by Lars Kepler
He hugs Kennet happily and Aida laughs, her face full of surprise.
“But where’s Benjamin?” she asks.
“We don’t know, Aida. They might have done a lot of stupid things, but they didn’t take Benjamin.”
“Who else could it be?”
“I don’t know.” Kennet gets out the photo Aida sent to Benjamin. “Aida, tell me the truth about this picture,” he says, in a kind but firm tone.
The colour leaves her face and she shakes her head. “I promised,” she says quietly.
“Promises don’t count when it’s a matter of life and death.”
But she clamps her lips together and turns away.
Nicky comes over and looks at the picture. “That’s the picture his mum gave him,” he says cheerfully.
“Nicky!” Aida snaps.
“Well, it is,” Nicky says indignantly.
“Why can’t you just keep quiet?” says Aida.
Kennet waves a hand. “Hush. Did Simone give Benjamin this photo? What do you mean, Nicky?”
But Nicky is looking anxiously at Aida, as if waiting for permission to answer. She shakes her head. Kennet’s skull is aching from the impact of the accident, a pulsing, persistent throbbing.
“Answer me, Aida,” he says, struggling to remain calm. “I promise you it’s wrong to keep quiet in this situation.”
“But the picture has nothing to do with anything,” she says unhappily. “I promised Benjamin not to tell a single soul, whatever happened.”
“Just tell me about this photograph!”
Kennet hears his own voice echo loudly between the buildings. Aida stubbornly compresses her lips even more tightly. Kennet studies her and forces himself to calm down. His voice sounds unsteady as he begins again.
“Aida, please listen carefully. Without his medicine, Benjamin is going to die if we don’t find him. He’s my only grandchild. I can’t let a single clue go without investigating it.”
There is total silence for a moment. Then Aida says resignedly, with tears in her voice, “Nicky’s already told you.” She swallows hard before going on. “His mother gave him that photo.”
“What do you mean?” Kennet looks at Nicky, who nods eagerly.
“Not Simone,” says Aida. “His real mother.”
Kennet feels a wave of nausea sweep over him. All of a sudden his whole chest is gripped by pain; he tries to take a few deep breaths and hears his own heart pounding heavily. Not now, he thinks. You can’t die just yet. He just has time to think he’s having a heart attack when the pain abruptly subsides.
“His real mother?”
“Yes.”
Aida gets a pack of cigarettes out of her rucksack, but before she has time to light up Kennet gently takes them from her.
“You’re not allowed to smoke,” he says.
“Why not?”
“You’re under eighteen.”
She shrugs. “Whatever.”
“Fine,” says Kennet, feeling as if his mind is working very slowly for some incomprehensible reason.
He fights his way into his memory, searching for facts relating to Benjamin’s birth. The images flicker through his mind: Simone’s face, swollen with weeping after the miscarriage, and then that midsummer when she was wearing a huge flowery tent of a dress, heavily pregnant, glowing. In the maternity ward, she showed him the baby: “Here’s our little man,” she said with a smile, her lips trembling. “We’re going to call him Benjamin, Son of the Right Hand.”
Kennet rubs his eyes hard and scratches his head beneath the bandage. “So what’s the name of his … his real mother?”
Aida gazes out across the lake. “I don’t know,” she replies in a monotone. “I don’t, honestly. But she told Benjamin his real name. She always called him Kasper. She was nice. She used to wait for him after school, she helped him with his homework, and I think she gave him money. I think she was really sad because she’d been forced to give him up.”
Kennet holds up the photo. “And this? What’s this?”
Aida glances at the printout. “That’s the family grave, the grave belonging to Benjamin’s real family. His relatives are buried there.”
85
thursday, december 17: evening
The few hours of daylight are already over, and darkness has settled upon the city. Advent stars glow in almost every window. A heavy aroma of grapes rises from the brandy glass on the low table in the living room. Simone is sitting in the middle of the floor, looking at some sketches. After she’d got home, she’d peeled off her wet clothes, wrapped herself in a blanket, and had instantly fallen asleep on the couch, waking up only when Kennet phoned. Then Sim Shulman had arrived.
