Lifetime (37 page)

Annika hung up and gazed out at the traffic, the sanitation units and the trucks, a steady stream of metal on its way downtown. After taking three deep breaths she dialled Schyman’s number.

‘No luck,’ she said. ‘According to the analysis by the Securities Register Centre, Torstensson sold his shares on 24 July. Four days after the report went public’

Not a sound was heard from the other end. Annika looked at her phone.

‘Hello?’

‘Are you sure of that?’

‘About as sure as I can be,’ Annika replied.

‘Okay . . . Thanks.’

Schyman’s disappointment seared the line.

‘I’m really sorry,’ she said, feeling strangely ashamed.

‘That’s all right.’

He hung up on her. Her cheeks burning, Annika switched off her phone. Why did she take Schyman’s failure to heart?

She pictured Anne Snapphane’s puzzled face when she’d wondered why Annika couldn’t seem to ask the men in her life for anything.

Was her boss one of those men? Did they have a relationship that could be defined as close?

Annika shook off the thought and made another call, easing into the concentrated state of mind that she needed to talk to Q.

‘Hannah Persson is listed as a resident of her mother’s household in Malmö,’ she informed the policeman when he answered the phone. ‘Only she doesn’t live there, she lives somewhere in Katrineholm. That’s where you picked her up, right?’

‘What is this, twenty questions?’

She ignored his bantering tone.

‘It doesn’t seem like she has many childhood friends left, so she probably lives with some of her Nazi buddies. Am I right?’

She could hear him chuckle.

‘Go on.’

‘She shares an apartment with some of her Nazi buddies––’

‘Well, that’s not entirely correct,’ the lieutenant said, interrupting her.

Annika leaned back against the wall, noticing too late that someone had wiped off a glob of snuff there.

‘Fucking hell,’ she swore, flicking off the disgusting mess.

‘What?’

‘Not an apartment, but close. She lives with her Nazi buddies in a room somewhere . . . She lives in the offices of the Nazi Party!’

‘Bingo! But as far as we know, she’s the only one living there.’

Wanly, Annika smiled into the phone.

‘Okay. Now where would we find such a place . . .?’

She shut her eyes and concentrated.

‘There aren’t very many suitable places in Katrineholm where you could have an office for the Nazi Party without being noticed,’ she said, thinking aloud. ‘My guess is that it would be out at Nävertorp, if it weren’t for all the immigrants there. I don’t think that Nazis would like it there, and the residents wouldn’t leave them alone. So, maybe the east side – yes, that’s it: the east side, right?’

‘I don’t know the local names for the different neighbourhoods.’

‘The east side is where the hospital is, lots of grimy basement-level rooms and weird video shops. I once did a story exposing a secret porno shop when I worked at the local paper. Am I right?’

The detective gave her the address.

Which is on the east side,’ she said, grinning. ‘Thanks.’ Annika hung up, once more aware of the smell of piss and concrete, and felt overwhelmed by Anders Schyman’s defeat.

It would have been nice to do something for her boss.

Dirty words built up to a roar inside the managing editor’s head.
What a hellish mistake.

24 July, four days after the report had been made public. Torstensson had waited – the bastard hadn’t cheated. Curses sizzled through Schyman’s mind like grease dripping on hot coals, creating unmentionable uncharitable thoughts about the editor-in-chief:

The guy was too stupid to understand what the board had discussed.

Too dumb to use the information for an insider deal.

Too chicken to bail out.

Too loyal to let the others down.

Too honest, perhaps, to commit a crime.

The final conclusion forced Anders Schyman to get up, get away. His chest was starting to constrict and it was getting hard to breathe. What had he done? What can of worms had he opened? What forces had he set in motion, and how far had they gone? Would he be forced to resign?

Schyman looked out through the closed glass door. The newsroom pulsated on the other side, a living organism that required support, nourishment, and pruning. Torstensson was the wrong man – or was Schyman himself the wrong horse to back? Challenging the editor-in-chief had been a mistake. Oh dear God, he was struck full force by just how much he had counted on his anthrax file. He didn’t have anything else up his sleeve, no power over the newsroom, no backing from the board, just orneriness, the abuse of power and deceit – all he’d had was the one weapon: public exposure. Now his ammunition was gone, running out in the silence after Annika Bengtzon’s call. He was defenceless, out for the count, caught with his pants down.

