by Lars Kepler
A faint scraping sound makes Joona bend down toward the vent again. He’s holding his breath, and thinks he can hear a quick whisper from the vent that sounds like a command.
Instinctively, he draws back, uncertain whether he imagined the whisper. He has spun around and seen the other officers, standing in the driveway under the dark trees, when suddenly he realizes what he saw a moment ago.
When he looked through the narrow hall window and saw himself in the mirror, he was so startled that he missed the most important detail.
The door’s security chain was latched, which can be done only from inside the house.
Joona runs back to the front of the house. Loose snow flies up around his legs. He digs out his lock picks from his inside pocket and goes up the steps to the porch.
“There’s someone in there,” he says quietly.
His colleagues look at him in astonishment as he picks the lock, opens the door carefully, closes it again, and then jerks the door forward hard to break the security chain.
Joona gestures to them to keep behind him.
“Police!” he calls into the house. “We’re coming in!”
111
The three police officers walk into the hall and are struck at once by the acrid stench of old trash. The house is silent, and as cold as it is outside.
“Is anyone home?” Joona calls.
All they can hear are their own movements. The sounds from the next house don’t carry inside. Joona reaches out to switch on the light, but it doesn’t work.
Marie turns on her flashlight behind him. She points it nervously in different directions as they move deeper into the house. Joona notices his own shadow grow and slide across the closed blinds.
“Police,” he calls again. “We only want to talk.”
They enter the kitchen and see a mound of empty packaging under the table: cornflakes, pasta, flour, and sugar.
“What the hell is this?” Eliot mutters.
The fridge and freezer are dark and empty. All the kitchen chairs are missing, and on the windowsills, next to the closed curtains, the houseplants have withered.
It’s only from the outside that it looks as if the family has left.
They walk into a television room with a corner sofa. Joona steps over the cushions that have been pulled off it.
Marie whispers something that he can’t make out.
The thick curtains covering the windows reach all the way to the floor.
Through the door to the hallway, they can see a staircase leading down to the basement.
They stop when they see a dead dog with a plastic bag taped around its head. It’s lying on the floor in front of the television stand.
Joona continues toward the hallway and staircase. He can hear his colleagues’ footsteps behind him.
Marie’s breathing has sped up.
The beam from her flashlight is shaking.
Joona moves to one side so he can see into the unlit corridor. Down the hall, the bathroom door is ajar.
Joona gestures to the others to stop, but Marie is already next to him, pointing the flashlight toward the stairs. She takes a step closer and tries to see farther down the corridor.
“What’s that?” she whispers, unable to control the nervousness in her voice.
There’s something lying on the floor by the bathroom. She points the flashlight in that direction. It’s a doll with long blond hair.
The light hovers over its shiny plastic face.
Suddenly the doll is pulled in behind the door.
Marie smiles and takes a long stride forward, but at the same moment there’s a stomach-churning bang.
The flash as the shotgun goes off fills the corridor like lightning.
Marie is hit hard in the back, and the hail of shot cuts right through her neck.
Her head flies back, and blood spurts out of the exit wound in her throat.
The flashlight hits the floor.
Marie is already dead when she takes one last step with her head hanging loose. She collapses in a heap with one leg folded beneath her, her hips lifted at an odd angle.
Joona draws his pistol and releases the safety catch. The corridor leading to the stairs is empty. There’s no one there. Whoever fired the shot must have disappeared into the cellar.
Blood is bubbling from Marie’s neck, steaming in the chill air.
The flashlight is rolling slowly over the floor.
“Oh God, oh God,” Eliot whispers.
Their ears are ringing from the blast.
A child suddenly appears with the doll in her arms. She slips on the blood, lands on her back, and vanishes into the darkness by the staircase. Footsteps thud down the stairs and disappear with a clatter.
112
Joona kneels and takes a quick look at Marie. There’s nothing to be done.
Eliot is yelling and sobbing into his radio, calling for an ambulance and backup.
“Police,” Joona shouts down the stairs. “Put the weapon down and—”
The shotgun goes off again, and the shot hits the wooden stairs, sending up a cascade of splinters.
Joona hears the metallic click as the gun snaps open. He rushes over. Just as he reaches the staircase, he hears the little sigh of the first empty cartridge being released.
Taking several steps at a time, Joona races down the dark stairs, pistol raised.
Eliot picks up the flashlight to give him some light, and the beam reaches the bottom of the stairs just in time for Joona to stop himself before he’s impaled.
At the foot of the stairs, the kitchen chairs have been piled up to form a barricade. The protruding legs have been sharpened into spears, and kitchen knives have been fixed to them with duct tape.
Joona aims his Colt Combat over the barricade into a room containing a pool table.
There’s no sign of anyone. Everything’s quiet again.
The adrenaline in his body makes him strangely calm, as if he were in a new, sharper version of reality. He lifts his finger off the trigger and loosens the rope tied to the end of the banister to help him get around the barricade.
