Last Will Read Online Free PDF

over his eyes.
    “Wiesel’s in surgery in Sankt Göran’s right now. The woman was Caroline von Behring, chair of the Karolinska Institute’s Nobel Committee. She died on the dance floor, pretty much instantly.”
    All warmth vanished from her hands, cold eating in through her fingers and into her bloodstream, making her joints seize up. With an effort she pulled up the shawl that had fallen behind her and draped it over her shoulders again.
    Her eyes as she was dying, she was looking at me when she died .
    “I have to go now,” she said. “I’m really sorry, but I’ve got an awful lot to do.”
    “You can’t write about this,” Q said, leaning back heavily in his chair. “Your observations about the woman who pushed you match the description of the fleeing killer. You’re one of our key witnesses, so I’m imposing a ban on disclosure, effective as of now.”
    Annika was halfway out of her chair, but sank down again.
    “Am I under arrest?” she asked.
    “Don’t be stupid,” Q said, as he got up, clutching his cell phone in his hand.
    “Disclosure bans only happen during arrest procedures,” Annika said. “If I’m not under arrest, and no one else has been arrested, how can you impose a ban on disclosure?”
    “You’re not as smart as you think,” Q said. “There’s another form of disclosure ban, according to chapter twenty-three, paragraph ten, final clause, of the Judicial Procedure Act. It concerns the accounts of key witnesses and can be imposed by the head of an investigation where a serious crime is suspected.”
    “Freedom of speech is protected by the constitution,” Annika said, “and that carries more weight. And you’re not the head of the investigation—in a case like this that would have to be a public prosecutor.”
    “No, you’re wrong there as well. A head of this investigation hasn’t been appointed yet, so I’m acting head right now.”
    Annika stood up angrily and leaned over the table.
    “You can’t stop me saying what I saw!” she said in a shrill voice. “I’ve got the whole article in my head, I can write a fucking brilliant eyewitness account out of it, three double pages easily, maybe four—I saw the murderer in the act of killing, I saw the victim die …”
    Q spun around toward her, pressed his face right up to hers.
    “For God’s sake!” he yelled. “You’ll get a fine so big you won’t know what hit you if go ahead with this. Sit down!”
    Annika fell silent and sat down with a bit of a thump, hunching her shoulders. Q turned his back on her and dialed a number on his cell phone. She sat in silence beneath the huge portraits as Q made his call and gave angry orders about something.
    “You’re putting me in an impossible position if I can’t write anything,” Annika said.
    “My heart bleeds,” Q said.
    “What are my bosses going to say?” Annika went on. “What would your bosses say if you refused to investigate a crime because I said you couldn’t, because I have to write about you?”
    Q sat down again with a deep sigh.
    “Sorry,” he said, and gave her a slightly guilty look, then paused for a moment before saying: “Ask me something, and I might be able to give you an answer.”
    “Why?” Annika said.
    “Because you can’t write about it anyway,” he said, smiling for the first time.
    She thought for a moment.
    “Why couldn’t anyone hear the shots?” she asked.
    “You could hear them. You said so.”
    “But only as little pouf s.”
    “A pistol with a silencer would fit into the sort of oblong bag you described. And you don’t remember anything else about her appearance? Her hair, or her clothes?”
    Eyes, just eyes and the shoulder straps.
    “She must have had long hair, otherwise I would have remembered, but I don’t think there was anything special about it. Dark, I think. I don’t think it was loose, maybe it was tied up somehow? And her dress—she must have been wearing an evening dress? I didn’t notice