by Lars Kepler
He counters with one pad, but she slips away and hits out with another sequence of blows that echoes around the gym.
She hunches her shoulders, tilts her head and jabs with her left hand.
‘Janus and I are going to keep working on the preliminary investigation to make sure that nothing leads back to the Foreign Minister,’ she says, panting for breath.
Joona angles the pads so she can practise straight punches, then swings the right one and hits her on the cheek, before backing away and letting her come at him with two heavy right hooks.
‘Lower your chin a little,’ he says.
‘I’m too proud for that,’ she smiles.
‘So what happens if you find the murderer?’ Joona asks, following her towards the blue corner.
She fires off a sequence of four rapid punches at the two pads.
‘My main job is to make sure he doesn’t confess to the murder,’ she says. ‘So he can’t be connected to it in any way, can’t be prosecuted, or—’
‘He’s extremely dangerous,’ Joona interrupts. ‘And we don’t know if he’s going to kill again. We have no idea what his motives are.’
‘That’s why I’m talking to you.’
The heavyweight has stopped punching now; he’s standing with his arms around the punchbag, staring dreamily at Saga.
‘You need to lower your chin.’
‘Oh, no,’ she laughs.
She slips out of the corner, hits a hard right hook, rolls her shoulders and follows through with a body-blow that makes Joona take a few steps back.
‘If I was in the police, I’d try a different approach,’ he says.
‘What?’ Saga asks, wiping the sweat from her face.
‘The other Ratjen.’
‘Let’s take a break,’ she says, holding out both her hands.
‘Salim Ratjen has a brother in Sweden,’ Joona says, removing the tape.
‘He’s been under heavy surveillance since the Foreign Minister’s murder.’
‘What have you found out?’ Joona asks, untying the laces.
‘He lives in Skövde, he’s a high-school teacher, and he has no contact with Salim,’ she says, climbing out of the ring.
She shakes her gloves onto the floor as she walks towards the locker room. When she comes back she has a towel around her neck and she’s taken the tape off her hands.
They go into the little office and Saga puts her military-green laptop on the desk. The walls are lined with glass-fronted cupboards containing medals and trophies, yellowing newspaper clips and framed photographs.
‘I don’t like to think about what would happen if Verner found out I still have this information,’ Saga mutters as she clicks to bring it up. ‘Absalon Ratjen lives at 38A Länsmans Street, teaches maths and science at Helena School …’
She brushes her hair from her face and reads on:
‘He’s married to a Kerstin Rönell, who teaches PE at the same school … they have two children, both in elementary school.’
She gets up and lowers the blind on the office door.
‘Obviously we’re monitoring their phones,’ she says to Joona. ‘We’re keeping an eye on their online activities and so on, checking their emails, both private and at the school … His wife’s the only one who occasionally looks at porn.’
‘And he has absolutely no connection to the Foreign Minister?’
‘None.’
‘So who has he been in contact with in the past few weeks?’
Saga wipes her forehead as she checks the laptop.
‘The usual stuff … and he mentioned a meeting with a car mechanic that never actually happened …’
‘Look into that.’
‘We also have a strange email from a computer with no IP address.’
‘Strange in what way?’
Saga turns the laptop towards Joona and brings up white text on a black background: I’ll eat your dead heart on the razorback battlefield.
The light of the desk lamp flickers as an underground train passes below them.
‘It seems pretty threatening,’ she says. ‘But we think it’s actually jargon related to a competition … Absalon Ratjen teaches advanced maths at the school, and his students are taking part in the First Lego League, which is an international contest for programmable robots made out of Lego.’
‘Take it seriously anyway,’ Joona says.
‘Janus is taking it seriously … he’s working full-time on this email, and a recorded phone call that … Well, we don’t know if it’s a nuisance call or a wrong number. All we can hear is the sound of Ratjen’s breathing, and a child reciting a nursery rhyme.’
