Unspoken by Mari Jungstedt Read Free Book Online Page B

crowded in the lounge area of the newsroom. After they had discussed the latest broadcast, criticizing some parts and praising others, the editor Max Grenfors presented the day’s roster of news stories. The assignments might very well change during the course of the meeting. Some reporter might have his own idea, or the objections to a story proposal might be so strong that it ended up in the wastebasket, or the discussion might take a new direction and lead to a reworking of all their plans. That’s exactly the way things needed to function in a newsroom , thought Johan, who enjoyed the morning gatherings.
    He briefly recounted to the others what he knew about the murder on Gotland. Everyone agreed that it sounded like a drunken fight. Johan was assigned to keep an eye on the situation since he was going to Gotland the next day anyway, to do a report on the controversy regarding a campground that was threatened with closure.
    The Regional News editorial offices operated under high-pressure deadlines. Each day they produced a twenty-minute program, basically from scratch. A story that aired for two minutes usually took several hours to film and another two hours to edit. Johan was always nagging his bosses about giving the reporters more time.
    He was not in favor of the changes that had been implemented since he had started out as a TV reporter ten years earlier. Nowadays the reporters hardly had time to look over their material before they had to submit it to the editor. This had a disastrous effect on quality. Good images that the cameraman had taken a lot of trouble to capture risked being lost because no one discovered them in all the rush. The cameramen were often disappointed when they saw the final story. As soon as management started taking shortcuts in the use of visual images, which were the real strength of TV, then things were really going downhill. Johan refused to write up his reports or do any editing until he had gone through all the material himself.
    Of course there were exceptions. When time was tight and the story was thrown into editing twenty minutes before the broadcast, they still succeeded in putting it together.
    Unpredictability was the real draw in terms of working in a newsroom. In the morning he never knew how the day was going to go. Johan worked mostly as a crime reporter, and the contacts that he had established over the years were invaluable for the newsroom. He also had primary responsibility for covering Gotland, which had been placed under the domain of Regional News a little over a year ago. Swedish TV’s large deficit meant that they had closed the local office on Gotland and moved the crew from Norrköping back to Stockholm. Johan was happy to take on Gotland, a place that had delighted him since he was a child. And now it was no longer just the island that attracted him.
    Spot tugged at his leash. To think he’s never learned to heel , thought Fanny angrily, but she didn’t feel like yelling at him. The streets were deserted in the residential neighborhood where she was walking. A dark mist had settled over Visby, and the asphalt was shiny from the gentle rain. An inviting glow came from the curtain-framed windows of all the houses. How orderly everything was. Flowers on the windowsills, gleaming cars in the driveways, and charming mailboxes. Here and there a well-tended compost pile.
    She had a good view inside the homes at this time of the evening, after dark. In one, copper utensils hung on the wall in the kitchen; another had a brightly painted, rustic grandfather clock. In a living room a little girl was jumping up and down on the sofa, talking to someone that Fanny couldn’t see. Over there was a man holding a dustpan in one hand. A few crumbs must have landed on the rug , she thought and pressed her lips together. A man and woman were standing in another kitchen window; they seemed to be cooking together.
    Suddenly the door to a big house opened. An elderly couple came