Free The Killer's Art by Mari Jungstedt Page A

There wasn’t a sound in the room; it was as if she sensed that he had something important to say.
    ‘Enough is enough.’
    Johan spoke calmly, his tone matter-of-fact.
    A worried look appeared on Emma’s face. ‘What do you mean?’
    Johan didn’t break the silence. Instead, he got up, went into the dimly lit bedroom and carefully placed Elin in her cot. She didn’t wake up. He closed the door and returned to the living room.
    Emma watched him uneasily. Johan sat down on the sofa again and gently took her face between his hands.
    ‘I want to move over here,’ he said calmly. ‘Live here with you and Elin. You’re my family. I can’t wait any longer. All the stuff about my job and everything else will just have to be worked out. You have to let me take care of you, be a real father to Elin and a stepfather to Sara and Filip. I want to be your husband. Will you marry me?’
    Emma gave him a stunned look. Several seconds passed. Tears began rolling down her cheeks.
    It wasn’t exactly the reaction that he’d expected. ‘There, there, sweetheart.’
    He leaned forward and put his arms around her. She started sobbing against his chest.
    ‘It can’t be as bad as all that,’ he said with an uncertain smile.
    ‘I’m just so tired,’ she wept. ‘I’m so damned tired.’
    Johan didn’t really know what to say; a bit clumsily, he just kept stroking Emma’s back. Suddenly she began kissing his neck, and her kisses got more and more passionate. She pushed back her hair and searched hungrily for his mouth, keeping her eyes closed the whole time.
    Desire flared up inside him, and he roughly pushed her back on to the sofa. He kissed her wildly, almost biting her lips. Emma responded with a low growl in her throat, and all of a sudden she wrapped her legs tightly around him. They made love on the sofa, then leaning against the table, against the windowsill, and finally on the floor. Afterwards, as he lay with her head resting on his arm, he found himself looking up at the underside of the coffee table, which was only a few inches from his sweat-covered forehead. He smiled as he kissed her cheek.
    ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’
    A s on most mornings, Knutas was walking to work along Östra Hansegatan and past the Swedish TV and Radio building. He saw lights on in the windows upstairs where Regional News now had its offices. He wondered whether Johan was already on the job. It wouldn’t surprise him.
    It was still dark outside, and the air was cold and brisk. The walk took less than twenty minutes and helped him to think more clearly.
    When he opened the door to police headquarters, he felt the familiar tingling sensation that always came over him when starting on a new murder investigation. The fact that someone had been killed was of course terrible; at the same time, there was a certain excitement mixed with determination to catch the murderer. The hunt had begun, and that was something he enjoyed without feeling any shame. Knutas liked his job; he had felt that way about it ever since he was promoted to the criminal division twenty years earlier. He had thrived in his position as head of department for the past ten years – though he could do without the paperwork.
    As usual, he greeted the girls at the reception desk and exchanged a few words with the duty officer before he went up the stairs to the criminal division on the first floor.
    Every chair in the conference room was already occupied when he entered, two minutes before the scheduled start time. This first meeting after a major event had occurred was always special. The energy in the room was palpable.
    Erik Sohlman started off by reporting on the latest news from the technical investigation.
    ‘The killer arrived by car on Norra Murgatan and drove all the way up to the gate. There are signs that the body was dragged; the marks on Wallin’s body also indicate that he was murdered somewhere else and then transported to Dalman Gate. All the items that