going out for a while," he said. "Could you tell Malin that I'll be back in two hours?"
"What's going on?"
"I think I've got a lead on a story. A really good story. About toilets. I want to check a few things, but if this pans out we'll have a fantastic article for the June issue."
"Toilets," Nilsson muttered. "A likely story."
Berger clenched her teeth and put down the article about the forthcoming Salander trial. It was short, two columns, intended for page five under national news. She looked at the text for a minute and pursed her lips. It was 3.30 on Thursday. She had been working at S.M.P. for exactly twelve days. She picked up the telephone and called Holm, the news editor.
"Hello, it's Berger. Could you find Johannes Frisk and bring him to my office asap?"
She waited patiently until Holm sauntered into the glass cage with the reporter Frisk in tow. Berger looked at her watch.
"Twenty-two," she said.
"Twenty-two what?" said Holm.
"Twenty-two minutes. That's how long it's taken you to get up from the editorial desk, walk the fifteen metres to Frisk's desk, and drag yourself over here with him."
"You said there was no rush. I was pretty busy."
"I did not say there was no rush. I asked you to get Frisk and come to my office. I said asap, and I meant asap, not tonight or next week or whenever you feel like getting your arse out of your chair."
"But I don't think - "
"Shut the door."
She waited until Holm had closed the door behind him and studied him in silence. He was without doubt a most competent news editor. His role was to make sure that the pages of S.M.P. were filled every day with the correct text, logically organized, and appearing in the order and position they had decided on in the morning meeting. This meant that Holm was juggling a colossal number of tasks every day. And he did it without ever dropping a ball.
The problem with him was that he persistently ignored the decisions Berger made. She had done her best to find a formula for working with him. She had tried friendly reasoning and direct orders, she had encouraged him to think for himself, and generally she had done everything she could think of to make him understand how she wanted the newspaper to be shaped.
Nothing made any difference.
An article she had rejected in the afternoon would appear in the newspaper sometime after she had gone home. We had a hole we needed to fill so I had to put in something.
The headline that Berger had decided to use was suddenly replaced by something entirely different. It was not always a bad choice, but it would be done without her being consulted. As an act of defiance.
It was always a matter of details. An editorial meeting at 2.00 was suddenly moved to 1.30 without her being told, and most of the decisions were already made by the time she arrived. I'm sorry... in the rush I forgot to let you know.
For the life of her, Berger could not see why Holm had adopted this attitude towards her, but she knew that calm discussions and friendly reprimands did not work. Until now she had not confronted him in front of other colleagues in the newsroom. Now it was time to express herself more clearly, and this time in front of Frisk, which would ensure that the exchange was common knowledge in no time.
"The first thing I did when I started here was to tell you that I had a special interest in everything to do with Lisbeth Salander. I explained that I wanted information in advance on all proposed articles, and that I wanted to look at and approve everything that was to be published. I've reminded you about this at least half a dozen times, most recently at the editorial meeting on Friday. Which part of these instructions do you not understand?"
"All the articles that are planned or in production are on the daily memo on our intranet. They're always sent to your computer. You're always kept informed," Holm said.
"Bullshit," Berger said. "When the city edition of the paper landed in my letterbox this morning we had a three-column story about Salander and the developments in the Stallarholmen incident in our best news spot."
"That was Margareta Orring's article. She's a freelancer, she didn't turn it in until 7.00 last night."
"Margareta called me with the proposal at 11.00 yesterday morning. You approved it and