The Sandman

by Lars Kepler

  She leaves her cell and runs out into the corridor barefoot. One of the doctor’s shoes is wedged in the security door to prevent it from closing.

  She opens the door cautiously and listens. The secure unit is ghostly quiet. She can hear the sound of her feet sticking to the vinyl flooring as she creeps into the room to her right and over to the operator’s desk. The screens are dark, and the lights on the alarm unit are all out. The electricity supply to the surveillance room has been cut.

  Somewhere there has to be a phone or a functioning alarm. Saga hurries past a number of closed doors until she reaches the staff kitchen. The cutlery drawers are open, and there’s a toppled chair on the floor.

  In the sink there’s a vegetable knife and some browning apple peel. Saga snatches up the little knife, checks that the blade is sharp, and moves on.

  She hears a strange, faint buzzing sound.

  Her right hand is squeezing the knife too hard.

  There should be security staff here, but she doesn’t dare call out. She’s scared that Jurek will hear her.

  The buzzing is getting closer as she makes her way down the corridor. It sounds like a fly caught on a piece of flypaper. She creeps past the inspection room, feeling increasingly apprehensive.

  The door to the staff room is ajar. There’s a light on. She reaches out her hand and opens the door wider.

  She sees the end of a cot. Someone’s lying on it. Two feet in white socks.

  “Hello?” she says tentatively.

  Saga tells herself that somebody is lying there listening to music and has missed everything that’s been going on.

  She steps forward. The bed is completely drenched in blood.

  The girl with pierced cheeks is lying on her back, her body quivering. Her eyes stare up at the ceiling.

  Her face is twitching. From her pursed lips a mixture of blood and air is bubbling out with a hissing sound.

  “Oh God.”

  The girl has a dozen knife wounds to her chest, deep cuts into her lungs and heart. There’s nothing Saga can do. She needs to call for help as soon as she can.

  Blood is dripping onto the floor, next to the remnants of the girl’s smashed phone.

  “I’ll get help,” Saga says.

  The girl’s lips hiss as a bubble of blood inflates.

  158

  Saga runs out of the room with a horrible vacant feeling inside.

  “Please, God, please, God…”

  She is numb with shock as she approaches another set of security doors. The guard is sitting on the other side of the far door. The thick glass makes him look muted and indistinct.

  Hiding the little vegetable knife in her hand so as not to frighten him, Saga knocks on the glass.

  “Help! We need help in here!”

  She knocks louder, but he doesn’t react. She moves to the side, toward the door, and sees that it’s open.

  All the doors are open, she thinks as she walks through.

  Saga is about to say something when she sees that the guard is dead. His throat has been cut so brutally that it’s sliced right through to the vertebrae. His head looks as if it’s hanging limply from a broom handle. The blood is running down his body and gathering in a pool around his chair.

  She skids across the wet floor with the knife in her hand, then runs up the stairs and through the open gate.

  She tugs at the door leading to secure forensic psychiatric Ward 30. It’s locked. It’s the middle of the night. She bangs on it a few times, then continues along the corridor toward the main entrance.

  “Hello,” she calls out. “Is anyone here?”

  The doctor’s other shoe is on the floor in the harsh glare of the fluorescent ceiling light.

  Saga sees movement up ahead, through several panes of glass. It’s a man, standing and smoking. He flicks the cigarette away and disappears off to the left. Saga runs as fast as she can, toward the glassed-in exit and the passageway leading to the main hospital building. She turns the corner and notices that the floor beneath her feet is wet.

  At first it looks as if the floor is black. Then the smell of blood becomes so tangible that it’s all she can do not to throw up.

  There’s a large puddle. Footsteps lead away from it toward the exit.

  She sees the young doctor’s head. It’s lying on its side on the floor, next to the trash can against the wall to her right.

  Jurek aimed and missed, she thinks absently. She breathes rapidly and feels light-headed.

  She keeps moving while her thoughts drift, unable to make sense of things.

  It’s impossible to accept that this is happening.

  Why has he taken the time to do all this?

  Because he didn’t just want to get out, she tells herself. He wanted revenge.

  She hears heavy steps from the passage leading to the main building. Two guards run toward her with bulletproof vests, guns, and black uniforms.

  “We need doctors in the secure unit,” Saga calls.

  “Get down on the floor,” the younger one says.

  “It’s only a little girl,” the other one says.

  “I’m a police officer,” she says, throwing the knife away.

  It bounces across the vinyl floor and stops in front of them. They look at it, open their holsters, and draw their service pistols.

  “Down on the floor!”

  “I’m getting down on the floor,” she says. “But you have to warn—”

  “Fuck,” the younger one exclaims when he sees the head. “Fuck, fuck…”

  “I’ll shoot,” the other one says in a shaky voice.

  Saga gets down on her knees and the guard hurries over, pulling the handcuffs from his belt. The other guard moves aside. Saga holds out her hands and stands up.

  “Nice and fucking slow, now,” the guard says in a jagged voice.

  She shuts her eyes, hears boots on the floor, feels his movements, and takes a small step backward. The guard leans forward to cuff her hands, and Saga opens her eyes at the same time that she throws a right hook. There’s a crunch as she hits him hard above his ear. She swings around and meets the jolt of his head with her left elbow.

