Prime Time (13 page)

Annika looked at the world war-like magnitude of the headlines:

‘
Michelle Carlsson – a white-collar criminal
’ covered the entire front page. The picture accompanying the headline was a passport photo of Michelle Carlsson that must have been nearly ten years old. She had an apprehensive look on her face, she was wearing too much make-up and her dated hairstyle was unflattering.
She looks like a carjacker
, Annika thought.

The story inside covered eight pages. The piece was written by Carl Wennergren. ‘
From celebrated star to white-collar criminal – Michelle moves from the top of the ratings to the courtroom
’ was the creative inside headline.

Michelle Carlsson was alleged to be the subject of an investigation involving a shell-company scandal. Her company was one of many that had been bought and sold by a group of corporate raiders that the police had dubbed ‘Sweden’s smartest criminals’. Michelle, it was claimed, had commissioned their services in order to evade taxes. She was supposed to have earned twelve million kronor on the deal and was now being charged with fraud. A police superintendent at the Fraud Squad confirmed the facts in essence, while pointing out that no charges had been brought against the woman who owned the company. However, that was expected to take place before the end of the week.

The next spread was dominated by complicated graphics that illustrated the different transactions and deals. Annika blinked, understanding nearly nothing of what she was reading.

The next spread dealt with the outrage that well-known Swedish figures felt about Michelle Carlsson’s greed, and went on about how a TV star like herself should be a role model. The universal opinion was that even if she didn’t end up being convicted of a crime, it was morally reprehensible to exploit legal loopholes like that.

On the last page, Michelle Carlsson was asked to account for this fraudulent and criminal behaviour. The picture was shot at an angle from below that distorted her appearance and made her look grotesque.

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Michelle was reported to have said to
Kvällspressen
’s journalist Carl Wennergren.

His questions made up the bulk of the text and were printed in boldface above the brief replies. Many of the questions had a moralizing tone, such as ‘Do you think it’s right that rich people should break the law to evade taxes?’ Her replies reflected her bewilderment and irritation. Annika doubted that Michelle Carlsson had realized that she would be quoted.

When she was asked ‘What prison would you prefer to do time in?’, the TV star had had enough. She reportedly screamed: ‘This is insane! What the hell is wrong with you?’ The second part of her statement had been used as the header.

‘I’m sorry,’ Annika said, ‘but I seem to have missed this. How did the trial go? Was she convicted?’

Berit sighed heavily.

‘As you can see, Wennergren had a good source when it came to the fraud charges. He even managed to obtain the corporate registration number for several of the companies involved, and that’s where things went wrong.’

‘In what way?’

‘No one knows how it happened, but somehow some of the digits were mixed up.’

Annika closed her eyes.

‘Oh, no …’

‘Oh, yes. Michelle Carlsson wasn’t involved in
any
corporate raiding scam. Wennergren claims that either the police or the Patent and Registration Office mixed up the digits, and our management chooses to believe him.’

Seeing as she had a lot of faith in police sources, Annika asked: ‘What about the police officer?’

‘No names were mentioned when he and Wennergren discussed the case. There were just references to the female suspect, the owner of the company.’

‘But didn’t he check out her identity?’

‘According to the Patent and Registration Office, the woman’s name was Karlsson, with a “K”, and her initials were M and B. As it turns out, she was just a patsy, some nutcase who agreed to be a figurehead for the raided company in exchange for a bottle of booze.’

‘Holy moley!’ Annika exclaimed. ‘What did the paper do about it?’

‘They offered Michelle the opportunity to write her own account of the events and promised to publish it.’

‘You’re kidding me! But the whole story was inaccurate!’

‘That’s right,’ Berit conceded, ‘but just think of it: if Michelle gave us her account, we’d have another headline.
The tax scam in Michelle Carlsson’s own words.
We would have been handed an article by Sweden’s biggest celebrity, and anyone who had missed the story the first day would catch it on day two.’

‘I’ve been gone too long,’ Annika observed.

Berit shrugged.

