Exposed (39 page)

‘For fuck’s sake, you can’t live like this. No hot water, not even a bloody toilet. When are you coming home?’

Sven was sitting in the kitchen, wearing just his pants, eating breakfast.

‘Put some clothes on,’ Annika said, tying her dressing-gown. ‘Patricia’s asleep in there.’

She went over to the stove and poured some coffee.

‘Exactly,’ Sven said. ‘What the fuck is she doing here?’

‘She needed somewhere to stay. I had a spare room.’

‘And that stove,’ Sven said. ‘It’s lethal. You’re going to set fire to the whole building.’

Annika sighed silently. ‘It’s a gas stove, and it’s no more dangerous than an electric one.’

‘Crap,’ Sven said crossly.

Annika didn’t respond, just drank her coffee in silence.

‘Listen,’ Sven said in a more conciliatory tone, ‘stop all this and just come home. You’ve given it a go, and you can see it hasn’t worked. You’re no hot-shot journalist; this city doesn’t suit you.’

He got up and stood behind her chair, and started to massage her shoulders.

‘But I still love you,’ he whispered, leaning over and
nibbling her earlobe. His hands slid down her neck and took a firm hold of her breasts.

Annika stood up and tipped her coffee away.

‘I’m not coming home yet,’ she said quietly.

Sven looked at her curiously.

‘What about your job?’ he said. ‘You’re supposed to start back at the
Courier
after the election.’

She took a deep breath and gulped.

‘I’ve got to get going,’ she said. ‘I’ve got loads to do today.’

She hurried out of the kitchen and got dressed. Sven stood in the doorway and watched her as she pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.

‘What do you spend your days doing?’ he wondered.

‘Finding things out,’ Annika said.

‘So you’re not seeing anyone else?’

Annika let her arms drop to her sides in a gesture of despair.

‘Oh, please!’ she said. ‘Even if you think I’m worthless as a journalist, there are still people who think I’m pretty okay—’

He interrupted her by giving her a hug.

‘I don’t think you’re worthless,’ he said. ‘Quite the opposite. I get really pissed off when I hear them talking shit about you on the radio. I know how great you are.’

They kissed, long and hard. Sven started to pull down the zip on her jeans.

‘No,’ Annika said, pushing him away from her. ‘I’ve got to go if I’m going to—’

He stopped her with a kiss and laid her down on the bed.

The archive of the broadsheet morning paper was next to the entrance to the
Evening Post
. Annika hurried through the door without looking up at the other
doorway. She didn’t want to meet anyone she knew, and slid past reception and in amongst the shelves of newspapers. Three older men had taken up position at the microfiche readers and the main table, so she put her bag on the smaller table.

Issue nine of
People in Focus
from 1973 had been published at the start of May. She picked out the issues of the morning paper published in April that year and started to leaf through them. It was a long shot, she had to admit. She pulled out the page of her notebook and put it in front of her.

Domestic archive, 24 Grevgatan.

Foreign archive, 56 Valhallavägen.

The pages of the newspaper were yellow and torn in places. The text was tiny and difficult to read; it couldn’t be more than seven-point. The editing was messy and inconsistent. The fashion adverts made her want to laugh: people really did look mad in the early seventies.

But the content of the articles felt surprisingly familiar. Millions threatened by famine in Africa, young people having trouble adapting to the employment market. Lasse Hallström had made a new film for television entitled
Shall We Go to Your Place or My Place or You to Yours and Me to Mine?

Evidently the ice hockey world championships were taking place, and Olof Palme had given a speech in Kungälv. That year’s wars were being fought in Vietnam and Cambodia, and the Watergate scandal was unfolding in Washington. She sighed. Not a word about what she was looking for.

She tried another bundle, giving up 16–30 April in favour of 1–15 April.

Monday, 2 April was similar to all the others. Cambodian guerrillas had mounted an attack on government forces in Phnom Penh. A Danish lawyer
called Mogens Glistrup had had a lot of success with his one-man political party, the Progress Party. The former US Attorney General John Mitchell had agreed to testify in Senate hearings. And then, at the bottom of page seventeen, alongside a piece on ‘Northern Lights Visible in Stockholm’, there it was: M
YSTERIOUS OFFICE BREAK-IN
.

Annika felt her pulse quicken, racing until it seemed to fill the whole room.

According to the short paragraph, an office at 24 Grevgatan had been broken into and searched sometime over the weekend, probably on Sunday night. The strange thing was that nothing was missing. The office equipment was still there, but all the cupboards and drawers had been ransacked.

I know what was stolen, she thought. Bloody hell, I know exactly what went missing!

She found the next piece in the second section of the paper, at the top left of page thirty-four. An office at 56 Valhallavägen had been damaged during the weekend. It was a short piece, squeezed between a picture of Crown Prince Carl Gustaf with two salmon he had caught in the Mörrumsån river and an article suggesting that Gullfiber AB in Billesholm was going to close down.

Evidently no one on the paper had seen any connection between the two break-ins. Perhaps the police hadn’t either.

She copied the two articles and put the bundles of papers back on their shelf.

I’m on the right track, she thought.

Then she took the number 62 bus down to Hantverkargatan.

Sven had gone out and Patricia was still asleep. She sat down in the living room beside the phone with her notepad.

What are the Minister for Foreign Trade’s responsibilities?
she wrote, and sighed.

Trade and exports, she thought. Promoting trade with other countries. So what publicly funded bodies would be able to pay for the trips necessary to do that?

Swedish Trade Council
, she wrote.

So what does Sweden actually export? Cars. Wood. Paper. Iron-ore. Electricity. Nuclear power technology, maybe?

Nuclear Power Inspectorate
, she wrote.

What else? Drugs.

National Board of Health and Welfare
, she wrote.

Electronics. Weapons.

Weapons? Yes, weapons exports would be the responsibility of the Minister for Foreign Trade.

Instruments of War Inspectorate
, she wrote, and looked at the list. These were just the ones she could think of off the top of her head, there must be loads more organizations that she wasn’t aware of.

Well, no point putting it off, she thought, and dialled the Swedish Trade Council.

The public relations manager wasn’t in the office today, and a woman took her call instead.

‘We’re not a publicly funded body. So you can’t get any documents from us,’ she said curtly.

‘Are you absolutely sure of that?’ Annika said. ‘Do you think your PR manager could call me back?’

She gave her name and number.

‘I’ll pass on your message, but the answer will be the same,’ the woman said sourly.

Bitch, Annika thought.

Next she looked up the number for the Nuclear Power Inspectorate, noting that it was based at 90 Klarabergsviadukten. The office was closed until 12.30. There was no Instruments of War Inspectorate listed in the phone book, so she called Directory Inquiries.

‘They’ve changed their name to the Inspectorate for Strategic Products,’ the woman at Telia said.

The registrar at the National Board of Health and Welfare was at lunch. Annika sighed, put down her pen and leaned back in the sofa.

Maybe she ought to get something to eat as well.

Number 90, Klarabergsviadukten was a relatively newly built glass-fronted building on the Kungsholmen side of the bridge. Annika stopped at the door and read the list of companies based there: the Amu Group, the National Environmental Protection Board, the Nuclear Power Inspectorate, and the Inspectorate for Strategic Products, ISP.

Great, two birds with one stone, Annika thought.

She pressed the button for the Nuclear Power Inspectorate but got no answer. So she tried the renamed weapons inspectorate.

‘Building A, fifth floor,’ said a slightly doubtful-sounding voice over the speaker.

She got out of the lift on the fifth floor and found herself in a hall of mirrors, surrounded by copies of herself: the walls were lined with polished steel. There was only one door, the ISP’s. She rang the bell.

‘Who did you want to see?’

The blonde woman who opened the door was friendly but cautious.

Annika looked around. The organization seemed fairly small. There were corridors heading off in both directions. There was no reception desk: the woman who opened the door evidently worked in the room closest to the entrance.

‘My name’s Annika Bengtzon,’ Annika said nervously. ‘I’d like to look at some public papers.’

The blonde woman looked worried.

