The Shadow Woman Read Free

didn’t they call me ? When have you ever been on assignment with her?”
    “They don’t know that,” Bergenhem said quietly.
    “What about the witnesses?”
    “I’ve been trying to tell you that Aneta’s girlfriend should be coming up here in,” he checked his watch, “about fifteen minutes.”
    “Was she there?”
    “Yes.”
    “Nobody else?”
    “You know there’s a party going on there. There were masses of people, which, of course, means nobody saw a thing.”
    “Christ al-fucking-mighty.”
    Bergenhem didn’t answer.
    “You like this city?” Halders asked. He’d sat down, stood up, and sat down again.
    “It’s a modern city. Entering a new, more nuanced age.”
    “More nuan—What the hell does that mean?”
    “There are good things and bad things,” Bergenhem said, instantly aware that he’d let a worn-out phrase slip from his tongue. “You can’t tell a whole city to go to hell.”
    “Two people go for a walk along Hamngatan. Some bastard comes up and smashes one of their heads in. There’s your nuanced city for you.”
    Bergenhem said nothing. How many violent provocations had they had over the past month? Fifteen? It was like gearing up for war. A guerrilla war between all the tribes of Gothenburg. And yesterday there was a melee.
    “Who’s gonna talk to the girl?” Halders’s voice sounded far away. “The girlfriend?”
    “I am and you can too, if you want.”
    “You do it,” Halders said. “I’ll get over to the hospital. How’d it go for that other poor bastard, by the way?”
    “He’s alive.”
     
    Halders drove impatiently, didn’t even notice that the air coming through the AC vent was hotter than the air in the car.
    Aneta Djanali was sitting up in bed when he came in, or rather she was propped up with pillows. Her face was covered in bandages.
    She’s just woken up and I shouldn’t be here, he thought, pulling a chair to the bed and sitting. “We’re gonna get them,” he said.
    She didn’t move. Then she closed her eyes, and Halders wasn’t sure if she had fallen asleep.
    “By the time you wake up we’ll have cuffed those bastards,” he said. “Even the black citizens of this city deserve to be able to walk the streets safely after dark.”
    She didn’t respond to that either. The mountain of pillows behind her looked uncomfortable.
    “In a situation like this you gotta think it would have been better if you’d stayed back in Ouagadougou.” It was an old joke between them. Djanali was born at Östra Hospital in Gothenburg. “Ouagadougou.”
    As if the word would calm her nerves.
    “This is actually a unique opportunity,” he said after a few minutes of silence. “For once, I can say important things without you butting in and getting all superior. I can voice my opinions. I can explain to you what it’s all about.”
    Djanali opened her eyes and peered at Halders with a look he recognized. She’s injured all right, but that injury is limited to the lower part of her skull, he thought. This is the only chance I’ll ever have to get a word in.
    “It’s all about keeping your cool,” he said. “When we catch those bastards, we’re going to keep our cool for as long as we can, and then we’re going to make one or two mistakes that prove we’re human too. I mean, cops are also human beings.” Halders paused for a moment before continuing. “They say Winter went a little loopy after last spring. He’s been walking around all summer in a pair of cutoff jeans and a T-shirt that says ‘London Calling’ on it. Rumor has it he’s been up to the department to pick up some papers and has a beard and long hair.”
    Aneta Djanali closed her eyes again.
    “I miss you,” he said.
     
    Winter broke off his vacation almost the moment Bertil Ringmar called with the quick rundown. It wasn’t out of duty, more the opposite. It was a selfish act, maybe therapeutic.
    “You’re not needed here yet,” Ringmar said.
    “I’ve gotten enough dirt