'It's a summerhouse but it has reception rooms.' Annika smiled. 'Harpsund has been a big hit among prime ministers, especially the present one. He's from Sormland and most of his family still lives there. I met him there on Midsummer Eve a couple of years ago.'
Patricia was impressed. 'You've been there?'
'I often went with Grandma when I was a kid.'
They ate in silence.
'Are you working today?' Patricia asked.
Annika nodded.
'You've got a really hard job, don't you?' Patricia said. 'And dangerous- if there are people trying to set fire to you.'
Annika gave a lopsided smile. 'Someone set fire to your workplace too.'
'That wasn't personal.'
Annika sighed. 'Still, I wish I could stay.'
'Why do you have to go in?'
'My contract ends next week. Only one or two of the summer freelancers will get to go on working at the paper.'
'Couldn't you be one of them? You've written a lot.'
Annika shook her head. 'They've got a recruitment meeting with the union tomorrow, and after that we'll find out who gets to stay. What are you doing today?'
Patricia's gaze turned inward and disappeared out in the rain. 'I'm going to think about Josefin. I'm going to speak to the spirits and look for her on the other side. When I make contact with her, I'm going to ask her who did it.'
Anne Snapphane was at her desk when Annika walked into the newsroom.
'So you're alive,' Annika established.
'Barely. It's been a goddamn awful weekend. The bosses have been completely nuts. Any assignments the news editor has handed out during the day, the night editor has trashed at night. I've had five stories spiked.'
Annika dropped down at her desk. The dragon had left behind a battlefield of empty coffee mugs, wire copy, and used Kleenex tissues.
'I did think twice before I came in,' Annika said. 'Now I know why.'
Anne began to laugh. Annika swept everything on the desk, including five notepads, two books, and three mugs marked Mariana, into the wastebasket. 'Take that, you upper-class bitch.'
Anne laughed so hard she fell off her chair.
'It wasn't that funny, was it?'Annika said.
Anne sat up again and tried to stop laughing. 'No, it wasn't that funny,' she said, chuckling. 'It won't take much to make me laugh today. I know that I'm going to be getting out of here.'
Annika stared at her. 'You've got a job? Where?'
'With a TV production company in Hammarby Dock. I'll be researcher on a cable-station talk show aimed at women. It starts in about five weeks. It could be really trashy. I'm really looking forward to it.'
'What if you get a job here?'
'Christ knows if I want to. Besides, the TV job is a permanent post.'
'Congratulations.' Annika walked around the desk to give her friend a hug. 'I'm so happy for you!'
'Hey, could you dykes spare a minute to do some work?'
Spike was back in the news editor's chair.
'Shove it, you randy old goat!' Anne shouted at him.
'Are you crazy?'Annika said under her breath.
'Who cares? I'm leaving.' Anne got up.
Anne got the assignment, a story about a kitten rescued by the Norrkoping police. It had been living at the station for two weeks and now it had to be put to sleep.
'We've got to get a photo of the stupid cat in a cell,' Anne said. 'Just imagine the headline: 'Puss on Death Row.''
Spike looked at Annika. 'I've got nothing for you right now. Stand by for the time being.'
Annika swallowed. She got it. The fridge door had slammed shut.
'Okay,' she said. 'I'll read the papers.'
She walked over to the archive shelves and picked up all the
She started with Berit's IB piece. Without beating about the bush, the Speaker now admitted he'd used his contacts with Birger Elmer at the IB domestic bureau to escape a military posting, a training assignment, in the autumn of 1966.
It was in the middle of an election campaign, and the Speaker was the deputy chairman of the Young Social Democrats at the time. The posting came at an inconvenient moment so Elmer set him up with a war job at IB.
This meant he could go on as usual with his political work, while doing his military service at the same time.
According to the records that Berit had dug up, the Speaker had been called up for service at the Defense Staff Intelligence Division, which could be another name for the IB. In 1966 he was thirty-three years old and he was never called up again.
Annika let the paper drop. How did Berit get the Speaker to admit all of this? He'd been denying all involvement for three decades, and now suddenly he'd come clean about everything. Weird.
The following spread showed some sensational pictures of the arrest of the Ninja Barbies, all of them taken by Carl Wennergren. In the article the readers were told that the group had decided to attack a judge's house in the leafy Stockholm suburb of Djursholm. The judge had recently acquitted a suspected pedophile for lack of evidence. The police had been tipped off and had sent in the terrorist squad. They had evacuated the surrounding houses and set up roadblocks. Parts of the squad had taken up position in the Stockhagen sports field right next to the judge's house; the rest had hidden in the garden.
The Ninja Barbies were taken completely by surprise and had surrendered after two of the women were shot in the leg.
The article gave Annika a bad taste in her mouth. Gone was the uncritical reiteration of the Ninja Barbies' grievances that had been the framework of the earlier articles; now the police were the heroes. If any articles in
'We're going to drown in the tears of readers wanting to take care of little Puss,' Anne Snapphane said.
Annika smiled. 'What's the cat's actual name?'
'It said Harry on the collar. Have you had lunch yet?'
The minister drove into the little village called Mellosa. He slowed down and looked left through the rain. His turn should be somewhere here.
A large yellow house appeared in the grayness down by the water, and he slowed further; it didn't seem quite right. The car behind beeped.
'Calm down, for Christ's sake!' the minister cried out, and slammed on the brakes. The Volvo behind him braked, swerved, and missed him by an inch.
His rented car coughed and died; the fan hissed and the windshield wipers continued to squeak. He noticed that his hands on the wheel were shaking.
Jesus! What am I doing? he thought. I can't risk other people's lives just because…
The irony in his reasoning hit him full force. He started the car and slowly drove on. Two hundred meters
