Studio Sex aka Studio 69 / Exposed

Turkey. A fighter plane roared past above their heads.

'Air Force Base Twenty-one,' Anne said, and threw her bags in the trunk of the taxi. 'Kallax doubles as a military air base. I learned to parachute here.'

Annika kept her bag on her lap. Two men in suits squeezed into the car before they set off for Pitea.

They drove past small villages and little patches of tilled land, but the E4 road they traveled along was mostly surrounded by forest. The leaves were blazing in radiant autumnal colors even though it was only the beginning of September.

'When does the winter start up here?' Annika wondered.

'I passed my driving test on the seventh of October. Two days later there was a blizzard. I drove straight into a ditch.'

They stopped at the turning to Norrfjarden to drop off one of the suits.

Twenty minutes later, Annika and Anne got out at the bus station in Pitea.

They put Anne's bags in a left-luggage locker inside the waiting room.

'Dad will pick us up in an hour. Do you want to go for a cup of coffee?'

At Ekbergs Cafe, Annika had a prawn sandwich. She'd got her appetite back.

'This was a great idea,' she said.

'Haven't you had any withdrawal symptoms?' Anne wondered.

Annika looked up in surprise. 'From what?'

'Life. The news. The minister.'

Annika cut a large piece from her prawn sandwich. 'I don't give a damn about any of that,' she said morosely.

'Don't you want to know what's been happening?'

Annika shook her head and chewed frenetically.

'Okay,' Anne said. 'Why do you spell Bengtzon with a z?'

Annika shrugged. 'I don't know, actually. My great-great-grandfather Gottfried came to Halleforsnas at the end of the 1850s. Lasse Celsing, the ironworks proprietor, had installed a new stamping machine, and my ancestor was in charge of it. A cousin of mine tried to do some genealogical research, but he didn't get very far. He came to a stop on Gottfried. Nobody knows where he came from- he may have been German or Czech. He entered himself on the list as Bengtzon.'

Anne took a big bite from her marzipan cake. 'What about your mom?'

'She's from Halleforsnas's oldest family of foundry men. I've practically got the blast furnace stamped on my forehead. What about you? How can you be called Snapphane and come from Lapland?'

Anne groaned and licked her spoon. 'Like I said, this is the coast. Everybody up here, apart from the Sami, come from somewhere else. They were loggers, railway laborers, Walloons, and other drifters. According to the family legend, Snapphane was first used as a term of abuse for a light-fingered Danish ancestor who was hanged for theft on the gallows hill outside Norrfjarden sometime in the eighteenth century. As a warning to others, his kids were also called Snapphane, and they didn't do very well either. A furnace on your forehead, well, I wish! My family crest has a gallows at the center.'

Annika smiled and licked up the last dollop of mayonnaise. 'Good story.'

'There's probably not a word of truth in it. Shall we go?'

***

Anne's father was called Hans. He seemed genuinely pleased to meet one of Anne's colleagues from Stockholm.

'There's so much to see here,' he said with great enthusiasm while his Volvo cruised slowly down Sundsgatan. 'There's Storfors, the Elias Cave, the Boleby Tannery, Grans Farm Museum. There's Altersbruk, the old ironworks with a pond and a mill-'

'Come off it, Dad,' Anne said, a bit embarrassed. 'Annika is here to see me. You sound like a tour guide.'

Hans wasn't put out. 'Just let me know if you want to go anyplace, and I'll give you a ride,' he said cheerfully, and looked at Annika in the rearview mirror.

Annika nodded and then turned her gaze out through the window. She glimpsed a narrow canal and they suddenly left the town center.

Pitea. That's where he lived- the man who had called Creepy Calls on the same day that Studio 69 revealed that Christer Lundgren had visited a strip club. Wasn't he married to the minister's cousin?

She instinctively fished around in her bag. Her notepad was still there and she opened it toward the back.

'Roger Sundstrom,' she read out, 'from Pitea. Do you know anyone by that name?'

Anne's father turned left in a traffic circle and thought out loud. 'Sundstrom… Roger Sundstrom- what does he do?'

'I don't know.' Annika turned the pages over. 'Here we are, his wife's called Britt-Inger.'

'Everybody's wife is called Britt-Inger up here,' Hans said. 'Sorry, can't help you there.'

'Why are you asking?'Anne wondered.

'I got a weird tip-off about the minister for foreign trade on the eve of his resignation from a Roger Sundstrom in Pitea.'

'And I know someone who doesn't give a damn about journalism anymore,' Anne said in a sugary voice.

Annika shoved the pad into her bag and put it on the floor. 'So do I.'

Anne's parents' house was on Oli-Jans Street in Pitholm. It was spacious and modern.

'You girls get settled upstairs,' Anne's father said. 'I'll fix some dinner. Britt-Inger is working tonight.'

Annika gave a look of surprise. 'Mom. He wasn't joking.'

The upper floor was open and bright. On the left, by a window, was a desk with a computer, a printer, and a scanner. On the right were two guest rooms. They took one each.

While Hans cooked dinner, they went over Anne's old record collection that still stood in the hi-fi bench in the living room.

'Jesus, you've got this?' Annika said in amazement, pulling out Jim Steinman's solo album Bad for Good.

'It's a collector's item,' Anne said.

'I've never met anyone who's ever heard this record. Apart from me.'

'It's fantastic. Did you know he used material from this for both his Meat Loaf productions and Streets of Fire?'

'Yep,' Annika said, scrutinizing the record cover. 'The hook from the title song went into 'Nowhere Fast' in the movie.'

'Yeah, and 'Love and Death and an American Guitar' is an intro on Meat Loaf's Back into Hell, except it's called 'Wasted Youth.''

'Genuinely awesome,' Annika said.

'Godlike.'

They sat in silence for a moment, reflecting on Jim Steinman's greatness.

'Have you got his Bonnie Tyler productions?' Annika wondered.

'Sure. Which one do you want? Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire?'

Anne placed the pickup on the vinyl and they both sang along.

Hans came in and turned the volume down. 'This is a built-up area,' he said. 'Have you ever eaten palt?'

'Nope.' Annika had never fancied the idea of bread baked with blood and rye flour.

It was fried and tasted quite good, a bit like potato dumplings.

'Do you want to go see a movie?' Anne said when the dishwasher started rumbling.

'Is there a movie theater here?' Annika wouldn't have thought there would be.

Anne gave her father an inquiring look. 'Are there any theaters still open?'

'Sorry, I don't know.'

'Do you have a phone directory?' Annika asked.