Studio Sex aka Studio 69 / Exposed

She brushed her hair away from her face with shaking hands.

'Would you like a sandwich, or some coffee?' Patricia asked with concern.

Annika forced a smile. 'No thanks, I'll be all right.'

Joachim was next door in the office. Mercifully, she'd been busy with some gamblers when he'd arrived.

How do you become like him? she wondered. What's wrong with you when you kill the one you love? How can you kill another human being and go on living as if nothing has happened?

'I've got to go back out,' Patricia said. 'Are you coming?'

Annika leaned forward and put new Band-Aids on her blisters.

'Sure.'

The music was louder inside the strip bar. Two girls were onstage. One was wrapping herself around the pole, thrusting her hips toward the audience. The other had brought a man from the audience up onto the stage. He was smearing shaving foam all over her breasts while she arched backward, making as if she were groaning in ecstasy.

Annika followed Patricia behind the bar and poured herself a glass of Coke.

'Doesn't it get you down having to look at this all night?' Annika said into Patricia's ear.

'Put a bottle of champagne on the bald guy,' one of the nudes said, and Patricia went over to the cash register.

Annika went back out to her foyer. She shuddered; it was cold out here. Sanna wasn't there. Annika sat down on a barstool she'd pulled in behind the roulette table.

'How's business?'

Joachim was standing in the office doorway, arms across his chest and a smile on his lips.

Annika immediately jumped down from the stool. 'So-so. Yesterday was better.'

He came up to the table, still smiling and holding her gaze with his. 'I think you've got a real future here.' He came up beside her behind the table.

Annika licked her lips and tried to smile. 'Thanks.' She batted her eyelashes.

'How did you decide to come work here?' His voice was a few degrees cooler.

Lie, she thought, but keep as close to the truth as you can.

'I need money.' She looked up. 'I got sacked from my old job, they thought I was a troublemaker. One of the… customers complained about me and my boss got cold feet.'

Joachim laughed, then caressed her shoulder, his hand lingering just by her breast. 'What was the job?'

She swallowed, fighting the instinct to recoil from his touch. 'A grocery store. I worked in the deli section at Vivo on Fridhemsplan. Slicing salami all day long isn't exactly my idea of fun.'

He laughed out loud and removed his hand. 'I can understand why you quit. Who did you work with?'

Her heart stopped. Did he know someone there? 'Why?' She smiled. 'Do you have connections in the sausage business?'

He guffawed. 'I think you should give the stage some thought.' He moved closer to her. 'You'd look fantastic in the spotlight. Have you ever wanted to be a star?'

He pushed both his hands into her hair and gave her neck a hug. To her dismay, she felt a pang of excitement in her genitals.

'A star? What, like Josefin?'

The words slipped out of her before she had time to think. He reacted as if she'd punched him, let go of her head, and took a step back.

'What the hell? What do you know about her?'

Jesus, how fucking stupid can I be? she thought, and cursed her big mouth.

'She worked here, didn't she? I heard about her,' she said, unable to control her trembling voice.

Joachim backed off farther. 'Why, did you know her or something?'

Annika smiled nervously. 'No, not at all, I never met her. But Patricia told me she used to work here.'

He went up and stood face-to-face with her. 'Josefin came to a really fucking bad end,' he said in a tense, deliberate voice. 'We get some powerful people here, and she thought she could con some money out of them. Don't. Don't ever try to roll anyone here. Not the customers, not me.'

Joachim spun round and went up the spiral staircase.

Annika was holding on to the roulette wheel, ready to faint.

Nineteen Years, Seven Months, and Fifteen Days

I'm driven by my wish to understand. I realize that I'm looking for explanations and a framework where there aren't any. What do I really know about the terms of love?

He isn't really bad- only vulnerable and thin-skinned, scarred by his childhood. There is nothing to suggest his powerlessness will always find the same expression. When he becomes more mature, he'll stop hitting. My own mean doubts run stakes of shame through my abdomen; I've judged him far too rashly. I take my own development for granted, his I completely ignore.

Yet the chill has built a nest in my breast.

Because he says

he will never

let me go.

Saturday 8 September

She felt strange using the elevator again. She remembered the last time she'd stood here, thinking she'd never be here again.

Nothing is forever, she thought. Everything goes around in circles.

The newsroom was bright, quiet, and weekend-empty, just as she preferred it. Ingvar Johansson had his back turned and was on the phone; he didn't see her.

Anders Schyman was sitting behind his desk in his fish tank.

'Come in.' He indicated for her to sit down on his new burgundy leather couch. Annika pushed the door closed behind her and looked out at the newsroom behind the tired old curtains. It felt strange that everything should look exactly as it did when she'd left, as if she'd never existed.

'You're looking good.'

I've heard that one before, Annika thought. 'I wasn't that tired before,' she said, and sat on the couch. The upholstery was hard, the leather cold.

'How was the Caucasus?'

She wasn't following and pressed her lips together.

'You were going,' Schyman said.

'There were no last-minute trips left. I went to Turkey instead.'

The deputy editor smiled. 'Lucky for you. It looks like war down there. They seem to be mobilizing the army.'

Annika nodded. 'The government forces got hold of some weapons.'

They sat in silence for a while.

'So what have you got cooking?' Schyman said after a while.

Annika took a deep breath. 'I haven't written it. I don't have a computer. I was going to outline it to you and see what you think.'

'Shoot.'

Annika pulled up her photocopies from the bag. 'It's about the murder of Josefin Liljeberg and the