"Pelle, photo!" Spike yelled in the direction of the picture desk.
The picture editor gave him the thumbs-up, then called out, "Bertil Strand."
"Okay," the news editor said, and turned to Annika. "What have we got?"
Annika looked at her messy notes, suddenly noticing how nervous she was. "A dead girl behind a gravestone at the Jewish Cemetery in Kronoberg Park on Kungsholmen."
"Doesn't mean it's a goddamn murder, does it?"
"She's naked and she's been strangled."
Spike gave Annika a scrutinizing look. "And you want to do it?"
Annika swallowed and nodded.
The news editor sat down again and pulled out a notepad. "Okay. You can go with Berit and Bertil. Make sure you get some good pictures, the rest of the information we can get later, but you've got to get the pics straightaway."
The photographer put the backpack with his equipment over his shoulder as he walked past the news desk. "Where is it?" he said, directing the question at Spike.
"Kronoberg Jail," Spike said, and picked up the phone.
"The park," Annika said, and looked for her bag. "Kronoberg Park. The Jewish Cemetery."
"Just make sure it isn't a domestic incident," Spike said, and dialed a London number.
Berit and Bertil Strand were already on their way to the elevator to go down to the garage, but Annika stopped in her tracks.
"What do you mean?" she said.
"Exactly what I said: we don't meddle in family matters." The news editor turned his back on her.
Annika felt anger surge through her body and reach her brain like an electric shock. "It doesn't make the girl any less dead."
Spike began talking on the phone and Annika saw it meant the end of their discussion. She looked up, and Berit and Bertil Strand had already disappeared into the elevator. She hurried over to her desk, pulled out her bag, which had disappeared under the desk, and ran after her colleagues. The elevator was gone, so she took the stairs. Damn, damn- why the hell did she always have to take up arms? She might have lost her first big assignment just so she could take the news editor to task.
"Moron," she said out loud to herself.
She caught up with the reporter and the photographer at the entrance to the garage.
"We'll work side by side and keep an open mind until we have to split up and work different parts of the story," Berit said, writing on a pad while walking. "I'm Berit Hamrin, by the way. I don't think we've said hello."
The older woman smiled at Annika. They shook hands while getting into Bertil Strand's Saab, Annika in the back, Berit in front.
"Don't slam the door so hard," Bertil Strand said with disapproval, glancing over his shoulder at Annika. "It can damage the paint-work."
Jesus Christ, Annika thought to herself. "Oops, sorry," she said to Strand.
The photographers had the use of the newspaper's vehicles more or less as company cars. Most of the photographers took their car-care responsibilities extremely seriously. Maybe this was because all photographers, to a man, were men. She had been at Kvällspressen only seven weeks but was already acutely aware of the sanctity of the photographers' cars. On several occasions, she had had to postpone scheduled interviews because the photographers had been busy getting their cars washed. At the same time it showed what importance was attached to her pieces at the newspaper.
"We're better off approaching the park from the other side and avoiding Fridhemsplan," Berit said as the car picked up speed at the junction of Rålambsvägen and Gjörwellsgatan. Bertil Strand put his foot down and drove through right as the light turned red, down Gjörwellsgatan and on toward Norr Mälarstrand.
"Could you run through the information you got from the tipster again?" Berit said, leaning her back on the car door so that she could look at Annika in the backseat.
Annika fished out the crumpled piece of paper. "Right- there's a dead woman behind a gravestone in Kronoberg Park. She's naked and has probably been strangled."
"Who called?"
"A speed freak. His pal was taking a leak by the fence and spotted her between the bars."
"Why did they think she had been strangled?"
Annika turned the paper round and read something she had scribbled in a corner of the paper. "There was no blood, her eyes were wide open, and she had injuries to her neck."
"That doesn't have to mean that she was strangled, or even murdered," Berit said, and turned to face the front again.
Annika didn't reply. She turned to look out through the tinted windows of the Saab, seeing the sun worshipers of Rålambshov Park slide past. The glittering waters of Riddarfjärd Bay lay before her. She had to squint, despite the UV coating on the windshield. Two windsurfers were heading for Långholmen Island, but slowly. The air barely moved in the heat.