‘Naturally, Michelle refused to give us anything. She demanded that we publish a disclaimer and an apology. Torstensson flatly refused. He had offered her the opportunity to answer in kind, and that was that. She went to the Press Ethics Committee and filed a complaint, but they let us off the hook, amazingly enough.’

‘That’s unbelievable,’ Annika said.

‘Well, consider who’s got the spot as the Press Ethics Arbitrator. He used to host Studio 69, and he’d never pass judgement on a paper for stuff they’d published about a celebrity.’

‘How could we wriggle out of that one?’

‘Because we offered her a chance to be heard. It was her call to refuse to do it. The statement was pretty snidely worded.’

‘So now she’s suing us? Or
was
suing us, at any rate.’

‘That’s right, and Torstensson could go down.’

Annika quickly skimmed through the other cases. As far as she could tell, they could be found guilty of defamation of character or libel in both instances.

‘We reached a settlement in the case about her mom,’ Berit told her as she scooped up the papers. ‘Now, what was it like over at the castle?’

Annika got up, stretched her legs and flexed her knees cautiously, leaning against the small desk.

‘Unpleasant, of course,’ she said. ‘Kind of nasty at times. Anne Snapphane had her cellphone on and we talked a few times. She’s pretty damn scared.’

‘What about Wennergren?’

Annika pictured the ravaged room and recalled the smell of sulphur in the air.

‘I ran into him in one of the surrounding buildings. He was looking for something, but he wouldn’t tell me what.’

‘Carl’s a strange guy. Did he mention anything at all about what had happened?’

Annika shook her head.

‘I could figure out that there had been a fight. The lounge at the Stables was completely trashed, and it seems that Michelle Carlsson had been getting it on with John Essex.’

Berit tapped her pen against her front teeth.

‘Looking for something, you say … Something large or small?’

Annika mulled this over.

‘Small. He was feeling under a sideboard, and he picked up some small items and looked under them.’

‘A sheet of paper? A pad? Something even smaller? It could be anything. Cigarettes. A lighter. A pocket flask. An item of clothing. An address book. A cellphone. Who trashed the room?’

‘Wennergren said that Sebastian Follin did it, but I’m not sure that’s true.’

Berit got up, shook her head resignedly and headed for the door, holding her pen and her pad.

‘This place doesn’t have an in-house telephone line, so bang on the wall if you need me.’

She left Annika in the cramped room. As soon as she left, the voice returned.

Damn you! A fine mother you are!

Annika unpacked her laptop, looked for a wall socket, found one behind the drapes and turned her computer on, then stared unseeingly at the icons and start-up directions on her Mac.

Well, wasn’t this convenient! I’m never going to forgive you for this.

She went over to her bag, pulled out her cellphone and dialled Thomas’s number. Got the answering machine, so cold and scratchy. She hesitated, then hung up without leaving a message.

Next, Annika put a pillow on the uncomfortable chair by the desk to boost her up a bit and create a better angle for her forearms while she was typing. Then she rested her head in her hands for three seconds before getting to work. The short piece about the castle was the easiest one to do, so she did that first. Then she compiled what she had on the murder – it wasn’t much, but no one else would have more facts. Before she got started on the list of names, she called Anders Schyman.

‘One of them is probably the killer, right?’ he asked.

‘Probably.’

Her supervisor sighed loud enough to be heard in Flen without a telephone.

‘Damn it,’ he said. ‘This is going to require a death-defying tightrope act. And as far as you know, there weren’t any other people out there last night?’

‘Nope.’

‘But someone could have turned up and then left again.’

‘Theoretically speaking, yes.’

‘By car? On a bike? In a balloon?’

‘Yes, or by boat.’

‘By boat! That’s good. Work with that. You could approach the castle by air, by land or by water. Anyone could have killed Michelle.’

‘The companion piece about Yxtaholm describes its location as remote, since the government uses the place for secret negotiations.’

‘Oh, shit!’ Schyman said. ‘Scratch that.’

Annika moaned silently.

‘What do I run with?’ she asked. ‘That final night at the castle? The circle of friends? The witnesses? What am I supposed to call them?’

