ELLEN

1.15 P.M.

‘Your office?’ she asked. ‘Just like that?’ She had to jog to keep up with his long stride and fast pace.

‘Yeah. We made a number of changes here over the summer. It’s difficult for me to work without my own office.’ He opened the door and showed her in. ‘You know, with all the reorganisation going on I’ve needed to be able to talk undisturbed.’

‘When you fire people?’

He didn’t reply.

Jimmy’s room was, in fact, a glass cage in the editorial office that everyone could see into. It was just as minimal as she remembered his desk had been. Nothing personal. Not even a picture of Bianca and Jeanette.

‘How are you doing?’ Jimmy sat down in his chair behind the desk and pointed at the chair opposite.

She sat down. ‘So-so, I guess, but I’m seeing a psychologist, or whatever you’re supposed to call him — he’s some kind of dream interpreter and he deals with alternative treatments. And I’m living at home with my mum, who treats me like a teenager, which is exactly what I become when I’m there.’ She forced out a little laugh, and then was ashamed of how shrill her voice sounded.

‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘That’s really good.’

Neither of them said anything for what felt like an eternity. She made a great effort not to say anything just for its own sake, biting her lip to remind herself to keep her mouth shut.

After a while, Jimmy leant forward and rested his head in his hands. ‘I’m so sorry, Ellen. About everything. I tried to get hold of you, but you never answered.’

‘No, I know. I turned everything off. I don’t know, I guess I ran into the proverbial wall or something.’ She laughed nervously.

‘Luckily, between Philip and the HR department I managed to find out that you were alive anyway. I’d hoped I’d get to see you when you were here signing the sick-leave forms at the start of June.’

Ellen shrugged. She wasn’t sure what he was talking about.

Again and again, Jimmy’s phone rang, but he just glanced at it and let it ring, which exhilarated her, made her feel prioritised.

‘Ellen,’ he said, looking at her with his big brown eyes.

There was a strange intimacy between them. Did he feel it too? She’d missed him, and that made her uncertain.

He was so calm. She’d forgotten how calm he was.

‘You cut your hair.’

He laughed and patted himself on the head. ‘Yes, I’ve cleaned up a little.’ The dimples disappeared when he got serious again. ‘Well, look, I’m not sure where to begin …’

‘I have to be put on the Stentuna murder,’ she said before he had time to say anything else.

‘What? Why, Ellen? You’re not doing so well …’

‘Yes, I know I’ve been feeling bad, but this will make me feel better.’

Jimmy drummed the desktop with his fingers.

‘I think it’s got interest for us.’ She stood up and went around the desk. Opened his laptop and went to the TV4 site. ‘Look at this. Today’s media reporting is dominated by the awful news that a soccer supporter was beaten to death. Every year twenty women on average are beaten to death by someone close to them, in seventeen of those cases it’s by a man they’ve been in a relationship with. Twenty women. Every year. Twenty cases that aren’t headlined FATAL ASSAULT?’

He shook his head.

‘I don’t have to get paid, I just want to work on it. You’re always talking about creating news. I think we’ve got something here. Please — working will make me feel better. Can’t I at least get the information and resources I ask for?’

‘I don’t know, Ellen. If you’re sick, you’re sick. I’m just trying to think about your best interests.’

‘If that’s the case, then let me do it. What difference does it make to you? What if this is the perfect summer murder?’

She wanted to throw up on herself for what she’d just said. But she knew that was how it worked. An ordinary assault on a woman didn’t sell extra copies or increase audience ratings, but this was something different.

‘This summer’s disappeared — I think Sweden wants to see and read about a murder in the countryside. I can at least report on the information I have? I have a great contact at the police, and I seriously think that …’

‘You can work twenty-five per cent, no more. And you’re not allowed to do anything other than work on the Stentuna murder. Are we in agreement?’

Ellen nodded.

‘And, if I get another complaint, then I’m taking you off the case.’ Jimmy stood up and went over to the door. ‘Do a quick run-through now of what you have.’ He called in Agatha and Leif. ‘Sit yourselves down,’ he said as they came into the office and sat down around the meeting table.

Leif made no attempt to conceal his sighs.

‘Nice to see you, Ellen,’ said Agatha, and it actually sounded genuine. ‘I’m sorry, but I was forced to ask Jimmy when you emailed me. The intention wasn’t to gossip, it’s just that I have to spend my time on the right things.’