"What a great summer we're having," Bertil Strand said as he turned into Polhemsgatan. "You wouldn't have thought it, after the amount of rain we had in the spring."
"Yeah, I've been lucky," Berit said. "I've just had my four weeks' holiday. Sun every single day. You can park just behind the fire station."
The Saab sped down the last few blocks along Bergsgatan. Before Bertil Strand slowed down, Berit had undone her seat belt; she jumped out of the car before he had even started parking. Annika hurried after her, gasping in the heat that hit her outside the car.
Strand parked the car while Berit and Annika set off alongside a redbrick, fifties building. The narrow asphalt path skirting the park was bordered by high paving stones.
"There's a flight of steps farther on," Berit said, already out of breath.
Six steps later they were in the park proper. They ran along a path leading up to a well-equipped kids' playground.
On the right were several barrackslike buildings. Annika read the sign Playground as she ran past. There was a sandbox, benches, picnic tables, a jungle gym, several slides, swings, and other things that children could play with and climb on. Three or four mothers with children were in the playground; it looked as if they were packing up to leave. At the far end two police officers in uniform were talking to a fifth mother.
"I think the cemetery is farther down toward Sankt Göransgatan," Berit said.
"You know your way around here," Annika said. "Do you live in the neighborhood?"
"No. It's not the first murder in this park."
Annika saw that the police officers were each holding a roll of official blue-and-white tape. They were evacuating the playground to cordon it off from the public.
"We're just in time," she mumbled to herself.
They veered to the right, following a path that took them to the top of a hill.
"Down to the left," Berit said.
Annika ran ahead. She crossed two paths, and there it was. She saw a row of Stars of David standing out against the deep green foliage.
"I see it!" she yelled over her shoulder, noting out of the corner of her eye that Bertil Strand was catching up with Berit.
The fence was black, made of beautifully rendered wrought iron. Each bar was crowned with a stylized Star of David. She was running on top of her shadow and realized she was approaching the cemetery from the south.
She stopped on the crest of the hill; she had a good view from here. The police hadn't cordoned off this part of the park yet, which they had on the north and west sides.
"Hurry up!" she yelled to Berit and Bertil Strand.
The fence surrounded a small cemetery with dilapidated graves and granite headstones. Annika quickly estimated there were around thirty of them. Nature had virtually taken over; the place looked overgrown and neglected. The enclosure was no more than thirty by forty yards, the fence at the far end no more than five feet high. The entrance was on the west side, facing Kronobergsgatan and Fridhemsplan. She saw a team from their main tabloid rival stop at the cordon. A group of men in plain clothes were inside the cemetery, on the east side. That's where the woman's body lay.
Annika shuddered. She couldn't
afford to screw this up, her first proper tip-off.
Just as Berit and Bertil Strand came up behind her, she saw a man open the gates down on Kronobergsgatan. He was carrying a gray tarpaulin. Annika gasped. They hadn't covered her up yet!
"Quick!" she called over her shoulder. "We might be able to get some pictures from up here."
A police officer appeared on the hill in front of them. He was unrolling the blue-and-white tape. Annika rushed up to the fence, hearing Bertil Strand jogging heavily behind her. The photographer used the last few yards to wriggle out of the backpack and fish out a Canon and a telephoto lens. The man with the gray tarpaulin was only three yards away when Bertil fired off a sequence of pictures in among the bushes. He moved a yard to the side and fired off another. The officer with the tape yelled something; the men inside the cemetery were made aware of their presence.
"It's in the bag," Bertil Strand said. "We've got enough."
"Hey, you, goddammit!" the officer with the tape called out. "We're cordoning off this area!"
A man in a flowery Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts came toward them from inside the cemetery.
"That's enough now, guys," he said.
Annika looked around, not knowing what to do. Bertil Strand was already on his way to the footpath leading down to Sankt Göransgatan. Both the man in front of her and the police officer behind her looked mad. She realized she would have to start to leave soon, or they would make her. Instinctively, she moved sideways to where Strand had taken his first shots.