Now, in her underwear, she places the sketches in a row: four lined sheets outlining an installation he is planning for the art gallery in Tensta.
Shulman is talking to the director of the gallery on his mobile. He paces the room as he talks. The parquet flooring that creaks beneath his feet is suddenly silent. Simone notices he has positioned himself so that he can see between her thighs. She can feel it. She gathers up the sketches, picks up her glass, and takes a sip, ignoring Shulman. She opens her thighs slightly and imagines his burning gaze boring its way in. He is shutting down the conversation now, anxious to end it. Simone lies on her back and closes her eyes. She waits, feeling the heat below, the surge of blood, the slow wetness. She needs to feel something, anything, to muffle the thoughts in her head, to mute the panic. Shulman has stopped speaking; he moves closer. She keeps her eyes shut, opens her legs a little more. She hears the sound of him unzipping his trousers. Suddenly she feels his hands on her hips. He rolls her onto her stomach, pulls her roughly to her knees, yanks her panties down around her thighs, and pushes into her from behind. She isn’t really ready. She can see her fingers splayed on the oak floor. The nails, the veins on the back of her hand. She has to brace herself to avoid falling forwards as he thrusts into her, hard and alone. The heavy smell of the grappa is making her feel ill. She wants to ask Shulman to stop, to do it a different way, to start again in the bedroom, properly. He sighs heavily and ejaculates into her, pulls out, and goes into the bathroom. She hitches up her underwear and remains lying on the floor.
She doesn’t get up until Shulman has had his shower and emerges from the bathroom with a towel wound around his hips. Her knees ache. She forces a smile as she walks past him, locking the bathroom door behind her. Her vagina feels raw and sore as she gets into the shower. A strange feeling of powerlessness threatens to overwhelm her, extinguishing her thoughts, her hopes, her happiness, even as the hot water soaks her hair, pouring down over her neck, her shoulders, and her back. She soaps herself and washes her body meticulously, then spends a long time with her face upturned beneath the gentle flow of the water.
Through the rushing sound in her ears she hears a series of thuds, and realises Shulman is pounding on the bathroom door.
“Simone,” he shouts. “Your phone’s ringing.”
“What?”
“Your phone.”
“So answer it,” she says, turning off the water.
“There’s someone at the door too,” he calls.
“God. I’m coming.”
She steps out of the shower, catching her obscured image in the steamy mirror, a grey ghost without features. She takes a fresh towel from the shelf and dries herself, kicking her abandoned underclothes aside on the wet floor. All she can hear is a strange humming noise coming from the bathroom extractor fan.
“Sim? Who was it?”
No answer. Simone is about to yell at him, then suddenly can’t. She doesn’t know why, but her senses have gone on alert, have tensed up, which is why she so carefully, almost soundlessly, unlocks the bathroom door and peers out. A terrifying silence emanates from the apartment. She knows now something is wrong. She wonders if Shulman has gone home, but she dares not call out.
86
thursday, december 17: night
Simone hears a whisper
ed conversation. From the kitchen, maybe. But who would Sim be talking to? She tries to brush aside her fear, but the floor creaks, and through the narrow opening Simone sees someone walk past the bathroom—and it isn’t Shulman. It’s a much smaller person, a woman in a bulky tracksuit. The woman comes back from the hall, and Simone doesn’t have time to move away from the door. Their eyes meet in the tiny gap; the woman stiffens, and her eyes widen in fear. She quickly shakes her head at Simone and continues along the hallway, into the kitchen.
For a moment Simone stands there, processing this new information, then her gaze falls upon the bloody footprints the intruder’s trainers have left on the floor. Abruptly her confusion is overridden by panic-stricken terror. She has to get out of the apartment, just get out. She opens the bathroom door and sneaks out into the passage, heading for the hall. She tries to move silently, but she can hear the sound of her own breathing and the floor creaking beneath her weight. Someone is muttering and rummaging around in the cutlery drawers in the kitchen, and something is crumpled on the floor ahead of her.
