Lifetime (27 page)

She remained where she was, her hand on the door.

‘Where is it?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Are there any pictures in it?’

The numbness he had felt when he saw the sex scenes overcame him again, the secret shame of the voyeur. He jumped up, shaking off the unpleasant sensation.

‘You go first,’ he said. ‘Then come over to my office.’

Five minutes later Annika saw Schyman sail through the main entrance. She let him take off his jacket and sit down at his desk with a paper before she got up. Moving swiftly, she walked over to the fish tank and tapped on the door. He motioned her to come in.

‘My name is Bengtzon,’ she said, pulling the door partially closed behind her. ‘Annika Bengtzon. Shaken, not stirred. Is the camera here?’

Filled with hesitation, Anders Schyman looked at her.

Her mouth went dry.

‘Close the door properly,’ he said finally and unlocked one of his desk drawers. He pulled out a shiny device that looked more like a Walkman than a camera. A blipping sound signalled that it was being turned on, and he checked to see that it was working before wordlessly handing it over to Annika.

The display was lit up from within. Anne Snapphane was laughing up at her, definitely in party mode.

‘How do I flip through the pictures?’ she asked and he pointed out the button.

She pressed it,
blip
, Sebastian Follin’s tongue. She made a face.
Blip
, Carl Wennergren, grinning away in the lounge of the Stables before it was vandalized.

‘Are there only pictures of tipsy party people?’ Annika asked, glancing at the managing editor.

‘Go to number sixteen or seventeen,’ he said.

She flipped through the pictures,
blip, blip, blip
, then heard herself gasp and felt a tingling between her thighs.

Michelle Carlsson and John Essex, screwing on the dining-room table. Legs, shiny thighs, white buttocks. For a few seconds she stared in fascination, then moved on to the next picture.
Blip.

Annika felt her pulse start to race and her crotch grow hot. Her mouth half-open, she continued to go through the pictures,
blip, blip
, increasingly conscious of the throbbing sensation between her legs.

She looked up at Schyman, ashamed of her reaction.

‘Oh, my God,’ she exclaimed theatrically. ‘This is really something.’

‘Go on,’ her boss said and waved.

She tried to look at the pictures from some other perspective. They grew progressively fuzzier. The photographer appeared to be having a hard time holding the camera steady.

‘He was probably hiding in the kitchen,’ she said, shattering her mood.

Anders Schyman made a rolling motion with his hand.

When she reached the final shot Annika gasped again.

Mariana von Berlitz was holding the murder weapon.

‘Christ,’ she said. ‘What are you going to do with this?’

He walked up to Annika, took the camera, switched it off and put it back in the drawer. Which he locked.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘The pictures are spectacular and unique. They need to be used judiciously.’

Annika felt her jaw drop.

‘You can’t be serious,’ she exclaimed and blinked. ‘Are you thinking about publishing them?’

The managing editor sat down.

‘I don’t know,’ he said again. ‘I haven’t made up my mind yet.’

Rebellion exploded through her and anger coloured her face.

‘What the hell,’ she demanded. ‘Is this a porno magazine?’

‘The pictures do have other merits,’ Schyman quickly countered, pressing his fingertips together.

Completely taken aback, Annika flung her arms out side.

‘Like what, for instance? It damn well isn’t the sharp focus and the lighting. How can you even
consider
going public with these shots?’

‘The timing,’ he said. ‘The moment in time. The two stars together – she’s dead and he’s a suspect. Actually, it’s pretty amazing.’

Annika backed away towards the door.

‘Sex shots taken on the sly,’ she said. ‘Could there be a worse assault on the subject’s integrity? Would you like someone to publish stuff like this after you’d been murdered?’

She regarded him with astonishment and doubt.

First this unpleasant spying mission.

Now this.

‘What about Mariana?’ she said. ‘What do the police say?’

‘I don’t know.’

Thoughts and reactions pitched around the room for a few seconds.

‘Listen,’ she said, opening the door halfway and lowering her voice. ‘No matter what you’re involved in, don’t lose your good sense, for Christ’s sake.’

Annika went back to her desk and noticed that her hands were shaking. The people in the pictures danced in front of her eyes: sex, booze and guns. She was ashamed of her own reaction.

