Read Online The Blinded Man by Arne Dahl - Free Book Online

hitting the tabletop. One by one they landed on the floor. The rest of the water ended up, as intended, in the coffee-maker, which Chavez switched on as he stuffed a filter in the basket and dumped in several spoonfuls of the King’s Coffee.
    ‘It just slipped out,’ Chavez said to Hjelm, with his back turned. ‘That happens. It’s an old defence mechanism.’
    ‘Do you have reservations about working with me?’
    ‘I don’t even know you,’ said Chavez to the wall.
    ‘Give me a break,’ said Hjelm.
    Chavez turned around, went back to his chair and sat down, fixing his eyes on the desk. ‘It’s true that I know nothing about you. I have no idea what really happened during that … hostage drama. All I know is how people reacted.’
    ‘In Sundsvall?’
    ‘Let’s just say this: I’m glad I’m here and not there.’
    ‘With me?’
    ‘In a closed room.’
    ‘The media story isn’t correct.’
    ‘It doesn’t matter.’
    ‘It does to me. And it does in terms of our working relationship.’
    Both fell silent. Neither man looked at the other. It started to get dark in the room. Hjelm got up to switch on the ceiling light. An unpleasant fluorescent glow gradually filled the office. Hjelm was still standing, garishly illuminated. ‘Tomorrow I’ll ask Hultin to find you a different officemate,’ he said, and went out into the hall.
    The men’s toilet was right next door, and he stood there for a good long time after taking a piss. He shut his eyes and leaned forward against the wall. ‘
There are no simple acts
.’ Damn Grundström. And Hultin, who’d obviously teamed him up with Chavez as a test. He picked a speck of dirt from the corner of his eye and flicked it into the toilet bowl. He flushed it away, and as he slowly and methodically washed his hands, he avoided looking in the mirror.
    ‘Now I get it,’ said Chavez when Hjelm returned. ‘You’re the one who wants to change officemates. Get away from the Sundsvall black-head with the big mouth.’
    ‘Better a Sundsvall black-head with a big mouth than a world-famous black-head exterminator,’ said Hjelm as he poured two cups of coffee.
    ‘Just one question,’ said Chavez, taking the cup Hjelm handed him. ‘Would you have gone in if the guy was Swedish?’
    ‘He
is
Swedish,’ said Hjelm. For a moment neither of them spoke. ‘So should we get to work?’
    Chavez slapped the file folder against the desktop a few times. ‘Let’s roll,’ he said, and then raised his index finger. ‘And hey –’
    ‘Let’s be careful out there,’ they both said foolishly, in unison.
    ‘Our age is showing,’ said Chavez, looking shamelessly young.
    It was close to seven by the time Hjelm finished compiling his list. Kuno Daggfeldt and Bernhard Strand-Julén had both been members of the RSSS. Before finding out what the acronym stood for, Hjelm toyed with the idea that they had played in a punk band from the southern suburbs. But RSSS stood for the Royal Swedish Sailing Society, which had its headquarters in Saltsjöbaden. Apparently lots of Swedish sailing enthusiasts were members, which meant this particular link wasn’t of great interest. On the other hand, their sailing boats happened to be docked in the same place, provided they had already been launched for the season: in the Viggbyholm marina in Täby, north of Stockholm. The two men were also members of the Viggbyholm Boat Club. Hjelm wondered why Strand-Julén would dock his boat so far away when he had the Djurgården small-vessel marina practically at his doorstep. At any rate, a visit to Viggbyholm was on the agenda for the following day.
    The two men were also both members of the Stockholm Golf Association, which was headquartered at the Kevinge Golf Course in Danderyd. And that was where they both played whenever they were in town. Hjelm would have to go out there as well.
    Finally, the men were both members of the same fraternal lodge, the Order of Mimir. Since Hjelm didn’t know one