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his horn.
    ‘It seems like one hell of a strange job,’ the photographer remarked. ‘All that technical junk that never works and droves of conceited morons running around.’
    ‘Sounds sort of like Kvällspressen ,’ Annika said and looked out the window again, grinding her teeth. The man in the Land Rover gave her the finger.
    What am I doing here? Here I am, with a pompous ass of a photographer, on my way to the scene of a senseless violent crime, leaving Thomas and the children behind, the only people who really matter. I must be out of my mind. She sniffed at her hands; the scent of Kalle’s hair and Ellen’s tears still lingered. Her throat closed up. She turned around, got her cellphone and some paper towels out of her bag and wiped her hands.
    ‘I see an empty slot ahead,’ Bertil Strand exclaimed and stepped on the gas.
    Annika dialled the number.
    The police had ordered everyone to switch off their cellphones. Anne Snapphane was sure that she had obeyed orders, so the vibrations emanating from her jacket pocket came as a bit of a shock. She quickly sat up in bed, her pulse throbbing at the base of her throat and right above her eyes, and realized that she must have dozed off. Her phone buzzed like a gigantic insect hidden in the inside pocket of her rain jacket. Dazed, she brushed her hair off her face with her hands. Her tongue tasted mouldy. She dragged herself across the chaotic tangle of covers, throw pillows and bedspreads, unearthed her jacket and pulled out her phone. She regarded the display with distrust. No number had come up, making her hesitate. What was going on? Some kind of test?
    She pressed the button and said in a whisper:
    ‘Hello?’
    ‘How are you?’ she heard Annika Bengtzon say, her voice sounding distant and indistinct. ‘Are you alive?’
    A sob escaped Anne Snapphane’s lips. Covering her eyes with one hand, she pressed down hard to relieve the pain in her head and listened to the wireless connection. It whistled and rattled, there were engine noises and the wobbly moans of passing car horns.
    ‘Just barely,’ she whispered.
    ‘We’ve heard about Michelle,’ her friend said, speaking slower than usual. ‘We’re on our way over. Can you talk?’
    Anne started to cry, softly and silently, salty tears dripping into the receiver.
    ‘I think so.’
    Her reply came out as a gasp.
    ‘. . . Lousy traffic jams . . . you out there now?’
    The connection broke up and went fuzzy; Annika’s sentences came out in fragments. Anne Snapphane took a deep breath and felt her pulse slow down.
    ‘I’m not allowed to leave my room in the South Wing. They’ve detained us all and I guess they’ll question us one by one.’
    ‘What’s happened?’
    She swiped away the tears with the back of one hand, clutching her phone in the other hand and pressing it to her ear, her end of a lifeline.
    ‘Michelle,’ she whispered. ‘Michelle’s dead. She was in the OB and the back of her head was blown away.’
    ‘Are there lots of cops around?’
    Anne Snapphane’s heart stopped racing and approached a manageable rate. Annika’s voice represented normality and the real world. Her knees sore, Anne got up and looked out the window.
    ‘I can’t see much from here, just a bridge over a channel and a few archery targets. I’ve heard a few cars and a helicopter landed a while ago.’
    ‘Did you see her?’
    Anne Snapphane shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose while the images flashed past, piercing through her wooziness.
    ‘I saw her. I saw her . . .’
    ‘Who did it?’
    There was a knock on the door. Anne froze and stared at the door, paralysed. Her lifeline snapped – confusion swallowed her up once more.
    ‘I’ve got to go,’ she whispered into the phone and hung up.
    ‘Anne Snapphane?’
    The voice on the other side of the door was commanding. She tossed the phone under the covers and cleared her throat. Before she had the chance to reply, the door swung open. The