Prime Time Page 2

  ‘This is going to take for ever,’ he sighed as he put the car in neutral.

  Annika couldn’t contain herself.

  ‘What did you expect?’ she said. ‘It’s Midsummer Eve.’

  The photographer closed the vents and the windows started to fog up. The windshield wipers maintained a steady beat, the left wiper squeaking every time it reached the top of the windshield. Annika closed her eyes, forcing Thomas’s voice and her sense of failure to recede and concentrated on the rain, the windshield wipers, and the asthmatic wheezing of the climate control system.

  ‘Summer Frolic at the Castle’, she thought. The big family extravaganza slated for the TV Plus channel, filled with entertainment and discussion panels, guest stars and artists. Michelle Carlsson’s prime-time comeback, the TV star’s chance to show who was boss. Actually, Annika reflected, Carlsson was pretty good.

  ‘What do you think of Michelle?’ she asked.

  Bertil Strand’s head was swivelling back and forth as if operated on ball bearings while he looked for an opening in traffic.

  ‘Fluff,’ he said. ‘No credibility. Fine in kids’ programmes and game shows, but that discussion forum she had wasn’t anything to write home about. She was so ignorant.’

  Annika was surprised by the protests that welled up inside her.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Michelle spent ten years working with radio and TV broadcasting. She must have learned something.’

  ‘How to smile for the camera,’ Bertil Strand said. ‘Now how hard could that be?’

  Annika shook her head, holding back tired protests. Still, she had often reasoned along the same lines when she and Anne Snapphane discussed journalism.

  ‘My best friend has worked with television broadcasting for the past six years now,’ she said. ‘Everything’s a lot more complicated than you’d think.’

  Bertil Strand cut in front of a rough-and-ready Land Rover. The man behind the wheel of the Land Rover slammed on his horn.

  ‘It seems like one hell of a strange job,’ the photographer remarked. ‘All that technical junk that never works and droves of conceited morons running around.’

  ‘Sounds sort of like Kvällspressen,’ Annika said and looked out the window again, grinding her teeth. The man in the Land Rover gave her the finger.

  What am I doing here? Here I am, with a pompous ass of a photographer, on my way to the scene of a senseless violent crime, leaving Thomas and the children behind, the only people who really matter. I must be out of my mind. She sniffed at her hands; the scent of Kalle’s hair and Ellen’s tears still lingered. Her throat closed up. She turned around, got her cellphone and some paper towels out of her bag and wiped her hands.

  ‘I see an empty slot ahead,’ Bertil Strand exclaimed and stepped on the gas.

  Annika dialled the number.

  The police had ordered everyone to switch off their cellphones. Anne Snapphane was sure that she had obeyed orders, so the vibrations emanating from her jacket pocket came as a bit of a shock. She quickly sat up in bed, her pulse throbbing at the base of her throat and right above her eyes, and realized that she must have dozed off. Her phone buzzed like a gigantic insect hidden in the inside pocket of her rain jacket. Dazed, she brushed her hair off her face with her hands. Her tongue tasted mouldy. She dragged herself across the chaotic tangle of covers, throw pillows and bedspreads, unearthed her jacket and pulled out her phone. She regarded the display with distrust. No number had come up, making her hesitate. What was going on? Some kind of test?

  She pressed the button and said in a whisper:

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘How are you?’ she heard Annika Bengtzon say, her voice sounding distant and indistinct. ‘Are you alive?’

  A sob escaped Anne Snapphane’s lips. Covering her eyes with one hand, she pressed down hard to relieve the pain in her head and listened to the wireless connection. It whistled and rattled, there were engine noises and the wobbly moans of passing car horns.

  ‘Just barely,’ she whispered.

  ‘We’ve heard about Michelle,’ her friend said, speaking slower than usual. ‘We’re on our way over. Can you talk?’

  Anne started to cry, softly and silently, salty tears dripping into the receiver.

  ‘I think so.’

  Her reply came out as a gasp.

  ‘… Lousy traffic jams … you out there now?’