She clicks on an audio file and a moment later a tentative child’s voice echoes from the speaker of the laptop:
Ten little rabbits, all dressed in white,
Tried to get to heaven on the end of a kite.
Kite string got broken, down they all fell,
Instead of going to heaven, they all went to …
Nine little rabbits, all dressed in white,
Tried to get to heaven on …
The call ends abruptly and is followed by silence. Saga clicks to close the audio file, and mutters that the rhyme could also be connected to the contest as she searches through the report.
‘Absalon is the next victim,’ Joona says, and gets up from his chair.
‘That can’t be right,’ she objects, smiling despite herself. ‘We’ve examined it from every—’
‘Saga, you have to send people down there right away.’
‘I’ll call Carlos, but can you tell me why you—’
‘Make the call first,’ Joona interrupts.
Saga takes out her phone and asks to be put through to Carlos Eliasson, head of the National Operations Unit and Joona’s former boss.
Ratjen, rabbits and hell, Joona repeats to himself.
He thinks about the high-pitched and slightly bemused child’s voice, and the rhyme about the rabbits that end up in hell.
When he was questioning Sofia he’d tried to analyse the composite sketches of the killer.
Sofia told him she had thought the killer had long strands of hair hanging down his cheeks.
Searching her memory, she then described them as strips of thick fabric, possibly leather.
When she tried to draw the strips onto the picture, at first they looked like big feathers, before turning into matted hair.
But they weren’t feathers, Joona thinks.
He’s almost certain that what she saw hanging over the murderer’s cheeks were sliced-off rabbits’ ears.
Ratjen, rabbits and hell.
The killer mentioned Ratjen, and said that hell would devour them: he’s planning to kill all the rabbits in the rhyme.
Saga is trying to explain to Carlos why they urgently need to send a team to Salim Ratjen’s brother in Skövde.
‘Look, I need to know why,’ Carlos says.
‘Because Joona says so,’ Saga says.
‘Joona Linna?’ he asks in surprise.
‘Yes.’
‘But … but he’s in prison.’
‘Not at the moment,’ Saga replies bluntly.
‘Not at the moment?’ Carlos repeats.
‘Just get a team down there at once.’
Joona grabs the phone from Saga’s hand and hears his former boss’s voice:
‘Just because Joona is the most stubborn person in—’
‘I’m only stubborn because I’m probably right,’ he interrupts. ‘And if I am, then there’s no time to lose if you want to save his life.’
54
A robot made of red and grey Lego is standing on the kitchen table. It’s the size of a wine-box, and resembles an old-fashioned tank with a grab-claw attachment.
‘Say hello to our new friend,’ Absalon smiles.
‘Hello,’ Elsa says.
‘And he’s going to be asleep very soon,’ Kerstin says.
She hands out paper towels to use as napkins, looks at h
er husband’s beaming face, and thinks that he must have gained some weight.
The children are already in their pyjamas. Peter’s are too short in the leg. Elsa is wearing all her hairbands as bracelets.
Absalon moves the carton of lactose-free milk, a sticky ketchup bottle and the bowl of grated carrot and apple.
The robot starts to roll across the floral-patterned wax tablecloth. Its small rubber front wheels hit the pan of macaroni and trigger the next action. Peter giggles as the moveable upper section of the robot slides forward on two rails. With a plastic rattling sound the wooden ladle sinks into the macaroni, then lifts back up again far too quickly.
The children laugh as macaroni flies across the table.
‘Hang on,’ Absalon says, leaning forward and adjusting the spring on the grab-arm. He aims the remote at the robot again.
With gentler movements, the robot picks up some more macaroni, rotates half a turn and then rolls towards Elsa’s dish. Her eyes shine as it deposits the food on her plate.
‘That’s so sweet!’ she cries out.
There are sirens in the distance.
‘Does it have a name?’ Kerstin asks with a wry smile.
‘Boris!’ Peter declares.
Elsa claps her hands and repeats the name several times.
