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suspect, someone who was likely to make a break for it. She pulled free as the officer knocked on a door bearing a sign saying this was the Bråvalla Room.
    “If I wanted to get away I’d already have done it,” she said.
    Inside sat two officers in plain clothes, along with a reporter Annika recognized from television news. The reporter was crying so much that her shoulders were shaking. One of the officers let out such an angry yell that Annika’s officer almost hit his own nose as he hurried to shut the door.
    “Not that room,” he said, the tips of his ears starting to glow.
    They carried on walking in an odd silence, passing gray doors in gray walls, then the broad opening to an office where another bout of questioning had just begun with a member of the Swedish Academy. Annika couldn’t hear what was being said, but she saw the police officer making notes and the Academician nervously fingering the leg of his chair.
    I have to remember, she thought. I have to be able to describe this afterward.
    She noted that the scene was also being observed by Ragnar Östberg, architect of the City Hall, whose bronze bust watched over events with a concerned expression.
    Did you have any idea that something like this could ever happen in your building? Annika wondered, then was stopped once more by the police officer’s damp fist.
    “Can you wait here a moment?”
    “Do I have any choice?” Annika said, turning away.
    It was brighter here. She could see the details more clearly: marble busts above the doors, bronze hinges and door handles, ostentatious chandeliers.
    “Look, I need time to write up my story,” she said, but the officer had already slid off down the corridor.
    A door opened and someone was standing there calling her name. Light flooded out of the doorway, falling over a painting on the other side of the corridor. She went in without saying anything.
    “Close the door behind you.”
    The voice made her stop.
    “I might have guessed you’d be here,” she said.
    Detective Inspector Q was unshaven, his features more drawn than usual.
    “I asked to be able to take care of you myself,” he said, sitting down at the end of a heavy oak table. “Sit down.”
    He gestured for Annika to take a seat on his left, turned on a tape recorder, and poured himself a glass of water.
    “Interview with Annika Bengtzon, reporter on the Evening Post newspaper, date of birth and full name to be noted later, conducted by Q in the Small Common Room of the Stockholm City Hall, on Thursday, December 10, at …”
    He paused for breath and ran his hand through his hair. Annika settled carefully into a black-framed chair with red-leather upholstery, glancing up at the somber gentlemen in oils who were staring down at her from their heavy frames.
    “… at 11:21 PM ,” he concluded. “You saw someone acting suspiciously in the Blue Hall at approximately 10:45 this evening, is that correct?”
    Annika let go of her bag on the floor and clasped her hands in her lap, listening to the traffic of central Stockholm rumbling somewhere in another world.
    “I don’t know that she was acting suspiciously,” Annika said.
    “Can you describe what happened,” the detective inspector asked.
    “It was nothing special,” Annika said in a voice that was now slightly shrill. “I haven’t got time to sit here making small talk. I didn’t see anything special at all, I was dancing and I just got pushed by a girl. It’s hardly reasonable that I should have to sit here when the whole newsroom is waiting for me and my article …”
    The detective inspector leaned forward and turned off the tape recorder with a little click.
    “Now listen, you headline-chasing bitch,” he said, leaning toward her, his eyes clouding over. “This isn’t the time to be egocentric. You’re going to tell me what you saw, exactly as you remember it, right here, right now. It was only half an hour ago, and you were one of the people standing closest when it