Vanished (41 page)

Anders Schyman didn’t move a muscle: he was floored, couldn’t think. This was something he hadn’t considered. The possibility that the party would cancel the editor-in-chief’s line of retreat had never occurred to him.

‘Well, then,’ he said in a neutral voice. ‘Shall we run through today’s paper?’

Everyone started rustling papers, leafing through newspapers and photographs, murmuring words of satisfaction or discontent. Empty-handed, Torstensson remained in his chair.

‘Pelle,’ Schyman said, ‘hold up the pictures of the impostor.’

The picture editor showed some prints that had been taken in Järfälia that very morning. They showed Rebecka Björkstig, in handcuffs, being accompanied by three policemen to a police car.

‘Torstensson,’ Anders Schyman said, ‘what is your opinion about going public with her name and picture at this juncture?’

The editor-in-chief blinked.

‘I’m sorry . . .’

‘Going public with her name and picture,’ the deputy editor said. ‘We could get sued for libel, do you think it’s a risk worth taking in Rebecka Björkstig’s case?’

‘Who?’

The words ‘I’m a bad person’ flashed through Anders Schyman’s mind.
I know how little the editor-in-chief knows and I’m exposing him to ridicule.

‘We can’t run it on the front page tomorrow, anyway,’ Schyman added in a friendly voice. ‘So what do you think, Torstensson?’

‘Why can’t we run it on the front page?’ the editor-in-chief asked.

Schyman let the silence speak for itself, letting the Flannel Pack digest the impact of this statement. They all knew why you couldn’t run the same story as front-page news three days running: sales always went down on the third day, no matter how good the story was. Changing the top story on day three was Newspaper 101, basic stuff. Everyone knew that, everyone except for the editor-in-chief.

‘It’s a damn fine picture,’ Schyman said. ‘I suggest we go for a sky box, a tight cut, and keep the pixels. To preserve her identity. That is, unless you want to take a different route?’

He looked at the editor-in-chief who shook his head.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘So what’s on the front page?’

The entire Flannel Pack started rustling energetically, excited that a contribution from their own department might be the top story.

‘How to make the most on Telia shares,’ the finance editor suggested.

The room exploded with dissenting opinions.

‘I don’t see anyone doing cartwheels of joy,’ Schyman said with a smile. ‘What else do we have?’

‘We’ve found another politician who’s been using his official credit card for private purchases,’ Ingvar Johansson said.

Everyone groaned. Every politician in existence was doing it: find one who didn’t, and that
would
be news.

‘There’s this council that’s decided to stop funds for a special assistant for a mentally retarded kid in Motala,’ the news-desk editor went on. ‘The boy lives with his mother, a single mother on welfare. The mother called the paper in tears, saying she couldn’t go on. The question is whether we can run their story, since we did something similar not too long ago.’

‘The story is a lot like what we’ve featured in our series on Paradise,’ Schyman said. ‘Why don’t we wait until we’ve finished running it first? Anything else?’

‘They’re doing a test run of the JAS fighter plane,’ the community and political affairs editor said. ‘You never know when a plane will come crashing down on top of us.’

This aroused the interest of the group: the JAS fighter – when, where?

‘They’ll be getting started around noon today,’ declared Mr Flannel-of-community-and-political-affairs. ‘A whole bunch of foreign potentates have been invited to check out the fighters and do some shopping, and that means an even larger bunch of spies who
aren’t
invited will be there too.’

‘We should check it out,’ Schyman said. ‘But coverage will depend on what we find. No recycling. Anything else?’

‘We’re going to feature the new host of
The Women’s Sofa
,’ the entertainment editor said. ‘A girl called Michelle Carlsson, a real hottie.’

Enthusiastic comments were heard.

‘Big boobs?’

‘Would she go for a photo shoot covered in body paint?’

‘Do we know what the hottest Christmas gift item is this year?’ Schyman asked. ‘Or do we know if the classic Disney Christmas Special will be aired as usual on Christmas Eve?’

