Evert Danielsson let the words sink in. It was a lot better than he'd dared hope. It almost sounded like a promotion. He let go of the desk with his hands.
"Yes, well, I think it sounds very good," he said.
* * *
"There are a few things I'd like to talk to you about," Annika said to Eva-Britt. "Could you come into my office for a second?"
"I'm really very busy."
"Now," Annika said and walked into her room, leaving the door open. She heard Eva-Britt demonstratively punch the keys on her computer for a few seconds. Then she came and stood in the doorway with her arms crossed over her chest. Annika sat down behind her desk and pointed at the chair opposite.
"Shut the door and take a seat."
Eva-Britt sat down without closing the door. Annika sighed, got up, and closed the door. She noticed that she was shaking slightly; confrontations always were unpleasant.
"What's the matter, Eva-Britt?"
"Why? What do you mean?"
"You seem so… angry and upset. Has anything happened?"
Annika forced herself to sound calm and gentle, and the woman squirmed in her seat.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Annika leaned forward and noted how Eva-Britt crossed both her legs and her arms in an unconscious defensive posture.
"You've been so hostile to me this past week. And we really fell out yesterday…"
"So is this some kind of ticking off for me not being nice enough to you?"
Annika felt anger rising within. She struggled to keep calm. She couldn't keep blowing her top.
"No, it's about you not doing what you're supposed to do. You didn't prioritize the material yesterday, you didn't write a handover report, you went home without saying a word. I didn't know that handling the mail used to be in your job description. It wasn't me, but Schyman himself, who suggested you start doing that again. You have to cooperate with the rest of us, otherwise this desk won't function properly."
The woman looked at her coolly. "This desk was functioning perfectly well long before you joined it."
The conversation wasn't going anywhere. Annika rose to her feet.
"Okay, let's forget about this for now. I have to make a call. By the way, have you looked everywhere and been through absolutely everything there is about Christina Furhage. Archives, books, pictures, articles, databases…?"
"Every nook and cranny," Eva-Britt Qvist said and left the room.
Annika remained standing with a bitter taste in her mouth. That hadn't gone very well. She wasn't a good boss. She was a useless team leader who couldn't get the staff to go along with her. She sat down and beat her head against the keyboard. What was it she was going to do now? First things first. The police press officer, of course. She raised her head, took the phone and dialed his direct number.
"Surely you must understand that when you publish practically everything we know, you make our job more difficult," the press officer said. "Some things shouldn't be made public. They might obstruct the investigation."
"Then why do you tell us everything?" Annika said innocently.
The press officer sighed. "Some things we need to make known, but it's not the idea that it should all be in the papers."
"Please!" Annika said. "Then who decides what should be made public, and whose responsibility is it? It can't be me or my colleagues who should have to sit and guess what's best for the investigation? It would be unprofessional of us to even try."
"Yes, of course, that's not what I meant. But the security codes. It was a great shame it got in the paper."
"Yes. I'm really sorry about that. They're not mentioned anywhere in the text. The wrong words got in the headline. I'm sorry if this has caused any problems. That's why I think we should have an even closer dialogue in the future."
The press officer laughed. "Well, Bengtzon, you certainly know how to twist someone's words. If we were to get any closer to you, we'd have to give you an office next to the superintendent's."
"Not a bad idea," Annika said, smiling. She was off the hook. "So, what's happening today?"
The press officer turned serious. "Right now there's nothing I can tell you."
"Come on, it's seventeen hours to deadline; we're not publishing until tomorrow morning. There must be something you can tell me."
"Well, seeing as it's in the open, I may as well tell you now. We're looking at people with access to the security codes. The murderer is among them, we're sure of that."
"So the alarms at the stadium were primed that night?"
"Yes."
"How many people are involved?"
"Enough to keep us more than busy. Now I've got to take another call here…"
"Just one more thing," Annika added quickly. "Did Christina Furhage take a taxi after midnight the night she died?"
The police press officer breathed down the phone. Annika heard another phone ringing.
"Why do you ask?"
"I was given that information. Is it correct?"
"Christina Furhage had a private chauffeur. He took her to the restaurant where the Christmas party was held. After that she dismissed him. He was actually at the party. Christina Furhage had a company charge card with Taxi Stockholm, but as far as we know she didn't use it."
"Couldn't she have paid cash? And where did she go?"
The press officer remained silent for a moment, and then said: "That's the kind of thing that shouldn't be made public, for the sake of the investigation. And for Christina Furhage's."
They hung up. Annika was more puzzled than ever. Several things didn't make sense. First, the security codes. If there were that many people with access to them, then why was it so damaging for that information to be disclosed? What was the dark secret of the perfect Christina Furhage's private life? Was Helena Starke lying about the taxi? She called her contact, but no one answered. If anyone had a reason to be angry, it was him.
She called reception and asked whether Berit and Patrik had said when they would come in today. About two, they had both said when they left last night.
She put her feet on the desk and started going through the pile of papers. The "highbrow" broadsheet had found an interesting passage in one of the legal briefs that regulated the franchise between SOCOG, i.e., the Stockholm Olympics, and the IOC, the International Olympic Committee. There were numerous legal agreements between SOCOG and the IOC, not just concerning the rights to the Games themselves but also for international, national, and local sponsorship. The paper had found a clause that gave the main sponsor the right to pull out if the Olympic stadium wasn't ready for use on the first of January the year the Games were being held. Annika couldn't be bothered to read the whole story. If she remembered correctly, there were several thousand clauses. She thought they were irrelevant. The writer of the story hadn't been able to reach the main sponsor for their view. Big deal.
