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Annika shook her head. The air was stale.
    ‘No, it won’t. It might not be included at all. The publisher decides what material will be printed.’
    Having been dishonest and evasive, she looked down at the table top.
    The woman straightened her pale skirt and smoothed her slicked-back hair.
    ‘What subject matter do you usually cover?’ she asked, in slightly lacklustre soprano tones, trying to catch Annika’s eye.
    Annika cleared her throat.
    ‘Currently I’ve been compiling and reviewing text material,’ she replied truthfully.
    ‘What kinds of texts?’
    Annika rubbed her forehead.
    ‘All different kinds. Last night it was material about the hurricane, earlier in the week I reviewed the case of a handicapped boy that the local authorities refused to deal with responsibly . . .’
    ‘Oh,’ Rebecka Björkstig exclaimed while crossing her legs. ‘Then our work will fit right in with your beat. Our main contractors are the local authorities. Could I have a cup of coffee?’
    A waiter in a stained apron had materialized next to them. Annika nodded curtly when he asked if she wanted coffee too; she was feeling queasy, wanting to go home, to get away. Rebecka leaned back against the curved backrest of the chair. Her eyes were pale and round, calm and expressionless.
    ‘We run a non-profit foundation, but we do have to charge money for our services. Generally, the Social Services agencies in different communities all over the country cover our expenditure. We don’t make a bean.’
    Her voice remained gentle, but the words had a harsh impact.
    She’s a gold-digger , Annika thought as she looked up at the woman. She does this to make money off women and children who are in dire circumstances.
    The woman smiled.
    ‘I know what you’re thinking. I can assure you that you’re wrong.’
    Annika looked down and fingered a toothpick.
    ‘Why did you call our paper, and why this particular evening?’
    Rebecka sighed faintly and wiped her fingertips on a tissue she had in her purse.
    ‘To be honest, I had only planned to call and make some enquiries,’ she said. ‘I read the paper, about the damage caused by the hurricane, and saw the newsroom number. We’ve been talking about going public with our services for some time now, and I acted on an impulse, so to speak.’
    Annika swallowed.
    ‘I’ve never heard of you,’ she said.
    The woman smiled again, a smile as fleeting as a draught in a room.
    ‘Previously we lacked the resources to accommodate the numbers we anticipate receiving when we go public, but now we can have them. Today we have the means and the skills to expand, and we feel a certain urgency to do so. So many people need our help.”
    Annika fished her notepad and her pen out of her bag.
    ‘Tell me what it’s all about.’
    The woman looked around the room once more and wiped the corner of her mouth.
    ‘We pick up where the authorities fail,’ she said, a bit breathlessly. ‘Our sole purpose is to help the people truly at risk to start over. For the past three years we have focused on making our system work. Now we’re certain that it does.’
    Annika waited silently.
    ‘Why is that?’
    The waiter arrived with their coffee. It was grey and bitter. Rebecka inserted a paper napkin in between the cup and the saucer and stirred the beverage with a spoon.
    ‘Our society is so thoroughly computerized that no one can hide,’ she said in hushed tones after the waiter had sailed off again. ‘No matter where these individuals turn, they have to deal with the fact that there are people who know their new addresses, their new telephone numbers, their new bank-account numbers, and know that they’ve leased a new place. Even if all this information is supposed to be kept confidential, it may turn up in hospital records, at Social Service agencies, in city court records, on tax rolls, in stockholder directories, anywhere.’
    ‘Can’t this be arranged in some way?’ Annika wondered cautiously.