"What did he say?"
The woman sighed.
"I don't know. He would talk about her, saying she was a tough bitch and stuff like that. I don't remember…"
"But you didn't get the impression they knew each other well?"
"No, I wouldn't say that. What makes you think that?"
"I was just wondering. They sat next to each other at the Christmas party last week."
"Did they? Steffe didn't say anything about that. He said it was a pretty boring party."
"Did he bring a camera to the party?"
"Steffe? No way; he thought cameras were a waste of time."
Annika hesitated for a couple of seconds and then decided to ask what was actually on her mind.
"You have to forgive me for asking this, but how come you sound so calm and collected?"
The woman gave another sigh. "Of course I'm sad, but Steffe was no angel," she said. "It was hard work being married to him. I filed for divorce twice but rescinded both times. I couldn't get rid of him. He always came back, never gave up."
The scenario sounded familiar. Annika knew exactly what her follow-up question should be:
"Forgive me, but did he hit you?"
The woman hesitated for a moment.
"He was convicted of assault and battery once. The court issued a restraining order, which he constantly violated. In the end, I'd had enough and took him back," the woman said calmly.
"Did you believe he'd change?"
"He'd stopped making such promises; we were way past that stage. But he did get better after that. This last year it wasn't too bad."
"Did you ever go to a women's shelter?"
Annika put the question quite matter-of-factly; she'd uttered it hundreds of times over the years. Eva Bjurling paused but for some reason decided to answer this too.
"A couple of times, but it was so hard on the kids. They couldn't go to daycare and school like they were used to. It all got too complicated."
Annika waited in silence.
"You're wondering why I'm not brokenhearted, aren't you?" Eva Bjurling said. "Of course I am sad but mostly for the kids' sake. They loved their dad, but it'll be better for them now he's gone. He hit the bottle pretty seriously from time to time. So, there you have it…"
They both remained silent for a moment.
"I don't want to disturb you any longer," Annika said. "Thanks for being honest. It's important to know about these things."
Suddenly the woman remembered who she was talking to.
"Are you going to write about this? Most people I know really don't know anything about this."
"No," Annika said. "I won't write about it, but it's important for me to know; it may help me to prevent it happening again."
They ended the call there and Annika switched off the tape recorder. She sat staring into the air for a while. Wife-beating was everywhere, she'd learned that over the years. She had written many long series of articles about women and the violence they're subjected to. While she let her thoughts run on freely on the subject, she had a sudden realization. There was another common denominator between the two victims: People who didn't know them very well had paid warm tribute to both of them. Both had later turned out to be real bastards, unless Evert Danielsson really was lying about Christina.
She heaved a sigh and switched on her Mac. It was best to write everything down while it was still fresh in her mind. While the computer was booting up, she picked up the pad from her bag. She couldn't make Evert Danielsson out. One minute he seemed professional and competent, the next he was crying because they'd taken his precious company car away from him. Were men of power really that sensitive and naive? Yes, probably. Men of power aren't very different from other people. If they lose their jobs or something else that matters to them, they'll have a crisis. A hard-pressed person in a crisis situation isn't rational, regardless of what his job title is.
She had almost finished writing up all her notes when the phone rang.
"You told me to phone if something you wrote was wrong," someone said.
It was the voice of a young woman. Annika couldn't place it.
"Yes, absolutely," she said, trying to sound neutral. "What can I do for you?"
"You said so when you were here last Sunday. That I could call you if there were any mistakes in the paper. Now you've really gone too far."
It was Lena Milander. Annika's eyes grew wide.
"What do you mean?"
"Surely you read your own paper. There's a huge picture of my mother there, and then you've written 'THE IDEAL WOMAN' underneath it. What do you know about that?"
"What do you think we should write?" Annika asked.
"Nothing," Lena Milander said. "You should leave her alone. She hasn't even been buried yet."
"As far as we're aware your mother
was
an ideal woman," Annika said. "How could we know otherwise unless someone tells us?"
"Why do you have to write anything at all?"
"Your mother was a person in the public eye. She had chosen to be one. The image is of her own making; if no one tells us differently, it's the only one we've got."
Lena Milander was silent for a moment, then she said:
"Meet me at the Pelikan in South Island in half an hour. Afterwards you will promise me never to write trash like this again."
She hung up, and Annika looked with surprise at the receiver. She quickly saved the notes from her meeting with Evert Danielsson onto a disk, erased it from the hard drive, picked up her bag and coat, and left.
* * *
Anders Schyman was in his office, going over the circulation figures for the past weekend. He was happy; this was how it was supposed to look. Last Saturday, the rival tabloid had sold more copies than
Kvällspressen,
as it usually did. But Sunday there had been a break in the trend. For the first time in a year,
Kvällspressen
had won the circulation war, even though the rival had a bigger and more lavish Sunday supplement. It was the news-gathering work about the bombing of the Stockholm Olympic arena that had paid off, and the determining factor had been the first-page story. In other words, Annika's discovery that Christina Furhage had received death threats.
There was a knock. Eva-Britt Qvist was standing in the doorway.
"Come in," the editor-in-chief said, signaling her to sit down on the chair on the other side of his desk.
