by Lars Kepler
97
Erik is lying wrapped up in the grey cover he took from a parked motorbike. He wakes up, freezing. It’s light now, and he realises he’s underneath an amelanchier in a thicket of ornamental shrubs. He must have slept for three hours, and his body feels tight with cold. His whole body aches as he sits up and looks around. A dark bronze woman in old-fashioned clothes stares blindly at him from her plinth.
The sun is shining off the green leaves, sparkling in the cold.
Erik climbs over a red fence and crosses over to the shaded side of the street. He slowly warms up as he walks. He can’t really believe everything that happened yesterday.
He was heading towards Aspudden on foot when he spoke to Joona, who told him to get rid of his phone. Erik ducked into a doorway, copied down the most important numbers in his contacts, then switched his phone off.
In front of a bike shop on Hägerstensvägen he found a bus with the word ‘Smälandsbussen’ on the side. A group of weary-looking youngsters in crumpled clothes was gathered on the pavement. Parents were helping to unload rucksacks and sleeping bags from the open baggage compartments.
Erik went inside the bus, pretending to look for something that had been left behind, and quickly pushed his mobile down between two seats.
He stepped out of the rear door, grabbed a cap from a case and tucked it inside his jacket, then carried on towards the underground station. He stopped at the cashpoint in front of the Nordea Bank. He didn’t look up, but was aware of the security camera as he withdrew the maximum amount possible from his account. Then he walked back towards the bus again, and watched as the doors closed and it drove off.
Only a couple of youngsters were left on the pavement.
Erik pulled on the baseball cap as he hurried along Södertäljevägen, crossed the Liljeholmen Bridge, bought water and a large hamburger from the Zinkensgrillen kiosk, and headed into a back street where he stood in a doorway and ate. When he was done he carried on walking, steering clear of main streets with banks and traffic surveillance cameras, and just kept walking for as long as he could, until he eventually found himself in Vitabergsparken.
Erik runs his fingers through his hair to flatten it. His clothes are creased but not dirty enough to attract attention. He needs to stay hidden until he can talk to Joona. He daren’t take any risks, even if the misunderstanding has hopefully been cleared up by now.
Erik starts to cross the street but stops abruptly between two parked cars when he happens to see a convenience store.
His stomach gurgles with unease.
Among the notification of lottery wins and adverts for the football pools, the flysheets of the evening tabloids scream: POLICE HUNT SWEDISH SERIAL KILLER.
He recognises himself from the pixelated photograph. In accordance with press ethics they have kept his identity hidden. It’s only a matter of time, but for the moment his features are concealed by a mass of grainy squares.
The early edition of the other tabloid has no picture, but the headline covers the whole flysheet in capital letters:
NATIONAL ALARM – SWEDISH PSYCHIATRIST SOUGHT FOR FOUR MURDERS.
Under the headline the paper’s contents are listed: victims, pictures, brutality, police.
He steps up on to the pavement and passes the shop as it gradually dawns on him the police really do believe that he murdered Katryna and the other women.
He’s the man they’re hunting.
Erik turns into a side street and his legs start to shake so badly that he has to slow down and eventually stop. He stands there, clutching a trembling hand to his mouth.
‘Oh, God,’ he whispers.
Everyone Erik knows will work out that he’s the man being referred to when they read the articles. Right now they’ll be calling each other, shocked, excited, disgusted.
Some of them will be full of schadenfreude, others will be sceptical.
It feels like he’s falling, but somehow he’s still standing.
Benjamin will know it isn’t true, Erik thinks, and starts walking again. But Madeleine will be frightened once his real identity starts to be blared out.
Through an open car window he catches fragments of a conversation in which he imagines he hears his own name mentioned.
Erik thinks that he’s going to have to hand himself over to the justice system after all, so that he can defend himself.
This can’t go on.
He pulls out a blister-pack containing four Mogadon pills, presses one into his hand, but changes his mind and throws the whole lot in a rubbish bin.
