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  “Will you be able to use the clothes as evidence?”

  “So far the techs have found parts of a TV, fibers from couch upholstery, what look like bits of banana, and feces from a diaper among the clothes.” He sighed.

  “So it’s useless?”

  “So far, yes.”

  “Were the clothes torn?”

  “Torn to pieces— by the compactor.”

  “So all fingerprints, hairs, tears, and other stuff that could have told you something is ruined.”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “Can I write that?”

  “Do you think it’s of any interest?”

  “The murderer must have dumped the clothes in the trash can. Someone might have seen him.”

  “Where? How many people throw rubbish in a bin on Kungsholmen every day? Take a guess!”

  “Like… everybody?”

  “Correct! And it doesn’t even have to have been the murderer who put them in the bin. The clothes could have been found by some concerned citizen who thought they were littering the footpath or something.”

  She waited in silence. “At least it shows that the police are doing something,” she said after a while.

  He laughed. “Which must be a good thing.”

  “Perhaps I don’t need to state exactly how ruined the clothes are. The murderer doesn’t need to know.”

  He grunted but didn’t respond.

  “What about the interviews?”

  “I can’t say anything about them. They’re progressing.” The chill was back.

  “What about the people I mentioned earlier?”

  “They’re just a start.”

  “What about the autopsy? Did it produce anything?”

  “It will be performed during office hours, that is, tomorrow.”

  “What kind of place is Studio 69?”

  “Go find out for yourself.”

  “Do you know which minister the woman was talking about?”

  “I’m glad there’s something left for you to find out. I can’t talk any longer now. Bye.”

  Annika contemplated the information she’d been given. The clothes thing was new, they could work that. Pity the police didn’t rate the find highly, but at least they knew now that the murderer didn’t keep the clothes.

  Spike, Jansson, and Picture Pelle had returned from the handover. They were chatting over at the news desk.

  “I’ve got an exclusive, at least for the time being.”

  The men looked at her, all with the same surprised and slightly annoyed look on their faces.

  “They’ve found her clothes.”

  The men straightened up and reached for their pens.

  “No shit. Can we get a photo of them?” the picture editor asked.

  “No, but of the place where they were found. The incineration plant in Högdalen.”

  “They get any leads?”

  Annika weighed her answer. “Not really, but the police don’t want to say that.”

  The men nodded.

  “It’s looking good,” Jansson said. “Together with what we’ve got already, this is some good stuff. Look at it.”

  He held out a sketch pad to Annika.

  “I think we’ll lead off with your story, ‘New Police Lead’; photo of Josefin; photo of the dump. Soon we’ll have to get a picture byline for you, Bengtzon!”

  The men all laughed, kindly laughs. Annika cast down her eyes and blushed.

  “Then there’s the dad,” Jansson went on. “Berit got a fantastic interview with him.”

  Annika was dumbfounded. “She did?”

  “She sure did. He came up here shouting and going on about getting screwed, and Berit took care of him. Said he wanted to tell his story. She’s gone out to the parents with the copy. They wanted to see the story first.”

  “Incredible,” Annika mumbled.

  “Then we need something from the murder scene. Any flowers there yet?”

  “There weren’t many this afternoon.”

  “Can you go and check out if there’s any more now? Maybe talk to some mourners, someone leaving a message or lighting a candle.”

  Annika sighed and nodded. “What about her classmates?”

  “Berit couldn’t find any, apart from your Charlotta. We’ve got a photo of her in her room. Some of them are sure to be returning home tonight— it’s the end of the industrial holidays today. But leave that for the time being, this will do for today. We’ve got the forest fires and the situation in the Middle East as well. It’s getting pretty bad…”

  The subeditors clattered in, raring to go to work. Annika returned to her desk, wrote her copy about the new police lead, and packed her bag to go down to the murder scene again.

  Bertil Strand wasn’t in, so she switched on the TV that was suspended from the ceiling above the desk. Josefin wasn’t even mentioned on the local news.