It takes a few more moments for her to understand what she is looking at. It’s Shulman, on his back in front of the door. Blood is pumping from a wound in his throat, spurting wearily with the rhythm of his fading pulse. A dark red pool is spreading across the entire floor. Sim stares up at the ceiling, his eyelids trembling. His mouth is open and slack. Beside his hand, among the shoes on the doormat, lies her phone. She needs to grab it, run out of the apartment, and call the police and an ambulance. Suddenly she hears footsteps behind her in the hall. The young woman is returning. Her whole body is shaking and she raises a finger to her lips.
“We can’t get out that way, the door is locked with a key,” she whispers to Simone.
“Who—”
“My little brother.”
“But why—”
“He thinks he killed the hypnotist. He didn’t see, he thinks—”
Something crashes to the floor in the kitchen.
“Evelyn? What are you doing?” shouts Josef Ek. “Get back in here!”
“Hide,” whispers the woman.
“Where are the keys?”
“He’s got them in the kitchen,” she says, hurrying back to her brother.
Simone creeps along the hall and into Benjamin’s room. She is panting. She tries to close her mouth but can’t get enough air. The floor creaks, but Josef Ek is talking loudly in the kitchen the whole time and doesn’t appear to hear. She spies Benjamin’s computer and hurries to turn it on, and just as she slips back into the bathroom she hears the welcome melody from the operating system.
Footsteps move rapidly up the hall. With her heart pounding, she waits a few seconds and then eases out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. The floor is covered with cutlery and bloody footprints. She can hear the two siblings moving around in Benjamin’s room. Josef Ek swears and hurls things onto the floor.
“Look under the bed!” shouts Evelyn in a frightened voice.
There is a thud, the box containing Benjamin’s Manga books is dragged out, and Josef hisses that there is no one there. “Help me,” he says. He kicks the box as hard as he can.
“Try the closet,” Evelyn suggests quickly.
He throws open the door and begins yanking clothes off hangers, throwing them behind him.
“What the fuck is this?” Josef screams.
“Hang on, Josef. He might be in the other closet.” A glass shatters and heavy footsteps thump along the corridor.
Simone steps over Shulman’s body. The tips of his fingers still tremble slightly. She slides the long key into the deadlock. Her hand is shaking violently.
“Josef,” Evelyn shouts desperately. “Look in the bedroom! I think he’s in the bedroom!”
As Simone turns the key, Josef Ek rushes into the hall and stares at her, an angry growl rumbling in his throat. Simone fumbles with the latch, her hand slips, but she manages to turn it. Josef has a carving knife in his hand. He hesitates for a moment, then moves rapidly towards her. Simone’s hands are shaking so much she can’t push the handle down. Evelyn rushes into the hall and hurls herself at Josef’s legs, trying to restrain him, screaming for him to wait. Without looking back, he reaches behind him and slashes at her with the knife, and Evelyn loses her grip. Simone manages to get the door open, and as she stumbles out into the stairwell the bath towel slips off. Josef stops for a moment and stares at her naked body. Behind him Simone sees Evelyn rub her hand in the blood around Shulman’s body, smearing it over her face and throat and sinking to the floor.
“Josef, I’m bleeding,” she screams. “Darling … you cut me!”
She coughs and falls silent, lying on her back.
“Evelyn?” he says in a terrified voice.
He goes back into the hall, and as he bends over his sister, Simone suddenly sees the knife in Evelyn’s hand. It shoots straight up as if from some kind of primitive trap and penetrates the space between two of Josef’s ribs with considerable force. His body goes completely slack. His head tilts to one side, he slumps to the floor, and he is motionless.
