Exposed (13 page)

‘How did they meet?’ Annika asked after a few seconds.

Patricia shrugged. ‘Joachim grew up in Täby, like her. I first got to know Josie the Christmas before last, a year and a half ago. Joachim had only just opened the club. It was a success right from the start. Josie sometimes worked there at weekends, and she got me the job in the bar. I’ve got a catering qualification and everything.’

The phone rang out in the hall, and Patricia jumped up to answer it.

‘Of course, no problem,’ she said. ‘In half an hour.’

When she came back into the kitchen Annika was putting the tea things on the draining board and had put her things away in her bag.

‘The police will be here in a little while,’ Patricia said.

‘Well, I won’t disturb you any longer,’ Annika said. ‘Thanks very much for talking to me.’

‘Well, feel free to call again,’ Patricia said.

Annika went out into the hall and pulled on her sandals.

‘How long are you going to stay here?’ she wondered.

Patricia bit her lip.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s Josie’s flat. Her mum pulled a few strings and got hold of it to save Josie having to commute from Täby kyrkby when she got into the school of journalism at Stockholm University.’

‘Did Josefin get in there? Were her grades good enough?’

Patricia gave Annika a sidelong glance.

‘Josie’s really smart,’ she said. ‘She gets As in practically every subject. Swedish is her best subject, she writes really well. You think she’s stupid just because she’s done a bit of exotic dancing, don’t you?’

In spite of the gloom in the hall, she could see the journalist blushing.

‘I spoke to her headmaster. He didn’t seem to think her grades were that good,’ she said by way of explanation.

‘So? He’s probably just a bigot,’ Patricia said.

‘Did she have many friends?’

‘At school, you mean? Hardly any. She was a bit of a swot.’

They shook hands and Annika opened the door. She paused in the doorway.

‘Why did you move in here?’ she asked.

Patricia looked at the floor.

‘Josie wanted me to,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘Because she was scared.’

‘What of?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

Patricia could see from the reporter’s eyes that she understood anyway.

Annika emerged into the sunshine on Dalagatan, blinking against the light. It was a relief to get out of the dark, dirty flat. Black curtains, it was all a bit macabre. She didn’t like the sound of what she’d heard. She didn’t like the place Josie had lived in. And she couldn’t help being deeply sceptical of her choice of career. How could anyone become a stripper of their own free will?

If it was of her own free will, she reflected.

There was an underground station right on the corner, so she travelled the two stops to Fridhemsplan. She came out of the exit on Sankt Eriksgatan, close to the gym where Josefin and Patricia had first met. She turned right, up towards the scene of the murder. There were two small bunches of flowers by the entrance, and Annika guessed that there would soon be many more. She stood by the railings for a while. It was at least as hot as yesterday, and she soon felt thirsty. Just as she had decided to leave, two young women, one fair, one dark-haired, approached on foot from the Drottningholm road. Annika made up her mind to wait. They were both wearing short skirts and high heels, chewing gum and clutching cans of Pepsi Max.

‘A girl died in there yesterday,’ the fair one said, pointing at the cemetery as they went past Annika.

‘No!’ the dark-haired one said, eyes opening wide.

The first girl nodded vigorously, waving her hand.

‘They found her lying in there, all split open. She was raped after she was killed.’

‘That’s really horrible,’ the dark-haired girl said. Annika could see that her eyes were starting to water.

They stopped a couple of metres away, staring devoutly at the dark green shadows. Within a minute or so they were both in tears.

‘We ought to leave a message,’ the fair-haired girl said.

They dug out an old receipt from one girl’s bag and found a pen in the other. The fair-haired girl wrote the message leaning on her friend’s back. Then they wiped their tears and headed off towards the underground. When they had disappeared round the corner Annika went over and read the note.

It said:
We miss you
.

At that moment she caught sight of a team of reporters from the other evening paper getting out of a car over by the children’s playground on Kronobergsgatan. She turned on her heel and quickly walked off towards Sankt Göransgatan. She had no desire to engage in small talk with Arne Påhlson.

