by Kepler, Lars
The police officer turns, his mouth full of food. He has a pair of sunglasses sticking out of his breast pocket.
‘Interpol, this is an emergency,’ Joona says, glancing over at the hostel.
He starts to walk away, but the police officer grabs his jacket. Joona pushes him hard. The man’s head hits the wall and he drops his sandwich.
‘Listen, lives are at stake here,’ Joona says.
The policeman pulls out his baton and raises it to strike, Joona manages to parry the blow but still gets hit in the cheek.
He wraps his arm around the officer’s shoulder and jerks him backwards, sending him sprawling to the floor. Leaning on one hand, he tries to get up, but Joona stamps on one of his knees.
The police officer lets out a cry of pain.
Joona grabs his radio and runs over to the hotel, tossing the radio onto the roof of a currency-exchange bureau on the way and swerving round the overflowing bicycle-park.
He checks the magazine as he runs towards the door of the hostel.
It looks like it contains eight or nine bullets.
Joona can still hear the policeman screaming as he strides into the hostel.
It’s early morning, but already there are around twenty youngsters hanging about in the lobby and lounge.
Joona keeps the pistol aimed at the floor.
Two of the lifts are broken and the third is stuck on the eighth floor, where Lumi’s room is.
Joona’s headache is making his vision flare. He yanks open the door to the stairs and starts to run up them.
His footsteps echo through the stairwell.
His pulse is thudding in his ears by the time he reaches the eighth floor. His thighs are tight from the exertion, his shirt wet against his back.
He walks quickly along the corridor, turns a corner and sends a display of brochures about activities offered by the hostel flying.
‘Wacht even.’
A young man is standing in Joona’s way, pointing and apparently meaning that he should pick the brochures up.
Joona keeps going, shoving him out of the way and pushing past. Another man standing in one of the doorways has been looking on. He starts to protest, but abruptly falls silent when Joona points the pistol at his face.
He can hear a faint ticking sound.
Joona runs along the corridor to Lumi’s room.
The lock has been broken and the room is empty.
The bed is untouched, and Lumi’s bag is sitting on one of the chairs.
The wastepaper basket has been knocked over.
Joona’s heart is pounding so hard he can feel it in his throat.
He hurries out of the room, rushes round the corner and finds himself looking at Jurek’s pallid face at the end of the corridor.
He has a rope over his shoulder, and is dragging a large, plastic-wrapped bundle into the waiting lift.
The glare of the wall-lamp glints off his rigid prosthetic hand.
Joona raises the pistol, but Jurek is already gone.
He starts to run, and hears a ringing sound as the doors close. Joona rushes over and presses the button, but the lift is already on its way upwards.
It stops at the top, on the twenty-eighth floor.
Joona runs back to the stairwell and starts to climb.
He knows that Jurek could break Lumi’s neck at any moment. But that wouldn’t be enough for him, his way of working isn’t that simple.
Ever since Joona first caught Jurek many years ago there’s been a special darkness between them.
Jurek has spent a large part of his life locked up and isolated.
And every day he thought about how to grind Joona into the ground.
He’s going to take everyone Joona loves and bury them alive.
Joona will have to spend his life looking for their graves, until he gives up and hangs himself, consumed by loneliness.
That’s how Jurek has envisaged his revenge.
He would have been planning to take Lumi with him and bury her somewhere. That’s what his instincts are telling him to do, that’s how his sense of order manifests itself.
But now that Joona has caught up with him here at the hostel, he has quickly changed his plan.
Just like he did last time, when he took Disa, Joona thinks as he runs up the stairs.
94
Joona reaches the top floor but keeps going, running up the last, narrower flight of steps leading to the roof. He opens the door, checks both sides with the pistol, then walks out into the cold air.
The sun is rising above the wide horizon. The city spreads out in all directions, glass and metal glinting in the light.
Most of the roof of the hostel is hidden by the black construction at its centre, housing the top of the stairwell and the lift machinery.
Joona stands with his back to the wall, trying to catch his breath.
The roof is covered with a layer of polished stones, and a narrow path made of planks has been laid out across it, like on a beach.
Joona looks round and takes a few steps.
There’s no one in sight.
Some rusty bolts hold up a mast with a red light at the top of it. White bird excrement has trickled down the side of a ventilation unit.
Joona starts to think that he’s been tricked, that he’ll have to go back down, when he suddenly sees tracks in the gravel beside the path some distance away.
Something heavy has been dragged across the roof.
Joona starts to run along the side of the machine-room with the pistol raised. He keeps going across the loose stones, aims the gun round the corner, and catches a momentary glimpse of Jurek before he disappears round the next corner.
Jurek has wrapped Lumi in heavy-duty plastic. Joona has no idea if she can breathe, or if she’s even alive. Jurek has tied a thick rope round the bundle, forming a loop that he can hold over his shoulder so he can drag her along behind him.
Joona runs after them.
The stones slide beneath his feet.
He gets back up onto the planks again, runs along the long side of the machine-room, past a row of grey satellite dishes.
The rising sun is behind him, throwing long shadows across the pale stones.
