Before she went to meet Anne on Kungsholms Square, she got a rag and wiped the floor under the window.
***
Disappointed, Annika looked around. "Where are the mountains?"
"Don't be such a Stockholmer," Anne told her. "We're on the coast. The Riviera of the North. Come on, the airport taxis are over there."
The crossed the tarmac surrounding Kallax Airport. Annika's eyes took in the surroundings- mostly fir trees, flat land. The sky was almost clear and the sun was shining. It was quite cold, at least for someone just back from Turkey. A fighter plane roared past above their heads.
"Air Force Base Twenty-one," Anne said, and threw her bags in the trunk of the taxi. "Kallax doubles as a military air base. I learned to parachute here."
Annika kept her bag on her lap. Two men in suits squeezed into the car before they set off for Piteå.
They drove past small villages and little patches of tilled land, but the E4 road they traveled along was mostly surrounded by forest. The leaves were blazing in radiant autumnal colors even though it was only the beginning of September.
"When does the winter start up here?" Annika wondered.
"I passed my driving test on the seventh of October. Two days later there was a blizzard. I drove straight into a ditch."
They stopped at the turning to Norrfjärden to drop off one of the suits.
Twenty minutes later, Annika and Anne got out at the bus station in Piteå.
They put Anne's bags in a left-luggage locker inside the waiting room.
"Dad will pick us up in an hour. Do you want to go for a cup of coffee?"
At Ekbergs Café, Annika had a prawn sandwich. She'd got her appetite back.
"This was a great idea," she said.
"Haven't you had any withdrawal symptoms?" Anne wondered.
Annika looked up in surprise. "From what?"
"Life. The news. The minister."
Annika cut a large piece from her prawn sandwich. "I don't give a damn about any of that," she said morosely.
"Don't you want to know what's been happening?"
Annika shook her head and chewed frenetically.
"Okay," Anne said. "Why do you spell Bengtzon with a z?"
Annika shrugged. "I don't know, actually. My great-great-grandfather Gottfried came to Hälleforsnäs at the end of the 1850s. Lasse Celsing, the ironworks proprietor, had installed a new stamping machine, and my ancestor was in charge of it. A cousin of mine tried to do some genealogical research, but he didn't get very far. He came to a stop on Gottfried. Nobody knows where he came from- he may have been German or Czech. He entered himself on the list as Bengtzon."
Anne took a big bite from her marzipan cake. "What about your mom?"
"She's from Hälleforsnäs's oldest family of foundry men. I've practically got the blast furnace stamped on my forehead. What about you? How can you be called Snapphane and come from Lapland?"
Anne groaned and licked her spoon. "Like I said, this is the coast. Everybody up here, apart from the Sami, come from somewhere else. They were loggers, railway laborers, Walloons, and other drifters. According to the family legend, Snapphane was first used as a term of abuse for a light-fingered Danish ancestor who was hanged for theft on the gallows hill outside Norrfjärden sometime in the eighteenth century. As a warning to others, his kids were also called Snapphane, and they didn't do very well either. A furnace on your forehead, well, I wish! My family crest has a gallows at the center."
Annika smiled and licked up the last dollop of mayonnaise. "Good story."
"There's probably not a word of truth in it. Shall we go?"
***
Anne's father was called Hans. He seemed genuinely pleased to meet one of Anne's colleagues from Stockholm.
"There's so much to see here," he said with great enthusiasm while his Volvo cruised slowly down Sundsgatan. "There's Storfors, the Elias Cave, the Böleby Tannery, Grans Farm Museum. There's Altersbruk, the old ironworks with a pond and a mill-"
"Come off it, Dad," Anne said, a bit embarrassed. "Annika is here to see me. You sound like a tour guide."
Hans wasn't put out. "Just let me know if you want to go anyplace, and I'll give you a ride," he said cheerfully, and looked at Annika in the rearview mirror.
Annika nodded and then turned her gaze out through the window. She glimpsed a narrow canal and they suddenly left the town center.
