Savage Spring by Mons Kallentoft Read Free Book Online

Islamic connection? Apparently. What are most Kurds? Shiite Muslims, aren’t they? Or are they Sunni Muslims?
    The paramedics and firemen remove the remaining injured people as Börje Svärd leads the greyhound off towards Hospitalstorget.
    Soon every approach to the square is cordoned off with blue and white tape.
    ‘What the hell is this all about?’ Sven says once more.
    The three detectives can feel inertia spreading through their bodies like a paralysing poison, but none of them is capable of breaking free of it, as if all three of them had expected any manner of things from this day apart from this. As if the forces that had been let loose in the city felt alien to them in an almost supernatural way, as if the responsibility that the day had placed on their shoulders was unbearable even before they had realised it was there.
    Then they look at each other. As if all three of them are wondering: Where the hell do we start?
    ‘How was the funeral?’ Sven asks eventually.
    ‘Yes, how did it go, Malin?’ Zeke asks.
    Malin stares at the pair of them, looking from one colleague to the other, refusing to answer such a ridiculous question: how the hell can they imagine she has time to think of the funeral now?
    ‘We’ll have to call everyone in straight away,’ Sven says. ‘Anyone who’s not on duty: Johan, Waldemar, absolutely everyone. We’ll start over there. OK?’
    Sven gestures towards the square, and the gaping windows of the hotel.
    He looks tired, Malin thinks, properly old, for the first time.
    ‘We’ll stay here for a while, get as many statements as we can,’ Sven goes on. ‘Then I’ll put Aronsson onto making sure that everyone who was actually in, or in the vicinity of the square, gets questioned. As I said, there was no attempted robbery before the blast. The bank’s employees are gathered in a conference room. They were fairly calm when I was there a short while ago, no one seemed to be injured, so the force of the explosion must have been focused outwards. I had a quick word with the manager. He hadn’t noticed anything unusual, just said there was a massive explosion, out of nowhere.’
    Malin can hear a ringing sound in her ears.
    A thin, high note, and she wonders what it could be.
    ‘Can you hear that?’ Malin asks. ‘Could that be another bomb?’
    The words fly from her mouth and the others stare at her anxiously.
    They listen.
    ‘I can’t hear anything,’ Zeke says.
    Sven shakes his head.
    Then the noise vanishes again, seemingly sucked up into the empty rooms of the Central Hotel.
    The pigeons are back.
    They’re tugging at the yellow plastic sheets covering the parts of the girls’ bodies, and the sun has found its way between two buildings and is making the shards of glass sparkle, and Malin thinks: What is it that’s been let loose here, blossoming so darkly?
    Some evil, full of potent force, deeply rooted in life?
    Then there is another sound.
    A high note, like a monotonous whistle, from a black bag that the explosion seems to have thrown against the veranda of the hotel, where several onlookers are still staring out at the square.
    Fear in Zeke and Sven’s eyes.
    ‘Fuck,’ Zeke yells. ‘Fuck!’
    Then he rushes off towards the bag, and Malin can see Janne heading towards it from the other side of the square.

6
    Zeke picks up the black bag.
    Malin shouts: ‘NO! NO!’
    His first thought was to throw himself on top of it, let his own body absorb the force of the coming explosion.
    It’s against all the rules, but who cares about rules when something’s about to explode?
    A bag that’s been left behind should be shot at and destroyed in circumstances like these.
    But Zeke picks it up anyway.
    Has to throw it as far away from anyone as he can.
    But the noise stops abruptly.
    And he lowers the bag again and passes it to Janne, who opens the zip.
    Rifles through it.
    And Zeke can see the sweat on his brow, as he becomes aware of Malin approaching