The rival had talked to several of the people working for Christina, among them her private chauffeur, but not to Helena Starke. The chauffeur recounted how he'd driven Christina to the restaurant and that she was as happy and nice as always, not at all worried or tense, only focused and attentive as always. He mourned her enormously because she had been such a considerate employer and nice person.
"She'll be growing wings next," Annika muttered to herself.
For the rest, there was nothing new in the papers. It took forever to go through them, they were all packed with advertising. November and December are the best months financially for Swedish daily newspapers, January and July the worst.
She went to the ladies' room to pee out the coffee and wash the printing ink off her hands. She caught sight of her own face in the mirror, not a very pleasant experience. She hadn't had the energy to wash her hair that morning but had put it up with a clip at the back. Now it lay flat and lank, separated into brown furrows. There were dark rings under her eyes and light red spots from stress on her cheeks. She rummaged through her pockets for some foundation to cover the spots but found nothing.
Eva-Britt Qvist had gone to lunch, her computer switched off. She logged out as soon as she left her desk, terrified someone would send rogue messages on the office intranet from her computer. Annika went into her own office and smeared some moisturizer on the rash, then took a stroll round the newsroom. What did she need to find out? What was the next thing to check? She walked over to the shelves holding the reference books and looked up the Olympic supremo in the National Encyclopedia. Christina Furhage née Faltin, the only child of a good but poor family, partly raised by relatives in the far north of Sweden. Career in banking. Driving force behind the efforts to win the Olympic Games for Stockholm, MD for SOCOG. Married to business executive Bertil Milander. That was it.
Annika looked up. The information that Christina's maiden name was Faltin was new to her. Then where did she get the name Furhage from? She looked at the preceding entry: Carl Furhage, born at the end of the previous century to a landed gentry family in the northern city of Härnösand. Official in the forestry industry. Third marriage to Dorotea Adelcrona. Had made his place in history and the National Encyclopedia by instituting a generous scholarship for young men who wanted to study forestry. Died in the 1960s.
Annika slammed the book shut. She quickly went over to the computer terminal and typed the names "Carl" and "Furhage." Seven hits. Since they computerized the archive in the early 1990s, they had written about the man on seven occasions. Annika chose F6 for "show" and gave a whistle. Not a bad sum of money— a quarter of a million kronor was handed out every year. Carl Furhage wasn't mentioned in any other context.
She logged out, picked up her entry card, and walked out through a fire door next to the sports desk. A steep staircase took her two floors down; she went through another door that called for both entry card and a code. On the other side lay a long corridor with worn linoleum on the floor and hissing pipes in the ceiling. At the far end of the corridor was the paper's archive, with double steel fireproof doors. She went inside and greeted the staff who sat hunched over their computer terminals. The steely gray filing cabinets, with everything written in
Kvällspressen
and in its sister "highbrow" broadsheet since the 19th century, filled the enormous room. She started walking slowly between the cabinets. She reached the biography section and read A-Ac, Ad-Af, Ag-Ak, skipped a couple of rows of cabinets and found Fu. She pulled out a large box with surprising ease. She leafed her way up to Furhage, Christina, but there was no Carl. She sighed. She'd drawn a blank.
"If you're looking for the cuttings on Christina Furhage, most of them have already been picked out," someone said behind her.
It was the head archivist, a competent little man with firm opinions on how to do his job. The correct heading to file a story under was one of his favorite peeves.
Annika smiled. "I'm actually looking for another Furhage, a Director Carl Furhage."
"Have we written about him?"
"Oh, yes, he instituted a large scholarship. He must have been loaded."
"Is he dead?"
"Yes, he died in the 1960s."
"Then you may not find him under his name. The cuttings will still be there, but they could be filed under another subject field. What do you think we should start with?"
"No idea. Scholarships, perhaps?"
The archivist looked doubtful. "There are quite a lot. Do you need it today?"
Annika gave a sigh and started walking back. "Not really, it was just a hunch. Thanks anyway…"
"Could he have been photographed?"
Annika stopped short. "Yes, I guess so. Some special occasion or something like that. Why do you ask?"
"Then he'll be in the picture archive."
Annika went straight over to the other end of the room, past the sports archive and the reference section. She found the right box and leafed through it to Furhage. The envelopes with pictures of Christina filled almost an entire box, but on one flat little C5 envelope, frayed at the edges, she read: Furhage, Carl, director. The dust whirled when she pulled it out. She sat down on the floor and emptied the contents of the envelope onto the floor. Inside were four pictures. Two were little black and white portrait photos of a stern-looking man with thin hair and a firm chin: Carl Furhage, 50 years old, and Carl Furhage, 70 years old. The third was a wedding photo of an aging Carl and an old woman, Dorotea Adelcrona. The fourth was the largest of the photos. It was upside down. Annika turned it over and felt her heart do a somersault. The caption was taped to the picture. "Director Carl Furhage, 60 today, with his wife Christina and son Olof." Annika read the caption twice before believing her eyes. It was definitely Christina Furhage. A very young Christina. She must have been barely twenty years old. She was very slim and had her hair put up in an unbecoming frumpy hairdo, dressed in a dark suit with a skirt down to below the knees. She looked shyly into the camera, attempting a smile. On her lap was an adorable little boy of two with blond curls. The boy wore a light sweater and short trousers with suspenders. He was holding an apple in his hands. Carl Furhage was standing behind the couch with a determined look, a protective hand resting on his young wife's shoulder. The picture was extremely stiff and contrived, breathing turn of the century rather than the '50s, which was when it must have been taken. She hadn't read a word about Christina being married before or about her having a son. She had
