Studio Sex aka Studio 69 / Exposed

And I promise.

Saturday 28 July

There's a dead girl in Kronoberg Park.'

This one had the breathless voice of a heavy drug user. Amphetamines perhaps. Annika Bengtzon took her eyes away from the screen and fumbled for a pen amid the mess on her desk.

'How do you know?' she asked, too much skepticism in her voice.

'Because I'm fucking standing next to it!'

The voice rose to falsetto and Annika held the phone away from her ear.

'Okay. How dead?' she said, realizing she sounded ridiculous.

'Shit! Stone dead! How fucking dead can you be?'

Annika looked around the newsroom uncertainly. Over at the news desk, Spike, the news editor, was talking on the phone. Anne Snapphane was fanning herself with a pad at the desk across from Annika, and Pelle Oscarsson was standing at the picture desk, clicking away at his Mac.

'Yeah, right,' she said, and found a pen in an empty coffee mug. She started taking notes on the back of an old wire report from the news agency TT.

'In Kronoberg Park, you say. Whereabouts?'

'Behind a gravestone.'

'A gravestone?'

The man started crying. Annika waited a few seconds in silence. She didn't know what to say next. The tip-off phone's official name was The Hot Line, but in-house it was never called anything other than Creepy Calls. The majority of the callers were either jokers or nutcases. This one was definitely a candidate for the latter.

'Hello…?' Annika said warily.

The man blew his nose. He took a couple of deep breaths and told Annika his story. Anne Snapphane was watching from the other side of the desk.

'Where do you find the energy to keep answering that phone?' Anne asked as Annika hung up. Annika didn't respond, but just continued scribbling her notes.

'I've got to get another ice cream or I'll die. Do you want anything from the cafe?' Anne Snapphane asked as she got to her feet.

'I've got to check something first,' Annika said, lifting the receiver and dialing the direct number to the emergency switchboard. It was true. Four minutes earlier, they had received a call about a body being found next to Kronobergsgatan.

Annika got up and walked over to the news desk with the wire in her hand. Spike was still on the phone, his feet on his desk. Annika stationed herself right in front of him, demanding his attention. The news editor gave her an annoyed look.

'Suspected murder, young woman,' Annika said, and waved the printout in front of him.

Spike hung up abruptly and put his feet on the floor.

'Did you get it from TT?' he asked, and clicked on his computer.

'No, Creepy Calls.'

'Confirmed?'

'It was reported to the emergency services center.'

Spike turned to look round the newsroom. 'Okay. Who's here?'

Annika braced herself. 'It's my tip-off.'

'Berit!' Spike said, standing up. 'This summer's murder!'

Berit Hamrin, one of the older reporters at the paper, picked up her handbag and came over to the desk.

'Where's Carl Wennergren? Is he in today?'

'No, he's off. He's sailing the Round Gotland Race,' Annika said. 'It's my tip-off, it came in to me.'

'Pelle, photo!' Spike yelled in the direction of the picture desk.

The picture editor gave him the thumbs-up, then called out, 'Bertil Strand.'

'Okay,' the news editor said, and turned to Annika. 'What have we got?'

Annika looked at her messy notes, suddenly noticing how nervous she was. 'A dead girl behind a gravestone at the Jewish Cemetery in Kronoberg Park on Kungsholmen.'

'Doesn't mean it's a goddamn murder, does it?'

'She's naked and she's been strangled.'

Spike gave Annika a scrutinizing look. 'And you want to do it?'

Annika swallowed and nodded.

The news editor sat down again and pulled out a notepad. 'Okay. You can go with Berit and Bertil. Make sure you get some good pictures, the rest of the information we can get later, but you've got to get the pics straightaway.'

The photographer put the backpack with his equipment over his shoulder as he walked past the news desk. 'Where is it?' he said, directing the question at Spike.

'Kronoberg Jail,' Spike said, and picked up the phone.

'The park,' Annika said, and looked for her bag. 'Kronoberg Park. The Jewish Cemetery.'

'Just make sure it isn't a domestic incident,' Spike said, and dialed a London number.

Berit and Bertil Strand were already on their way to the elevator to go down to the garage, but Annika stopped in her tracks.

'What do you mean?' she said.

'Exactly what I said: we don't meddle in family matters.' The news editor turned his back on her.

Annika felt anger surge through her body and reach her brain like an electric shock. 'It doesn't make the girl any less dead.'

Spike began talking on the phone and Annika saw it meant the end of their discussion. She looked up, and Berit and Bertil Strand had already disappeared into the elevator. She hurried over to her desk, pulled out her bag, which had disappeared under the desk, and ran after her colleagues. The elevator was gone, so she took the stairs. Damn, damn- why the hell did she always have to take up arms? She might have lost her first big assignment just so she could take the news editor to task.

'Moron,' she said out loud to herself.

She caught up with the reporter and the photographer at the entrance to the garage.

'We'll work side by side and keep an open mind until we have to split up and work different parts of the story,' Berit said, writing on a pad while walking. 'I'm Berit Hamrin, by the way. I don't think we've said hello.'

The older woman smiled at Annika. They shook hands while getting into Bertil Strand's Saab, Annika in the back, Berit in front.

'Don't slam the door so hard,' Bertil Strand said with disapproval, glancing over his shoulder at Annika. 'It can damage the paint-work.'

Jesus Christ, Annika thought to herself. 'Oops, sorry,' she said to Strand.

The photographers had the use of the newspaper's vehicles more or less as company cars. Most of the photographers took their car-care responsibilities extremely seriously. Maybe this was because all photographers, to a man, were men. She had been at Kvallspressen only seven weeks but was already acutely aware of the sanctity of the photographers' cars. On several occasions, she had had to postpone scheduled interviews because the photographers had been busy getting their cars washed. At the same time it showed what importance was attached to her pieces at the newspaper.

'We're better off approaching the park from the other side and avoiding Fridhemsplan,' Berit said as the car picked up speed at the junction of Ralambsvagen and Gjorwellsgatan. Bertil Strand put his foot down and drove through right as the light turned red, down Gjorwellsgatan and on toward Norr Malarstrand.

'Could you run through the information you got from the tipster again?' Berit said, leaning her back on the car door so that she could look at Annika in the backseat.

Annika fished out the crumpled piece of paper. 'Right- there's a dead woman behind a gravestone in Kronoberg