Carl Wennergren strolled into the newsroom with what must have been the sailing cup in his arms. Spike went up to him with long strides and slapped him on the back. Annika sat at her desk, numb. A brain tumor! Was he serious? Her hands trembled as she lifted the phone and dialed the number. Anne Snapphane answered on the first ring.
'How are you?' Annika said, a big lump in her throat.
'I'm really scared. I feel dizzy and weak, you know. When I close my eyes, I see flashes.'
'Spike told me. Jesus, why haven't you told me about this?'
'What?'
'That you had a brain tumor!'
Anne Snapphane sounded slightly confused. 'But I've never had a brain tumor. I've had all kinds of examinations, but they've never found anything.'
Annika was at a loss. 'But Spike said… So you don't have cancer of the brain?'
'Listen. You could say that I have a tendency to believe that I have various ailments. I know this, but all the same, a few times a year I will think I'm dying. Last winter I actually managed to pester the hospital into doing an MRI on me. Spike thinks it's hilarious.'
Annika leaned back in her chair. She's a serious hypochondriac, she thought.
'Anyway, I've got another doctor's appointment at three-thirty this afternoon. You never know…'
'What are you going to do on your days off?'
'If they don't admit me to the hospital, I'm going up to Pitea with the cats. I've got tickets for the night train.'
'Okay,' Annika said. 'I'll see you when we're back on.'
They finished the call and Annika became absorbed in thoughts about her own impending vacation. This was the last of a five-day shift and she would be off for four days. She'd go home to Halleforsnas, see Sven and say hello to Whiskas. She sighed. She'd have to make her mind up soon. Either she'd stay and try to make a go of it here in Stockholm or she'd have to give her landlord notice and move back home.
She looked out over the newsroom. It was Monday and the place was swarming with people. She felt awkward and insecure. She didn't know the names of half the people. The warm feeling of belonging that she had felt during the weekend was gone. It was somehow linked to the quiet, the darkness outside, the empty corridors, and the low drone of the air-conditioning. During the day, the workplace was completely different, invaded by light and noise and loud people. She had no control; she had no status.
'Things have happened around here while I've been away,' Carl Wennergren said, and settled on Annika's desk chummily.
Annika pointedly pulled out a computer printout from under the man's backside. 'It's a tragic story.'
Carl Wennergren put the cup down on top of the printout. 'It's a challenge trophy,' he said, handling his sailing cup. 'Nice, isn't it?'
'Very.'
'The owner of the boat gets the cup. The others just got a lousy diploma. The IOR class- the biggest boats- that's my kind of thing.'
'I prefer to borrow Grandma's old rowing boat and row around Ho Lake. It can be pretty out there.' Annika clicked to open a telegram on her screen.
Carl Wennergren looked at her in silence for a moment.
She didn't look up when he got up and walked off but made an effort to shut out him and the rest of the newsroom. She reached for the Rival. They didn't have much on the murder. She noted that they'd made something of a slip of paper at the murder scene with the words 'We miss you.' Annika shook her head and turned over the pages. A piece on relationships and holidays caught her attention. The divorce rate rose dramatically during the fall, she read, as the expectations that had kept marriages alive during the winter dropped with the leaves. She thought of herself and her own relationship and sighed.
'Why the long face? Do you want to grab a cup of coffee?'
Berit smiled cheerfully at her and Annika responded with a lopsided grin.
'I heard you got a tip,' Annika said, fishing out her wallet from her bag.
'Yes, I did. Are you familiar with the IB affair?'
Annika quickly counted her money and saw that she'd have to go to the ATM today. 'So-so. Sometime in the seventies Jan Guillou and Peter Bratt exposed how the government had set up an illegal register of people's political affiliations.'
They were walking toward the cafeteria.
'Right,' Berit said. 'The Social Democrats panicked. They put the reporters in prison and acted pretty irrationally all along the line. Among other things, they destroyed their own archives, both for foreign and domestic affairs.'
They took their coffee and sat down at a table by the window, not so much for the view as for the outlet of the air-conditioning overhead.
'So no one will ever find out what they were really up to at the Information Bureau?' Annika said.
'Exactly,' Berit replied. 'No one could find out much because the archives were lost. The Social Democrats have felt safe. Until now.'
Annika stopped munching on her chocolate doughnut. 'What do you mean?'
Berit lowered her voice. 'I got a call yesterday, in the middle of the night. The foreign archive has been found.'
'For real?'
'Yes and no. They've suddenly 'found' copies of the archive at the Defense Staff Headquarters, with no references to original sources or documents, but still.'
'That doesn't mean the originals still exist.' Annika blew on her coffee.
'True, but it increases the chances. Until last night there hasn't been even a scrap left of the archives. Not a single document, no recordings, nothing. These are copies of large chunks of the archive, so of course it's very valuable.'
'Have you seen it?'
'Yes, I went over there first thing this morning.'
'What a scoop. And right in the middle of the election campaign.'
'You'll never guess where they found it.'
'In the men's room?' Annika ventured.
'In the mail.'
The minister pulled the swing as far back as he could.
'Are you ready?' he yelled.
'Yes,' his daughter squeaked.
'Ready?' He was really hollering now.
'Yees!' the child shrieked.
With the sound of the child screeching in his ears, he rushed forward with the swing, pushing it ahead of him and letting it go high up in the air.
'Iiiii!' the child shrieked.
'Me too, Daddy! Me too! Run under me, run under me!'
He smiled at his son and wiped his forehead. 'Okay, cowboy, but this is the last time.'
He rounded the tree, tickled his daughter's tummy on the way, grabbed the boy's swing, and did his 'Are you ready?' routine. Then he ran under the swing but did the whole thing a bit gentler than with his daughter. His son was of a slighter build and was more timid, despite their being twins.
'Do me again, Daddy!' his daughter yelled.
'No, that's it now. When the swing stops, you can come and sit with me over on the garden bench.'
'But, Daddy…'
He walked over to his wife, who was sitting under a parasol. The garden furniture, made of ecofriendly blue
