaurant looked worse than she had imagined. It wasn’t very clear, thanks to the darkness and low resolution of the camera, but you could definitely see it was her in the light from the restaurant windows. Her hair was blowing in the wind, cascading behind her. Halenius seemed to be hugging her, his lips close to her ear. He was either kissing her cheek or whispering.
‘Star reporter and hotshot politician’s big night out!’ the headline shrieked.
At least she was a star reporter. She settled down and read the start of the article:
Schyman: ‘I have complete confidence in her.’
Evening Post crime reporter Annika Bengtzon spent last night partying with the justice minister’s right-hand man.
‘They were drinking wine and kissing in public,’ a source told us.
She straightened her back, affronted. What was this rubbish?
Beside the bed her mobile started to ring. Should she carry on reading, or answer it?
In the end she pulled her phone out of her bag and checked the screen. ‘Hello?’ she said, and noticed that her voice sounded very high.
‘I’ve seen the picture,’ Thomas said.
‘Er, okay?’ Annika said.
‘Did you do it just to embarrass me?’
Her eyes widened in surprise. ‘Oh, Thomas,’ she said, ‘you’re not jealous?’
‘For fuck’s sake, Halenius is one of my bosses. Can’t you see what an awkward position you’re putting me in? Can’t you see what people are going to say?’
‘You’re lecturing me about putting people in an awkward position?’
Thomas snorted. ‘Don’t you ever think about anyone but yourself?’
She was so angry she had trouble saying anything. ‘You hypocrite! You left me and the kids in a burning house and ran off to your little fuck-buddy. I’ve been homeless for six months, falsely accused of arson, at risk of losing my children because you’re trying to take them from me, and now you’re the one who feels all upset. You make me feel sick!’
She was about to end the call, the way she usually did, but changed her mind.
Instead she waited, taking quick, shallow breaths.
‘Annika?’ he said.
She coughed. ‘I’m here,’ she said.
‘How can you say I left you in a burning house?’
‘You did.’
‘You’re being very unfair. I went round to Sophia’s because you and I had a row, and when I came back to talk to you the house was in ruins. How do you think that felt? I didn’t know if you were okay, if the children were still alive—’
‘It’s always about you!’ she said. ‘Poor Thomas!’
He sighed deeply. ‘You always manage to make everything my fault …’
‘You were unfaithful to me,’ Annika said. ‘I saw you together outside NK. You were holding her and kissing her, laughing with her.’
Now it was Thomas’s turn to be silent. ‘When?’ he finally asked.
‘The autumn before last,’ she said. ‘I was on the other side of the road with the children. We’d just bought Kalle some wellingtons, we were on our way home, and—’ The tears welled up and she couldn’t stop them trickling between her fingers and onto the phone, like a burst dam. She cried for a long while, messily and uncontrollably.
‘Sorry,’ she said, when the sobs subsided.
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ he asked quietly.
‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘I was probably scared you’d leave me.’
The silence that followed echoed with surprise.
‘But,’ he said, ‘you drove me away. You stopped talking to me, you wouldn’t let me touch you …’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
They were silent for a long while.
‘So now you tell me,’ he said.
She laughed and wiped away the last of her tears. ‘I know,’ she said.
‘The children say you’ve got a new flat,’ he said. ‘Have you bought it?’
She blew her nose on a tissue she found in her bag. ‘I’m renting,’ she said. ‘I got the place through contacts.’
‘Your new friend Halenius, or so
meone else?’
Defiance bubbled up again, but she swallowed it. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not through him. And that picture in the paper is utterly misleading. We had dinner and he gave me information about something I’m working on. When we said goodbye he kissed me on both cheeks because I was flying to Spain early the next morning. I didn’t drink any wine – I don’t like red, you know that …’
‘God, the things you journalists do,’ he said.
She wiped the mascara from under her eyes on the tissue. ‘Mainly it just seems ridiculous,’ she said. ‘But it’s probably worse for Halenius.’
‘The article says he was on duty that evening.’
