The Swimmer Read Free Page A

minutes to delete whatever might be construed as ambiguity, desperation, or references to a history that he no longer had access to. Finally, he took a deep breath and hit ‘send’.
    The first thing he saw when he left the building twenty minutes later was the gray Volvo, sitting in a dimly lit parking lot down by the river. When he unlocked his bike, he heard the engine start, saw the headlights turn on, a ghostly cone of light lit up the old metal railing along the Fyris river. For the first time in a very long time, he actually felt afraid.

3
December 8, 2013
    Sankt Anna’s Outer Archipelago, Sweden
    The silence that followed was almost as deafening as the two ear-splitting explosions of the shotgun. The only sounds were ducks quacking on their way over the bay and the dog struggling against its leash, whimpering weakly. Anxiously. Everything was gray. Cliffs and sea. Bare trees and bushes. The wind rustled in the faded reeds at the water’s edge.
    ‘You missed,’ said the old man holding the binoculars.
    ‘Not a chance,’ replied the young woman at his side. She was still resting the shotgun against her shoulder. The cherrywood of its butt felt cool against her cheek.
    ‘Maybe the first round, but no way I missed on the second,’ she said. ‘Let Albert go, and then we’ll see.’
    The old man bent forward and unhooked the leash from the spaniel’s collar. The dog bolted with a shrill bark, out through the reeds and up toward the cliffs in the same direction as the gun was shot.
    ‘You missed both times. Believe me. You’ve gone soft, Klara.’
    He shook his head in disappointment. The shadow of a smile flashed across the young woman’s lips.
    ‘When I come out here you always say that, Grandpa. You say I missed. That I’ve gone soft.’
    She mimicked the old man’s worried expression.
    ‘And every time Albert comes back with our Sunday dinner in his mouth.’
    The man shook his head.
    ‘I just say what I see in the binoculars, that’s all,’ he muttered.
    He took a thermos and two cups out of the worn backpack leaning against a rock at his feet.
    ‘A cup of coffee, and then we go home and wake up Grandma,’ he said.
    They heard a short bark followed by wild splashing down by the shore. Klara smiled and patted her grandfather on the cheek.
    ‘Gone soft, huh? Was that what you said?’
    The man winked one of his ice blue eyes at her, poured a cup of coffee, and handed it to her. Fumbling with his other hand, he took a small flask out of a hidden pocket.
    ‘Would you like a little bit of lightning to celebrate your triumph, big game hunter?’ he said.
    ‘What? You brought booze? Do you know what time it is? You know I’m going to have to tell Grandma about this.’
    Klara shook her head sternly but let her grandfather pour a little drop of moonshine into her cup. Before she could take a sip, her phone started ringing deep inside one of the pockets of her oilskin coat. She sighed and handed the cup to her grandfather.
    ‘You can’t hide from the devil,’ her grandfather said with a crooked smile.
    Klara fished out her BlackBerry. She wasn’t surprised to see the name Eva-Karin flash across the display. Her boss. Social Democratic dinosaur and member of the European Parliament: Eva-Karin Boman.
    ‘Ugg,’ she moaned before answering.
    ‘Hello, Eva-Karin,’ she said in a voice an octave higher and considerably faster than usual.
    ‘Klara, darling, how lucky I am to catch you! Things are really getting tight, if you know what I mean. Glennys just called me and asked what our position was on the IT security report. And I haven’t even had time to open it yet, as you know. There’s just been so much going on with…’
    Her voice disappeared for a moment. Klara threw a quick glance at her watch. Just before nine. Eva-Karin was probably on the express train to Arlanda airport. Klara’s gaze swept over the gray, windblown cliffs. It felt absurd to talk to Eva-Karin out here in the