Some distance away, Jurek is dragging Lumi towards the edge of the roof between a ventilation unit and a large array of solar panels.
Joona doesn’t know if Jurek is armed.
He can hear sirens down in the street.
Joona moves quickly sideways in an attempt to identify a decent line of fire.
The early morning sun is hitting the solar panels, and the reflection dazzles him.
Jurek vanishes like a shadow behind the glare.
Joona stops, holds his pistol in both hands, and aims at the slender silhouette through the flashes of light.
‘Jurek,’ he calls out.
The sights tremble as he keeps moving sideways, sees a way through the reflections and fires as soon as he catches sight of Jurek again.
He squeezes the trigger three times and hits Jurek in the back with all three shots. The sharp crack of the shots echoes across the city. Jurek stumbles forward, turns round and draws Lumi’s pistol.
Joona fires three more times, right into his chest.
Jurek loses his grip on the gun and it slips through the slats in the path, then he quickly turns away and carries on dragging Lumi towards the edge.
He must have picked up a protective vest from Rinus’s workshop.
Joona runs closer.
Jurek is behind the ventilation unit now. Five large fans are whirring behind thick mesh.
Joona catches sight of him again, aims lower and shoots him in the thigh. The bullet tears straight through the muscle. Blood sprays out in front of him, the drops sparkling in the sharp sunlight.
Joona moves closer with the pistol raised and his finger on the trigger. He can only see Jurek intermittently through the chimneys and air-vents.
Lumi is getting far too little air, Joona can see she�
�s suffocating, her lips are blue, her eyes wide open.
Her sweaty hair is stuck to her face inside the plastic.
Joona’s migraine flares behind one eye and he almost falls.
Jurek has lifted Lumi up now, and is limping towards the low edge of the roof.
This is his new plan.
Joona will be too late again.
Jurek wants him to plead and threaten, and then watch his daughter fall.
Joona gets past the ventilation unit, quickly takes aim and shoots Jurek in his other leg. The bullet hits the back of his knee and exits through his kneecap.
Lumi lands hard on the round stones on the roof. Jurek staggers sideways, falls onto one hip, rolls onto his stomach and tries to lift his head.
Joona runs forward, still aiming at Jurek. He pulls Lumi away from him and tears through the plastic covering her face.
He hears her gasping for breath and coughing as he turns back to Jurek, presses the pistol against the back of his head and squeezes the trigger.
The gun clicks, then clicks again.
Joona pulls the magazine out.
It’s empty.
A helicopter is approaching, and there are more sirens now.
A small crowd has gathered down in the street in front of the hostel. They’re all looking up, filming on their phones.
Joona turns back to Lumi, unties the rope around her and tears the plastic away.
She’s going to be OK.
Jurek is sitting up against one of the chimneys now. His prosthetic arm has come loose and is hanging from its straps.
He’s pulling a long splinter from the path.
Joona feels fire flare up inside him, and is incapable of stopping what has to happen now. Pulling the rope behind him, he stops in front of Jurek and ties a noose.
Jurek looks at him with those pale eyes of his, then lets go of the splinter. His wrinkled face betrays no sign of pain or anger.
Joona widens the noose and sees that Jurek is slipping into circulatory shock from loss of blood.
‘I’m already dead,’ Jurek says, trying to fend off the rope with his hand.
Joona grabs the hand and twists, breaking the arm at the elbow. Jurek lets out a groan, then looks at him again and moistens his lips.
‘If you look into an abyss, the abyss looks back inside you at the same time,’ he says, making a pointless attempt to move his head away from the noose.
Joona manages to get it round his neck on the second attempt, tightens the knot at the back of his neck, pulling it so tight that Jurek’s breathing becomes a hiss.
‘That’s enough now, Dad, stop it,’ Lumi pants behind him.
Joona walks over to the back of the solar panels and ties the end of the rope to one of the sturdy supports.
The clatter of the helicopter is getting closer.
Joona drags Jurek to the edge of the roof. The prosthesis drags behind him, then falls off altogether. Jurek tenses his neck, coughs and tries to breathe.
‘Dad, what are you doing?’ Lumi asks in a frightened voice. ‘The police are on their way. He’ll spend the rest of his life in prison, and—’
Joona drags Jurek to his feet. He’s so groggy he can barely stand. Blood is pouring over his shoes from the gunshot wounds.
The tracks of the railway station shimmer like copper wire far below.
They can hear voices from the stairwell.
Jurek’s broken arm is twitching.
Joona takes a step back and looks into Jurek’s eyes.
There’s an odd expression in them.
It’s as if Jurek is looking for something in Joona’s eyes, or trying to see himself reflected in his pupils.
Lumi has turned away, crying now.
Jurek staggers and whispers something just as Joona shoves him in the chest with both hands, knocking him over the edge.
Lumi screams.
The rope slips quickly across the smooth stones and over the edge of the roof. It makes a ringing sound as it stops and pulls taut. A window below shatters and fragments of glass fall on the crowd gathered on the pavement. The solar panel next to Joona sways and creaks.
