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closed the vents and the windows started to fog up. The windshield wipers maintained a steady beat, the left wiper squeaking every time it reached the top of the windshield. Annika closed her eyes, forcing Thomas’s voice and her sense of failure to recede and concentrated on the rain, the windshield wipers, and the asthmatic wheezing of the climate control system.
    ‘ Summer Frolic at the Castle ’, she thought. The big family extravaganza slated for the TV Plus channel, filled with entertainment and discussion panels, guest stars and artists. Michelle Carlsson’s prime-time comeback, the TV star’s chance to show who was boss. Actually, Annika reflected, Carlsson was pretty good.
    ‘What do you think of Michelle?’ she asked.
    Bertil Strand’s head was swivelling back and forth as if operated on ball bearings while he looked for an opening in traffic.
    ‘Fluff,’ he said. ‘No credibility. Fine in kids’ programmes and game shows, but that discussion forum she had wasn’t anything to write home about. She was so ignorant.’
    Annika was surprised by the protests that welled up inside her.
    ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Michelle spent ten years working with radio and TV broadcasting. She must have learned something.’
    ‘How to smile for the camera,’ Bertil Strand said. ‘Now how hard could that be?’
    Annika shook her head, holding back tired protests. Still, she had often reasoned along the same lines when she and Anne Snapphane discussed journalism.
    ‘My best friend has worked with television broadcasting for the past six years now,’ she said. ‘Everything’s a lot more complicated than you’d think.’
    Bertil Strand cut in front of a rough-and-ready Land Rover. The man behind the wheel of the Land Rover slammed on 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