Liza Marklund - Studio Sex aka Studio 69 / Exposed

Daniella Hermansson's practiced movie-star smile, the one she probably adopted for all holiday and Xmas snaps, faded. Instead, she looked confused and lost. Bertil Strand was snapping away, circling the woman and her child with short, cautious dance steps.

"Can I call you later if anything comes up? What's your phone number? And the code for the door from the street? You know, just in case."

Daniella Hermansson put the child in the stroller and walked off alongside the police cordon. To her annoyance, Annika saw Arne Påhlson from the Rival stop the woman as she walked past. Luckily, the child was by now howling so badly that the woman wouldn't wait for a second interview. Annika breathed again.

"Don't try to teach me my job," Strand said to Annika.

"Fine. But tell me, what would have happened if they'd taken the body away while you were busy buying ice cream for the competition?"

Bertil Strand gave her a contemptuous look. "In the field we're not competitors. Out here we're colleagues."

"I think you're wrong. We lose out if we hunt as a pack. We ought to keep more to ourselves, all of us."

"No one would gain anything by that."

"Well, I think it would help our credibility with our readers."

Bertil Strand swung the cameras onto his shoulder. "Well, thanks for telling me. I've only been at the paper for fifteen years."

Shit! Annika thought as the photographer walked back to his "colleagues." Why can't I ever keep my big mouth shut?

She suddenly felt dizzy and weak. I've got to get something to drink, and fast, she thought. To her great relief, she saw Berit walking toward her from the direction of Hantverkargatan.

"Where have you been?" Annika called out, moving in her direction.

"I went back to the car to make some calls. I ordered up the cuttings on the other murder and had a chat with a few police contacts."

In vain, Berit was trying to cool herself by waving her hand in front of her face. "Anything happen?"

"I talked to a neighbor. That's all."

"Have you had anything to drink? You look a bit pale."

Annika wiped the sweat from her brow. Suddenly she felt close to tears. "I really stuck my foot in it with Bertil Strand just now," she said in a subdued voice. "I said that we shouldn't mingle with our competitors at a crime scene."

"I agree with you. Bertil Strand doesn't, I know that. He can be a bit difficult to work with sometimes, but he's a good photographer. Why don't you go and get something to drink? I'll hold the fort."

Annika gratefully left Kronobergsgatan and walked down along Drottningholmsvägen. She was in line to buy a bottle of mineral water in the kiosk on Fridhemsplan when she saw the ambulance turn left on Sankt Göransgatan and head for the park.

"Shit!" she cried out, and ran straight out into the traffic, forcing a taxi to slam on the brakes. She crossed Sankt Eriksgatan and headed back to the park. She thought she was going to faint before she reached it.

The ambulance had stopped at the top of Sankt Göransgatan; a man and a woman got out.

"Why are you so out of breath?" Berit asked.

"The car! The body!" Annika panted, bending over with her hands on her knees, gasping for air.

Berit sighed. "The ambulance will be here for a while. The body isn't going to disappear. Don't worry- we won't miss anything."

Annika dropped her bag onto the sidewalk and straightened up. "I'm sorry."

Berit smiled. "Go and sit down in the shade. I'll go and buy you something to drink."

Annika slunk away and sat down. She felt like an idiot. "I didn't know," she mumbled. "I don't know how this works."

She sat down on the sidewalk and leaned against the wall again. The ground burned her through her thin skirt.

The man and the woman from the ambulance were waiting inside the cordon, just inside the entrance to the cemetery. Three men remained inside the iron fence. Annika guessed that two of them were forensic people and the third one a photographer. They moved with great care, bending over, picking things up, straightening up. She was too far away to see exactly what they were doing.

A few minutes later Berit returned with a big, ice-cold Coke. Annika unscrewed the top and drank so quickly that the bubbles rose the back way and came out of her nose. She coughed and spluttered, spilling Coke on her skirt.

Berit sat down next to her and took out a bottle of her own from her bag.

"What are they doing in there?" Annika asked.

"Securing evidence. They use as few people as possible and move around as little as they can. Usually there's only two crime scene technicians and maybe an investigator from Krim."

"Could that have been the guy in the Hawaiian shirt?"

"Maybe," Berit said. "If you look closely, you'll see that one of the technicians is holding his hand close to his mouth. He's using a Dictaphone, recording everything he sees at the scene. It could be an exact description of the position of the body, the way the clothes are creased. Things like that."

"She wasn't wearing any clothes."

"Maybe the clothes were scattered around, they record that kind of thing too. When they've finished, the body will be moved to the forensic medical unit in Solna."

"For autopsy?"

Berit nodded. "The technicians will stay behind and comb the whole park. They'll go over it inch by inch to secure any traces of blood, saliva, hairs, fibers, semen, footprints, tire imprints, fingerprints- anything you can think of."

Annika watched the men inside the fence in silence. They were leaning over the body; she could see their heads bob up and down against the background of the gray tarpaulin. "Why did they cover the fence instead of the body?"

"They don't cover up the body at the scene of a crime unless it's going to rain or snow. It's all about evidence; they're trying to disturb the area as little as possible. The screen is only to shut the place off from people's view. It makes sense."

Then, suddenly, the technicians and the photographer all stood up.

"It's time," Berit said.

All the journalists got up simultaneously. Everybody went up to the cordon as if at a given signal. The photographers all loaded the cameras that hung around their necks. A few new journalists had joined the group; Annika counted five photographers and six reporters. One of them, a young guy, had a laptop marked TT, the news agency, and a woman was holding a notepad with the logo of the broadsheet Sydsvenskan on it.

The man and the woman from the ambulance opened the back doors and pulled out a collapsible gurney. Calmly and methodically, they unfolded it, pushing the various clasps into place. Annika felt the hair on her arms stand on end. A puff of fizz from the Coke rose into her mouth and made her burp. They'll roll out the body any moment now. She was ashamed of her morbid excitement.

"Could you move to the side?" the woman with the gurney said.

Annika looked down at the gurney rolling past. It shook as the wheels crunched over the uneven asphalt. On top of it lay a neatly folded bluish gray plastic sheet. The shroud, Annika thought, a cold thrill traveling up her spine.

The man and the woman ducked under the cordon. The orange sign saying No Entry swung after them.

The ambulance drivers reached the body. The men and the woman stood in a group discussing something. Annika felt the sun burn on the back of her arms.

"Why is it taking so long?" she asked Berit in a stage whisper.

Berit didn't reply. Annika took up the Coke bottle and drank some.

"Isn't it horrible?" the woman from Sydsvenskan said.

"Oh, yeah, it is," Annika said.

The ambulance people unfolded the plastic sheet and spread it over the gurney, its bluish gray, shiny surface flapping among the leaves. They lifted the young woman onto the gurney and wrapped her in the sheet. Annika suddenly felt tears come into her eyes. She saw the woman's mute scream, her clouded eyes, the bruised breasts.