The Sandman

by Lars Kepler

  Reidar leans against the wall. He coughs as quietly as he can, feeling the pain radiating down his arm.

  “Keep going down the stairs,” he whispers.

  Mikael is about to say something when the door in the other room crashes open.

  Jurek’s broken in.

  They stand there paralyzed and watch him through the fabric covering the hidden door.

  He’s creeping forward, crouched down, with the long knife in his hand, scanning the room around him like a predator. His soft breathing is audible.

  Jurek is so close now that a cloying smell of sweat hits them through the tapestry.

  They hold their breath as Jurek passes the tapestry door, heading toward the library.

  With tears running down his face, Mikael looks at his father as Reidar points down the narrow staircase, waving at him to go before Jurek realizes he’s been deceived.

  Reidar stifles a cough, tries to take a step toward Mikael, then stumbles. A floorboard creaks under his right foot. Mikael looks at him in anguish.

  Jurek turns and looks straight at the hidden door. His pale eyes become strangely calm when he realizes what he’s looking at.

  There’s a loud bang in the corridor, and splinters from the edge of the tall cupboard fly through the air.

  Jurek slips to the side like a shadow and takes cover.

  Mikael pulls Reidar with him down the narrow staircase toward the kitchen.

  Behind them, Berzelius bursts into the passageway leading to the library. He’s holding Reidar’s old Colt in his hand. The little man’s cheeks are red as he pushes his glasses up his nose and moves forward.

  “Leave Micke alone!” he shouts, walking past the tall cupboard.

  Death comes so quickly that Berzelius’s main reaction is surprise. He feels a tight grip on the wrist holding the revolver, then a burning pain in his side as the knife blade penetrates his ribs and hits his heart.

  There isn’t much pain after that.

  It’s more like a protracted cramp, although a profuse quantity of warm blood runs down his hip as the blade slides out again.

  Berzelius slumps onto his side, thinking that he should try to crawl and hide somewhere, but an overwhelming tiredness sweeps over him.

  He doesn’t even notice when Jurek sticks the knife into his body a second time. The blade goes in at a different angle, straight through his ribs, and stays there.

  174

  Saga reaches the top of the staircase and hurries through the rooms on the upper floor. Tactically, she tries to check off every dangerous angle and secure each zone as she passes through, but she has to take risks so she can move quickly.

  She aims the pistol at a shiny leather sofa as she passes it, then points it toward the doorway, then to the left, then in.

  There’s a wax candle on the floor of the long, portrait-lined corridor.

  The door to one of the bedrooms is wide open, and the sheets are on the floor. Saga hurries past, catching a glimpse of herself as a fleeting shadow in the window to her left.

  There’s a loud bang from a firearm in one of the rooms up ahead. Keeping close to the right-hand wall, Saga starts to run toward the noise with her pistol raised.

  “Leave Micke alone!” a man cries.

  Saga leaps over an upturned chair, covers the last stretch, and stops in front of a closed door.

  She pushes the handle down and lets the door swing open on its hinges.

  The smell of a recently fired gun is heavy in the air.

  The room is dark and still.

  Saga moves more cautiously now.

  She’s starting to feel the weight of the pistol in her shoulder. Her finger is trembling on the trigger. She tries to breathe evenly as she leans to her right to get a better view.

  There’s a damp thud with a metallic echo.

  Something’s moving—a shadow vanishing.

  She sees a pool of blood gleaming on the floor next to a tall cupboard.

  Stepping forward, she sees a man on the floor with a knife sticking out of him. He’s lying on his side, completely still, with a fixed stare. Her first impulse is to rush over to the man, but something stops her.

  The room is too hard to read.

  She lowers her pistol and rests her arm for a few seconds before raising it again and moving farther to the right.

  One section of the wall with tapestries is open. Through it Saga sees a short landing leading to a narrow staircase. She can hear steps and dragging sounds from below, and raises her Glock toward the opening before moving closer.

