by Kepler, Lars
A slight blush appears below the doctor’s tired eyes.
‘He’s only a temp,’ Brolin explains slowly. ‘Surely you understand that we have to bring in temps sometimes?’
‘Who is he standing in for?’
‘Susanne Hjälm, she’s on leave of absence.’
‘How long has she been gone?’
Brolin answers as he breathes out:
‘Three months.’
‘What’s she doing?’
‘I don’t actually know – staff don’t have to give reasons for leave of absence.’
‘Is Anders Rönn working today?’
Brolin looks at his watch and says coldly:
‘I’m afraid he’s finished for the day.’
Joona gets his phone out and leaves the room. Anja Larsson answers just as he’s walking past the secretary.
‘I needs addresses and phone numbers for both Anders Rönn and Susanne Hjälm,’ he says curtly.
108
Joona has just pulled out of the hospital grounds and is accelerating along the old main road when Anja calls back.
‘Baldersvägen 3, in Upplands Väsby,’ she tells him. ‘That’s where Anders Rönn lives.’
‘I’ll find it,’ he says, and puts his foot down as he heads south.
‘Would you convert for my sake?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When we get married … I was just thinking, if I happened to be Catholic or Muslim, or—’
‘But you’re not.’
‘No, you’re right … there’s nothing stopping us, we could have a proper summer wedding.’
‘I’m not sure I’m mature enough to take a step like that,’ laughs Joona.
‘Me neither, but I’ve got a feeling I might be getting there,’ Anja whispers over the phone.
Then she clears her throat, changes tone and says coolly that she’ll check out Susanne Hjälm.
Joona heads back to the Upplands Väsby junction on the E4 and has just turned into Sandavägen to look for Anders Rönn’s house when Anja calls again.
‘This is a bit weird,’ she says in a serious voice. ‘Susanne Hjälm’s phone is switched off. As is her husband’s. He hasn’t shown up at the insurance company where he works for the past three months, and their two children haven’t been at school either. The girls are both off sick, with doctor’s certificates, nevertheless the school has been in touch with Social Services …’
‘Where do they live?’
‘Biskop Nils väg 23, in Stäket, on the way to Kungsängen.’
Joona pulls over to the side of the road and lets the lorry behind him drive past. Snow is blowing off the back.
‘Send a patrol to the address,’ Joona says, then does a U-turn.
The front right wheel goes up on the kerb, the car’s suspension lurches and the glove compartment pops open.
He’s trying not to think too far ahead, but his speed is increasing the whole time. He ignores the red traffic lights, races through the junction and onto the roundabout. By the time he reaches the slip road to the motorway he’s already going at a hundred and sixty kilometres an hour.
109
Route 267 is covered in snow, and the car leaves a great white cloud behind it. Joona overtakes an old Volvo and the tyres roll softly over the ridge of snow between the carriageways. He turns the headlights on full-beam and the deserted road becomes a tunnel with a black roof over a white floor. To begin with he drives through a landscape of fields, where the snow takes on a blue tone in the deepening darkness, then the road passes through thick forest until the lights of Stäket are flickering ahead of him and the landscape opens up towards Lake Mälaren.
What’s happened to the psychiatrist’s family?
Joona brakes and turns right, driving into a small residential area with snow-covered fruit trees and rabbit hutches on the lawns in front of the houses.
The weather’s been getting worse, and the snow is blowing in from the lake, thick and slanting.
Biskop Nils väg 23 is one of the last houses; beyond it there’s nothing but forest and rough ground.
Susanne Hjälm’s home is a large white villa with pale-blue shutters at the windows and a red tiled roof.
All the windows are unlit, and the driveway is thick with untouched snow.
Joona stops just beyond the house and barely has time to put the handbrake on before the patrol car from Upplands-Bro police pulls up a short distance away.
Joona gets out of the car, grabbing his coat and scarf from the back seat, and walks over to his uniformed colleagues as he does his coat up.
‘Joona Linna, National Crime,’ he says, holding out his hand.
‘Eliot Sörenstam.’
Eliot has a shaved head, a little vertical strip of beard on his chin, and melancholic brown eyes.
The other officer shakes his hand firmly and introduces herself as Marie Franzén. She has a cheerful, freckled face, blonde eyebrows and a ponytail high up at the back of her head.
‘Nice to see you in real life,’ she smiles.
‘It’s good that you could come so quickly,’ Joona says.
‘Only because I have to get home and plait Elsa’s hair,’ she says chattily. ‘She’s desperate to have curly hair for preschool tomorrow.’
