by Lars Kepler
“I think it has.”
“If you want the case, you’ll have to go and join the local force in Tumba,” says Petter.
“I intend to investigate these murders,” says Joona calmly.
“That’s for me to decide,” replies Petter.
Yngve Svensson comes in and sits down. His hair is slicked back with gel, he has blue-grey rings under his eyes and reddish stubble, and, as always, he’s in a creased black suit.
“Yngwie,” Benny says happily.
Not only is Yngve Svensson in charge of the analytical section but he’s also one of the leading experts on organised crime in the country.
“Yngve, what do you think about this business in Tumba?” asks Petter. “You’ve just been having a look at it, haven’t you?”
“Strictly a local matter,” he says. “A loan enforcer goes to the house to collect. Normally, the father would have been home, but he’d stepped in to referee a football match at the last minute. The enforcer is presumably high, both speed and Rohypnol, I’d say; he’s unbalanced, he’s stressed, something sets him off, so he attacks the family with some kind of SWAT knife to try and find out where the father is. They tell him the truth, but he goes completely nuts anyway and kills them all before he goes off to the playing field.”
Petter sneers. He gulps some water, belches into his hand, and turns to Joona. “What have you got to say about that?”
“If it wasn’t completely wrong it might be quite impressive,” says Joona.
“What’s wrong with it?” asks Yngve aggressively.
“The murderer killed the father first,” Joona says calmly. “Then he went over to the house and killed the rest of the family.”
“In which case it’s hardly likely to be a case of debt collection,” says Magdalena Ronander.
“We’ll just have to see what the postmortem shows,” Yngve mutters.
“It’ll show I’m right,” says Joona.
“Idiot.” Yngve sighs, tucking two plugs of snuff under his top lip.
“Joona, I’m not giving you this case,” says Petter.
“I realise that.” He sighs and gets up from the table.
“Where do you think you’re going? We’ve got a meeting,” says Petter.
“I’m going to talk to Carlos.”
“Not about this.”
“Yes, about this,” says Joona, leaving the room.
“Get back in here,” shouts Petter, “or I’ll have to—”
Joona doesn’t hear what Petter will have to do, he simply closes the door calmly behind him and moves along the hall, saying hello to Anja, who peers over her computer screen with a quizzical expression.
“Aren’t you in a meeting?” she asks.
“I am,” he says, continuing towards the lift.
10
tuesday, december 8: morning
On the fifth floor is the National Police Board’s meeting room and central office, and this is also where Carlos Eliasson, the head of the National CID, is based. The office door is ajar, but as usual it is more closed than open, as if to discourage casual visitors.
“Come in, come in, come in,” says Carlos. An expression made up of equal parts of anxiety and pleasure flickers across his face when Joona walks in. “I’m just going to feed my babies,” he says, tapping the edge of his aquarium. Smiling, he sprinkles fish food into the water and watches the fish swim to the surface. “There now,” he whispers. He shows the smallest paradise fish, Nikita, which way to go, then turns back to Joona. “The murder squad asked if you could take a look at the killing in Dalarna.”
“They can solve that one themselves,” replies Joona. “Anyway, I haven’t got time.”
He sits down directly opposite Carlos. There is a pleasant aroma of leather and wood in the room. The sun shines playfully through the aquarium, casting dancing beams of undulant refracted light on the walls.
“I want the Tumba case,” he says, coming straight to the point.
The troubled expression takes over Carlos’s wrinkled, amiable face for a moment. He passes a hand through his thinning hair. “Petter Näslund rang me just now, and he’s right, this isn’t a matter for the National CID,” he says carefully.
“I think it is,” insists Joona.
“Only if the debt collection is linked to some kind of wider organised crime, Joona.”
“This wasn’t about collecting a debt.”
“Oh, no?”
“The murderer attacked the father first. Then he went to the house to kill the family. His plan from the outset was to murder the entire family. He’s going to find the older daughter, and he’s going to find the boy. If he survives.”
Carlos glances briefly at his aquarium, as if he were afraid the fish might hear something unpleasant. “I see,” he says. “And how do you know this?”
“Because of the footprints in the blood at both scenes.”
“What do you mean?”
Joona leans forward. “There were footprints all over the place, of course, and I haven’t measured anything, but I got the impression that the footsteps in the locker room were … well, more lively, and the ones in the house were more tired.”
“Here we go,” says Carlos wearily. “This is where you start complicating everything.”
“But I’m right,” replies Joona.
Carlos shakes his head. “I don’t think you are, not this time.”
“Yes, I am.”
Carlos turns. “Joona Linna is the most stubborn individual I’ve ever come across,” he tells his fish.
“Why back down when I know I’m right?”
“I can’t go over Petter’s head and give you the case on the strength of a hunch,” Carlos explains.
“Yes, you can.”
“Everybody thinks this was about gambling debts.”
“You too?” asks Joona.
“I do, actually.”
“The footprints were more lively in the locker room because the man was murdered first,” insists Joona.
“You never give up, do you?” asks Carlos.
Joona shrugs his shoulders and smiles.
“I’d better ring and speak to the path lab myself,” mutters Carlos, picking up the telephone.