On her way to the number 56 bus-stop she realized she would be going right past Daniella Hermansson’s door, the young mother who always slept with her windows open. She pulled out her notepad and checked; yes, she had the code for the front door written down next to Daniella’s address. Without thinking any more about it, she tapped in the code and went in.

The air inside was so cool that it made her shiver. She stopped as the door slammed shut behind her. The hallway was decorated with murals from the 1940s,
all depicting the park, probably dating from when the block was built.

Daniella lived two floors up. Annika took the lift. No one answered her knock. Annika looked at the time, ten past three. Daniella was probably down in the park.

She sighed. She hadn’t really got much so far today. She looked round the stairwell. There were doors everywhere; the flats must be really small. The names on the letterboxes were spelt out with yellow plastic lettering. She glanced at the closest name: Svensson. There wasn’t really much to think about. She may as well get a few reaction quotes now that she was here.

The narrow gap of Svensson’s open door let out a sour smell of body odour, making Annika take a step back. A shapeless female figure in a purple and turquoise polyester dress filled the gap. She was squinting shortsightedly, and her grey hair shone with grease and setting lotion. She was clutching a small dog, although Annika couldn’t make out what sort.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ Annika said, ‘but I’m from the
Evening Post.’

‘We haven’t done anything,’ the woman said.

She looked at Annika through the gap, terrified.

‘No, of course not,’ Annika said politely. ‘I was just wondering if you had any reaction to the crime that was committed nearby.’

The woman started to close the door.

‘I don’t know anything,’ she said.

Annika was starting to think that this was a bad idea.

‘Perhaps you haven’t heard. A young woman was murdered in the park up the road,’ she said calmly. ‘The police may have been here and—’

‘They were here yesterday.’

‘Oh, then they probably asked—’

‘It wasn’t Jesper!’ the woman shouted, out of nowhere. Annika dropped her notepad and took two steps back.

‘There was nothing I could do to stop him! And I really don’t think the minister’s got anything to do with it!’

With a slam the woman shut the door, the noise echoing through the stairwell. Annika stared at the door in amazement. What on earth had just happened?

A door at the far end of the landing opened up a crack.

‘What’s all this commotion?’ an elderly male voice said, clearly irritated.

Annika picked up her notepad and went down the two flights of steps. Out in the street again she turned right and hurried off, without looking back at the park.

‘Thanks for cat-sitting!’

Anne Snapphane was back, and now she was sitting with her feet up on her desk.

‘How was Gotland?’ Annika asked, dropping her bag on the floor.

‘Like an oven. Huge fire, but under control now. So what the hell have you been up to?’

‘What do you mean?’ Annika said, not understanding.

‘You’ve got a nasty cut above your eye!’

Annika’s hand flew up to her left eyebrow.

‘Oh, that,’ she said. ‘I hit my head on the bathroom cabinet this morning. Guess where I’ve been?’

‘In the murder victim’s flat?’

Annika grinned and sat down.

‘Well, well …’ Anne said.

‘Have you had lunch?’

They went down to the cafeteria.

‘So, what was it like?’ Anne Snapphane asked curiously, shovelling another spoonful of pasta into her mouth.

Annika thought for a moment.

‘I like Patricia, her flatmate. She’s an immigrant, or first-generation Swede. From somewhere in South
America, I’d guess. A bit crazy, believes in astrology.’

‘So what was Josefin like?’

Annika put her fork down.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I haven’t really got a grip on her yet. Patricia says she was really intelligent, her headmaster says she was a dumb blonde. Her classmate Charlotta doesn’t seem to know the first thing about her. She wanted to be a journalist, and she wanted to help children in need, but she was working as a stripper.’

‘A stripper?’ Anne Snapphane said.

‘Her boyfriend owns some sort of porn club. Studio Six.’

‘That’s a radio programme. Pretentious debate on P3.’

Annika nodded. ‘Yep. Joachim, the boyfriend, evidently thought that was a good joke. You’re right, though:
Studio Six
is about as pretentious as you can get.’

‘If he was keen to annoy pretentious bastards, that suggests a certain level of intelligence,’ Anne Snapphane said.

