by Lars Kepler
All of a sudden she has butterflies in her stomach.
It’s almost twenty past six. They’re picking her up in eleven minutes. She puts her watch back on the bedside table, next to her glass of water. Where she’s going, time is dead.
First she’ll be going to Kronoberg Prison, but she’ll only be there for a couple of hours before she’s transported to Katrineholm. Then she’ll spend a day or so at Karsudden Hospital before they transfer her to the secure psychiatric unit at Löwenströmska.
She walks slowly through the apartment, switching off lights and pulling plugs, before going into the hall and putting on her green parka.
It’s not such a difficult mission, she tells herself again.
Jurek Walter is an elderly man. He’s probably heavily medicated and not really with it.
She knows he’s guilty of terrible things, but all she has to do is stay calm, wait for him to approach her, and wait for him to say something that could be useful.
Either it’ll work, or it won’t.
It’s time to leave now.
Saga turns off the lamp in the hall and goes out into the stairwell.
She’s thrown out all the perishable goods from the fridge, but she doesn’t bother to have someone look after the apartment, water the flowers, or pick up the mail.
72
Saga double-locks the door and goes downstairs to the main entrance. She feels a flutter of anxiety as she sees the Prison Service van waiting in the dark street. She opens the door and gets in beside Nathan Pollock.
“It’s dangerous to pick up hitchhikers,” she says, trying to smile.
“Did you get any sleep?”
“A bit,” she replies, and fastens her seat belt.
“I know you already know this,” Pollock says, glancing at her, “but I’m still going to remind you not to try to manipulate him into revealing any information.”
He puts the van in gear and pulls out into the silent street.
“That’s the hardest thing,” Saga says. “What if he only wants to talk about soccer? What if he doesn’t talk at all?”
“That will just be how it is. There’ll be nothing you can do about it.”
“But Felicia might only survive a few more days.”
“That’s not your responsibility,” Pollock replies. “This infiltration is a gamble. We all know that. We’ve agreed on that. We can’t second-guess the results. What you’re doing is entirely separate from the ongoing preliminary investigation. We’re going to keep talking to Mikael Kohler-Frost, follow up on all the old lines of inquiry, and—”
“But no one believes we’ll be able to save Felicia unless Jurek starts talking to me.”
“You can’t think like that,” Pollock says.
“Okay. I’ll stop now.” She tries to smile.
“Good.”
She starts tapping her feet. Her pale-blue eyes are glassy, as if she’s lost in thought.
Dark buildings flit past the van.
Saga puts her keys, wallet, and other loose possessions in a Prison Service bag for personal belongings.
Before they reach Kronoberg Prison, Pollock hands her the microphone inside a silicon capsule and a small portion of butter.
“Digestion of fatty foods takes longer,” he says. “But I don’t think you should ever wait more than four hours.”
She opens the pack of butter, swallows the contents, then examines the microphone in the soft capsule. It looks like an insect in amber. She straightens up, pops the capsule in her mouth, tips her head back and swallows. It hurts her throat, and she can feel herself breaking out into a sweat as it slowly slips down.
73
The morning is still as black as midnight, and all the lights are on in the women’s section of Kronoberg Prison.
Saga takes two steps forward and stops when they tell her to. She tries to shut herself off from the world around her and not look at anyone.
The radiators are ticking.
Nathan Pollock puts her bag of personal belongings on the counter and hands over Saga’s papers. He is given a written receipt and then disappears.
From now on, she will have to cope on her own, no matter what happens.
The automated gates whirr, then fall silent.
No one looks at her, but she can’t help noticing the way the atmosphere tenses when the guards realize that she has the highest security classification. She is to be kept in strict isolation until her transfer.
Saga keeps her eyes fixed on the yellow vinyl floor, not answering any questions.
She is patted down before being led along a corridor for the full-body search.
Two thickset women are discussing a new television series as they guide her through a door with no window in it. The room looks like a small medical examination room, with a narrow bunk covered with a roll of paper, and locked cabinets along one wall.
“Remove all your clothes,” one of the women says in a blank voice as she pulls on a pair of latex gloves.
Saga does as she is told and drops her clothes in a heap on the floor. When she is naked, she stands under the bare fluorescent light with her arms hanging by her sides.
Her body is girlishly slender, toned, and athletic.
The guard with the gloves breaks off mid-sentence and stares at Saga.
“Okay,” one of them sighs after a few seconds.
“What?”
“Let’s just do what we have to do.”
Carefully, they begin examining Saga, shining a light in her mouth, nose, and ears. They tick boxes off a list, then instruct her to lie on the bunk.
“Get on your side and pull one knee up as far as you can,” the woman with the gloves says.
Saga obeys, unhurriedly, and the woman moves between the bunk and the wall behind her back. She shivers and feels her skin break out in goose bumps.
The dry paper rustles against her cheek as she turns her head. She shuts her eyes tight as lubricant is squeezed from a bottle.