She peered in between the black iron bars, and there she was, the dead woman. Her eyes were staring into Annika's from a distance of ten feet. They were clouded and gray. Her head was thrown back, the upper arms stretched out above her head; one of her hands seemed to have injuries to it. Her mouth was wide open in a mute cry; the lips were a brownish black. She had a big bruise on the left breast and the lower part of her stomach had a greenish hue.
Annika took in the entire picture, crystal clear, in a moment. The coarseness of the gray stone in the background; the sultry summer vegetation; the shadow play of the foliage; the humidity and the heat; the revolting stench.
Then the tarpaulin made the whole scene gray. They weren't covering the body with it, but the fence.
"Time to move on," the officer with the tape said, placing a hand on her shoulder.
What a cliché, Annika found herself thinking as she turned around. Her mouth was dry. She noticed that all sounds were coming from a long way off. She moved, as if floating, toward the path where Berit and Bertil Strand were waiting behind the cordon, the photographer with a bored look of disapproval, Berit almost smiling.
The policeman followed her, his shoulder against her back. Annika thought it must be hot in uniform on a day like this.
"Did you manage to get a look?" Berit asked.
Annika nodded and Berit wrote something in her pad.
"Did you ask the detective in the Hawaiian shirt anything?"
Annika shook her head and ducked under the cordon, kindly assisted by the policeman.
"Pity. Did he say anything?"
" 'That's enough now, guys,'" Annika quoted him.
Berit smiled. "What about you, are you okay?"
Annika nodded. "Sure, I'm fine. And she could very well have been strangled; her eyes were almost popping out of their sockets. She must have tried to scream before she died- her mouth was wide open."
"So maybe someone heard her. We could try the neighbors later. Was she Swedish?"
Annika needed to sit down for a moment. "I forgot to ask…"
Berit smiled again. "Blond, dark, young, old?"
"Twenty, at most. Long blond hair. Big breasts. Silicone implants, probably, or saline."
Berit gave her an inquiring look.
Annika dropped down on the grass, legs crossed. "They were pointing straight up even though she was flat on her back. She had a scar in her armpit."
Annika felt her blood pressure drop and leaned her head against her knees and did some deep breathing.
"Not a pretty sight, eh?" Berit said.
"I'm okay."
After a minute or so, Annika felt better. The sounds came back to her in full force, hitting her brain with the earsplitting noise of a car factory: the roaring traffic on Drottningholmsvägen; two sirens blasting out of time; loud voices, their pitch rising and falling; clattering cameras; a child crying.
Bertil Strand had joined the small media posse that was forming down by the entrance to the cemetery; he was chatting to the Rival's photographer.
"What happens next? Who does what?" Annika asked.
Berit sat down next to Annika, looked at her notes, and began outlining their work.
"We've got to assume it's a murder, right? So we'll have a story on the actual event. This has happened: a young woman has been found murdered. When, where, and how? We need to know who found her and talk to him- have you got the guy's name?"
"A speed freak; his pal gave a care-of address for the tip-off money."
"Try and get hold of him. The emergency switchboard will have all the information on the call-out," Berit continued, ticking off her notes.
"I've got that already."
"Great. Then we need to get hold of a cop who will talk. Their press officer never says anything off the record. Did the Hawaii detective tell you his name?"
"Nope."
"Shame. Find out. I've never seen him before- he could be one of the new guys at Krim. Then we need to find out when she died and why. Have they got any suspects? What's next in the investigation? All the police aspects of the story."
"Okay," Annika said, taking notes.
"Christ, it's hot! It never gets this hot in Stockholm," Berit said, wiping the sweat from her forehead.
"I wouldn't know. I only moved here seven weeks ago."
Berit took out a Kleenex from her bag and wiped around her hairline. "Okay- we have the victim. Who was she? Who identified her? She'll have a family somewhere, no doubt brokenhearted. We should consider contacting them one way or another. We need pictures of the girl while she was alive. Was she over eighteen, would you say?"
