by Lars Kepler
Only the Iranian man from the garden-maintenance company has any time for him. Ali sometimes comes in for a cup of coffee.
It’s really for his sake that Nils keeps the pool open, but he still hasn’t plucked up the courage to ask if he’d like a swim.
Ali works hard, and often gets sweaty.
Nils knows that he books him far too often, which is why the garden looks the way it does, with precisely clipped shrubs and hedges, leafy archways and perfectly swept paths.
It’s quiet. It’s always so quiet here.
Nils shivers and pushes himself over to the jukebox.
He bought it when he was twenty years old: a genuine Seeburg, made by the Swedish Sjöberg company.
He used to change the singles from time to time. He would make new labels on his typewriter and slip them in under the glass top.
He inserts the coin into the slot, hears it rattle down and activate the mechanism before rolling out into the tray again.
He’s used the same coin all these years.
He taps the buttons for C7 with his shaking hand. The machine whirrs as the record is placed on the turntable.
Nils rolls away as the fast drum intro to ‘Stargazer’ starts to play. He is thrown back in time to when he saw Rainbow live at the Concert Hall in Stockholm in the late 1970s.
The band were over an hour late starting, but when Dio walked on and started to sing ‘Kill the King’, the audience moved as one towards the stage.
Nils goes over to the big windows. Every afternoon he lowers the shades on the west-facing windows to protect his paintings from the strong light.
Through the nylon gauze the window looks even darker and greyer.
To Ali, this whole place must look like a tragic manifestation of the absence of children and grandchildren.
Nils knows that the house is ridiculously showy, that the park is overblown, and that no one ever uses the pool.
His company produces advanced electronics for radar and electronic guidance systems. He’s had good government contacts and has been able to export dual-use products for almost twenty years now.
His arms suddenly shiver.
Over the loud music he thinks he can hear a small child chanting a nursery rhyme.
He turns the wheelchair and makes his way out into the hall.
The voice is coming from the abandoned upper floor. He rolls over to the staircase that he hasn’t climbed in many years, and sees that the door to the bedroom at the top is standing ajar.
The music from the jukebox stops. There’s a clicking sound as the single is slotted back into place among the others, and then silence descends.
Nils started to be afraid of the dark six months ago, after having a nightmare about his wife. She came back from the dead, but could only stand upright because she was impaled on a rough wooden post that ran between her legs, right through her body and neck, and out through her head.
She was angry that he hadn’t done anything to help her, that he hadn’t called for an ambulance.
The bloody pole reached all the way to the floor, and Eva was forced to walk with a strange, bow-legged gait as she came after him.
Nils puts his hands on his lap. They’re twitching and shaking, darting about in exaggerated gestures.
When they are still again he tightens the strap around his waist that prevents him from sliding out of the chair.
He rolls into the living room and looks around. Everything looks the way it always does. The chandelier, the Persian rugs, the marble table and the empire-style sofa and armchairs that Eva brought from her childhood home.
The phone is no longer on the table.
Sometimes Eva’s presence in the house is so real that he thinks her older sister has a spare key and is creeping around like in some Scooby-Doo cartoon in order to scare him.
He sets off towards the kitchen again, then thinks he sees something out of the corner of his eye. He quickly turns his head and imagines he sees a face in the antique mirror, before realising that it’s just a blemish in the glass.
‘Lizzy?’ he calls out weakly.
One of the kitchen drawers clatters, and then he hears footsteps on the floor. He stops, his heart pounding, turns the chair and imagines the blood running down the pole between Eva’s legs.
He presses on silently, rolling towards the big double doors, the wheels making a faint sticky sound on the hardwood floor.
Now Eva is walking bowlegged through the kitchen. The pole is scraping across the slate floor, leaving a trail of blood before catching on the threshold to the dining room.
The stupid nursery rhyme starts up again.
The radio in the kitchen must be switched on.
The footrest of the wheelchair hits the back door with a gentle clunk.
He looks towards the closed door to the dining room.
His hands are shaking, and the stiffness in his neck makes it hard for him to lean forward and press the button controlling the shades.
With a whirr, the grey nylon fabric glides up like a theatre curtain, and the garden gradually brightens.
The garden furniture is set out. There are pine needles gathering in the folds of the cushions. The lights around the pool aren’t switched on, but mist is rising gently from the water.
As soon as the shade has risen enough, he’ll be able to open the door and go outside.
He’s decided to wait outside for Ali, ask him to look through the house. He’ll admit that he’s scared of the dark, that he leaves the lights on all night, and maybe pay him extra to stay longer.
He turns the key in the lock with shaking hands. The lock clicks and he tugs the handle and nudges the door open.
He reverses, looks over towards the dining room and sees the door slowly open.
He rolls into the patio door as hard as he can. It swings open and he catches a glimpse of a figure approaching him from behind.
Nils hears heavy footsteps as he rolls out onto the deck and feels the cool air on his face.
‘Ali, is that you?’ he calls in a frightened voice as he rolls forward. ‘Ali!’