‘About ninety per cent of our documents are classified as secret,’ she said apologetically. ‘But you’re welcome to leave a request, and we’ll check if we can let you have those files.’

Annika sighed quietly. Naturally. She could have worked that out for herself.

‘Do you have a registrar?’ she wondered.

‘Of course,’ the woman said, pointing down the corridor. ‘She’s down there, the door at the end.’

‘I don’t suppose you have an archive?’ Annika said, getting ready to leave.

‘Oh yes, it’s all here,’ the woman said.

Annika stopped.

‘So you’d have any travel expense claims from five or six weeks ago?’

‘Yes, but not in the archive. I’m in charge of travel expenses. I keep them in my office until the end of each financial year. I’m also in charge of booking trips; there are more than you’d think. The ISP takes part in a lot of international meetings and summits.’

Annika looked more closely at the woman.

‘Are travel expenses classified as confidential?’

‘No,’ the woman said. ‘They’re in the ten per cent we’re allowed to make accessible.’

‘How often would a government minister take part in these meetings abroad?’

‘In so far as any minister ever participates in the work of the Inspectorate, the Foreign Ministry usually handles their expenses.’

‘But if the Minister for Foreign Trade were to go?’

‘Even then it would be covered by the Foreign Ministry.’

‘But he actually comes under the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications.’

‘Oh. In that case, expenses claims would be handled there.’

‘All of them?’ Annika wondered.

The woman was suddenly defensive.

‘Well, maybe not every time,’ she said.

Annika swallowed. ‘I was wondering if you’d received an expenses claim from Christer Lundgren for the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth of July this year.’

The woman looked at Annika thoughtfully.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we did, actually.’

Annika blinked.

‘Fantastic! Could I see it?’

The woman wet her lips.

‘I should probably check with my boss first,’ she said, backing towards her room.

‘Why?’ Annika said. ‘You said that expenses claims are in the public domain.’

‘Yes, but this one was a bit special.’

Annika could feel her heartbeat thudding in her ears.

‘In what way?’

The woman hesitated. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘When an
expenses claim comes in from a minister, particularly when you’re not expecting it, it comes as a bit of a surprise. It’s unusual, to put it mildly.’

‘So what did you do?’ Annika said.

The woman sighed. ‘I took it to my boss. He called someone in the Ministry and got clearance for it. I paid it out a week or so ago.’

Annika swallowed again. Her mouth was completely dry.

‘Can I have a copy of the invoices and tickets?’

‘I really do have to ask my boss first,’ the woman said, and she disappeared inside her office.

A moment later she emerged and hurried off down the corridor. Thirty seconds later she was back, and handed over several photocopied pages to Annika.

‘There you are,’ she said, smiling.

Annika’s fingers were trembling as she took the documents.

‘So where did he go?’ she asked, looking over the pages.

‘He flew to Tallinn with Estonian Air on the evening of the twenty-seventh and chartered a private plane back that night, landing at the old Barkarby airfield. The private plane was Estonian. Would you like the total converted into Swedish kronor?’

‘Thanks, but I don’t think so,’ Annika said.

She was staring at the photocopies of credit card receipts. They’d been handed in on 30 July. The minister had hired the plane using a government Eurocard. She had been expecting to see the same spidery signature she had seen on the receipt from Studio Six, but this one was rounded and rather childish.

‘Thanks ever so much,’ Annika said, and smiled at the woman. ‘You’ve got no idea how much this means.’

‘You’re very welcome,’ the woman said.

Her feet were drumming against the tarmac of the pavement, but somehow didn’t seem to be touching the ground. She was walking on little cushions of air, lifted upwards by bursts of laughter.

The miserable old skinflint, of course he couldn’t resist putting in his claim for expenses as soon as he could!

She floated home towards Hantverkargatan. She had been right! The minister had been on a trip, and was absolutely determined not to reveal it, no matter what the consequences were.

Bastard, Annika thought. He’s done for now.

The telephone was ringing as she opened the front door and she raced over to catch it.

‘Hello, yes, I’m the public relations manager at the Swedish Trade Council,’ said a man with very pronounced vowels. ‘I understand that you’re interested in seeing some of our files.’