The Blood Spilt Read Online Free PDF

you, she didn’t want anything from the bar. She had her overnight bag over her shoulder and was on her way down to the jetty.
    She’d managed to deal with Petra and Popeye. Assumed a thoughtful expression, gazed out over the dark water, and replied: “It feels terrible, of course.”
    What else? The truth? “I have no idea. I can’t remember.”
    Maybe she should have told them about those totally pathetic conversations with the therapist. Rebecka sitting and smiling at every meeting and in the end nearly bursting out laughing. What can she do? She just doesn’t remember. The therapist very definitely not smiling back, this is no laughing matter. And finally they decide to take a break. Rebecka is welcome to come back at some point in the future.
    When she can’t work anymore she doesn’t get in touch with him. Can’t bring herself to do it. Pictures the scene, sitting and weeping because she can’t cope with life, and his face, just enough sympathy to cover the what-did-I-tell-you expression.
    No, Rebecka had answered Petra like a normal person, it felt terrible but that life must go on, however banal that might sound. Then she’d made her excuses and left them. It had been fine, but five minutes later the rage hit her, and now… Now she was so angry she could have ripped a tree up by the roots. Or maybe she should lean against the wall of the hotel and push it over like a cardboard box. Just as well for blondie and her little friend they weren’t still down on the quay, because she’d have kicked them into the water.
    Suddenly Måns was right behind her. Beside her.
    “What’s going on? Has something happened?”
    Rebecka didn’t slow down.
    “I’m leaving. One of the boys in the kitchen said I could borrow the skiff. I’ll row across.”
    Måns uttered a snort of disbelief.
    “Are you crazy? You can’t row across in the dark. And what are you going to do when you get to the other side? Come on, stop. What’s the matter with you?”
    She stopped just before the jetty. Spun around and growled.
    “What the fuck do you think’s the matter?” she asked. “People asking me what it feels like to kill a person. How the hell should I know? I didn’t sit there writing a poem while it was going on, analyzing how I felt. I… it just happened!”
    “Why are you angry with me? I didn’t ask you, did I?”
    Suddenly Rebecka was speaking very slowly.
    “No, Måns, you don’t ask me anything. Nobody could accuse you of that.”
    “What the hell,” he replied, but Rebecka had already turned on her heel and stomped off onto the jetty.
    He dashed after her. She’d thrown her bag into the skiff and was untying the mooring rope. Måns searched around for something to say.
    “I was talking to Torsten,” he said. “He told me he was thinking of asking you to go up to Kiruna with him. But I told him he shouldn’t ask.”
    “Why?”
    “Why? I thought it was the last thing you needed.”
    Rebecka didn’t look at him as she answered.
    “Perhaps you’d allow me to decide what I need and don’t need.”
    She was beginning to become vaguely aware of the fact that people nearby were tuning in to her and Måns. They were pretending to be busy dancing and chatting, but hadn’t the general murmur of conversation dropped a little? Maybe now they’d all have something to talk about next week at work.
    Måns seemed to have noticed as well, and lowered his voice.
    “I was only thinking of you, I do apologize.”
    Rebecka jumped down into the boat.
    “Oh, you were thinking of me, were you? Is that why you’ve had me sitting in on all those criminal trials like some kind of tart?”
    “Right, that’s enough,” snapped Måns. “You said yourself that you didn’t mind. I thought it was a good way of keeping in touch with the job. Get out of that boat!”
    “As if I had a choice! You could see that if you bothered to think about it!”
    “Stop doing the bloody criminal cases, then. Get out of the boat and go