by Kepler, Lars
‘They’re the coolest girls in the class,’ Pellerina explains as they walk across the schoolyard hand in hand.
‘But if they tell you to do funny things, you must say no,’ Saga says as they walk home.
‘I’m a big girl.’
‘You know I’m a worrier,’ Saga explains, and feels a lump in her throat.
She takes hold of Pellerina’s hand and thinks about the girls pulling faces over her head. It sounded like they were thinking of filming Pellerina to mock her, and spread the clip.
Afterwards everyone always claims it was just an innocent game that got out of hand, when there was never any doubt that it was simply cruel. Dark energy fills the room and you choose to carry on regardless.
9
Pellerina lives with her dad in a bright-red plastered house with a red-tiled roof on Björkvägen in Gamla Enskede.
The old apple trees and lawn are sparkling with tiny ice crystals.
As Saga closes the gate Pellerina runs to the door and rings the bell.
Lars-Erik Bauer is wearing cords and a white, crumpled open-neck shirt. He could have done with getting his hair cut a month ago, but his unkempt, greying hair makes him look appealingly eccentric. Every time Saga sees her father she’s struck by how old he is now.
‘Come in,’ he says, and helps Pellerina out of her overalls. ‘You’re welcome to stay for dinner, Saga.’
‘I haven’t got time,’ Saga replies automatically.
Pellerina’s thick glasses have steamed up. She takes them off and clambers up the stairs to her room.
‘I’m making macaroni cheese, I know that’s one of your favourites.’
‘It was when I was little.’
‘Just say what you’d like then – I can go to the shop,’ her dad says.
‘Stop it,’ she says with a smile. ‘It doesn’t matter, I’ll eat anything. Macaroni cheese will do fine.’
Lars-Erik looks genuinely delighted that she wants to stay for a while. He takes her coat, hangs it up and tells her to make herself at home.
‘I’m worried that a couple of the girls at Mellis aren’t being very nice,’ Saga says.
‘In what way?’ her dad asks.
‘I don’t know, just a feeling, they were pulling faces.’
‘Pellerina usually handles most things pretty well on her own, but I’ll have a word with her,’ he says before they head upstairs to her sister’s room.
Lars-Erik is a cardiologist, and has bought a professional ECG-machine so he can monitor Pellerina’s heart, seeing as she could suffer a recurrence of her earlier problems.
Saga looks at her sister’s latest drawings while their dad connects the electrodes to her chest. The pale scar from her operations runs vertically down her breastbone.
‘I’m going to start dinner,’ Lars-Erik says, and leaves them.
‘I’ve got a silly heart,’ Pellerina sighs, putting her glasses back on.
‘You’ve got the best heart in the world,’ Saga says.
‘Daddy says I’m all heart,’ she smiles.
‘He’s right – and you’re the best little sister in the whole world.’
‘You’re best, you look just like Elsa,’ Pellerina whispers, reaching out for Saga’s long hair.
Usually it annoys Saga whenever anyone compares her to a Disney princess, but she likes the fact that Pellerina sees herself and Saga as the two sisters in Frozen.
‘Saga?’ Lars-Erik calls from the bottom of the stairs. ‘Can you come down here for a moment?’
‘I’ll be back soon, Anna,’ she says, patting her sister’s cheek.
‘OK, Elsa.’
Lars-Erik is chopping leeks when Saga walks in. There’s a parcel on the kitchen table. It’s wrapped in aluminium foil and has a paper heart stuck on top, with the words To my darling daughter, Saga.
‘I ran out of wrapping paper,’ he says apologetically.
‘I don’t want presents, Dad.’
‘It’s nothing, just a little token.’
Saga tears the foil off and crumples it into a shiny ball, and puts it down next to the flowery cardboard box.
‘Open it,’ Lars-Erik says with a wide smile.
The box contains an old-fashioned porcelain Christmas elf, packed in shredded paper. He’s wearing a tree-green outfit, has rather piercing eyes, pink cheeks and a cheerful little mouth.