  The connection broke up and went fuzzy; Annika’s sentences came out in fragments. Anne Snapphane took a deep breath and felt her pulse slow down.

  ‘I’m not allowed to leave my room in the South Wing. They’ve detained us all and I guess they’ll question us one by one.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  She swiped away the tears with the back of one hand, clutching her phone in the other hand and pressing it to her ear, her end of a lifeline.

  ‘Michelle,’ she whispered. ‘Michelle’s dead. She was in the OB and the back of her head was blown away.’

  ‘Are there lots of cops around?’

  Anne Snapphane’s heart stopped racing and approached a manageable rate. Annika’s voice represented normality and the real world. Her knees sore, Anne got up and looked out the window.

  ‘I can’t see much from here, just a bridge over a channel and a few archery targets. I’ve heard a few cars and a helicopter landed a while ago.’

  ‘Did you see her?’

  Anne Snapphane shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose while the images flashed past, piercing through her wooziness.

  ‘I saw her. I saw her …’

  ‘Who did it?’

  There was a knock on the door. Anne froze and stared at the door, paralysed. Her lifeline snapped – confusion swallowed her up once more.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ she whispered into the phone and hung up.

  ‘Anne Snapphane?’

  The voice on the other side of the door was commanding. She tossed the phone under the covers and cleared her throat. Before she had the chance to reply, the door swung open. The officer standing in the doorway was young and obviously nervous.

  ‘Right, you can come along now.’

  She stared at him.

  ‘I’m pretty thirsty,’ she said.

  The policeman didn’t see how unreal she felt, he didn’t see her as a person at all. He looked right through her.

  ‘Go out through the door and to the left. Hurry up.’

  The rainy weather and all the closed doors left the hallway dark. The walls seemed to billow – she wasn’t quite sober yet. In order to gather some physical and emotional support, she walked down the hallway with one hand touching the wall. No other members of the TV team were in sight.

  When the policeman opened the front door, the chill and the damp slapped at her like a wet towel. She gasped, swaying there in the doorway and looking up at the castle. Policemen and police cars were blurred by the curtain of grey rain.

  ‘You wouldn’t happen to have an umbrella, would you?’

  Her guard replied by pointing to the corner of the house. Anne Snapphane hunched up her shoulders and reluctantly walked out on the stone steps. Water seeped inside her collar in no time at all.

  ‘Where am I supposed to go?’

  ‘To the house down by the water. Right now.’

  A cold rivulet ran down her spine and she had water in her eyes. She blinked to get rid of it, started weaving her way down the three steps to the gravel path and followed the boxwood hedge over to the herb garden. She followed the whitewashed wall that led her to the New Wing, passed a small group of enamelled cast-iron furniture items and stopped. The wall encircled a small courtyard: it had arches and was topped with red tile. It wouldn’t be hard to escape from here, she thought.

  ‘Straight ahead, keep moving.’

  Anne Snapphane looked away from the wall and focused on the door.

  The police lieutenant was seated at a table in the large conference room. Right behind him, on the other side of the window, the OB bus was pa
rked. Unconsciously, Anne shrank back, stepping on the guard’s toes. The bus stood out like a cardboard cut-out, white than white and emblazoned with the extremely flashy company logotype.

  I wonder if she’s still in there, she thought. I wonder if she’s gone cold by now.

  ‘Have a seat.’

  Anne sank down on the chair that the officer had indicated, wiped the rain out of her eyes, blinked and noticed that the lieutenant was wearing a colourful Hawaiian shirt. A sense of relief washed over her.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘It’s you.’

  The man didn’t seem to have heard her.

  ‘We’ve met, in Stockholm,’ she told him eagerly. ‘Annika Bengtzon was there.’

  ‘You were one of the people who found her,’ he said.

  Confused, Anne blinked.

  ‘Um,’ she said. ‘Yes, I was one of them.’

  Suddenly, the sense of unreality returned, the floor began to rock under her feet and she grabbed hold of the desk.

