Read Online The Other Son by Alexander Söderberg - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Alexander Söderberg
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above in the blinding sky. His throat made a whistling sound as he breathed, his skin was sunburned, painfully tight.
Jens turned his head and saw an infinity of flat, hard-packed sand, stones, and in the distance…mountains etched softly against the hard blue sky. With an effort he managed to raise his head….Everywhere, stony nothingness.
They had left him there, whoever they were, to die in the middle of the desert. They hadn’t even been willing to spare him a bullet. Would he have preferred that? A bullet in the head instead of this? No, he never wanted a bullet in the head. But this was fucking awful.
Jens tried to stand up, but it was as if he were stuck in quicksand. He gave up and rested his head on the hot ground again. His body temperature kept on rising. He shut his eyes and drifted through fevered dreams, hallucinating, coming to once more and realizing the extent of his predicament with a little more clarity….This time he really was beaten.
Fear of death hit him hard and without mercy. Now he
did
just want a bullet to the head. He felt affronted at having to lie there, didn’t want to die in emotionless darkness. Jens wanted light, begged for it. And it came to him in small doses, in the form of images and smells. Mom and Dad, his family and childhood. Fragments, things that had evidently meant something…the smell of English tea, sleeping between clean sheets, freshly cut grass…And in the midst of all that warmth, Sophie Brinkmann’s face appeared….She was close, he wanted to reach out and touch her…feel her. But Jens couldn’t reach her. Maybe he never had. They had met one summer when they were young. A genuine infatuation. It scared him, he didn’t know what to do with it. He left her without a word and just disappeared. The years passed, but Jens never forgot her. They bumped into each other by chance last year….She was in a hopeless position, caught between helping the police and helping Hector Guzman. Jens helped her out. They grew close again. But that closeness scared him. The closer he got to her, the harder it became. And Jens ran away, the way he always did.
The vision of Sophie vanished, taking everything else with her….Only Jens was left.
Alone
…
The paradox was striking. He had worked single-mindedly to look after himself all his life, to be free from having to rely on anyone else….But now he didn’t want to be independent, he didn’t want to be alone, not now.
Night came, and with it biting cold. It cut into him. He would freeze to death if he stayed there.
With an immense effort he managed to stand up on unsteady legs and stumble forward through the dead landscape. The night sky was clear, the Milky Way was lit up above him. He followed it, shivering, arms wrapped around himself, knowing he was going to die.
Antonia could feel herself smiling. Not a happy smile, but an emotionally misleading smile that hid her disappointment.
“I don’t understand. This is a bad idea….”
Tommy rocked back on his desk chair, his arms folded across his chest.
“Well, this is what’s going to happen,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because that’s what we do sometimes, reallocate work, reorganize.” Tommy stopped rocking. “You’ve got four murder investigations, Antonia. That’s too much, even for you. So I’m taking one of them away from you. There’s nothing odd about that.”
“Why Trasten, why not the latest one, Blomberg? Or one of the old ones?”
“Because you can make a difference to the Blomberg case. It might even get to clearance. And we need clearances.”
“The Trasten case is closed.”
Tommy stroked his mustache out of habit.
“Not in this lifetime.”
“Why do you say that, Tommy?”
“Because I do.”
She didn’t have time to respond.
“I have to consider the statistics,” he continued. “And the statistics from Trasten are bad. The investigation isn’t going anywhere. And the more time passes, the harder it gets.”
“I don’t
Jens turned his head and saw an infinity of flat, hard-packed sand, stones, and in the distance…mountains etched softly against the hard blue sky. With an effort he managed to raise his head….Everywhere, stony nothingness.
They had left him there, whoever they were, to die in the middle of the desert. They hadn’t even been willing to spare him a bullet. Would he have preferred that? A bullet in the head instead of this? No, he never wanted a bullet in the head. But this was fucking awful.
Jens tried to stand up, but it was as if he were stuck in quicksand. He gave up and rested his head on the hot ground again. His body temperature kept on rising. He shut his eyes and drifted through fevered dreams, hallucinating, coming to once more and realizing the extent of his predicament with a little more clarity….This time he really was beaten.
Fear of death hit him hard and without mercy. Now he
did
just want a bullet to the head. He felt affronted at having to lie there, didn’t want to die in emotionless darkness. Jens wanted light, begged for it. And it came to him in small doses, in the form of images and smells. Mom and Dad, his family and childhood. Fragments, things that had evidently meant something…the smell of English tea, sleeping between clean sheets, freshly cut grass…And in the midst of all that warmth, Sophie Brinkmann’s face appeared….She was close, he wanted to reach out and touch her…feel her. But Jens couldn’t reach her. Maybe he never had. They had met one summer when they were young. A genuine infatuation. It scared him, he didn’t know what to do with it. He left her without a word and just disappeared. The years passed, but Jens never forgot her. They bumped into each other by chance last year….She was in a hopeless position, caught between helping the police and helping Hector Guzman. Jens helped her out. They grew close again. But that closeness scared him. The closer he got to her, the harder it became. And Jens ran away, the way he always did.
The vision of Sophie vanished, taking everything else with her….Only Jens was left.
Alone
…
The paradox was striking. He had worked single-mindedly to look after himself all his life, to be free from having to rely on anyone else….But now he didn’t want to be independent, he didn’t want to be alone, not now.
Night came, and with it biting cold. It cut into him. He would freeze to death if he stayed there.
With an immense effort he managed to stand up on unsteady legs and stumble forward through the dead landscape. The night sky was clear, the Milky Way was lit up above him. He followed it, shivering, arms wrapped around himself, knowing he was going to die.
Antonia could feel herself smiling. Not a happy smile, but an emotionally misleading smile that hid her disappointment.
“I don’t understand. This is a bad idea….”
Tommy rocked back on his desk chair, his arms folded across his chest.
“Well, this is what’s going to happen,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because that’s what we do sometimes, reallocate work, reorganize.” Tommy stopped rocking. “You’ve got four murder investigations, Antonia. That’s too much, even for you. So I’m taking one of them away from you. There’s nothing odd about that.”
“Why Trasten, why not the latest one, Blomberg? Or one of the old ones?”
“Because you can make a difference to the Blomberg case. It might even get to clearance. And we need clearances.”
“The Trasten case is closed.”
Tommy stroked his mustache out of habit.
“Not in this lifetime.”
“Why do you say that, Tommy?”
“Because I do.”
She didn’t have time to respond.
“I have to consider the statistics,” he continued. “And the statistics from Trasten are bad. The investigation isn’t going anywhere. And the more time passes, the harder it gets.”
“I don’t
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