Lifetime (32 page)

Annika got up, put on her raincoat, picked up her bag and umbrella, and ended up way too close to the man in the confined space.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured.

‘It was my pleasure,’ he said. ‘Let me know if I can help you in any other way . . .’

The man let the sentence trail off and handed Annika his card without moving to let her pass. She met his gaze, strangely affected by his show of interest. Forcing herself to laugh to relieve the sensation, she took his card.

‘In that case I’ll let you know.’

Annika stood under the roof by the entrance for a while, feeling assaulted by the sounds of the city: tyres hissing on the rain-slick asphalt, water rushing along the gutters, engines throbbing. She stuffed the umbrella in her bag and walked out into the rain, letting the lukewarm droplets sprinkle her face and hair as she headed for the subway station. Exhaust fumes were trapped at street level, a grey pungent haze that was impossible to keep at bay. Feeling disgusted, she stopped a cab, told the driver to take her to Zero Television, and leaned back against the leather upholstery in the back seat. The fogged-up windows hid the streets from view, protecting her from their ugliness.

I don’t have to live like this. I deserve something better.

Annika closed her eyes. Her body and her clothing still retained the scents of her children: Ellen’s slightly sour odour from her breakfast of yogurt and cereal and Kalle’s more full-bodied aroma of bread and cheese. Her hands remembered the sensation of their silky hair, the warmth of their cheeks.

She had dropped them off at day care that morning. Ellen had accepted day care amazingly well. Kalle had been fussier – he had been older than Ellen when he’d started going to the centre, more aware. There were times when Annika had ended up crying by the door while her son had been crying on the other side.

She shook off the memory. Her children were in good hands. The community day-care centres were a blessing; she wished she could have attended one as a child.

Thomas would be picking the kids up today, since she had dropped them off. They tried to keep their hours to a minimum, generally picking the kids up at three and never coming later than four. This meant that they took turns working late when they weren’t going to pick up the kids, making up for supposedly lost time.

Lost in what way, Annika wondered. The absence of her children made her body ache. She opened her eyes, gazed out across the leaden grey surface of Riddarfjärden Bay and choked back her longing.

The Söderleden tunnel extinguished the grey light. Through the fog on the windows she saw the ancient black granite walls flash past.

I can make it
, she thought.
Everything will be all right.

The place where Anne Snapphane worked was located in a commercial area to the south of the city, close to the ski slopes in Hammarby, where the Olympic arena was being put up. Annika paid the taxi fare with a credit card, stuffed the receipt in her wallet and hoped that the paper would reimburse her for the trip.

The gate was in front of her, marking the outer limits of the television compound, tall grey concrete buildings that disappeared in the mist. On the left there were flat buildings, resembling hangars, that housed the broadcasting buses. She walked past the loading docks and wooden pallets and found the entrance.

Rows of vehicles were in there, all decked out in the same colours – white, with colourful logos – and in a range of different sizes and models. Two men were loading a small van. They looked at her briefly and she raised her hand in greeting.

The largest vehicle of them all was parked almost at the other end. In an indoor setting like this, and next to all the other vehicles, Outside Broadcasting Bus No. Five seemed positively gigantic. She approached it carefully, her footfall echoing on the concrete floor. There were piles of technical equipment by the bus, some of which was packed into metal cases labelled Sony BVP, Cam B Obl, Camera support No. Two.

The left-hand side of the bus had been expanded, just like it had been at Yxtaholm. The same perforated metal steps led up to the control room.

‘Hello? Excuse me . . . Gunnar?’

The Technical Operations Manager stuck his grey head out into the hallway. Annika put one foot on the steps and smiled.

‘Hi. It’s me, Annika Bengtzon – the train station at Flen, remember? May I come in?’

Gunnar Antonsson came out of the cubbyhole he’d been working in, wiped his hands off on his trousers and came to greet her.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Sure, come on in.’

He extended a warm, dry hand, and shook hers firmly.

‘Thanks for the ride, by the way. I caught a train fifteen minutes later.’

She smiled at him, then gazed at her surroundings and raised her eyebrows.