‘We’d better hurry up, then,’ Joona says, and sets off towards the house.
‘Only kidding, there’s no rush … I’ve got some curling tongs as backup.’
‘Marie’s been on her own with her daughter for five years,’ Eliot explains. ‘But she’s never had a day off sick, or left early.’
‘That’s a lovely thing to say – considering you’re a Capricorn,’ she adds with real warmth in her voice.
The forest behind the house shelters it from the wind blowing off the lake, and the snow seems to roll up above the trees and fall on the little residential area. There are lights in the windows of most houses on the road, but number 23 is ominously dark.
‘There’s probably a good explanation,’ Joona tells the two officers. ‘But neither of the parents has been at work for the past few months, and the children are off school sick.’
The low hedge facing the road is covered with snow, and the green plastic mailbox next to the electricity meter is bursting with post and adverts.
‘Are Social Services involved?’ Marie asks seriously.
‘They’ve been out here already, but say the family is away,’ Joona replies. ‘Let’s try knocking, then we’re probably going to have to ask the neighbours.’
‘Do we suspect a crime?’ Eliot asks, looking at the virgin snow on the drive.
Joona can’t help thinking about Samuel Mendel. His whole family vanished. The Sandman took them, just as Jurek had predicted. But at the same time, it doesn’t fit. Susanne Hjälm reported the children sick, and herself signed the doctor’s note that was sent to the school.
110
The two police officers calmly follow Joona up to the house. The snow crunches under their boots.
No one’s been here for weeks.
A loop of garden hose is sticking out of the snow next to the sandpit.
They go up the steps to the porch and ring the bell, wait for a while, then ring again.
They listen for any noises from the house. Clouds of breath rise from their mouths. The porch creaks beneath them.
Joona rings again.
He can’t shake his bad feeling, but says nothing. There’s no reason to worry his colleagues.
‘What do we do now?’ Eliot asks quietly.
Leaning on the little bench, Joona bends over and peers through the narrow hall window. He can see a brown stone floor and striped wallpaper. The glass prisms hanging from the wall lamps are motionless. He looks back at the floor. The dustballs by the wall are still. He’s just thinking that the air inside the house doesn’t seem to be moving when one of the dustballs rolls under the dresser. Joona leans closer to the glass, cupping his hands to the pane, and sees a shadowy figure in the hall.
Someone standing with their hands raised.
It takes Joona a moment to realise that he’s seeing his own reflection in the hall mirror, but adrenalin is already coursing through his body.
He sees himself as a silhouette in the narrow hall window, he sees umbrellas in a stand, the inside of the door, the security chain and the red hall rug.
There’s no sign of any shoes or outdoor clothing.
Joona knocks on the window, but nothing happens.
The prisms of the lamps are hanging motionless, everything is still inside the house.
‘OK, let’s go and have a word with the nearest neighbours,’ he says.
But instead of going back to the road he starts to walk round the house. His colleagues stand on the drive, looking at him curiously.
Joona goes past a snow-covered trampoline, then stops. There are tracks from some animal leading through several of the gardens. Light from a window in the neighbouring house stretches out like a golden sheet across the snow.
Everything is completely silent.
Where the garden ends, the forest begins. Pine cones and needles have fallen on the thinner snow beneath the trees.
‘Aren’t we going to talk to the neighbours?’ Eliot asks, bemused.
‘I’m coming,’ Joona replies quietly.
‘What?’
‘What did he say?’
‘Wait a moment …’
Joona pads a bit further through the snow, his feet and ankles getting cold. A garden bird-feeder is swinging outside the dark kitchen window.
He carries on round the corner of the house, thinking that something isn’t right.
Snow has drifted against the wall of the house.
Shimmering icicles are hanging off the sill below the window closest to the forest.
But why only that one? he asks himself.
As he gets closer he sees the neighbours’ outside light reflected in the window.
There are four long icicles, and a series of smaller ones.
He’s almost reached the window when he notices a dip in the snow, next to an air vent close to the ground. Which means that every now and then warm air comes out of the vent.
That’s why there are icicles in that spot.
Joona leans forward and listens. All he can hear is the sound of wind moving slowly through the treetops.
The silence is broken by voices from the neighbouring house. Two children are shouting angrily at each other. A door slams, and the voices get quieter.
A faint scraping sound makes Joona bend down towards the vent again. He’s holding his breath, and thinks he can hear a quick whisper from the vent, like a command.