Eyebrows were raised: everyone remembered the public outrage when the segment on Ferdinand the Bull had been going to be canned. Voices blurred into each other and Schyman let them chatter on. He studied the editor-in-chief over in the corner. Torstensson looked bewildered and his forehead was beaded with perspiration.

Once again it struck Schyman:
I’m a bad person.

On the other hand,
he thought,
at least I know what I’m doing. In all honesty, how nice is it to let an incompetent person be a leader? Am I supposed to let a fool like Torstensson destroy this paper, putting hundreds of people out of work and killing a media voice in the process?

‘What do you think, Torstensson?’ he asked quietly. ‘Which story should we go for?’

The editor-in-chief got up.

‘I have a meeting to prepare,’ he said, then pushed back his chair with another scrape and left.

Once the door had closed with an angry snap, Anders Schyman shrugged his shoulders knowingly.

‘All right,’ he said again. ‘Now where were we?’

Annika got out of bed, cold and unable to think. She went into the kitchen, her mouth still filled with the bitter, scorched taste of metal and brushed her teeth, scrubbing and scrubbing away. She poured some yogurt into a bowl, ate a mouthful and felt queasy. Then she sat quietly at the table for a while, staring at Gran’s candlestick, breathing, breathing, the straw stars dancing.

She only had fuzzy, indistinct memories of how she had got home the night before. She had walked from the shed to the road, she had no idea how far, not very. Then she had come to a 4-H farm and saw a bus stop. She had almost fallen asleep there on the bench while she waited. The 56 bus appeared; the passengers had been totally normal, no one had noticed her, no one had seen that she was doomed, marked for death.

Sleep had been shattered by nightmares and her own screams had woken her up. The men from Studio 69 had tried to smother her, she had a hard time breathing and had to get up. The walls were closing in on her so she went into the living room, her legs buckled and she fell to the floor. She clasped her legs, assuming the foetal position, and her breathing became more and more shallow, rigid, convulsive. Exhausted, she remained where she was, hurting all over, unable to get up. She fell asleep and woke when the phone rang. But she didn’t answer.

She sat on the couch and closed her eyes. The white coffin danced in front of her, the officer droned on, the taste of metal filled her mouth.

The walls heaved and shuddered and she took a few deep breaths.
It will pass, it will pass.
She went into the kitchen where Gran’s candlestick gleamed, drank some water, lots of water, tried to get rid of the metallic taste and started crying. Opened the cabinets and stared once more at the package of pills – twenty-five tablets each containing fifteen milligrams of the sedative Sobril in a bubble-pack wrapper – and heard the doctor’s voice intone: ‘They’re not strong enough to overdose on, but don’t mix them with alcohol, that could be dangerous.’ Annika pulled the flat packets out of the box and squeezed one gently. The tablets clicked and rustled in their plastic bubbles. Placing the first pill in the first packet over a coffee mug, she pressed down; the pill tinkled as it hit the bottom of the china container. She moved the packet, pushed out the next pill, and the next, and the next: the entire package.

There was now a small heap of pills at the bottom of the mug. She sniffed, no smell. She tasted one, it was bitter. She swirled them around in the mug and closed her eyes. The pressure on her chest increased and she forced air into her lungs, gasping, panting. The tears began rolling from her eyes down her throat.

‘Don’t mix them with alcohol.
’

She put the cup down on the counter, went into the hall, put on her shoes, wiped her eyes, clung to the railing on her way downstairs, supported herself against the buildings as she walked down Agnegatan and Garvargatan and headed for the
Systembolaget
, the state-owned liquor store, at Kungsholmstorg. It was almost empty, only a few old ladies and a gang of derelicts. She turned her back on the other patrons, found a used copy of that day’s
Kvällspressen
on a bench and stared unseeingly at the black headlines. She was shaky and stammering by the time it was her turn and the cashier threw her a suspicious look. She bought vodka, a big bottle. Took the same route home, unsteady on her feet as she walked along the narrow sidewalk, the bag containing the vodka bottle swinging back and forth, the newspaper clamped under one arm. Finally, she made it home, cold and exhausted. She went into the kitchen, put the mug, the paper and the bottle next to Gran’s candlestick and sat down and cried.

