Vanished (3 page)

‘I’m done,’ he yelled out to the reporter.

Wennergren’s nose was red and a droplet of transparent snot hung suspended from the tip.

‘What a lousy place to die,’ he said when the photographer returned.

‘We’d better get a move on if we’re going to make the early editions,’ Strand said.

‘But I haven’t finished,’ Wennergren said. ‘I haven’t even started.’

‘You’ll have to make the calls from the car. Or the newsroom. Hurry up and soak up some atmosphere to spice up your copy with.’

The photographer walked towards his car, the rucksack bobbing on his back. The reporter followed behind. They drove back to the office in silence.

Anders Schyman shut down the TT news agency cable-copy list on his computer; it was addictive. You could set the computer so that the cables were sorted into different subjects – domestic, international, sports, features – but he preferred having them all in the same file. He wanted to know about everything at one fell swoop.

He paced the floor of his cramped aquarium-like office, rolling his shoulders. He sat down on the sofa and picked up the day’s paper, the hurricane special. He nodded to himself, satisfied: it had gone according to plan. The different desks had cooperated in the way he’d suggested. Jansson had told him that Annika Bengtzon had handled the practical coordination; it had worked really well.

Annika Bengtzon
, he thought and sighed.

The young sub-editor had in a purely coincidental and unfortunate way become bound up with his standing at the newspaper. He and Annika Bengtzon had started at the paper within a few weeks of each other. His first battle with the rest of the senior editors had been over her – a long-term contract at the news desk for which he felt she was the obvious candidate. True, she was young, immature, impetuous and inexperienced, but he felt she had a potential that went far beyond the norm. She had a lot to learn, but she had ethics and possessed an undeniable passion for justice. She was on the ball and was a good stylist. Furthermore, she had the characteristics of a steamroller, a great asset for a tabloid reporter. If she couldn’t go round an obstacle, she’d drive straight over it; she never gave up.

The rest of the management, with the exception of the night editor, Jansson, didn’t share his opinion. They wanted to give the contract to Carl Wennergren, the son of one of the members of the board, a good-looking and wealthy guy with considerable gaps in his morals. He had shown disregard both for the truth and for the protection of his sources. For reasons that were beyond Schyman, this was considered honourable, or at least not controversial, by the rest of the senior editors.

The management of the newspaper
Kvällspressen
was composed exclusively of white, heterosexual middle-aged men with a car and a steady income, the kind that both society and the paper were built on and for. Anders Schyman suspected that Carl Wennergren reminded these men of themselves as young men or, rather, personified their illusions about their own youth.

Eventually, he found Annika a contract – which she accepted – covering maternity leave as a sub-editor on Jansson’s night team. He’d had to twist several arms in the management before they’d agreed to it. Annika Bengtzon became the issue he’d had to push through to prove his drive. It ended in disaster.

A few days after the appointment was made public, the girl went and killed her boyfriend. She had hit him with an iron pipe so that he’d fallen into a disused furnace at the Hälleforsnäs works. The very first rumours to reach the paper had mentioned self-defence, but Schyman could still recall the feeling when he heard about it, wishing the ground could swallow him up; and then the thought:
Talk about backing the wrong horse!
She’d phoned him in the evening, reticent, still in shock, confirming that the rumours were true. She had been questioned and was suspected of manslaughter, but she hadn’t been arrested. She would be staying in a cottage in the woods for a couple of weeks until the police investigation was complete. She wanted to know whether she still had a job at the paper.

Schyman had told her the truth: the contract was hers even though there were people at the paper who complained – she wasn’t the flavour of the day with the union representatives. Manslaughter meant some form of accident. If she were to be convicted of causing an accident where someone lost their life, it was unfortunate, but it didn’t constitute grounds for dismissal. But she had to understand that if she were to be sentenced to prison, it would make it difficult for her to get an extension of the contract.

