Read CELL 8 for Free Online Page B

running out of his ear . A whole morning had passed and Grens hadn’t been able to dislodge the image of the person lying on one of the police station sofas. Mottled eyes, one pupil small, one pupil dilated.
    Aggravated assault. That wasn’t enough. It was more than that.
    Attempted murder.
    He got out his mobile phone, rang Sven Sundkvist, the only person he could actually tolerate in the building where he’d worked all his adult life. He asked him to stop what he was doing, he wanted the identity of the person who kicked other people’s heads in, then he wanted him brought in for questioning, because that sort of behavior should cost him time behind bars.
    Slowly walked the last hundred yards to the nursing home.
    He’d been coming here for twenty-five years, at least once a week, to the only person he’d ever really cared about, the only person who’d ever really cared about him.
    He was about to walk into her room again. He would do it with dignity.
    They’d had their whole lives ahead of them.
    Until he had driven over her.
    He had long since realized that the images from that day would never stop crowding his mind. Every thought, every moment, he could relive those seconds.
    The big fucking tires.
    He didn’t make it.
    He didn’t make it!
    The wind was blowing in off the water, freezing Baltic temperatures straight in the face. He kept his eyes on the ground—the gravel path was partially covered in ice and he knew that the excessive weight on his good leg made it difficult to hold his balance; he had nearly gone head over heels a couple of times now and cursed the pointless seasons and poorly maintained path loudly.
    He had felt the van lurch when it hit her body.
    Grens crossed the large parking lot at the front of the building, found the window where she normally sat, looking out into thin air.
    He couldn’t see her. He was late. She trusted him.
    He hurried up the steps, nine in all, carefully salted. A woman of his own age was sitting at the slightly oversized reception desk, one of the ones who had been there when they first came in one of the police transport vans; he’d arranged it all, she had to feel safe.
    “She’s sitting in there.”
    “I didn’t see her at the window.”
    “She’s there. She’s waiting. We’ve saved her lunch.”
    “I’m late.”
    “She knows you’re coming.”
    He glanced in the mirror that hung outside the restrooms between reception and the patients’ rooms. His hair, face, eyes, he was old, looked tired, sweaty from his skating on ice. He held back a short while, until his breathing had steadied.
    He had sat with her bleeding head in his lap.
    Grens walked the short distance down the corridor, past the closed doors, stopping in front of number fourteen, the numbers in red above her name on a sign by the handle.
    She was sitting in the middle of the room. She looked at him.
    “Anni.”
    She smiled. At the voice. Maybe the sound of the door opening. Or the light in the room, that now came from two sources.
    “I’m late. Sorry.”
    She laughed. It was a high, bubbling laugh. He went over to her, kissed her on the forehead, took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped dry the saliva that was running down her chin.
    A red dress with light stripes.
    He was certain that he’d never seen it before.
    “You look lovely. New dress. It makes you look so young.”
    She hadn’t aged, not like him. Her cheeks were still smooth, her hair as thick as before. He was losing his energy out there, with every day that passed. She seemed to be conserving hers, days in a wheelchair in front of a window, it was as if she still had everything.
    The bright blood just didn’t stop running from her ears, nose, and mouth.
    His hand on her cheek, he released the brake that locked one of the back wheels, rolled her out through the door, down the corridor to the empty dining room. He moved one of the chairs by the table nearest the large window with a view down over the water, and