by Lars Kepler
She’s getting very close to them now.
Joona takes a step forward.
The woman lets out a yelp of fear.
‘Sorry to startle you,’ Joona says, with his pistol tucked against his leg.
The woman stares at him, eyes wide open. Her hair is straight and blonde, and she’s wearing faded jeans, simple sandals and a washed-out T-shirt with the words ‘Feel the Burn’ on it.
‘I’m with the police, and I need you to answer a couple of questions,’ Joona says.
The woman tries to compose herself, takes her phone out of her bag and takes a step towards him.
‘I’ll just call the police and check that …’
She breaks off abruptly when she sees the heavily armed response unit waiting behind the guesthouse. The colour slowly drains from her face as she takes in their bulletproof vests, helmets, automatic pistols and sniper rifles.
‘Where’s David Jordan?’ Joona asks, putting his pistol back in its holster.
‘What?’
The young woman stares up at the house in amazement, and sees the front door lying on the ground.
‘David Jordan,’ Joona says. ‘He isn’t at home.’
‘No,’ she says in a thin voice. ‘He’s in Norrland.’
‘What’s he doing there?’
She screws her eyes up as if the sun is dazzling her.
‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘Some work thing, I guess?’
‘Whereabouts in Norrland?’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Call him,’ Joona says, pointing to the phone that she’s still clutching in her hand. ‘Ask where he is, but don’t say anything about us.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she whispers, and puts her phone to her ear, but lowers it almost immediately. ‘It’s switched off … his phone’s switched off.’
‘Are you two together?’ Joona asks, looking at her with eyes as grey as stone.
‘Together? I haven’t really thought about it … we meet up fairly regularly … I like being here, I can paint when I’m here, but it’s not like we’re that close or anything, I have no idea what he does every day, other than producing Rex’s cooking shows.’
She falls silent and drags one foot across the gravel.
‘But you knew he was going away.’
‘He just said he was going to Norrland, but he knows he doesn’t need to tell me his every move.’
‘Norrland’s the size of Britain,’ Joona says.
‘He might have mentioned Kiruna,’ she says. ‘I think it was Kiruna.’
‘What do you think he was going to do in Kiruna?’
‘I have no idea.’
Without another word Joona starts to walk towards his car. He calls Anja on his new phone to ask her to book a plane ticket.
‘Have you managed to get hold of Rex Müller yet?’ he asks, getting in the car.
‘Neither he nor his son Sammy are at home, and no one knows where they are. We’ve spoken to TV4, and the boy’s mother, who’s out of the country, but …’
‘Well, it looks like David Jordan travelled up to Kiruna this morning,’ Joona says, pulling out onto the road.
‘Not according to any passenger lists.’
‘Check to see if any private planes have landed at the airport, or any private airstrip.’
‘OK.’
‘I’m heading to Arlanda now,’ he adds.
‘Of course you are,’ Anja says calmly.
‘And I’m counting on you to trace their phones in the meantime.’
‘We’re trying, but the operators are reluctant to hand over any information, to put it mildly.’
‘As long as you get the information before my plane takes off.’
‘I can talk to the prosecutor about—’
‘Fuck that, roll over them, break the law,’ he interrupts. ‘Sorry, but if we can’t locate Rex and his son they’re going to be dead very soon.’
‘Fuck that,’ she repeats calmly. ‘Roll over them and break the law.’
The winding forest road is empty. Joona passes a group of holiday homes around a glittering lake with a diving platform in the middle of it.
Joona speeds up and is just about to pull out onto the main road when Anja calls him back.
‘Joona, it can’t be done,’ she says.
She tells him that the NOU’s technicians have tried to locate David Jordan and Rex using GPS tracking. They haven’t been able to remotely activate the phones so that they transmit positional data, and because the mobile phone companies are unable to detect any signals from their local masts in Kiruna, the technicians are confident that David Jordan’s and Rex’s phones aren’t just switched off, but smashed.
‘What about Sammy’s phone?’ Joona says.