  Rapport spent half of their thirty-minute broadcast on the Middle East. Seven Israelis and fifteen Palestinians had been killed during the day. Three of them were small children. Annika shuddered.

  After that the spokesperson for the Green Party demanded a commission be set up to look into the systematic registration of leftists in the seventies and into the IB affair.

  Toward the end they showed part two of the Russia correspondent’s report on the Caucasus conflict. The day before he had interviewed the Swedish-speaking president, today the reporter was with his guerrilla opponent.

  “We’re fighting for freedom,” the leader said, one Kalashnikov in each hand. “The president is a hypocrite and a traitor.”

  There were women and children at the opposition headquarters. The little ones were laughing, running around barefoot, covered in dust. The women pulled their kerchiefs over their heads and disappeared into the black doorways of the houses. The guerrilla leader opened a door to a cellar and the TV reporter followed him underground. In the camera’s light you could see row upon row of Russian arms: crates of mines, handguns, automatic weapons, hand grenades, antitank-grenade launchers, and on and on.

  Annika was depressed. She was tired and hungry. What did it matter what she wrote about one dead Swedish girl when people around the world did nothing but destroy each other?

  She went to the cafeteria and bought a bag of raspberry candies. She ate the entire contents of the bag on the way back to her desk and felt sick.

  “How’s it going, Annika?” It was Berit.

  “So-so. I can’t help thinking about all the misery in the world. It brings me down. Did you do okay with the parents?”

  “Oh, yes. They had a few minor objections to what I’d written, but on the whole we agreed. We’ve got a picture of them sitting on the bed in Josefin’s room. It looked untouched.”

  Berit walked over to the news desk to tell the editors. At the same moment Bertil Strand walked in.

  “Have you got time for a quick trip to the murder scene?” Annika said, reaching for her bag.

  “I just parked the car in the garage. Couldn’t you have said something earlier?”

  *

  Patricia lay on her mattress, behind the drawn black curtains, sweating in the dark. Her legs ached and she felt sick with tiredness. She wasn’t capable of spying on Joachim. They just couldn’t ask that of her; the mere thought of it gave her goose bumps.

  She closed her eyes and tried to shut out the sounds of the city. Night was falling out there; people were on their way to bars and restaurants. She focused inward and tried to find the truth inside, listening to her breathing and sinking into a form of self-hypnosis.

  She conjured up Josefin’s voice in the gloom, deep from within herself. At first the voice was lighthearted and happy, rising and falling, and Patricia smiled. Jossie was humming and singing in a high, clear voice. When the screams came, Patricia was prepared. She listened patiently to the blows and thuds, to Joachim’s roaring. She hid in the shadows until he went silent and had left. She waited for the desperate tears from Jossie’s room. The guilt
was gone; she couldn’t have stopped it. She wasn’t alarmed; she wasn’t scared. He couldn’t do it anymore. Not to Jossie.

  She took a deep breath and forced herself to the surface. The real world returned, sultry and hot.

  I have to consult the cards, she thought.

  She slowly got up; her blood pressure didn’t keep up with her and she wobbled slightly. She took a balsawood box from a bag in the corner. She opened the box and stroked the black velvet lining. This was where she kept her cards.

  She sat down on the floor in the lotus position and reverentially shuffled the tarot cards three times. Then she cut the deck three times. She repeated the procedure twice, just as the energies demanded. After the last cut she didn’t collect the deck but chose one of the piles with her left hand and then shuffled these cards once more.

  Finally, she put down the cards in a Celtic cross on the parquet floor, ten cards representing the quality of the moment from different angles. The Celtic cross was the most comprehensive spread to use when dealing with a significant change, which is what she felt she was facing now.

