Confused, the woman looked around and saw Annika. She walked outside and nearly got caught between the automatic sliding doors. Tore Brand yelled something and Patricia stopped.
"What's happened?"
"They're throwing me out."
Annika breathed freely again. "But that's just as well. You'll soon find a new job."
Patricia looked at her, taken aback. "Not the club. The apartment."
"Josefin's parents?"
Patricia nodded and wiped away the tears. "Jossie's mother's a real bitch. A racist bitch."
"Where will you go?"
The young woman tossed her hair back defiantly and shrugged. "Don't know. Maybe I'll shack up with some guy. There's plenty of sugar daddies around."
Without really thinking about it, Annika rummaged around in her bag. "Here." She put her keys in Patricia's hand. "Thirty-two Hantverkargatan, across the yard, top floor. Have you got any money? Make some copies, my boyfriend has my extra set."
"What?"
"I've got an extra bedroom. It's an old maid's bedroom behind the kitchen. You can have it. Do you have a mattress?"
Patricia nodded.
"What about the other furniture in the apartment?"
"The bed belongs to Joachim, and the table Jossie bought secondhand."
"Are you working tonight?"
She nodded again.
"Do you work every night?"
"Almost," she said in a low voice.
"Okay, that's your business. Just don't mess the place up. That would make me unhappy."
Patricia looked at her with wide eyes. "How do you know you can trust me? You don't know me."
Annika smiled wryly. "There's nothing to steal."
At that moment Pettersson came driving along Gjörwellsgatan; Annika could hear that by the way he stalled at the entrance.
"Take the bus over there on Rålambsvägen. Number sixty-two will take you all the way down Hantverkargatan."
Patricia stood there looking at the keys.
Annika left her and walked toward the photographer.
"We'll have a thunderstorm tonight," Pettersson said through the window.
Patricia waved good-bye and walked off. Annika forced a smile in Pettersson's direction. He was some freaking weather prophet too.
"Let's park a little ways away," she said as she climbed into the passenger seat.
"Why?"
"I'm not a hundred percent sure they're going to like us being there."
They drove in silence over to the cemetery. The car only stalled twice. They parked in a garage that had its entrance down by Fleminggatan.
Annika slowly walked along Kronobergsgatan up to the park. They were out in good time; the coaches would only have just left Täby. She sat down on a doorstep where she had a good view of the cemetery. The photographer wandered around on the other side of the street.
In the winter I'll wish I was back in this heat, she mused. When the wind is blowing hard and the snow falling, when I'm scraping the ice off the windshield in the morning- then I'll be longing for these days. When I drive into Katrineholm to cover yet another council meeting and talk to some angry women about the closure of another post office, then I'll be remembering this. Here and now. Chaos and murder. The hot city.
She looked straight up at the sky- it was bluer than blue. Beyond the park it was a shade of steely gray, shiny and sharp.
So maybe Pettersson was right, she thought. Maybe we'll have a thunderstorm.
***
The first coach drove up along Kronobergsgatan at twenty past two. Annika stayed in the doorway while the photographer put on a telephoto lens and started snapping the youngsters as they stepped out of the coach. The other two coaches appeared a few minutes later. Annika got to her feet and brushed off her pants. She swallowed; her mouth was dry. Damn it, she always forgot to bring water with her on assignments. She approached the group slowly, looking out for Martin Larsson-Berg, Lisbeth, and Charlotta. She didn't see them.
The youngsters were loud and seemed aggressive. Several of them were crying. She came to a stop in Sankt Göransgatan. She didn't feel good about this. Despite the distance, she could see that many of the kids looked tired. Their faces were gray with lack of sleep. She crossed the street to Pettersson's side.
"Hey," she said. "Let's give this one a miss."
The photographer lowered his camera and looked at her, surprised. "Why, for Christ's sakes?"
Annika nodded toward the coaches. "Look at them. They're hysterical. I don't know if it's healthy to encourage mass psychosis like they do at that youth club. These kids probably haven't been home since last Sunday."
"But they called us."
Annika nodded. "Yeah, they did. This is probably very important to them. But it's our responsibility to use our brains, even if they can't."
The photographer was getting impatient. "Goddammit. I'm not going to ditch a job just because you've suddenly developed a conscience."
The group of youngsters was milling around, spreading out around the cemetery. Annika was still wavering.
At the same moment, Annika saw the car from the rival newspaper drive up and park in Sankt Göransgatan. Arne Påhlson stepped out.
That settled it. "Come on, then. Let's go closer," she said to Pettersson.