  ‘Could I … please have some water?’

  An officer came over with a pitcher and a glass. With shaking hands, she poured herself a glass of water and greedily downed the entire contents of the glass, spilling some.

  ‘Got a hangover?’

  Waves of nausea swept over Anne Snapphane as she leaned back in her chair.

  ‘I think I’m going to have an asthma attack.’

  ‘Is it customary to have a blow-out when you wrap up a TV show?’

  She smoothed her hair and noticed how damp it was.

  ‘Why am I here? When do I get to go home?’

  The lieutenant got up.

  ‘We’re going to interview the whole group of you today, one by one. So far, no one is more of a suspect than anyone else but, naturally, we have to ask you all about last night. I hope you understand.’

  Trying to make sense of what he was saying, Anne looked at the man, her mouth half-open.

  ‘Until we have finished these interviews, you will be restricted to your rooms. You will be summoned at our convenience. You are not allowed to talk to each other, or communicate in any other fashion. Is that clear? Anne Snapphane, did you hear what I said?’

  She forced herself to nod and thought of the cellphone under the covers in her bed. The man pushed a button on a tape recorder and sat down on the table in front of her. His jeans were worn at the knees.

  ‘This is a record of the interview with Snapphane, Anne, born …’

  He stopped and fixed Anne with his gaze. She swallowed and mumbled her date of birth.

  ‘… Conducted by Q at Yxtaholm castle, in the conference room of the New Wing, on Friday, 22 June, at 10:25 a.m. Anne Snapphane is being interviewed with regard to the probable homicide of Michelle Carlsson.’

  Silently, the police lieutenant studied Anne.

  ‘Why are you here?’

  Anne drank some more water.

  ‘I’m being interviewed by the police,’ she said softly.

  Lieutenant Q sighed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Anne Snapphane said and cleared her throat. ‘I’m a researcher at Zero Television – a production company that makes TV programmes that are aired by various networks. I’ve also been a studio hostess this week, while we’ve been taping these shows.’ She grew silent and looked around the room. There were police officers in front of her and behind her, and the broadcast bus was outside the building.

  ‘Shows?’ the police officer asked. ‘In the plural. Does that mean there are several of them?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Eight shows in a row,’ Anne replied, her voice a bit steadier now. ‘Two whole shows a day for four days running, and it’s been raining the whole fucking time!’

  Suddenly and inappropriately, she laughed shrilly. The policeman didn’t react.

  ‘And how did it go?’

  ‘How did it go?’

  Anne bowed her head.

  ‘More or less as expected, apart from the weather. We hadn’t counted on having to put up canopies to be able to shoot the various slots and segments. And that meant that we had to keep rearranging the shooting schedule – some of the artists had to perform up in the music room on the second floor of the manor house. But apart from that, everything went according to plan.’

  She tried to smile.

  ‘Any conflicts?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She finished the water in her glass.

  The policeman spread his hands in a tired gesture.

  ‘Fights,’ he explained. ‘Arguments. Threats. Unruly behaviour.’

  Anne Snapphane closed her eyes again and took a deep breath.

  ‘Some, I guess.’

  ‘Could you be more specific?’

  She took another sip of water, noticed that her glass was empty and waved it to get a refill.

  ‘Millions of things can go wrong in a big production like this,’ she said, ‘and there’s just no room for it. If everyone’s stressed, things can get out of hand.’

  ‘Could you spell that out for me?’ Q asked.

  Her heart started racing again and she began to shake.

  ‘Michelle,’ she began, ‘could be a real pain. For the past few days she’s locked horns with every single member of the team.’

  ‘Including you?’

  Anne Snapphane nodded a few times and swallowed. The policeman sighed.

  ‘Could you please give us a verbal answer?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her voice booming much too loudly. ‘Yes, including me.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Last night.’

