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Back Bad Apples Save as PDF
Chapters (65)
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  49. 49
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  65. Acknowledgements

‘I heard you trained as a dentist for a while before opening this place.’

He rolls his eyes. ‘You heard wrong.’

A guy in the corner screams ‘Watch my back, fuckboy!’

‘You didn’t train?’ I ask.

David walks toward the Red Bull fridge next to the till and the display counter with the Dungeons and Dragons cards.

‘That life is not for me. This is for me.’

‘You didn’t enjoy dentistry?’

‘I make good money doing this and I get to game for twenty-four hours a day seven days a week if I feel like it. Early access to games most people will never even hear about. Can you do that as a fucking orthodontist?’

‘I guess not.’

His eyes are red.

‘Sorry, I’m just tired. I got good grades at school, that is true. My parents were pissed when I left early, but this way I get to work with my brother, which we both like. We always work really well together.’

‘Someone told me you do procedures in a back room here.’

‘Oh, did they?’

‘You don’t?’

He smiles. ‘No, Tuva, I don’t. If there’s an emergency I might be able to help out, but these days I’m too busy for any of that. Look around you.’

I look around.

‘You see any other business within a hundred kilometres of this place thriving like this, do you?’

He has a point.

‘I gotta get back to work if you don’t mind.’

He sits back down and unpauses the game he’s playing.

I step out into the light. Six or seven flat snowflakes fall to the earth. Not a blizzard, not even a snowfall. Just large flakes floating down like magnolia petals.

I reach into my pocket to get my keys.

There’s loose gum in there.

And something unfamiliar.

A tablet?

I take it out.

No. Fear surges up from my stomach. I’m holding a small white tooth.

A milk tooth.

49

Oh, no.

Is this one of Emil’s teeth? Proof of life or proof of…?

I turn the tooth over in my fingers.

Or could this be from the robbed grave? A leftover tooth from Arne Persson’s skull?

No. It’s Emil’s. I don’t know how I know, but I do.

A gunshot booms from down the hill and ricochets round the town square. It’s not loud but it’s clear. Like a warning shot.

I look around trying to work out who put this inside my pocket. How? When? One of the twins? Someone else in Mind Games?

The snowfall stays constant. The lightest of flakes. One here, one there. Nothing settling on the pristine square.

Someone’s taunting the police and they’re taunting me. Playing games. I think someone in Visberg has an issue with authority.

I call Thord at the station.

‘Gavrik police, Chief Andersson.’

‘Chief, it’s me, Tuva.’