Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [157]
She put her hands over her ears and shut her eyes.
‘Stop it!’ she shouted.
‘How dare you?’ he shouted back at her face. ‘How dare you exploit your position at this paper for your own sordid purposes?’
She let her hands drop, her eyes opening wide.
‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ she said in a cracked voice.
His face was quivering with rage and fury. He stared into her eyes as though he were trying to find an explanation.
‘You’re not going anywhere with that article,’ he said eventually, then stretched and walked back to his desk. ‘The moment that text leaves this building I’ll report you to the police.’
She felt her brain explode, and flew up out of her chair, setting her face ten centimetres from his. She saw him flinch.
‘Okay,’ she said hoarsely. ‘I’ll be fine. Because you know what? I know I’m right. There’s no way I can lose.’
He was dumbfounded.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘What will you say to your husband when the police arrest you for grave defamation and gross misconduct? How will he react when he finds out why she was fired? Who will get custody of your children? And what do you think will happen to your job? Surely you don’t imagine you can stay here if you publish that article in The Worker?’
Annika felt the adrenalin pumping, tore her eyes away from him and walked giddily round the desk, stopping right in front of him.
‘And what do you think will happen to you?’ she said in a low voice. ‘Do you think you’ll still be sitting at this desk after I explain how it all happened, including your threat to crush me because of my desperate attempt to save my marriage? Do you imagine that you’ll have an ounce of credibility left once you block an article that reveals the worst abuse of media power in modern times? How you’ve exploited unpublished information about a minister obtained by the paper in an attempt to blackmail her into destroying a business competitor? And what about the Newspaper Publishers’ Association? Do you imagine for a moment that you’ll get to be chair? You’re finished, Schyman. I might go down with you, but you’re going to fall a hell of a lot harder.’
He stared at her. She felt her eyes burning and returned his gaze.
There was something dark and unfathomable in there, shadows of desire and ambition and social conscience that had been shaped and misshaped by time and experience. When thoughts and problems were poured into the editor-in-chief’s head, they didn’t run smoothly in straight lines. They jolted and twisted along the tracks carved by previous experiences, but their path was still logical.
Anders Schyman was a pragmatist. He would do whatever was required for him and his pet project to escape as unscathed as possible.
She suddenly had to smile.
‘So what would happen if we ran the piece?’ he said quietly, doubt rising behind his larynx.
She felt her eyes calm down.
‘The Evening Post reinforces its position as the last outpost of freedom of expression,’ she said, ‘stifling any doubts about what we stand for these days. We alone stand for truth and democracy. Without us the barbarians would run amok.’
‘Thin,’ he said.
‘Depends entirely on how we present it,’ Annika replied. ‘People will believe us if we believe it.’
He sat up, reached for a bottle of mineral water, drank some, and looked at her under his brow.
‘You’re bluffing,’ he said, once he had put the bottle down. ‘You’d never do this to the paper.’
Annika thought for a moment.
‘Not before,’ she said, ‘but I won’t hesitate now.’
‘You’ve gone mad,’ Schyman said.
She sat down on the desk, rested her elbows on her knees, put her hands together and leaned forward.
‘Do you know,’ she said quietly, ‘you might well be right; but only you and I know that. If you try to stop me publishing this because you think I’m mentally ill, you’ll make things even worse.’
He shook his head. ‘If I were to even contemplate publishing this, I’d be finished, utterly finished,’ he said, so quietly she could hardly hear him.
‘But don’t you see how wrong