Her supervisor was silent for a while.

‘What do you think?’

She swallowed, pushed her earpiece more firmly in place and let her fingers roam the keys.

‘Quite a few people were present in the vicinity of Yxtaholm castle during the course of the evening,’ she said tentatively as she typed the words. ‘Guests from the shows that had been taped, journalists, artists, technicians and engineers, as well as personal friends and colleagues of Michelle Carlsson were there. And according to a police source, anyone could have reached the place during the night and left later on, either by car or by boat.’

‘Is that true?’ Schyman asked.

‘More or less,’ Annika replied and continued: ‘No one is being detained at the castle against their will. The interviews conducted today were voluntary, and the subjects were eager to cooperate with the police in order to facilitate the investigation, according to Police Lieutenant Q.
Kvällspressen
is able to reveal the names of the eleven individuals who remained at the castle on the morning of Midsummer Eve, the people who were interviewed by the police today. The twelfth member of the party, John Essex, was interviewed elsewhere.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘Yup. Then I’ll just list the names. Do we have photos of them all?’

‘Not the girl from Katrineholm – she doesn’t have a driver’s licence or a passport.’

‘She does drive, though,’ Annika said tersely. ‘Have you checked out the school pictures at Duvedholmsskolan?’

‘I’ll check.’

There was a pause. Annika felt her head buzzing with weariness.

‘I saw Wennergren,’ she said and sensed her supervisor’s reaction.

‘Why didn’t you tell me that before?’

Surprise and reproach.

‘Because he refused to talk to me,’ Annika replied, struggling to keep her voice steady. ‘He told me that his story was his. And asked me why he should hand me a front page.’

‘How about because you both work for the same paper?’

Mortified by the way she’d been treated, Annika swallowed hard and felt herself get angry for being so submissive.

‘That’s exactly what I told him.’

This statement was followed by another silence between them.

‘Good job,’ Schyman said eventually. ‘Don’t let Wennergren get you down. You know what he’s like.’

‘So how long does he get to go on being like that?’ Annika said frostily.

The managing editor paused for half a second.

‘E-mail those articles directly to me.’

Annika hung up and closed her eyes. The events of the day whirled before her: the bus, the hearse, the trashed room, Pia Lakkinen’s insincere show of sympathy, Thomas’s features disfigured by rage.

She finished her pieces, e-mailed them, undressed, turned out the lights and crawled under the covers. There, in the dark, she watched the headlights of passing cars sweep across the walls and heard them roll along Route 55 – leaving Flen, venturing out into the world. Sleep eluded her. The images continued to dance in front of her eyes, but fatigue made them slow down. At last only one image remained. She picked up her cellphone, dialled his number, listened to the answering machine and waited for the tone.

‘Hi there,’ she whispered into the void. ‘I love you. You’re the best.’

SATURDAY, 23 JUNE:
MIDSUMMER DAY

T
he woods by the hostel resembled a roaring wall of fire. He struggled to breathe air as thick as porridge, passing Salströms Backe and heading down to the general store. The heat made the lush greenery sizzle and turn purple and the strict lines of the landscape had been obliterated, becoming coarse and twisted. The rocks scorched his feet. He hurriedly made his way towards the coolness of the sea, knowing that water would be his salvation, that the danger would disappear once he reached the shore. Gällnö would be saved, the houses would reappear, coolness and calm would return. But when he reached the beach, the sea was boiling. The sea water smelled of sulphur and soot, it bubbled like hot lava and closed in on his feet …

Thomas woke with a jerk. The sun was shining on his face, blinding him when he opened his eyes. His hair was dripping with sweat. He was lying fully clothed on the couch in his parents’ living room, his body aching and stiff. The weight of his feet as they dangled over the armrest told him that he hadn’t even removed his rubber boots. The nightmare lingered like a foul veil, a swallow conjured up a taste of fire and soot in his mouth.

Bloody hell
, he thought.

He sat up and was afraid that his head would explode.

Never again, not so much as a beer.