The Final Word by Liza Marklund Page A

wasn’t just the journalists who would be losing their jobs. The printers they used had just invested in an entirely new packaging room, with all the equipment necessary for folding, trimming, stickering, inkjet address-printing and leaflet insertion. The
Evening Post
wasn’t the company’s only client, but it was by far the largest. Three hundred people worked there, but for how much longer?
    ‘We’ll hold back on that,’ Wennergren said. ‘Our contract with the printers expires this autumn, so we’ll be in a damn good negotiating position then.’ He reached for his briefcase. It was made of cloth, some sporting label. No traditional leather nonsense for him. ‘It goes without saying that it’s vitally important none of this leaks out,’ he added.
    A guilty shiver ran down Schyman’s spine, and he saw Annika standing before him with the minutes of the board meeting in her hand. He stared at the chairman without blinking. ‘Of course,’ he said.
    Berit put her bag on the desk and wiped the sweat from her forehead. Annika took a deep breath and switched her attention from Schyman’s glass box to her colleague.‘Let me guess,’ she said. ‘Rosa speaks out about her weight.’
    ‘She feels badly violated,’ Berit confirmed, sinking on to her chair.
    It looked like the chairman of the board was getting ready to leave: he had picked up his briefcase and he was laughing.
    ‘I read in the preliminary edition that Rosa had spoken to her PR people and realized what a terrible ordeal she had been subjected to,’ Annika said.
    ‘She took the teasing as a general attack on her as a person,’ Berit said, getting her laptop out. ‘She wanted to broaden the discussion, show that she’s more than good enough as she is. No one has the right to tell her how she should look.’
    ‘You’d never guess she had PR advisers,’ Annika said.
    Berit switched on her computer, idly polishing her glasses while she waited for the programs to load – how many times had Annika seen her do that? How many more before it was all over?
    ‘It’s quite interesting, this business of being good enough as you are,’ Berit said, inspecting her glasses. ‘What it actually means is that you never need to develop, that any sort of ambition or change is negative.’
    Annika raised her eyebrows. She saw Albert Wennergren close the door of the editor-in-chief’s aquarium and head towards the exit. ‘How do you mean?’ she asked, following the man with her eyes.
    Berit put her glasses on. ‘I kept thinking about it all the way through the interview with Rosa. How angry she was at the suggestion that she might have changed somehow since that reality show. She was who she was, and she had the right to be who she was.’
    ‘Hasn’t she, then?’
    Wennergren disappeared round the office manager’s cubbyhole. In the glass box, Schyman was sitting motionless behind his desk, staring into space. The two men must have been discussing the details of the closure, and no one around her had any idea of what was coming. The catastrophe was approaching with full force, but here on the shop-floor everyone was still sitting at their desks, getting on with all manner of tasks. She turned to Berit and realized she hadn’t been listening to her.
    ‘Rosa,’ Annika said. ‘She doesn’t need to change anything about herself because she’s perfect.’
    ‘It was interesting listening to her,’ Berit said. ‘Her whole attitude is anchored in identity politics instead of being progressive, just like the Sweden Democrats: everything new and unknown is bad and must be rejected. She has the right to demand respect in spite of her pitiful vocabulary, wasted education and stale opinions.’ Berit took two apples out of her bag, passed one to Annika and took a bite out of the other.
    ‘And that’s a problem because?’ Annika said.
    Berit chewed and swallowed. ‘In the long run, identity politics will become an ideology that produces a new underclass. It