The garden is quiet. The tool-shed is locked. The morning mist is drifting above the ground.
He tries to turn the wheelchair, but one of the tyres is caught in the crack between two slabs. Nils can hardly breathe. He tries to stop himself from shaking by pressing his hands into his armpits.
Someone is approaching him from the house and he looks back over his shoulder.
A masked man, carrying a black bag in his hand. He’s walking straight towards him, disguised as an executioner.
Nils tugs at the wheels to pull himself free.
He’s about to shout for Ali again when cold liquid drenches his head, running through his hair, down his neck, over his face and chest.
It takes just a couple of seconds for him to realise that it’s petrol.
What he thought was a black bag is actually the lawnmower’s petrol tank.
‘Please, wait, I’ve got lots of money … I promise, I can transfer all of it,’ he gasps, coughing from the fumes.
The masked man walks around and tips the last of the petrol over Nils’s chest, then drops the empty container on the ground in front of the wheelchair.
‘God, please … I’ll do anything …’
The man takes out a box of matches and says some incomprehensible words. Nils is hysterical, and he can’t make sense of what the man is saying.
‘Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it …’
He tries to loosen the strap over his thighs, but it’s tangled and is now too tight to take off. His hands jerk as he tugs at it. The man calmly lights a match and tosses it onto his lap.
There’s a rush of air, and a sucking sound, like a parachute opening.
His pyjamas and hair burst into flames.
And through the blue glare he sees the masked man back away from the heat.
The childish nursery rhyme rolls through his head as the storm rages around him. He can’t
get any air into his lungs. It’s as if he’s drowning, and then he feels absolute, all-encompassing pain.
He could never have imagined anything so excruciating.
He leans forwards in the foetal position and hears a metallic crackling sound, as if from a great distance, as the wheelchair starts to buckle in the heat.
Nils has time to think that it sounds like the jukebox is searching for a new disc before he loses consciousness.
28
The inmate from Hall is on his way towards D-block, where the atmosphere is tense.
Through the reinforced glass, the guards can see that for once Joona is eating breakfast at the same table as the leader of the Brotherhood, Reiner Kronlid. The two of them talk for a while, then Joona stands up, takes his coffee and sandwich, and goes to sit at another table.
‘What the hell’s he playing at?’ one of the guards asks.
‘Maybe he’s heard something about the new guy.’
‘Unless it’s about being granted leave?’
‘His application was approved yesterday,’ the third guard nods. ‘First time for him.’
Joona looks over at the three guards who are watching him through the glass, then turns towards Sumo and asks the same question he just asked Reiner.
‘What can I do for you tomorrow?’ he asks.
Sumo has already served eight years for a double murder, and now knows that he killed people over a misunderstanding. His face is a picture of grief these days. He always looks like he’s been crying but is trying to hold it together.
‘Buy a red rose … the best one you can find. Give it to Outi and tell her she’s my rose, and … And say sorry for ruining her life.’
‘Do you want her to come out here?’ Joona asks, looking him in the eye.
Sumo shakes his head, and his gaze slides towards the window. He stares at the grey fence topped with barbed wire, and the monotonous, dirty yellow wall beyond it.
Joona turns to the next man at the table, Luka Bogdani, a short man whose face is locked in a permanent state of derision.
‘How about you?’
Luka leans forward and whispers:
‘I want you to check if my brother’s started to get rid of my money.’
‘What do you want me to ask?’
‘No, fuck it, no questions. Just look at the money, count it. There should be exactly six hundred thousand.’
‘I can’t do that,’ Joona replies. ‘I want to get out of here, and that money’s from a robbery, and if I—’
‘Fucking cop,’ Luka hisses, and sends his coffee cup flying.
Joona walks on around the tables in the dining room. He asks them all what he can do for them when he’s outside. He memorises greetings and errands as he waits for Salim Ratjen to arrive.
Joona told the Prime Minister that he needs thirty-six hours’ leave, starting on Monday, in order to infiltrate Ratjen’s organisation.
‘That won’t leave you long in here to find out what he knows,’ the Prime Minister had warned.
Joona didn’t tell him that the limited amount of time was an advantage.
Before leaving the visitors’ room, Joona had asked how far he was allowed to go in extreme circumstances. The corners of the Prime Minister’s mouth had twitched slightly when he replied:
‘If you can stop the terrorists, you can do pretty much whatever you need to.’
Reiner Kronlid gets up from his table, wipes his mouth nervously, then stares at the hallway and airlock. He stands there stiffly, his neck tense, before licking his lips and sitting back down again. The others at the Brotherhood’s table lean forward as he talks.
Joona sees the light in the hallway behind the reinforced glass dim as a grey shadow appears.
The lock whirrs and two guards hand over Salim Ratjen.
Salim Ratjen’s face is round and intelligent. His thinning hair is combed across his head, and his moustache is streaked with grey.
He is carrying his belongings in a grey, prison-service duffle, and is careful not to look anyone in the eye.
One of the guards takes him first to his cell, then the dining room.