Piteå. That's where he lived- the man who had called Creepy Calls on the same day that Studio 69 revealed that Christer Lundgren had visited a strip club. Wasn't he married to the minister's cousin?
She instinctively fished around in her bag. Her notepad was still there and she opened it toward the back.
"Roger Sundström," she read out, "from Piteå. Do you know anyone by that name?"
Anne's father turned left in a traffic circle and thought out loud. "Sundström… Roger Sundström- what does he do?"
"I don't know." Annika turned the pages over. "Here we are, his wife's called Britt-Inger."
"Everybody's wife is called Britt-Inger up here," Hans said. "Sorry, can't help you there."
"Why are you asking?"Anne wondered.
"I got a weird tip-off about the minister for foreign trade on the eve of his resignation from a Roger Sundström in Piteå."
"And I know someone who doesn't give a damn about journalism anymore," Anne said in a sugary voice.
Annika shoved the pad into her bag and put it on the floor. "So do I."
Anne's parents' house was on Oli-Jans Street in Pitholm. It was spacious and modern.
"You girls get settled upstairs," Anne's father said. "I'll fix some dinner. Britt-Inger is working tonight."
Annika gave a look of surprise. "Mom. He wasn't joking."
The upper floor was open and bright. On the left, by a window, was a desk with a computer, a printer, and a scanner. On the right were two guest rooms. They took one each.
While Hans cooked dinner, they went over Anne's old record collection that still stood in the hi-fi bench in the living room.
"Jesus, you've got this?" Annika said in amazement, pulling out Jim Steinman's solo album Bad for Good.
"It's a collector's item," Anne said.
"I've never met anyone who's ever heard this record. Apart from me."
"It's fantastic. Did you know he used material from this for both his Meat Loaf productions and Streets of Fire?"
"Yep," Annika said, scrutinizing the record cover. "The hook from the title song went into 'Nowhere Fast' in the movie."
"Yeah, and 'Love and Death and an American Guitar' is an intro on Meat Loaf's Back into Hell, except it's called 'Wasted Youth.'"
"Genuinely awesome," Annika said.
"Godlike."
They sat in silence for a moment, reflecting on Jim Steinman's greatness.
"Have you got his Bonnie Tyler productions?" Annika wondered.
"Sure. Which one do you want? Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire?"
Anne placed the pickup on the vinyl and they both sang along.
Hans came in and turned the volume down. "This is a built-up area," he said. "Have you ever eaten palt?"
"Nope." Annika had never fancied the idea of bread baked with blood and rye flour.
It was fried and tasted quite good, a bit like potato dumplings.
"Do you want to go see a movie?" Anne said when the dishwasher started rumbling.
"Is there a movie theater here?" Annika wouldn't have thought there would be.
Anne gave her father an inquiring look. "Are there any theaters still open?"
"Sorry, I don't know."
"Do you have a phone directory?" Annika asked.
"Upstairs, by the computer," Hans replied.
After she looked for a movie theater, Annika thought she might as well look up Roger Sundström. Why not? There were two, one whose wife was called Britt-Inger. They lived on Solandergatan.
"Djupviken," Anne told her. "Other side of town."
"Do you
want to go for a walk?" Annika said.
***
The sun was going down behind the pulp mill. They walked through Strömnäs and crossed over the Nolia area behind the People's Palace. The Sundström family lived in a sixties yellow-brick bungalow with a basement. Annika could hear children singing.
"Do whatever you want," Anne said. "I'm just coming along for the ride."
Annika rang the doorbell; Roger Sundström was in. The man was surprised when Annika introduced herself, and then he became suspicious.
"I couldn't stop thinking about what you told me," Annika said. "Now I'm here in Piteå, visiting my friend Anne, and I thought I'd just drop by."
The children, a boy and a girl, came rushing into the hallway and hid behind their father's legs, filled with curiosity.
"You go and put on your pajamas," the man said, and tried to shoo them into a room on the left.