There’s a large porridge bowl in his arms.
Her Christmas elf.
It used to get brought out every Christmas, and the pot filled with pink and yellow toffees.
‘I’ve been looking for one … well, for ages, really,’ Lars-Erik says. ‘And today I happened to wander into an antiques shop in Solna and there he was.’
Saga remembers that her mum threw the elf on the floor once when she was angry with her dad, smashing it to pieces.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ she says, and puts the box down on the table.
When she goes back up to see Pellerina, she notices that her heart rate has increased, as if her sister had been running. Pellerina is staring at her phone open-mouthed, with a look of horror on her face.
‘What’s happened?’ Saga asks in a concerned voice.
‘No one can see, no one can see,’ her sister says, pressing the phone to her chest.
‘Dad!’ Saga calls.
‘It’s not allowed!’
‘Don’t worry, sweetheart,’ Saga says. ‘Just tell me what you were looking at.’
‘No.’
Lars-Erik hurries up the stairs and comes into the bedroom.
‘Tell Daddy,’ Saga says.
‘No!’ Pellerina cries.
‘What is it, Pellerina? I’m in the middle of cooking,’ he says, to encourage her to speak.
‘It’s something on her phone,’ Saga explains.
‘Show me,’ Lars-Erik says, and holds out his hand.
‘It’s not allowed,’ Pellerina sobs.
‘Who says so?’ he asks.
‘It says in the email.’
‘I’m your dad, so I’m allowed to see.’
She hands him the phone and he opens and reads it with a frown.
‘Oh, sweetheart,’ he says with a smile, putting the phone down. ‘That isn’t real, you know that, don’t you?’
‘I have to send it on, otherwise—’
‘No, you don’t have to. We don’t send silly emails in this family,’ Lars-Erik says firmly.
‘One of those chain emails?’ Saga asks.
‘Yes, a really silly one,’ he replies, then turns back towards Pellerina. ‘I’ll get rid of it.’
‘No, please!’ she pleads, but Lars-Erik has already deleted it.
‘It’s all gone now,’ he says, and hands the phone back to her. ‘We can forget all about it.’
‘I get chain emails too,’ Saga says.
‘But do they come to see you too?’
‘Who?’
‘The clown girls,’ Pellerina whispers, pushing her glasses further up her nose.
‘That isn’t real, it’s all made up,’ her dad says. ‘It’s just some little kid who’s made it all up to scare people.’
After Lars-Erik removes the electrodes and switches the ECG-monitor off, Saga carries her little sister downstairs and lays her down on the sofa in front of the television. She tucks her up in a blanket, and puts Frozen on, as usual.
It’s dark outside now. Saga goes into the kitchen to help her dad with the cooking. As soon as he’s finished pouring the cream, eggs and grated cheese onto the macaroni, she picks up a pair of silicone oven-gloves and puts the dish in the oven.
‘What did the email say?’ she asks quietly.
‘That you have to send the email to three other people to escape the curse,’ he sighs. ‘Otherwise the clown girls will come when you’re asleep and poke your eyes out – that sort of thing.’
‘I can see why she’d be frightened,’ Saga says.
She goes and checks on Pellerina, who’s fallen asleep. Saga takes her glasses of
f and puts them down on the coffee table.
‘She’s sleeping,’ Saga says when she comes back into the kitchen.
‘I’ll wake her when it’s time to eat – this always happens, school wears her out.’
‘I have to go,’ she says.
‘Haven’t you got time to eat first?’ he asks.
‘No.’
He goes into the hall with her and passes her her coat.
‘Don’t forget your elf,’ he reminds her.
‘He can stay here,’ Saga says as she opens the door.
Lars-Erik stands in the doorway. The light plays on his lined face and unkempt hair.
‘I thought you’d like it,’ he says quietly.
‘It doesn’t work like that,’ she says, and walks away.
10
It’s three o’clock and the white sky is already starting to grow darker.