Instinctively he draws back, uncertain whether he imagined the whisper, then turns round and sees the other officers standing in the driveway, the dark trees, the snow-crystals sparkling in the air, and suddenly he realises what he saw a little while ago.
When he looked through the narrow hall window and saw himself in the mirror, he was so surprised that he missed the most important detail.
The door’s security chain was on, and to do that you had to be inside the house.
Joona runs through the deep snow, back round to the front. Loose snow flies up round his legs. He digs out his skeleton key from his inside pocket and goes up the steps to the porch.
‘There’s someone in there,’ he says quietly.
His colleagues just look at him in astonishment as he picks the lock, opens the door carefully, closes it again and then pushes 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 go into the hall, and are struck at once by the acrid stench of old rubbish. The house is silent, and as cold as outside.
‘Is anyone home?’ Joona calls.
All they can hear are their own footsteps and 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 torch behind him. Its light flits nervously in different directions. They move further into the house, and Joona sees 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 packets under the table – cornflakes, pasta, flour and sugar.
‘What the hell is this?’ Eliot whispers.
The fridge and freezer stand dark and empty, all the kitchen chairs are missing, and on the windowsills, next to the closed curtains, the houseplants have all withered.
It’s only from the outside that it looks like the family has left.
They go on, 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 corridor they can see a staircase leading down to the cellar.
They stop when they see a dead dog with a plastic bag taped round its head. It’s lying on the floor in front of the television stand.
Joona carries on towards the corridor and staircase. He can hear his colleagues’ careful footsteps behind him.
Marie’s breathing has speeded up.
The light from her torch is shaking.
Joona moves to the side so he can see into the unlit corridor. Further along it the bathroom door is ajar.
Joona gestures to the others to stop, but Marie is already beside him, pointing the torch towards the stairs. She takes a step closer and tries to see further 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 door. She points the torch in that direction. It’s a doll with long blonde 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 flare as the shotgun goes off fills the corridor like lightning.
It looks as if Marie is hit hard in the back, as some of 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 torch hits the floor.
Marie is really already dead when she takes one last step with her head hanging loose. She collapses in a heap with one leg folded beneath her, raising her hips at an odd angle.
Joona has drawn his pistol, released the safety catch and spun round. The corridor leading to the stairs is empty. There’s no one there. Whoever fired the shot must have disappeared down into the cellar.
Blood is bubbling from Marie’s neck, steaming in the chill air.
The torch is rolling slowly over the floor.
‘Dear God, dear God,’ Eliot whispers.
Their ears are ringing from the blast.
A child suddenly appears with the doll in its arms, slips on the blood, lands on its back and disappears into the darkness by the staircase. Footsteps thud down the stairs and disappear with a clatter.
112
Joona kneels down and takes a quick look at Marie. There’s nothing to be done, the heavy charge hit her lungs and heart and ripped through her carotid artery.
Eliot Sörenstam 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 from down in the cellar, and the shot hits the wood of the stairs, sending up a cascade of splinters.
Joona hears the metallic click as the gun snaps open. He rushes over, reaches the stairs as he hears the little sigh as the first empty cartridge is released.
Taking severa
l steps at a time, Joona races down the dark stairs, pistol raised.
Eliot Sörenstam has picked up the torch 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 billiard table.
There’s no sign of anyone, everything’s quiet again.
The adrenalin in his body makes him strangely calm, as if he were in a new, sharper version of reality.
Slowly he takes his finger off the trigger and loosens the rope that’s tied to the end of the banister to help him get round the barricade.
‘What the hell are we going to do?’ Eliot whispers with panic in his voice as he comes down.
‘Are you wearing a bulletproof vest?’
‘Yes.’
‘Shine the torch further into the cellar,’ Joona says as he starts to move.
There are two empty shotgun cartridges on the floor, surrounded by broken glass and empty tins of food. Eliot is breathing too fast, holding the torch 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.
There’s wire strung across the passageway at neck height, forcing them to duck down. Behind them the wires tap against each other.
Suddenly they hear whispering, and Joona stops and signals to Eliot. A ticking sound, followed by footsteps.
‘Run, run,’ someone whispers.
Cold air rushes in and Joona hurries forward, while the shaky light from Eliot Sörenstam’s torch sweeps round the cellar. There is a boiler room to their left, and in the other direction some concrete steps lead up to an open cellar door.
Snow is blowing in over the steps.
Joona has already caught sight of the concealed figure as the light of the torch glints off the knife-blade.
He takes another step forward, and hears rapid breathing followed by a sudden whimper.