by Lars Kepler
“I need my clothes.”
Simone quickly pulls his clothes from the wardrobe. She is helping him on with his socks when the door is opened by a young doctor.
“I’m getting out of here,” Kennet says belligerently, before the man is even fully inside the room.
Simone gets to her feet. “Good afternoon,” she says, shaking hands with the young doctor. “Simone Bark.”
“Ola Tuvefjäll,” he says, looking slightly confused as he turns to Kennet, who is busy fastening his trousers.
“Listen,” says Kennet, tucking his shirt into his waistband. “I’m sorry we won’t be staying, but this is an emergency.”
“I can’t force you to stay here,” the doctor says calmly, “but I would advise against leaving. You’ve suffered a very severe blow to your head, and we haven’t yet determined the extent and severity of your other injuries. You might feel fine at the moment, but serious complications could arise at any time.”
Kennet goes over to the sink and splashes cold water over his face. “They won’t be any less complicated here than out there,” he says.
“It’s your decision,” the doctor says.
“As I said, I’m sorry,” Kennet says, straightening up. “But I have to go to the sea.”
The doctor looks puzzled as he watches them go down the corridor, Kennet leaning on the wall for support.
“Where are we going?” Simone asks, and for once Kennet doesn’t protest as she climbs into the driver’s seat. He simply gets in beside her and fastens his seatbelt. “Dad, you have to tell me where we’re going,” she repeats. “How do we get there?”
He gives her a strange look. “To the sea … I need to think.” He leans back in his seat, closes his eyes, and remains silent for a while.
Mistake, she thinks, he’s in no shape for this. I have to get him back upstairs. But all at once he opens his eyes and speaks clearly.
“Take Sankt Eriksgatan across the bridge and right into Odengatan. Go straight down to Östra Station, follow Valhallavägen east all the way to the Swedish Film Institute, and turn off onto Lindarängsvägen. That goes right down to the harbour.”
“Who needs GPS?” says Simone with a smile as she pulls out into the heavy traffic.
As she manoeuvres her way through it, Simone tells him about her visit to see Aida.
“I wonder …” Kennet says thoughtfully, but then stops.
“What?”
“I wonder if the parents have any idea what their kids are up to.”
Simone gives him a quick sideways glance. They are passing Gustav Adolfs Church. She catches a glimpse of a long procession of children dressed in robes. They are carrying candles and slowly making their way in through the door of the church.
“Extortion, abuse, violence, and threats,” Simone replies wearily. “Mummy and Daddy’s little darlings.”
She thinks back to the day she went to Tensta, to the tattoo parlour. The boys holding the little girl over the railing. They hadn’t been afraid at all; they had been threatening, dangerous. She remembers Benjamin trying to keep her from confronting the boy in the underground station. He must have been one of them. He was one of the ones who use Pokémon names.
“What’s wrong with people?” she asks rhetorically.
“I didn’t have an accident, Sixan. I was pushed in front of a car,” Kennet says suddenly, a sharp edge to his voice. “And I saw who did it.”
“Pushed? Who did it?”
“It was one of them. It was a child, a little girl.”
Christmas decorations glow from the dark windows of the Film Institute. The temperature has risen slightly, and the surface of the road is covered in wet slush. Swollen, heavy clouds hang over the park; it looks as if a real shower of thawing rain will soon be falling on the dog owners and their happy animals.
Loudden is a promontory just to the east of Stockholm’s harbour. At the end of the 1920s an oil dock with almost one hundred tanks was built here. The area is composed of low industrial buildings, a water purification plant, a container port, underground storage areas, and docks.
Kennet takes out the crumpled card he found in the child’s wallet.
“Louddsvägen eighteen,” he says, gesturing to Simone to stop the car. She pulls over onto a patch of asphalt surrounded by high metal fences.
“We’ll walk the last bit,” says Kennet, undoing his seatbelt.
They go between enormous tanks, with narrow flights of steps twisting like serpents around the cylindrical structures. Every surface is acned with rust: the hand-rails, between the curved, welded metal plates, along the fittings.
