Studio Sex Page 8

  The operator typed it in. “Yes, there’s a Barbro Hed. Could that be the one?”

  “Yep.”

  She dialed the number without hesitation. A man answered on the fourth ring.

  “Is this Josefin’s house?”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Annika Bengtzon and I’m calling from—”

  “Damn it, I’m running into you everywhere.” Now Annika recognized the voice. “Q!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing there?”

  “What do you think? And how the hell did you get hold of this number? Even we haven’t got it!”

  “It was really hard, you know. I called directory assistance. What have you got?”

  “I really don’t have time right now.” The man hung up.

  Annika smiled. At least she had the right number. And she could add the fact that the police had been at Josefin’s apartment during the night.

  “I’ve got to know what you’ve got,” Jansson said, and sat down on her desk.

  “This is how it’ll be,” she said, and made a quick outline on a pad. Jansson nodded approvingly and jogged back to his desk.

  She wrote the article about who Josefin was— the ambitious clergyman’s daughter who dreamed of becoming a journalist. She wrote another piece on her death, mentioning her eyes and the death scream, her gnawed hand and the grief of her friend. She left the silicone breasts out. She wrote about the police hunt, the missing clothes, her last hours, the agitated tipster who had phoned the paper, about Daniella Hermansson’s unease and the appeal of the press officer: “This maniac has to be stopped.”

  “This is pretty good,” Jansson said. “Elegantly written, factual, and to the point. You’ve got some potential!”

  Annika immediately had to walk away. She was bad at handling criticism, even worse at dealing with praise. She treasured the magic, the dance of the letters, that which gave her words wings. If she accepted the praise, the shimmering bubbles might burst.

  “Let’s have a cup of cocoa before you go home,” Berit said.

  *

  The minister passed Bergnäs Bridge. He met a vintage American convertible halfway across, some aging rockers draped over the sides of the car. Other than that, he didn’t see a single living soul.

  He breathed out when he turned into the side streets behind the green bunker of the social security office. The noises and the whining had accompanied him for over 150 miles. It would soon be over.

  After parking next to the rental firm office, he just sat in the car, enjoying the silence. He still had a little ringing in his left ear. He was exhausted. Still he had no choice. He groaned and climbed out of the car with stiff limbs. He quickly glanced about him and then urinated behind the car.

  The bags were heavier than he’d imagined. I won’t make it, he thought. He walked toward Storgatan, past the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, then entered the old residential district of Östermalm. He got a glimpse of his own house behind the birch trees, the old windows glittering in the early dawn. The kids’ bikes lay next to the porch. The bedroom window was ajar, and he smiled when he saw the curtain flutter in the breeze.

  “Christer…?” His wife looked over at him drowsily when he crept into the bedroom. He hurried over to the bed and sat down next to her, stroked her hair, and kissed her on the mouth.

  “You go on sleeping, darling,” he whispered.

  “What’s the time?”

  “Quarter past four.”

  “How was the drive?”

  “Fine. Go back to sleep now.”

  “How was your trip?”

  He hesitated. “I bought some Azerbaijani brandy. We’ve never tried that, have we?”

  She didn’t reply but pulled him close, reached over, and undid his fly.

  *

  The sun was up and hung like an overripe orange just above the horizon, shining straight in her face. It was already hot, at half past five in the morning. Annika was dizzy with fatigue. She had to get home. Gjörwellsgatan was deserted, and she walked in the middle of the street on her way to the bus stop. Once there, she dropped onto the bench, her legs completely numb.

  She had seen the outline of the front page on Jansson’s screen before she’d left, dominated by the graduation photo of Josefin and the banner headline “Cemetery Sex Murder.” She had written the short front-page item with Jansson. Her stories were on pages six, seven, eight, nine, and twelve. She had filled more columns tonight than in all her first seven weeks at the paper.

  It worked, she thought. I did it. It worked.

