The Sandman

by Kepler, Lars

  Joona throws again and hits the man on the ground in the middle of the chest, spraying snow in his bearded face.

  The man with the knife looks down at him, then laughs unkindly:

  ‘Lumiukko.’

  The man on the ground throws some loose snow up at him. He backs off, putting the knife away and forming a snowball. The bearded man rises unsteadily, clinging to the railing.

  ‘I’m good at this,’ he mutters as he forms a snowball.

  The man in the chequered jacket takes aim at the other man, but abruptly turns round instead and throws a ball that hits Joona on the shoulder.

  For several minutes snowballs fly in all directions. Joona slips and falls. The bearded man loses his hat and the other man rushes over and fills it with snow.

  The woman claps her hands, and is rewarded with a snowball to her forehead which sits there like a white bump. The bearded man bursts out laughing and falls backwards into a pile of old Christmas trees. The man in the chequered jacket kicks some snow over him, but gives up. He’s panting as he turns to look at Joona.

  ‘And where the hell did you come from?’ he asks.

  ‘National Criminal Police,’ Joona replies, brushing the snow from his clothes.

  ‘The police?’

  ‘You took my child,’ the woman mutters.

  Joona picks up the fur hat and shakes the snow off it before handing it to the man in the jacket.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I saw the wishing star,’ the drunken woman goes on, looking Joona in the eye. ‘I saw it when I was seven … and I wish you’d burn in the fires of hell and scream like—’

  ‘You shut your mouth,’ the man in the chequered jacket shouts. ‘I’m glad I didn’t stab you, little brother, and—’

  ‘I want my money,’ the other man calls with a smile.

  39

  There’s a light on in the bathroom when Joona gets home. He opens the door slightly and sees Disa lying in the bath with her eyes closed. She’s surrounded by bubbles and is humming to herself. Her muddy clothes are in a big heap on the bathroom floor.

  ‘I thought they’d locked you up in prison,’ Disa says. ‘I was all prepared to take over your flat.’

  Over the winter Joona has been under investigation by the Prosecution Authority’s national unit for internal investigations, accused of wrecking a long-term surveillance operation and exposing the Security Police rapid-response unit to danger.

  ‘Apparently I’m guilty,’ he replies, picking her clothes up and putting them in the washing machine.

  ‘I said that right at the start.’

  ‘Yes, well …’

  Joona’s eyes are suddenly grey as a rainy sky.

  ‘Is it something else?’

  ‘A long day,’ he replies, and goes out into the kitchen.

  ‘Don’t go.’

  When he doesn’t come back she climbs out of the bath, dries herself and puts on a thin dressing gown. The beige silk clings to her warm body.

  Joona is standing in the kitchen, frying some baby potatoes golden brown when she comes in.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  Joona glances at her.

  ‘One of Jurek Walter’s victims has come back … he’s been held captive all this time.’

  ‘So you were right – there was an accomplice.’

  ‘Yes,’ he sighs.

  Disa takes a few steps towards him, then gently rests her palm flat against the small of his back.

  ‘Can you catch him?’

  ‘I hope so,’ Joona says seriously. ‘I haven’t had the chance to question the boy properly, he’s in a bad way. But he should be able to lead us there.’

  Joona takes the frying pan off the heat, then turns and looks at her.

  ‘What is it?’ she asks, suddenly looking worried.

  ‘Disa, you have to say yes to the research project in Brazil.’

  ‘I’ve told you, I don’t want to go,’ she says quickly, then realises what he means. ‘You can’t think like that. I don’t give a damn about Jurek Walter. I’m not scared, I won’t be governed by fear.’

  He gently brushes aside the wet hair that has fallen over her face.

  ‘Only for a little while,’ he says. ‘Until I get this sorted out.’

  She leans against his chest and hears the muffled double beat of his heart.

  ‘There’s never been anyone but you,’ she says simply. ‘When you stayed with me after your family’s accident, well, that was … you know, that was when I … lost my heart, as they say … but it’s true.’

  ‘I’m just worried about you.’

  She strokes his arm and whispers that she doesn’t want to go. When her voice breaks, he pulls her to him and kisses her.

  ‘But we’ve seen each other all the way through,’ Disa says, looking up into his face. ‘I mean, if there is an accomplice who’s a threat to us, why hasn’t anything happened? It doesn’t make sense …’

  ‘I know, I agree, but … I have to do this. I’m going after him, and now is when it’s all happening.’

  Disa can feel a sob rising in her throat. She fights it back down and turns her face away. Once she had been Summa’s friend. That was how they met. And when his life fell apart, she was there.

  He moved in and stayed with her for a while when things were at their very worst for him.

  At night he would sleep on her sofa, and she would hear him moving about, and knew that he knew she was lying awake in the next room. That he was looking at the door to her bedroom and thinking about her lying in there, more and more confused and hurt by how distant he was being, how cold. Until one night he got up, got dressed and left her flat.

  ‘I’m staying,’ Disa whispers, wiping the tears from her face.

  ‘You have to go.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I love you,’ he says. ‘You must know that …’

  ‘Do you really think I’d go now?’ she asks with a broad smile.

  40

  Jurek Walter is visible on one of the nine squares of the huge monitor. Like a caged beast he is pacing the dayroom, walking round the sofa, then turning left and going past the television. He goes round the running machine, turns left again and goes back into his room.

  Anders Rönn watches him from above on another of the screens, as well as on the other monitor.

  Jurek washes his face, then sits down on the plastic chair without drying himself. He stares at the door to the corridor as the water drips onto his shirt and dries.

  My is sitting in the operator’s chair. She checks the time, waits another thirty seconds, looks at Jurek, makes a note of the zone on the computer, and locks the door to the dayroom.

  ‘He’s getting faggots this evening … he likes that,’ she says.

  ‘He does?’

  Anders Rönn already thinks that the routines surrounding this one patient are so repetitive and static that it would be hard to tell the days apart if it weren’t for the daily meeting up on Ward 30. The other doctors talk about their patients and care plans. No one even expects him to repeat that the situation in the secure unit is unchanged.

  ‘Have you ever tried talking to the patient?’ Anders asks.

  ‘With Jurek? We’re not allowed to,’ she replies, and scratches her tattooed arm. ‘It’s because … well, he says things you can’t forget.’

  Anders hasn’t spoken to Jurek Walter since that first day. He just makes sure that the patient gets his regular injection of neuroleptic drugs.

  ‘Do you know how the computer system works?’ Anders asks. ‘I couldn’t work out how to sign out of the medical records.’

  ‘In that case you’re not allowed to go home,’ she says.

  ‘But I …’

  ‘I’m joking,’ she laughs. ‘The computers down here are always getting snarled up.’

  She gets up, grabs her bottle of Fanta from the desk and goes out into the corridor. Anders sees that Jurek is still sitting completely motionless with his eyes open.


  It might not be that much fun doing his specialist service deep underground, behind security doors and airlocks, but for him it’s fantastic to work so close to home, and to be able to spend time with Agnes each evening, he tells himself as he goes after My. She is walking along the dimly lit corridor at a relaxed stroll. When she reaches the brightly lit office he notices that her red underwear is visible through the white fabric of her nurse’s trousers.

  ‘Now let’s see,’ she mutters, sitting in his chair and rousing the computer from standby mode. With a contented grin she forces the program to close and logs in again.

  Anders thanks her, asks who’s working that night, and asks her to restock the medication trolley if she has time.

  ‘Don’t forget to sign the requisition orders afterwards,’ he says, then leaves.

  He walks round the corner into the other corridor and into the changing room. The ward is completely silent. He doesn’t know what drives him to do it, but he opens My’s locker and starts to search through her gym bag with trembling hands. Carefully he unfolds a damp T-shirt and a pair of pale grey jogging pants, and finds a pair of sweaty knickers. He takes them out, lifts them to his face and breathes in her scent. Suddenly he realises that My might see him on the monitor the moment she returns to the control room.