  The only sound is a brief thump.

  Saliva sprays from his open mouth.

  His legs give way, and Saga snatches his pistol from him. She releases the safety catch and fires at him before he hits the floor.

  Saga shoots the other guard twice, right in his bulletproof vest. The shots echo in the narrow passageway and the guard staggers back. Saga rushes over and knocks the pistol out of his hand with the butt of hers. The gun clatters across the floor toward the bloody footprints.

  Saga kicks both his legs out from under him, and he falls flat on his back with a groan. The other guard rolls over onto his side, clutching his face with one hand. Saga grabs one of their radios and takes a few steps away.

  159

  Joona is awakened by the sound of the phone ringing. He hadn’t even realized he was dozing off. He’d plunged straight into a deep sleep while Disa was changing into her work clothes. The bedroom is dark, but the glow of his phone is casting a pale elliptical shape on the wall.

  “Joona Linna,” he answers with a sleepy sigh.

  “Jurek’s escaped. He’s managed to get out of—”

  “Saga?” Joona asks, leaping out of bed.

  “He’s killed a lot of people,” she says, a note of hysteria in her voice.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Joona walks through the apartment, adrenaline coursing through him as Saga’s words sink in.

  “I don’t know where he is. He just said he was going to hurt you. He said—”

  “Disa?” Joona calls.

  Her boots are gone. He opens the front door and calls her name down the stairwell, his voice echoing in the darkness. He tries to remember what she said before he fell asleep.

  “Disa went to Loudden,” he says.

  “I’m so sorry for—”

  Joona hangs up, pulls his cl
othes on, grabs his pistol and holster, and leaves the apartment.

  He runs down the stairs and out onto the pavement, then off toward Dala Street, where Carlos parked his car. It’s snowing heavily. As he runs, he pulls up Disa’s name in his contacts and calls her. No answer.

  Joona rushes over to the car, gets in, and drives straight through a bank of snow, scraping the side against a parked car.

  As he accelerates past Tegnérlunden and down toward Svea Avenue, the loose snow flies off the car in soft clouds.

  Joona is aware that everything he’s afraid of could flare up like a firestorm tonight.

  Disa is alone in her car, on her way out to Frihamnen.

  Joona’s heart is pounding against his holster.

  He’s driving fast, remembering that Disa’s boss called and asked her to take a look at something that had been found. Samuel’s wife, Rebecka, had gotten a call from a carpenter, asking her to go out to their summer house earlier than arranged.

  The Sandman must have mentioned Disa in the letter that Susanne Hjälm gave Jurek. His hands are shaking as he calls Disa again. He listens to the phone ringing and feels sweat trickling down his back.

  She doesn’t answer.

  It’s probably nothing, he tries to convince himself. He just has to reach Disa and tell her to turn around and drive home. He’ll hide her away somewhere until Jurek has been recaptured.

  The car slides on the brown slush on the tarmac, and a semi swerves violently out of his way. He calls again. Still no answer.

  He speeds past Humlegården. The road is lined with grubby banks of snow, and the streetlights reflect off the wet tarmac.

  He calls Disa again.

  The traffic lights have turned red, but Joona turns right onto Valhalla Boulevard. A cement mixer swerves out of his way, and a red car pulls up sharply with a shriek of brakes. The driver blows his horn as Disa finally answers.

  160

  Disa drives carefully over the rusty railroad tracks and up to the huge harbor of Frihamnen, with its ferry-and-container traffic.

  The yellow glow of a hanging streetlight sways across a hangarlike building.

  People are walking with their heads bowed to prevent the snow from getting in their eyes. Far off, through the snow, she can just make out the large Tallinn ferry, lit up but as hazy as a dream.

  Disa turns right, away from the illuminated premises of one of the big fruit importers, and drives past a succession of low industrial units as she peers into the gloom.

  Trucks start to drive on board the ferry to Saint Petersburg. A group of dockworkers are smoking in an empty parking lot. Darkness and snow make the world around the little gathering seem muffled and isolated.

  Disa drives past Warehouse 5 and in through the gates of the container terminal. Each shipping container is the size of a small cottage and can weigh more than thirty tons. They stand there stacked on top of one another, fifteen meters high.

  The stacks of containers form a network of passageways wide enough for the huge semis. Disa heads down one of the alleys; it feels oddly narrow because its sides are so high. She can see from the tracks in the snow that another car has driven this way quite recently. Some fifty meters ahead, the passageway opens up onto the dockside. The vast bulk of Loudden’s oil tank is just visible through the snow, beyond the cranes that are loading containers onto a ship. The men with the ancient board-game set are probably waiting for her up ahead.

  In the distance, a large piece of machinery resembling a scorpion moves sideways but stops in the middle of its arc. A red container is swinging from its claw, just above the ground.

  She drives closer.

  The container door is ajar.

  And there’s no one in the driver’s seat. The wheels are quickly being obscured by snow.

  She startles when her phone rings and smiles to herself as she answers: “You’re supposed to be asleep,” she says brightly.

  “Tell me where you are right now,” Joona says, his voice intense.

  “I’m in the car, on my way to—”

  “I want you to skip the meeting and go straight home.”

  “What happened?”

  “Jurek Walter has escaped.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I want you to go home right away.”

  The headlights form an aquarium of swirling snow in front of the car.

  “You have to listen to me,” Joona says. “Turn the car around and drive home.”

  “Okay, then.”

  He waits and listens to her over the phone.

  “Have you turned around?”

  “I can’t right now. There seems to be some kind of problem here. There’s an open Hamburg Süd container blocking me in front, and I don’t have enough room to turn around,” she says as she catches sight of something odd in the rearview mirror.

  “Disa, I know I might sound a little—”

  “Hang on,” she interrupts.

  “What are you doing?”

  In her rearview mirror, she looks at the large bundle lying on the ground in the middle of the passageway. It wasn’t there a minute ago, she thinks. It looks like a gray blanket tied with duct tape.

  “What’s going on, Disa?” Joona asks, sounding agitated. “Have you turned around yet?”

  “The container is still in the way,” she says as she stops. “I can’t get past.”

  “You need to reverse.”

  “Just give me a second. There’s a bundle or something on the ground behind me,” she says, and puts the phone down on the seat.

  “Disa!” he shouts. “Do not get out of the car! Reverse over the bundle and get away from there! Disa!”

  She can’t hear him. She’s already out of the car and walking toward the bundle. It’s quiet, and the light from the tall cranes doesn’t reach into the deep gully between the stacks of containers.

  The wind forces its way between the containers and makes high whistling noises.

  In the distance, she can see the warning lights of a huge forklift.

  She’ll drag the bundle to the side so she can reverse past and head home.

  The forklift disappears around a corner, leaving just the car’s ice-cold taillights to guide her.

  Disa blinks and tries to focus her gaze. It looks as if there’s something moving under the gray blanket. Everything in this moment is astonishingly silent.

  She hesitates, then walks forward.

  161

  Joona is driving too fast when he turns left at the rotary, and the front bumper thuds into the snowbank. The tires rumble over the packed ice. He wrestles with the steering wheel as the car slides sideways. He straightens it out and drives on along Lindarängs Road without losing much speed.

  The vast expanse of Gärdet stretches like a white sea up toward Norra Djurgården.

  He overtakes a bus, hits 160 kilometers an hour, and flies past yellow-brick housing complexes. The car skids through the snow as he brakes to turn left toward the harbor. Through the tall wire fence surrounding the port he can see a long, narrow ferry being loaded with containers in the blurred light of a crane.

  A rust-brown freight train is on its way into Frihamnen.

  Joona peers into the murky shadows surrounding the deserted warehouses. He bounces across a median as slush flies around the car and the tires spin.

  He comes to a railroad crossing. The barriers are already starting to close, but Joona accelerates across the tracks and just makes it through; the final barrier scrapes the roof of the car.

  He drives as fast as he can through Frihamnen. There are people leaving the Tallinn ferry terminal, a scant line of black figures vanishing into the night.

  She can’t be far. She stopped the car and got out. Someone forced her to come out here. Got her to leave the car.

  He sounds his horn, and people leap out of his way. One woman drops her suitcase, and Joona drives straight over it.

  A semi is moving slowly down the ramp and onto the ferry to Saint Petersburg.


  Joona drives past an empty parking lot between Warehouses 5 and 6 and in through the gates of the container terminal.

  The dockyard, with narrow alleys and tall, windowless buildings, is like its own city. He sees something from the corner of his eye and brakes immediately.

  Disa’s car sits in the passageway ahead of him. A thin layer of snow has settled on top of it. The driver’s door is open. Joona runs over to it and looks inside. There’s no sign of violence or struggle. The engine is still warm.

  He breathes ice-cold air into his lungs.

  Disa got out of the car and walked toward something behind it. He sees her footprints now. Snow is filling them softly.

  “No,” he whispers.

  There’s a patch of compacted snow ten meters behind her car, and a broad track that leads a meter or so between the containers before it stops. It looks like something’s been dragged off to the side.

  Drops of blood are just visible under the powdery snow.

  Beyond that, the snow is smooth and untouched.

  Joona stops himself from calling Disa’s name.

  He takes a few steps back and sees five containers hanging in the air above. The one at the bottom has white writing on a red background: “Hamburg Süd.”

  Just like the one that was blocking Disa’s way.

  An open Hamburg Süd container.

  That must be where Jurek has taken her.

  Joona starts to run toward the crane holding the container.

  He emerges onto Dock 5. His heart is hammering in his chest.

  A dockworker in a helmet is speaking into a walkie-talkie. A vast crane on rails is loading a container ship.

  Joona catches sight of the red container and sprints toward it.

  Hundreds of containers, all different colors, bearing different shipping companies’ names, have already been loaded.

  Two dockworkers are walking briskly along the shore in bright-yellow vests. One of them is pointing up at the lofty bridge of the ship.

  162

  Joona hops over a concrete barrier to the edge of the quay. Sludgy ice is floating in the black water. The smell of the sea mixes with the diesel fumes from four caterpillar trucks.