‘Impressive,’ she said.

The impression of being inside a vehicle was gone. This was a technically advanced office, tastefully decorated. The electronic equipment gently buzzing, an isolated universe of tiny shimmering lights and murmuring monitors.

The man’s face suddenly came to life. He lit up.

‘Want to take a tour?’

Annika nodded, slightly ashamed of her morbid curiosity.

Where was she found? Have you cleaned up the mess?

‘This is the sleeping quarters,’ the man said, indicating a recess on the right with a broad sweep of his arms.

Annika walked past a window with curtains on one side and a large distribution box on the other, looked into the tiny room and nodded knowingly.

‘And what goes on in here?’

Gunnar Antonsson made a sweeping gesture over the screens, controls and keyboards.

‘CCUs,’ he said. ‘The camera control units that the editor uses. It operates the cameras, regulates aperture settings, stuff like that.’

He turned around and continued.

‘Technology Row,’ he said, opening a door on the right.

Annika poked her head inside. There were millions of cables.

‘Everything’s in nineteen-inch racks,’ he said. ‘It’s standard equipment.’

He closed the door after Annika had moved away. Her gaze shifted to the opposite wall, which was covered with maps and wiring diagrams.

‘This is the editing area,’ the man said, already having moved on to the next recess. ‘It’s where they do the assemblies and other editing. Here are the beta tape machines, the digibetas, the VHS recorders for reference tapes and our profilers . . .’

Annika left the thin red lines of the diagrams and hurried on.

‘When we fixed up this bus two years ago, recording images on a hard drive seemed like science fiction,’ Gunnar Antonsson continued. ‘Now it’s reality. A few months ago we had to redo all the racks and put in profilers down here.’

He pointed at the space below the compact editing console, and bent down and picked up a cable. Annika cleared her throat.

‘I’m sorry, but what does that mean?’

The man, who was already on his way to the next section, stopped in surprise.

‘Editing,’ he said. ‘This is where you put the show together.’

‘On what?’ Annika persisted. ‘On actual tapes or on computers?’

‘You’ve never worked with TV?’ the man asked, shooting a quizzical look at her.

Annika tried to smile.

‘No, I stick to words. It’s easier to work at a paper.’

Gunnar paused and gave her a searching look as he wound the cable into a tight ring.

‘Why did you write so much about Michelle all the time?’

Annika felt her cheeks grow hot. She made an effort to look positive.

‘She was a very exciting public figure. An unusual mix of controversial and glamorous. Obviously, that was why the press liked to write about her.’

His expression remaining quizzical, Gunnar let the cable drop.

‘But why was she so much more important than everyone else?’

Annika coughed, managing to avert her gaze.

‘Michelle sold papers,’ she said. ‘It’s that simple, I guess. She wasn’t more important, really – she was commercially viable. Like she was for TV Plus. Someone who appealed to everyone, a person who stood out in the global village. She was nice to look at, nice to read about . . .’

Gunnar Antonsson opened a metal door and put the cable away. ‘You always make broadcast-quality tapes,’ he said, moving further inside the bus. ‘That is, you use beta tapes or digital beta tapes nowadays. It’s a kind of videotape that uses another format and the quality’s much better. During this shoot we had four machines running simultaneously, just in case something went wrong – damaged tapes and stuff like that. Better safe than sorry, you know. But we didn’t use any profilers – computerized recording, that is. Regular videotapes, VHS cassettes, are only used for reference tapes.’

Annika followed him, studying the back of his head. Thin hair, grey. Neatly trimmed.

‘What’s a reference tape?’

The man cocked an eyebrow and said:

‘One is for the host – Michelle always wanted to check how she came across – then there’s one for the producer and one for the researcher. The idea is that you don’t need to make copies of the betas. The editor can use the time codes.’

Annika surveyed the wall of recorders, monitors and microphones with dozens of yellow markings – VTR 08, VTR 07 and so on – and felt more and more dazed.

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘There sure is a lot to keep track of around here.’

‘There sure is,’ Gunnar Antonsson agreed, turning away from her and entering the production area.

