Read Online Another Time, Another Life by Leif G. W. Persson - Free Book Online Page A

fingerprints—that flagship of police work—because moldings, handles, and cupboard doors were smeared with black traces of carbon dust. For some reason they had also tidied up—the overturned coffee table, for example, was now standing in its usual position, and it was only to be hoped that Wiijnbladh had managed to take photos before they’d rearranged the furniture. Bäckström sat and smoked as he wallowed in the largest armchair in the room, talking on the victim’s phone whiletrying to make a show of not noticing either Jarnebring or his colleague. Wiijnbladh too was his usual self. Little, gray, and fussy as a sparrow that had just stopped pecking for a moment.
    “Step right in, just step right in,” said Wiijnbladh, waving a hand, his head at an angle. “Make yourselves at home. I realize that you want to take a look.”
    Fucking idiots, thought Jarnebring. How the hell can anyone like them become policemen?
    Jarnebring and his new, temporary colleague made the rounds of the apartment, and considering that Eriksson was supposed to have been a bachelor it was a remarkable place. Not the least like Jarnebring’s own two-room apartment over in Vasastan. If you disregarded the disarray created by the crime and the traces of Wiijnbladh’s and the others’ work, the place was quite tidy, neat, almost overfurnished, and in a taste that Jarnebring neither shared nor would have had the means for.
    “Strange fucking place,” Jarnebring said to his new colleague.
    “What do you mean?” she asked.
    “To live in,” said Jarnebring. “Hell, I don’t live like this.”
    “Imagine that,” she said. “Believe it or not, I didn’t expect you to.”
    Wiijnbladh displayed his finds, lined up like trophies on the coffee table. Although he looked like a sparrow he was still proud as a rooster for he had “secured both the murder weapon and a great number of other interesting clues.”
    “Yes, we found the murder weapon in the kitchen. The perpetrator had thrown it in the trash.” Wiijnbladh pointed at a large carving knife with a black wooden handle, its shiny blade black with dried blood.
    Congrats, thought Jarnebring sourly. This is almost too much to expect from someone as blind as you.
    “Is this the victim’s knife?” asked Jarnebring’s colleague.
    “It appears to be so, yes, it appears so,” said Wiijnbladh, nodding insightfully. “The blade is almost a foot long, after all, so it’s hardly something you would carry around.”
    “Sabatier,” said Jarnebring’s colleague. “French brand, kitchen knives, very expensive. I saw that the other knives in the holder out in the kitchen were also from Sabatier.”
    “Exactly, exactly,” said Wiijnbladh, trying to look as though he were appearing on “Nobel Minds.”
    What the hell are they up to? thought Jarnebring, looking at his watch. It was past twelve and high time to hit the sack before a new day with fresh mayhem and misery, and here they are yakking about the victim’s choice of kitchen utensils. Even a child could figure out where the knife had come from.
    “I’m hearing that you were in the home ec program out at the police academy,” said Bäckström to Jarnebring’s colleague. “It didn’t exist in my day, but maybe we can stop talking domestic science and try to get something done.
    “I’ve talked with your boss, Jarnebring,” Bäckström continued, “and he has promised that both you and your girlfriend will help out. So if we could meet at homicide tomorrow morning at nine, I’ll thank you ladies and gentlemen for a pleasant evening.”
    Watch out, you little shit, thought Jarnebring, but he didn’t say it.
    There really were no major faults with his new, temporary colleague, even if she was a woman, thought Jarnebring as they drove away. First she had offered to put their car back in the garage at the police headquarters on Kungsholmen—she lived nearby so that was no big deal—and on the way there she had driven him