‘I haven’t had time to read it,’ Annika said. ‘And if Jimmy Halenius has committed some kind of work-related offence, that’s really not my problem. More like yours, actually.’
They both laughed, with a warmth that surprised Annika.
Then Thomas sighed. ‘God, I’ll get some stick on Monday,’ he said.
‘You won’t be the only one,’ Annika said.
They laughed again, then fell silent.
‘Can I come round with the children on Sunday evening? Then I could have a look at the new flat.’
He’d never made that sort of offer before. He had never once visited the office in Gamla stan where she had lived for six months. ‘There’s not much to see yet,’ Annika said. ‘I haven’t even had time to unpack.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Agnegatan 28.’
‘But that’s—’
‘Our old block.’
They were silent again for a few moments.
‘How are the children?’ Annika asked.
‘Good. We’re in the park. They’re chasing each other. Do you want to talk to them?’
She shut her eyes for a few seconds. ‘No,’ she said finally. ‘Let them play.’
‘So, shall I come round at about six o’clock on Sunday?’
They ended the call and Annika was left standing with the phone in her hand. Then she slumped onto the bed and crept under the bedspread. The sharp-edged brick that she had got so used to carrying around in her chest was suddenly less noticeable. It felt smaller, lighter, and the edges weren’t quite as sharp. Just a little while, just a few minutes, just long enough for her to enjoy …
She was on the point of falling asleep when she sat up with a jolt. She had to read the article about her.
She straightened her back and cleared her throat, as if she were about to give a speech.
‘By Bo Svensson,’ she read. Bloody gorilla, she thought.
Annika Bengtzon’s day-job is to keep watch on those in power in Sweden. Today we can reveal that she goes much further than that. The night before last she was seen in the Järnet restaurant in Stockholm with the justice minister’s right-hand man, under-secretary of state Jimmy Halenius, a Social Democrat.
The picture shows the couple enjoying their night out together, kissing and cuddling.
A statement from the Evening Post says that her employers have full confidence in their reporter. ‘I have every faith in her judgement,’ says editor-in-chief Anders Schyman.
Does this damage Annika Bengtzon’s credibility?
‘Absolutely not.’
But other commentators don’t agree.
‘Annika Bengtzon crossed the line when she kissed her source,’ says political journalist Arne Påhlson.
How will this affect Annika Bengtzon’s credibility as someone who reports on those in power?
‘Clearly, that’s going to look a bit threadbare now …’
She had to get up and take a walk around the room.
Who the hell was Arne Påhlson to sit in judgement on her? An overhyped dime-a-dozen reporter, who was being wheeled out as some sort of expert on ethics and morals.
She returned to the laptop.
At the Ministry of Justice, where Jimmy Halenius is one of the most senior officials, the significance of the pictures is being downplayed.
‘The fact that politicians and journalists are in contact with each other is hardly news,’ the justice minister’s press secretary said.
The department is reluctant to confirm whether or not Jimmy Halenius was on duty on the evening in question.
Annika Bengtzon herself has referred to the confidentiality of sources and has declined to comment.
She pushed the computer aside and stood up. Her heart was pounding. It was incredibly unpleasant to read about herself in the third person. As a human being she had no value: she was merely a symbol, a punchbag; she had been set up in a version of reality that was untrue.
She realized how impotent she was in the face of the paper’s sweeping generalizations. It didn’t matter that what they had written was either wrong or irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was the media’s judgement, the newspaper’s world-view, its redacted truth.
She picked up the laptop, but resisted the urge to throw it at the wall.
She sat down, took three deep breaths and rubbed her eyes.
Then she read the article again.
It wasn’t well written. Admittedly, every article like this followed a ridiculously formulaic template, but this one was particularly clichéd. Bosse had clearly had trouble expressing himself.
She felt rather embarrassed at her first reaction: to feel sorry for herself.
Was this what she did? Did she ride roughshod over other people in her articles?
Of course. Probably every day.
What was the alternative? Should she stop looking for headlines and pictures, just report, never reflect?