‘We’re working on that,’ Anja snaps. ‘Stop stressing me out. I can’t handle this, everyone’s miserable all the time, no flirting …’
‘Sorry,’ Joona says, pulling onto the highway.
‘But you were right about one thing … a Cessna something-or-other from Stockholm landed early this morning at the sea plane harbour in Kurravaara.’
‘No passenger list?’
‘Wait a second.’
He hears her talking, then thanking someone for their help.
‘Joona?’
‘Yes?’
‘We’ve traced Sammy’s phone. He’s somewhere near Hallunda. We’ve got a precise address, a terraced house on Tomtbergavägen.’
‘Good to hear he stayed at home,’ Joona says. ‘Send a car and get Jeanette Fleming to talk to Sammy … I need to know where Rex and David Jordan are.’
96
Rex is standing in his hotel room looking at the hunting gear he’s laid out on top of the bed. He opens the wooden box and takes out the broad-bladed hunting knife, then uses it to cut the labels off his new clothes.
That morning they took off from Hägernäsviken in a twin-engined Cessna sea plane. Even though the cabin was pressurised, it was too noisy to speak. The landscape below them changed: cultivated land and built-up areas turned to black-green pine forest, then marshes and tundra.
The plane landed at the harbour in Kurravaara, where a driver was waiting to take them to the hunting lodge.
As they passed the tourism centre at Abisko, they could just make out the half-moon-shaped gap between the twin peaks of Tjuonatjåkka in the distance.
At the resort at Björkliden the car turned off the main road onto a winding gravel road leading to Tornehamn.
The hotel is a relatively modern building on the site of the old base camp for the workers who built the iron-ore railway, Malmbanan, more than a hundred years ago.
They’re completely alone up here, two hundred kilometres north of the Arctic Circle.
DJ unlocked the door and switched the alarm off, then showed Rex and Sammy around the deserted hotel.
They walked through the huge dining room and into the large restaurant kitchen, and looked inside the freezers at all the vacuum-packed meat, hundreds of pizzas, thirty boxes of hamburgers, bread and rolls, turbot, Arctic char and vendace roe.
They walked down long hallways lined with thick carpet, then went down the curved staircase to the spa centre, past an empty exercise pool.
The floor was being torn up in the waiting area, and a mountain of furniture blocked the entry and part of the hallway.
Rex is still standing in front of his bed gazing out through the window: beyond the junction in the road and Pakktajåkaluobbalah he can see mountains and valleys, and countless small mountain lakes, like drops of molten lead.
He starts to get dressed for the hunt.
DJ has picked his clothes personally, selecting the right sizes and tracking down exclusive outfits with scent-barriers to stop animals from detecting humans. The material muffles sound and repels water and wind.
Rex turns towards the door. He has the uncomfortable feeling that the room has suddenly got darker.
He puts the rest of his clothes on, tuc
ks the binoculars, water bottle and knife in his bag, then reaches for the door-handle. Once again a sense of unease hits him.
He stops in front of room 23 and knocks. All the electronic locks have been disconnected, but the doors can still be locked from inside.
‘It’s open,’ a subdued voice calls out.
Rex steps into the short hallway, stepping over the shoes towards the spacious bedroom. Sammy has changed clothes, and is sitting on the bed watching television. His all-terrain jacket is open and he’s wearing mascara and gold-tinted eyeshadow.
‘It’s great that you’re coming,’ Rex says.
‘It’s not like I can stay here on my own,’ his son replies.
‘Why not?’
‘I already have the urge to ride a tricycle down the hallway and start talking to my finger.’
Rex laughs and explains that DJ thinks it’s important that he participate in the hunt.
‘I’m just saying it would be nicer to stay here and make food,’ Sammy says, switching the television off.
‘I agree,’ Rex nods.
‘Should we go and see what sort of rich old men DJ has managed to lure up here?’ Sammy says with a sigh, picking up his bag.
