"Let's hope they release her name during the evening. You didn't see anything that indicated where she lived?"
"Her address tattooed on the forehead, you mean? Sorry…"
Annika made a smile that Spike did not return.
"Okay, Berit, you do the police hunt for the killer, who the girl was- check with her family. Annika, you do the scared mother and check the cuttings on the old murder."
"We'll probably be working together a bit," Berit said. "Annika has information from the crime scene that I don't have."
"Do whatever you like," he said. "I want a report on how far you've got before I go to the handover at six."
He swiveled round in his chair, lifted the receiver, and dialed a number.
Berit closed her pad and walked over to her desk. "I've got the cuttings," she said over her shoulder. "We could go through them together."
Annika borrowed a chair from the next desk. Berit took out a heap of yellowed sheets from an envelope marked "Eva Murder." The killing had obviously taken place before the newspaper was computerized.
"Anything that's more than ten years old you'll find only in the paper archive," Berit said.
Annika picked up a folded sheet, the paper feeling stiff and brittle. She ran her eyes over the page. The typeface of the headline seemed straggly and old-fashioned. A four-column black-and-white photo showed the north side of the park.
"I was right," Berit said. "She was climbing the steps and somewhere halfway up she met someone going down. She didn't get any farther. The murder was never solved."
They sat down on opposite sides of Berit's desk and became absorbed in the old stories. Berit had written several of them. The murder of young Eva really was similar to today's.
A warm summer night twelve years ago, Eva had been climbing the steep hill that was a continuation of Inedalsgatan. She was found next to the seventeenth step, half-naked and strangled.
For a few days the stories were both numerous and long, with big pictures high up on the page. There were reports of the murder investigation and summaries of the autopsy report; interviews with neighbors and friends; and a piece with the headline "Leave Us in Peace." Eva's parents were pleading with someone for something, holding each other and gazing earnestly into the camera. There were public rallies against violence- violence against women and violence on the streets. A memorial service was held in the Kungsholm Church, and a mountain of flowers collected at the murder scene.
Strange that I can't remember any of this, Annika thought. I was old enough to understand things like that.
As time went by the stories became shorter. The pictures shrank and ended up farther down on the page. Three and a half years after the murder, a short item reported the police bringing someone in for questioning but subsequently releasing him. After that it went quiet.
Now Eva was newsworthy again, twelve years after her death. The comparison was inevitable.
"So what do we do with this?" Annika wondered.
"Just a short summary," Berit replied. "There's not much else we can do. I'll type out what we've got- you do your mother and I'll do Eva. By the time we've done that, Krim ought to be on the case and then we can start making some calls."
"Are we in a hurry?" Annika asked.
Berit smiled. "Not really. Deadline isn't until four forty-five A.M. But it would be good if we finished a bit before, and this is a good start."
"What'll happen to our stories in the paper?"
Berit shrugged. "Maybe they won't get printed at all. You never know. It depends on what's going on in the world and on how much paper we've got."
Annika nodded. The number of pages in the paper often determined whether a story would be printed. It was the same at Katrineholms-Kuriren, the provincial paper were she normally worked. In the middle of the summer, the management would economize on paper, partly because ad revenue went down in July, partly because nothing much happened. The number of pages always went up or down by four, as there were four pages to a printing plate.
"I have a feeling this may get quite high priority," Berit said. "First the news event of the murder itself, the police hunt, and then a spread on the girl, who she was. After that they'll have the recap of the Eva murder, your frightened mother, and last, possibly, a piece on 'Stockholm, City of Fear.' That's my guess."
Annika leafed through the cuttings. "How long have you worked here, Berit?"
Berit sighed and gave a faint smile. "It'll be twenty-five years soon. I was about your age when I came here."
"Have you been on the crime desk all this time?"
"Christ, no! I started out with animals and cooking. Then, in the early eighties, I was a political reporter. It was the thing to have women in such positions at the time. Then I had a stint on the foreign desk, and now I'm here."
"Where have you liked it the best?"
"I enjoy writing the most- doing the research and finding my way through something. I like it a lot at the crime desk. I can do my own thing, pretty much. I often dig out my own stuff. Pass me those cuttings, will you? Thanks."
Annika stood up and walked over to her desk. Anne Snapphane hadn't returned. The place seemed empty and quiet when she was gone.
Annika's Mac had gone into some kind of power-saving state; the loud sound when it restarted made her jump. She quickly wrote what Daniella Hermansson had said to her: intro, body text, and a caption. Then she filed her copy into the list of stories held on the newsroom server. That's it! Great!
She was just off to get some coffee when her phone rang. It was Anne Snapphane.
"I'm at Visby Airport!" she shouted. "Was it a murder in the park?"
"You bet," Annika said. "Naked and strangled. What are you doing on Gotland?"
"Forest fire. The whole island's going up."
"The whole island? Or just nearly all of it?"
"Details. I'll be away until tomorrow, maybe longer. Can you feed the cats?"
"Haven't you got rid of them yet?" Annika said tartly.
Anne ignored her. "Can you change the cat litter as well?"
"Sure…"
They hung up.
Why can I never say no? Annika thought, and sighed. She went to the cafeteria and bought coffee and a can of mineral water. With the coffee in one hand and the water in the other, she restlessly paced the newsroom. The air-conditioning didn't quite make it all the way up here, so the air wasn't much cooler than outside. Spike was on the phone, of course, two big patches of sweat in his armpits. Bertil Strand stood over by the picture desk talking to Pelle Oscarsson, the picture editor. She went up to them.
"Are those the photos from Kronoberg Park?"
Oscarsson double-clicked on an icon on his big screen. The deep green of the park filled the entire surface. The harsh sunlight put flecks all over the scene. Granite gravestones floated between the wrought-iron bars. A woman's whole leg could be discerned at the center of the picture.
"It's good. Disturbing," Annika said spontaneously.
"Wait until you see this one," Picture Pelle said, and clicked again.
Annika recoiled as the clouded eyes of the woman met her own.
"These are the first few pics," Bertil Strand said. "Lucky I moved, wasn't it?"
Annika swallowed. "Daniella Hermansson?"
Picture Pelle clicked a third time. A tense Daniella with the boy in her arms looking up toward the park with frightened eyes.
"Great," Annika said.
" 'It could have been me,'" Picture Pelle said.
"How did you know that's what she said?" Annika said in surprise.
"That's what they always say," Pelle said smugly.
Annika walked on.
The doors at the editorial end of the office were all shut. She had not seen the editor in chief today. Come to think of it, she had barely seen him all week. The subeditors hadn't arrived yet. The men responsible for the layout of the paper usually turned up after seven in the evening, sunburned and drowsy after a long afternoon in the Rålambshov Park. They would start the night by guzzling two pints of black coffee each, rant about all the mistakes in yesterday's paper, and then set to work. They would try out headlines, cut copy, and clatter away at their Macs until the paper went to print at six in the morning. Annika was a little scared of them. They were loud and brash, but their skill and professionalism were great. Many of them lived for the newspaper; they worked for four nights and had four off, year in, year out. The schedule rolled on over Christmas, Easter, and Midsummer Day, four off, four on. Annika didn't know how they could stand it.