  The door at the other end of the room opens on a dark library.

  There’s a faint sound, as if someone were moistening their mouth.

  She can’t see anything.

  The pistol is shaking in her hand.

  She takes a step forward, holds her breath, then hears someone breathing behind her.

  Saga reacts instantly and swings around. It’s still too late. A strong hand wraps around her throat and drags her toward the cupboard in the corner with great force.

  Jurek’s grip on her neck is so tight that the blood supply to her brain has been cut off. He looks at her without expression, holding her still. Her vision starts to go black, and the Glock drops from her hand.

  Impotent, Saga tries to twist free. Just before she loses consciousness she hears Jurek whisper, “Little siren…”

  He slams her head against the corner of the cupboard, then smashes her temple against the stone wall. She collapses, her eyes flickering. She sees Jurek bend over the dead man and pull the knife out of his body. A moment later, everything goes black again.

  175

  They’re no longer trying to keep quiet. Mikael grips Reidar as they stumble down the staircase to the narrow servants’ passageway. They turn left and walk slowly along it, past the old cupboard with the Christmas dinner set, and into the kitchen.

  Reidar has to stop. He can’t go any farther. The cramps in his chest are unbearable. He needs to lie down.

  “You have to get out of here,” he gasps. “Run. Run out to the main road.”

  “Not on my own,” Mikael says. “I can’t, Daddy, please….”

  Reidar takes a deep breath. He has to do this. He takes a step, then another. His eyes flare as he leans against the wall, knocking a big painting askew.

  They make their way through the music room. Reidar can hardly feel the floor under his bare feet.

  There’s blood on the parquet. The front door is open, and snow is blowing in across the Persian rug.

  They pass the closet, and Reidar fumbles for the pink nitroglycerin spray in his coat. He sprays some under his tongue, takes a few steps, and sprays again.

  The dish containing the car keys is on the other side of the room.

  They hear heavy footsteps nearby. There’s no time. They rush out into the winter morning.

  The cold burns Reidar’s naked feet. But the pain in his chest has eased up slightly, and they can move faster now. Together they run over to Saga Bauer’s car.

  Reidar pulls at the door, looks in, and sees that the keys are missing.

  Jurek Walter steps out the front door and catches sight of them in the gloom. He shakes the blood from his knife and heads straight for them.

  They run through the snow up toward the stables, but Jurek is faster. Reidar glances across the fields. The dark ice of the river is a ribbon through the snow, curling in the direction of the roaring rapids.

  176

  Saga wakes to find blood running into her eyes. She blinks and rolls onto her side. Her temple is throbbing. She has a splitting headache, her throat feels swollen, and she’s having trouble breathing.

  She touches the wound on her temple and groans. With her cheek to the floor, she can see that her Glock is lying in the dust under the large chest of drawers by the window.

  She closes her eyes again and tries to work out what’s happened. Joona was right, she thinks: Jurek wants Mikael back.

  She has no idea how lo
ng she’s been unconscious. It’s still dark in the room.

  She rolls over onto her stomach and whimpers.

  “Oh God.”

  With a great effort, she gets up on all fours. Her arms shake as she crawls through the pool of blood from the dead man toward the chest of drawers.

  She stretches for the gun but can’t reach it.

  Saga lies down on the floor, reaches in as far as she can, but only manages to nudge the Glock with her fingertips. It’s impossible. She’s so dizzy that the room is lurching violently, and she has to close her eyes again.

  Light seeps in through her closed eyelids. She looks up and notices a strange white glow. It’s bouncing across the ceiling.

  Saga forces herself to stand up, gasping as she leans against the chest of drawers for support. A string of bloody saliva is dripping from her mouth. She looks out the window and sees a man running, holding a burning flare in his hand. The bright light spreads in a blazing circle around him.

  Everything else out there is black.

  The glow of the flare reaches all the way to the stable in the distance.