He clenched his fists tightly, saw Spike on the phone over at the news desk, feet up and clutching a pack of cigarettes.

Why do I even care?
he thought. All I have to do is let go, let the place go to the devil. It’s not my problem – I can go back to broadcasting, sit in on different boards, get into information technology.

Schyman slumped, feeling his spine strain against the fabric of his shirt.

It was all over. That was it. He might as well accept that he couldn’t stay on. There was no way he could stand another day with Torstensson as his boss, another day full of frustration and antipathy. To be honest, there was no reason he should prolong his agony.

Anders Schyman returned to his seat. The air was hard to breathe. His forehead broke out in a sweat and his hands were shaking. He got his contract out and read items six and seven. According to its terms, he could leave today, walk out and never come back, just by claiming a conflict of interest, that he was going to compete in the same sphere. They would throw him out and lock the door behind him. His time at
Kvällspressen
would be a mere interlude, a brief footnote. He caught himself wondering what they would say about him, what adjectives they’d use to describe him and his work.

Hot-tempered. Surly. Possibly pretentious, ignorant. Definitely ignorant – they used to love to bombard him with printer’s terminology. No good at delegating work, played favourites, that Bengtzon gal . . .

Schyman had almost reached his own obituaries when the phone rang, making him jump.

‘Listen,’ Annika Bengtzon said. ‘I just figured something out. According to the Securities Register Centre, the shares changed hands on 24 July.’

The room was utterly silent. Schyman unbuttoned his shirt and loosened his collar with a jerk.

‘You told me that already,’ he said, his hand going to his brow.

‘So I called this guy I met at the centre this morning, and he confirmed my hunch.’

The line crackled and a vehicle roared in the background.

‘What?’ he said, barely capable of making a sound.

‘It takes three days to register a change of ownership.’

Schyman sagged and had to conjure up the strength not to just collapse on his desk.

‘It’s still not good enough,’ he said. ‘That would make it the twenty-first.’

‘Three business days,’ Bengtzon said. ‘24 July was a Monday. The transaction took place the previous Wednesday.’

Time came to a halt. Silence enveloped the earth, the sudden void creating a piercing echo in the managing editor’s head. Anders Schyman lifted his gaze and looked out over the newsroom.

‘That means . . .’

‘That Torstensson sold his shares on 19 July, the day before the report was made public,’ Annika Bengtzon said. ‘There’s something else: I’ve dug up an address for the little Nazi, and I figured I’d try to talk to her. Is that okay?’

Schyman’s powers of deduction were gone. They had been switched off.

‘The nineteenth? 19 July? Is that true?’

‘Absolutely. It was summer vacation time, which might have even delayed registration a day or so. But the transaction took place no later than the nineteenth.’

Relief gushed through Schyman’s system like a thundering waterfall, making him gasp.

‘And you’re positively sure?’

‘As sure as can be. What about the little Nazi?’

‘What?’

‘Is it okay if I go to see Hannah Persson in Katrineholm? She was released this morning. The X2000 train only takes fifty-six minutes to get there. I figured a little talk about life and death might be in order.’

He would cheerfully have sent her to Hawaii.

‘Go,’ he said.

In the silence of his room Schyman was filled with a sense of elation so great that it threatened to make him explode.
That bastard!
He thought he was so smart – or maybe he was just a coward who had dithered to the last minute.

The odds were that Schyman would never know for sure. He reached for the phone, dialled the direct line to the host and producer of the public service TV channel’s news magazine, a show devoted to investigative reporting, the scrutiny of elected officials and giving abusers of power the third degree.

‘Mehmed? Hello there. Well, I’m doing just fine, thanks. Damn nasty business with Michelle Carlsson . . . No, that’s not why I’m calling – I’ve got something for you. Can we meet? Say, thirty minutes from now?’

His vigour restored, Anders Schyman made a quick gesture with his left arm and looked at his watch.

‘Excellent.’

Yet another deep sigh escaped from Anne Snapphane’s lips. How the hell was she going to get through this crap before the weekend? Even if she had the machines on fast-forward there weren’t enough hours left in the week to go through all the material.

A beta tape came to a halt. She finished filling out the slip and switched tapes.

And now that Miranda was staying with her, she couldn’t spend the nights working.

