Liza Marklund - The Bomber

Patrik and Berit appeared simultaneously in the doorway.

"Are you busy?"

"Christ, no! Come inside and let's have a quick look at things." She got up, walked around her desk and sat down on the old couch.

"Great work yesterday, both of you," she said. "We're alone with the stuff about what was found at the crime scene, and no one else had anything on the bartender at the illegal club."

"Though our rival's interview with Samaranch was much better, unfortunately," Berit said. "Did you read it? Apparently he was furious and threatened to cancel the Games unless the Bomber was apprehended."

"Yes, so I heard," Annika said. "It's a shame we had nothing on that. But I wonder- did he really say that? If he really wants to cancel the Games, why hasn't he gone public with it? He's said to all the other media and in the press release that the Games will go ahead, at all costs."

"Has the competition got a monopoly on what Samaranch's really thinking?" Berit said.

Annika opened the paper at the page with the interview in the other paper. "Their Rome correspondent wrote it. He's good," Annika said. "I think it's correct, but Samaranch will still make an official denial this afternoon."

"Why this afternoon?" Patrik asked.

"Because by then CNN will have mentioned it and put together a special item on it," Annika said and smiled, " 'The Olympics at stake' will be the headline, and there'll be some grandiose music in a minor key…"

Berit smiled. "I heard there's another press conference soon," she said.

"Yes," Annika replied, "they're probably going to announce who the victim is, and I wonder if it's not the Olympic boss herself."

"Furhage?" Patrik said. "What makes you think that?"

"Think about it," Annika said. "Either she's hiding, or something is seriously wrong. No one can get hold of her, not even her closest colleagues. There isn't a place on earth where the attack hasn't been reported. She couldn't have missed it. Either she doesn't want to make herself known- that means she's hiding- or she can't, probably because she's sick, dead, or has been kidnapped."

"I've thought about that," Berit said. "I actually asked the investigators about it yesterday when I talked to them about the finds at the scene, but they denied it categorically."

"That doesn't mean anything," Annika mused. "Furhage is a story today too, whatever happens. We have to follow up that death threat: What was it exactly? If she is the victim, we'll have to focus on her life story. Do we have an obit for her?"

"Not for her," Berit said. "Christina Furhage wasn't exactly about to peg out."

"Let's ask for pics and cuttings before we set off for the police headquarters. Did either one of you talk to Eva-Britt yesterday?"

Both Berit and Patrik shook their heads. Annika went over to her desk and dialed the secretary's home number. When Eva-Britt Qvist answered, Annika asked her if she could come into the office.

"I know it's the last Sunday before Christmas, but it would be great if you could come in all the same," she said. "The rest of us are going to a press conference at police headquarters, and it would be really helpful if you could collect all the stuff we have on Christina Furhage while we're there, both pics and copy."

"I've just put some dough aside to rise," Eva-Britt Qvist said.

"Oh, that's a shame," Annika said. "But big things are happening here today, and the rest of us are a bit out of it. Patrik was here until half past four this morning, I worked from a quarter past three in the morning until eleven at night yesterday, Berit about the same. And we need help with what is really your job, looking things up in databases and compiling material…"

"I'm sorry, I've already said I can't," Eva-Britt Qvist said. "I do have a family."

Annika swallowed the first response that came into her mind. Instead she spoke very deliberately: "Yes, I know what it's like when you have to change your plans. It's awful to disappoint your children and partner. Naturally, you'll be paid overtime or you'll get time off in lieu whenever you want. Between Christmas and New Year, or the next school holiday, whatever. But it would be really great if you could have the material ready by the time we get back from the press conference."

"I told you, I'm in the middle of baking! I can't come in!"

Annika took a deep breath. "Okay, then we'll do it this way instead, if that's what you prefer. I order you to come in. I expect you to be here in fifteen minutes."

"What about my buns?!"

"Ask your family to mould them," Annika said and hung up. To her annoyance, she noticed that her hand was shaking.

She hated this. She would never dream of doing what Eva-Britt Qvist had just done if a superior called her and asked her to do over time. If you worked at a newspaper and something big happened, you had to be prepared to come in, that's just the way it was. If you wanted a nine-to-five job, Monday to Friday, you should join the accounts office of a phone company or something like that. Other people could check the databases- she or Berit or one of the newsroom reporters. But in a situation like this, everyone was hard-pressed. And everyone wanted to celebrate Christmas. It made sense to distribute the workload as fairly as possible and let everyone do their bit, even if it was Sunday. She couldn't climb down and let Eva-Britt off the hook because that would make her life as a manager hell. The kind of disrespect the crime-desk secretary had just shown her would not be rewarded with days off. She wished she could just fire the bitch.

"Eva-Britt's coming in," she said to the others, thinking she saw the shadow of a smile on Berit's face.

They took two cars to the press conference. Annika and Berit in one, together with the photographer Johan Henriksson, and Patrik in the other with Ulf Olsson. The media pack was, if possible, even more hysterical today. Henriksson had to park on Kungsholm's Square half a mile away; both Bergsgatan and Agnegatan, the streets running alongside the police headquarters, were solid with OB vans and Volvos with large media logos on them. Annika enjoyed the short walk. The air was clear and fresh after the previous day's snowfall, the top floors of the buildings aglow in the sharp sunlight. The snow crunched under their shoes.

"I live over there," she said, pointing at the newly renovated nineteenth-century apartment building further up on Hantverkargatan.

"Do you rent or own?" Berit asked.

"Secure tenancy," Annika said.

"How did you get hold of an apartment there?" Henriksson said, thinking of his sublet in the outer southern suburbs.

"Stubbornness," Annika replied. "I got a short lease in the house eight years ago. A small two-bedroom apartment with no mod cons at the back of the block. There was a communal bathroom in the basement of the adjoining house. The house was scheduled for a renovation and I was given a six-month lease. But then the recession came and the owner went bust. No one wanted to buy the place, and after five years I got tenancy rights. By then there were almost four of us in that small apartment: me, Thomas, Kalle, and Ellen on the way. When the building was finally renovated, we got a four-bedroom apartment at the front of the building. Not bad, eh?"

"Jackpot," Berit said.

"What's your rent?" Henriksson asked.

"Ask me something else, like how nice the wood paneling is or how high the ceilings are," Annika said.

"Goddamn yuppie," Henriksson exclaimed, and Annika laughed out loud.

The group from Kvällspressen was late and barely managed to get inside the press conference room. Annika ended up in the doorway and could hardly see anything. She craned her neck and saw reporters doing their best to show everybody else how extremely important and focused on their job they were. Henriksson and Olsson elbowed their way to the front, arriving there at the same time as the press conference participants filed into the room. There were fewer of them than the day before. Annika could only see the Chief District Prosecutor Kjell Lindström and the police press officer. Evert Danielsson wasn't there, nor was the Krim investigator. Above the head of a woman from one of the morning papers, Annika saw the press officer clear his throat and begin to speak. He summed up the situation and went through already known facts, that the Tiger was wanted for questioning by the police and that the forensic investigation was underway. He talked for ten minutes and then Kjell Lindström leaned forward, with the entire press corps doing the same. Everybody had an idea of what was coming.