Exposed (17 page)

‘Has he been arrested?’

‘No, he’s not even been identified as an official suspect.’

‘So we can’t publish anything,’ Carl said.

‘That all depends on how you phrase it,’ Annika said. ‘What have you got?’

‘I’ve been writing up my sailing journal. Sport wanted it. Do you want to read it?’

Annika gave a wry smile. ‘Not right now.’

Carl Wennergren sat down on her desk again.

‘This murder’s given you a real break, hasn’t it?’ he said.

Annika was sorting through some old news agency printouts.

‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that,’ she said.

‘You got the front page two days in a row, no other temp has managed that this summer,’ Carl Wennergren said.

‘Apart from you, of course,’ Annika said, smiling sweetly.

‘Well, yes, but I come from a different starting point. I did my training here.’

And your dad’s on the board, Annika thought, but said nothing. Carl stood up.

‘I’m heading down to the crime-scene to catch a few of the mourners,’ he said over his shoulder.

Annika nodded and turned to her computer. She opened a new document and began in a dramatic tone:
The police have made a breakthrough in their hunt for Josefin Liljeberg’s killer—

She got no further before the tip-off hotline rang. She groaned out loud and grabbed the receiver.

‘That’s enough now,’ a woman’s voice said.

‘I quite agree,’ Annika said.

‘We can’t put up with the diktats of the patriarchy any longer.’

‘Fine by me,’ Annika said.

‘We’re going to get our revenge, and we’re going to do it with blood and fire.’

‘You must be a pretty cool bunch of girls,’ Annika said.

The voice grew annoyed.

‘Listen to what I say. We’re the Ninja Barbies, a group of amazons who have declared war on oppression and violence against women. We aren’t putting up with it any more. The woman in the park was the last straw. We women aren’t the only ones who should be scared to go out at night. Men must suffer violence too. You’ll see. We’re going to start with the police, the hypocrites of the power structure.’

Annika was paying attention now, this one sounded like a serious nutter.

‘Why have you called this number?’ she asked.

‘We want to spread our message through the media. We want maximum publicity. We’re offering the
Evening Post
the chance to join us on our first raid.’

Annika’s mouth went dry. What if the young woman was serious? She looked round the newsroom, trying to get eye contact with someone she could beckon over.

‘What … what do you mean?’ she asked, uncertain.

‘We’re starting tomorrow,’ the woman said. ‘Do you want to come?’

Annika looked around desperately. No one was paying her any attention.

‘Are you serious?’ she wondered weakly.

‘These are our conditions,’ the young woman said. ‘We want full control over text and headlines. We want a guarantee of complete anonymity and control of all pictures. And we want fifty thousand kronor in advance. In cash.’

Annika took several deep breaths.

‘That’s impossible,’ she said. ‘Out of the question.’

‘Are you sure?’ the young woman said.

‘I’ve never been more sure,’ Annika said.

‘Then we’ll call your rivals,’ the woman said.

‘Okay, good luck. You’ll get the same answer there, I can guarantee that.’

There was a click and the line went dead. Annika put the receiver back, shut her eyes and buried her head in her hands. Bloody hell, what was she supposed to do now? Call the police? Tell Spike? Pretend nothing happened? She had a feeling she was going to get told off whatever she did.

‘And here are our evening reporters,’ she heard the editor-in-chief say. She looked up and saw the editorial board heading towards her from the picture desk. Apart from the editor-in-chief it consisted of the new head editor, Anders Schyman, and the heads of sport, entertainment, pictures and culture, as well as one of the leader-writers. They were all men, and apart from Schyman they were all wearing similar dark blue sports jackets, jeans and shiny shoes. She suddenly remembered what Anne Snapphane called them and burst out laughing. The blue cock parade.

The group stopped at her desk.

‘The evening reporters start at noon and work through to eleven p.m.,’ the editor-in-chief said with his back to Annika. ‘They work a shift system, and a lot of them are on temporary contracts. We regard the evening shift as something of a training ground …’

He started to move on when Anders Schyman broke away from the group and came over to her.

‘I’m Anders Schyman,’ he said, holding out his hand.

Annika looked cautiously up at him.