Joona has never had any objection to being on patrol, but after Nils Åhlén’s visit it feels like the world has become a more dangerous place.
He’s walking past the wrought-iron railings outside Adolf Fredrik Church, and sees a black-clad group standing around an open grave. The surrounding gravestones have been vandalised and are covered with swastikas.
As Joona passes Olof Palmes gata he notices someone waving behind the window of a Thai restaurant.
An intoxicated woman has stood up from her table and is staring at him.
As he moves closer she spits on the window right in front of him.
He carries on towards Hötorget, where the market traders are busy selling fruit and vegetables. His mind keeps wandering to the grave-robber in Oslo. As soon as he gets Summa’s cranium back from Norway, he’s planning to rebury it with the rest of her remains. He hasn’t yet decided whether to tell Lumi about what’s happened. It would upset her terribly.
Joona has just passed the Concert Hall when he hears a man yelling in an aggressive, drunken voice. There’s the sound of a glass bottle breaking, and Joona spins round and sees shards of green glass on the road.
People are keeping their distance from a man who’s clearly under the influence of narcotics. He’s unshaven, and his blond hair is gathered in a messy tangle at the back of his head. He’s wearing a battered leather jacket and jeans that are dark with urine around the crotch and down one leg.
The man isn’t wearing shoes or socks, and Joona can see he’s injured one foot and is bleeding on the pavement.
The man is swearing at a woman who’s hurrying away, then he stands still with an imperious expression and points one finger at the people around him as if he were about to say something incredibly important.
‘One, two, three, four … five, six, seven …’
Joona walks closer and sees that there’s a young girl standing behind the confused man. Her dirty face is upset, and she looks like she’s about to burst into tears. A pink tracksuit top is her only protection from the cold.
‘Can we go home now?’ she asks, tugging tentatively at the man’s jacket.
‘One … two … three …’
He loses his thread and reaches out for the lamppost to stop himself falling. His eyes look drugged, his pupils have shrunk to pinpricks and there’s snot streaming from his thin nose.
‘Do you need any help?’ Joona asks.
‘Yes, please,’ the man mutters.
‘What can I do?’
‘Shoot the ones I point at.’
‘Are you armed?’
‘I’m pointing at all the ones who—’
‘Stop that,’ Joona interrupts calmly.
‘OK, OK,’ the man mutters.
‘Are you armed?’
The man points at a man who’s stopped to look, then at a woman walking past with a pushchair.
‘Daddy,’ the girl pleads.
‘Don’t be frightened,’ Joona says to her, ‘but I need to find out if your dad’s got a weapon of any sort on him.’
‘He needs to get some rest, that’s all,’ she whispers.
Joona tells the man to put his hands behind his head, and he does as Joona says. But when he lets go of the lamppost he loses his balance and stumbles backwards, into the shadow of the blue wall of the Concert Hall.
‘What drugs have you taken?’
‘Just a bit of ketamine, and some speed.’
Joona crouches down next to the girl. Her father has started to point his finger discreetly at different people again.
‘How old are you?’
‘Six and a half.’
‘Do you think you could look after a teddy bear?’
‘What?’
Joona opens his bag and pulls out the stuffed toy. In the run-up to Christmas the police have been given teddy bears that they can give to any child in trouble or who’s witnessed anything violent. Often that’s the only present they’re going to get in families with drug problems.
The girl stares at the little bear, which has a stripy top and a big red heart on its chest.
‘Would you like to look after it?’ Joona smiles.
‘No,’ she whispers, and glances up at him shyly.
‘You can have it if you want,’ Joona explains.
‘Really?’
‘But it needs a name,’ Joona says, handing the stuffed toy over to her.
‘Sonja,’ the girl says, pressing the bear to her neck.
‘That’s a lovely name.’
‘It was my mum’s name,’ she tells him.
‘We need to take your dad to hospital – is there anyone you can stay with in the meantime?’
The child nods and whispers something in the teddy bear’s ear.
‘Grandma.’