Annika gave it some thought and remembered the plastic breasts. "Yes, probably."
"Then there'll be pictures of her from high school, wearing her white graduation cap. Talk to her friends. Find out if she had a boyfriend."
Annika took notes.
"Then there's the reaction of the neighbors," Berit went on. "This is practically downtown Stockholm, over three hundred thousand women live here. This type of crime will affect people's sense of security, their eating-out habits and whatnot. City life in general. That's two separate stories. You do the neighbors and I'll do the rest."
Annika nodded without looking up.
"There's one more angle," Berit said, dropping her pad into her lap. "Twelve or thirteen years ago, a very similar murder was committed less than a hundred yards away."
Annika looked up in surprise.
"If my memory serves me right, a young woman was sexually assaulted and murdered on some steps somewhere on the north side of the park," Berit mused. "The murderer was never caught."
"Jesus! Do you think there's a chance it could be the same guy?"
Berit shrugged. "I wouldn't think so, but we'll have to mention it. I'm sure lots of people remember it. The woman was raped and strangled."
Annika swallowed. "What an appalling job this is."
"It sure is. But it'll get a bit easier if you can get hold of that guy before he leaves."
Berit was pointing toward Sankt Göransgatan, where the man in the Hawaiian shirt was leaving the cemetery. He was walking toward a car that was parked around the corner in Kronobergsgatan. Annika leaped to her feet, grabbed her bag, and rushed down toward the street. She saw the reporter from the Rival attempting to talk to the cop, but he just waved him away.
At that moment, Annika stumbled on a ridge in the asphalt and nearly fell over. She staggered down the steep hill
toward Kronobergsgatan with huge, uncontrolled steps. Unable to stop herself, she crashed into the back of the Hawaiian shirt. The cop fell straight over the hood of his car.
"What the hell!" he yelled. He turned around and grabbed Annika around the upper arms.
"I'm sorry," she whimpered. "I didn't mean to. I nearly fell."
"What the hell's the matter with you? Are you crazy or something?" He was shocked and startled.
"I'm so sorry," Annika said. As well as the humiliation, her left ankle suddenly hurt like hell.
The officer regained his composure and let go of her. He scrutinized her for a few seconds.
"You should watch your goddamn step," he said, then got into his burgundy Volvo station wagon and drove off, tires screeching.
"Shit," Annika whispered to herself. She squinted into the sun, trying to distinguish the fleet number of the car. She thought she saw 1813 written on the side. To be on the safe side, she also looked at the registration number and tried to memorize it.
Annika turned around and realized that the little group of media people by the cemetery entrance were all staring at her. She blushed from her hairline down to her neck. She quickly bent over and collected the things that had fallen out of her bag when she'd collided with the cop: her notepad, a packet of chewing gum, a near empty bottle of Pepsi, and three sanitary napkins in green plastic covers. Her pen was still in the bag, so she hauled it out and quickly jotted down the registration and fleet numbers of the car.
The reporters and photographers stopped staring at her and resumed chatting among themselves. Annika noted that Bertil Strand was organizing an ice cream run.
She threw her bag across her shoulder and slowly approached her colleagues, who didn't seem to be paying her any attention now. Apart from the reporter from the rival tabloid, a middle-aged man who had his picture byline next to his stories, she didn't recognize a single one of them. There was a young woman with a tape recorder marked Radio Stockholm; two photographers from two different picture agencies; the Rival's photographer; and three other reporters that she couldn't place at all. No TV teams were present- the public television local news only did a five-minute broadcast a day during the summer, and the local commercial stations only did agency stories. The morning broadsheets would probably get pics from the agencies and supplement with TT copy. The public radio news show Eko hadn't sent anyone, nor would they, she knew that. One of Annika's former colleagues at the local paper where she normally worked had been employed there as a casual one summer. Contemptuously, she had explained to Annika, "We leave murders and that kind of thing to the tabloids. We're not scavengers."
Studio Sex aka Studio 69 / Exposed Page 2