  She deferred studying and analyzing the cards until the cross was complete. She then contemplated her situation. Her first card was Three of Swords, which stood for Saturn in Libra. She nodded— that was obvious, really. Three of Swords signified mourning and tension in three-way relationships. It urged her to make clear and unequivocal decisions.

  The card crossing the card in the first position, standing in the way of her taking a stand, was the fifteenth of the Major Arcana, of course. The Devil, the male sex. It couldn’t be more explicit.

  The third and fourth cards represented her conscious and unconscious thoughts regarding the situation. Nothing strange there— Nine of Swords and Ten of Wands. Cruelty and oppression.

  But the seventh and eighth cards made a big impression on her. The seventh card represented her self and was the eighteenth of the Major Arcana— the Moon. Not good. It meant she was facing a final and difficult test associated with the female sex.

  The eighth card puzzled her. It represented external forces that would influence her situation. The Magician symbolized a ruthless communicator, an ingenious wordsmith, constantly moving on the edge of truth. She already had a hunch who this could be.

  The tenth card, the outcome, made her feel calm. Six of Wands. Jupiter in Leo. Clarity. Breakthrough. Victory.

  Now she knew she would make it.

  Seventeen Years, Nine Months, and Three Days

  Our happiness is so great. He holds me, always. His commitment is enormous; sometimes it’s hard for me to live up to it. He gets very disappointed if I don’t tell him everything. I must do better. Our travels through time and space are limitless. I love him so.

  I have tried to explain that the fault does not lie with him. It’s me; I’m the one who can’t give him the appreciation he deserves.

  He has bought clothes for me that I have hardly ever worn, symbols of love and trust. My ingratitude is based on egotism and immaturity; his disappointment is deep and hard. There is no excuse; universal togetherness brings responsibility.

  I cry when I realize the scope of my imperfection. He forgives me. Then we make love.

  Never leave me,

  he says;

  I can’t live without you.

  And I promise.

  Monday 30 July

  When Annika got to work, Spike was waiting impatiently by her desk, even though she didn’t officially start for another hour and a half.

  “Berit got a hot tip on another story,” the news editor said. “You and Carl Wennergren will cover the murder today.”

  Annika dropped her bag on the floor and wiped the sweat from her forehead. “It’s just getting hotter and hotter,” she sighed.

  “Carl’s on his way up from Nynäshamn. Did you hear that he won the Round Gotland Race?”

  Annika sat down and switched on her computer. “No, I didn’t. That’s nice for him.”

  Spike sat down on her desk and leafed through the rival tabloid. “We won today. They’ve got neither the parents nor the retrieved clothes. You did really well yesterday, you and Berit.”

  Annika lowered her head. “How are we going to develop the story today?”

  “It won’t be on the first page today. Sales always go down on the third day. Besides, it would have to be something pretty damn big to beat Berit’s story. Why don’t you try squeezing some kind of theory out of the cops? They should have one by now. Do you know if they have one they’re working on?”

  Annika hesitated as Joachim popped up in her mind, remembering Spike’s dislike of “domestic quarrels.”

  “Perhaps,” was all she said.

  “If the police don’t get a breakthrough, the story will soon be running on empty,” Spike went on. “We’ll have to keep an eye on the murder scene. Today would be the day for crying friends and stuff like that.”

  “Some graphics and a map detailing her last hours?”

  Spike’s face lit up. “You’re right, we haven’t done that. Get the data for it and talk to the illustrators.”

  Annika took notes. “Anything else new?”

  “Well, our new deputy editor is coming in today. Anders Schyman. We’ll have to see how it works out…”

  Annika had heard the office talk about the new deputy editor, a presenter from a television current affairs program. She had never met him, only seen him on TV. He was big and blond and she thought he seemed boorish and unsympathetic.

  “What do you think of him?” Annika asked circumspectly.

  “It’ll be a mess. What makes a goddamn TV celebrity think he can come here and teach us our jobs?”

  Thereby he had voiced the collective opinion of the entire newsroom. Annika dropped the subject.