‘It’s no problem, I completely understand.’

‘Ellen thinks she’s got something on the murder in Stentuna. Can you tell us a little?’

‘A woman in her forties was found raped and beaten to death beside her car on a road in Stentuna. Her name was Liv Lind. No one seems to know who she is or what she was doing in Stentuna. She was unmarried and had no children, but she was pregnant, in her thirteenth week. The father has stayed away, and no one knows who he is.’

‘But wait a minute, aren’t you on sick leave?’ Leif asked.

‘Yes, but starting from now I’m going to be working quarter-time.’

‘Ellen will be working on this on the side to try to find out if it is as she says — that it’s perhaps more interesting than we thought. We create news,’ Jimmy added.

‘I just love that kind of gibberish,’ Leif said, leaning back in his chair.

Ellen saw Jimmy’s irritated look at Leif, but he didn’t say anything.

‘When women fall victim to fatal violence, sometimes there are just a handful of short articles, but in scattered cases the interest is enormous,’ she continued. ‘What decides it, in the end? The general public more or less doesn’t care about domestic violence, or otherwise it must be our fault for not reporting on it better. If the perpetrator is unknown, that tends to increase interest — though I actually think this looks like a case of domestic violence as she doesn’t appear to have been robbed and looks to have stopped the car for someone she recognised. That, or it’s a random lunatic. In any event, it wasn’t self-inflicted, as she’s been raped. But these are just my speculations — the police don’t seem to have anything specific to go on, and it may actually be an unknown perpetrator in this case. If it turns out that it’s not, we will at least have brought the spotlight to one of all the women who have fallen victim to fatal violence and we’ll have created some engagement.’

‘Let’s slow down a little here, okay. Are you sure that she should be working?’

‘Back off, Leif,’ said Jimmy.

‘I agree with you, Ellen. It’s distressing the amount that the general public doesn’t even find out about, but I’d assume that’s down to a lack of resources.’ Agatha stole a glance at Jimmy.

‘Yep, and they don’t grow on trees,’ Leif added. ‘Just think about how we used to have foreign correspondents who actually got to travel abroad. Now they don’t even do that any more, and then you come in here and demand resources for some insignificant murder. Or real cheese for breakfast — did you know that they only serve pre-sliced cheese nowadays?’

Ellen shook her head, couldn’t care less. ‘You could also be glad you get any cheese at all.’

‘You know what, if you have general complaints about how we work in the editorial office, we can address that in a separate meeting.’ Jimmy sounded quiet, but was so wholly sure of himself and his approach. So in control.

Leif mumbled something, but then stopped talking.

‘Stentuna is like some kind of Astrid Lindgren idyll.’ Ellen pulled up the pictures from the crime scene on her phone and placed it on the table so that everyone could see.

‘What do you mean “Astrid Lindgren”, this doesn’t look like Bullerby?’

‘A modern version,’ Ellen said, looking at the red contemporary box houses on the screen. ‘Think about it. Kids bicycling and jumping on their trampolines. The little community with only a few inhabitants. The little school. The petrol station. Water sprinklers, ice cream, fields, and meadows. Heat. Do you get the picture?’

‘Yes. Or a community suffering from depression thanks to urbanisation — where everything is being closed down, and only a few are left behind, and they’re all unemployed and beat their wives when they’re drunk,’ said Agatha.

Ellen sighed. ‘What are you saying?’

‘That you’re making it sound like an episode from Midsomer Murders,’ Leif replied.

‘I like it,’ said Jimmy. ‘We can use those fictional elements.’

‘Hello, there’s a person who was murdered here. This isn’t fiction,’ said Ellen. ‘Okay, Ann, if we use your version, don’t you think it’s still interesting for us to cover the murder — because it’s a community in dissolution, and the woman has been raped and murdered by her unemployed husband?’

‘Never mind that now. Let’s just see how the news develops and what Ellen manages to produce, with your help,’ said Jimmy.

‘I just mean that it’s not that unusual. We can’t report on every single murder just because the victim is a woman,’ said Agatha.

‘Why not? How can you, as a woman, sit there and say that? I can’t understand it.’

‘Calm down, Ellen,’ said Jimmy.

‘For Christ’s sake, you’re happy to cover that man who was beaten to death by supporters. Why is he more interesting than Liv Lind? Actually? I think we have to take our responsibility as journalists.’

‘Maybe he was better-looking than your Liv,’ said Leif.