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 lowwater 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 Kvällspressen’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 Kvällspressen 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 something like that?”
“Was it the same for you, Martin Berg-Larsson?”
“Larsson-Berg,” the deputy principal corrected him. “Well, on the whole. I wasn’t a close friend of the girl, of course, but I am close to the family. Her brother is a very gifted student. He graduated last spring and will be going to the USA to study this fall. We are always very pleased at Tibble High School when our students go on to a higher education abroad.”
“So how did you feel being confronted with these questions in the middle of the night?”
“Well, I was shocked, naturally. At first I thought something had happened to my wife, who was out sailing—”
“How did you react?”
“It’s all a bit muddled…”
“Was this the same reporter who thrust herself on Charlotta, Annika Bengtzon?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
The studio reporter made a rustling noise with a newspaper. “Let’s hear what Annika Bengtzon wrote. Listen to this…”
In a mocking tone, the man began reading from Annika’s articles about Josefin, her dreams and hopes, the quotes from Charlotta and finally the grief-stricken youth of Täby.
“So what do you think of this?” he said in a lugubrious voice.
“It’s terrible that people can’t leave you alone in your grief,” Charlotta whimpered. “The media never shows respect for people in times of crisis. And then today, at our demonstration against violence, she intruded again!”
Martin Larsson-Berg cleared his throat. “Yes, but from the point of view of the media, we do have a very good crisis management team in Täby. We like to see ourselves as an inspiring example—”
The studio reporter cut him off. “But Kvällspressen and Annika Bengtzon haven’t stopped at that. The tabloid has actively tried to clear the cabinet minister Christer Lundgren of suspicion. Dancing unquestioningly to the Social Democratic tune, she has thrown the blame on the perso
n who was closest of all to Josefin, her boyfriend. Our reporter met him for an interview.”
“I loved Josefin. She was the most important person in my life,” said a high-pitched male voice that sounded young and vulnerable.
“What did it feel like to be practically accused of being a murderer in the newspaper?” the reporter asked cautiously.
The man sighed. “It’s impossible to describe the feeling. What can you say? To read that you’ve… No, it’s beyond comprehension.” There was a catch in his voice.
“Have you considered suing the paper?”
Another catch. “No, everybody knows it’s pointless. Giants like that can put up any amount of money to crush a person. I’d never win a case against the press. Besides, it would bring back too many memories.”
The studio reporter returned, now with another reporter in the studio who seemed to play the part of some kind of expert.
“This is a problem, isn’t it?” the studio reporter said.
“It certainly is,” the commentator said in a concerned voice. “A young man is branded a murderer by a summer temp who’s put on her Sunday best to do a piece of investigative journalism, and a lie is established as truth. Justice will rarely be done in a case like this. It would cost an enormous sum of money to pursue a libel case against a newspaper. However, we’d like to point out to anybody who feels used or abused by the media that you can receive legal aid to get at journalists who tell lies.”
“Could this be something for Joachim to think about?”
“Yes, it could. One just has to hope he has the energy to take the matter to court. It would be very interesting to see what would be the outcome of a case like this.”
The studio reporter rustled his papers. “But why would a young journalist do a thing like this?”
“One explanation might be that she would stop at nothing to get a permanent job with a tabloid. Kvällspressen lives off its newsstand circulation. The juicier the front page, the more copies they sell and the more money they make. Unfortunately, the reporters that stoop to this kind of work can benefit financially from their sordid activities.”
“So the more salacious the front page, the higher the salary for the reporter?”
“Yes, you could say that.”
“But do you think it’s that simple, that she’s sold herself to the highest bidder?”
“No, regrettably, the underlying motives may be even more dubious.”
“And what might they be, do you think?”
The commentator cleared his throat. “The fact is, that there are up to ten thousand lobbyists in Stockholm. And these lobbyists are only after one thing: to get the decision makers and the media to do their employers’ bidding. They influence the media by ‘planting’ news. You dupe or buy a journalist with a planted piece of news and the reporter becomes your tool.”
“Do you think that has happened in this case?”
“Yes, I’m absolutely convinced it has,” the commentator said authoritatively. “It’s obvious to someone with any kind of knowledge of this trade that Annika Bengtzon’s pieces about Christer Lundgren constitute a case of planting.”
“How do you know?” the studio reporter asked, sounding impressed.
“I’d like to play you a tape that proves my case. It’s a clip from this morning outside Rosenbad,” the commentator said triumphantly.
The voice of the prime minister filled the air: “Naturally, I feel for Christer at a time like this. This kind of unwarranted media attention is always a trial. But I assure you, for the government— and the party— this business is of no consequence whatever. I suppose you’ve all seen Kvällspressen today. They’ve realized why the police have been interviewing Christer. He happens to have an overnight apartment next to Kronoberg Park. Even cabinet ministers have to have somewhere to live.”
Back in the studio. “There we heard it plainly,” the commentator said. “The prime minister refers directly to the statements in a newspaper, clearly wanting other media to follow suit.”
“What exactly is the responsibility of the government in a case like this?”