They walk in silence along the cold hallway, and can hear raucous laughter and the clink of glasses. DJ is sitting in front of the roaring fire in the lobby with three men dressed in hunting gear, drinking whisky.
‘And here’s Rex,’ DJ announces loudly.
The men break off their conversation and turn around, smiling. Rex falters. It’s like falling into a hole. One of the men is James Gyllenborg. Rex hasn’t seen him since the assault thirty years ago. James was in the stable and hit him with a two by four, then kicked him in the crotch when he was on the ground, before spitting on him.
Rex leans on one of the leather armchairs for support and realises that he’s dropped his bag on the floor and the hunting knife has slid out onto the carpet.
‘Dad, what is it?’
‘I dropped …’
Rex picks the bag and knife up, forces the nausea down and walks over to the men to say hello. He recognises the other two men from Ludviksberg as well, but can’t remember their names.
‘This is my son, Sammy,’ Rex says, and swallows hard.
‘Cheers, Sammy,’ James says.
They shake hands with Rex without getting to their feet, and introduce themselves as James, Kent and Lawrence.
They’ve all aged.
There’s something grey about James Gyllenborg’s very being, as if the years have washed both the life and colour out of him. Rex remembers him as a vibrant blond youth, with thin lips and nervous blue eyes.
Kent Wrangel is heavily built and has a rather flushed face. He’s wearing glasses and a gold necklace. Lawrence von Thurn is also big, with a full grey beard and bloodshot eyes.
‘We’re delighted that you gentlemen have such faith in this project,’ DJ says. ‘Because this is going to be so damn good. And of course you already know that Rex has just been presented with the prestigious Chef of Chefs award!’
‘Quite undeserved, it has to be said,’ Rex smiles.
‘Let’s drink to that!’ James says, and takes a gulp.
The other two clap their hands happily. Rex tries unsuccessfully to catch DJ’s eye.
‘I want you to know that the reason I’ve confiscated all our phones, including my own, is that this deal is going to hit this industry like a bomb,’ DJ says, topping up the men’s glasses with whisky. ‘And once it’s detonated, everything will get much harder, and much more expensive. So this is something of a game changer … regardless of whether you decide to sign up or walk away, the condition is that no information leaks out, so that those of us left are free to negotiate with the most important suppliers before word gets out.’
‘This is going to be huge,’ Kent says, stretching his legs.
‘DJ, can I have a word?’ Rex says quietly, and leads him away.
‘Exciting, isn’t it?’ DJ says in a low voice as they walk into the dining room.
‘What is this? What the hell are you playing at?’ Rex says. ‘I’m not going to do business with a bunch of bastards from my old school.’
‘I thought … well, you all know each other, so it couldn’t be any better, could it? And who cares if they were bastards back then, as long as they have money now?’
Rex shakes his head and struggles to appear more composed than he feels.
‘You should have let me know.’
‘Look, in all seriousness, it’s practically impossible to put together any kind of deal in Sweden without running into people who went to Ludviksberg,’ DJ says as he sees Kent coming towards them with two glasses of whisky.
DJ goes to meet him, takes one glass and leads him back to the others.
Rex remains standing in the dining room and watches them go. His head is roaring, but he tells himself that he needs to stick it out, if only for one night. He’ll put up with it for a few more hours, then come up with an excuse so he and Sammy can go home first thing tomorrow morning.
He tries to convince himself that he’s doing this because it’s important. It’s a way for him to secure his financial future in case Sylvia ever gets so sick of him that she lets him go.
Like everyone at Ludviksberg, he must have treated plenty of people badly in his time. That was part and parcel of being privileged, but Rex could never accept the beating. He walked out of the school before breakfast the next day and he never went back.
‘OK, listen,’ DJ says, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. ‘The reindeer here are far more elusive than wild ones.’
Rex slowly walks back to join the men in the lounge as DJ goes through the rules.
‘I’ve been reindeer-hunting in Norway,’ Lawrence says in his deep voice. ‘We sat in a hide for eight hours and didn’t get a single clean shot.’
