Studio Sex aka Studio 69 / Exposed

Annika nodded; it sounded sensible.

'I could go to the National Police Board duty desk and check the passport register,' Berit said, 'and you could stay and talk to Gosta.'

'Gosta?'

'That's his name. Will you stay here, Bertil? I'll grab a cab later.'

After Eko it was Arne Pahlson's turn. The other Rival reporter had disappeared, and Annika could bet her shirt on Berit's bumping into him at the passport register.

Arne Pahlson took his time, as long as the entire press conference had taken. By a quarter to eleven, everybody had given up except Annika and Bertil Strand. The press officer was tired when Annika finally sat down with him in a corner of the now empty hall.

'Do you find this difficult?' Annika asked him.

Gosta looked at her in surprise. 'What do you mean?'

'You have to see so much shit.'

'It isn't that bad. Do you have any questions?'

Annika leafed through her pad. 'I saw the girl in the park,' she said calmly, as if in passing. 'She wasn't wearing any clothes, and I couldn't see any clothes nearby. Either she must have climbed naked into the cemetery or her clothes were somewhere around. Did you find them?' She caught the press officer's eye.

He blinked in surprise. 'No, just her panties. But you can't write that!'

'Why not?'

'Because of the investigation,' the man said quickly.

'Come on. Why not?'

The man thought about it for a moment. 'Well, I suppose we could disclose that. It doesn't make any difference.'

'Where did you find the panties? What do they look like? How do you know they were hers?'

'They were hanging from a bush next to her. Pink polyester. We've had them identified.'

'Right. The identification was quick. How did you do it?'

The press officer sighed. 'She was identified by her roommate, like I said.'

'Man or woman?'

'A young woman, just like Josefin.'

'Had Josefin been reported missing?'

The press officer nodded. 'Yes, by her roommate.'

'When?'

'She didn't come home last night, and when she didn't show up at work, the friend called the police, around half past six.'

'So the girls lived and worked together?'

'It appears so.'

Annika took notes and considered the information. 'What about the rest of the clothes?'

'We haven't found them. They're not within a radius of five blocks from the murder scene. Unfortunately, the trash cans in the area were emptied this morning, but we've got people searching the dump right now.'

'What had she been wearing?'

The press officer put his hand inside his right uniform pocket and pulled out a small notebook. 'Short black dress, white trainers, and a blue jeans jacket. Probably an imitation-leather shoulder bag.'

'You don't happen to have a photo of her, do you? Her high school graduation photo, wearing the white cap, maybe?' Annika said.

The press officer pulled his hand through his hair. 'People need to know what she looked like.'

Annika nodded.

'Wearing the white cap? I'll see what I can do. Anything else?'

She chewed her lip. 'There was something else about the body. One of the hands. Like it had been mangled or chewed up.'

Again, the press officer looked taken aback. 'Then you know more than I do.'

Annika dropped her pad on her lap. 'What was she like?' she said in a low voice.

Gosta sighed. 'We don't know. All we know is that she's dead.'

'What kind of life was she living? Which restaurant did she work at? Did she have a boyfriend?'

The press officer put his notebook back in his pocket and got up. 'I'll see what I can do about that photo.'

***

Berit was hard at work at her desk when Annika and Bertil Strand returned to the newsroom.

'She was pretty cute.' Berit pointed toward Picture Pelle's desk.

Annika walked straight over to the picture desk to have a look at the small black-and-white picture from the passport register. Hanna Josefin Liljeberg was laughing at the camera. She had the bright gaze and radiant smile that you only see on a teenager who is full of self-confidence.

'Nineteen years old,' Annika said, her chest feeling constricted.

'We'd better get a proper photo,' Pelle Oscarsson said. 'If we blow this up more than one column, it'll get grainy and gray.'

'I think we'll find one,' Annika said, sending a quiet prayer to Gosta while she walked over to Berit.

'Do you know the PubReg?' Berit asked her.

Annika shook her head.

'Then let's go over to Eva-Britt's desk,' Berit said.

A computer with a modem was on the newsroom secretary's desk. Berit switched it on and logged on to the network. Via the Info Market, a collection of databases, she got into the Public Register, the government department for citizen information.

'You can find information about every resident in Sweden here,' she explained. 'Their home address, previous addresses, maiden name, national identification number, place of birth, all that kind of stuff.'

'That's incredible,' Annika said. 'I hadn't the faintest idea.'

'The PubReg is a really good tool. Sit down and check some friends out someday when you have the time.'

Berit pressed the F8 key, name inquiry, to perform a national search on 'Liljeberg, Hanna Josefin.' They got two hits, an eighty-five-year-old woman in Malmo and a nineteen-year-old girl in Dalagatan in Stockholm.

'That's her,' Berit said, and typed a v in front of the latter and hit the return key.

The information appeared on the screen; 'Liljeberg, Hanna Josefin, born in Taby, unmarried. The latest change to her entry in the population registry was less than two months old.'

'Let's check her previous address,' Berit said, and pressed F7, historical data.

The computer paused a few seconds, as if it were thinking, and then another address appeared on the screen.

' 'Runslingan in Taby Kyrkby,'' Berit read. 'That's a nice neighborhood. Upper-middle class. Row houses.'

'Where does it say that?' Annika said, scanning the screen.

Berit smiled. 'Some data is located on this hard disk.' She tapped her forehead. 'I live in Taby. This must be her parents' home.'

The reporter ordered a printout and tapped a new command. They read the result. Liljeberg Hed, Siv Barbro, Runslingan in Taby Kyrkby, born forty-seven years ago, married.

'Josefin's mother,' Annika said. 'How did you find her?'

'Through a search on women with the same surname and post code.' Berit ordered a printout and did the same search on men. The PubReg yielded two hits, Hans Gunnar, fifty-one, and Carl Niklas, nineteen, both resident in Runslingan.

'Look at the boy's date of birth,' Berit said.

'Josefin had a twin brother.'

Berit ordered one last printout and then logged off. She switched off the computer and went over to the