Prime Time (3 page)

When the policeman opened the front door, the chill and the damp slapped at her like a wet towel. She gasped, swaying there in the doorway and looking up at the castle. Policemen and police cars were blurred by the curtain of grey rain.

‘You wouldn’t happen to have an umbrella, would you?’

Her guard replied by pointing to the corner of the house. Anne Snapphane hunched up her shoulders and reluctantly walked out on the stone steps. Water seeped inside her collar in no time at all.

‘Where am I supposed to go?’

‘To the house down by the water. Right now.’

A cold rivulet ran down her spine and she had water in her eyes. She blinked to get rid of it, started weaving her way down the three steps to the gravel path and followed the boxwood hedge over to the herb garden. She followed the whitewashed wall that led her to the New Wing, passed a small group of enamelled cast-iron furniture items and stopped. The wall encircled a small courtyard: it had arches and was topped with red tile. It wouldn’t be hard to escape from here, she thought.

‘Straight ahead, keep moving.’

Anne Snapphane looked away from the wall and focused on the door.

The police lieutenant was seated at a table in the large conference room. Right behind him, on the other side of the window, the OB bus was parked. Unconsciously, Anne shrank back, stepping on the guard’s toes. The bus stood out like a cardboard cut-out, white than white and emblazoned with the extremely flashy company logotype.

I wonder if she’s still in there
, she thought.
I wonder if she’s gone cold by now.

‘Have a seat.’

Anne sank down on the chair that the officer had indicated, wiped the rain out of her eyes, blinked and noticed that the lieutenant was wearing a colourful Hawaiian shirt. A sense of relief washed over her.

‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘It’s you.’

The man didn’t seem to have heard her.

‘We’ve met, in Stockholm,’ she told him eagerly. ‘Annika Bengtzon was there.’

‘You were one of the people who found her,’ he said.

Confused, Anne blinked.

‘Um,’ she said. ‘Yes, I was one of them.’

Suddenly, the sense of unreality returned, the floor began to rock under her feet and she grabbed hold of the desk.

‘Could I … please have some water?’

An officer came over with a pitcher and a glass. With shaking hands, she poured herself a glass of water and greedily downed the entire contents of the glass, spilling some.

‘Got a hangover?’

Waves of nausea swept over Anne Snapphane as she leaned back in her chair.

‘I think I’m going to have an asthma attack.’

‘Is it customary to have a blow-out when you wrap up a TV show?’

She smoothed her hair and noticed how damp it was.

‘Why am I here? When do I get to go home?’

The lieutenant got up.

‘We’re going to interview the whole group of you today, one by one. So far, no one is more of a suspect than anyone else but, naturally, we have to ask you all about last night. I hope you understand.’

Trying to make sense of what he was saying, Anne looked at the man, her mouth half-open.

‘Until we have finished these interviews, you will be restricted to your rooms. You will be summoned at our convenience. You are not allowed to talk to each other, or communicate in any other fashion. Is that clear? Anne Snapphane, did you hear what I said?’

She forced herself to nod and thought of the cellphone under the covers in her bed. The man pushed a button on a tape recorder and sat down on the table in front of her. His jeans were worn at the knees.

‘This is a record of the interview with Snapphane, Anne, born …’

He stopped and fixed Anne with his gaze. She swallowed and mumbled her date of birth.

‘… Conducted by Q at Yxtaholm castle, in the conference room of the New Wing, on Friday, 22 June, at 10:25 a.m. Anne Snapphane is being interviewed with regard to the probable homicide of Michelle Carlsson.’

Silently, the police lieutenant studied Anne.

‘Why are you here?’

Anne drank some more water.

‘I’m being interviewed by the police,’ she said softly.

Lieutenant Q sighed.

‘I’m sorry,’ Anne Snapphane said and cleared her throat. ‘I’m a researcher at Zero Television – a production company that makes TV programmes that are aired by various networks. I’ve also been a studio hostess this week, while we’ve been taping these shows.’ She grew silent and looked around the room. There were police officers in front of her and behind her, and the broadcast bus was outside the building.

‘Shows?’ the police officer asked. ‘In the plural. Does that mean there are several of them?’

She nodded.

