by Lars Kepler
Joona had stood in the hallway outside the conference room listening on the phone to John’s slow recitation. His voice was filled with the tiredness that comes immediately after high stress. He described how he’d just found the general director for the National Inspectorate of Strategic Products hanging from the ceiling in his home.
“Suicide?” asked Joona.
“No.”
“Murder?”
“Can’t you just come over?” John asked. “I can’t decide what I’m seeing. The body is hanging much too high above the floor, Joona.”
He’d taken Nathan Pollock and Tommy Kofoed along. Joona had just explained that this was a suicide when the doorbell had rung at Palmcrona’s home. In the darkness of the landing, a woman was standing and holding two plastic shopping bags in her large hands.
“So have you cut him down yet?” she asked.
“Cut him down?”
“Director Palmcrona,” she replied matter-of-factly.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Excuse me, I’m just a housekeeper and I thought …”
Obviously she was troubled, and she turned away to start walking down the stairs. She was stopped in her tracks by the answer to her first question.
“He’s still hanging there.”
“I see.” She turned towards him with a blank face.
Joona asked, “Did you see him earlier today?”
“No.”
“Why did you ask whether we’d taken him down, then? Did you see anything unusual?”
“A noose from the ceiling in the small salon,” she answered.
“So you saw the noose?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“But you weren’t afraid that he might use it?”
“Dying’s not a nightmare.” She was holding back a smile.
“What did you just say?”
The woman just shook her head.
“How do you think he died, then?”
“I think he tightened the noose around his neck,” she replied in a low voice.
“How did he manage to get the noose around his neck?”
“I don’t know … maybe he needed help.”
“What kind of help?”
Her eyes rolled towards the back of her head and for an instant, Joona thought she was going to faint. Instead, she steadied herself with a hand on the wall and then she met his gaze.
Softly, she said, “There are always helpful people around.”
8
the needle
The police station’s swimming pool is large and blue, almost completely still. Lit from below, its light dances across the walls and ceiling of the natatorium, and all that breaks the stillness is the steady movement of Joona Linna swimming lengths, one after the other.
While he swims, idle thoughts tumble over and over in his head: Disa’s face when she told him her teeth itched when she looks at him.
Joona touches the edge of the pool, turns underwater, and kicks off again. He doesn’t realise he’s picking up speed when the memory of Carl Palmcrona’s apartment on Grevgatan comes to him. Once again, he sees the hanging body, the pool of urine, and the flies on the body’s face. The dead man had been wearing his coat and shoes and yet had taken the time to turn on some music.
Actions both impulsive and yet planned, not that unusual when it comes to suicide.
Joona’s swimming even faster now, picking up more speed as he kicks off another length. He sees himself walking back through Palmcrona’s hallway and opening the door after the unexpected ringing of the doorbell. The tall woman in the darkness of the landing. The impression of her large hands. The fact she was hiding behind the door.
Breathing heavily, Joona pulls up to the edge of the pool and steadies himself, resting his arms on the plastic grille over the gutter. His breathing slows but he can feel the heavy increase of lactic acid in his shoulder muscles. A group of policemen in swimming trunks walk into the pool area carrying two rescue dummies: one a child and the other an overweight adult.
Dying’s not a nightmare. The large woman had smiled when she said that.
Joona heaves himself out of the pool. He’s filled with nervous tension. The Carl Palmcrona case won’t leave him alone. For some reason, the empty, light-filled room keeps coming back into his mind: the languid violin music and the slow buzzing of the flies.
Joona knows in his gut that it is a suicide and is not a case for the CID. Still, he feels the urge to run back to the apartment, to take another look and examine it minutely to make sure he’s missed nothing.
Initially he’d thought that shock had confused the housekeeper, fogged her mind, and made her suspicious, causing her to speak in that strange, disjointed way. Now Joona tries thinking in reverse. Maybe she wasn’t confused at all. Maybe she wasn’t shocked in the least but was answering his questions as clearly as she could. Edith Schwartz had hinted that Carl Palmcrona may have had help with the noose: that there were helpful hands, helpful people. In any case, she’d insinuated he was not alone in meeting his death. He was not the only person responsible.
Something is not right.
But he can’t put his finger on why he thinks that.
Joona walks through the door to the changing room and unlocks his locker. He picks up his mobile phone and calls Nils Åhlén, ‘The Needle.’
“I’m not done yet,” The Needle says instantly.
“It’s about Palmcrona. What was your first impression, even if—”
“I’m not done yet.”
“Even if you’re not done—”
“Come by on Monday.”
“I’m coming over now.”
“At five o’clock, me and the missus are going to check on a sofa at the furniture store.”
“I’ll be there in twenty-five minutes,” Joona says, and disconnects the phone before The Needle can protest again that it’s too soon.
After Joona has showered, dressed, and come out of the changing room, he can hear the laughter from the children’s swimming class.
He wonders what’s behind the death of a man as important as the general director for the National Inspectorate of Strategic Products. When it came to the export of military equipment in Sweden, this was the one person who made all the final decisions regarding Sweden’s export of arms, and now he’s been found hanged.