She walked around the room, then thrust the thought aside. She sat down again and scrolled through the rest of the other paper’s website to see what they had written about the gassings. The reporter was their Madrid correspondent, a stylish woman in her fifties who presumably spoke fluent Spanish. They had a picture of the house from the road as well, but with the shadows at a different angle. The photographer had his own byline, a Spanish name. So, they were a team and must have been there earlier in the day.
The article contained the facts Annika had got from Niklas Linde, but here they were attributed to sources within the Spanish police. The reporters had evidently gone to the Los Naranjos golf club to speak to grieving Swedes there. They had ended up with the same sort of quotes that Annika had taken from La Garrapata.
In other words, a dead heat between her and the Madrid stringer.
It was always a relief not to have been outdone …
Her mobile rang again, and sounded somehow angrier this time. She let it ring twice before reaching out for it. She sighed. ‘Hi, Patrik,’ she said.
‘The golf club in mourning!’ Patrik shouted. ‘The tennis club in mourning! See if you can’t get together a group of old ice-hockey stars for a minute’s silence in memory of Sebastian Söderström on a green somewhere. Why limit it to old players? Get any sports stars you can find!’
‘I’ve got a number of other angles,’ Annika said. ‘Pictures from inside the house, from the scene where they died. There might be another child in the family, a girl who survived. I need to look into that a bit more.’
‘The sports stars is a much better story. Make sure they all look fucking miserable.’
Annika closed her eyes. ‘I don’t have a photographer with me,’ she said.
‘You’ve got a camera, haven’t you? Call once you’ve sent the picture. By the way, what sort of behaviour do you call hanging out with the under-secretary of state and snogging his face off in public?’ Then he was gone.
Annika let her mobile fall to the floor. This was crazy.
She got up and walked to the window. It was a long time since she had been in this situation. During her years as an independent reporter she had been excused jobs designed to reflect the world-view of the head of news. Instead she had reported what she had thought proper and important. There was a difference between creating reality and reporting it.
If a gang of former spor
ts stars took it upon themselves to mourn their colleague with a minute’s silence, she wouldn’t have any problem reporting on the event, but staging the image was something completely different.
She went back to the computer, opened the website of Spanish Directory Enquiries, and looked up the numbers for Sebastian Söderström’s tennis club and the Los Naranjos golf club. She rang both.
The tennis club was closed, a man said, in English with a Spanish accent. No, nothing was planned to commemorate the deceased owner. Yes, he’d call her if they changed their minds. Neither had the Los Naranjos golf club planned any sort of ceremony to mark Sebastian Söderström’s death, but he had been a member so perhaps that wasn’t a bad idea. In fact, it was an extremely good idea. They’d been thinking of something along those lines that morning. Round about four o’clock that afternoon …
She bit her lip as she hung up. She had adapted reality to make it fit her five-column tabloid format.
She went back to the window.
The clouds were so low that they had surrounded the large mountain in front of her with thick grey cottonwool. The traffic was moving sluggishly along the old Roman road.
Who could she call to find out more about Suzette?
She went over to the minibar and found that the cleaner had restocked the chocolate. She helped herself to a Snickers bar and threw herself on the bed with her mobile.
Knut Garen answered at once. He seemed to be standing close to running water.
‘I’m in Granada,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to call Niklas Linde about that. He’s still down on the coast.’
She swallowed her question about what he was doing in Granada and dialled Linde’s number. He answered after four rings. ‘Now isn’t a good time,’ he said in a low voice.
‘Quick question,’ Annika said. ‘Do you know anything about a girl called Suzette who lived in Sebastian Söderström’s villa?’
‘Negative. I’ve got to go.’
Annika ended the call. She felt oddly indignant.
Did they really have that much to do, or did the two police officers simply not want to talk to her?
She ate the chocolate and tossed the wrapper into the wastepaper basket, then sat down at the computer. The Spanish Directory Enquiries website was still on the screen.
She typed in the name of the Swea woman, whose name was Margit. She wasn’t listed in the Paginas Blancas, so she couldn’t call her.
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