"Quite a lot. Shall we go through it quickly?"
"Let's wait for Patrik," Annika said.
"I'm here," he called from the picture desk. "I'm just…" He walked away to attend to whatever he needed to do.
"Let's go into my office," Annika said.
Berit went to her desk and hung up her things. In Annika's office, she sat on the old couch, balancing her notes and a cup of coffee from the coffee machine.
"I've tried to piece together Christina Furhage's last hours. The Secretariat had a Christmas party at a restaurant in west-central Stockholm on Friday evening. Christina stayed until midnight. I went over there and talked to the waiters. I also spoke to Evert Danielsson, the director of the Secretariat."
"Good." Annika said. "So what were her movements?"
Berit looked at her notes. "Furhage arrived late at the restaurant, after 10 P.M. The others had already eaten— a Basque Christmas dinner, as a matter of fact. She left with a colleague, Helena Starke, just before midnight. No one saw her after that."
"The explosion was at 3:17 A.M., which leaves more than three hours unaccounted for," Annika said. "What does Helena Starke say?"
"Don't know, she's ex-directory. She lives in South Island, but I haven't had time to go there yet."
"Starke's good; we have to talk to her," Annika said. "What else? What was Furhage doing before she went to the Christmas party?"
"Danielsson thinks she was at the office, but he isn't sure. Apparently she put in hugely long hours at the office, like fourteen, fifteen hours a day."
"Superwoman," Annika muttered, remembering Christina's husband's ovation for all the work she did at home too.
"Who does The Furhage Story?" Berit asked.
"One of the masters of style over at the features department. I went to see the family— that didn't produce much. Tricky lot…"
"How do you mean?"
Annika thought a second. "Bertil, her husband, was old and gray. He was quite confused. He seemed to feel admiration for his wife rather than love. The daughter came in screaming and crying, saying she was glad her mother was dead."
"Really…"
"How's it going?" Patrik said as he came through the door.
"Fine. What about you?" Annika asked.
"Well, this will be great," he said, sitting down next to Berit. "So far the police have found one hundred and twenty-seven pieces of Christina Furhage."
Both Berit and Annika grimaced.
"That's disgusting! You can't use that!" Annika exclaimed.
The young reporter smiled, unruffled.
"They've found blood and teeth all the way over to the main entrance. That's several hundred meters."
"You're making me want to puke. Have you got anything worse?" Annika said.
"They still don't know what the Bomber used to blow her up. Or they're not saying."
"So what will your story be?"
"I've talked to an all-right cop about the hunt for the killer. I can do that."
"Okay," Annika said. "I've got some stuff on that, too. What have you got?"
Patrik leaned forward, his eyes shining.
"The police are looking for Christina Furhage's laptop. They know she had a laptop computer with her on the Friday night; a girl from the Secretariat saw it. But it's gone, it wasn't among the debris at the arena. They believe the murderer must have taken it."
"Couldn't it have been blown up?" Berit asked.
"Impossible, at least according to my source," Patrik said. "The computer is gone, and that's their best lead, so far."
"Anything else?" Annika said.
"They're considering asking Interpol to help catch the Tiger."
"It wasn't the Tiger," Annika said. "It was an inside job. The police are sure of that."
"How do they know?" Patrik said with surprise.
Annika thought about her promise not to say anything about the security codes. "Trust me, I've got a reliable source. What else?"
"I've talked to the staff at the Olympic Secretariat. They're on the verge of a collective breakdown. Christina Furhage seems to have been a Christ figure to them. Everyone's in tears, including Evert Danielsson. I heard him through his door. I don't know how they're going to get by without her. She seems to have had all the good qualities a person can have."
"Why do you sound so surprised?" Berit said. "Isn't it possible for a middle-aged woman to be liked and appreciated?"
"Sure, but to that extent…"
"Christina Furhage had an outstanding career, and she handled her job as Olympic supremo excellently. When a woman succeeds in running a project like this from start to finish, you can bet your life she's something out of the ordinary. Twenty-eight simultaneous world championships, that's what the Olympics is."
"Are her achievements so remarkable just because she was a woman?" Patrik said teasingly, and that really made Berit hot under the collar.
"Oh, please, will you grow up!"
Patrik got to his feet. "What the hell do you mean by that?" he exclaimed.
Annika wanted to back up her female colleague. "Patrik, you're a man and you aren't affected by the oppression of women. Of course, it's more difficult for a woman than for a man to hold down a position like hers, just as it would be more difficult for someone who was deaf and dumb than for someone with his faculties intact. Being a woman is tantamount to being a walking handicap. Do you have anything more?"
Patrik was bemused. "What do you mean, 'a walking handicap'?"
The atmosphere was getting a little tense. Annika let it drop. "Do you have anything else?"
He leafed through his notes.
"The hunt for the Bomber, the Olympic Secretariat in shock… No, that's all I've got."
"Okay, Berit does Christina Furhage's last day. I do the family and add to your story on the hunt for the killer. Finished?"
