Read Online The Other Son by Alexander Söderberg - Free Book Online Page A

Mainly because they enjoyed it, but also because Lothar didn’t have any brothers or sisters, or a father. Franka’s face was always radiant, and she seemed happy and grateful about something that he, at seventeen, never quite understood. They didn’t live anywhere particularly nice, one of Berlin’s southern suburbs. She worked as an accountant, and saw to it that he always had everything he needed, even if it meant her going short. They didn’t have much money. But she was always smiling, as if she took pleasure in the simple fact of living. She was naturally beautiful, with her long blond hair. Men occasionally courted her, but she wasn’t interested. Perhaps she thought she had everything she could wish for, and a new man didn’t seem to be part of that.
    She made a joke. She was always making jokes. Lothar was about to turn toward her when he suddenly saw a man standing in the kitchen. A short man in dark clothes, with a shaved head. He was pale, and his eyes were small and close together.
    “Lothar?” the man asked.
    Lothar looked uncomprehendingly at his mother, then back to the man, nodding automatically when he heard his name.
    The man raised a pistol fitted with a silencer and fired a shot. The weapon made a puffing sound, and Franka Tiedemann was left with a hole in her forehead.
    The paralyzing effect of shock left Lothar immobile. The man took a few steps forward and pressed the silencer to Lothar’s forehead. With the other hand he drove a hypodermic needle into Lothar’s arm and injected him with the contents. His legs gave way instantly and Lothar collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
    The man sat down on a chair next to Franka’s body and waited patiently. His name was Koen de Graaf, and he was twenty-nine years old. His lack of height and the somewhat compressed nature of his face was due to his mother’s persistent consumption of alcohol and heroin during pregnancy. His pale looks were genetic.
    Koen looked at Lothar as he lay on the floor. To begin with, he had doubted that the boy really existed. It had started as a rumor. Ralph Hanke had searched half the known universe in his hunt for any sign that could tell him if Hector Guzman was alive or not. Koen was his right-hand man in that enterprise. And two months ago one of their sources told them he had heard about the possible existence of an illegitimate child that Hector was said to have fathered. It sounded too good to be true.
    Hector Guzman’s son…
    Two men came into the apartment, each carrying a large wooden box. They cleaned up the kitchen, lifted Franka’s body into one of the boxes, and put Lothar in the other one.
    Koen checked the apartment one last time, then they carried the boxes down the stairs and loaded them into a waiting van.
    They drove several hours on the Autobahn, then turned off at an isolated rest area. The two men pulled out the box containing Franka Tiedemann’s dead body, took a couple of shovels, and headed off into the dark forest. Koen went to the rest area’s public toilet.
    He sat down with his feet on the toilet lid. The room stank of urine and excrement, the lamp in the ceiling was feeble. He worked quickly. The rubber tube round his upper arm, the syringe already prepared. He found a vein, pulled the plunger back slightly, and drew out a little of his own blood. Whoosh—blood and heroin in a beautiful, pale-red mixture. Then into his system with the whole thing. He counted backward from twenty before untying the tubing and letting the syringe fall to the floor. The heroin had kicked in properly by the time he got to four. Koen made his way out and back to the van, managed to get in the cab, and leaned back.
    The other two men returned and they drove off.
    The headlights of the oncoming traffic formed a soundless symphony. Koen drifted south along the Autobahn, with beautiful music playing in his veins.

The sun was blazing from its zenith. He was lying immobile on his back, vultures circling high