On Östgötagatan he finds a small shop selling second-hand mobile phones. While he’s waiting to be served he listens to the news on the radio. A neutral voice explains coolly that the hunt for the suspected serial killer is now in its second day.
His stomach contracts as if he were about to be sick when he hears the voice say that an arrest warrant has been issued for a psychiatrist at the Karolinska Hospital on reasonable suspicion of having murdered four women in the Stockholm area.
The police are saying little otherwise, out of consideration for the ongoing investigation, but are hoping to receive further information from the public.
The man behind the counter, with the arm of his glasses held together by a piece of tape, asks how he can help, and Erik tries to smile as he explains that he’d like a pay-as-you-go mobile.
A senior police officer is explaining about the resources that have been deployed in the search, and how this has already given positive results.
Erik changes direction as soon as he leaves the shop. He switches streets a number of times, but is aiming to leave the centre of the city via Danvikstull.
He doesn’t dare stop and take out the phone before he’s passed the Tram Museum. He stands facing a yellow brick building and calls Joona Linna.
‘Joona, this is impossible,’ he says quickly. ‘Have you seen the papers? I can’t keep on hiding.’
‘You have to give me more time.’
‘No, I’ve made up my mind. I want you to arrest me and take me to the police.’
‘I can’t guarantee your safety.’
‘I don’t care,’ he says.
‘I’ve never seen the police so cut up, and not just Adam’s colleagues. It’s right across the board,’ Joona says. ‘It’s one thing to risk your own life, you’re aware of that when you enter operational service, but violence of this sort, directed at a police officer’s wife …’
‘You have to tell them I didn’t do this, you—’
‘I have, but they’ve linked you to each of the victims, and you were seen at the crime scene …’
‘What do I do?’ Erik whispers.
‘Stay hidden until I find the preacher,’ Joona replies. ‘I’m going to talk to Rocky, he’s in custody in Huddinge Prison.’
‘I could hand myself over to one of the evening tabloids,’ Erik says, aware of how desperate he sounds. ‘I could tell my own story, my version, and then I’d have journalists with me when I went to the police.’
‘Erik, even if that was possible, they’re already talking about your suicide in custody, about you hanging yourself or swallowing a piece of glass before the trial … It’s all a lot of talk, but I don’t want you to take the risk right now.’
‘I’ll call Nelly, she knows me, she knows I can’t have done this—’
‘You can’t do that. The police are watching her house … you need to find someone else you can stay hidden with, someone more distant, unexpected.’
Erik and Joona end the call. The cars are standing still, the bridge is being opened. Three sailing boats are on their way out to the Baltic.
98
Huddinge Prison is one of the largest secure facilities in the Swedish judicial system. Rocky Kyrklund is only suspected of basic narcotics offences and is therefore not subject to any particular restrictions, but he is regarded as a high escape risk.
The prison is a vast V-shaped, brown-brick building, with an entrance flanked by
tall pillars. At the rear are two wings shaped like fans, each of whose top floors contain eight individual exercise areas.
Rocky is the only person who knows who the unclean preacher is. He’s met him, spoken to him, and has seen him kill.
Joona has to hand over his keys and phone at the security check. They X-ray his shoes and jacket, and he is searched after passing through the metal detector. A black-and-white cocker spaniel circles him, sniffing for explosives and drugs.
The prison officer waiting for him at the door introduces himself as Arne Melander. As they head towards the lifts he tells Joona that he’s a competitive angler, that he came third in the Swedish coarse fishing championships at the start of the summer, and that he’s heading to the Fyris River at the weekend.
‘I went for bottom fishing,’ Arne explains, pressing the lift button. ‘And used pink- and bronze-coloured maggots.’
‘Sounds good,’ Joona says seriously.
Arne smiles, his cheeks lift and grow rounder. He has a large grey beard and is wearing glasses and a dark-blue Nato sweater that’s stretched tight across his big stomach.
