Watching You

by Arne Dahl

  There was no sour receptionist smelling of methanol in the shabby reception area. Blom reached beneath the desk and found the button. The door behind the desk whirred and slid open with the same well oiled precision as the front door. Molly Blom and Sam Berger walked into the combined storeroom and workshop whose air of gentle shabbiness struck Berger as a facade. A solitary man in his fifties was sitting behind a pair of computers that seemed to be covered in layers of ingrained dust.

  ‘Duty officer?’ Blom said, holding her ID up at an illegible distance.

  The man nodded and stood up.

  ‘Högberg,’ he said. ‘And you?’

  ‘Eva Lindkvist and Roy Grahn, Security Service. Is Olle Nilsson here today?’

  Högberg shook his head and sat down again.

  ‘Haven’t seen him for a while,’ he said. ‘On the other hand, we never see much of him. He’s on easy shifts.’

  ‘Easy shifts?’

  ‘Works from home, as a rule. Only comes in when it really can’t be avoided.’

  Berger and Blom glanced at each other.

  ‘Have you got an address for him?’ Blom asked.

  ‘I’m not authorised to give out addresses. We like to keep a low profile.’

  ‘I assume you know, Högberg, what sort of relationship Wiborg has with the Security Service. Obey without question. Never leak anything to anyone. So – an address?’

  Högberg looked unimpressed, but clicked at his computer a few times.

  ‘Isn’t this leaking?’ he said.

  ‘You’re not leaking if you’re giving the Security Service what the Security Service wants,’ Blom said in a tone that made Berger feel sick.

  Högberg pointed to a printer. It contained a sheet of paper. Blom picked it up and read it. Then she walked out without another word. Berger followed her.

  They got into the Mazda.

  ‘Bålsta,’ Blom said. ‘It looks like a rural address.’

  ‘From Märsta to Bålsta,’ Berger said. ‘That’s plausible.’

  He burned as much rubber as the Mazda was capable of. Bergslagsvägen was mercifully free of traffic, and out on the E18 they made good progress. They still had a way to go.

  ‘We could have cracked this earlier,’ Blom said in self-reproach as she typed the address into the laptop and began to zoom in on a large green area on the map. Slowly the green turned into forest, forest as seen from a satellite.

  ‘Olle Nilsson’s house is in the middle of the forest?’ Berger said with a quick sideways glance at the satellite picture.

  ‘The closest neighbour is at least a kilometre away.’

  Berger stared out into the darkness streaked by useless windscreen wipers. So far the road was lit up by powerful street lamps.

  The feeling that they were really getting close grew with each passing minute.

  They left civilisation via the turning to Bålsta. Blom guided Berger confidently along the increasingly narrow roads. They passed fewer and fewer cars, and the gaps between street lamps kept growing. In the end there was nothing but darkness. The desolate autumnal Swedish forest was only just visible through the rain surrounding the cocoon of the car. All that existed was a dull, pattering, echoing darkness.

  ‘Next right,’ Blom said, touching her shoulder holster.

  The next right couldn’t even be called a road. A few hundred metres further on the track opened up a little.

  ‘Stop here,’ Blom said.

  She held the laptop up towards Berger.

  ‘If we drive any closer he’ll hear us,’ she said, pointing at the satellite picture of the area.

  ‘Shitty bloody Mazda,’ Berger said.

  ‘Here,’ Blom pointed. ‘Forest for another four hundred metres or so, then what looks like a large clearing. It’s not easy to tell, but there’s open ground for two hundred metres. The house is on the far side of the clearing.’

  Berger nodded and switched the engine off. Not much changed. The darkness growled around them.

  They had their torches out, beams of light sweeping the trees, bouncing off the trunks, fracturing in the falling water that looked more like pins than drops.