When he’d got that far, Annika had begun to cry. He had fought the instinct to shout at her, to criticize her for being so monumentally clumsy and dragging him down with her.

‘I won’t be sent to prison,’ she had whispered into the phone. ‘It was him or me. He would have killed me if I hadn’t hit him. The prosecutor knows that.’

She had begun her work on the night team as planned, paler and thinner than ever before. From time to time she’d talk to him, to Jansson, Berit, Picture Pelle and a few others, but mostly she kept to herself. According to Jansson, she did a hell of a job rewriting, adding copy, checking facts, writing captions and front-page leads, never making a great fuss. The rumours died out, sooner than Schyman would have expected. The newspaper dealt with murder and scandal every day; there were limits to how long people had the energy to gossip about a tragic and unfortunate death.

The case of the death of the abusive hockey-player Sven Matsson from Hälleforsnäs wasn’t given high priority by the Eskilstuna County Court. Annika was charged with justifiable homicide or involuntary manslaughter. The sentence had been passed the week before Midsummer last year. Annika Bengtzon was acquitted of justifiable homicide but convicted of the lesser charge and given a probational sentence. A period of counselling had been part of the probation, but as far as he knew, the matter was by now settled in the eyes of the court.

The deputy editor returned to his desk and clicked on the list of cable copy again. He quickly scrolled through the last additions. The Sunday sports results were beginning to come in; there were reports of the continued after-effects of the hurricane; a series of rehashed cables from Saturday. He heaved another sigh – things rolled on, it was never-ending, and now there was going to be another reorganisation.

The editor-in-chief, Torstensson, wanted to introduce a new managerial level in order to centralize the decision-making. The model was already in place at their biggest rival tabloid, as well as at several other national media. Torstensson had decided it was time for
Kvällspressen
to follow suit and become a ‘modern’ enterprise. Anders Schyman was in two minds about it. All the signs of an impending disaster were in place: the poor state of the finances; the falling circulation; the grim faces of the members of the board; the newsroom that swayed in a storm, poorly guided and with a run-down radar. The truth was that
Kvällspressen
didn’t know where it was headed or why. He hadn’t succeeded in establishing a collective vision of their boundaries, despite numerous seminars and conferences on the aims and responsibility of the media. They had steered clear of any regular shipwrecks since his arrival at the newspaper, but the repairs to previous damage were slow.

Furthermore, and this worried Schyman slightly more than he wanted to admit, Torstensson had hinted at a new job, some fancy post in Brussels. Maybe that was the reason for this hurried reorganization. Torstensson wanted to make a mark, and God knows he hadn’t had any editorial achievements.

Schyman groaned and impatiently shut down the list again.

Something had to happen soon.

Darkness lurked in the corners by the time she woke. The brief day had spent itself while she had perspired and tossed in bed; she never should have had that last cup of coffee. She took a few deep breaths and forced herself to lie still, exploring how she felt. It didn’t hurt anywhere. Her head felt a bit heavy, but that was due to working nights. She glanced up at the ceiling, so spotty and grey. The previous tenant had applied latex paint on top of the old distemper, leaving the entire surface streaked with cracks in a range of hues. She traced the cracks, broken and irregular, with her gaze. Found the butterfly, the car, the skull. A single note began to peal loudly in her ear: the note of loneliness, wobbling slightly up and down the scale.

Feeling the need to pee, she sighed; what a bother. She got out of bed, the wooden floor rough under her feet and an occasional source of splinters. Pulling on her robe made her shiver, the material silky and cool against her skin. She opened the front door and listened for sounds in the stairwell. Apart from the note in her ear there was silence. She quickly padded down a half-flight of stairs to the lavatory she shared with the other occupants of the building, her feet immediately getting cold and sandy, but she lacked the energy to care.

She noticed the draught as soon as she returned to her apartment. The sheer curtains billowed against the walls even though she wasn’t airing the room. The voile subsided as she closed the door behind her and wiped her feet on the rug in the hall before walking into the living room.