The crime-desk secretary smiled briefly, adjusted her skirt, and cleared her throat.
"Well, there's something I feel I have to talk to you about."
"Please, go ahead," Anders Schyman said, leaning back in his chair. He clasped his hands behind his neck and observed Eva-Britt Qvist behind half-closed eyelids. Something unpleasant was coming, he was sure of it.
"I think the atmosphere at the crime desk has deteriorated lately," the secretary said. "There's no real pleasure in the work anymore. I've been here for a long time, and I don't think I should have to accept this."
"No, you shouldn't," Anders Schyman agreed. "Can you give me an example of something that makes the situation so bad?"
The secretary fidgeted and gave it some thought.
"Right… Well, it felt bad to be ordered in harsh words to come in to work in the middle of baking, and this just before Christmas. There has to be some flexibility."
"Were you ordered in while you were baking?" Schyman asked.
"Yes, by Annika Bengtzon."
"Was it in connection with the Bomber?"
"Yes, she's so incredibly inflexible."
"So you don't think it's appropriate that you work overtime when everybody else is?" he said calmly. "Tragedies on this scale fortunately don't occur that often in this country."
The woman's cheeks turned a pale pink and she chose to go on the offensive:
"Annika Bengtzon can't behave herself! Do you know what she said after lunch today? Well, she said she'd kick Nils Langeby's teeth in!"
Anders Schyman found it hard to keep a straight face.
"Really," he said. "Did she say that to him?"
"No, she didn't say it
to
anyone, more to herself, but I actually heard it. I really think it was unnecessary. You shouldn't talk like that at work."
The editor leaned forward and placed his hands almost at the opposite edges of the desk.
"You're quite right, Eva-Britt, it was an unsuitable thing to say. But do you know what I find a lot worse? People who come running to their boss like children, telling tales about their colleagues."
Eva-Britt Qvist first turned white as a sheet, then red as a lobster. Anders Schyman didn't let go of the woman with his gaze. She looked down at her lap, looked up, looked down again, and then stood up and went out. She would probably spend the next fifteen minutes crying in the ladies' room.
The editor leaned back and sighed. He had thought the weekly quota of nursery squabbles had been filled, but he'd clearly been wrong.
* * *
Annika jumped out of the taxi on Blekingegatan and for a moment puzzled the rich little miss's choice of restaurant. The Pelikan was a classic beer hall with "character," good home cooking, and a very high sound level later in the evening. At this time of the day, it was still pretty quiet, as people sat talking over beer and sandwiches. Lena Milander had just arrived; she'd chosen a table by the far wall and sat facing the room, dragging hard on a rolled-up cigarette. She fit in perfectly, with her short hair, black clothes, and somber expression. She could easily be a regular. The waitress came up to take their order and said:
"The usual, Lena?" She
was
a regular.
Annika had coffee and a ham-and-cheese sandwich, Lena a beer and a meat hash. The young woman stubbed out the cigarette halfway through, looked at Annika, and gave a wry smile.
"No, I don't really smoke, but I like lighting up," she said, watching Annika closely.
"I know you're a bit of a firebug," Annika said and blew on her coffee. "That children's home in Botkyrka."
Lena's face remained blank.
"How long are you going to go on lying about my mother?"
"For as long as we don't know any better," Annika said.
Lena lit her cigarette again and blew the smoke in Annika's face. Annika didn't blink.
"So, have you bought any Christmas gifts yet?" she said, picking a tobacco flake from her tongue.
"Some. Have you bought any for Olof?"
Lena's gaze hardened while she took a deep drag on her cigarette.
"Your brother, I mean," Annika went on. "Let's start with him, shall we?"
"We have no contact with each other," Lena said and stared out through the window.
Annika felt that familiar thrill travel along her spine again— Olof was alive!
"Why don't you have any contact?" she said as deadpan as she could manage.
"We never did. Mother didn't want it."
Annika picked up a pad and pen from her bag and the copy of the family photograph where Olof was two years old. She put it on the table in front of Lena. She looked at it for a long time.
"I've never seen this one," she said. "Where did you find it?"
"In the morning paper's archive. You can have it if you like."
Lena shook her head. "No point, I'll only set fire to it."
Annika put it back in her bag.
"What is it you want to tell me about your mother?"
Lena fingered her cigarette.
"Everyone's writing about how fantastic she was. In your paper today, she was little short of a saint. In actual fact, Mom was a tragic person. She failed in a whole lot of ways. She hid all her failures by threatening and deceiving people. I sometimes wonder whether there wasn't actually something wrong with her, she was so fucking vicious."
The young woman fell silent and looked out through the window again. It was getting dark already. The snow didn't ever seem to be ceasing.
"Could you explain that a bit?" Annika said guardedly.
"Well, take Olle, for example," Lena resumed. "I didn't even know he existed until Gran told me. I was eleven then."
Annika took notes and waited in silence.
"Grandad died when Mom was little. Gran sent her up to live with some relatives in the far north. She grew up there. The relatives weren't very fond of her, but Gran paid them. When she was twelve, she was sent to a boarding school, where she lived until she married Carl. That's the old man in the photograph. He was nearly forty years older than Mom but from a good family. That was important to Gran. She arranged the whole thing."
