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

happen so often.
Because first impressions last
—he hated that an advertisement was echoing through him.
    “Something happened at work,” she declared.
    “We’ll talk about it later,” he said happily.
    “What happened to your lip?”
    “You’ll have to watch it on TV.”
    They chatted a bit until Norsborg. He turned the job talk in her direction. She was a nurse on a rehab floor at Huddinge and was always ready with a heap of tragicomic stories. This time it was a brain-damaged patient who had urinated in the purse of one of her colleagues; the woman didn’t notice until she went to take out her SL card at the commuter train turnstile.
    As they walked with their arms around each other through the outskirts of a neighborhood that everyone considered to bea high-rise ghetto and that had once, what seemed like a very long time ago, been his workplace, and as the sun generously shared the nuances that had been well hidden during the day, and as a bit of summer warmth lingered in the air, and as the wasps buzzed in that dull, dying way, Paul Hjelm decided that this was what love looked like once you stepped into middle age. It could be worse.
    They arrived home. Danne looked as if he’d been spilled onto the sofa; he was watching MTV. A social studies book with crumpled pages was open on the table. He was downing greenish soda. “It’s past seven,” the boy accused.
    “I told you there was food in the fridge,” said Cilla, who began to unpack a shower curtain with gold Egyptian hieroglyphs on a dark green background.
    “We
ate
,” said Danne without taking his eyes from the MTV screen. “What kind of fucking sludge was that?”
    “Mexican fucking sludge,” Cilla said calmly, holding up the new shower curtain she’d bought. Apparently she was awaiting a statement from her husband.
    “What does it say?” he said.
    She made a face and carried it to the bathroom.
    He opened a beer and called, “Maybe it’s Egyptian porn!”
    Danne glared at him from the sofa.
    After a few minutes she returned with the old shower curtain and showed him the horrible accumulation of mold: two small black spots down in the corner.
    “What does this say about our household?” Cilla asked rhetorically, fingering the spots with disgust.
    “That we take showers,” said Paul Hjelm.
    She sighed and crumpled the old curtain into an overflowing garbage can. Then she took out the remains of the Mexican fucking sludge, put the plastic container in the microwave, sat down in front of the TV, and changed the channel.
    Without a word, Danne took the remote and changed it back.
    As Hjelm poured beer down his throat, he thought about how he had seen this scene before. Three thousand, four hundred, and eighty-six times. “What time is it?” he asked.
    “Nineteen-oh-six and thirteen seconds,” said Cilla. She had just countered her son by pushing the text-TV button. Now a dark curtain of letters fell down across the MTV-filled screen.
    “In just under four minutes, the clock will chime,” boomed the voice of the master. “I want to watch the local news.”
    The battle on the sofa continued in silence. Thus far it had been a game. He hoped it would remain so.
    The microwave dinged. Tova came down the stairs and groaned when she saw the spectacle on the sofa.
    “Hi,” Hjelm said to his fourteen-year-old daughter.
    “Hi,” she said. “You’re so late.”
    “Cut it out.” He poured the Mexican fucking sludge onto two plates, dug out two spoons, poured two beers, and managed to balance it all as he brought it over to the living room sofa.
    “Isn’t that a schoolbook?” he said to his son, who was attacking the pocket where Cilla had shoved the remote.
    “Cut it out,” Danne echoed, as he pulled out the remote and got MTV back. It was on a commercial break, so he gave in. The paternal hand snatched the remote, changed it to channel two, and turned up the volume. There was about a minute left before the local news.
    Hjelm had