Absalon steers the robot towards his son’s plate, but manages to crash it into the pot of crispy onion pieces, and can’t stop it from emptying its spoon into his glass of milk. Peter bursts out laughing and puts his hands over his face.
‘Boris, I think you’re really smart,’ Elsa says consolingly.
‘But now he needs to get some sleep,’ Kerstin says once more, and tries to catch her husband’s eye.
‘Can he pick up sausages too?’ Peter asks.
‘Let’s see.’
Absalon runs a hand through his curly hair, then swaps the ladle on the grip-arm for a fork and presses the remote. The robot heads off towards the frying pan too fast, and Absalon doesn’t manage to stop it before it collides with the cast-iron rim and topples forward.
‘Mum, can we keep him?’ the children cry in unison.
‘Can we?’ Absalon asks with a smile.
‘Mum?’
‘He can stay as long as we don’t have to keep the one in the bathroom,’ Kerstin replies.
‘Not James,’ Elsa says, appalled.
James is a yellow robot who provides toilet paper. Kerstin thinks he’s a little creepy, and far too interested in people’s bathroom habits.
‘We can lend James to Granddad,’ she says, taking the fork from Boris and putting sausage on the children’s plates.
‘Is he coming this weekend?’ Absalon asks.
‘Can we handle that?’
‘I can make a nice—’
Suddenly the kitchen door slams shut in the draught, and the calendar with the children’s pictures on it falls to the floor.
‘It’s the bedroom window,’ she says, getting up.
The door feels stuck, as if someone is holding it shut on the other side, and when it opens there’s a rushing sound as the air pushes past. She goes out into the hall, closing the kitchen door a little too hard behind her before heading past the stairs and into the bedroom.
The curtains are fluttering.
It’s not the window that’s open but the patio door. The blinds are rattling in the wind.
The room is cold and her nightgown has blown onto the floor. When Absalon makes the bed, he usually drapes her nightgown across her side of it.
Kerstin crosses the cool floor and closes the patio door, pushing the handle down until she hears the little click.
She picks her nightgown up and puts it on the bed, then turns the bedside light on and notices that the carpet is dirty. Soil and grass have blown in from the garden. She decides to get the vacuum out after they’ve eaten, and starts to walk back.
Something makes her stop in the darkened hallway.
There’s no noise coming from behind the kitchen door.
She looks over at the bundle of coats and bags, all hanging from the same hook.
Very slowly, she moves towards the kitchen, sees the light through the keyhole, and then suddenly hears an unfamiliar child’s voice.
‘Seven little rabbits, all dressed in white, tried to get to heaven on the end of a kite. Kite string got broken, down they all fell. Instead of going to heaven, they all went to …’
Thinking that Absalon has decided to demonstrate a new robot while she was gone, she opens the door and walks in, then stops dead.
A masked man is standing by the kitchen table. He’s wearing blue jeans and a black raincoat, and is holding a knife with a serrated blade in one hand.
A tremulous child’s voice is echoing from a mobile phone on the table.
‘Six little rabbits, all dressed in white, tried to get to heaven …’
Absalon stands up, and macaroni falls from his lap onto the floor. Elsa and Peter are staring at the man in their kitchen in horror.
‘I don’t know what you want, but can’t you see you’re scaring the children?’ Absalon says unsteadily.
Five long rabbits’ ears are dangling by one of the man’s cheeks. They’re stained dark red where they were sliced off before being threaded onto wire and wound around the balaclava.
Kerstin’s heart is beating so hard that she can barely breathe. With shaking hands she picks up her handbag from the counter and offers it to the stranger.
‘There’s some money in here,’ she says, almost inaudibly.
The man takes the bag and puts it down on the table, then raises the knife and gestures towards Absalon’s face with the point.
Kerstin watches her husband weakly try to swat the knife away.
‘Stop doing that,’ he says.