"Are we going to sing later, Dad?"
"Yeah, yeah, and brush your teeth."
"Can we come in for a minute?"
The man hesitated but then showed them into the living room: corner couch, glass coffee table, china ornaments in the bookcase. "Britt-Inger is at her evening class."
"Nice house you've got here," Anne said in much broader Norrland accent than she usually spoke in.
"So what do you want?" Roger sat down in a plush armchair.
Annika sat down on the edge of the couch. "I'm sorry to intrude like this. I'm just wondering if I remember correctly. Did you fly from Arlanda with Transwede?"
The man scratched his stubble. "Yes. That's right. Would you like a cup of coffee?"
The question was tentative- he knew he should offer.
"No thanks," Anne said. "We won't stay long."
"So then you departed from Terminal Two, didn't you?" Annika said. "The small one?"
"Which one?" the man asked.
"Not the big domestic departure terminal, but one that's a bit farther away."
Roger nodded circumspectly. "That's right. We had to take a transfer bus, and we had to carry our luggage all the way, because it had to go through customs in Stockholm."
Annika nodded. "Exactly! And it was there, at that small terminal, that you and Britt-Inger saw the minister?"
Roger thought about it. "Yes, it must have been there. Because we were checking in."
Annika swallowed. "I know this may be difficult, but do you remember which gate you left from?"
He shook his head. "No idea."
Annika sighed inwardly. Oh, well, it was a long shot.
"Although," the man said, "we let the kids ride on top of the baggage trolley and that was a sight. I think Britt-Inger filmed it. Maybe you can see it on the videotape."
Annika opened her eyes wide. "For real?"
"Let's have a look." The man went over to the bookcase. He opened the doors to the cocktail cabinet and started looking through the tapes.
"Majorca, here we are." He pushed the tape into a VCR and started the video. The picture flickered- the kids playing by a pool. The sun must have been high as the shadows were short. Two hairy legs, probably Roger's, appeared on the left. The text in the corner read July 24, 2:27 P.M.
"Is that clock right?" Annika wondered.
"I think so. I'll fast-forward it a bit."
A blond, sleeping woman on an airplane, her chin slack. The date had jumped forward to July 27, 4:53 P.M. "My wife."
And then a tanned, smiling Roger was pushing a trolley fully loaded with both luggage and children, July 27, 7:43 P.M. The boy was standing up, holding on to the handle of the trolley; the girl sat on top of the suitcases. Both were waving at their mother behind the camera. The picture wobbled a bit as the camera swept across the hall.
"There!" Annika yelled. "Did you see? Sixty-four!"
"What?" Roger said.
"Rewind a bit," Annika said. "Have you got freeze-frame?"
Roger pressed on the remote control buttons.
"Too much," Anne said. "How did you manage to see that?"
"I was there today, and I was thinking about this," Annika said. "Go on, maybe there's more."
A bunch of people were suddenly jostling in front of the camera. Someone knocked the camera and then Roger was back in the picture.
"Christer!" he called out on-screen, lifting his hand and waving.
On-screen Roger stood on tiptoe, looked to his left, toward his wife, and talked into the living room. "Did you see him? It was Anna-Lena's Christer! He must be on our flight."
"Why don't you go over and say hello?" an invisible woman's voice said.
Roger turned around, and Annika saw people moving to the side, and in the distance, albeit out of focus, she saw Christer Lundgren running toward a gate. It was the former minister for foreign trade, without a doubt.
"Do you see?" Annika yelled out. "He's holding a ticket! He is boarding a plane."
On-screen Roger lost the minister in the crowd, looked in another direction, and called out, "Christer!" and then the screen went black. The picture jumped as the tape was beginning to rewind.
Annika felt a violent wave of adrenaline sweeping through her. "No wonder you didn't see him on the plane. Christer Lundgren took the flight from gate sixty-five, not sixty-four."
"Where was it going?" a confused Anne asked.
