Bad Blood: A Crime Novel by Arne Dahl Read Free Book Online Page B

set out on his own assignment. Just as small as the likelihood that the Kentucky Killer had remained in the United States was the likelihood that the literary critic Lars-Erik Hassel’s past had anything to do with the case. Nevertheless Hjelm set off for the large newspaper office that had been Hassel’s workplace.
    He allowed himself to walk there—a little habit that the relative idleness of the past year had permitted him to develop. He walked down to Norr Mälarstrand by way of Kungsholmstorg. The rainy weather from Arlanda, he couldn’t help thinking, was biding its time, waiting in the wings, getting ready to sweep the city in autumn. But for now the sun was still shining, if more weakly with every day that went by. On the other side of Riddarfjärden, an enormous cat stretched out and purred contentedly in the white rays of late-summer sunshine: the head—Mariaberget—lappedLake Mälaren’s waters with the tongue that was Söderleden, while its body—Skinnarviksberget—twisted greedily and stretched down toward its elegant back legs, Långholmen, where the tail, formed by Västerbro, pointed the way to Marieberg and the newspaper complex.
    The only thing Hjelm knew about Hassel was that he had been a literary critic. He had seen the man’s name in the arts and leisure section of the big daily paper once or twice; other than that he was blank.
    He wandered along Norr Mälarstrand and crossed Rålambshovsparken, where the
brännboll
players went stubbornly bare-chested, despite the goose bumps that were visible from a distance of twenty yards. How did the old
Farmer’s Almanac
line go? Sweat the summer in; freeze in the winter?
    At the newspaper building, the receptionist advised him with a well-practiced apologetic expression that the elevators were temporarily out of order, and Hjelm found himself sweating the winter in as he trudged up the stairs. In the arts and leisure offices, the atmosphere was downhearted but bustling. Hjelm asked to speak with someone in charge and was supplied with a bundle of more or less aged issues of the arts and leisure section while he waited for the arts editor, who was rushing back and forth. He read the pages more carefully than he had in a long time and found a few articles by Hassel. He devoted just over half an hour to improving himself before the editor let him into his office, where the piles of books seemed to grow as he watched.
    The editor stroked his grizzled beard, extended a hand, and said briskly, “Möller. Sorry you had to wait. I’m sure you can imagine what things are like here right now.”
    “Hjelm,” said Hjelm, removing a pile of papers from a chair and sitting down.
    “Hjelm,” said Möller, sinking down behind his cluttered desk. “Aha.”
    He didn’t say more, but Hjelm realized that the old epithets “Hallunda Hero” and “Power Murders” were not so easily gnawed away by the tooth of time. Like all old heroes, he was confronted day and night by his insufficient heroism.
    “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said curtly.
    Möller shook his head. “It’s a bit difficult to understand,” he said. “What actually happened? The information we’ve received so far is scanty, to say the least. What should we write in the obituary? We can’t exactly pull out the old ‘after a lengthy illness.’ That much I’ve understood.”
    “He was murdered,” Hjelm said mercilessly. “At the airport.”
    Möller shook his head again. “At the airport.… Talk about bad luck. I thought New York was safe now. The New York model. ‘Zero tolerance,’ ‘community policing,’ and all that. For fuck’s sake, that’s why he was there!”
    “What do you mean?”
    “He was going to get a cultural perspective on the new, peaceful spirit of New York. I guess you could call it the irony of fate.”
    “Did he have time to write anything?”
    “No. He was gathering impressions. He’d been there for a week and was going to devote the week after he