The hand holding the knife sinks back down, then jabs forward and stops. Absalon draws a ragged breath and looks down. The entire blade of the knife is embedded in his stomach.
A bloodstain spreads out across his shirt.
When the stranger pulls the knife out, a gush of blood follows it and splats onto the floor between Absalon’s feet.
‘Daddy!’ Elsa yelps in a frightened voice, and puts her spoon down on the table.
Absalon stands absolutely still as blood fills the bottom of his tucked-in shirt, then runs down inside his trousers, down his legs and out over his feet.
‘Call an ambulance, Kerstin,’ he says, dazed, as he takes a step back.
The man watches him, then slowly raises the hand holding the knife.
Elsa runs over to Absalon and wraps her arms around his legs, making him sway.
‘Daddy!’ she sobs. ‘Daddy, please …’
She picks up his napkin from the table and holds it to his stomach.
‘You’re stupid!’ she shouts at the masked man. ‘This is my daddy!’
As if in a dream, Kerstin goes over and pulls Elsa away from her husband, picks her up in her arms and holds her tight, feeling her small body tremble.
Peter crawls under the table, clutching his head with his hands.
The man looks at Absalon with interest, then brushes the rabbits’ ears from his cheek, slowly adjusts the angle of the knife, and thrusts it into the other side of his torso.
The explosion of pain makes Absalon cry out.
The man lets go of the knife, leaving it sticking out, wedged beneath his bottom ribs.
Absalon lurches sideways but his fall is broken by the table. He throws one arm out, and his bloody hand sends a glass of milk flying.
The masked man pulls a machete from a strap inside his raincoat and walks towards Absalon again.
‘Stop it!’ Kerstin screams.
Absalon slumps onto a chair, holds his hand up in self-defence and shakes his head.
‘Please, stop now!’ Kerstin sobs.
The ceiling lamp above the table is spinning slowly. The light from the two bulbs wanders across the tablecloth. Milk drips steadily onto the floor.
‘What have
I done?’ Absalon gasps.
He’s sweating and breathing fast, on his way to circulatory shock. The masked man stands still and looks at him.
‘You must have come to the wrong house,’ Kerstin says in a shaky voice.
Elsa is squirming in her arms, trying to escape and see what’s going on.
A trickle of blood falls from the chair.
The second hand on the clock ticks slowly on.
There are children playing outside, and Kerstin hears a bicycle bell.
‘We’re just normal people. We don’t have any money,’ she goes on weakly.
Peter is sitting under the table staring at his father.
Absalon tries to say something, but a convulsion fills his mouth with blood. He swallows and coughs, then swallows again.
The neighbour’s car pulls in and parks next to theirs. Car doors open and close. Bags of groceries are unloaded from the boot.
Absalon’s shirt is dark red, almost black. A steady stream of blood is running from the chair, the pool has reached Peter now.
‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy …’ the boy whimpers in a high voice.
The masked man looks at the time, then grabs hold of Absalon’s hair.
‘Can I take the children out?’ Kerstin asks, wiping the tears from her cheeks.
Elsa is whimpering and Kerstin’s field of vision becomes distorted. There’s a loud buzzing sound in her head as she sees her husband’s lips turn white.
He’s in a lot of pain now.
The stranger leans over and whispers something to Absalon. The rabbits’ ears sway beside his cheek. He straightens up again and Absalon meets his gaze and nods.
Without any urgency, he lifts Absalon’s head and raises the machete.
The lamp above the kitchen table starts spinning the other way.
Peter shakes his head. Kerstin wants to yell at him to close his eyes, but no words will come out.
With great force, the man brings the machete down on the back of Absalon’s neck, through his vertebrae.
Blood sprays across the stove.
The dead body collapses onto the floor. Its legs are still twitching, heels hitting the plastic mat.
Peter stares at his father with his mouth gaping open.
Absalon’s head is hanging loosely from his body, brightly coloured blood pumps out of his throat in heavy pulses.