Salim sits down on the empty chair next to Magnus Duva with a bowl and mug.
Joona stands up and goes over to them. Looking at Magnus, he sits down by their table and asks what he can do for him while he’s outside.
‘Go and see my sister and cut her nose off,’ Magnus says.
‘She sends you money every month,’ Joona says.
‘Don’t forget to film it,’ Magnus says.
Salim listens, eyes lowered, as he eats his muesli.
Reiner and two of his men stand talking in front of the window to the control room, blocking the view for the few moments required.
The other two members of the Brotherhood walk across the dining room, their muscled arms hanging stiffly by their sides. One of them has a tattoo of a wolf encircled by barbed wire. The other has a dirty bandage around his hand.
This is the wrong time for a murder, Joona thinks, and turns towards Salim Ratjen.
‘Do you speak Swedish?’ Joona asks.
‘Yes,’ Salim replies without looking up.
The men head off towards the bathrooms.
‘You might have figured out that I have some leave soon, and I’m asking everyone in the block if there’s anything they want me to do for them outside … We don’t know each other, but you’re probably going to be here for a while, so I’ll ask you too.’
‘Thanks, but I’m OK,’ Ratjen says in a low voice.
‘Because I’m an infidel?’
‘Yes.’
The plastic spoon trembles in Salim Ratjen’s freckled hand.
Chairs scrape the floor and the two Malmö guys get up on the other side of the room. Imre with the gold teeth is almost six foot six, and Darko looks like a sixty-year-old miner.
Reiner’s group start complaining noisily that the coffee is weak. They turn towards the window.
‘You can’t fucking fool us!’ one of them yells. ‘Before the Albanians got here there was always enough coffee!’
Behind the glass the two prison guards get ready to go in and calm things down.
The men from the Brotherhood start to head towards Salim. They pull up their hoods and keep their backs to the security cameras.
They’re not armed, they just want to intimidate him.
Joona stays where he is, realising that they’re about to strike. Salim controlled a lot of the drug trade at Hall, and Reiner Kronlid needs to scare or kill him straight away in order to show him who’s in control.
‘You’ll be put in the laundry room to start, but you can choose to study instead,’ Joona says calmly. ‘We’ve got a study group if you’re interested. This year three of the guys got their GCSEs, and—’
The first of the two men shoves Salim, and his chair topples over, taking him with it. His bowl hits the floor, sending its contents flying.
Salim tries to get up, but the second man kicks him in the chest and he stumbles back into the chairs behind him.
His right leg flies out and the sole of his shoe slips on the spilled food.
Joona sits where he is, drinking his coffee.
The guys from Malmö appear and force their way into the scrap. They’re a head taller than everyone else. They push the men from the Brotherhood away, talking in Albanian with smiles on their lips.
The prison guards rush into the dining room to separate the men.
Salim gets to his feet. He tries to look unconcerned, tries to hide his fear as he rubs his bruised elbow and sits back down again.
Joona hands him a paper napkin.
‘Thanks.’
‘You got some milk on your shirt.’
Salim wipes the smear and folds the napkin. Joona feels like the attack was feigned, some sort of diversionary manoeuvre.
He glances over at Reiner, trying to read his reaction, and concludes that a second wave is on its way.
The guards are talking to th
e two attackers, who are swearing blind that Salim Ratjen provoked them.
The situation has already been defused by the time the rapid response team comes rushing in, batons and pepper spray at the ready.
Joona knows that his only chance of getting close to Salim and his organisation before Wednesday is to exploit the fact that Salim was moved from Hall without warning.
There he had presumably built up a network to protect himself and communicate with the outside world.
He probably knew his plot might be discovered, but he wouldn’t have thought he’d be transferred.
If he has actually been directing the terrorist group from inside the prison, he is now completely cut off.
As an operational leader, he would have to find a new messenger at once, set up a new network of contacts if he is to be in a position to give the go-ahead for the murder on Wednesday.
If the Security Police are right, Salim Ratjen is in a desperate situation.
Joona looks at Salim, who is sitting with his hand around his cup. A pale film has settled on the dark-brown surface of the coffee.
‘I wouldn’t drink that,’ he says.
‘No, you’re right,’ Salim says.
He quickly thanks God for the food and stands up.
Joona tells Salim to give the study group some serious thought.
They all have ten minutes to get ready before they have to go off to the laundry room and the workshops, or to their studies.
When Joona gets back his cell has been ransacked: the bed has been pulled apart, his clothes are all over the floor, and his letters, books and photographs have been stepped on.
He goes in and hangs the photograph of his daughter Lumi back up, pats her cheek and then gets to work cleaning up the mess.
He picks up the letters he’s saved and smooths them out, but stops, Valeria’s first letter in his hand, remembering that he received it at Christmas. They had eaten their Christmas dinner, no alcohol of course, and then Santa Claus showed up.
‘Ho, ho, ho, are there any naughty children here?’ he had asked.
When he sat in his cell that evening and read Valeria’s first letter, it felt like the most wonderful Christmas present: