Studio Sex - Studio Sex Part 36
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Studio Sex Part 36

"Life. The news. The minister."

Annika cut a large piece from her prawn sandwich. "I don't give a damn about any of that," she said morosely.

"Don't you want to know what's been happening?"

Annika shook her head and chewed frenetically.

"Okay," Anne said. "Why do you spell Bengtzon with a z?"

Annika shrugged. "I don't know, actually. My great-great-grandfather Gottfried came to Halleforsnas at the end of the 1850s. Lasse Celsing, the ironworks proprietor, had installed a new stamping machine, and my ancestor was in charge of it. A cousin of mine tried to do some genealogical research, but he didn't get very far. He came to a stop on Gottfried. Nobody knows where he came from- he may have been German or Czech. He entered himself on the list as Bengtzon."

Anne took a big bite from her marzipan cake. "What about your mom?"

"She's from Halleforsnas's oldest family of foundry men. I've practically got the blast furnace stamped on my forehead. What about you? How can you be called Snapphane and come from Lapland?"

Anne groaned and licked her spoon. "Like I said, this is the coast. Everybody up here, apart from the Sami, come from somewhere else. They were loggers, railway laborers, Walloons, and other drifters. According to the family legend, Snapphane was first used as a term of abuse for a light-fingered Danish ancestor who was hanged for theft on the gallows hill outside Norrfjarden sometime in the eighteenth century. As a warning to others, his kids were also called Snapphane, and they didn't do very well either. A furnace on your forehead, well, I wish! My family crest has a gallows at the center."

Annika smiled and licked up the last dollop of mayonnaise. "Good story."

"There's probably not a word of truth in it. Shall we go?"

Anne's father was called Hans. He seemed genuinely pleased to meet one of Anne's colleagues from Stockholm.

"There's so much to see here," he said with great enthusiasm while his Volvo cruised slowly down Sundsgatan. "There's Storfors, the Elias Cave, the Boleby Tannery, Grans Farm Museum. There's Altersbruk, the old ironworks with a pond and a mill-"

"Come off it, Dad," Anne said, a bit embarrassed. "Annika is here to see me. You sound like a tour guide."

Hans wasn't put out. "Just let me know if you want to go anyplace, and I'll give you a ride," he said cheerfully, and looked at Annika in the rearview mirror.

Annika nodded and then turned her gaze out through the window. She glimpsed a narrow canal and they suddenly left the town center.

Pite. That's where he lived- the man who had called Creepy Calls on the same day that Studio 69 revealed that Christer Lundgren had visited a strip club. Wasn't he married to the minister's cousin?

She instinctively fished around in her bag. Her notepad was still there and she opened it toward the back.

"Roger Sundstrom," she read out, "from Pite. Do you know anyone by that name?"

Anne's father turned left in a traffic circle and thought out loud. "Sundstrom... Roger Sundstrom- what does he do?"

"I don't know." Annika turned the pages over. "Here we are, his wife's called Britt-Inger."

"Everybody's wife is called Britt-Inger up here," Hans said. "Sorry, can't help you there."

"Why are you asking?"Anne wondered.

"I got a weird tip-off about the minister for foreign trade on the eve of his resignation from a Roger Sundstrom in Pite."

"And I know someone who doesn't give a damn about journalism anymore," Anne said in a sugary voice.

Annika shoved the pad into her bag and put it on the floor. "So do I."

Anne's parents' house was on Oli-Jans Street in Pitholm. It was spacious and modern.

"You girls get settled upstairs," Anne's father said. "I'll fix some dinner. Britt-Inger is working tonight."

Annika gave a look of surprise. "Mom. He wasn't joking."

The upper floor was open and bright. On the left, by a window, was a desk with a computer, a printer, and a scanner. On the right were two guest rooms. They took one each.

While Hans cooked dinner, they went over Anne's old record collection that still stood in the hi-fi bench in the living room.

"Jesus, you've got this?" Annika said in amazement, pulling out Jim Steinman's solo album Bad for Good.

"It's a collector's item," Anne said.

"I've never met anyone who's ever heard this record. Apart from me."

"It's fantastic. Did you know he used material from this for both his Meat Loaf productions and Streets of Fire?"

"Yep," Annika said, scrutinizing the record cover. "The hook from the title song went into 'Nowhere Fast' in the movie."

"Yeah, and 'Love and Death and an American Guitar' is an intro on Meat Loaf's Back into Hell, except it's called 'Wasted Youth.'"

"Genuinely awesome," Annika said.

"Godlike."

They sat in silence for a moment, reflecting on Jim Steinman's greatness.

"Have you got his Bonnie Tyler productions?" Annika wondered.

"Sure. Which one do you want? Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire?"

Anne placed the pickup on the vinyl and they both sang along.