A thin, cold rain falls. Very soon it will be dusk, and then they won’t be able to see a thing. There are no streetlamps anywhere. Narrow passageways have been left between the vast shipping containers, piled high: yellow, red, blue, arranged so that a series of narrow passageways runs between them. They pass among the tanks, loading docks, and low offices. Closer to the water the main building looms with its cranes, ramps, barges, and dry docks.
A low shed with a dirty Ford pick-up parked outside sits at an angle to a large warehouse made of corrugated aluminium. Self-adhesive letters, half peeling away now, have been stuck on the dark window of the shed: THE SEA. The smaller letters below have been scraped off, but it is still possible to read the words in the dust: diving club. The heavy bar is hanging down beside the door.
83
thursday, december 17: afternoon
Kennet waits for a second, listening, then cautiously pulls open the door. It is dark inside the little office, which contains nothing but a desk, a few folding chairs with plastic seats, and a couple of rusty oxygen tanks. On the wall is a crumpled poster showing exotic fish in emerald-green water. It’s obvious that the diving club is no longer here; maybe it moved or went bust and ceased to exist altogether.
A fan begins to whirr and an inner door clicks. Kennet puts a finger to his lips. They can hear the distinct sound of footsteps. Moving forward, Kennet pushes open the door to reveal an expansive storage area. Someone is running away in the darkness. Kennet takes up the pursuit but suddenly cries out.
“Dad?” shouts Simone.
She can’t see him, but she can hear his voice. He swears and calls to her to be careful. “They’ve put up barbed wire.”
There’s a metallic rattling sound across the concrete floor. Kennet has started to run again. Simone follows him, carefully climbing over the barbed wire and moving on into the large space. The air is cold and damp. It’s dark, and she halts for a moment to get her bearings. She can hear rapid footsteps further away.
Light from the spotlight on a container crane shines in through a dirty window, and Simone can see a figure next to a fork-lift truck. It’s a boy with a mask covering his face, a grey mask made of fabric or cardboard. He’s crouching slightly, and he’s got a piece of iron pipe in his hand.
Kennet is getting close to him, moving quickly along rows of metal shelves.
“Behind the fork-lift,” Simone shouts.
The boy in the mask rushes out and hurls the metal pipe at Kennet. It spins through the air and passes just above his head.
“Wait, we just want to talk to you,” yells Kennet.
The boy slams into a metal door, which opens with a bang. Light floods in as the boy rushes out.
“He’s getting away,” Kennet hisses as he reaches for the door.
The slush has made the ground treacherous, and when Simone follows, she slips on the wet jetty. Getting to her feet, she sees her father running along the edge of the dock. To one side is a steep drop into black, freezing water, enormous shards of ice creaking in the darkness. She runs, following the two figures ahead of her. If she trips and slips over the edge, she knows it wouldn’t take long before the ice-cold water paralyzed her; she would sink like a stone with her thick coat and her boots full of black winter water.
She thinks about the journalist who was assassinated as she drove alongside the dock with a friend.
Their car sank like a weighted fishing creel, straight down into the water; it was swallowed up by the soft mud and disappeared.
When she reaches Kennet, she is out of breath, trembling with fear and exertion. Her back is soaked from the rain. Kennet is waiting for her, bent double; the bandage around his head has come loose, and a trickle of blood is running from his nose. His breathing sounds harsh and painful. On the ground lies a mask made of cardboard. It has started to disintegrate in the rain, and when the wind catches hold of it, it swirls up in the air and disappears.
“Fucking hell,” says Kennet.
They move away from the water as the darkness increases around them. The rain has eased, but a strong wind has blown up, howling around the huge metal buildings. They pass a long, rectangular dry dock and Simone hears the wind singing down below. Tractor tyres on rusty chains hang along the side, acting as buffers. She looks down into the huge empty space, blasted out of the rock, a vast pit with rough walls strengthened with concrete and reinforced with steel. Fifty yards below she can see a concrete floor with huge plinth blocks.
