The Darkest Room by Johan Theorin Read Free Book Online Page B

someone.”
    “Whatever,” said the boy, giving her a bored look. “Are you going to call the cops?”
    Tilda shook her head. “No, I’m not, because—”
    “There aren’t any cops here anymore.” The boy twisted the accelerator on the handle of the scooter. “They shut the cop shop two years ago. There are no cops anywhere in the north of Öland.”
    Tilda was tired of trying to shout over the puttering engine. She leaned quickly forward and pulled the cable out of the ignition. The scooter immediately fell silent.
    “There are now,” she said, quietly and calmly. “I’m a cop and I’m here.”
    “You?”
    “I start today.”
    The boy stared at her. Tilda took her wallet out of her jacket pocket, opened it up, and showed him her ID. He looked at it for a long time, then he looked back at her with a respectful expression.
    People always looked differently at someone when they knew they were a police officer. When Tilda was in uniform, she even looked at herself differently.
    “Name?”
    “Stefan.”
    “Stefan what?”
    “Stefan Ekström.”
    Tilda got out her notebook and wrote down his name.
    “This is just a warning, but next time it’ll be a fine,” she said. “Your scooter has been modified. Have you bored out the cylinder?”
    Stefan nodded.
    “Then you’d better get off and walk home with it,” said Tilda. “Then you can sort out the engine so that it’s legal.”
    Stefan climbed off.
    They walked in silence side by side toward the square in Marnäs.
    “Tell your pals the cops are back in Marnäs,” said Tilda. “The next modified scooter I see will be impounded, and there’ll be a fine.”
    Stefan nodded again. Now he’d been caught he seemed to regard it as something of a coup.
    “You got a gun?” he asked as they arrived in town.
    “Yes,” said Tilda. “Under lock and key.”
    “What kind?”
    “A Sig Sauer.”
    “Have you shot anybody with it?”
    “No,” said Tilda. “And I’m not intending to use it here.”
    “Okay.”
    Stefan looked disappointed.
    She had agreed with Martin that she would call him around six, before he went home from work. Before that she had time to take a look at her future workplace.
    The new police station in Marnäs was on a side street a couple of blocks from the square, the police shield above the door still wrapped in white plastic.
    Tilda took the station keys out of her pocket. She had collected them the previous day down at the police station in Borgholm, but when she got to the front door it was already unlocked. She could hear men’s voices inside.
    The station consisted of just one room, with no reception area. Tilda vaguely remembered that there used to be a candy store here when she visited Marnäs as a child. The walls were bare, there were no curtains, and no rugs on the wooden floor.
    Two burly middle-aged men were standing inside, wearing jackets and outdoor shoes. One of them was in the dark blue police uniform, the other in civilian clothes with a green padded jacket. They fell silent and quickly turned toward Tilda, as if she had interrupted them in the middle of an inappropriate joke.
    Tilda had met one of them before, the one in civilian clothes—Inspector Göte Holmblad, who was in charge of the local police. He had short gray hair and a permanent smile playing around the corners of his mouth, and he seemed to recognize her.
    “Hi there,” he said. “Welcome to the new district.”
    “Thank you.” She shook hands with her boss and turned to the other man, who had thinner black hair, bushy eyebrows, and was in his fifties. “Tilda Davidsson.”
    “Hans Majner.” His handshake was firm, dry, and brief. “I guess the two of us will be working together up here.”
    He didn’t sound completely convinced that this would work out well, thought Tilda. She opened her mouth to say something in agreement, but Majner carried straight on:
    “Of course I won’t be around too much to start with. I’ll look in now and again,