‘Yes, I realized that,’ she said with a smile, and shook his hand. ‘Annika Bengtzon.’

He smiled back.

‘You’re the one who’s been writing about the murder of Josefin Liljeberg,’ he said.

She blushed.

‘Well spotted,’ she said.

‘Are you permanent?’

Annika shook her head. ‘No, just a summer temp. My contract ends in a couple of weeks.’

‘I’m sure we’ll get the chance to talk later,’ Anders Schyman said, and turned back to join the cock parade again. All the eyes that had been fixed on Annika lifted and drifted away across the newsroom. She watched the group go, feeling strangely uneasy.

When the group had vanished behind the sports desk she made her decision. She was no snitch. She wasn’t going to call the police about the Ninja Barbies. And she wasn’t going to say anything to Spike either. So many idiots called every day. She couldn’t go running to the head of news about each and every one of them.

She carried on with her article about the police’s breakthrough in the hunt for Josefin’s killer, managing to sound authoritative without quoting Patricia, writing about the suspect without exposing the press spokesman, and implying that Josefin’s boyfriend was a bastard without actually saying so. Her piece about the orgy of grief out in Täby was short and restrained.

She swung by the cafeteria and bought a can of Coke, and listened to the headlines of
Studio Six
, the radio discussion programme. It was about the role of journalists in the election campaign. She switched it off and drew a graph of Josefin’s last hours. The only thing she left out was the name of the sex club where Josefin worked, deciding to call it simply ‘the club’. Then she went over to the graphics team, so that they could superimpose the details on a map or aerial photograph of Kungsholmen.

By the time she was finished it was almost seven o’clock. She was hot and tired and didn’t feel like doing anything else. So she sat down and had a quick surreptitious read of the morning papers. At half past seven she turned up the volume on the television and watched the main evening news. They had nothing about Josefin or the IB affair. The only interesting item was from their Russian reporter. He was rounding off his series of reports from the Caucasus with an interview with an expert in Moscow.

‘The President needs weapons,’ the expert summarized. ‘The country is completely out of ammunition, grenades, rifles, machine guns, everything. This is the President’s over-riding problem. Because the UN has imposed a weapons embargo, it’s extremely difficult for him to get hold of new supplies. The only alternative is the black market, and he can’t afford to buy anything that way.’

‘How come the guerrillas have so many weapons?’ the reporter asked.

The expert smiled sheepishly. ‘The guerrillas are actually very weak, poorly educated, and badly led. But they have open access to Russian weapons. My country has serious political interests in the Caucasus. Unfortunately, the truth is that Russia is providing the guerrillas with material support …’

Annika recalled the old man who could speak Swedish, the president whose people were the victims of the guerrillas’ attacks. The international community was being utterly pathetic! Why wasn’t anyone criticizing Russia for its involvement in the civil war?

By the time the news was over, calm had descended on the newsroom. Spike had gone home and Jansson was at the editor’s desk. Annika glanced through the latest reports from the news agencies, read the articles
in the shared file-store, and finally checked the news on the other main television channel. Then she went over to Jansson.

‘Nice map,’ the night-editor said. ‘And a good piece about her boyfriend being the suspect. We could all have guessed though, couldn’t we?’

‘Is there anything else I can do?’ she wondered.

Jansson’s phone rang.

‘I think you should go home,’ he said. ‘You spent practically all weekend here.’

Annika hesitated. ‘Are you sure?’

Jansson didn’t answer. Annika went back to her desk and gathered her things together. She cleared her desk – she was going to be away for four days and another reporter would be using her space.

She bumped into Berit on her way out.

‘Do you fancy a beer at the pizza place on the corner?’ her colleague wondered.

Annika was taken by surprise, but answered at once. ‘Thanks; that would great. I haven’t had anything to eat yet.’

They took the stairs. The evening was still muggy and warm. The air above the concrete car park still seemed to be vibrating.

‘I’ve never known a summer like this one,’ Berit said.

The women walked slowly towards the pizzeria on Rålambsvägen. It was shabby but it was licensed to sell beer and wine, which might explain how it had survived for so long.