  The policeman studied her closely and didn’t lower his gaze.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It was nothing, really. We got into this argument over money, about what things are worth. It all started with a discussion about the stock market, and I’m principally opposed to an economy based on speculation, while Michelle insisted that it was an essential cornerstone of democracy, and then we went on to discuss salaries. According to Michelle, corporate managers and other people in public positions were worth their high salaries and pension deals, and she mentioned Percy Barnevik and all the other high-rollers, even though she was really talking about herself, as usual.’

  She stopped short and her cheeks started to burn. The policeman regarded her, his face a mask.

  ‘Were you angry?’

  I’ll lie, Anne Snapphane thought. I can’t tell it like it is, they’ll think I did it.

  The man in front of her studied her, examined her, read her mind.

  ‘Lying will only complicate things,’ he said.

  ‘I wanted to throttle her,’ Anne said, looking away, tears burning in her eyes. ‘But we were drunk.’

  The lieutenant got up, walked around the table and sat back down again.

  ‘Drunk,’ he repeated. ‘How drunk? Does that go for the whole film team?’

  She shrugged her shoulders, suddenly exhausted and fed up with the whole business.

  ‘Words, please.’

  Her brain short-circuited, signalling error and overload.

  ‘How should I know?’ she shouted. ‘How could I know such a thing? It’s not like I went around picking up the empties, even though certain people seemed to think that was my job.’

  ‘Like who? Did Michelle think you ought to clear away the empty bottles?’

  ‘No,’ she replied in a somewhat more subdued voice.

  The silence deepened, her nausea increased.

  ‘Were there any other disputes as the night wore on?’

  Out of breath, Anne Snapphane swallowed hard.

  ‘Maybe,’ she whispered.

  ‘Who was involved?’

  ‘Ask the others. I don’t know, I wasn’t listening.’

  ‘But there was some sort of commotion around here last night, wasn’t there? Things got kind of rowdy.’

  ‘Ask around and you’ll find out,’ Anne replied. ‘Ask what it was like over at the Stables.’

  �
�Were you there?’

  ‘Not for long.’

  ‘But you were one of the people who found her, right?’

  The lieutenant didn’t insist on hearing her affirm this.

  ‘Apart from you, who else entered the bus?’

  She closed her eyes briefly.

  ‘Sebastian,’ she said, noticing how feeble her voice sounded.

  ‘Sebastian Follin, Michelle Carlsson’s agent?’

  Anne nodded. Then she remembered something.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Oh, he’s her manager. Sebastian Follin is Michelle’s manager.’

  Confused, she stopped.

  ‘How should I put that? That he is? Or was …?’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Karin. Karin Bellhorn, the producer. She was there too.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Mariana and Bambi. They can’t stand each other.’

  ‘Why were you up all night?’

  Anne laughed, a single short bark.

  ‘There was still some booze left.’

  ‘Who are Mariana and Bambi?’

  ‘Mariana von Berlitz is a feature editor for Summer Frolic at the Castle, we work for the same production company. Bambi Rosenberg, the soap actress, was a guest on the next to last show. She and Michelle were pals.’

  ‘Right,’ the policeman said. ‘The manager, the producer, the editor, the friend and you. Would that be everyone?’

  Anne considered the question briefly.

  ‘Well, Gunnar was around too,’ she said. ‘He had the key. His last name’s Antonsson. He works in the bus and you should have seen him.’ A fit of the giggles bubbled up inside her, passing through her brain and over her lips, oozing like green poison. ‘He was more upset about the mess than …’

  She motioned with a hand and grew silent.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It bugged Gunnar more that Michelle had messed up his equipment than that she was dead.’

  ‘Messed up?’

  ‘Yeah, all that grey goo, you know …’

  The image flashed before her, filtered through intoxication and shock: the slim body sprawled in a grotesque position, enormous eyes that would never see again.

  ‘I can’t do this …’ Anne Snapphane murmured and passed out.

  The pier in front of the Grand Hotel was clogged with people. The passenger boats to Stockholm’s archipelago bobbed like whales behind a curtain of rain, the wind whipping the bunches of birch branches embellishing the bow and stern of each vessel. This is impossible, Thomas thought. There won’t be room for us.