  She leaned her head against the Plexiglas of the bus shelter and closed her eyes. She took deep breaths and focused on the sounds of traffic. They were few and far away. She almost fell asleep but was woken up by a bird chirping loudly inside the embassy compound.

  After some time, she realized that she didn’t know when the bus would come. Stiffly, she got to her feet and went to look at the timetable. The first 56 bus on this Sunday morning wouldn’t be running until 7:13, almost two hours away. She groaned out loud. There was nothing for it but to start walking.

  She got up speed after a couple of minutes. It felt good. Her legs were soon moving by themselves and set the air around her in motion. She walked down the extension of Västerbron and in the direction of Fridhemsplan. She reached Drottningholmsvägen and saw the dense green looming at the far end of the street. Kronoberg Park looked eerily dark. She knew she had to go there.

  The cordons had been removed. There was plastic tape only on the fence itself. She walked up to the iron gate and traced the metal arch of the padlock with her fingers. The sun reached the crowns of the lime trees, making the leaves glow.

  She would have come here around this time, Annika thought. She saw the same sun make the same pattern in the foliage. It’s all so fragile. It can happen so fast.

  Her hand running along the circles and arches of the wrought-iron fence, Annika walked around the cemetery and reached the east side. She recognized the bushes and the toppled gravestone, but aside from this, nothing betrayed this as the place where Josefin died.

  She held on to the fence with both hands and stared into the undergrowth. She slowly slid down to the ground. Her legs gave way and she softly sat down on the grass. Without her realizing, she had started to cry. The tears ran down her cheeks and fell onto her crumpled skirt. She leaned her forehead against the bars and softly cried.

  “How did you know her?”

  Annika started up. Arms flailing, she slipped on the grass and landed hard on her tailbone.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  The face of the young woman who had spoken was red and swollen from crying. She spoke with a faint but distinct accent.

  Annika stared at her. “I… didn’t. I never met her. But I saw her when she was lying here. She was dead.”

  “Where?” the young woman said, taking a step forward.

  Annika pointed. The woman walked up and looked at the spot in silence for a minute. Then she sat down on the grass next to Annika, turning her back to the cemetery and leaning against the fence.

  “I saw her too,” she said, fiddling with the hem of her blouse.

  Annika rummaged through her bag for something to blow her nose on.

  “I saw her at the morgue. It was her. All in one piece. She looked fine, really.”

  Annika swallowed and stared at the young woman again. Jesus! This must be Josefin’s roommate, the girl who had identified her! They had to have been close friends.

  She thought about the following day’s front page and was hit by a sudden and unexpected feeling of shame. It made her start crying again.

  The woman next to her started sobbing too. “She was so kind. She never hurt anybody.”

  “I didn’t know her.” Annika blew her nose on a page from her big notepad. “I work for a newspaper. I’ve written about Josefin.”

  The woman looked at Annika. “Jossie wanted to be a journalist. She wanted to write about a
bused children.”

  “She could have worked at Kvällspressen.”

  “What did you write?”

  Annika took a breath, hesitating for a moment. All the satisfaction about her pieces she had felt earlier was gone. She only wanted to sink through the grass and disappear.

  “That she was assaulted and murdered in the cemetery,” she said quickly.

  The woman nodded and looked away. “I warned her about this.”

  Annika, who was squeezing the notepaper into a small ball, stopped in midmovement. “What do you mean?”

  The woman wiped her cheeks with the back of her hands. “Joachim wasn’t good for her. He beat her up all the time. She could never do anything right. She was always covered in bruises, which could be a problem at work. ‘You’ve got to leave him,’ I told her, but she couldn’t.”

  Annika listened wide-eyed. “Good God! Have you told the police about this?”

  The woman nodded and pulled out a tissue from the pocket of her jean jacket and blew her nose. “I’ve got bad allergies. You don’t have any Seldanes, do you?”

  Annika shook her head.

