Free Prime Time by Liza Marklund Page B

in London.’
    ‘There is something to that,’ Anne interjected.
    ‘And that she wouldn’t accept orders from a conceited, power-crazed moron who didn’t have brains or balls. And she went on and on like that.’
    Anne Snapphane giggled.
    ‘It was almost funny,’ the producer conceded.
    ‘Highlander felt that Michelle should be grateful that he had taken the trouble to talk to her in person. He wasn’t obligated to do anything beyond sending her written notice. Apparently, that’s in her contract. Naturally, she’d be paid for the duration of her contract, a little more than one and a half years, as long as she respected the terms of the quarantine clause.’
    ‘In other words, even though she had been fired, she wouldn’t be able to work for anyone else?’
    ‘Exactly,’ Karin Bellhorn replied. ‘If she hosted some other network’s shows, they could sue her for breach of contract. And that’s not all. After the showdown at the Stables, Michelle kicked out her manager. She called him a leech, a millstone, and a lot of other nice things.’
    ‘Did Follin get fired too?’ Anne asked.
    Karin Bellhorn lit a cigarette and fingered her lower lip.
    ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Right now I don’t know one damn thing for certain.’
    Suddenly Anne felt like crying again.
    ‘What are we involved in?’ she whispered.
    They sat for a while in silence. Sounds seeped in through the walls: Sebastian Follin was running water in the sink upstairs. To the right, Highlander’s radio blared. To the left, Barbara Hanson coughed.
    ‘Listen,’ Anne Snapphane said. ‘Who do you think did it?’
    Karin gave this some thought, the tip of her tongue in the corner of her mouth.
    ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Who do you think it was?’
    ‘Do you think it was one of us?’
    Anne’s whisper was barely audible.
    The producer’s gaze drifted off towards the window, her eyes glazed and vacant-looking.
    ‘The technical staff left as soon as the bus was packed,’ she said. ‘Gunnar was the only one left. Apart from us.’
    ‘Could someone else have come, an outsider?’
    ‘In the middle of the night?’
    Turning with an unfathomable expression in her eyes, Karin looked at Anne and shook her head.
    ‘No,’ Anne whispered. ‘So it was one of us.’
    The sound of Anne Snapphane gulping resonated in the room.
    ‘I agree, so be careful about who you talk to,’ Karin said, ‘and think of what you say.’
    Anne nodded, her eyes wide with renewed fear.
    ‘Did you see anything?’ Karin asked. ‘Anything strange?’
    Suspicion dropped like a stage curtain. Anne Snapphane felt doubt take root, felt how it drove a wedge into the foundation of trust. Her emotions were reflected in her eyes, and she felt how she distanced herself and grew watchful.
    ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Did you?’
    Karin shook her head and Anne saw her own emotions reflected in the producer’s eyes.
    ‘I’d better be going,’ Anne said, and got up to leave with a brand-new sorrow in her heart.
    They wouldn’t be confiding in each other again.
    Editor-in-chief Torstensson didn’t call in. A restless Anders Schyman sat in his glass cubicle at one end of the newsroom and felt irritation well up inside him. There was a pile of documents on his desk: legal action was being taken against Kvällspressen and the executive editor responsible for the publication. The charges ranged from defamation of character to libel.
    And the person legally responsible for the publication was Torstensson. As executive editor he had the final say in controversial issues. It didn’t matter what the rest of the newsroom team felt, Torstensson called the shots. After a great deal of pussyfooting around, Schyman had made sure that he, the managing editor, was registered at the Patent and Registration Office as Torstensson’s deputy. This meant that Torstensson could delegate decisions to him, but only if the editor-in-chief expressly wished to do so. Whenever this