To the Top of the Mountain Read Online Free PDF

empty, but all the seats were taken. Except next to the guy with the book. The first Hammarby fans sat there. Hen party at the tables over by the window. Next to them, nearest to us, a group of yuppies or IT types. Then the guy that was reading. Two horny-looking oldish couples. A gay guy on the prowl. A group of musician types. And a bit of a mixture nearest us, a group who looked like students.’
    ‘No one else?’ asked Kerstin Holm.
    Hjelm watched her closely.
    ‘Not as far as I remember. But there must’ve been almost thirty Hammarby fans. Half of them disappeared before the doormen did anything, though.’
    ‘But your understanding is that there must be quite a few witnesses among the Hammarby fans?’
    Eskil Carlstedt laughed gently.
    ‘At least ten of them were staring right at it. They’re not likely to say anything, though.’
    Hjelm stood up and leaned forward over the table.
    ‘OK then, just two more things before you can run off to your eagerly awaited meeting. One: come with me to the police artist and help us with a picture of the perpetrator. Two: leave the names and details of your four friends with reception out there in the hall. OK?’
    ‘OK,’ sighed Eskil Carlstedt, looking at the clock.
    They sat quietly, each lost in the other’s gaze. Or simply lost. A few years ago, they had slept together. Once. In Malmö. During the intense hunt for the so-called Power Killer. The A-Unit’s biggest – and, on reflection, only – success. The media had proclaimed them heroes. The group was made permanent, ‘the National Criminal Investigation Department’s Special Unit for Violent Crimes of an International Nature’. Then along came the Kentucky Killer. Their relationship grew into friendship, deep friendship. They had been to the USA together, working with the FBI. They had been called Jalm and Halm, like a wooden comedy duo from a variety show. It went well. They solved an old case. They captured a long-hunted serial killer. Then they made a wrong decision, and the story of the A-Unit came to an end. Bad blood always comes back round.
    Though they would never say so again.
    ‘We could stop right now,’ said Hjelm. ‘It’s lunchtime. We could go out there into that waiting room where they’re getting more and more agitated and say: sorry, come back tomorrow. No one would hold it against us.’
    He looked into her eyes. Searching. Trying to see what was going on. And she let herself be searched. Searching back.
    ‘No,’ she said.
    ‘No,’ he said.
    In fact, each of them could probably see where the other’s thoughts were heading. That this was no longer just a pub brawl.
    Kerstin Holm pressed a button on the intercom, and a tall, gangly man in his fifties entered the room. Wearing a tracksuit, he looked like a jogger who had lost his way.
    ‘Sten Bergmark – correct?’ asked Kerstin Holm, holding out her hand to him. He took it and kissed it lightly, gallantly. He greeted Hjelm in a more masculine fashion. Absurdly so, Hjelm thought when he felt the pain, a second or two later.
    ‘Hard Homo,’ said Sten Bergmark. ‘A real hit with the Hammarby tribe.’
    Their eyes must have shown a glimmer of surprise because he added, while folding his two-metre-tall body between the table and the chair: ‘They don’t know that my name means stone, but they think I’m rock hard. Two birds with one stone, you could say.’
    ‘So you like to make eyes at the Hammarby tribe?’ asked Holm. ‘And they take it?’
    ‘I assume it appeals to their latent homosexuality, the kind which always pops up when men spend time with men.’
    ‘Has it ever worked for you?’
    ‘More often than you’d think, policewoman.’
    ‘Though this time it wasn’t the Hammarby tribe that you were eyeing up, was it?’
    The tall man laughed.
    ‘I have to confess that I was longing more for some intellectual stimulation this time. Or pseudo-intellectual, at least. Probably felt that the lack of it was getting serious.