Red Wolf

‘And we’ll make a huge profit on the flat as well,’ he said.

She stood up to get the sauce, and he had a sudden giddy sense of incomprehensible reality, she was a little green woman from another planet. There was nothing soft or malleable or negotiable about her, she was simply her own solid core.

The next thought hit him from out of the blue. There’s no one else like Annika.

The realization made his throat tighten, with something that might have been happiness.

Annika was sitting outside Anders Schyman’s office and felt like she was falling. The sounds from the newsroom were muffled and thin, the day crew had gone home and the evening gang were still waking up, the recessed lighting in the corridors was throwing irregular dancing shadows across the floor.

Her workplace. A context in which she belonged.

‘You can go in now,’ Schyman’s secretary said.

Annika stood up shakily, walked into the editor-in-chief’s office and shut the door firmly behind her.

He was sitting at his desk, staring at a printout. His face was red, and his neck looked sweaty. She took several tentative steps forward, glancing at the printout. It was her article, of course. She sat down, her back stiff and straight.

‘What are you playing at?’ he said without looking up, trying to sound derisive but concerned.

She stared at him, the feeling of falling still within her, her tiredness throbbing.

‘I’ve written an article that’s going to be printed in the paper tomorrow,’ she said in a voice that lacked all emotion.

He picked up a pen and tapped it against the printout.

‘It will hardly come as news to you that I am legally responsible for what gets published in this paper,’ he said. ‘The decision on whether or not this article gets printed is down to me.’

She swallowed hard. ‘And?’

‘And I’m saying no,’ he said.

‘Then I’ll take it elsewhere.’

‘You can’t,’ Anders Schyman said.

‘Of course I can,’ she said quickly. ‘The Worker wouldn’t say no. They published Vilhelm Moberg’s articles about corruption in the legal system in the fifties; they’d snap up the article like a shot.’

‘I forbid it.’

‘Freedom of expression,’ Annika said. ‘Ever heard of that? The free world, democracy? If my employer – the Evening Post in this instance – says no to an article I’ve written, then I have the right to offer it to someone else.’

She felt her pulse quicken, the air was full of his doubt and repudiation. There were several seconds of silence.

‘I had a very unpleasant conversation today,’ he said. ‘Who’s Sophia Grenborg?’

The floor opened up beneath her. She gasped as all colour drained away.

‘What do you mean?’ she said.

‘How do you know her?’

‘She’s my husband’s… colleague.’

‘Ah,’ Schyman said, a glint in his eyes. ‘So she worked with your husband. Closely?’

Thoughts swirled, spinning and dancing.

‘Did she call you?’ Annika said, and heard how shaken she sounded.

‘No,’ Schyman said, ‘not her, but her boss at the Federation of County Councils. Do you know what I’m talking about?’

She shook her head, her mouth dry.

‘They’re saying you called and made insinuations about this woman to various departments within the Federation. Is that correct?’

Annika took a deep breath. ‘I had a tip-off.’

Anders Schyman nodded and looked down at his desk, tapping his pen again.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You got a tip-off that this woman had fiddled her tax, used to be a right-wing extremist, and had exaggerated her expenses?’

Annika squeezed the arms of the chair; this conversation wasn’t exactly turning out as she had imagined.

She nodded.

‘How closely did she work with your husband?’

‘Not too close; they were in the same working group.’

‘Much overtime?’ Schyman said, leaning towards her. ‘A lot of late nights?’

Annika stretched her neck. ‘Some.’

The silence in the room grew thick and heavy. She gulped audibly.

‘They’ve seen through you at the Federation of County Councils,’ the editor-in-chief said slowly. ‘I just thought you should know. They realized that you were just trying to throw mud at her. But they’re letting her go anyway. Do you know why?’

Annika stared at Schyman, shaken and confused. They were letting her go? She’s been fired? She’s disappearing?

‘They’re merging with the Association of Local Councils in the spring,’ Schyman said, his voice utterly cold. ‘They daren’t risk a dirt-throwing campaign in the Evening Post right now, would do anything to avoid it, in fact. A crisis of confidence in the Federation would sabotage the merger they’ve spent four years preparing for.’

The editor-in-chief could sit still no longer and stood up to pace the room, then leaned over her. ‘Do you think I don’t get it? She got too close to your husband, didn’t she? How close? Were they fucking in your bed?’

She put her hands over her ears and shut her eyes.

‘Stop it!’ she shouted.

‘How dare you?’ he shouted back at her face. ‘How dare you exploit your position at this paper for your own sordid purposes?’

She let her hands drop, her eyes opening wide.

‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ she said in a cracked voice.

His face was quivering with rage and fury. He stared into her eyes as though he were trying to find an explanation.

‘You’re not going anywhere with that article,’ he said eventually, then stretched and walked back to his desk. ‘The moment that text leaves this building I’ll report you to the police.’

She felt her brain explode, and flew up out of her chair, setting her face ten centimetres from his. She saw him flinch.

‘Okay,’ she said hoarsely. ‘I’ll be fine. Because you know what? I know I’m right. There’s no way I can lose.’

He was dumbfounded.

‘I see,’ he said. ‘What will you say to your husband when the police arrest you for grave defamation and gross misconduct? How will he react when he finds out why she was fired? Who will get custody of your children? And what do you think will happen to your job? Surely you don’t imagine you can stay here if you publish that article in The Worker?’

Annika felt the adrenalin pumping, tore her eyes away from him and walked giddily round the desk, stopping right in front of him.

‘And what do you think will happen to you?’ she said in a low voice. ‘Do you think you’ll still be sitting at this desk after I explain how it all happened, including your threat to crush me because of my desperate attempt to save my marriage? Do you imagine that you’ll have an ounce of credibility left once you block an article that reveals the worst abuse of media power in modern times? How you’ve exploited unpublished information about a minister obtained by the paper in an attempt to blackmail her into destroying a business competitor? And what about the Newspaper Publishers’ Association? Do you imagine for a moment that you’ll get to be chair? You’re finished, Schyman. I might go down with you, but you’re going to fall a hell of a lot harder.’

He stared at her. She felt her eyes burning and returned his gaze.