Bad Blood: A Crime Novel Read Online Free Page B

interesting to see how many faces one’s brain could file away before they started to blur together. Söderstedt found that his limit was as low as fifty. The stream of passengers arriving from Newark was mostly an anonymous, gray mass, and sure enough, most of them were middle-aged white men traveling solo.
    He couldn’t make out any signs of variation. The horde shuffled more or less as one down the concourse. Some slipped into a restroom; others stopped at a boutique; still others bought sandwiches at the café—and had their appetites spoiled at thecash register. A few ended up in the bar and attempted to converse with the human waxwork Adolfsson, who seemed about to pass out.
    A tourist attraction
, Söderstedt thought.
    The first Newark travelers descended the stairs down to passport control.
    “They’re coming,” he said out loud and, with that, found himself to be the only deviation from the norm.
    The words echoed in Kerstin Holm’s ears like the declaration of peace after World War II. She had been mentally composing her letter of resignation from the police, inspired by the stealth-farting immigration officer in the gas chamber that was their booth. This wasn’t what she was meant for. But then the first American faces peered in through the half-matte glass pane and blew away her sensations of odor. The immigration officer neatly guided each passport into a small, computer-connected camera device and discreetly photographed it. Each photo and name were immediately registered on a computer. If nothing else, they would have a picture of the killer.
    Face after face swept by. In every smile and every yawn she tried to imagine a killer without a conscience. A persistent tic in the eye of a man who had been extremely reluctant to remove his Ray-Bans
almost
convinced her to call Hultin. Other than that, all was utterly tranquil.
    Viggo Norlander’s booth experience was a bit different. He was the only member of the A-Unit who’d had a wonderful year. After the fiasco during the Power Murders, when he’d run amok and been crucified by the mafia in Estonia, he’d begun to work out. He got a hair transplant and turned once again to the fairer sex, which caused his stubborn bachelor life to take on new dimensions. His stigmatized hands had proved an asset in that respect. Unlike Holm’s, the immigration officer in whose booth he had ended up was young and female, and he had flirted withher uninhibitedly. By the time the Americans arrived,
she
had practically finished composing her sexual harassment report.
    But in a second Norlander forgot her—he was immediately on the ball. Pumped with adrenaline, he thought he recognized a serial killer in every passenger, and when he notified Hultin of his third suspect, a coal-black, eighteen-year-old junkie, he received such a sharp reprimand that it reminded him forcefully of his past, and he became more discerning in his judgment, as he put it to himself.
    He had been sitting in browbeaten silence for a few minutes when a well-dressed man of about forty-five with a confident smile handed his passport over to the immigration official, who gallantly photographed it along with the name Robert E. Norton. When the man caught sight of Norlander over her shoulder, his smile vanished abruptly; he blinked and peered around uncontrollably. Then he snatched back his passport and dashed away.
    “I’ve got him!” Norlander yelled into his invisible miniradio. “He’s getting away,” he continued a bit inconsistently, then he threw open the door and lit out through the arrivals hall after Robert E. Norton. Norton ran like a man possessed, his bag thumping hard against his shoulder. Norlander ran like a man even more possessed. He sent women who were in his way sprawling; he stomped on children’s feet; he broke duty-free liquor bottles.
    Norton stopped for breath and looked around in wild desperation. Hjelm jumped up from his bench, threw down the unread brochure, and made a