As she sank down on her chair she looked up and saw the managing editor yank open his door with a bang and walk over to Pelle Oscarsson at the photo desk.

‘Could you delete the pictures in this camera?’ she heard him say. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him place the camera on the picture editor’s desk.

‘What?’ Picture Pelle said, his eyes glued to the screen in front of him, his voice partially drowned out by computer fans.

She quickly got up, feigning a trip to the lavatory.

‘It’s filled with a load of junk that I don’t want to have spread around the newsroom,’ Anders Schyman said as she walked past. He shot her a stern look.

The picture editor looked up, a somewhat vacant look on his face.

‘You want this done in a hurry? I’m busy with these graphics right now.’

‘As soon as possible,’ Anders Schyman said, looking at Annika again before returning to his office.

Dumbstruck, she kept walking. Her palms were sopping wet.

‘Coffee?’

Anne Snapphane shook her head and Sebastian Follin poured himself a cup instead. He had two scratches on his cheek, Anne noted, but it didn’t seem to bother him. The broken-heartedness she had seen in him after the murder was starting to disappear. It had been replaced by determination: there was a task to be undertaken, a memory to honour.

In death, she thought, as in life.

‘The next step is very important,’ Follin whispered in confiding tones, leaning towards her while the heat from his coffee cup made his glasses steam up.

Anne backed away slightly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ve got to protect the brand. People are going to want to use Michelle Carlsson to make money, but these things must be handled with dignity and an eye to the long term.’

Anne stared at the man, unable to accept the meaning of his words.

‘Are you listening to yourself?’ she said, her voice too shrill and too loud. ‘You’re talking about her as if she was a logotype.’

The manager collapsed. His lower lip began to quiver.

‘I just want to do the right thing,’ he said.

‘Only who is it right for?’ Anne said, suddenly uncomfortable.

She turned away, gazed around the room, through the glass walls and out over the newsroom.

Karin Bellhorn sat in the sofa next to her desk. She was leaning forward and talking to Mariana von Berlitz and Stefan Axelsson in a low voice. Anne Snapphane hurried over to them. She could feel that she looked pale.

‘I can’t get over the feeling that this is all a trick,’ Mariana said to the others as Anne appeared beside the sofa. ‘Any minute now we’ll hear the theme from the show and she’ll come bouncing out, thinner than ever and with a brand-new look. Just imagine the ratings!’

Anne Snapphane looked at her colleague with astonishment.

‘You can’t be serious,’ she heard herself say.

‘What?’ Mariana said. ‘Can’t I admit that it feels like I’m on
Candid Camera
?’

Anne noticed that her mouth kept talking, that she couldn’t stop herself, and she didn’t want to.

‘Now that she’s dead, do you have to keep picking on her? How much did you hate her for being the one on TV?’

Mariana von Berlitz blanched.

‘What . . . what was that? Are you out of your mind?’

Anne Snapphane felt the attention of everyone in the room shifting to her. Regardless of the sheer mystery of the fact that they had been uttered at all, her words hung in the air, stunning them all with their truthfulness. The blood rushed to her chest and throat, making her cheeks burn.

‘Why don’t you have the courage to admit it? You’ve always been jealous of Michelle.’

Mariana had got to her feet. She was shaking and held on to the armrest of the sofa for support.

‘I’ve known Michelle Carlsson so much longer than you have,’ she said in a hoarse voice. ‘And I’ll have you know that my reservations against her are based on completely different issues.’

‘Quit pretending! I’m not one damn bit better than you. I’ve been pissed off at Michelle for years because she got the job on screen and I didn’t,’ Anne continued, the words streaming out of her. ‘You weren’t even considered. Is that why you’re always so condescending? Because I had been in the running?’

‘There are scads of things that are way more important than being on TV,’ Mariana von Berlitz said emphatically and sat down again. ‘There’s eternity, for instance, and Michelle Carlsson never did anything but spoil other people’s chances of finding a meaningful existence.’

Anne Snapphane couldn’t help but snort.

‘Jesus Christ,’ she exclaimed. ‘Did Michelle steal customers from God?’

