Exposed Read Online Free Page B

set out, but not any more. Then there are the drunks down on Sankt Eriksgatan. I don’t mean the ones in the hostel, they never manage to stay awake until it’s dark. No, just the usual piss artists. They can keep you awake all night. But worst of all is actually the air-conditioning unit behind McDonald’s. It’s on twenty-four hours a day, and it’s driving me round the bend. How did she die?’
    ‘They don’t know yet,’ Annika said. ‘So there was no shouting, no calls for help?’
    ‘Well of course there was, there’s shouting and screaming here every Friday night. Here, darling, there you are …’
    The child had dropped the beaker and started to grizzle, and his mother picked it up. Then she nodded in the direction of Bertil Strand and the others.
    ‘Are they the hyenas?’
    ‘Yep. The one with the Dime ice-cream is my photographer. I’m Annika Bengtzon, I’m with the
Evening Post.’
    She held out her hand. In spite of what she had just said, the woman seemed impressed.
    ‘Bloody hell,’ she said. ‘Daniella Hermansson; nice to meet you. Are you going to write about this?’
    ‘Yes, me or someone else on the paper. Do you mind if I take some notes?’
    ‘Sure, go ahead.’
    ‘Can I quote you?’
    ‘My name’s got two “l”s and two “s”s, just like it sounds.’
    ‘You were saying that it’s normally quite rowdy around here?’
    Daniella Hermansson stood on tiptoe and tried to look at Annika’s notes.
    ‘Yes, really rowdy,’ she said. ‘Especially at weekends.’
    ‘So if anyone did call for help, people probably wouldn’t react?’
    Daniella Hermansson bit her lip again and shook her head.
    ‘Mind you, that would depend on what time it was,’ she said. ‘By four or five in the morning things have normally calmed down. Then it’s just the air-conditioning unit. I sleep with my window open, all year round, it’s good for the skin. But I didn’t hear anything …’
    ‘Do your windows face the street or the courtyard?’
    ‘Both. We’ve got a two-room flat, at the end on the right, second floor. The bedroom faces the yard.’
    ‘And you come here every day?’
    ‘Yes, I’m still on maternity leave with this little one. All the mums round here meet in the playground every morning. No, darling …’
    The child had stopped drinking and had started to howl. His mother leaned over him, and with a practised hand stuck a finger in the back of his nappy and sniffed it.
    ‘Oops,’ she said. ‘Time for us to go in. Nappy change and then a nap, eh, tiddler?’
    The child stopped howling when he found a string on his hat to chew on.
    ‘Could we take your picture?’ Annika asked quickly.
    Daniella Hermansson looked startled.
    ‘My picture? Oh, surely you don’t want …’ She giggled and ran a hand through her hair. Annika gave her a stern look.
    ‘The woman over in the cemetery was probably murdered,’ she said. ‘It’s really important to give a good description of the area. I live down by Kungsholmstorg.’
    Daniella Hermansson’s eyes were wide open.
    ‘Bloody hell. Murdered? Here, in our park?’
    ‘No one knows where she died, only that she was found here.’
    ‘But it’s always so quiet round here,’ Daniella Hermansson said, bending over and picking up the child.
    Welcome to Cliché Central, Annika thought. A minute ago it was rowdy round here.
    The boy let go of the string and started howling again. Annika took a firm grip of the strap of her bag and went over to Bertil Strand.
    ‘Hang on,’ she said to Daniella over her shoulder.
    The photographer was licking the inside of his ice-cream wrapper as Annika came up to him.
    ‘Can you come with me for a moment?’ she asked quietly.
    Bertil Strand crumpled the wrapper slowly in his hand, then gestured to the man beside him.
    ‘Annika, this is Arne Påhlson, he’s a reporter for our rivals. Have you met?’
    Looking down, Annika held out her hand and muttered her name. Arne Påhlson’s hand was hot and