The Final Word (9 page)

Schyman experienced a sudden chill inside him: what if she shot her mouth off? What if Wennergren realized he, Schyman, had been indiscreet and had told Annika about the closure? He reached across his desk and pressed the intercom. ‘Annika, can you come into my office for a moment?’

‘What for?’

Why did she always have to question him?

He watched her walk towards his glass box and pull open the door without any enthusiasm.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘I was just telling Anders here about Valter’s doctoral thesis,’ Albert Wennergren said. ‘He’s thinking of researching the approaches of various media towards modern journalism.’

‘Exciting,’ Annika Bengtzon said blankly, from the doorway.

‘He often refers to conversations he had with you, about methodology and journalism and ethics. You have strong opinions on those subjects. Can you expand upon what you said about gender identification in the media?’

She glanced around in confusion, as if she were looking for a hidden camera. ‘I can’t really remember,’ she said. ‘I say so many silly things.’

‘You told Valter that the
Evening Post
was a shrill working-class woman, yelling truths that no one wants to hear.’

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable.

‘Come in and close the door,’ Wennergren added. ‘You know that Anders is going to be leaving – I’d like to hear your thoughts on his successor. What are the qualities we need?’

Her eyes darkened. ‘An evening paper is a warship,’ she said, ‘in a world that is always in a state of war. And if there’s no battle going on nearby, you go out and find one, or you attack someone and start one of your own. You need a captain who can steer the ship, who understands the scale of the task. Knowing how to sail and windsurf is no good.’

‘Any suggestions?’

‘Berit Hamrin, but apparently she won’t do. She’s too decent.’

‘Someone from television, perhaps? Or business?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Someone who’s already a name, you mean. If you want to drive the paper on to the rocks, then get one of those self-important idiots. Was there anything else?’

‘No,’ Schyman said quickly. ‘You can go.’

She closed the door and walked away without looking back.

Albert Wennergren watched her go. ‘I’d like, as far as possible, to be sorted out before we go public with the
board’s decision,’ he said. ‘An outline of the new organization, the cost of reducing staff numbers, the question of premises, technical investment and, ideally, a new editor-in-chief as well.’

Schyman was holding on to the arms of his chair tightly. ‘What about the printers and distributors? When are we going to tell them?’ It wasn’t just the journalists who would be losing their jobs. The printers they used had just invested in an entirely new packaging room, with all the equipment necessary for folding, trimming, stickering, inkjet address-printing and leaflet insertion. The
Evening Post
wasn’t the company’s only client, but it was by far the largest. Three hundred people worked there, but for how much longer?

‘We’ll hold back on that,’ Wennergren said. ‘Our contract with the printers expires this autumn, so we’ll be in a damn good negotiating position then.’ He reached for his briefcase. It was made of cloth, some sporting label. No traditional leather nonsense for him. ‘It goes without saying that it’s vitally important none of this leaks out,’ he added.

A guilty shiver ran down Schyman’s spine, and he saw Annika standing before him with the minutes of the board meeting in her hand. He stared at the chairman without blinking. ‘Of course,’ he said.

Berit put her bag on the desk and wiped the sweat from her forehead. Annika took a deep breath and switched her attention from Schyman’s glass box to her colleague.
‘Let me guess,’ she said. ‘Rosa speaks out about her weight.’

‘She feels badly violated,’ Berit confirmed, sinking on to her chair.

It looked like the chairman of the board was getting ready to leave: he had picked up his briefcase and he was laughing.

‘I read in the preliminary edition that Rosa had spoken to her PR people and realized what a terrible ordeal she had been subjected to,’ Annika said.

‘She took the teasing as a general attack on her as a person,’ Berit said, getting her laptop out. ‘She wanted to broaden the discussion, show that she’s more than good enough as she is. No one has the right to tell her how she should look.’

‘You’d never guess she had PR advisers,’ Annika said.

Berit switched on her computer, idly polishing her glasses while she waited for the programs to load – how many times had Annika seen her do that? How many more before it was all over?