“They’ll tell you I’m right,” says Joona.
Joona Linna knows he is a stubborn person; he needs this stubbornness to carry on. He cannot give up. Cannot. Long before Joona’s life changed to the core, before it was shattered into pieces, he lost his father.
Maybe that’s when it all began.
Joona’s father, Yrjö Linna, was a patrolling policeman in the district of Märsta. One day in 1979 he happened to be on the old Uppsalavägen a little way north of the Löwenström Hospital when Central Control got a call and sent him to Hammarbyvägen in Upplands Väsby. A neighbour had called the police and said the Olsson kids were being beaten again. Sweden had just become the first country to introduce a ban on the corporal punishment of children, and the police had been instructed to take the new law seriously. Yrjö Linna drove to the apartment block and pulled up outside the door, where he waited for his partner. After a few minutes the partner called; he was in a queue at Mama’s Hot Dog Stand, and besides, he said, he thought a man should have the right to show who was boss sometimes.
Yrjö Linna never was one to talk much. He knew regulations dictated that there should always be two officers present at an incident of this kind, but he said nothing, although he was well aware that he had the right to expect support. He didn’t want to push, didn’t want to look like a coward, and he couldn’t wait. So, alone, Yrjö Linna climbed the stairs to the third floor and rang the doorbell.
A little girl with frightened eyes opened the door. He told her to stay on the landing, but she shook her head and ran into the apartment. Yrjö Linna followed her and walked into the living room. The girl banged on the door leading to the balcony. Yrjö saw that there was a little boy out there, wearing only a nappy. He looked about two years old. Yrjö hurried acro
ss the room to let the child in, and that was why he noticed the drunken man just a little too late. He was sitting in complete silence on the sofa just inside the door, his face turned towards the balcony. Yrjö had to use both hands to undo the catch and turn the handle. It was only when he heard the click of the shotgun that Yrjö froze. The shot sent a total of thirty-six small lead pellets straight into his spine and killed him almost instantly.
Eleven-year-old Joona and his mother, Ritva, moved from the bright apartment in the centre of Märsta to his aunt’s three-room place in Fredhäll in Stockholm. After graduating from high school, he applied to the Police Training Academy. He still thinks about the friends in his group quite often: strolling together across the vast lawns, the lull before they were sent out on placements, the early years as junior officers. Joona Linna has done his share of desk work. He has redirected traffic after road accidents and for the Stockholm Marathon; been embarrassed by football hooligans harassing his female colleagues with their deafening songs on the underground; found dead heroin addicts with rotting sores; helped ambulance crews with vomiting drunks; talked to prostitutes shaking with withdrawal symptoms, to those with AIDS, to those who are afraid; he has met hundreds of men who have abused their partners and children, always following the same pattern (drunk but controlled and deliberate, with the radio on full volume and the blinds closed); he has stopped speeding and drunken drivers, confiscated weapons, drugs, and home-made booze. Once, while off from work with lumbago and out walking to avoid stiffening up, he’d seen a skinhead grab a Muslim woman’s breast outside the school in Klastorp. His back aching, he’d chased the skinhead along by the water, right through the park, past Smedsudden, up onto the Västerbro bridge, across the water, and past Långholmen to Södermalm, finally catching up with him by the traffic lights on Högalidsgatan.
Without any real intention of building a career, he has moved up the ranks. He could join the National Murder Squad, but he refuses. He likes complex tasks, and he never gives up, but Joona Linna has no interest whatsoever in any form of command.
Now Joona sits listening as Carlos Eliasson talks to Professor Nils ‘The Needle’ Åhlén, Chief Medical Officer at the pathology lab in Stockholm.
“No, I just need to know which was the first crime scene,” says Carlos; then he listens for a while. “I realise that, I do realise that … but in your judgment so far, what do you think?”
Joona leans back in his chair, running his fingers through his messy blond hair. So far he does not feel any tiredness from the long night in Tumba and at Karolinska Hospital. He watches as Carlos’s face grows redder and redder. Joona can hear The Needle drone faintly on the other end of the line. When the voice stops, Carlos simply nods and hangs up without saying goodbye.
“They … they—”
“They have established that the father was killed first,” supplies Joona.
Carlos nods.
“What did I tell you?” Joona beams.
Carlos looks down at his desk and clears his throat. “Fine, you’re leading the preliminary investigation,” he says. “The Tumba case is yours.”
“First of all, I want to hear one thing,” says Joona. “Who was right? Who was right, you or me?”
“You!” yells Carlos. “For God’s sake, Joona, what is it with you? Yeah, you were right—as usual!”
Joona hides a smile behind his hand as he gets up.
Suddenly he turns grave. “Reconnaissance hasn’t been able to track down Evelyn Ek. She could be anywhere. I don’t know what we’re going to do if we can’t get permission to talk to the boy. Too much time will pass, and it’ll be too late when we find her.”
“You want to interrogate the wounded boy?” Carlos asks.
“I have no choice.”
“Have you spoken to the prosecutor?”
“I have no intention of handing over the preliminary investigation until I have a suspect,” says Joona.