  They set off into the forest and instantly sank up to their ankles in squelching moss. It was a waterlogged world. The trees were close together. They fought their way forward, metre by metre. A branch whipped back and caught Berger across the bridge of his nose. He didn’t say anything, realised this wasn’t the time for words. It was like struggling through a nightmare. The trees seemed to be clutching at them.

  Sometimes Berger would think Blom had vanished, but then she would appear again, her rain-soaked jacket shining dark green.

  In the end a light emerged from the forest. It was so weak that it might have been a mirage. But they both saw it, a faint break in the darkness. And the trees gradually began to thin out. Presumably they were approaching the clearing.

  When they reached the final row of trees it became apparent that the light wasn’t coming from the clearing, but further away. Berger switched his torch off, forced his way through the last of the vegetation and entered the clearing.

  The light was coming from the far side, perhaps some two hundred metres away, illuminating the front of a shabby little house.

  But that wasn’t the only thing that was lit up.

  At least four floodlights, a couple of metres off the ground, were focused on a central area. The area was framed by four bare tree trunks, forming a rectangle. An illuminated rectangle.

  Berger couldn’t see much more. He had to focus his gaze, make it cut through the water beating down on the clearing around them, which was covered by grass that was just a little too tall to be ordinary grass.

  He fixed his eyes on the illuminated space, an oddly radiant, distant scene in the midst of the darkness. Four sturdy, stripped tree trunks, sawn off three metres up.

  They were reminiscent of roof supports.

  Thick chains ran between the four tree trunks in an intricate pattern. But not just chains. Berger thought he could also make out a couple of large cogs, some pinions and springs, a couple of shafts, a weight and a pendulum.

  It was a clock.

  A tower clock without a tower.

  And in the middle of the clock was a human being.

  Her arms were stretched out sideways, impossibly long, from an elegant, far too summery, floral dress. And the figure’s long hair was perfectly blonde.

  ‘Ellen,’ Blom hissed and set off. Berger saw her sink in the tall grass. Which on closer inspection seemed more like reeds. And the clearing more like a marsh. She struggled on with the reeds up to her chest, step after laborious step.

  He threw himself in behind her. He sank deeper but was considerably taller. The rain lashed at them with increasing intensity as they battled onwards. The image of the perversely illuminated clock shook and trembled in time with their uneven steps. Berger could hear a loud click cut through the darkness and saw Ellen Savinger’s arms get pulled another notch further out. He heard no scream, no sound except the ones he and Blom were making as they fought their way through the marsh.

  Their feet sank, got tangled in roots, then resurfaced with a sucking sound. The reeds whipped at their faces. Blom’s face shone white in the night, pale but determined.

  Halfway now. Berger pushed with all his might. He could hear himself roar. It was as if the sound came from somewhere else. From deep, deep inside.

  Another sharp click rang out. Ellen’s arms were pulled even further out from the flowery dress. They were so close now that they could see the taut figure clearly. Blonde hair covered her slumped head, and Berger realised that they were seeing Ellen from behind.

  Her bare legs were lashed together under the dress; only her arms stuck out. Ellen Savinger stood there as though crucified by time itself.

  Now the roaring was no longer distant. He tore his feet from the mud with all the strength he could muster. He flew past Blom. He was so close; he suddenly thought he could make out every
single blonde hair on the back of Ellen’s head.

  Then the next click, louder than ever.

  He had more or less reached the illuminated ground when he saw the heavy chains tighten one more notch. And he saw one arm come away from the body. He thought he could hear the sound of joints being wrenched from their sockets, muscles torn asunder, skin split. He watched as the right arm was pulled from the sleeve of the dress. It curved through the air and was left dangling down the bare tree trunk, swinging like a pendulum from one of the chains.

  The marsh finally let go of his feet. With a roar he threw himself up onto firmer ground and rushed towards the clock. He ran around Ellen’s mutilated body and looked into her eyes. They didn’t look back.

  Her eyes had a fixed stare.

  They weren’t human.

  They were a doll’s.

  ‘It a fucking mannequin!’ he bellowed into the night.