Joona calls an ambulance, then contacts an acquaintance at Social Services and asks her to collect the girl and take her to the address they’ve looked up.
As he finishes explaining everything to the girl, a police car arrives at the scene. Its blue lights flash across the tarmac.
Two uniformed colleagues get out of the car and nod to Joona.
‘Joona Linna? Your boss has contacted me over the radio,’ one of them says.
‘Carlos?’
‘He wants you to answer your phone.’
Joona takes his phone out and sees that Carlos Eliasson – head of the National Operational Unit – is calling him, though there’s no ringtone.
‘Joona,’ he says as he answers.
‘Sorry to disturb you while you’re working, but this is top priority,’ Carlos says. ‘A superintendent with the German police, Clara Fischer at the BKA, is trying to get in touch with you as soon as possible.’
‘What for?’
‘I’ve said you can help them with a preliminary investigation … The police in Rostock are looking into a death at a camping site, probably murder … Victim’s name is Fabian Dissinger … a serial rapist who was recently released from a secure psychiatric unit in Cologne.’
‘I’m still on probation, I’m on patrol duties until—’
‘She asked for you specifically,’ Carlos interrupts.
11
Joona is driving past pale green fields and large stone houses with tarmac drives full of cars and bicycles.
The plane from Stockholm landed at Rostock-Laage Airport an hour ago. Joona hired a BMW and set off north on Autobahn 19.
He doesn’t know why Superintendent Clara Fischer has requested assistance from him specifically. They’ve never been in contact before, and the man who was found dead at the campsite has never cropped up in any of Joona’s cases.
Clara Fischer didn’t specify precisely what she thought Joona would be able to contribute, but because the German and Swedish police forces have a long history of cooperation, Carlos gave the go-ahead.
During the flight Joona had time to read three of the case files relating to the murder victim that he had been sent by the Bundeskriminalamt.
Fabian Dissinger was convicted of twenty-three violent rapes of both men and women in Germany, Poland and Italy. According to one psychiatric rep
ort, he had an antisocial personality disorder with sadistic tendencies and elements of psychopathy.
Joona turns sharp left and drives through a patch of woodland. He catches sight of a muddy motocross course in a clearing on his right, then there’s nothing but trees until he reaches the camping site, Ostseecamp Rostocker Heide.
Joona parks just outside the police cordon and walks over to the group of German police officers waiting for him.
The winter sun is glinting off the cables and satellite dishes on the roofs of the caravans.
Superintendent Clara Fischer is a tall woman with dark brown eyes; something about her proud bearing suggests that she would be quick to take offence. Her penetrating gaze seems to grow sharper as she watches Joona approach. Her short curly hair is greying at the temples. She’s wearing a black leather jacket that reaches below her hips, and black leather boots with low heels that are now completely grey with mud from the wet ground.
Clara studies Joona as if the slightest shift in his expression is of great significance.
‘Thanks for coming at such short notice,’ she says, not breaking eye contact as she shakes his hand.
‘I like campsites …’
‘Great.’
‘But I’m wondering why I’m here,’ he concludes.
‘Certainly not because Fabian Dissinger’s death is a great loss to Germany,’ Clara Fischer replies, setting off towards one of the plots.
Joona follows her along one of the tarmac paths that crisscross the campsite. The winter air is cold as the white rays of sunlight shine through the bare treetops.
‘I’m not saying he got what he deserved, but if I had my way he’d have spent the rest of his life in prison,’ she says calmly.
‘Not an unreasonable opinion.’
They pass the shower block and a small kiosk. A few campers are standing outside the cordon taking pictures of the crime scene on their phones. The red-and-white plastic tape is rippling in the wind.
‘Not an unreasonable opinion,’ Clara repeats, and glances at him. ‘I know that some of our colleagues in Berlin refused to work on a case last week … A known paedophile was found drowned in a ditch near a school … I can understand that, when at the same time they’re having to drop the investigation into the mugging and murder of a young woman in Spandau.’