Annika smiled and took a large mouthful.

‘So tell me more, what did it look like?’

Annika thought as she chewed.

‘Bare,’ she said. ‘Not properly furnished or decorated. Mattresses on the floor. As if she hadn’t really moved in properly.’

‘How the hell did she get a flat on Dalagatan?’

‘Her mum pulled some strings and paid handsomely for it. The phone’s listed under the mother’s name.’

Anne Snapphane leaned back in her chair.

‘So why did she die?’

Annika shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’

‘What are the cops saying?’

‘Haven’t called them yet.’

They bought bottles of water and went back to the newsroom. Spike was on the phone; and no one else was there.

‘What are you doing today?’ Annika asked.

‘There’ve been several more forest fires around the country. I’m putting them all out, personally.’

Annika laughed.

Back at her desk she turned on her computer, and quickly typed up the notes from her meeting with Patricia, then saved them to a memory stick and deleted the document from the hard-drive. She put the memory stick in her bottom desk drawer.

Annika’s phone rang, the ring indicating it was an internal call.

‘You’ve got a visitor,’ Tore Brand said.

‘Who is it?’ Annika asked.

Tore Brand disappeared from the line, she could hear him shouting in the background.

‘Hey, wait! You can’t go through there …’

Then steps returning to the phone.

‘He’s gone up already. I don’t think you need to worry. It was just some bloke.’

Annika felt herself getting annoyed. Tore Brand was supposed to stop this sort of thing happening. Stupid old fool!

‘What does he want?’

‘He wanted to talk about something in today’s paper. We’re supposed to listen to our readers,’ Tore Brand said.

At that moment Annika caught sight of the man out of the corner of her eye. He was storming towards her, his eyes blazing.

‘Are you Annika Bengtzon?’ he snarled.

Annika nodded.

The man slammed a copy of that day’s
Evening Post
down on her desk from a great height.

‘Why didn’t you call?’ His voice broke in a spasm that seemed to come from deep in his guts.

Annika stared at the man. She had no idea who he was.

‘Why didn’t you tell us what you were going to write? Her mother had no idea this was how she died. And as for the fact that something had taken a bite out of her … Good God!’

The man turned away and sat down on her desk, putting his hands to his face and crying. Annika picked up the paper he had slammed down in front of her. It was the article about what Josefin had looked like when she was found, her soundless scream and bruised breasts, with the picture of her naked leg poking out of the grass. Annika shut her eyes and ran a hand over her forehead.

This can’t be happening, she thought. Bloody hell, what have I done? She felt shame washing over her like a hot wave, and the floor began to sway. Good grief, what on earth had she done?

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to intrude—’

‘Intrude?’ the man screamed. ‘How could anything be more intrusive than this? Did you imagine we wouldn’t see the shit you decided to write? Maybe you hoped we’d die too and never find out? Huh?’

Annika was on the verge of tears. The angry man was completely red in the face, his mouth dribbling saliva. The few people in the newsroom had noticed what was happening. Spike had turned round and was staring at them. Picture-Pelle was craning his neck to see what was going on.

‘I really am very sorry,’ she said.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, Berit appeared. Without
a word she put her arm round the man and led him off to the cafeteria. He went with her without a word of protest, racked with sobs.

Annika picked up her bag and hurried towards the rear exit. She was panting for breath and had to make a real effort to walk normally.

‘Where are you going, Bengtzon?’ Spike yelled.

‘Out,’ she called back, far too shrilly.

She ran the last steps and threw herself at the back door. Two flights down, on the stairs outside the newspaper’s archive, she sat down.

I’m a terrible person, she thought. This is never going to work.

She sat there for a while, then left the building through the print-shop, and went and bought an ice-cream.

She walked slowly down to the water through Mariaberg Park. Across the water she could hear children shouting at Smedsudden beach. She sat down on a bench to eat her ice-cream, throwing the wrapper into an overflowing bin beside the path.

This is what it means to be alive, she thought. You hear sounds, you feel the wind and heat, you fail, and you feel ashamed. This is what it’s all about. Living and learning.