‘Do you have family here?’ Berit asked as they stood waiting to cross the road.

‘My boyfriend’s down in Hälleforsnäs,’ Annika said. ‘You?’

‘A husband in Täby, a son studying in Lund, and a
daughter working as an au pair in Los Angeles. Are you hoping to stay on at the paper in the autumn?’

Annika laughed nervously. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’d like to stay on, so I’m doing my best.’

‘Good, that’s the most important thing,’ Berit said. ‘Look and learn, and make your own decision about whether or not you want to stay.’

‘It’s pretty tough,’ Annika said. ‘I think the temps get exploited. The company seems to take in loads of people and lets them fight for jobs, instead of actually appointing people to vacancies.’

‘True enough,’ Berit said. ‘But that does at least mean that a lot of people get a chance to go for it.’

The pizzeria was almost empty. They sat down at a table a little way inside the restaurant. Annika ordered a pizza, and they asked for two beers.

‘I read your piece about IB in the file-store,’ Annika said. ‘Here’s to the scoop!’

They touched glasses and drank.

‘That whole IB business never seems to end,’ Berit said, putting her dripping glass down on the wax cloth. ‘As long as the Social Democrats carry on wriggling and lying there’ll be plenty more articles to write.’

‘Mind you, perhaps it’s understandable,’ Annika said. ‘After all, it was in the middle of the Cold War.’

‘Not then, it wasn’t,’ Berit said. ‘The first memorandum about the register of political affiliations was sent out from party headquarters on the twenty-first of September, 1945. And the accompanying letter was written by the secretary of the party himself, Sven Andersson, who went on to become Minister of Defence.’

Annika blinked in surprise.

‘As early as that?’ she said incredulously. ‘Are you sure?’

Berit smiled. ‘I’ve got a copy of the accompanying letter in my own archive,’ she said.

They looked at the other customers in silence for a while – a few local drifters and five giggly youngsters who didn’t look old enough to drink.

‘So,’ Annika said, ‘why would they want to identify Communists if it wasn’t because of the Cold War?’

‘Power,’ Berit said. ‘The Communists were pretty strong, especially up in Norrbotten, and in Stockholm and Gothenburg. The Social Democrats were scared of losing control of the unions.’

‘But why did that matter?’ Annika said, feeling a bit foolish.

‘Money and influence,’ Berit said. ‘The Social Democrats believed very strongly that the workers should be collectively tied into the party. The Metallettan union in Stockholm was run by Communists from 1943. When they broke the union’s links with the Social Democrats, it cost the party thirty thousand kronor in membership fees per year. And that was a hell of a lot of money for the party in those days.’

Annika’s pizza arrived. It was small, and the base was tough.

‘I don’t really see how this all fits together,’ Annika said after a few greedy mouthfuls. ‘How would the register of political affiliations help the Social Democrats to keep control of the unions?’

‘Can I have a piece? Thanks. Well, some of the party’s ombudsmen manipulated the votes and nominations to party congresses. All party members were ordered to vote for certain selected candidates in order to wipe out the Communists,’ Berit said.

Annika chewed and looked sceptically at her colleague.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘My dad was a union rep in
Hälleforsnäs. Do you mean to say that people like him ignored local democracy just to obey the party line from Stockholm?’

Berit nodded and sighed. ‘Not all of them, but far too many did precisely that. It didn’t matter who was most suitable, or who had the confidence of the members.’

‘And the Social Democrats kept a long list of all the names in their party headquarters?’

‘Not to begin with,’ Berit said. ‘At the end of the fifties the information was still kept locally. When it was at its height, there were more than ten thousand people reporting – or spying, if you like – on their colleagues’ political views in workplaces the length and breadth of Sweden.’

Annika cut a slice of pizza and ate it with her hands. She chewed in silence for a while, licking her fingers thoughtfully.

‘I don’t want to be difficult,’ she said. ‘But don’t you think you’re making more out of this than it actually merits?’

Berit folded her arms and leaned back.

‘Of course there are some people who think that,’ she said. ‘We’re becoming very ignorant of our own history. We’re only talking about the fifties here. As far as today’s generation is concerned, that might as well be the Stone Age.’