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anything odd, so I suppose she must have looked like everyone else? How did she get into the Golden Hall, do you know?”
    Q looked through his notes.
    “We’re checking to see if she could have been on the guest list, but we don’t really know. There are other witness statements saying that it could have been a man dressed as a woman. What do you think about that?”
    A man? Annika snorted.
    “It was a girl,” she said.
    “How can you be sure?”
    Annika looked over at the protocols from 1964.
    “She looked up at me, so she must have been shorter than me. How many men are that short? And she moved quickly, easily.”
    “And men don’t?”
    “Not in that sort of stiletto heel. It takes a lot of practice to move as easily as she did.”
    “And you saw her heels?”
    Annika stood up and hoisted her bag onto her shoulder.
    “No, but I’ve got the bruise one of them made on the top of my right foot. Please, can I call you later tonight?”
    “And where do you think you’re going?”
    She stopped against her will, stifled in spite of all the air in the room.
    “The newsroom. I have to go and talk to them. Unless you can stop me from working as well?”
    “You have to go down to the profiling unit of National Crime and put together a photofit of the killer.”
    Annika threw out her arms.
    “Are you mad? I’ve got a deadline in a couple of hours. Jansson must be tearing his hair out by now.”
    Q walked up to her, looking completely desperate.
    “Please,” he said.
    The door opened and a uniformed officer walked into the Small Common Room. For a moment she thought it was the same man who had escorted her to the interview, but it was a different one, similar, another one from the same breed, a stereotypical example of a broad-shouldered, thoroughly Swedish graduate from the police training course.
    She stopped in the doorway, turned and looked at the detective inspector.
    “Did you really call me a headline-chasing bitch ?” she said.
    He waved her out of the room without looking up.
    She pushed past the stereotype, fished out the wire of her earpiece, and pulled her cell phone from the depths of her bag. The young police officer looked like he was about to protest, but she fixed her eyes on the end of the corridor and swept away from him without deigning to look at him.
    “Where the hell have you been?” Jansson snarled before she had a chance to say anything.
    “Questioning,” she said quietly, holding the microphone a millimeter from her mouth. “I had a sort of close encounter with the killer, they reckon she trod on my foot.”
    She could feel the pain each time she took a step.
    “Great, the eight and nine spread. What else have you got?”
    “Hey,” the police officer behind her said, “who are you talking to?”
    She sped up, but just in front of the opening to the large office she stumbled over the hem of her dress and dropped her earpiece. Her shawl slid onto the floor and the raw draft of the corridor swept over her, settling on her skin like a damp towel. She shivered and looked around; theAcademy member had been replaced by two stewards in white jackets with their backs to her.
    “Annika?” Jansson said as soon as she popped the earpiece back in.
    “I can’t write anything, Q has given me a disclosure ban. I could probably be charged just for talking to you about the killer. I have to go over to Kungsholmsgatan for further questioning.”
    “Okay, put your cell phone away.”
    Annika spun round and looked at the police officer.
    “Listen,” she said, “I’m going to talk as much as I damn well like on this cell phone. If you don’t like it you can arrest me.”
    She turned and carried on walking, away from the bitter cold.
    “The term ‘arrest’ doesn’t apply in a situation like this within the Swedish judicial system,” the policeman said.
    “Call the paper’s lawyers and find out exactly what I can and can’t say,” Annika said into the microphone. “How’s it