Hans came in and turned the volume down. "This is a built-up area," he said. "Have you ever eaten palt?"

"Nope." Annika had never fancied the idea of bread baked with blood and rye flour.

It was fried and tasted quite good, a bit like potato dumplings.

"Do you want to go see a movie?" Anne said when the dishwasher started rumbling.

"Is there a movie theater here?" Annika wouldn't have thought there would be.

Anne gave her father an inquiring look. "Are there any theaters still open?"

"Sorry, I don't know."

"Do you have a phone directory?" Annika asked.

"Upstairs, by the computer," Hans replied.

After she looked for a movie theater, Annika thought she might as well look up Roger Sundstrom. Why not? There were two, one whose wife was called Britt-Inger. They lived on Solandergatan.

"Djupviken," Anne told her. "Other side of town."

"Do you want to go for a walk?" Annika said.

The sun was going down behind the pulp mill. They walked through Stromnas and crossed over the Nolia area behind the People's Palace. The Sundstrom family lived in a sixties yellow-brick bungalow with a basement. Annika could hear children singing.

"Do whatever you want," Anne said. "I'm just coming along for the ride."

Annika rang the doorbell; Roger Sundstrom was in. The man was surprised when Annika introduced herself, and then he became suspicious.

"I couldn't stop thinking about what you told me," Annika said. "Now I'm here in Pite, visiting my friend Anne, and I thought I'd just drop by."

The children, a boy and a girl, came rushing into the hallway and hid behind their father's legs, filled with curiosity.

"You go and put on your pajamas," the man said, and tried to shoo them into a room on the left.

"Are we going to sing later, Dad?"

"Yeah, yeah, and brush your teeth."

"Can we come in for a minute?"

The man hesitated but then showed them into the living room: corner couch, glass coffee table, china ornaments in the bookcase. "Britt-Inger is at her evening class."

"Nice house you've got here," Anne said in much broader Norrland accent than she usually spoke in.

"So what do you want?" Roger sat down in a plush armchair.

Annika sat down on the edge of the couch. "I'm sorry to intrude like this. I'm just wondering if I remember correctly. Did you fly from Arlanda with Transwede?"

The man scratched his stubble. "Yes. That's right. Would you like a cup of coffee?"

The question was tentative- he knew he should offer.

"No thanks," Anne said. "We won't stay long."

"So then you departed from Terminal Two, didn't you?" Annika said. "The small one?"

"Which one?" the man asked.

"Not the big domestic departure terminal, but one that's a bit farther away."

Roger nodded circumspectly. "That's right. We had to take a transfer bus, and we had to carry our luggage all the way, because it had to go through customs in Stockholm."

Annika nodded. "Exactly! And it was there, at that small terminal, that you and Britt-Inger saw the minister?"

Roger thought about it. "Yes, it must have been there. Because we were checking in."

Annika swallowed. "I know this may be difficult, but do you remember which gate you left from?"

He shook his head. "No idea."

Annika sighed inwardly. Oh, well, it was a long shot.

"Although," the man said, "we let the kids ride on top of the baggage trolley and that was a sight. I think Britt-Inger filmed it. Maybe you can see it on the videotape."

Annika opened her eyes wide. "For real?"

"Let's have a look." The man went over to the bookcase. He opened the doors to the cocktail cabinet and started looking through the tapes.

"Majorca, here we are." He pushed the tape into a VCR and started the video. The picture flickered- the kids playing by a pool. The sun must have been high as the shadows were short. Two hairy legs, probably Roger's, appeared on the left. The text in the corner read July 24, 2:27 P.M.

"Is that clock right?" Annika wondered.

"I think so. I'll fast-forward it a bit."

A blond, sleeping woman on an airplane, her chin slack. The date had jumped forward to July 27, 4:53 P.M. "My wife."

And then a tanned, smiling Roger was pushing a trolley fully loaded with both luggage and children, July 27, 7:43 P.M. The boy was standing up, holding on to the handle of the trolley; the girl sat on top of the suitcases. Both were waving at their mother behind the camera. The picture wobbled a bit as the camera swept across the hall.

"There!" Annika yelled. "Did you see? Sixty-four!"

"What?" Roger said.

"Rewind a bit," Annika said. "Have you got freeze-frame?"

Roger pressed on the remote control buttons.

"Too much," Anne said. "How did you manage to see that?"

"I was there today, and I was thinking about this," Annika said. "Go on, maybe there's more."

A bunch of people were suddenly jostling in front of the camera. Someone knocked the camera and then Roger was back in the picture.

"Christer!" he called out on-screen, lifting his hand and waving.

On-screen Roger stood on tiptoe, looked to his left, toward his wife, and talked into the living room. "Did you see him? It was Anna-Lena's Christer! He must be on our flight."

"Why don't you go over and say hello?" an invisible woman's voice said.