  That’s when Saga catches sight of Jurek’s back.

  She bangs on the window and tries to open the latches, but they’ve rusted in place and are impossible to move.

  177

  With stiff fingers, Reidar tries to open the combination lock on the stable door. His fingertips are sticking to the frozen metal. Mikael whispers to him to hurry.

  Jurek is pushing through the snow with the knife in his hand. Reidar blows on his fingers and manages to get the last digit. He undoes the lock, slides the catch back, and tries to open the door.

  There’s too much snow on the ground.

  As he tugs at it, he can hear the horses moving in their stalls. They’re snorting quietly and stamping in the darkness.

  “Come on, Dad,” Mikael shouts, pulling at him.

  Reidar pushes the door harder, turns around, and sees Jurek Walter right behind them.

  With a practiced gesture, Jurek wipes the knife blade against his trousers.

  It’s too late to run.

  Reidar holds his hands up in self-defense, but Jurek grabs his neck and forces him back, against the wall of the stable.

  “Sorry,” Reidar manages to say. “I’m sorry that—”

  With immense force, Jurek thrusts the knife straight through Reidar’s shoulder and pins him to the wall. Reidar screams with pain. The horses whinny, their heavy bodies rubbing against the dividing walls of their stalls.

  Reidar is stuck. His shoulder is burning. Every second is unbearable. He can feel hot blood running down his arm and hand.

  Mikael is trying to squeeze into the stable, but Jurek catches up with him. He grabs the young man’s hair from behind, pulls him out, and slaps him so hard across the face that he collapses in the snow.

  “Please,” Reidar begs as he sees a bright light approaching from the manor.

  It’s David Sylwan, running toward them with an emergency flare in his hand. It’s crackling with white light.

  “The ambulance is on its way,” he yells, but stops when he sees Jurek turn.

  178

  Saga tugs at the chest of drawers and manages to pull it a few inches away from the wall. She spits blood, then takes hold of the bottom of the chest with both hands and overturns it with a grunt. She snatches up her pistol and smashes the windowpane with the butt. Glass rains down onto the floor and skims off the window ledge outside.

  She sees the bright light shimmering across the snow. Jurek is heading toward the man with the flare. The man backs away and tries to hit him with the burning flare, but Jurek grabs the man’s arm and breaks it.

  Saga knocks pieces of glass from the bottom of the window.

  Jurek is standing over his prey like a lion, moving quickly and efficiently, hitting the man in the neck and kidneys.

  Saga holds out her pistol and blinks the blood away from her eyes so she can see.

  The man is lying on his back in the snow, his body jerking. The flare beside him is still casting a bright glow.

  Jurek slips out of the way just as Saga fires her pistol. He moves away from the light and into the shadows.

  The flare illuminates a circle of white snow. The man stops moving and lies completely still. The red stable is visible only in brief bursts. Otherwise, there is nothing but darkness.

  179

  Reidar is pinned to the wall. The pain from the knife is excruciating. It feels as if that one burning point is all that exists. The warm blood steams as it runs down his body.

  He sees Jurek vanish right after the shot. David is motionless in the snow. There’s no way of telling how badly wounded he is.

  To the east, the sky has brightened slightly, and Reidar can see Saga Bauer in a window on the first floor.

  It was she who fired and missed.

  Reidar is breathing too quickly. He’s losing a lot of blood. He realizes that he’s going into shock.

  Mikael gets unsteadily to his feet but has no time to escape before Jurek is back. He knocks the boy down again, then grabs him by one leg and starts to drag him off into the darkness.

  “Mikael,” Reidar screams.

  Jurek drags Reidar’s son off through the snow. Mikael is flailing with his arms, trying to find something to grab hold of. They disappear toward the rapids. Reidar can only see them as pale shadows now.

  Jurek came here for Mikael, he thinks in confusion.

  It’s still too dark for Saga to be able to tell the figures apart from her vantage point in the window.