‘Eight shows in a row,’ Anne replied, her voice a bit steadier now. ‘Two whole shows a day for four days running, and it’s been raining the whole fucking time!’

Suddenly and inappropriately, she laughed shrilly. The policeman didn’t react.

‘And how did it go?’

‘How did it go?’

Anne bowed her head.

‘More or less as expected, apart from the weather. We hadn’t counted on having to put up canopies to be able to shoot the various slots and segments. And that meant that we had to keep rearranging the shooting schedule – some of the artists had to perform up in the music room on the second floor of the manor house. But apart from that, everything went according to plan.’

She tried to smile.

‘Any conflicts?’

‘What do you mean?’

She finished the water in her glass.

The policeman spread his hands in a tired gesture.

‘Fights,’ he explained. ‘Arguments. Threats. Unruly behaviour.’

Anne Snapphane closed her eyes again and took a deep breath.

‘Some, I guess.’

‘Could you be more specific?’

She took another sip of water, noticed that her glass was empty and waved it to get a refill.

‘Millions of things can go wrong in a big production like this,’ she said, ‘and there’s just no room for it. If everyone’s stressed, things can get out of hand.’

‘Could you spell that out for me?’ Q asked.

Her heart started racing again and she began to shake.

‘Michelle,’ she began, ‘could be a real pain. For the past few days she’s locked horns with every single member of the team.’

‘Including you?’

Anne Snapphane nodded a few times and swallowed. The policeman sighed.

‘Could you please give us a verbal answer?’

‘Yes,’ she said, her voice booming much too loudly. ‘Yes, including me.’

‘When was that?’

‘Last night.’

The policeman studied her closely and didn’t lower his gaze.

‘What happened?’

‘It was nothing, really. We got into this argument over money, about what things are worth. It all started with a discussion about the stock market, and I’m principally opposed to an economy based on speculation, while Michelle insisted that it was an essential cornerstone of democracy, and then we went on to discuss salaries. According to Michelle, corporate managers and other people in public positions were worth their high salaries and pension deals, and she mentioned Percy Barnevik and all the other high-rollers, even though she was really talking about herself, as usual.’

She stopped short and her cheeks started to burn. The policeman regarded her, his face a mask.

‘Were you angry?’

I’ll lie
, Anne Snapphane thought.
I can’t tell it like it is, they’ll think I did it.

The man in front of her studied her, examined her, read her mind.

‘Lying will only complicate things,’ he said.

‘I wanted to throttle her,’ Anne said, looking away, tears burning in her eyes. ‘But we were drunk.’

The lieutenant got up, walked around the table and sat back down again.

‘Drunk,’ he repeated. ‘How drunk? Does that go for the whole film team?’

She shrugged her shoulders, suddenly exhausted and fed up with the whole business.

‘Words, please.’

Her brain short-circuited, signalling error and overload.

‘How should I know?’ she shouted. ‘How could I know such a thing? It’s not like I went around picking up the empties, even though certain people seemed to think that was my job.’

‘Like who? Did Michelle think you ought to clear away the empty bottles?’

‘No,’ she replied in a somewhat more subdued voice.

The silence deepened, her nausea increased.

‘Were there any other disputes as the night wore on?’

Out of breath, Anne Snapphane swallowed hard.

‘Maybe,’ she whispered.

‘Who was involved?’

‘Ask the others. I don’t know, I wasn’t listening.’

‘But there was some sort of commotion around here last night, wasn’t there? Things got kind of rowdy.’

‘Ask around and you’ll find out,’ Anne replied. ‘Ask what it was like over at the Stables.’

‘Were you there?’

‘Not for long.’

‘But you were one of the people who found her, right?’

The lieutenant didn’t insist on hearing her affirm this.

‘Apart from you, who else entered the bus?’

She closed her eyes briefly.

‘Sebastian,’ she said, noticing how feeble her voice sounded.

‘Sebastian Follin, Michelle Carlsson’s agent?’

Anne nodded. Then she remembered something.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Oh, he’s her manager. Sebastian Follin is Michelle’s manager.’

Confused, she stopped.

‘How should I put that? That he is? Or was …?’

‘Anyone else?’

‘Karin. Karin Bellhorn, the producer. She was there too.’

