The Viper by Hakan Ostlundh Page A

getting us nowhere,” he muttered.
    “Arvid!” the man hissed. “Arvid! He’s your murderer.”
    Gustav slammed the door shut and turned his back on the patrol car, relieved to not have to sit in the car with that raving old man.
    “How the hell did he find out about this?” asked Fredrik.
    “Don’t ever underestimate the Gotland grapevine,” said Ove.
    Fredrik regarded the man who one could just make out between the reflections in the side windows of the patrol car.
    “Yeah, sure, but I wonder why it is that once the rumor reached him he immediately jumped into his car and drove over here to find out if it was his son that had been murdered?”

 
    Sunday, October 29
    Karolinska University Hospital, Solna
    Sara Oskarsson stood with her back to Fredrik and saw the door to the hospital ward swing closed, gently and silently. Ever since she was a little girl, she had held the firm belief that hospitals had a particular smell about them, and that it wasn’t an especially pleasant smell. Now she suddenly realized that they didn’t smell at all. They were spotlessly clean, dust free, and odorless.
    She became aware of Fredrik’s breathing and turned around. He looked at her, and as she took a few steps toward the foot of the bed, caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the sink, of her black hair that she’d let grow down over her shoulders. Fredrik followed her with his eyes. That must be a good sign. But then again, the question was of course whether he recognized her, or was just registering movement?
    It was hard for the doctors to provide a meaningful prognosis. They made it sound as if he could just as well make a complete recovery as remain in his present state indefinitely. His brain had suffered a shock and had been under pressure, and it was as yet impossible to say if he had sustained any permanent damage. But he was headed in the right direction.
    Fredrik’s head was shaved on the left side, the still unhealed scar from the operation covered by a compress and a white bandage that had been wrapped around his head like the headband of a sushi chef. Then on top of that, a kind of semitransparent sock reminiscent of some cool rap artist. Except for the fact that Fredrik really didn’t look especially cool. But it helped to think like that, made it easier to look at him.
    Fredrik was one of her closest colleagues, originally from Stockholm just like her. When she first arrived in Visby she thought that it was nice to have someone she could talk to without having to be afraid of stepping on any local toes, which was all too easy to do, she had noticed. Not so much among her colleagues at work, but in other situations. As an outsider from the mainlander and a figure of authority, she was sometimes met with double hostility.
    She wasn’t so sure anymore. About Gotland. Once the enthusiasm of the first year had faded, things became harder. She liked her job, there was no problem there. In the beginning she had been worried that her work assignments might prove to be too trivial, but in hindsight she could have done with a bit less excitement. Two summers ago she had stood in another hospital room in front of another colleague who lay there with a broken arm and his body all covered in bruises after a bomb had gone off on one of the ferries.
    Her life outside the police station may not have seemed too bad to an outside observer. She had gotten to know some people, had one relationship under her belt, and had recently started seeing a man on a more regular basis.
    But still. It was difficult to really be accepted. There was a fundamental difference between city and countryside, or small town, if you were talking about Visby. In a big city, most everyone was just as rootless and stressed—quick to dismiss you to be sure, but also curious and open to trying out something new. In a big city, life could turn on a dime, here it took at least five years for anything to turn. In that sense it was probably