‘But here we’re stalking our prey,’ DJ reminds them. ‘You hunt in small teams, creep up on the reindeer, read the terrain, look for tracks. It’s fucking exciting … to get close enough you have to be absolutely silent, and know which direction the wind is blowing.’
‘And we have no backup plan,’ Rex jokes with a wide smile. ‘If none of us bring down a reindeer, I won’t have anything but potatoes to cook for dinner.’
97
Half an hour later DJ is standing on the broad steps of the deck handing out guns and ammunition.
‘The rifle I’ve chosen is a Remington 700 with a synthetic butt,’ he says, holding up a blue-green rifle with a black barrel.
‘Good weapon,’ Lawrence murmurs.
‘James, I have a left-handed one for you,’ DJ adds.
‘Thanks.’
‘It weighs 2.9 kilos, so you should all be OK,’ DJ smiles, then holds up a brown box. ‘We’re using .375 Holland & Holland, and you only get twenty rounds.’
He tosses the box to Rex.
‘So aim carefully.’
They take their equipment and start to walk around to the other side of the hotel. The sky is grey and unsettled, the air smells like rain, and a gusty wind is blowing through the low bushes.
DJ leads them along a path up the slope, and explains that it’s a forty-minute hike to the gates and the feeding grounds.
‘The whole enclosure is six hundred and eighty acres, and covers wooded valleys, bare hilltops, and a few small lakes, including Kratersjön, as well as some steep mountain cliffs towards the south, so you need to watch your step.’
The landscape is brown and the air fresh and full of moisture. It smells like forest, heather and wet leaves.
‘Having fun?’ Sammy asks, with a gentle but unmistakeable note of derision.
‘It’s just work,’ Rex replies. ‘But I’m happy you’re here.’
His son gives him a sideways glance.
‘You don’t seem very happy, Dad.’
‘I’ll tell you later.’
‘What?’
Rex is about to admit tha
t he can’t handle this, that he wants to get away as soon as possible, when DJ falls in alongside them. He shows them how to load, demonstrates the single-stage trigger and the safety catch on the side.
‘How are you doing, Sammy?’ he asks with a smile.
‘Sorry, but I don’t get the point of shooting reindeer in an enclosure … I mean, they can’t go anywhere. It’s like the Hunger Games, but without the right to self-defence.’
‘I hear what you’re saying,’ DJ says patiently. ‘But at the same time, if you compare this with the meat industry, it couldn’t be more free-range. The enclosure covers more than three million square metres.’
Rex looks at James’s and Kent’s broad backs, the rifles over their shoulders. James turns around and hands him a silver hipflask. Rex takes it and passes it on without drinking.
‘How’s Anna doing? She was looking better when we saw her at the awards ceremony,’ Kent says.
‘She has her hair back, but they don’t think she’ll make it to winter,’ James replies. ‘My wife has cancer,’ he explains to Rex.
‘Do you have children?’
‘Yes … a boy who’s twenty, studying law at Harvard … and an afterthought, Elsa, she’s nine. She just wants to be with her mum all the time, nothing else.’
They climb diagonally up a hillside, and see that the landscape curves down into a deep valley. The view is spectacular.
‘So we’re all going to put our school uniforms on tomorrow, then?’ Lawrence jokes.
‘Oh God,’ Kent sighs.
‘Christ, all that church-going, and those Sunday dinners … we’d never have survived without microwave pizzas and nips of cognac.’
‘Or Wille, calling his family’s chauffeur and getting him to drive all the way from Stockholm with a case of champagne,’ Kent chuckles, then turns suddenly sombre.
‘I can’t believe he and Teddy are both dead,’ James says quietly.
98
Jeanette Fleming is standing next to a lilac bush, staring at rows of brown houses. The silver clip in her short hair glitters in the sunlight. She’s wearing a tight skirt and has a Glock 26 in a holster under her jacket.
In the distance she sees her plain-clothes colleagues from Stockholm Police ring the doorbell of the neglected house at the far end of the street.