  Blom emerged from the marsh. Small trickles of pale pink were running from the tiny cuts on her face. She said nothing, just watched the arm as it swung from the thick chain. Then she went over to the body that wasn’t a body. While Berger leaned forward, hands on knees, Blom inspected the face that had never been alive. Then she reached out her hand and pulled an object from the dummy’s mouth. She held it out to Berger.

  It was a very small cog.

  36

  Thursday 29 October, 19.48

  Berger looked over at Blom. She was creeping past the shattered mannequin, pistol drawn. She gestured to the side and slipped off towards the front of the little house. Berger followed. As they crouched below the porch steps the echoes of the house in Märsta felt distinctly creepy. It was like a twin.

  What struck Berger at the edge of the floodlights’ glare, once the voice of reason made itself heard inside him again, was that the clock must have been activated at exactly the right moment for them to fail. William must have estimated how long it would take them to fight their way across the marsh. He must have seen them arrive in the clearing and been present in order to activate the clock.

  Been present.

  William could have shot them at any time when they were out in the marsh. They had been live targets for several minutes. He had refrained; he had other plans for them.

  And those plans were probably waiting for them inside the house.

  Blom pulled out her torch and nodded towards Berger. He got out his own and nodded back. He could see in her eyes that she was thinking the same thing.

  They had to go in. There was no going back.

  They made their way onto the porch, crouched beside the door, staying out of range of any booby trap. It was unlocked. Blom pushed it open.

  No knives flew past in the artificial light, no infernal mechanism was lying in wait in the increased darkness across the threshold. They switched on their torches.

  The hall wasn’t quite like the one in Märsta; the houses weren’t clones after all. A kitchen straight ahead, a flight of steps leading to the cellar on the left, a staircase leading up to the right, nothing else. They had to choose.

  Berger took up position by the nearest door, with a view of both the kitchen and the hall, while Blom slipped into the kitchen. Berger wasn’t at all happy when she disappeared round a corner for a moment, but she soon returned, shaking her head.

  Back into the hall. Only now did they start to register the smells. They stood for a couple of moments trying to identify them. At first it seemed rancid, with traces of excrement and urine. Were there traces of death?

  How many rotten corpses would they encounter in this house from hell?

  No matter how much they sniffed they couldn’t detect the smell of death. The far too familiar, vile, cloying stench of rotting flesh was notable by its absence.

  Not that that meant anything. There could be death there anyway, hidden death, neutralised death, sterilised death. Everything in the house suggested death.

  Blom paused and pointed towards the cellar stairs.

  Grab the bull by the horns.

  Darkness rose up from below like a solid entity. They shone their torches at the top step, but further down the stone steps turned a corner and disappeared out of sight. One of them was going to have to go first.

  Berger released the safety catch of his Glock and took the lead. Blom covered him as well as she could on the cramped staircase. Particles of dust hung lazily in the beams from their torches, untouched by the misery around them. There was no sound, but the smell was getting stronger, more and more rancid, more and more foul.

  Piss and shit.

  Berger rounded the corner of the stairs. There was a closed door. They moved down towards it. Berger took hold of the handle, simultaneously noting how unnatural his breathing sounded. Rattling, like a dying man’s. Then he pressed the handle. The door slid open.

  They found themselves in a very small room containing a further two, noticeably smaller, doors. Blom could stand up in the room, but not Berger. On the floor was a bare mattress and a crumpled blanket. In one corner was a bucket with a lid on it. As they moved closer, the stench of faeces and urine grew stronger.

  Piss and shit.

  They stopped and took stock. It was a prison cell. There was no doubt that Ellen Savinger had also been held there. In the filthiest hellhole.

  Berger saw Blom take a deep breath as she approached one of the two doors at the far end of the room. She glanced at Berger, then opened it. Berger leaned forward, covering her as she stepped inside. Blom’s torch lit up the next room.

