Free CELL 8 by Anders Roslund, Börge Hellström Page B

register, a new password.
    A photograph of the John Schwarz who had ordered and received the passport that was now lying in front of them on the desk, the John Schwarz who, according to the Migration Board, also had permanent residency in Sweden, now filled the computer screen.
    Crouse looked at it without saying anything.
    He leaned forward, flicked through the passport, then pulled up the photograph and personal details.
    Hermansson knew what he was thinking.
    The man in the passport was white.
    The man she had described who was suspected of attempted murder and who was now sitting in a holding cell was white.
    But this man who was beaming at them from the Canadian authorities’ computer, the man who had once been the legitimate owner of the passport that Crouse was holding, he was black.

    EWERT GRENS WAS IRRITATED. THE DAY THAT HAD STARTED BADLY AT SIX in the morning when he opened the main door to the police headquarters had now, as the morning slid into lunch, got worse. He couldn’t face any more idiots. He wanted to sit behind his closed door and play loud music and have the time to systematically go through at least one of the piles of investigations that should have been closed ages ago. He didn’t get time to do more than start before someone knocked on the door. Pointless questions and unfounded reports that he snorted at as before, and people who came to say he should turn down the music, who he told to go to hell.
    He longed for her.
    He wanted to hold her, feel her steady breathing.
    He had been there the day before and normally waited for a few days, but he felt compelled to go out there again this afternoon, a hamburger in the car and he should be able to squeeze in a short visit.
    Grens waited until Siw had sung her last, then lifted his new cordless phone that he couldn’t quite get his head around and phoned the nursing home. One of the younger female staff answered, one of the ones he had gotten to know. He said that he’d thought about coming out in a couple of hours and wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t clash with a visit from the doctor or some group activity.
    It felt better. The anger that always lurked in his chest shrank a little, didn’t take up so much space, he had the energy to sing along again to Siw’s “Seven Little Girls (Sitting in the Back Seat).”
    Seven little girls sitting in the back seat
     hugging and a-kissing with Fred
    He even whistled, out of tune and with a sound that could peel the walls.
    I said, why don’t one of you
     come and sit beside me
    Ten minutes. That was all. Then the door again, someone feeling lonely. He sighed, put the report he was reading to one side.
    Hermansson. He waved her in.
    “Sit down.”
    He didn’t know why. And was still unsure how he should deal with his reaction. But it made him happy whenever he saw her. A young woman . . . it wasn’t that, and he was careful to keep it that way.
    It was something else.
    He’d considered sleeping at home in his large apartment more often, thought that he’d be able to cope.
    He suddenly found himself reading the movie listings in Dagens nyheter , he who hadn’t been to the movies since James Bond and Moonraker in 1979, when he’d fallen asleep watching it, all the boring, endless space voyages.
    On a few occasions he’d even nearly gone to those fucking awful shopping streets in the center to try on some new clothes—he hadn’t done it, but nearly .
    She put a piece of paper down on his desk. A picture of a man’s face, a passport photo.
    “John Schwarz.”
    A man somewhere in his thirties. Short, dark hair, brown eyes, black skin.
    “The original owner of the passport.”
    Grens looked at the picture, thought about the man who called himself John Schwarz and who, according to the reports he’d got from Sven, Hermansson, and the prison staff, was not doing well at all. He was a nobody now. The Swedish police authorities didn’t even have a name for him anymore. His