The Blinded Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

three of them hostage. The fourth managed to escape. The man forced the hostages up to the third floor and made them lie on the floor. After about twenty minutes, police officer Paul Hjelm from the Huddinge police department appeared …’
    The ten-year-old photograph now filled the TV screen.
    ‘Where did that come from?’ said Hjelm.
    ‘What a cutie,’ said Ernstsson, over the phone.
    ‘They came to the hospital,’ said Cilla, glancing at him. ‘Apparently your picture wasn’t in any media archives. That’s the photo that I have in my wallet.’
    ‘Have?’
    ‘Had.’
    ‘… and entered the building. He made his way, unobserved, up the stairs and managed to get inside the barricaded room …’
    ‘Barricaded,’ said Ernstsson on the phone.
    ‘… and he shot the perpetrator in the right shoulder. According to the three staff members, Hjelm acted in an exemplary fashion. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to reach Paul Hjelm for his reaction. Nor would his boss at the Huddinge criminal investigation division, Superintendent Sven Bruun, offer any comment.’
    ‘Good old Svempa,’ said Ernstsson on the phone.
    The reporter continued, ‘Bruun did tell us that the investigation is ongoing and confidential. But you, Arvid Svensson, you were one of the hostages. Tell us what happened.’
    A middle-aged man appeared next to the reporter. Hjelm recognised the staff member who had pressed the gun to the head of the unconscious Frakulla. He slurped the last of his beer through his teeth.
    ‘I’ll call you back,’ he told Ernstsson, then went into the bathroom.
    He studied himself in the mirror. A neutral face. No distinguishing marks. A straight nose, narrow lips, dark blond hair cut short, wearing a T-shirt, a wedding ring. No signs of balding. Early middle age. Two children approaching puberty. No distinguishing marks.
    No marks at all.
    When he laughed, his laughter sounded hollow. The one-sided laughter of a fired, lower-level police officer.
    Ulf Mårtensson said, ‘Two nasty bruises on the back of his head still haven’t been accounted for.’
    Paul Hjelm said, ‘Haven’t you talked to the hostages?’
    ‘We’ll take care of our job, and you take care of yours. Possibly. Although probably not. According to the medical examiner, the wounds on the skull were caused by the muzzle of the shotgun. Did you take the weapon away after you shot the man and use it to strike him on the head?’
    ‘So you haven’t talked to the hostages.’
    Mårtensson and Grundström were sitting next to each other in an ordinary, cold, sterile interrogation room. Maybe they’d got wind of Bruun’s manoeuvre yesterday with the tape recorder. Neither of them said a word as they waited for Hjelm to go on.
    And he did. ‘When Frakulla went down, the gun landed on the floor near the staff member named Arvid Svensson. Svensson picked it up and pressed it to the man’s head.’
    ‘And you let him do that?’
    ‘I was fifteen feet away.’
    ‘But you allowed this staff member to press a loaded shotgun with the safety off to the head of an unconscious man?’
    ‘Nobody could know whether he was unconscious or not, so staff member Arvid Svensson did the right thing by taking the gun away from him. Although he shouldn’t have pressed it to his head. That’s why I yelled at him to stop it.’
    ‘But you did nothing to stop him, took no physical action?’
    ‘No. But after a moment he put down the gun.’
    ‘After a moment … How long of a moment?’
    ‘As long as it took me to throw up my whole fucking breakfast.’
    A pause. Finally Mårtensson said slowly and maliciously, ‘So in the middle of your unfinished freelance operation, when you should have been waiting for the experts, you’re put out of commission by your own digestive system. What if Svensson had shot the perpetrator ? What if the perp hadn’t been rendered harmless at all? What might have happened? You left a lot of loose ends hanging, without