‘It’s quite interesting, this business of being good enough as you are,’ Berit said, inspecting her glasses. ‘What it actually means is that you never need to develop, that any sort of ambition or change is negative.’

Annika raised her eyebrows. She saw Albert Wennergren close the door of the editor-in-chief’s aquarium and head towards the exit. ‘How do you mean?’ she asked, following the man with her eyes.

Berit put her glasses on. ‘I kept thinking about it all the way through the interview with Rosa. How angry she was at the suggestion that she might have changed somehow since that reality show. She was who she was, and she had the right to be who she was.’

‘Hasn’t she, then?’

Wennergren disappeared round the office manager’s cubbyhole. In the glass box, Schyman was sitting motionless behind his desk, staring into space. The two men must have been discussing the details of the closure, and no one around her had any idea of what was coming. The catastrophe was approaching with full force, but here on the shop-floor everyone was still sitting at their desks, getting on with all manner of tasks. She turned to Berit and realized she hadn’t been listening to her.

‘Rosa,’ Annika said. ‘She doesn’t need to change anything about herself because she’s perfect.’

‘It was interesting listening to her,’ Berit said. ‘Her whole attitude is anchored in identity politics instead of being progressive, just like the Sweden Democrats: everything new and unknown is bad and must be rejected. She has the right to demand respect in spite of her pitiful vocabulary, wasted education and stale opinions.’ Berit took two apples out of her bag, passed one to Annika and took a bite out of the other.

‘And that’s a problem because?’ Annika said.

Berit chewed and swallowed. ‘In the long run, identity politics will become an ideology that produces a new underclass. It means we can never become anything other
than what we are born into. Imagine how the workers’ movement at the turn of the last century would have sounded if they’d acted like that. “Never mind education, carry on getting drunk! That’s your identity!” ’

The apple seemed to expand in Annika’s mouth. Who was she? Where could she work, if not here? Was she needed anywhere, except on the ethical fringes of journalism? ‘What’s happening with the Timberman today?’ she asked, pulling her laptop towards her.

‘Technical witnesses,’ Berit said. ‘The mobile operator and the National Forensics Lab, then some neighbour, nothing exciting. What are you up to?’

Annika slumped and pushed her laptop away. What was the point? Should she pack up and go home, or stay and let the tidal wave hit her along with everyone else? ‘Nina Hoffman’s managed to get me the whole preliminary investigation into Josefin’s murder, off the record, so I’m going to go through it this evening. I’ve tracked down all the witnesses: one’s dead, four still live in Stockholm, and the most interesting one, Robin Bertelsson, has moved to Copenhagen. He works for Doomsday, one of those overhyped IT companies that doesn’t have any phone lines, just an anonymous email address.’ Annika looked at her watch. It was ten o’clock in the morning, a Tuesday at the start of June, the last week, the last few days. ‘The prosecutor who was in charge of the case has retired. I’ve arranged to see him at his home in Flen.’ She tossed the apple core into the paper-recycling box and walked towards the office manager’s desk.

The tarmac on the motorway was steaming as Annika drove south in one of the paper’s cars. The traffic was as slow and stop-start as always, which she found oddly reassuring. She was keeping an eye on her mobile, which lay silent on the passenger seat beside her. The catastrophe still hadn’t broken. There were no messages, from her sister or anyone else.

There was a sort of loneliness in leaving behind everything familiar. She had moved away from Hälleforsnäs, but Birgitta had stayed, at least until she moved to Malmö. Why? And why choose to disappear now? Unless she hadn’t gone of her own free will?

The turning for Skärholmen appeared ahead, one of the vast concrete housing projects from the 1960s, with a huge shopping centre that she had been to before. She pulled off the motorway and parked in a multi-storey car park the size of a small town. When she switched on the car alarm, the sound echoed off the concrete pillars.

The mall was air-conditioned, and all the discount brands in the northern hemisphere were gathered in one place. She felt an intense sense of
déjà vu
: all of these shopping centres blurred into a single amorphous mass. She had been here with Valter Wennergren, the chairman’s son, when she had been supervising him on his work-placement. They had interviewed a man who sold a car to Viola Söderland. He’d had a flower stall, hadn’t he? Or was it vegetables? She cruised past the clothes shops and electronics stores with growing lethargy.
People streamed past her, their voices scraping the inside of her head.