His baton and alarm swing from his belt as they leave the lift and pass through the security doors. Joona waits quietly as the prison officer pulls his card through the reader and taps in the code.
They say hello to the duty officer, a white-haired man with a lazy eye and thin lips.
‘We’re running a bit late today,’ the duty officer says. ‘Kyrklund has just gone out for some air. But we can check if he wants to come back in.’
‘Please do,’ Joona says.
After the murder of prison officer Karen Gebreab the rules have been tightened, and no member of staff is allowed to be alone with any of their clients. The inmates are often desperate, in a state of upheaval after their crimes, the humiliation of their arrest, and the recognition of their failure in life.
Joona watches Arne Melander as he stands a little way off talking into a communications radio. He stares at the bare walls, the doors, the shiny linoleum floor and the coded locks.
Huddinge prison is evidently high security, totally enclosed, with reinforced doors and walls, entrance checks and camera surveillance. But the staff are only armed with batons.
Maybe they’ve got teargas or pepper spray, but no guns, Joona thinks.
A few years before Police Academy Joona was picked to join the paratroopers’ newly formed special ops unit, where he was trained in military Krav Maga, with a particular focus on urban warfare and innovative weaponry.
He still finds himself automatically scanning for potential weapons each time he enters a room.
He’s already spotted the stainless steel skirting boards and door-lintels in the prison.
The grooves on the heads of the screws have been planed off so they can’t be removed with ordinary tools, but the boards have started to drop towards the floor with the passage of time. Maybe the food trolleys have caught on them, or perhaps the floor-cleaner.
Joona has noticed that some of the skirting boards could be nudged off with his foot. If you wrapped your hands in some cloth, you could pull the whole length of skirting board off, bend it twice, and in twenty seconds create a sort of noose that could be wrapped round an opponent’s neck and tightened using the protruding lengths of metal.
Joona remembers the Dutch lieutenant, Rinus Advocaat, a sinuous man with a scarred face and dead eyes, who demonstrated that sort of weapon, and showed how to control your enemy’s movements and basically decapitate him by tightening the noose.
‘He’s on his way,’ Arne says amiably to Joona.
Rocky is walking behind two prison officers. He’s wearing pale green prison overalls and sandals, and has a cigarette tucked behind his ear.
‘Thanks for cutting short your time outside,’ Joona says, walking towards him.
‘I don’t like cages much anyway,’ Rocky says, and clears his throat.
‘Why not?’
‘Good question,’ he replies, and shoots Joona an interested glance.
‘You’re booked into a monitored interview room, number eleven,’ Arne tells Joona. ‘So I’ll be sitting on the other side of the glass.’
‘I remember the crayfish pots when I was little, at night … It’s around this time of year,’ Rocky says.
They stop outside the door while Arne unlocks it.
‘I used to shine my torch at the crayfish, and using just the beam I could force them into the pots,’ Rocky goes on.
Interview room 11 is shabby, and contains a table, four chairs, and an internal phone to summon the prison staff.
The legs of the chairs are supposed to be unbreakable, but if you were to lay one of them on the floor, climb up on to the table and jump on to the curved back, the laminate would shatter and you could quickly fashion a shiv, a simple knife, out of it, Joona thinks.
‘So the guard can see me through glass?’ Rocky asks, nodding towards the dark window.
‘It’s just a security precaution.’
‘But you’re not frightened of me?’ Rocky smiles.
‘No,’ Joona replies calmly.
The thickset priest sits down and his chair creaks beneath him.
‘Have we met before?’ he asks with a frown.
‘At the Zone,’ Joona says evenly.
‘At the Zone,’ Rocky repeats. ‘Should I know where that is?’
‘It was where the police arrested you.’
Rocky screws up his eyes and gazes into the distance.
‘I don’t remember any of that … They say I had a load of heroin on me, but how could I have afforded that?’