She approached the cemetery with the photographer in tow, aiming at the wrought-iron arches of the fence. Her mouth was dry as dust as she swallowed, her pulse quickening. When she was a few yards away from the kids, one pointed at her and started screaming.
"There they are. They're here! The vultures! The vultures!" Everybody's attention was directed at the two journalists.
"Is Lisbeth here?" Annika asked, but her voice didn't carry over the noise.
"Beat it, fucking assholes!" a boy of no more than thirteen or fourteen screamed at them. He took a few hostile steps toward Annika, who drew back instinctively. The boy's face was swollen from crying and lack of sleep, his whole body shaking with adrenaline and fury. She stared at him, speechless.
"Listen," she said, "we didn't mean to intrude-"
A big girl stepped forward and gave Annika's shoulder a hard shove. "Fucking hyenas!" she bawled, the spit flying.
Annika stumbled backward. She tried to catch the girl's furious gaze with calm. "Please. Let's try to talk about this-"
"Fucking hyena!" the girl screamed. "Asshole!"
The group of young people surrounding Annika grew denser. She was frightened. Someone pushed her in the back so she stumbled forward and collided with the big girl.
"What are you doing, bitch?" the girl screamed. "Are you starting something?"
Annika frantically looked around for Pettersson. Where was he?
"Pettersson!" she cried out. "Pettersson, where the hell are you?"
His voice reached her from somewhere over by the garage entrance.
"Bengtzon!" he yelled in panic. "They're trying to take my cameras!"
Suddenly one voice could be heard above all the others. Menacing and frenzied, it cut through the noise.
"Where? Where are they?"
A girl who had grabbed hold of Annika's bag let go of it and turned her attention toward the voice. Annika saw a copy of Kvällspressen bobbing above the heads of the youths. The group parted and she saw several kids opening up newspapers. Charlotta from Josefin's class was making her way forward through a passage in the crowd. Annika drew back another few steps at the sight.
The girl was on the verge of collapse. Her eyes were red and the pupils were dilated and dark, and her movements were jerky and uncoordinated. Her hair was dirty and messy and her breathing ragged.
"You… scavenger!" she screamed, and made a lunge at Annika. "You scumbag!"
With all her might, Charlotta whacked Annika over the head with the paper. Annika instinctively held up her hands as the blows rained down on her. The papers hit her on the arms and across her back while the screams around her rose to a collective roar.
Annika felt
all thoughts disappear from her mind as she turned around, pushed kids out of the way, and started running. Away, God help her, away from here, and she heard her own steps thudding on the street. The green of the park flashed past on the right. She sensed Pettersson somewhere behind her, but so were the youths.
The slope down to the garage was pitch-dark after the strong sunlight in the park, and she stumbled.
"Pettersson!" she cried. "Are you there?"
She had reached the car, and once her eyes had grown used to the dark, she could see the photographer running down the ramp. He had his cameras in one hand, his photographer's vest hung loose from one shoulder, and his hair stood on end.
"They tried to tear my clothes off," he said, visibly disturbed. "That was fucking stupid, walking up to them."
"Just shut the fuck up," Annika shouted. "Get into the fucking car and let's get out of here!"
He opened the door, got in, and opened her door. Annika jumped in; it must have been a hundred degrees inside the car. She quickly wound down the window. Unbelievably, the car started on the first try, and Pettersson drove toward the exit on screeching tires. Outside, the light hit them and Annika was momentarily blinded.
"There they are!"
The howls reached her through the open side window and she saw the mob rushing toward them like a wall.
"Step on it, damn it!" she screamed, and wound up the window.
"It's a one-way street," the photographer wailed. "I've got to drive past the cemetery!"
"No way!" Annika yelled at him. "Just drive!"
Pettersson had just reached Kronobergsgatan when the car stalled. Annika wound up the window, locked her door, and put her hands over her ears. Pettersson turned the ignition key repeatedly. The starter went around and around without igniting. The mob reached them, surrounding them on all sides. Someone tried to climb up on the roof. They were thumping the car with their fists.
Annika saw a copy of Kvällspressen pushed against the windshield, open to her article about the mourning youth in Täby. The picture of the girls with their poems left marks of printing ink on the window.
Someone crumpled up the paper on the hood and set fire to it. Annika yelled, frantic.
"Just get the fucking car started, damn it! We've got to get out of here!"
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 low-water 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?'"
&n
bsp; "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 person 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.
Studio Sex aka Studio 69 / Exposed Page 19