"That's what we're going to find out," Annika said. "Thank you so much for letting us disturb you, Roger."
She gave his hand a quick squeeze and hurried outside.
"What did I tell you?" she shouted with joy once they were outside. "I'll be damned! He did go somewhere that night. But he can't say where!" She performed a short war dance in the street.
"We know where he was," Anne said wryly. "He was at a sex club."
"No, he wasn't. He made a trip somewhere and the destination is top secret." Annika did a pirouette. "It's so damn secret that he'd rather be accused of murder and resign."
"Rather than what?"
Annika stopped. "Tell the truth."
Nineteen Years, Four Months, and Seven Days
I have to decide what's important. I have to arrive at a conclusion about what I am. Do I exist, other than through him? Do I breathe, except through his mouth? Do I think, outside of his world?
I have tried talking to him about it. His logic is plain and lucid.
Do I exist, he asks, other than through you? Do I live- without you? he asks. Can I love without your love?
Then he gives me the answer.
No.
He needs me. He can't live without me. Never leave me, he says. We are the most important thing there is to each other.
He says
he will never
let me go.
I've been alone for a long time.
Tuesday 4 September
Patricia had slept for a few hours when she woke up with a vague sense of unease. She sat up on her mattress, brushed her hair from her face, saw the man, and screamed.
"Who are you?" the guy in the doorway asked. He was crouching and looked at her as if he'd been there for a while.
Patricia pulled up the cover to her chin and backed up against the wall. "Who are you?"
"I'm Sven. Where's Annika?"
Patricia swallowed and tried to get a grip on the situation. "I… she… I don't know."
"Didn't she get back from her holiday yesterday?"
Patricia cleared her throat. "Yes… Yes, I think so. Her clothes had been hung out to dry when I got home."
"Home?"
She looked down. "Annika said I could stay here for a while. I was sharing with a friend who… I didn't see her yesterday. I don't know where she is. She didn't come home last night."
The words hung in the air, pulsating. Patricia was hit by a monstrous feeling of déjà vu.
"Where do you think she is now?"
She had heard that question before; the whole room spun, and she gave the same answer now as then. "Don't know, maybe she's gone shopping, maybe she's with you…"
&nbs
p; The guy gave her a searching look. "And you don't know when she'll be back?"
She shook her head, tears burning behind her eyelids.
Sven stood up. "Well, we've established who I am and what I want. Who the hell are you?"
She swallowed. "I'm Patricia. I got to know Annika when she worked at Kvällspressen. She said I could stay here awhile."
The man looked at her closely; she pressed the cover tighter against her chin.
"So you're a journalist too? What do you write about? Have you known her long?"
The unease sent shivers up and down her spine. She had answered so many questions, had been held responsible for so much that had nothing to do with her.
The man moved a few steps closer so that he stood right above her. "Annika hasn't been herself lately. She thought she'd make some kind of career here in the big city, but it was a nonstarter. Was it you who got her into all this?"
The words flashed through Patricia's mind and she yelled straight back at him, "I didn't get anyone into anything! No way." She glared up at the man, who started back.
"Annika will be moving to Hälleforsnäs soon. I hope you've got somewhere else to go then. I'll be staying here a few days. Tell her I'll be back tonight."
Patricia heard him walk out of the apartment, the front door shutting. A whimper rose in her mouth; she curled up in a small, hard ball, clutching her hands tightly, desperately.
***
Hans Snapphane was having coffee and reading the local newspaper when Annika padded into the kitchen.
"There are some boiled eggs on the stove," he said.
Annika fished one out and ran cold water over it.
"My daughter is still asleep, I imagine?"
Annika nodded and smiled. "She's worked hard for a long time."
"I'm glad she got away from there. That place did her no good. This new TV job seems to have decent hours. There are more women in management too."
Annika glanced at him furtively; he seemed to have a brain.
"Could I use your phone to make a few calls?" she asked as he got up and grabbed his briefcase.
Studio Sex aka Studio 69 / Exposed Page 26