  Reidar howls as he grabs the handle of the knife and pulls. It’s stuck. He pulls again, shifting the angle down slightly to get a better grip, and it cuts into his flesh.

  He screams and pulls again, and finally the point comes free from the wall behind him. The knife slips out, and Reidar falls forward onto the snow. The pain is so intense that he’s sobbing as he crawls forward.

  “Mikael!”

  He crawls to the flare in the snow, picks it up, and feels the sparks prick his hand. He looks toward the open water of the rapids and can just make out Jurek’s figure against the snow. Reidar starts to follow them but has no energy left. He knows that Jurek is planning to drag Mikael into the forest and vanish with him for good.

  180

  Saga points her pistol through the window and sees Reidar holding the flare. He’s picked it up, and blood is pouring down his body; he stumbles and looks as if he’s going to fall, and then he throws it.

  Saga follows the light with her eyes as it spins through the darkness in a wide arc and lands in the snow. Now she can clearly locate Jurek Walter. He’s dragging Mikael behind him. They’re more than a hundred meters away, but Saga rests her arm against the window frame and takes aim.

  The pistol’s sights keep shaking. The black figure keeps moving out of the line of fire.

  Taking slow breaths, she squeezes the trigger, past the first notch, and sees Jurek’s head slide away.

  She keeps losing focus and blinks quickly.

  A moment later, the angle of fire is better, and she squeezes the trigger three times as the sights gradually slip lower.

  The blasts echo between the manor and the stables.

  Saga sees that at least one of the bullets hits Jurek in the neck. Blood is squirting out, hanging like a red haze in front of him in the bright white light.

  She fires off several more shots and sees him let go of Mikael and fall into the shadows.

  Saga backs away from the window and runs through the hidden doorway.

  She rushes down the stairs, through the large hall, and out into the snow. Panting, she approaches the glowing light with her pistol raised. Farther away, she sees the black water of the rapids glint like a metallic fracture in the white landscape.

  She pushes through the deep snow.

  The light of the flare is weakening and will soon go out. Mikael is curled up in the fetal position. There’s blood spattered at the very ed
ge of the trembling circle of light, but the body isn’t there.

  “Jurek,” she whispers, spotting his tracks through the snow.

  Saga’s head aches as she picks up the flare and holds it aloft. Shadows and light play across the snow. Suddenly she sees movement off to the side.

  Jurek stands up and moves away through the snow.

  Saga fires before she has time to aim properly. The bullet goes through the top of his arm and he lurches to one side, then takes a few steps down the steep slope leading to the rapids.

  Saga follows, with the flare held high. She spots him again, takes aim, and hits him in the chest with three shots.

  Jurek falls backward, over the icy fringe and straight into the black water of the rapids. Saga fires as he’s falling and hits him in the cheek and ear.

  He gets sucked down into the water. She runs over and shoots him again, in the foot, before he disappears. Saga replaces the cartridge and skids down the steep slope. She falls and hits her back on the ground, sliding under the snow, but scrambles back up to her feet and fires into the black water. The light of the flare penetrates the surface of the rapids, past the spinning bubbles and all the way to the dark-brown bottom. Something large is tumbling down there. She catches a glimpse of a wrinkled face among the stones and twisting weeds.

  Saga fires again, and a cloud of blood billows out into the dark water. She walks along the shore, following the current, and keeps shooting until she has no more ammunition left and Jurek Walter’s body vanishes beneath the ice where the rapids spread out.

  Panting, Saga stands at the edge of the water as the flare dies away to a shimmering red glow.

  She just stares down at the water as tears run down her face.

  The first rays of sunlight are starting to reach over the treetops, and the warm light of dawn is spreading out across the sparkling landscape. She hears the sound of helicopters approaching. It’s over at last.

  181

  Saga was taken by ambulance to Danderyd Hospital, where she was examined and given a bed. She lay down for a while in her room, but left the hospital by taxi before she received any treatment.