  41

  When Anders gets home the house is quiet and the light is off in Agnes’s room. He locks the door behind him and goes into the kitchen. Petra is standing at the sink rinsing the glass cylinder from the blender.

  She’s wearing baggy stay-at-home clothes: a Chicago White Sox T-shirt that’s too big for her, and yellow leggings that she’s pulled up to her knees. Anders goes up behind her and puts his arms round her, smelling her hair and fresh deodorant. She’s about to pull away when he moves his hands up to cup her heavy breasts.

  ‘How’s Agnes?’ he asks, letting go of her.

  ‘She’s got a new best friend at preschool,’ Petra says with a big smile. ‘A little boy who started last week, apparently he’s in love with her … I don’t know how reciprocated his feelings are, but she let him give her some bits of Lego.’

  ‘Sounds like love,’ he says, sitting down.

  ‘Tired?’

  ‘I fancy a glass of wine – do you want one?’ he asks.

  ‘Want one?’

  She looks him in the eye, smiling more broadly than she’s done for a very long time.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ he asks.

  ‘Does what I want matter?’ she whispers.

  He shakes his head and she looks at him with twinkling eyes. They leave the kitchen and go silently into the bedroom. Anders locks the door to the corridor and watches as Petra opens the mirrored wardrobe door and pulls out a drawer. She removes a bundle of underwear and gets out a carrier bag.

  ‘So that’s where you hid everything?’

  ‘You’re not to make me feel embarrassed now,’ she says.

  He pulls the duvet aside and Petra empties the contents of the bag, all the things they bought after she’d read Fifty Shades of Grey. He picks up the soft rope and ties her hands, loops it through the slatted headboard, then tightens it, making her fall onto her back with her hands above her head. He ties the rope to the bottom of the bed with two half-hitch knots. She parts her legs and squirms as he pulls off her leggings and underwear.

  He loosens the rope again, loops it round her left ankle and ties it to the bedpost, then pulls it round the other post and ties her right ankle.

  He pulls the rope gently, making her legs slowly spread open.

  She’s looking at him, her cheeks flushed.

  He suddenly pulls harder and forces her thighs apart as far as they’ll go.

  ‘Careful,’ she says quickly.

  ‘Keep quiet,’ he tells her sternly, and sees her smile happily to herself.

  He fastens the rope, then moves up the bed and pulls her T-shirt over her face so she can no longer see him. Her breasts sway as she tries to get the fabric off her face.

  There’s no way she can get loose – she’s entirely helpless in this position, with her arms over her head and her legs pulled so far apart that her inner thighs must be aching.

  Anders just stands there, watching her shake her head, and feels his heart beat faster, harder. Slowly he undoes his trousers as he sees her crotch start to glisten with moisture.

  42

  Joona enters the patient’s room and sees an older man sitting by the boy’s bed. It takes him a few seconds to realise that it’s Reidar Frost. It’s been years since he last saw him, but he’s aged considerably more than that. The young man is asleep, but Reidar is sitting there holding his left hand in both of his.

  ‘You never believed my children had drowned,’ the father says in a muted voice.

  ‘No,’ Joona replies.

  Reidar’s gaze rests on Mikael’s sleeping face, then he turns to Joona and says:

  ‘Thank you for not telling me about the murderer.’

  The suspicion that Mikael and Felicia Kohler-Frost had been among Jurek Walter’s victims had been strengthened by the fact it was via the children that he had been tracked down and arrested, and that he had first been spotted by Joona and Samuel below their mother’s window.

  Joona looks at the young man’s thin face, his straggly beard, his sunken cheeks and the beads of sweat on his forehead.

  When Mikael had talked about the way things were at the start, when there were more of them and he met Rebecka Mendel, he had been talking about the first few weeks of Jurek Walter’s isolation, Joona thinks.

  Since then more than a decade of imprisonment has gone by.