87
friday, december 18: early morning
Kennet passes two female police officers in the corridor at Danderyd Hospital, whispering intently to each other. In the room behind them he can see a young girl sitting on a chair staring blankly into space, a blanket draped around her shoulders. Her face and hair are spattered with blood. She is sitting with her feet slightly turned inwards, unselfconscious and childlike. He assumes this is Evelyn Ek, sister of serial killer Josef Ek. As if she hears him say her name in his mind, she looks up and gazes straight at him. There is such a strange expression in her eyes—a mixture of pain and shock, triumph and regret—that it looks almost obscene. Kennet instinctively turns away, feeling that he has caught sight of something private, something taboo. He shudders. You should be glad you’re retired, glad you don’t have to be the one who goes into that room, pulls out a chair, and sits down to question Evelyn Ek. Nobody should have to carry through life the things she has to tell about growing up with Josef Ek, he thinks.
A uniformed officer with a grey rectangular face is standing guard outside the closed door of Simone’s room. Kennet recognises him from his years of service but at first can’t quite recall his name.
“Kennet,” the man says. “Everything all right?”
“No.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Suddenly Kennet remembers his name, Reine, and the fact that his wife died unexpectedly just after they had their first child.
“Reine,” says Kennet. “Do you know how Josef got in to see his sister?”
“It seems as if she just let him in.”
“Voluntarily?”
“Not exactly.”
Reine explains that Evelyn said she’d woken up in the middle of the night and gone to the front door to look through the peephole. She could see the police officer on duty sleeping on the stairs. At the changeover earlier, she’d heard him tell his colleague that he had young children at home. Evelyn didn’t want to wake him, so she went and sat on the sofa, where once again she looked through the pictures in the photo album Josef had put in her box, incomprehensible glimpses of a life that had disappeared long ago. She put the album back in the box, and wondered whether it might be possible for her to change her name and move abroad. When she’d gone to the window and peeped through the venetian blind, she thought she could see someone standing on the pavement down below. She immediately pulled back, waited awhile, and peeked again. It was snowing heavily, and the street was deserted. The streetlamp suspended between the buildings was swinging wildly in the strong wind. Suddenly she got goose bumps and crept over to the front door, put her ear to the wood, and listened. She had the feeling someone was standing just outside. Josef had a particular smell about him, a smell of rage, of burning chemicals. Evelyn thought she could smell him. Perhaps she was imagining things, but she’d remained standing by the door, too afraid to look thro
ugh the peephole.
After a while she leaned forward and whispered, “Josef?”
There hadn’t been a sound from outside. She was just about to go back into the apartment when she heard him whisper from the other side of the door. “Open up.”
She tried not to sob as she replied, “Yes.”
“Did you think you could get away?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Do what I tell you.”
“I can’t.”
“Look through the peephole,” he said.
“I don’t want to.”
“Just do it.”
Trembling, she’d leaned towards the door. Through the wide angle of the lens she could see the stairwell. The police officer who had fallen asleep was still sitting on the stairs, but now a dark pool of blood was spreading beneath him on the landing. She could see that he was still breathing. She could also see Josef hiding at the outer edge of the circular field of vision provided by the lens. He pressed himself against the wall, but then leaped up and slammed his hand against the hole. Evelyn recoiled and tripped over her shoes in the hall.
“Open the door,” he said. “Otherwise I’ll kill the cop. Then I’ll ring the neighbours’ doorbells and kill them, too. I’ll start with this one, right next door.”
Evelyn had no strength left. She resigned herself to the situation; she would never escape Josef. She unlocked the door and let her brother in. Her only thought was that she would rather die than let him kill anyone else.
“Her police guard is going to make it,” Reine says. “She saved him by doing as her brother said.” He explains the sequence of events as best as he can, based on what he’s been told. Josef was hiding in the house when the police returned to retrieve Evelyn’s personal belongings, and he heard them speak about where to drop off the box. As for why Evelyn opened the door, Reine assumes it was because she wanted to help the wounded policeman and prevent further bloodshed.
Kennet shakes his head. “What’s the matter with people?” he mutters.