  “I’ve got to go home,” the woman said, and stood up. “I’m working tonight again. I need to get some sleep.”

  Annika also got to her feet and brushed some grass from her skirt. “Do you really think it could have been her boyfriend?”

  “He used to tell Jossie he’d kill her one day.” The woman started walking down toward Parkgatan.

  Annika stared in at the graves with a new feeling in her stomach. The boyfriend! Perhaps the murder would be cleared up soon.

  “Hey! What’s your name?” she called through the park.

  The woman stopped and called back. “Patricia.”

  Then she turned around and disappeared down toward Fleminggatan.

  *

  Not until she stood outside the street door of her apartment block did Annika remember that she had promised to feed Anne Snapphane’s cats. She sighed and quickly turned the matter over in her mind. The cats would probably survive. The question was whether she would if she didn’t get to sleep soon. On the other hand, it was only a few hundred yards, and she had promised. She poked about in her bag and found Anne’s keys at the bottom, an old chewing gum wrapper stuck to them.

  I’m just too nice, she thought.

  She took the steps from Pipersgatan up to Kungsklippan; her legs were trembling before she reached the top. Her tailbone was aching after her fall in the park.

  Anne Snapphane’s little apartment was on the sixth floor and had a balcony with a fabulous view. The cats started meowing as soon as she put the key in the lock. When she opened the door, two little noses appeared around it.

  “Hello, little kittens, are you waiting for me?”

  She shoved the kittens inside with her foot and closed the door behind her. She sat down on the floor, and both the animals immediately jumped up in her arms, nuzzling her chin.

  “What’s this? Do you want to have a kiss?” Annika laughed.

  She petted the kittens for a minute, then got up and walked over to the kitchenette. The cats’ three bowls sat on a leftover piece of linoleum next to the stove. The milk had gone bad. The food and the water bowls were both empty.

  “Here you go, little kittens.”

  She threw out the milk, washed the bowl, and poured fresh milk from the fridge. The kittens were rubbing against her legs, purring expectantly.

  “Hey, take it easy.”

  They were so eager they nearly turned the bowl over before she’d had time to put it down. While the cats were guzzling the milk, she filled the third bowl with water and looked for the cat food. She found three tins of Whiskas in a cupboard. It made her smile. Whiskas was the name of her own cat in Hälleforsnäs. He was staying with Grandma in her cottage in Lyckebo over the summer.

  “Why am I getting so sentimental?” she said out loud.

  She opened a tin, wincing at the smell, and emptied it in the third bowl. She had a look in the litter tray in the bathroom; it would have to do until tomorrow.

  “Bye-bye, little cats.”

  The kittens took no notice of her.

  She quickly left the apartment and walked back down to Kungsholms Square. The day was starting. All the birds were in full voice now. She felt a bit shaky and was swaying slightly; her judgment of distance was poor.

  You couldn’t go on like this forever, she thought.

  *

  The air in her apartment was still stuffy from the day before. It was on the top floor at the back of the block, but it had neither its own bathroom nor hot water. But she had three rooms and a large kitchen. Annika had thought herself incredibly lucky when she got it.

  “Nobody wants to live that primitively,” the woman at the housing department had said to Annika when she had stated on the form that she could live without elevator, hot water, bathroom, or even electricity if necessary.

  Annika had persevered.

  “Here you are. Nobody wants this,” the woman said, and gave her a computer printout with the address, 32 Hantverkargatan, fourth floor across the yard.

  Annika took it without even seeing it. She had thanked her lucky stars every single day since then, but she knew her joy would be short-lived. She had agreed to one week’s notice of eviction as soon as the owner of the block secured a loan for a complete renovation of the building.

  She dropped her bag on the floor in the hallway and went into her bedroom. She had left the window open yesterday morning, but it had banged shut during the day. She opened it again and walked toward the living room to open a window in the hopes of stirring up a draft.

  “Where have you been?”