Mariana chose to ignore the blasphemy.

‘I think it’s awful that people like Michelle Carlsson are promoted as role models for young women,’ she said. ‘What good did she ever do? As long as I’ve known her all she’s done is drag other people down into the mud with her.’

‘And you would set a better example? A person who passes judgement on others, just because you think you’re so superior? Because you’re “to the manor born”, or could it be because you have the Holy Spirit on your side?’

‘I don’t judge people. That’s up to the Lord.’

The words were harsh, but Mariana’s eyes looked frightened. Anne Snapphane knew that she was right: the truth had shattered the other woman’s protective veneer of contempt, making Anne feel even headier.

‘You can say what you like about God, but it would be great to have some of his PR people on your side,’ she murmured, on the verge of tears.

‘I’d buy it – at least when it comes to you,’ Stefan Axelsson suddenly said to Anne. ‘You pretend to be a free spirit, a liberated lady, but in truth you’re the most conservative one of us.’

Rage swept through her like a red-hot flood.

‘What the hell do you mean?’

‘You flaunt your liberated relationship, how you and your boyfriend share a bed and have a child without any strings attached, acting like some kind of role model, letting the tabloids into your home . . .’

The savageness of this attack cleared Anne’s mind, helping her make connections that she’d missed previously.

‘Holy shit,’ she said, her eyes wide. ‘You’re jealous too. Not only of Mehmed, who gets to be on TV, but it irks you that I was featured in the Sunday special as an example of the New Family. Poor Stefan.’

‘You’re out of your tiny little mind,’ he said. ‘I’m talking about duty, obligations, not letting others down . . .’

‘You were in love with Michelle,’ Anne murmured, taking a few steps closer to him. ‘You wanted to leave your wife and family for her, and she just laughed at you, didn’t she? All she really wanted was your respect, she wanted you to stop making fun of her in the control room, so she did the only thing she knew how to do, she used the only method she could think of, she screwed you and wrapped you around her little finger. But it all went wrong, didn’t it? You fell for her. Did you tell your wife? What did she say?’

Axelsson had turned pale and stared at her with glassy eyes.

‘That’s . . . not what happened . . .’

‘Wasn’t it? Then why are you so damn bitter? You begrudge me a three-column picture spread in
Kvällspressen
and Mehmed his job as the host of a news show. He has degrees in law
and
journalism, and he’s a prizewinning journalist to boot – twice over! And you know as well as I do––’

‘Listen to me!’ Axelsson shouted, getting up with a strength that his lanky frame belied. ‘I saw you! I saw you by the bus at 3:15! What the hell were you doing there?’

Speechless and breathless, Anne Snapphane stared at Stefan Axelsson.

‘Well, where were
you
at the time? And what were
you
doing?’ she asked.

The technical director held up his hands.

‘Come on, people,’ Karin Bellhorn said in a voice that commanded attention. ‘That’s enough. Let’s all calm down. We’re talking without thinking. It’s up to the police to conduct the investigation. Being suspicious and blaming each other won’t do any good. What do you say?’

They all looked in different directions, down at the floor, out through the windows, up at the ceiling or at the walls.

‘Today, all we’re going to do is take it nice and easy, discuss the upcoming memorial service on Tuesday and try to split up the work. For starters, does anyone need to see a psychologist? A therapist? A counsellor?’

Everything had come to a standstill. Sebastian Follin stood in the doorway leading to the lounge, grey-suited and clutching a cup of coffee. Mariana von Berlitz, in a brazenly red dress, stood next to the sofa. Stefan Axelsson, in jeans and a sweatshirt, had rings of perspiration under his arms. The colour was slowly draining from Anne Snapphane’s face.

‘No takers? It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I think
I
’m going to talk to someone . . .’

The producer closed her eyes for a moment and smoothed back her hair in an unconscious habitual gesture. Anne, her mind clouded by the heady quest for the truth, studied her for a few seconds. She realized that Karin Bellhorn was wearing much more make-up than usual. Her complexion was grey under the foundation. Her eyes had bags that no cosmetic in the world could conceal.

She feels awful
, Anne thought.
She seems to be in the worst shape of us all.