“What the hell are we supposed to do?” Eliot asks with panic in his voice as he comes down.
“Are you wearing a bulletproof vest?”
“Yes.”
“Shine the flashlight further into the cellar,” Joona says.
There are two empty shotgun cartridges on the floor, surrounded by broken glass and empty food cans. Eliot is breathing rapidly, holding the flashlight next to his pistol as he shines it into the corners. It’s warmer down here, and there’s a sharp smell of sweat and urine.
Wire is strung across the passageway at neck height, forcing them to duck down. Behind them, the wires tap against each other.
They hear whispering. Joona stops and signals to Eliot. A ticking sound, followed by footsteps.
“Run, run,” someone urges.
Cold air rushes in, and Joona hurries forward while the shaky beam from Eliot’s flashlight sweeps around the cellar. There is a boiler room to their left; in the other direction, concrete steps lead up to an open cellar door.
Snow blows in over the steps.
Joona has already caught sight of the concealed figure as the beam of light glints off the knife blade.
He takes another step forward, and hears shallow breathing followed by a sudden whimper.
A tall woman with a dirty face rushes out with a knife in her hand, and Joona instinctively aims his pistol at her torso.
“Watch out!” Eliot cries.
In a split second, Joona decides not to shoot. Without thinking, he moves toward her and then steps aside quickly as she lunges. He blocks her arm, grabs it, and lets his shoulders follow through on the movement, hitting the left side of her neck with his lower right arm. The blow is so firm and swift that it knocks her backward.
Joona grips the arm holding the knife. There’s a cracking sound, like two stones knocking together underwater, as her elbow breaks. The wo
man falls to the floor, howling with pain.
The knife clatters to the ground. Joona kicks it away, then aims his pistol toward the boiler room.
113
A middle-aged man is lying over the geo-energy pump. He’s been tied up with rope and duct tape, and there’s a rag in his mouth.
Eliot cuffs the woman to a water pipe as Joona cautiously approaches the man, explains that he’s a police officer, and removes the gag.
“The girls,” the man gasps. “They ran out. Please don’t hurt the girls, they’re—”
“Is there anyone else here?”
Eliot has already disappeared up the concrete steps.
“Only the girls.”
“How many?”
“Two. Susanne gave them the shotgun. They’re just scared. They’ve never used a gun. Please don’t hurt them,” the man begs desperately. “They’re just scared.”
Joona runs up the steps and into the back garden. Behind him, the man calls out over and over again, telling him not to hurt the girls.
Footsteps lead across the garden and straight into the forest. A beam of light is flickering among the trees.
“Eliot,” Joona shouts. “There are only children out here!”
He follows the tracks into the forest and feels the sweat on his face cooling.
“They’re armed!” Joona calls.
He runs toward the light between the trees. Twigs snap under his weight. Ahead of him, he can see Eliot running through the snow with his pistol and flashlight.
“Wait!” Joona shouts. Eliot doesn’t seem to hear.
Loose snow falls from a tree with soft thumps.
In the weak light, he can make out the children’s tracks among the trees, at different angles, and then the straight line of Eliot’s steps following them.
“They’re just kids!” Joona cries again, trying to gain on him by sliding down a steep slope.
He slips onto his hip, bringing down loose stones and pinecones, and scrapes his back on something, but gets to his feet again as he reaches the bottom.
Through the dense foliage, he can see the searching beam of the flashlight. Close by, a skinny girl is standing next to a tree, holding the shotgun in both hands.
Joona runs straight through the thicket of dry twigs. He tries to shield his face, but his cheeks get scratched. He sees Eliot’s frame moving between the tree trunks; then the little girl behind the tree steps out and fires the gun at the policeman.
The cloud of shot hits the snow a meter in front of the barrel. The butt jerks back, and the girl’s thin frame is thrown by the recoil. Eliot spins around and aims his pistol at her.
“Wait!” Joona shouts, trying to force his way through the branches.
He ends up with snow all over him and inside his coat, but the branches give way. He emerges on the other side and stops abruptly.
Eliot Sörenstam is sitting on the ground with his arms around the sobbing girl. A few steps away, her little sister is standing and staring at them.
114
Susanne Hjälm’s arms are cuffed behind her back. Her broken elbow juts out at an odd angle. She’s screaming hysterically and putting up fierce resistance as two uniformed police officers drag her up the cellar steps. The blue lights from the emergency vehicles make the snowy landscape ripple like water. Neighbors are watching events from a distance, like silent ghosts.
Susanne stops screaming when she sees Joona and Eliot emerge from the forest. Joona is carrying the younger girl, and Eliot is holding the other one by the hand.
Susanne’s eyes open wide, and she breathes hard in the ice-cold winter night. Joona puts the girl down so she and her sister can go over to their mother. They hug for a long time, and she tries to calm them.
“It’s going to be all right now,” she says. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
An older female officer starts talking to the girls, trying to explain that their mother needs to go with the police.
The father is led out of the cellar by the paramedics, but he’s so weak that he has to be put on a stretcher.