They parted without saying anything more. The strain is beginning to show on us, Annika thought. She switched on the radio for the news at a quarter to six. Their top story was naturally the followup on the news that one of Sweden's most powerful and well-known women, Christina Furhage, was dead. They started off with commentaries on her life and work and continued with the effects this would have on the Games and sports in general. As might have been expected, Samaranch retracted his earlier statement he had made in a rival paper. After eleven minutes, they mentioned the fact that Furhage had been murdered. That's how they did it at
Dagens Eko,
first everything that was nice and general and impersonal, then— to the extent that they mentioned it at all— the unpleasant and upsetting. If they covered a murder, they almost always put their focus on some legal subtlety, never on the victim, the families, or the perpetrator. They would, however, run seventeen stories on the piece of equipment with which the perpetrator's brain had been examined; that was science and therefore superior information. Annika let out a sigh. In passing, they also mentioned her own story from yesterday's paper about the threat and Furhage being off-record, but it was an aside. She turned off the radio and collected the material she needed for the news meeting in the editor's office. She had a sinking feeling. Ingvar Johansson had been strange all day, short-tempered and offhand. She realized she must have done something wrong but had no idea what. There was no sign of him now.
Anders Schyman was on the phone; it sounded like he was talking to a child on the other end. Picture Pelle had already taken a seat at the conference table with his long lists. She opted to go over to the window and stare at her own reflection. If she put her hand against the glass to block out the light from the room and stood really close, she could make out the world beyond. There was a dense darkness. The yellow lights of the Russian Embassy were golden specks floating in a sea of blackness. Even this little morsel of Russia was gloomy and ominous-looking. She shuddered from the cold coming in through the window.
"Alles gut?"
chirped Jansson, who had just woken up, spilling a bit more coffee on the editor's carpet. "My last night with you lot, then I've got three shifts off. Where the hell's Ingvar Johansson?"
"Right here. Shall we get started?"
Annika sat down and noted that Ingvar took hold of the reins today. So that was it, she had talked too much at yesterday's meeting.
"Right, let's set the ball rolling," Anders Schyman said, putting the phone down. "What have we got, and what's the page lead?"
Ingvar Johansson handed out copies of his list and started talking as he did so: "I think we should lead with Nils Langeby's stuff, that the police are sure it was a terrorist attack. They're chasing a foreign terrorist group."
Annika was stunned. She couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"What are you talking about?" she exclaimed. "Is Nils here today? I didn't even know. Who called him in?"
"I don't know," Ingvar Johansson said, irritated. "I assumed you did: You're his boss."
"But where on earth did he get that about a terrorist attack from?" Annika said, barely able to keep her voice steady.
"Why should he have to divulge his sources? You never do," Ingvar Johansson said.
Annika felt the blood surge into her face. Everyone around the table was looking at her. Suddenly it hit her that they were all men, except for her.
"We have to synchronize our stories," she said in a strained voice. "My information is the exact opposite: It wasn't a terrorist act. The attack was aimed at Christina personally."
"In what way?" Ingvar Johansson said, and Annika knew she was done for. She could either disclose what she knew, and then both Jansson and Ingvar Johansson would demand she write about the security codes. The news editor who'd keep a juicy angle like that under wraps didn't exist. Or she could keep quiet, and that she couldn't do because then they'd walk all over her. She quickly chose a third way out.
"I'll call and talk to my source again," she said.
Anders Schyman gave her a questioning look. "We'll sit tight and wait before we decide on the terrorist lead," he said. "Let's go on."
Annika didn't say anything but waited for Ingvar Johansson to continue. Which he did more than willingly.
"We'll do a whole pull-out: Christina Furhage in memoriam. Her life in words and images. We have lots of tributes: the King, the White House, the Cabinet, Samaranch, a whole bunch of sportsmen and women, TV personalities. Everyone wants to pay tribute to her. It'll be really potent, really strong…"
"What happened to the sports supplement?" Anders Schyman said softly.
Ingvar Johansson was at a loss.
"Well, we'll make use of those pages for the memorial pull-out, sixteen pages in four-color print, and then add two pages to the regular sports section."
"Four-color?" Anders Schyman said doubtfully. "That means lifting a lot of color pages from the actual paper to the pull-out. It will leave the paper virtually gray, won't it?"
Ingvar Johansson was blushing by now.
"Well, er, yes, I suppose…"
"How come I wasn't informed of this?" Anders Schyman said calmly. "I've been here more or less the whole day. You could have come in at any time and discussed it."
The news editor looked like he wished a hole would open up in the conference room floor.
"I don't have an answer to that. It all went so fast."
"That's a shame," Schyman said. "Because we're not having a four-color pull-out on Christina Furhage. She wasn't a popular favorite in that way. She was an elite business executive, enormously admired by some, true, but neither royalty, nor elected by the people, nor a TV personality. We'll put the memorial pages inside the paper, forget about the pull-out, and increase the number of pages instead. Because I don't suppose sports will have started on a pull-out?"
Ingvar Johansson was staring down at the table.
"What else have we got?"
No one said a word. Annika waited in silence. This was extremely unpleasant.
"Bengtzon?"
She straightened her back and looked at her papers.
"We can do quite a substantial bit on the hunt for the killer. Patrik has found out that Furhage's laptop is missing and I've also got a good source for the insider theory…"
She fell silent, but no one said anything so she continued: "Berit is doing Furhage's last hours. I've met her family."
"Oh, yes, how was it?" Schyman asked.
Annika paused, thinking, then said:
"The husband was mildly confused, that has to be said. The daughter was totally unhinged. I'm not mentioning her. The question is: Should we publish anything at all? We could be in for a lot of criticism for even approaching the husband."