A tarpaulin flaps in the wind and the light from a crane flickers across the perpendicular walls of the dry dock. Suddenly Simone spots someone hiding behind a concrete plinth down below.
Kennet sees her stop, and looks at her inquiringly. Without speaking, she points down into the dry dock. The crouching figure moves away from the light.
Kennet and Simone dash towards a set of narrow steps leading down the wall. The figure starts to run towards something that looks like a door down there. Kennet clings to the rail as he runs down the steep steps; he slips but regains his balance. There is a heavy, acrid smell of metal, rust, and rain. Keeping close to the wall, they continue downwards, their footsteps echoing in the depths of the dry dock.
The bottom of the dock is covered with several inches of water; Simone shivers as she feels the cold water seeping in through her boots.
“Where did he go?” she shouts.
Kennet moves among the enormous blocks big enough to hold a ship in place when the dry dock is emptied of water. He points to the spot where the boy disappeared.
“It’s not a door,” he says, “it’s some kind of air vent.” He peers inside but sees nothing. Out of breath, he runs his hand over his forehead and neck. “Out you come,” he puffs. “That’s enough.”
They hear a rasping noise, heavy and rhythmic. Kennet begins to crawl inside the air vent.
“Careful, Dad.”
There’s a knocking sound, then the sluice gate begins to creak. Suddenly there’s a deafening hiss, and Simone realises what’s happening.
“He’s letting the water in,” she yells.
“There’s a ladder in here,” Kennet bellows.
With terrifying pressure, thin streams of ice-cold water begin to gush into the dry dock through the tiny gap between the sluice gates. As the doors continue to move apart, the onrushing water builds into a deafening cataract. Simone races towards the steps, but the vast space fills rapidly, and soon she is struggling through knee-deep freezing water. The light from the crane flickers over the rough walls. The strong current sends the water in powerful eddies, dragging Simone backwards. She bangs into a large metal mounting and feels white-hot pain. An ocean of black water is engulfing her. Weeping with terror, she reaches the steps and lunges for the hand-rail, gripping it tightly and searching for purchase with her numbed feet. Finally, step by step, she is climbing above the level of the water, outdistancing it. When the water is safely below her, she turns around. She can’t see her father. The water has completely covered the vent in the wall. The sluice gates are screaming. Her body is shaking with fear and cold, but she presses on, her lungs burning. Then the roar of the water gradually begins to diminish. The gates close, and the influx stops. She gasps, aching to catch her breath. She’s lost all feeling in the hand holding on to the rail. Her clothes are heavy, pulling across her thighs. She begins climbing again, unsure of what awaits her at the top.
Kennet is on the opposite side of the dry dock. He waves at her. He grips a boy by the upper arm and is marching him toward the containers.
At a distance, Simone follows them, through the containers and past the enormous tanks, until they reach the car.
Kennet’s expression is strange. Simone cannot read it. The boy stands there passively, his head drooping.
“Where’s Benjamin?” Simone screams before she even gets to them.
The boy doesn’t respond. She grabs his shoulders and spins him around, then recoils at what she sees, gasping.
The boy’s nose has been cut off.
It looks as if someone has tried to stitch up the wound, but in haste and without any medical expertise. The boy’s expression is one of total apathy. The wind howls; all three of them get into the car, Kennet joining the boy in the backseat. Shivering uncontrollably, Simone turns on the engine to get the heat going. The windows quickly steam up. She finds a bar of chocolate and offers it to the boy. The inside of the car is very quiet.
“Where’s Benjamin?” Kennet asks harshly.
The boy looks down at his knees. He munches the chocolate and swallows hard.
“You’re going to tell us everything, you hear me?”
“You’ve beaten up kids, stolen their money,” says Simone.
“I don’t exist now,” he whispers.
“Why did you do it?” Kennet asks.
“That’s just the way it was when we—”
“That’s just the way it was?” Kennet snaps. “Where are the others?”
“How am I supposed to know? Maybe they’re in new gangs now,” says the boy. “I hear Jerker is.”
