called it a dollhouse. That was the feeling he got, anyway. The house didn’t even have a mudroom or a real basement. It wouldn’t work, especially not if they were able to adopt kids. Where the hell were they going to put a crib, a changing table, a Ping-Pong table?
After dinner, he went in to the computer. Closed the door behind him. Turned it on. The Windows logo jumped around on the screen like a lost soul.
Clicked on the Explorer icon. Was reminded of his greatest fear—that Åsa would get computer savvy enough one day to know how to find his porn searches in Explorer’s history. He should ask someone at work if it could be erased.
But that wasn’t what he was here to do this time. He rummaged around in his pocket. Pulled out a USB memory stick. Thomas: as far from a computer geek as you could get, but it felt better to carry what he needed in physical form than to e-mail it. At regular intervals, he’d checked nervously that the USB was still there. If he were to drop it, if someone were to find it, check what was on it, and realize it was his—the questions would pile up worse than at a hard-core cross-examination in court.
He inserted the memory stick into the computer. A plopping sound. A window opened on the screen. One file on the memory stick, named Autop.report.
The computer made a spinning sound. Adobe opened up. The autopsy report was less than three pages long. First he scrolled downto the bottom—signed by Bengt Gantz, chief forensic pathologist—as it should be. He started reading from the beginning. It took time. He read it again.
And again.
Something was weird. Nasty weird—in the autopsy report, there was no mention of the track marks in the arm or if they’d tested the body for increased levels of drugs or other junk.
It couldn’t be a coincidence. When Thomas’d seen his report at Hägerström’s, and realized that the last lines about the potential cause of death were missing, he’d wondered, sure. Thought it was strange, but hadn’t thought more about it. But a forensic pathologist didn’t miss stuff like that. The track marks were conspicuous. Either the examiner didn’t want to write about them for some reason or—the thought hit him and stuck right away—someone else’d edited it out. And this same someone must’ve edited out the same thing from his report.
He had to calm down. Feel it out. What he should do. How he should act. Never during his years as a cop had he experienced anything like this.
Åsa was tidying in the kitchen. Didn’t even look up when he opened the door and stepped into the garage. It was routine. Thomas worked on his Cadillac whenever he had time. Anyway, it was an investment. He could put some of the extra cash he made in the field into it without anyone asking. But even more important: the car was like mediation for him. A place, like the shooting range, where he relaxed. Felt at home. It was his little Nirvana.
There was another thing in the garage too: the big locked gray metal cabinet. Åsa and he called it the tool cabinet, but she was the only one who thought there were tools in it. Sure, he kept some tools and gear for the car in there, but 80 percent of the cabinet was filled with more important stuff: weed confiscated from a bunch of Arabs in Fittja, hash plucked from Turkish druggies in Örnsberg, amphetamines surrendered by Sven junkies in the subway, a couple packs of Russian growth hormone found in a parking garage in Älvsjö, cash from countless hits along stops on the red subway line. And so on. His little gold mine. A kind of retirement fund.
The car gleamed. Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz from 1959. A beauty he’d found online six years ago. It was in Los Angeles, but he didn’t hesitate. Every single time he’d confiscated something from the dregs, this car’d been his goal. Without the money he’d made outside of hiscrappy police salary, it would never have been his. But it was. He’d picked it up with his old man, who
After dinner, he went in to the computer. Closed the door behind him. Turned it on. The Windows logo jumped around on the screen like a lost soul.
Clicked on the Explorer icon. Was reminded of his greatest fear—that Åsa would get computer savvy enough one day to know how to find his porn searches in Explorer’s history. He should ask someone at work if it could be erased.
But that wasn’t what he was here to do this time. He rummaged around in his pocket. Pulled out a USB memory stick. Thomas: as far from a computer geek as you could get, but it felt better to carry what he needed in physical form than to e-mail it. At regular intervals, he’d checked nervously that the USB was still there. If he were to drop it, if someone were to find it, check what was on it, and realize it was his—the questions would pile up worse than at a hard-core cross-examination in court.
He inserted the memory stick into the computer. A plopping sound. A window opened on the screen. One file on the memory stick, named Autop.report.
The computer made a spinning sound. Adobe opened up. The autopsy report was less than three pages long. First he scrolled downto the bottom—signed by Bengt Gantz, chief forensic pathologist—as it should be. He started reading from the beginning. It took time. He read it again.
And again.
Something was weird. Nasty weird—in the autopsy report, there was no mention of the track marks in the arm or if they’d tested the body for increased levels of drugs or other junk.
It couldn’t be a coincidence. When Thomas’d seen his report at Hägerström’s, and realized that the last lines about the potential cause of death were missing, he’d wondered, sure. Thought it was strange, but hadn’t thought more about it. But a forensic pathologist didn’t miss stuff like that. The track marks were conspicuous. Either the examiner didn’t want to write about them for some reason or—the thought hit him and stuck right away—someone else’d edited it out. And this same someone must’ve edited out the same thing from his report.
He had to calm down. Feel it out. What he should do. How he should act. Never during his years as a cop had he experienced anything like this.
Åsa was tidying in the kitchen. Didn’t even look up when he opened the door and stepped into the garage. It was routine. Thomas worked on his Cadillac whenever he had time. Anyway, it was an investment. He could put some of the extra cash he made in the field into it without anyone asking. But even more important: the car was like mediation for him. A place, like the shooting range, where he relaxed. Felt at home. It was his little Nirvana.
There was another thing in the garage too: the big locked gray metal cabinet. Åsa and he called it the tool cabinet, but she was the only one who thought there were tools in it. Sure, he kept some tools and gear for the car in there, but 80 percent of the cabinet was filled with more important stuff: weed confiscated from a bunch of Arabs in Fittja, hash plucked from Turkish druggies in Örnsberg, amphetamines surrendered by Sven junkies in the subway, a couple packs of Russian growth hormone found in a parking garage in Älvsjö, cash from countless hits along stops on the red subway line. And so on. His little gold mine. A kind of retirement fund.
The car gleamed. Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz from 1959. A beauty he’d found online six years ago. It was in Los Angeles, but he didn’t hesitate. Every single time he’d confiscated something from the dregs, this car’d been his goal. Without the money he’d made outside of hiscrappy police salary, it would never have been his. But it was. He’d picked it up with his old man, who
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