  But Mikael managed to escape – it must be possible to find out where from.

  ‘I never stopped looking,’ Joona says quietly to Reidar.

  Reidar looks at his son and his face cracks into an uncontrollable smile. He has been sitting like that for hours, and still can’t get enough of just gazing at his child.

  ‘They’re saying he’s going to be fine. They’ve promised, they’ve promised there’s nothing wrong with him,’ he says in a rough voice.

  ‘Have you talked to him?’ Joona asks.

  ‘He’s been given a lot of painkillers, so he’s mostly been asleep, but they say that’s good, it’s what he needs.’

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ Joona agrees.

  ‘He’s going to be fine … mentally, I mean. It will just take a bit of time.’

  ‘Has he said anything at all?’

  ‘He’s whispered things to me, but not so that I can hear them,’ Reidar says. ‘It just sounds confused. But he recognised me.’

  Joona knows it’s important to start talking about things right from the outset. Remembering is an important part of the healing process. Mikael needs time, but he mustn’t be left to himself. As time goes by the questions can gradually probe deeper, but there’s always a risk that a traumatised person will shut off entirely.

  And there’s no real rush, Joona reminds himself.

  It could take months to map out everything that’s happened, but he does need to ask the most important question today.

  I need to find out if Mikael knows who the accomplice is, he thinks, feeling his heart beating faster again.

  If he can just get a name or a decent description, this nightmare could be over.

  ‘I have to talk to him as soon as he wakes up,’ Joona says. ‘I just need to ask him a few very specific questions, but he might find it a bit difficult.’

  ‘As long as it doesn’t frighten him,’ Reidar says. ‘I can’t let that happen …’

  He falls silent when a nurse comes in. She says hello quietly, then checks Mikael’s pulse and oxygen levels.

  ‘His hands have gone cold,’ Reidar tells her.

  ‘I’m going to give him some antipyretics soon,’ the nurse assures him.

  ‘He is getting antibiotics, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, but it can take a couple of days before those start to work,’ the nurse
says with a reassuring smile as she hangs a new infusion bag on the drip-stand.

  Reidar helps her, standing up and holding the tube out of the way to make it easier for her, then walks to the door with her.

  ‘I want to talk to the doctor,’ he says.

  Mikael sighs and whispers something to himself. Reidar stops and turns round. Joona leans forward and tries to hear what he’s saying.

  43

  Mikael’s breathing has speeded up, and he’s tossing his head, whispering something. He opens his eyes and stares at Joona with a haunted expression.

  ‘You’ve got to help me, I can’t lie here,’ he says. ‘I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it, my sister’s waiting for me, I can feel her the whole time, I can feel …’

  Reidar hurries over and takes his hand, holds it to his cheek.

  ‘Mikael, I know,’ he whispers, then gulps hard.

  ‘Dad …’

  ‘I know, Mikael, I think about her all the time …’

  ‘Dad,’ Mikael cries with an anguished voice. ‘I can’t bear it, I can’t, I …’

  ‘Calm down,’ Reidar reassures him.

  ‘She’s alive, Felicia’s alive,’ he cries. ‘I can’t lie here, I’ve got to …’

  He lets out a long, rattling cough. Reidar holds his head up and tries to help him. He keeps saying soothing things to his son, but Mikael’s eyes are burning with boundless panic.

  He sinks back onto the pillow, gasping and whispering inaudibly to himself as tears run down his cheeks.

  ‘What were you saying about Felicia?’ Reidar asks calmly.

  ‘I don’t want to,’ Mikael gasps. ‘I can’t just lie here …’

  ‘Mikael,’ Reidar interrupts. ‘You need to be clearer.’

  ‘I can’t bear it …’

  ‘You said that Felicia is alive,’ Reidar repeats. ‘Why did you say that?’

  ‘I left her, I left her behind,’ Mikael sobs. ‘I ran, and I left her behind.’

  ‘Are you saying that Felicia is still alive?’ Reidar asks, for the third time.