  “Could Anne Snapphane help me on the murder case, or is she doing something else?”

  Spike stood up. “Little Miss Snapphane has developed a new brain tumor and is undergoing some magnetic resonance imaging. Hey, there you are, Carl! Congratulations, pal!”

  Carl Wennergren strolled into the newsroom with what must have been the sailing cup in his arms. Spike went up to him with long strides and slapped him on the back. Annika sat at her desk, numb. A brain tumor! Was he serious? Her hands trembled as she lifted the phone and dialed the number. Anne Snapphane answered on the first ring.

  “How are you?” Annika said, a big lump in her throat.

  “I’m really scared. I feel dizzy and weak, you know. When I close my eyes, I see flashes.”

  “Spike told me. Jesus, why haven’t you told me about this?”

  “What?”

  “That you had a brain tumor!”

  Anne Snapphane sounded slightly confused. “But I’ve never had a brain tumor. I’ve had all kinds of examinations, but they’ve never found anything.”

  Annika was at a loss. “But Spike said… So you don’t have cancer of the brain?”

  “Listen. You could say that I have a tendency to believe that I have various ailments. I know this, but all the same, a few times a year I will think I’m dying. Last winter I actually managed to pester the hospital into doing an MRI on me. Spike thinks it’s hilarious.”

  Annika leaned back in her chair. She’s a serious hypochondriac, she thought.

  “Anyway, I’ve got another doctor’s appointment at three-thirty this afternoon. You never know…”

  “What are you going to do on your days off?”

  “If they don’t admit me to the hospital, I’m going up to Piteå with the cats. I’ve got tickets for the night train.”

  “Okay,” Annika said. “I’ll see you when we’re back on.”

  They finished the call and Annika became absorbed in thoughts about her own impending vacation. This was the last of a five-day shift and she would be off for four days. She’d go home to Hälleforsnäs, see Sven and say hello to Whiskas. She sighed. She’d have to make her mind up soon. Either she’d stay and try to make a go of it here in Stockholm or she�
�d have to give her landlord notice and move back home.

  She looked out over the newsroom. It was Monday and the place was swarming with people. She felt awkward and insecure. She didn’t know the names of half the people. The warm feeling of belonging that she had felt during the weekend was gone. It was somehow linked to the quiet, the darkness outside, the empty corridors, and the low drone of the air-conditioning. During the day, the workplace was completely different, invaded by light and noise and loud people. She had no control; she had no status.

  “Things have happened around here while I’ve been away,” Carl Wennergren said, and settled on Annika’s desk chummily.

  Annika pointedly pulled out a computer printout from under the man’s backside. “It’s a tragic story.”

  Carl Wennergren put the cup down on top of the printout. “It’s a challenge trophy,” he said, handling his sailing cup. “Nice, isn’t it?”

  “Very.”

  “The owner of the boat gets the cup. The others just got a lousy diploma. The IOR class— the biggest boats— that’s my kind of thing.”

  “I prefer to borrow Grandma’s old rowing boat and row around Ho Lake. It can be pretty out there.” Annika clicked to open a telegram on her screen.

  Carl Wennergren looked at her in silence for a moment.

  She didn’t look up when he got up and walked off but made an effort to shut out him and the rest of the newsroom. She reached for the Rival. They didn’t have much on the murder. She noted that they’d made something of a slip of paper at the murder scene with the words “We miss you.” Annika shook her head and turned over the pages. A piece on relationships and holidays caught her attention. The divorce rate rose dramatically during the fall, she read, as the expectations that had kept marriages alive during the winter dropped with the leaves. She thought of herself and her own relationship and sighed.

  “Why the long face? Do you want to grab a cup of coffee?”

  Berit smiled cheerfully at her and Annika responded with a lopsided grin.

  “I heard you got a tip,” Annika said, fishing out her wallet from her bag.

  “Yes, I did. Are you familiar with the IB affair?”