No more, she couldn’t take any more.
The victims of Paradise tell their stories, see pages 8, 9, 10 and 11.

She rested her head on her arms, closed her eyes and listened to herself breathe. It was all over for Aida, she didn’t have to go on fighting.

Annika got up, reached for the vodka and broke the seal.

There was no point in putting it off any longer. She might as well get it over with.

Holding the bottle in one hand and the pills in the other, she closed her eyes. The glass was colder than the china.

There isn’t anything left
, she thought.

She opened her eyes.

Out of the frying pan into the fire: Mia Eriksson, one of the women tricked and used by Paradise, describes the reign of terror in a
Kvällspressen
exclusive. Today the veil of secrecy is lifted.

Annika put down the cup and the bottle, hesitated briefly, and went to sit on the couch in the living room, bringing the pills, the bottle and the paper along with her.

Page eight featured her article on Mia, page nine had Berit’s interviews with the cases from Nacka and Österåker. Pages ten and eleven had accounts from other cases, apparently from people who had called in the day before.

She let the paper fall as she sank back in the couch. Aida’s death had been her fault: Rebecka had sold Aida out, revealed her hiding place, but Annika had given Rebecka the opportunity. Annika covered her eyes with her hands, more flashbacks from the funeral: the light under the dome, ‘I’m most at home where I’m free to roam’,
porutschnick michich, porutschnick michich, porutschnick michich . . .

The telephone rang again. She let it ring and waited until the jangling ceased. Afterwards, the silence was dense and oppressive. She sat up straight on the couch, took the cap off the bottle of liquor, felt her stomach churn – the baby – and swirled the pills around in the cup, throbbing with self-pity.

It doesn’t make any fucking sense,
she thought.
Everyone has a rotten deal. Poor Aida, poor Mia.
She picked up the paper and smoothed the pages to read her own words.

The father of Mia’s first child had beaten her, threatened her, stalked her and raped her. When Mia married another man and had a child with him, the abuse escalated.

He broke all the windows of their home. Assaulted Mia’s husband in the dark. Tried to run over Mia and her children with a car. Tried to slit his own daughter’s throat, an encounter that had left the child unable to talk.

The authorities were at a loss. They did what they could, but it wasn’t enough. They put up bars on the windows. And every time Mia had to go out she would be accompanied by social workers. Finally, Social Services decided that the family had to go underground.

For two years the family stayed at a succession of shabby motels. They couldn’t let anyone know their whereabouts and had orders not to go out. Not even Mia’s parents knew whether they were dead or alive. The Administrative Court of Appeal decreed that the family was unable to lead a normal life in Sweden for the time being. They had to leave the country; the problem was, where should they go? Rebecka claimed to have the solution to their woes, but the family had ended up going from the frying pan into the fire.

Annika put the paper in her lap and began to weep.

The human condition was so terrible, the price was so atrociously high. Why did young girls in Europe have to be hurt in wars and end up on the run? Why didn’t we face up to our responsibilities? Why did we allow loved ones to die? Why couldn’t Mia have a good life? Why wasn’t she entitled to a normal life, like everyone else, with a husband and kids and a job and daily runs to the day-care centre?

She got up and got a glass of water, then returned to the couch with the article in her lap.

People’s problems, she thought, shouldn’t be more dramatic than having to choose which Christmas decorations to put up; or whether to visit your grandmother on Friday or Saturday; or whether you should go for a promotion at work; or live in an apartment or buy a house. Mia wished she had problems like that, but she hadn’t been granted the privilege.

Annika stared at the article, at her wording, her conclusions.

The right to have a husband and kids and a job and a normal life.

Not only for Mia and Aida, but for herself as well.

Annika gasped as the realization hit home. Stared at the pills in the cup and the bottle of booze and sat motionless while the insight spread throughout her body.

The force depriving her of life was her own. She was going to bow out, give up, get off the carousel before the ride was over, let the world continue without finding out what it had in store.

She heard her mother’s voice in her head: ‘You never finish anything! You always screw up! You’re lazy and cowardly and plenty of trouble!’

Annika put her hand to her cheek, still feeling the sting of her mother’s slap twenty years previously.