The corridor opened up on a control room like the ones she’d seen Anne work in. An entire wall covered with monitors displayed the images from the various cameras, and there were buttons, lamps, controls, microphones and a large screen for the outgoing image. The walls were covered with blue and white patterned fabric, counter tops and floors were made of grey laminate, and the rounded wood trim had a shade reminiscent of cherry; Annika’s fingers traced the grain.

‘She was found lying between the slo-mo and the directing console.’

Annika took her hand away from the wood trim and followed Gunnar’s gaze to the floor, to a narrow space between the front and rear production consoles, right in front of the seat used by the technical director. There was a trapdoor in the floor. It had shiny handles and metal strips.

‘The directing console and . . . what?’

The technician stood up straight and put his hand on the rear console.

‘The guy who operates the slow-motion machine for hockey sits here, and we call it the slo-mo. We call the console up front the directing console: that’s where the whole team is, them editor, the technical director, the script girl, the graphics engineer . . .’

‘Which direction was she facing?’

Gunnar folded his hands protectively, like a fig leaf, over his groin and rocked slightly back and forth on his heels.

‘She had her head by the wall,’ he said finally, nodding towards the opposite narrow end of the room. ‘Her legs were here, on either side of the trapdoor. Her arms were reaching up, like this.’

He raised his hands, like gangsters do in the movies when the police arrive.

‘Her head – well, what was left of it – was resting on the baseboard over there . . .’

Gunnar let his arms drop to his sides and went on to the compartment at the far end of the bus.

‘Here’s the sound studio. Here you’ve got the switches, the patches, the ninety-six-channel twin-layer console which provides twice the capacity you see here, and it’s all digital . . .’

Gunnar Antonsson pointed out this and that with a wealth of detail. This, Annika knew, was characteristic of a person in shock. She followed him, her mouth dry, and tried to memorize certain words: patches, channels, digital.

‘The diversity receivers for the wireless microphones are over here, the communications system that lets the bus communicate with the people outside like the camera crew, the planners and the reporters . . .’

Gunnar grew silent. They had reached the darkest corner of the bus.

‘How are you? Is it rough going?’ Annika asked in a low voice.

Gunnar Antonsson looked down at the floor and smoothed back his hair with one hand.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘It’s so strange. You find yourself wondering . . . well, if there’s anything left . . .’

He stopped talking and shot her a quick look.

‘If there’s anything left of Michelle in here?’ Annika asked.

‘Everything’s been thoroughly cleansed,’ he said quickly, backing away.

‘I guess that’s up to you,’ Annika said. ‘If you want her to stay, she’d probably like to. And if you want her to leave you alone, then I think she’d respect your decision.’

‘She liked being in the bus,’ Gunnar said. ‘She’s welcome to stay.’

Annika smiled.

‘Then you’ll have some company on your drive down to Denmark. When are you leaving?’

He sighed with relief.

‘Tomorrow, after lunch. I was planning to go to the memorial service, then I’ll take off.’

Gunnar Antonsson looked at his watch and rubbed his stomach.

‘Time for a coffee break,’ he said. ‘Would you like to join me?’

Annika smiled.

Thomas paused outside the section supervisor’s office. His palms were all sweaty. His collar chafed. He had got out of the habit of wearing a tie during his years at the Swedish Association of Local Authorities, but today he had one on and he’d forgotten how uncomfortable it was.

He listened quietly outside the door. Did he hear voices in there?

It struck him that he couldn’t stand there eavesdropping, someone might come along. Raising his hand, he knocked firmly on the birch-veneer door.

The voice telling him to come in was sharp and surprised.

Thomas opened the door to be greeted by the aroma of coffee and pastries. He turned pale.

‘What do you want?’

The section supervisor for Family Care and Nursing was in a meeting with the person in charge of negotiations and the supervisor of the Developmental Department. A secretary was taking notes. They all looked up at him, their eyes alert. They’d been interrupted.

‘Excuse me,’ Thomas said. ‘I wasn’t aware . . .’

Everyone apart from his own supervisor looked down at their papers again, unwilling to share in his embarrassment.