Death Angels by Åke Edwardson Read Free Book Online Page B

below the hillside, which had become grayer in the light of dusk. “A fresh start for a young man with a bright future ahead of him. A chance for an education in this brave new world of ours.” He gulped his gin and tonic.
    “Why Sweden in particular?” Macdonald asked.
    “Why not?”
    “Did he have any special reason?” Macdonald heard footsteps behind him and turned around. Karen had walked in with the afternoon tea. He could smell warm scones. “Was there some reason for picking Sweden?” he repeated.
    “No, except that he had a pen pal in Gothenburg a long time ago,” Karen said, sitting down next to Winston. She laid out cups and little side plates.
    “That’s why he went,” Winston said.
    “How did he find out about the program?”
    “Through his school here,” Karen said.
    “Geoff always wanted to be an engineer, and the curriculum appealed to him. The school had an English name. Chandlers or something like that.”
    “Chalmers,” Karen corrected him.
    “Chalmers.”
    Karen turned to Macdonald. “He received a letter too.”
    “From Chalmers?”
    “No. Somebody wrote to him from Gothenburg, and that seemed to convince him that he should apply.”
    Macdonald could tell how hard it was for her to string so many words together all at once. “A personal letter?” he asked.
    “What other kind is there?”
    “Was it from his old pen pal?”
    “We never found out,” Karen said.
    “He kept it to himself,” Winston said, “which was perfectly understandable, but he didn’t want to say who it was from either.”
    “Just that he had gotten a letter,” added Karen.
    “From Sweden?” Macdonald asked.
    “Gothenburg,” Winston answered.
    Macdonald heard another train in the distance. The strident sound gradually filled up the house. “And he didn’t mention anything about the letter after he got there and moved into the dorm?”
    “Not a word,” Winston said.
    “Did he say who else he met there?”
    “No.”
    “Not anybody?”
    “He was killed just a few days later, for God’s sake,” Winston shouted. His gaze turned malevolent. Suddenly he slumped to the floor and lay there facedown. “Get out,” he said, his voice muffled by the carpet.
    Karen looked at Macdonald as if apologizing for their grief.
    They’ve got no reason to apologize, Macdonald thought. I’m the intruder here.
    He said good-bye and went out into the late-afternoon sunlight. Tattered clouds hovered in the western sky. Another hour and it would be completely dark. He turned on the ignition, made a U-turn and drove up to Station Rise, parking at the little depot where the trains took aim at the Hilliers and their anguish. The spot was barely legal, but he went into the Railway Pub anyway, ordered a Young’s Winter Warmer and waited for the foam to evaporate, but not a second longer.

7
    THE MORE THE CORE GROUP SHRANK, THE HIGHER THE STACKS of paper seemed to grow. Cartons and file folders filled up with bizarre evidence—hair, skin, a piece of a fingernail, impressions, marks, bits of clothing, photos that showed the same scene over and over from different angles, a watchcase echoing the cries for help that Winter had heard the last time he was in the room.
    Winter had talked to Pia Fröberg, and she didn’t think that all the blows had come at once. She was a top-notch coroner, meticulous. Now, with the remainder of his team gathered in the conference room, he took out a scrap of paper with his notes on it. Geoff Hillier had died of suffocation. The details of his long agony were familiar to everyone in the room.
    “How long did it go on?” Fredrik Halders asked. The detective inspector had just turned forty-four. He had stopped combing his hair over his bald spot the year before and left the rest in a crew cut, which had relieved him of the need to smile awkwardly every time someone spoke to him.
    “It was a long performance,” Winter said.
    “No intermissions?”
    “Quite a few,” Ringmar said.
    “The