  Annika jumped in the air and screamed out loud.

  The voice was quiet and came from the shadows over by her bed. “Jesus, have you completely lost your nerves?”

  It was Sven, her boyfriend.

  “When did you get here?” she said, her heart jumping against the inside of her chest.

  “Last night. I wanted to take you to the movies. Where have you been?”

  “At work,” she said, and went into the living room.

  He got up from the bed and followed her. “No, you haven’t. I called an hour ago and they said you’d left already.”

  “I went to feed Anne’s cats.” She opened the living-room window.

  “That’s your excuse?”

  She’d been there for about a minute and already they were arguing. Annika sometimes wondered what she still saw in Sven.

  Seventeen Years, Six Months, and Twenty-One Days

  There is a dimension where the boundaries between human bodies are erased. We live with each other, in each other, spiritually and physically. Days become moments; I drown in his eyes. Our bodies dissolve and enter another time. Love is gold and crystals. We can travel anywhere in the universe, together, two and yet one.

  A soul mate is someone who has a lock that fits our keys and keys that fit our locks. With this person, we feel safe in our own paradise. I read that somewhere, and it’s true for us.

  I long for him every moment we’re not together. I didn’t know that love was so compelling, so complete, so all-consuming. I can’t eat or sleep. Only when I’m with him, I’m whole, a true human being. He is the sine qua non of my life and meaning. I know that I’m the same to him. We have been granted the biggest gift.

  Never leave me,

  he says;

  I can’t live without you.

  And I promise him.

  Sunday 29 July

  Patricia put her hand on Josefin’s door handle. She hesitated. The bedroom was Josefin’s domain. Patricia didn’t have access and Jossie had been very clear about it:

  “You can stay here, but the bedroom is mine.”

  The handle was a bit loose. Patricia had been meaning to tighten it, but they didn’t have a Phillips screwdriver. Carefully, she pushed down on the handle. The door creaked. She was met by a musty smell; the air in the room was
hot and stagnant. Jossie was supposed to clean her own room, which meant it never got done. The police search during the night had stirred up two months’ worth of dust.

  The room was bathed in sharp sunlight. The police had opened the curtains, and Patricia realized she had never seen the room like that before. The daylight exposed the dirt and the grimy wallpaper. Patricia felt ashamed when she thought of the police officers. They must have thought Jossie and Patricia were total slobs.

  She slowly walked over to the bed and sat down. It was really only a mattress from IKEA that they had put on the floor. She sat about a foot off the ground.

  Patricia was tired. She had slept badly in the heat— waking up, sweating, crying. She slowly lay down on the bed. When she had come home this morning, a dull and gloomy loneliness had met her at the door. The police were gone and only the traces of the search remained behind. They really had turned the entire apartment upside down but hadn’t taken much with them.

  She nearly dropped off among the pillows; she felt the familiar twitch. She instantly sat up. She must not sleep in Jossie’s room.

  A pile of magazines was next to the bed. Patricia bent down and leafed through the top one. Woman’s Weekly, Jossie’s favorite. She didn’t like it much; there was too much about makeup, weight loss, and sex. Patricia always felt stupid and ugly after reading it, as if she weren’t quite good enough. She knew that this was the whole idea of the magazine. On the face of it, they were helping young girls feel better about themselves but were in fact just making them feel inadequate.

  She picked up the next magazine in the pile. It was smaller and Patricia had never come across it before. The paper was of poor quality and so was the print. It opened at the center spread. Patricia realized she was looking at two men with their penises inside a woman, one in her anus, the other in her vagina. You could just make out the woman’s face in the background. She was screaming as if she were suffering. The image hit Patricia in the groin like an electric shock. She recoiled, disgusted, partly by the picture and partly by her own reaction to it. She threw the magazine on the floor as if it burned her fingers. Josefin didn’t look at stuff like that. Patricia knew it was Joachim’s.