Joona runs towards the stairwell, pushing the caretaker aside when he tries to stop him and hurrying down the stairs to the twentieth floor. He hears the screaming before he even reaches the corridor. The door to one of the suites opens and a woman stumbles out dressed in a pair of jeans and a bra.
Joona walks past her into the room, then closes and locks the door behind him.
The window is broken, fragments of glass glinting on the grey carpet and bed.
Jurek is swinging gently in through the window, then out again.
He’s dead, his spinal column has snapped.
Blood is running from the deep furrow cut by the noose.
Joona stands in front of Jurek and looks at the thin, wrinkled face and pale eyes.
The body swings back into the room again.
A few pieces of glass come loose from the top of the window and fall onto the sill.
Joona feels an incredible tiredness wash over him, the confused aftermath of a terrible struggle.
Jurek Walter is dead.
He won’t be coming back.
The body sways slowly back and forth. The blood from the gunshot wounds drips from his feet, leaving a thin trail across the carpet and window-frame.
Joona isn’t sure how long he’s been standing staring at Jurek when the lock on the door clicks behind him.
Lumi walks in and tells him very gently that he has to leave the room with her.
Joona looks at Jurek’s large hand, his dirty fingernails, lower arm, and blood-stained shirt.
‘It’s over, Dad,’ Lumi whispers.
‘Yes,’ he replies, looking into Jurek’s pale eyes.
Lumi puts her arm round his waist and leads him out of the room, past the caretaker clutching the master key and the waiting police officers.
95
Valeria is dozing in her bed in the Intensive Care Unit, thinking about her brief conversation with Saga just before the nurse came in to administer more morphine.
Pellerina’s condition has got worse, her heart has started racing again and defibrillation no longer seems to be working.
Saga was pale, she had dark rings under her eyes and was so agitated that she could barely stand still beside the bed.
She was almost manic, constantly brushing hair away from her face, and wanting Valeria to keep telling her about her conversations with Pellerina.
Valeria described once again how she and Pellerina had spent almost the whole time talking, and reassuring her that her sister hadn’t been afraid when she was in the coffin.
‘It felt a bit like we were holding hands,’ Valeria had said, mainly to calm Saga down.
She nodded, but was clearly having trouble concentrating.
When Valeria woke up in the coffin with a blanket round her and didn’t get any response from Pellerina, she thought the family had believed her. She had taken all the blame, saying she would have done anything to get more heroin. Valeria was convinced they had taken Pellerina up into the house, whereas she had actually lost consciousness – that was why she was no longer answering.
A nurse with her hair in plaits and a silver ring through her eyebrow came in to give Valeria more morphine for the pain in her hands and feet.
Saga tried to wait, but got too anxious to stay and hurried back to the surgical department.
Now Valeria’s pain is fading, and the room grows darker as her pupils contract.
Everything becomes fuzzy, as if covered in dark grey veils.
The lights all grow ragged circles, like big brass cogs.
The nurse is standing beside her bed, checking her temperature and blood pressure.
Valeria can no longer make out her face, it’s just a dark blur now.
Her body feels warm, and pleasantly tingly.
She sees that the buttons on the nurse’s tunic have turned slightly yellow when she l
eans over and explains something to her. Valeria understands everything she says, and is on the point of asking a question when she forgets all about it.
Her eyelids are getting heavier.
The police officers outside the door to her room have finally stopped talking about football.
Valeria wakes up and opens her eyes, but still can’t really see.
A different nurse is checking the ECG and blood levels. She has no idea how long she’s been asleep.
She tries to focus and looks at the drip-regulator and the glistening drops running into the tube.
Everything slides away again and she shuts her eyes as the nurse makes her comfortable. Valeria is almost asleep when the phone rings.
‘My phone,’ she mumbles weakly, opening her eyes.
The nurse picks the mobile up from the bedside table and passes it to her. She can’t read the screen, but takes the call anyway.
‘Valeria,’ she says in a tired voice.
‘It’s me,’ Joona says. ‘How are you?’
‘Joona?’ she asks.
‘How are you?’
‘Fine, a bit groggy from the drugs, but—’
‘And Pellerina?’
‘Her condition’s got worse … her heart isn’t beating properly, it’s too fast … It’s terrible,’ she replies.
‘Have you spoken to Saga?’
Valeria feels like a child as the nurse stands by the bed and calmly and methodically wipes the cannula with surgical spirit.
Joona is a long way away, but she can tell that he’s different, that something has happened.
‘I daren’t ask,’ she says quietly.
‘Lumi’s fine,’ Joona says.
‘Thank God.’
‘Yes.’
Neither of them says anything. The distance hisses dreamily down the line. The nurse connects a syringe to the cannula and checks it.
‘What happened?’ Valeria asks, watching as blood gets sucked into the tube, mixing with the fluid in the syringe.
‘Jurek’s dead.’
‘Jurek Walter’s dead?’
‘This time he is … it’s over,’ Joona says.
‘You finally stopped him.’
‘Yes.’
The nurse puts something on the trolley beside the bed, then leaves the room quickly in three long strides.