Joona follows as the officers lead Susanne through the deep snow toward one of the police cars in the drive. They put her in the back seat while a senior officer talks to a prosecutor over the phone.
“She needs to go to the hospital,” Joona says, stamping the snow from his shoes.
He walks over to Susanne. She’s sitting quietly in the car, her face turned toward the house as she tries to catch a glimpse of her daughters.
“Why did you do this?” Joona asks.
“You’d never understand,” she says. “No one can understand.”
“Maybe I can,” he says. “I was the person who arrested Jurek Walter thirteen—”
“You should have killed him,” she interrupts, looking him in the eye for the first time.
“What happened?”
“I should never have spoken to him,” she says through gritted teeth. “We’re not supposed to, but I never imagined…”
She goes quiet and looks up at the house again.
“What did he say?”
“He…demanded that I mail a letter,” she whispers.
“A letter?”
“There are a ton of restrictions limiting what he’s allowed to do, so I couldn’t, but I, I…”
“You couldn’t send it? Where’s the letter now?”
“Maybe I should talk to a lawyer,” she says.
“Do you still have the letter?”
“I burned it,” she says, then turns away again.
Tears start to trickle down her exhausted, dirt-smeared face.
“What did the letter say?”
“I want to see a lawyer before I answer any more questions,” she says resolutely.
“This is important, Susanne,” Joona persists. “You’re going to get medical treatment now, and you can see a lawyer, but first I need to know where the letter was supposed to be sent. Give me a name, an address.”
“I don’t remember. It was a PO box.”
“Where?”
“I don’t remember. There was a name,” she says, shaking her head.
Joona watches as the older daughter is carried toward an ambulance on a stretcher. She looks scared and is trying to undo the straps holding her on.
“Do you remember the name?”
“It wasn’t Russian,” Susanne whispers. “It was—”
The daughter panics in the ambulance and starts screaming.
“Ellen!” Susanne cries. “I’m here, I’m here!”
Susanne tries to get out of the car, but Joona forces her to stay where she is.
“Leave me alone!”
She struggles to pull free and get out. The doors of the ambulance close and everything is quiet again.
“Ellen!” she calls.
The ambulance drives off, and Susanne turns her head away with her eyes closed.
115
When Anders Rönn gets home from the Autism and Asperger’s support group, Petra is sitting at the computer, paying bills. He goes over and kisses her on the back of the neck, but she shrugs him off. He tries to smile and pats her cheek.
“Stop it,” she says.
“Can we try to be friends?”
“You went way too far,” she tells him.
“I know. Sorry. I thought you wanted—”
She cuts him off. “Well, stop thinking that.”
Anders nods and then goes to check on Agnes. She’s sitting by her dollhouse with her back to him and a hairbrush in hand. She has brushed all the dolls’ hair and has piled them on top of one another in a dollhouse bed.
“Very nice job,” Anders says.
Agnes turns, shows him the brush, and meets his gaze for a few seconds.
He sits down next to her and puts his arm around her thin shoulders. She pulls away.
“Now they’re all asleep,” Anders says cheerily.
“No,” she says.
“What are they doing, then?”
“They’re looking.”
She points at the dolls’ painted eyes, wide open.
“You mean they can’t sleep if they’re looking? But you can pretend—”
“They’re looking,” she repeats, and starts to move her head anxiously.
“I can see that,” he says in a soothing voice. “But they’re lying in bed, just like they should be, and that’s a really good—”
“Ow, ow, ow…”
Agnes moves her head jerkily, then claps her hands three times. Anders holds her in his arms, kisses her head, and whispers that she’s done really well with the dolls. Her body relaxes, and she starts to line up Legos along the floor.
The doorbell rings, and Anders goes to answer it, glancing at Agnes again before leaving the room.
The outside light shows a tall man in a suit, with wet trousers and a torn pocket. The man’s hair is curly and mussed. His cheeks are dimpled, and his eyes look serious.
“Anders Rönn?” he says with a Finnish accent.
“Can I help you?” Anders asks.
“I’m from the National Criminal Investigation Department,” he says, showing his police ID. “Can I come in?”
116
Anders stares at the man. For a fleeting moment, he feels a chill of fear. He opens the door to let the man in. A thousand thoughts race through his mind as he asks whether his guest would like coffee.
Petra’s called a women’s helpline and talked.
Roland Brolin has fabricated some sort of complaint against him.
They’ve figured out that he isn’t really qualified for his job.
The tall detective says his name is Joona Linna and politely declines the coffee. He goes into the living room and sits down in an armchair. He gives Anders a friendly but appraising look that makes him feel like a guest in his own home.
“You’re filling in for Susanne Hjälm in the secure unit,” the detective inspector says.
“Yes,” Anders replies.
“What are your thoughts on Jurek Walter?”
Jurek Walter, Anders thinks. Is this just about Jurek Walter? He relaxes. “I can’t discuss individual patients,” he says sternly.