She was about to give up when she found what she was looking for: a windowless shop selling phones connected to her old mobile network. She took a numbered ticket from the machine, then stood and read about their various phones and contracts while she waited for her turn. The handsets were ridiculously cheap, almost free, but in return you had to sign up to never-ending contracts for the privilege of making calls. She had fallen for it, and was still paying for a number she hadn’t used for at least six months.

There was only one customer ahead of her, a man who looked Middle Eastern. He was holding a little girl’s hand, and spoke Arabic to the shop assistant. The child smiled at Annika and waved. She waved back.

‘I’ve got a question,’ Annika said, when it was her turn.

‘I hope I’ll be able to answer it,’ said the young man behind the counter, as he crumpled her ticket and tossed it into the bin in an elegant arc.

‘My phone’s broken,’ she said, putting her old mobile on the counter. ‘It won’t charge any more. Is it because of the battery or the charger?’

The young man picked it up and inspected it, then disappeared behind a curtain and came back just five seconds later. With a practised hand he removed the cover, took the battery out and inserted a new one. The screen lit up:
Searching for signal
.

‘There,’ he said. ‘It was the battery. The new one will last until you get home. Then you must charge it for sixteen hours.’

‘Is it still covered by the guarantee?’ she asked.

‘Are you joking?’ the guy said.

She bought a new charger as well, just in case, thanked him and went back to the car. The sounds of people shopping bounced off the glass and chrome and hit her eardrums, jagged shards of light reflecting off the walls.

There was a buzzing sound from inside her bag, a sound she hadn’t heard for a long time: the screen of her old mobile was glowing somewhere towards the bottom. She stopped at a café and took it out. The phone had been out of use for six months. Who was still using her old number?

Two new messages.

Her pulse-rate went up.

They were both from Birgitta.

The first had been sent on 25 May, just over a week ago, last Monday. She clicked to open the text.
Annika, please get in touch, you’ve got to help me! Birgitta (sent 16.25)
If her sister really wanted to get hold of her, why hadn’t she mentioned what it was about?

Sent at 16.25. Wouldn’t she have been at work then? Or did she work shifts?

The second had been sent on 31 May, Sunday. The text was very short, and had been sent at 04.22:
Annika, help me!

Thomas pressed his pass card against the reader, mid-stride, then greeted the guard with a friendly nod. He received no response, which sent a little shiver of satisfaction through him: he was recognized as a regular.

Having a defined role of his own, and in such a prestigious and important inquiry, undeniably brought with it a number of advantages. The ability to organize his own time was certainly one of them: there was no one to comment on his late starts and long lunches. Because he had been at an official dinner all yesterday evening, it was only to be expected that he should balance his hectic work schedule with an hour or so of contemplation at the start of the following day.

He slowed down by the lifts, as though he were about to press the button and wait to be carried higher up the building (the office of the minister of justice was on the sixth floor, the prime minister and Cabinet Office on the seventh), then took a quick step to the left, into his own corridor on the ground floor. It didn’t really matter where you were in the building: his office with its view of a brick wall on Fredsgatan was as good as any other, and plenty of civil servants were dispersed in utterly anonymous buildings all over the centre of the city, where the more peripheral departments were based.

‘Good morning!’ he said cheerily, to one of the older secretaries, a well-preserved woman in her early fifties who had definitely had a facelift during the Christmas holiday. He appreciated women who made a bit of an effort. The woman (was her name Majken?) lit up, and
even blushed slightly. He hoped it wasn’t because of the hook, that she was embarrassed by his disability. One of the younger secretaries (Marielle Simon, he knew that one) passed him in the corridor (a little too close: was she after something?), but his greeting to her was more measured: she mustn’t imagine that he found her attractive.

He breezed into his room with a spring in his step, ready to tackle the day’s tasks, when a voice called his name. Surprised, but careful to hide it, he leaned out into the corridor.