  It looked very similar: a worn mattress with a blanket, a covered bucket, no bulb in the ceiling, but another two low doors at the other end of the small room.

  Berger saw the surprise on Blom’s face, and realised that he probably wore the same expression. It was all very odd.

  Again, they picked one of the doors and found themselves in yet another tiny prison cell. Also empty.

  It was becoming increasingly apparent that they had arrived too late. Neither William Larsson nor Ellen Savinger was there. William had slipped from their grasp again.

  It took them a while to get their bearings in the cellar. They kept losing track of where they were, and went back to where they’d started. New doors kept appearing. They consciously left every door open when they looked behind it.

  In the end all the doors were open. They wandered through the whole of the peculiar arrangement of cells. In the end they couldn’t stay silent any longer.

  Berger said: ‘What the fuck is this? Did he keep moving her around? Seven tiny little cells, one for each day of the week?’

  Blom merely shook her head. Then she headed towards what was presumably the way out. After a couple of tries they were back at the stairs again. Blom crouched down and switched her torch to its strongest setting. The bright beam of light made its way through the nearest cell, and on through the doors beyond, as far as it could reach.

  Berger thought the word just as Blom said it. ‘It’s a labyrinth.’

  ‘Just like Märsta,’ Berger said hoarsely. ‘There were cells there too. Seven fucking cells.’

  ‘Not the days of the week,’ Blom said, the glow of realisation shining in her wide eyes. ‘Not seven as in the days of the week, but seven as in the number of kidnapped girls.’

  They looked at each other. Blood from the scratches on their faces merged with the water dripping from their hair. Their chalk-white faces gaunt and exhausted.

  ‘They each had a cell,’ Berger said. ‘Before he killed them they each had a cell.’

  ‘He hasn’t killed them,’ Blom said in a voice Berger didn’t recognise. ‘He’s kept them alive, some of them for years. He’s been pumping them full of that sedative, unsurprisingly forbidden in the West, for a very long time. He’s been collecting them.’

  Berger stared at her. There wasn’t just rainwater running down her face. She was crying too.

  It was the first time he had seen Molly Blom cry openly.

  He wondered if there would be another
.

  He closed his eyes. The world suddenly looked very different. Suddenly there was much more at stake, and it all depended on them. On Sam Berger and Molly Blom.

  They held seven lives in their hands.

  They rushed upstairs to the hall, and saw the perverse glare of the floodlights through the open front door. They could breathe again. They held onto each other, clutching each other’s upper arms. Almost hugging.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ Berger said. ‘Fuck. He’s kept them alive. He’s been waiting for us.’

  ‘He was found out in Märsta,’ Blom said. ‘And in turn he must have found the woman with the dog who saw his Statoil van. He cleaned out the Märsta house, emptied it completely, removed the doors, cleaned the whole place with the utmost precision. Then he drove all the girls here, all seven of them. He’s been waiting for us. And he’s just driven off with them in the van. There must be another way out of here, one that’s not on the map.’

  And suddenly Berger could see everything with absolute clarity.

  ‘The Ramans do everything in threes,’ he said.

  Blom just stared at him.

  ‘William’s favourite book,’ Berger explained. ‘Arthur C. Clarke’s novel, Rendezvous with Rama.’

  ‘OK,’ Blom said, looking like she was having trouble keeping it together. ‘So what are you saying?’

  ‘There’s a third house,’ Berger said. ‘A triplet house.’

  Then he punched the wall with his fist.

  The wounds on his right knuckles cracked wide open. Blood spattered the walls.

  He didn’t give a shit. Didn’t give a shit about anything. Anything at all.

  Apart from one thing.

  Rescuing not one but seven girls.

  The dreadful glare of the floodlights reached into the hall. He stepped out onto the porch. He shot the floodlights, one after the other, until his pistol merely clicked. He imagined he could see some of the light lingering. He stepped down from the porch and saw the front of the house shimmering, as if from some innate light.