“This is going to feel a little cold now,” the woman says, sticking two fingers as far up Saga’s vagina as she can.
It doesn’t hurt, but it’s extremely unpleasant. Saga tries to breathe evenly but can’t help gasping as the woman sticks a finger in her anus.
The examination is over in a matter of seconds, and the woman quickly pulls the gloves off and throws them away. She hands Saga a piece of paper to wipe herself with, and explains that she’ll be given new clothes while she’s there.
Dressed in a baggy green outfit and a pair of white sneakers, she is taken to her cell in Ward 8:4. Before they close and lock the door behind her, they ask amiably if she’d like a cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee. Saga shakes her head.
Once the women are gone, Saga stands completely still in her cell for a moment.
It’s hard to know what time it is, but before it’s too late she goes over to the sink. She fills her hands with water, drinks some, and sticks her fingers down her throat. She coughs and her stomach clenches. After a couple of hard, painful cramps, the microphone comes back up.
Her eyes water as she washes the capsule and then rinses her face.
She lies on the bunk and waits, hiding the microphone in her grasp.
The corridor outside is silent.
Saga can smell the toilet and drain in the floor as she stares at the ceiling and reads the messages and names that have been carved into the walls over the years.
Rectangles of sunlight have moved left, toward the floor, by the time Saga hears footsteps outside. She pops the capsule in her mouth, stands up, and swallows as the lock clicks and the door opens.
It’s time for her to be taken to Karsudden Hospital.
The uniformed guard signs her out, along with her possessions and transfer documents. Saga allows them to cuff her hands and ankles.
74
The police team consists of thirty-two people in total, mostly civilian staff and officers from the surveillance and detection units of the National Criminal Inv
estigation Department and National Crime.
In one of the big conference rooms on the fifth floor, the walls are covered with maps marking the locations associated with the Jurek Walter case. Color photographs of the missing people are surrounded by constellations of their families, colleagues, and friends.
Old interviews with relatives of the victims are examined again, and new interviews are conducted. Medical and forensic reports are checked, and anyone who knew any of the victims is spoken to, no matter how peripheral the relationship.
Joona Linna and his team are standing in the winter light by the window, reading a transcript of the latest interview with Mikael Kohler-Frost. As they read, a somber mood settles over the group. There’s nothing in Mikael’s account that can propel the investigation forward. The analysts have looked at the tangible evidence, and there’s precious little of it.
“Nothing,” Petter Näslund mutters, rolling up the transcript.
“He says he can feel his sister’s movements, that she reaches for him every time she wakes up in the darkness,” Benny Rubin says with a pained expression on his face. “He can feel how much she hopes he will return.”
“I don’t believe any of that,” Petter interrupts.
“We have to assume that Mikael is telling the truth, at least in some form,” Joona says.
“But this business with the Sandman,” Petter says. “I mean…”
“Even with the Sandman,” Joona replies.
“He’s talking about a character in a fairy tale,” Petter retorts. “Are we going to question everyone who sells barometers, or—”
“As a matter of fact, I’ve already compiled a list of manufacturers and dealers,” Joona says with a smile.
“What the hell?”
“I’m aware that there’s a barometer salesman in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s story about the Sandman,” Joona goes on. “And I know Mikael’s mother used to tell them a bedtime story about the Sandman. But none of that precludes the possibility that a version of him might actually exist in real life.”
“We don’t have a fucking thing, and we might as well admit it,” Petter says, tossing the transcript onto the desk.
“Almost nothing,” Joona gently corrects him.
“Mikael was sedated when he was moved to the capsule, and sedated when he was taken away from it.” Benny sighs, rubbing a hand over his bald head. “It’s impossible even to start identifying a location. In all likelihood, Felicia is in Sweden—but even that isn’t certain.”
Magdalena Ronander goes over to the whiteboard and lists what little information they have about the capsule: concrete, electricity, water, Legionella bacteria.
Because Mikael has never seen the accomplice or heard him speak, they know nothing beyond the fact that it is a man. That’s all. Mikael was sure that the coughs he heard came from a man.
Everything else in the description can be traced back to childhood fantasies about the Sandman.
Joona leaves the room, takes the elevator down, walks out of police headquarters, and continues up Fleming Street, across the Sankt Erik bridge and into Birkastan.
The attic apartment of 19 Rörstrands Street is where Athena Promachos is based.
When the goddess Pallas Athena is depicted as a beautiful girl with a lance and a shield, she is known as Athena Promachos, the goddess of war.
Athena Promachos is also the name of a secret group put together to investigate the material that Saga Bauer is expected to provide while she is undercover. The group doesn’t exist in any official records, and has no budget from either the National Criminal Investigation Department or the Swedish Security Police.
Athena Promachos consists of Joona, Nathan, Corinne Meilleroux from the Security Police, and Forensics Officer Johan Jönson.
As soon as Saga is transferred to the secure unit at Löwenströmska, they’ll be working around the clock to receive, collate, and analyze the surveillance recordings.