‘You don’t remember the Zone? Sofa Zone in Högdalen?’
Rocky purses his lips and shakes his head.
‘An industrial unit with loads of sofas and armchairs, prostitutes, people openly dealing heavy drugs, guns …’
‘Well, I’ve got a neurological injury from a car crash, I have trouble remembering things,’ Rocky explains.
‘I know.’
‘But you want me to confess to the drugs offences?’
‘I don’t care about that,’ Joona says, sitting down opposite him. ‘You only have to say it wasn’t your jacket, that you picked up a jacket you found on the floor.’
Neither of them speaks for a short while, and Rocky stretches out his long legs.
‘So you want something else,’ he says warily.
‘You’ve mentioned a person you call the unclean preacher several times … I need your help to identify him.’
‘Have I met this preacher?’
‘Yes …’
‘Is he a priest?’
‘I don’t know.’
Rocky scratches his beard and neck.
‘I’ve no idea,’ he says after a while.
‘You described how he killed a woman called Natalia Kaliova, he chopped her arm off,’ Joona goes on.
‘A preacher …’
‘He was the one who murdered Rebecka Hansson.’
‘What the hell are you up to?’ Rocky roars and stands up suddenly, toppling his chair behind him. ‘I murdered Rebecka Hansson. Do you think I’m stupid or something?’
Rocky backs away, stumbles over the overturned chair and almost falls, throws his arm out and plants his large hand on the reinforced glass.
The prison officer comes in but Joona holds up a calming hand towards him as he sees several more guards running along the corridor.
‘We don’t believe you did it,’ Joona says. ‘Do you remember Erik Maria Bark?’
‘The hypnotist?’ Rocky says, licking his lips and brushing his hair back.
‘He’s found a woman who can give you an alibi.’
‘And I’m supposed to believe that?’
‘Her name is Olivia,’ Joona says.
‘Olivia Toreby,’ Rocky says slowly.
‘You started to remember under hypnosis … and everything suggests that you were convicted of a murder that the preacher committed.’
Ro
cky comes closer to him.
‘But you don’t know who this preacher is?’ he asks.
‘No,’ Joona replies.
‘Because everything is locked inside my mashed-up brain,’ Rocky says hollowly.
‘Would you agree to be hypnotised again?’
‘Wouldn’t you if you were in my position?’ he asks, and sits down again.
‘Yes,’ Joona replies honestly.
Rocky opens his mouth to say something, but falls silent and puts his hand to his forehead. One of his eyes has started to quiver, the pupil seems to be vibrating, and he leans forward, holding on to the table and breathing hard.
‘Bloody hell,’ he says after a while, and looks up.
His forehead is shiny with sweat, and he gazes up at Joona and the prison officers that have entered the room with a look of dreamy bemusement.
99
Joona stops District Prosecutor Sara Nielsen in the middle of the steps outside the district court on Scheelegatan. Because he can’t take Erik with him into the prison, he needs to persuade the prosecutor to release Rocky on bail in advance of his trial.
‘I called you about Kyrklund,’ he says, standing in front of her. ‘He can’t stay in prison.’
‘That’s for the district court to decide,’ she replies.
‘But I don’t understand why,’ Joona persists.
‘Buy a book on Swedish law.’
A strand of blonde hair blows across Sara’s face, and she brushes it aside with one finger and raises her eyebrows as Joona starts to speak.
‘According to chapter twenty-four, paragraph twenty,’ he says, ‘a prosecutor can revoke the decision to remand a suspect in custody if that decision is no longer justified.’
‘Bravo,’ she smiles. ‘But there’s a clear risk that Kyrklund will evade the course of justice, and a tangible danger that he would commit further offences.’
‘But we’re only talking about minor narcotics offences, punishable by a year’s imprisonment at most … and it’s extremely doubtful that possession could even be proven.’
‘You said it wasn’t his jacket over the phone,’ she says in a bright voice.