“Well, they should obviously be censured for taking advantage of such a young and inexperienced journalist. It is unfortunately a lot easier to manipulate the summer freelancers.”
The studio reporter took over again. “We tried to get hold of the editor in chief to offer him the chance to comment on our report, but were told that he wasn’t available…”
Annika got up and walked toward the ladies’ room; the floor under her feet was rolling. It got worse when she entered the corridor behind the newsroom. She had to support herself against the wall. I’m going to break, she thought. I can’t do it. I won’t make it. I’ll throw up right here on the floor.
She made it to the bathroom and threw up in the disabled toilet, causing a blockage in the drain when she tried to flush it. She looked at her face in the mirror and was surprised to find that she was still in one piece, that she looked the same. She was still breathing and her heart was still working.
I can never show my face again, she thought. I’m disgraced. I’ll never get another job. They won’t even want me back at Katrineholms-Kuriren; I’m going to get fired. She couldn’t think if what they had said had any validity. She had been skewered on national radio.
She started to cry.
Christ, where am I going to live? If I can’t pay the rent, then where do I go?
She sank down on the floor, sobbing into her skirt.
Lyckebo, she thought suddenly and stopped crying. I’ll move to Grandma’s. No one will find me there. Grandma will move into her apartment in Hälleforsnäs in October and I could just stay in the cottage.
She blew her nose on some toilet paper and wiped away the tears.
Yes— of course that’s what she’d do! Grandma had promised to stand by her; she wouldn’t let her down. And Annika was a union member, so she’d get unemployment benefits at least for a year and then she could see. She could go abroad, a lot of people before her had done that. Pick oranges in Israel or grapes in France— or New Zealand?
She got to her feet. There were lots of alternatives.
“You can do it,” she said out loud.
She’d made up her mind. Never again was she going to set foot in a newspaper office, especially not this one. She would take her bag and box up her notes and leave journalism behind her forever. Determined, she opened the door.
The feeling of being out on a rough sea wouldn’t quite go away. She stayed close to the wall so she wouldn’t fall over.
Once she reached Berit’s desk she quickly gathered her things and put them in her bag.
“There you are! Could you come into my office for a moment?”
She recognized the voice of the new deputy editor, Anders Schyman.
Surprised, she turned around. “Who, me?”
“Yes, I’m in the fish tank with the hideous curtains over there. Come on in when you’ve got a minute.”
“I can come right now.”
She felt the furtive glances of the newsroom as she walked over to the boss’s office. One thing I know for sure, she thought— it can’t get any worse.
It wasn’t a nice office. The tired curtains really were hideous and the air was dank and stale.
“What’s that god-awful smell? Haven’t you emptied the ashtray?”
“I don’t smoke. It’s the couch. Don’t sit on it, the smell gets into your clothes.”
She remained standing in the middle of the floor while he sat on his desk.
“I’ve called Studio 69,” he said. “I never heard the likes of such a personal attack, and we didn’t even get a chance to respond. I’ve already faxed a complaint to the Broadcast Commission. The editor in chief may be away, but I’ve been here all day. Did they call you?”
She didn’t answer, just shook her head.
“I know that so-called commentator. He worked for a while on my current affairs program, but I had to get rid o
f him. His behavior really was beyond the pale. He was forever conspiring and dissing people until the office nearly fell apart. Fortunately, he wasn’t on staff but was freelancing, so once I’d decided, I could ask him to leave.”
Annika stared at the floor.
“And on the subject of planting,” Schyman said, pulling out a fax from the mess that had already accumulated on his desk, “we’ve received an anonymous tip that the leader of one of the other parties in Parliament has been interviewed by the police in connection with the Josefin case.”
He held out the fax to Annika, who looked at it, stunned. “Where was it sent from?”
“My question, exactly. Do you see the caller ID in the corner? That’s the phone number of the Social Democrats’ public relations office.”
“That’s so cheap.”
“Isn’t it? Brazen too. They don’t even care we’d know right away who sent it.”
They fell silent.
Then Annika steeled herself. “Nobody planted anything with me.”
Anders Schyman looked at her attentively, waiting for her to continue.
“I haven’t discussed my coverage with anyone, except a little with Berit and Anne Snapphane.”
“With the news editors?”
Annika shook her head. “Not much,” she said quietly.
“So you’ve handled this all on your own?”
He sounded a bit skeptical; Annika felt a bit edgy.
“Well, almost,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “I can’t blame anyone else.”
“Oh, no,” Schyman hastened to say, “that’s not what I meant. I think your coverage has been okay, good, even. The only thing you missed out on was the strip joint. You knew about that, didn’t you?”
She nodded.
“We should have run that sooner. But to do what the Rival and Studio 69 have done, practically making the girl out to be a prostitute, that’s a hell of a lot worse. How did you find out about the minister’s overnight apartment?”
Annika heaved a sigh. “I had coffee with his neighbor.”
“Great!” Schyman said enthusiastically. “And what really happened with those youngsters in Täby?”
There was a quick gleam in Annika’s eyes. “That is just too much. They called us themselves and invited us to the youth center. They also told us about the rally in the park, or whatever that was.”
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