Studio Sex aka Studio 69 / Exposed

them.'

'Just shut the fuck up,' Annika shouted. 'Get into the fucking car and let's get out of here!'

He opened the door, got in, and opened her door. Annika jumped in; it must have been a hundred degrees inside the car. She quickly wound down the window. Unbelievably, the car started on the first try, and Pettersson drove toward the exit on screeching tires. Outside, the light hit them and Annika was momentarily blinded.

'There they are!'

The howls reached her through the open side window and she saw the mob rushing toward them like a wall.

'Step on it, damn it!' she screamed, and wound up the window.

'It's a one-way street,' the photographer wailed. 'I've got to drive past the cemetery!'

'No way!' Annika yelled at him. 'Just drive!'

Pettersson had just reached Kronobergsgatan when the car stalled. Annika wound up the window, locked her door, and put her hands over her ears. Pettersson turned the ignition key repeatedly. The starter went around and around without igniting. The mob reached them, surrounding them on all sides. Someone tried to climb up on the roof. They were thumping the car with their fists.

Annika saw a copy of Kvallspressen pushed against the windshield, open to her article about the mourning youth in Taby. The picture of the girls with their poems left marks of printing ink on the window.

Someone crumpled up the paper on the hood and set fire to it. Annika yelled, frantic.

'Just get the fucking car started, damn it! We've got to get out of here!'

At once, there were more burning papers, pictures of girls and poems went up in flames. The car was rocking, they were trying to turn the car over. The noise from the thumping fists grew louder. Pettersson roared and suddenly the car started. It jumped forward as the photographer pushed the clutch down and revved the engine. He leaned on the horn and slowly, slowly the car crept through the crowd. The kid on the roof jumped off the car. Annika leaned forward toward her knees, closed her eyes, and blocked her ears with her hands. She didn't look up until the car turned into Fleminggatan.

Pettersson was shaking so badly he could barely drive. They drove in the direction of the city center and stopped in front of a hot dog place half a mile away.

'We shouldn't have gone up to them,' he sobbed.

'Stop your blubbering,' Annika said. 'It was your idea. What's done is done.'

Her hands were trembling, she felt listless, numb. The photographer was no younger than herself, but she felt it was her responsibility to see things through.

'Relax,' she said in a more sympathetic tone of voice. 'We're all right.'

She rummaged through her bag and found an unopened pack of tissues. 'Here, blow your nose. I'll buy you a cup of coffee.'

Pettersson did as he was told, grateful to Annika for taking command. They went into the hot dog place, which turned out to have coffee and cakes.

'Shit, that was scary,' Pettersson mumbled, and bit into his marzipan bar. 'That's the worst thing that ever happened to me.'

Annika gave a wry grin that was mostly meant for herself. 'You're lucky then.'

They drank their coffee in silence.

'You should get that car fixed,' she said eventually.

'No shit.'

They had a refill of coffee.

'So what do we do with this?' he wondered.

'Nothing, and we hope that no one else will do anything on it.'

'Who would?' Pettersson said in disbelief.

'Trust me, there are some people that would.'

They drove back to the paper, taking a long detour past the Old Town and South Island. Going anywhere near Kronoberg Park was out of the question.

***

It was almost half past four when they returned to the newsroom.

'How did it go out there?' the news editor Ingvar Johansson asked.

'All hell broke loose,' Annika said. 'They attacked us. They pretty much tried to set fire to the car.'

Johansson blinked in disbelief. 'Come off it.'

'It's the truth,' Annika said. 'It was bad.'

All of a sudden she felt she had to sit down. She sank down on the news desk.

'No interviews? No pictures?' the news editor said disappointedly.

Annika looked at him, feeling as if a thick Plexiglas screen were between them.

'That's right. There was nothing to write about. The kids were just getting a kick out of it. They'd worked themselves up into some kind of mass psychosis. We were lucky- they could have turned over the car and set fire to it.'

Johansson looked at her, then turned around and reached for his phone.

Annika got up and went over to Berit's desk. She suddenly noticed her legs were shaking.

Christ, I'm turning into a real wimp, she thought.

She sat down and read the TT wires and some obscure trade journals until she heard the signature tune to Studio 69 start playing.

Afterward, she would remember this hour as if it were a surreal nightmare. For the next ten years it would recur in her dreams. She could invoke the feeling she had had when the electric guitar started playing, how exposed and unprepared she had been, how naively she had just stood there and let them take aim at her.

'The tabloids have today reached a new low-water mark in their sensationalism,' the studio reporter intoned. 'They parade mourning teenagers in the paper, spread false rumors about family members, and are the tools of politicians with the purpose of pulling the wool over the public's eyes. More about this in today's current affairs program with debate and analysis, live from Studio 69.'

Annika heard the words without really registering them. She had a feeling but didn't quite want to comprehend.

The electric guitar faded out and the studio reporter returned.

'It's Thursday, August second. Welcome to Studio 69 in Stockholm Radio House,' he droned on.

'Today we'll be looking into the tabloid newspaper Kvallspressen's coverage of the murder of the stripper Josefin Liljeberg. With us in the studio are two people who knew Josefin well, her best friend, Charlotta, and the deputy principal of her school, Martin Larsson-Berg. We have also talked to her boyfriend, Joachim…'

A dizziness like a slow rolling movement established itself in her consciousness. The realization of what was coming was reaching her. She reached out to turn off the radio but stopped herself.

It's better to listen to what they say than to hear about it secondhand, she thought.

Afterward, she would regret that decision many times. The words were to become stuck like a mantra in her speech center.

'Let's start with you, Charlotta. Could you describe to us what the paper Kvallspressen has done to you?'

Charlotta started bawling in the studio. The studio reporter must have thought it made good radio because he let it go on for almost half a minute before he asked her if she was okay. She stopped immediately.

'Well, you know,' Charlotta said, giving a sob, 'this reporter, Annika Bengtzon, called me at home. She wanted to wallow in my grief.'

'In what way?' the studio reporter asked, sounding concerned and empathetic.

'My best friend had died and she called me in the middle of the night, going, 'How do you feel?''

'That must have been very difficult for you!' the studio reporter exclaimed.

Charlotta gave another sob. 'Yes, it's the worst thing that's ever happened to me. How can you move on after