Athena Promachos will be assisted by three other officers who are responsible for recording the transmissions from the microphone. They will work from a minibus belonging to the local council’s Parks Department that has been parked on hospital grounds. All the material will be saved on hard disks, encrypted, and sent to Athena Promachos’s computers with a delay of no more than a tenth of a second.
75
Anders looks at the time again. The new patient from the secure unit at Säter Prison is on his way to the isolation unit. Prison Service transport has called to warn Anders that the man is anxious and aggressive. They’ve given him ten milligrams of Stesolid en route, and Anders has prepared a syringe with another ten milligrams. An older prison guard named Leif Rajama tosses away the packaging for the syringe and waits with his feet planted apart in a combative stance.
“I don’t think he’ll need more than that,” Anders says, not quite managing to summon a smile.
“It usually depends on how much the search upsets them,” Leif says. “I try to tell myself that my job is to help people who are having a hard time, even if they may not actually want help.”
The guard on the other side of the reinforced glass is notified that the patient is on his way in. There’s a metallic clang through the walls, then a muffled cry.
“This is only the second patient,” Anders says. “We won’t know how things will be until all three are in place.”
“It’ll be fine,” Leif reassures him.
The security monitor shows a view of the staircase with two security guards holding up a patient who is unable to walk unaided. The patient is a thickset man with a blond mustache and glasses that have slid down his narrow nose. His eyes are closed, and sweat is running down his face.
Anders glances at Leif. They can hear the patient babbling nonsensically—something about dead slaves and the fact that he has wet himself.
“I’m standing in piss, right up to my knees, and—”
“Hold still,” the guards order, and lay him down on the floor.
“Ow, it hurts,” he whimpers.
The guard behind the glass accepts the transfer documents from the senior transport officer.
The patient is lying on the floor with his eyes shut, gasping. Anders tells Leif that they won’t need to administer any more Stesolid, then pulls his pass card through the reader.
76
Jurek Walter is walking at a moderate pace on the treadmill. His face is turned away from the camera.
Anders Rönn and the head of security, Sven Hoffman, are in the surveillance room, watching him on the monitor.
“You know how to sound the alarm and how to switch it off,” Hoffman says. “You know that someone with a pass card must accompany the guards when they interact with the patients.”
“Yes,” Anders says, with a hint of impatience in his voice. “And the security door behind you has to be locked before you open the next one.”
Sven nods.
“If the alarm sounds, guards will show up within five minutes.”
“We won’t be sounding any alarms,” Anders says. On the monitor, he sees the new patient come into the dayroom.
They study the patient as he sits down on the brown sofa, holding one hand over his mouth as if trying not to vomit. Anders thinks of the handwritten notes from Säter, detailing aggression, recurrent psychosis, narcissism, and an antisocial personality disorder.
“We’ll have to conduct our own evaluation,” Anders says. “And I’ll increase his medication if there’s the slightest reason to.”
The main monitor in front of him is divided into nine squares, one for each of the nine cameras in the unit. Airlocks, security doors, corridors, the dayroom, and the patients’ rooms are all filmed. There aren’t enough staff to monitor the cameras at all hours, but there always has to be someone with operational knowledge of the security system on duty in the unit.
“You’ll be spending a lot of time in the office, but you should still know how these things work,” Sven says, gesturing toward the monitors.
“The basic principle is that everyone on the staff should know where all the patients are at all times.”
Sven clicks on one of the squares, and an image of the changing room immediately fills the second monitor alongside the main screen. Anders can see the nurse, My, taking off her wet coat.
The changing room is reflected on the screen with unexpected clarity. There are five yellow metal lockers, a shower, and doors to the bathroom and corridor.
The outline of My’s breasts can be seen beneath a black T-shirt with an illustration of the angel of death on it. She gets out her uniform, lays it on the bench, then puts a pair of Birkenstock sandals on the floor.
Sven clicks away from the changing room and enlarges the image from the dayroom instead. Anders forces himself not to look at the smaller square as My starts to unbutton her black jeans.
He sits down and tries to sound nonchalant as he asks if the videos are stored.
“We don’t have the right to do that—not even in exceptional circumstances.” Sven winks at him.
“Shame,” Anders says, running a hand over his short brown hair.
Sven starts to cycle through the various cameras, checking the corridors and security locks.
“We cover everything where—”
A door opens in the distance. They hear the hum of the coffee machine, and then My walks into the surveillance room.
“What are you doing huddled in here?” she asks with a grin.
“Sven’s going through the security system with me,” Anders replies.
“And here I was thinking you were watching me in the changing room,” she jokes with a sigh.
77
They grow quiet and focus on the screen that shows the dayroom. Jurek Walter is still walking on the treadmill with long, even strides. Bernie Larsson gradually slips down off the sofa until he is slumped on the ground with his neck against the seat cushion. His shirt slides up, and his round stomach moves as he breathes. His face is sweaty. He bounces one of his legs nervously, and seems to be talking to the ceiling.