“Are you Wailord?”
The boy’s mouth trembles. “I’ve stopped now,” he says faintly. “I promise I’ve stopped.”
“Where’s Benjamin?” Simone asks shrilly.
“I don’t know,” he says quickly. “I’ll never hurt him again, I promise.”
“Listen to me,” Simone says. “I’m his mother. I have to know.”
But she is interrupted by the boy, who begins to rock back and forth, sobbing pitifully and saying over and over again, “I promise, I promise, I promise, I promise, I promise …”
Kennet places a hand on Simone’s arm. “We need to take him in,” he says emptily. “He needs help.”
84
thursday, december 17: evening
The boy who called himself Wailord was actually Birk Jansson, and his last known address was that of a foster family in Husby. At the Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital, where Kennet took him after dropping Simone off, he was found to be suffering from dehydration and malnutrition; infected sores were found on his body, and a small amount of frostbite on his toes and fingers. Social Services were called; the boy’s case worker was contacted.
As Kennet was about to leave, Birk started crying. “Please stay,” he whispered, his hand covering his mutilated nose.
Kennet could feel his pulse hammering much too fast, and his nose was still bleeding from all the running. He stopped in the doorway.
“I’ll wait here with you, Birk, on one condition.” He sat down on a green chair next to the boy. “You have to tell me everything you know about Benjamin’s disappearance.”
Kennet sat there for the two hours it took for the social worker to arrive, feeling increasingly dizzy and trying to get the boy to talk. All he really managed to establish was that somebody or something had frightened Birk so much that he’d stopped hassling Benjamin. He didn’t even seem to know that Benjamin had disappeared.
In the car, Kennet calls to check on Simone. She replies that she has slept for a while and is thinking of pouring herself a substantial brandy.
“Nice idea. I’m going to talk to Aida,” says Kennet.
“Ask her about that picture of the grass and the fence. She wasn’t telling me the truth, I’m sure of it.”
Kennet parks the car in Sundbyberg in the same place as before, not far from the hot-
dog stand. It’s freezing now; a few sparse snowflakes drift onto the front seat when he opens the car door. He spots Aida and Nicky immediately. They sit on a park bench by an asphalt path leading down to Lake Ulvsunda. She looks on as Nicky shows her something. She has a certain air of patience that makes Kennet like her. He stands watching them for a little while. Something about the two of them strikes a chord with him; the way they seem to relate to and depend on each other. They seem so alone, so abandoned. It is almost six o’clock in the evening; bands of light from the city are reflected in the dark surface of the lake.
Kennet feels dizziness blur his vision for a moment. Carefully he crosses the icy road and walks down toward the lake across the frost-covered grass. “Hi, you two,” he says.
Nicky looks up. “It’s you!” he calls out, running over to hug Kennet. “Aida,” he says excitedly, “Aida, it’s him, the man who’s really old!”
Kennet hugs the boy back, hard. “Really old, am I?”
The girl wears a pale, uneasy smile. The tip of her nose is bright red with the cold. “Benjamin?” she asks. “Have you found him?”
“No, not yet,” Kennet replies, as Nicky laughs and continues to hug and jump around him.
“Aida,” shouts Nicky, “he’s so old they took his gun away!”
Kennet sits down on the bench next to Aida. They are surrounded by dense, dark groves of bare trees.
“I came to tell you that Wailord has been taken into care.”
Aida turns to look at him, her expression sceptical.
“The others have been identified,” he tells her. “There were five of them, right? Five Pokémon characters? Birk Jansson, the kid who was Wailord, has admitted everything, but he had nothing to do with Benjamin’s disappearance.”
Nicky has stopped dead on hearing Kennet’s words and is staring open-mouthed at him. “You’ve beaten Wailord?” he says.
“Yes,” says Kennet. “He’s finished.”
Nicky starts dancing around on the path again. His huge body steams with warmth in the cold air. Suddenly he stops and looks at Kennet. “You’re the strongest Pokémon, you’re Pikachu! You’re Pikachu!”