One of the window-panes had been smashed during the night, either by a gust of wind or by flying debris. The outer pane appeared to have disappeared completely, while a few substantial shards of the inner one still clung to the frame. Plaster and glass were heaped on the floor beneath the window. She regarded the mess, closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead.

Isn’t that typical?
she thought, lacking the strength to conjure up the word ‘glazier’.

A draught swept around her legs. She left the living room and went into the kitchen instead. Sank down on a chair and looked out the window at the apartment on the opposite side of the courtyard, the one on the third floor of the building facing the street. A construction company used it to put up official guests, and the bathroom windows had frosted-glass panes. The people who spent a night or two there never knew that their every visit to the bathroom was visible. As soon as they turned on the light, their wavy contours leapt into view. For the past two years or so, she had seen the construction-company guests making love, taking a dump or changing their tampons. At first it had embarrassed her – but after a while she found it amusing. Later on it irritated her, she didn’t want to see people taking a leak while she had dinner. These days she was simply indifferent. There were fewer guest over time, the building was so run-down there was nothing much to show. Now the window was grey and still, empty.

A great deal of plaster from the exterior of the building had fallen down during the night and it mingled with the grimy slush out in the courtyard. Two windows on the first floor had been smashed. She got up, went over to the window and saw the black holes down below just like hers. The electric radiator in the kitchen warmed her legs and she remained standing there until she felt a burning sensation. She wasn’t hungry, even though she should have been, and she drank some water straight from the tap.

I’m doing fine
, she thought.
I have everything I want.

Restless, she went back into the living room. Sat on the couch, feet up on the cushions, arms clasping her knees, gently rocking. Breathed deeply – in out, in out – it was pretty cold. There was no central heating, and the portable space heaters she had put in barely managed to keep the apartment warm even when the windows were intact. The draught swirled unchecked across the empty floor. What furnishings she had came from thrift shops and IKEA; there was nothing with a shared history.

She looked around the room, rocking, rocking, and saw the shadows chase each other. The pure light, one of the things that she’d loved so much at first about the place, was no longer white. The dull shimmering surface of the walls that used to absorb and reflect light at the same time had dried out, turned opaque. Daylight no longer made it into her rooms. Everything remained grey, regardless of the season. The air was as thick and stifling as mud.

The couch was scratchy, the rough fabric left imprints on her buttocks that she raked over lightly with her nails as she walked back to her bedroom and sank down under the sweaty bedclothes. She pulled the duvet over her head – it was damp under the covers. It soon got warm and the bedclothes gave off a slightly sour odour. The hard-rock fan on the ground floor turned on his stereo; the bass line travelled through the stone walls and made her bed quiver. The tone came back on in her ear, irritatingly high, and she forced herself to remain in bed. There were still quite a few hours left until it was time for her shift.

She turned and faced the wall, staring at the wallpaper. Through the thin layer of white primer the old pattern showed: medallions. The neighbours at the other end of her floor were home now; she heard them thudding around and laughing. A pillow over her head muffled their laughter while the ringing in her ears got louder.

I want to get some sleep
, she thought.
Just let me sleep a little while longer and I might be able to go on.

The man lit a cigarette, took a long drag and forced the chaos in his mind to back down. He wasn’t sure which emotion was the strongest: rage about being betrayed, fear of the consequences, embarrassment about being tricked, or hatred of the guilty parties.

He was going to get his revenge, those bastards were going to pay.

It took him two minutes to finish his cigarette, turning it into one long pillar of ash and ember. He stubbed it out on the floor of the bar and waved to get another shot of liquor. Just one, just one more, he needed to have a clear head, needed to get around. He downed the drink, his shoulder holster rubbing up against his armpit reassuringly. Damn, he was dangerous.

An explanation
, he thought.
I need to come up with a fucking good explanation of why things went so wrong.

He was about to order another shot, but stopped in midair.