Free Prime Time by Liza Marklund Page A

inside the bus. Did you see the gun?’
    The older woman swallowed and nodded.
    ‘Nothing this awful has ever happened to me before,’ Anne Snapphane continued, the words tumbling like the waters of a brook in springtime. ‘I’ve never even seen a dead person before, and there she was, somebody I’ve worked with for nearly four years. A person who had been alive a few hours earlier … murdered. Shot! Did you see the grey stuff? Did you see the mess on the wall and on the monitors? That was her brain. Christ, that was her fucking brain coating the TV screens. It’s disgusting – her memories, her childhood, her feelings, everything she was – all that was left was a sticky, yucky, blown-away mess …’
    Anne bowed her head and cried some more, louder this time, the sobs almost like screams. Karin placed a warm, dry hand on the back of her neck.
    ‘Anne,’ she whispered urgently. ‘Please, Anne, you aren’t supposed to be here, the police would flip if they found you here, please pull yourself together.’
    With tears streaming down her cheeks, nose and chin, Anne Snapphane took a few deep breaths.
    ‘Shit,’ she whispered, ‘Karin, it’s so fucking awful …’
    ‘I know,’ the producer said and put her arms around her. ‘I know …’
    They remained like that for quite some time, the older woman holding the younger one.
    ‘I’m so ashamed,’ Anne whispered as soon as she had calmed down. Karin released her. ‘I was always so nasty to Michelle.’
    ‘No, that’s not true,’ Karin said. ‘You weren’t nasty.’
    ‘Yes, I was,’ Anne Snapphane said, wiping her nose with her sleeve. ‘I couldn’t stand her, all because she was prettier than me, and better.’
    ‘That’s not true,’ the producer protested. ‘You were always a much better journalist than Michelle was.’
    ‘I mean better on TV,’ Anne said. ‘She had more screen presence than I ever had. You do know that both of us were up for the The Women’s Sofa gig, don’t you? She got it. And I never forgave her for that.’
    ‘So she got rich and famous at your expense?’
    Anne hesitated and then nodded.
    ‘Something like that.’
    Karin Bellhorn smiled wryly.
    ‘Well, see how much good it did her.’
    Anne looked up at her with a shocked expression on her face. She met the producer’s gaze and began to giggle hysterically.
    ‘I certainly prefer being me today,’ she said.
    The two women sat in silence on the bed. Anne Snapphane felt a melancholy calm start to radiate throughout her chest.
    ‘That was some night,’ she said after a while.
    Karin Bellhorn sighed.
    ‘Not to mention the taping session; I’ve never seen such chaos and I’ve been around the track a few times. Those anarchists were just too much – who dug them up?’
    ‘Mariana, I think. And did you hear her talking to Bambi Rosenberg about nude pictures at two a.m. in the lounge? What a racket they made!’
    ‘Then Highlander showed up and had a fight with Michelle.’
    ‘The boss himself? What did they fight about?’ Anne Snapphane asked.
    ‘He fired her.’
    ‘You’re kidding me!’
    Karin put her finger to her lips.
    ‘Careful … I saw them, he went up to her as soon as we had wrapped. Michelle wasn’t receptive, you know how hyper she gets after a show, and particularly after a special like this.’
    ‘Highlander’s nuts,’ Anne Snapphane said.
    ‘He certainly knew exactly what he was going to say. But his timing wasn’t very appropriate.’
    ‘Well, what did he say?’
    ‘That she was too old.’
    ‘Too old? She just turned thirty-four last Monday.’
    Karin smiled with a trace of bitterness.
    ‘First it didn’t register: Michelle was still pretty buzzed after the show. Then I was afraid she was going to pass out – her face went all white and she was chewing her tongue. And suddenly she went berserk, yelling that Highlander was a pathetic fool who made his way up by sucking dicks, cleaning toilets and making coffee for the big shots