‘Anyone else?’

‘Mariana and Bambi. They can’t stand each other.’

‘Why were you up all night?’

Anne laughed, a single short bark.

‘There was still some booze left.’

‘Who are Mariana and Bambi?’

‘Mariana von Berlitz is a feature editor for
Summer Frolic at the Castle
, we work for the same production company. Bambi Rosenberg, the soap actress, was a guest on the next to last show. She and Michelle were pals.’

‘Right,’ the policeman said. ‘The manager, the producer, the editor, the friend and you. Would that be everyone?’

Anne considered the question briefly.

‘Well, Gunnar was around too,’ she said. ‘He had the key. His last name’s Antonsson. He works in the bus and you should have seen him.’ A fit of the giggles bubbled up inside her, passing through her brain and over her lips, oozing like green poison. ‘He was more upset about the mess than …’

She motioned with a hand and grew silent.

‘What do you mean?’

‘It bugged Gunnar more that Michelle had messed up his equipment than that she was dead.’

‘Messed up?’

‘Yeah, all that grey goo, you know …’

The image flashed before her, filtered through intoxication and shock: the slim body sprawled in a grotesque position, enormous eyes that would never see again.

‘I can’t do this …’ Anne Snapphane murmured and passed out.

The pier in front of the Grand Hotel was clogged with people. The passenger boats to Stockholm’s archipelago bobbed like whales behind a curtain of rain, the wind whipping the bunches of birch branches embellishing the bow and stern of each vessel.
This is impossible
, Thomas thought.
There won’t be room for us.

‘Gällnö? That’s the boat at the far end. Have a nice Midsummer.’

Thomas tried to smile at the employee from Waxholmsbolaget shrouded in raingear, gripped the handle of the stroller firmly, ploughed through a deep puddle and managed to ram a young woman in the legs from behind.

‘It’s customary to apologize, you know,’ she hissed at him.

Thomas averted his gaze and felt how the plastic handle on the package of diapers cut into his wrist and the frame of his backpack slammed against his hip bones.

‘I want ice cream,’ Kalle declared, pointing at the stand behind them on the pier.

‘Once we’re on the boat, I’ll get you some ice cream,’ Thomas promised, his forehead breaking out in a sweat. A gust of wind splattered rain against his face. Ellen whined. His heart sank as he gazed down the pier.

The old steamer
Norrskär
was tied up at the far end, and it was pitching and rolling. She looked like a humpbacked old lady next to the potent modern brutes. In this weather, on this boat, it would take them more than three hours to reach his parents’ place out in the islands.

One of the last passengers to make it aboard, Thomas stashed the stroller, their bags and his backpack indoors, under the bridge.

‘Come on, time for a snack,’ he said, hearing how feeble he sounded.

The sea was pretty rough. Kalle was seasick before they even passed the first islands on the route, Fjäderholmarna. He threw up all over the table in the cafeteria and dropped his jumbo ice-cream bar in the slimy puddle.

‘My ice cream!’ the boy sobbed, trying to pick up the slimy stick while wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

‘Hang on,’ Thomas exclaimed while Ellen tried to wriggle out of his arms.

The other passengers edged away from them as inconspicuously as possible.

‘Clean it up yourself,’ the girl behind the counter said resentfully, handing Thomas a roll of paper towels.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, sensing how the stares of the other passengers were growing more disapproving. ‘It’s okay, Ellen, Kalle, everything’s going to be fine …’

Thomas fled out on deck, clutching his daughter under one arm, the stroller under the other and urging a tearful and unwilling Kalle on in front of him.

There, in a shelter by the stairs, he deposited his children. He pulled off his raincoat, wrapped it around the boy and sat him down on the bench. The boy stopped crying at once and fell asleep in less than a minute. Thomas lowered the backrest of the stroller, tucked his daughter in snugly with a blanket and began to rock the stroller quickly back and forth, back and forth. Aided by the rolling motion of the boat, it did the trick. She too fell asleep.

Thomas applied the stroller brakes and made sure that his children were protected from the rain before going up to the railing to be embraced by the spray and the wind. A sudden and inexplicable sense of loss engulfed him. There was something here that he no longer had.