Time for the next tape, a master for the second, somewhat inferior, show of the series. Anne pressed the play button. Michelle was fine, but the guests weren’t up to par. Once she was certain which show it was, Anne put the machine in fast-forward mode, revving up the tape. Like a sleepwalker, she saw the characters cavort their way through the show, their voices, barely audible, coming out in treble squeaks.

There was no point in complaining, Anne knew that. She was so far down on the food chain that she was absolutely and utterly replaceable. If she so much as breathed her task was impossible, she knew that she wouldn’t be a part of the next production.

Things had been different for Michelle. She could make the strangest demands and everyone would accommodate her. In fact, they’d bow down and suck up to her.

Michelle couldn’t deal with the green set decor. It was too oppressive, it deprived her of oxygen. She had something more easygoing in mind – blue, maybe, or yellow.

The sets were changed and Michelle earned herself yet another sworn enemy, the set designer.

‘Knock-knock.’

Anne looked up in surprise. Gunnar Antonsson was standing in the doorway, peering over the sacks of films.

‘Well, hello there,’ Anne said. ‘Come on in, if you can figure out how . . .’

The man’s grey head ducked in behind the monitors. By the time he made it into the editing cubicle, his face was red with exertion.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘they stuck you with this.’

‘They sure did,’ Anne said and shrugged. ‘Do you think I’ll ever manage to get finished?’

‘You always do,’ Gunnar Antonsson said, sitting down on a filing cabinet. ‘The main thing is that you do a good job.’

Red-eyed and exhausted, Anne smiled. Like Gunnar, the man who never slipped up, she was meticulous.

‘You know what?’ he said, ‘I have something on my mind.’

Something in his voice made Anne Snapphane pay attention. She looked at him more closely, noticing the shadows under his eyes, the chapped cheeks.

‘When you woke me up,’ he said, and Anne immediately knew what he was referring to, the events they would never forget. ‘Who knocked on my door?’

The adrenalin exploded in her brain, preparing her body for fight or flight.

‘I did. Why do you ask?’

The tone of her voice signalled retreat, but Gunnar, blinkered by his own insecurity, didn’t notice.

‘Do you know if my door was unlocked?’

The tape had finished and the machine started to rewind it. The Donald Duck chatter was replaced by an electronic whine.

Anne Snapphane felt her pulse throb.

‘Um, no, I don’t,’ she said. ‘Why do you ask?’

Gunnar Antonsson squirmed, nervously running his hands through his hair.

‘I feel so guilty,’ he said. ‘I know I locked the bus that evening. I always do, and I did it last Thursday too, I’m certain of that. But I’m not sure if I locked the door to my room – sometimes I don’t, you see, in case of fire, and that means I leave the road wide open . . .’

The man’s agitated words calmed her. He wasn’t out to get her, he simply wanted to find out what his own part in the drama had been.

‘Oh, Gunnar,’ she said, leaning towards him and putting a hand on his knee. ‘Don’t go thinking you––’

‘It’s true,’ he said, interrupting her. ‘Someone went into my room during the night and stole the keys to the bus. If I left the door unlocked, it’s all my fault.’

‘But,’ Anne protested, ‘that couldn’t have happened. You unlocked the bus door. You were the only one who had the keys, and they were in your pocket, just like always.’

His response was a quick shake of the head. His eyes were filled with tears.

‘No,’ he whispered. ‘They weren’t where they were supposed to be. They were in the right pocket.’

Affected by his misery and despair, Anne stared at the man.

‘What?’ she said.

‘My slacks – the keys were in the
right-hand
pocket. I always keep them in the
left-hand
pocket. Someone took my keys and put them back again, figuring they wouldn’t be noticed. That’s why I’m asking you if you remember whether my door was unlocked.’

Anne Snapphane closed her eyes and sifted through her drunken recollections of that night. She had banged on Gunnar’s door, sure. They had figured out that Michelle must be hiding in the bus, since that was the only place they hadn’t checked yet. She remembered her rage, how she had wanted to settle the score; Michelle had some answering to do, damn her! Anne had banged on the door yelling ‘Wake up, Gunnar!’, trying to make herself heard over his loud snores. Then she had tried the door. The handle went down and the door had swung open. The room had smelled awful, sweat and stale air, and the occupant of the room was a hump under a thin duvet.