“That’s not what I meant,” says Carlos. “I just think it’s a good idea to have the prosecutor on your side if you’re going to talk to a boy who is so badly injured.”
Joona is halfway out of the door. “All right, that makes sense. You’re a wise man. I’ll give Jens a call,” he says.
11
tuesday, december 8: morning
Erik Maria Bark arrives home from Karolinska Hospital. As he quietly lets himself in, he thinks about the young victim lying there and the policeman so eager to question him. Erik likes Detective Joona Linna, despite his attempt to get Erik to break his promise never to use hypnosis again. Maybe it’s the detective’s open and honest anxiety about the safety of the older sister that makes him so likeable. Presumably somebody is looking for her right now.
Erik is very tired. The tablets have begun to take effect; his eyes are heavy and sore; sleep is on the way. He opens the bedroom door and looks at Simone. The light from the hallway covers her like a scratched pane of glass. Three hours have passed since he left her here, and Simone has now taken over all the space in the bed. Resting on her stomach, she lies there heavily. The bedclothes are down by her feet, her nightgown has worked its way up around her waist, and she has goose bumps on her arms and shoulders. Erik pulls the covers over her carefully. She murmurs something and curls up; he sits down and strokes her ankle, and she moves slightly.
“I’m going for a shower,” he says, but he leans back against the headboard, overwhelmed by fatigue.
“What was the name of the police officer?” she asks, slurring her words.
Before he has time to answer, he finds himself at the park in Observatorielunden. He is digging in the sand in the playground and finds a yellow stone, as round as an egg, as big as a pumpkin. He scrapes at it with his hands and sees the outline of a relief on the side, a jagged row of teeth. When he turns the heavy stone over he sees that it is the skull of a dinosaur.
Suddenly, Simone is screaming. “Fuck you!”
He gives a start and realises that he has fallen asleep and begun to dream. The strong pills have sent him to sleep in the middle of the conversation. He tries to smile and meets Simone’s chilly gaze.
“Sixan? What is it?”
“Has it started again?” she asks.
“What?”
“What?” she repeats crossly. “Who’s Daniella?”
“Daniella?”
“You promised. You made a promise, Erik,” she says. “I trusted you, I was actually stupid enough to trust—”
“What are you talking about? Daniella Richards is a colleague at Karolinska. What’s she got to do with anything?”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“This is actually getting ridiculous,” he says, and despite her clear anger he feels a smile spreading involuntarily across his face. He is so tired.
“Do you think this is funny?” she asks. “I’ve sometimes thought … I even believed I could forget what happened.”
Erik nods off for a few seconds, but he can still hear what she’s saying.
“It might be best if we separate,” whispers Simone.
He snaps awake at this. “Nothing has happened between me and Daniella.”
“That doesn’t really matter,” she says wearily.
“Doesn’t it? Doesn’t it matter? You want to separate because of something I did ten years ago?”
“Something?”
“I was drunk, Simone. Drunk, and—”
“I don’t want to listen. I know all about it. I … Fuck it! I don’t want to do this, I’m not a jealous person, but I am loyal and I expect loyalty in return.”
“I’ve never let you down since, and I’ll never—”
“Prove it to me. I need proof.”
“You just have to trust me,” he says.
“Yes,” she says with a sigh, and collecting a pillow and duvet she shuffles out of the bedroom and down the hallway.
He is breathing heavily. He ought to follow her, not just give up; he ought to try to calm her down and persuade her to come b
ack to bed, but right now sleep exerts the stronger influence. He can no longer resist it. He sinks down into the bed; feels the dopamine flood his system, the tension flow out of his body as relaxation spreads pleasurably across his face, his neck and shoulders, down into his toes and the tips of his fingers. A heavy, chemical sleep enfolds his consciousness like a floury cloud.
12
tuesday, december 8: morning
Erik slowly opens his eyes to the pale light pressing against the curtains. He rolls over with a grunt and glances at the alarm clock; two hours have passed. Immediately, his mind begins to replay the images from the night before: Simone’s angry face as she made her accusations, the boy lying there with hundreds of black knife wounds covering his glowing body.
Erik thinks of the detective, who seemed convinced that the perpetrator had wanted to murder an entire family: first the father, then the mother, the son, and the daughter.
An older daughter is out there somewhere, in extreme danger, if Joona Linna is right.
The telephone on the bedside table begins to ring.
Erik gets up, but instead of answering he opens the curtains and peers across at the façade of the building opposite, trying to gather his thoughts. The dust glazing the windowpanes is clearly visible in the morning sunshine.
Simone has already left for the gallery. He doesn’t understand her outburst, why she was talking about Daniella. He wonders if it’s about something else altogether: the drugs, maybe. He knows he’s very close to a serious dependency on them, but he has to sleep. All the night shifts at the hospital have ruined his ability to sleep naturally. Without pills he would go under, he thinks. He reaches for the alarm clock but manages to knock it on the floor instead.
The telephone stops, but is silent for only a little while before it starts ringing again.
He considers going into Benjamin’s room and lying down beside his son, waking him gently, asking if he’s been dreaming about anything. He picks up the telephone and answers.