What if I’m wrong? What if he really was murdered? Joona says to himself. I have to talk to Pollock before I go see The Needle. Maybe Pollock and Kofoed have had a chance to look at the material evidence by now.
Joona strides through the hallway, runs down a staircase, and calls his assistant, Anja Larsson, to see if Nathan Pollock is still at the station.
9
all about hand-to-hand combat
Joona’s thick hair is still wet as he opens the door to Lecture Hall 11 where Nathan Pollock is lecturing a special training group on handling hostage situations and rescue operations. Projected on the wall behind Pollock is the anatomy of a human body, and seven weapons are lined up on a table. They range from a small silver SIG Sauer P238 to a matte-black automatic carbine from Heckler & Koch equipped with a 40 millimetre grenade thrower. Pollock is demonstrating an attack technique on a young police officer. He holds a knife close to his body, then suddenly rushes the officer and marks his throat. He turns back to the group.
“The problem with a cut like this is that the enemy can still scream. He can still move, and since only one artery is cut, it’ll take some time for him to bleed to death,” Pollock tells them.
He walks up to the young officer again and puts his arm around the officer’s face so that his elbow covers the officer’s mouth.
“If I do this instead, I can cover the scream, control his head, and slice open both arteries with one cut.”
Pollock lets the young officer go just as Joona Linna enters the room. The young officer wipes his mouth and returns to his seat. With a big grin, Pollock tries to wave Joona over, but Joona shakes his head.
“I just need a word with you,” Joona says quietly.
A few of the police officers swivel their heads as Pollock walks over to Joona and shakes hands. The shoulders of Joona’s jacket are dark from the water dripping from his hair.
“Tommy Kofoed took shoe prints from the Palmcrona scene,” Joona says. “I must know—did he find anything else unusual?”
“I didn’t realise there was a rush on it,” Nathan says. He also keeps his voice low. “Of course we photographed all the impressions on the foil, but we haven’t had time to analyse the results. I absolutely have no overview yet—”
“But you saw something,” Joona states.
“It seems that maybe … when I entered the photos into the computer … there could have been a pattern … it’s too early—”
“Just tell me what you think—I have to run.”
“It looked like two different sets of shoe prints in two circles around the body,” Nathan tells him.
“I’m going to see The Needle. Why don’t you come with me?” Joona asks.
“Right now?”
“I have to be there in twenty minutes.”
“Damn, I can’t.” Nathan gestures to the class. “I’ll keep my phone on in case you have to get back about something.”
“Thanks,” Joona says, and turns towards the door.
“Hey … could you just say hi to this gang for a second?” Nathan asks.
The entire class has already turned to look at them. Joona waves.
Nathan raises his voice. “May I introduce Joona Linna? He’s the one I was telling you about. I’m trying to talk him into giving you some insight into hand-to-hand combat.”
The room is silent and everyone is staring at Joona.
“Most of you know more about hand-to-hand combat than I do,” Joona says with a small smile. “But one thing I do know is when you’re in a fight for your life, no rules apply. It’s not a game—it’s a real fight.”
“Listen up,” Nathan says, his voice hard.
“In a real fight, you’ll only win if you keep thinking. Be flexible. Take advantage of anything and everything that comes your way,” Joona continues calmly. “Maybe you’re in a car or on a balcony. Maybe in a room filled with tear gas. Maybe there’s broken glass covering the floor. There could be weapons all around. Is it a short fight? Or will you have to conserve your strength? Don’t waste time with fancy jump kicks or be cool with round kicks.”
A few laugh.
“And accept the idea of pain. When you’re in close combat without a weapon, you may have to take a real pounding to win as quickly as you can.” Joona finishes. “That’s about it … I really don’t know much more than that about this stuff.”
He bows his head faintly and turns to leave the lecture hall. Two of the officers clap. The door closes and the room falls silent. Nathan Pollock is smiling to himself as he comes back to the table.
“I originally meant to save this for another class,” he says as he taps on the computer. “This film is a classic—it’s the hostage drama from Nordea Bank headquarters on Hamngatan nine years ago. There are two robbers. Joona Linna has already got the hostages out. He’s also already taken down one of the robbers, the one who had an Uzi. There’d been a violent firefight. The other robber is hiding and still has a knife. They had spray-painted all of the security cameras, but missed one. Anyway, I’ll play it in slow motion because the whole thing happens in just a few seconds.”
Pollock clicks again, and the film starts in slow motion. It’s a grainy video shot from directly overhead and showing the interior of the bank. At the bottom right of the image, a counter ticks off the seconds. Joona moves smoothly sideways with his arms out, holding his pistol high. It almost looks like he’s underwater, his movements are so slow. The robber is hiding behind the open door to the safe. He holds a knife. Suddenly he rushes out with long, fluid strides. Joona points his service pistol towards the robber, directly at his chest. The robber doesn’t hesitate. Joona is forced to pull the trigger. “The pistol clicks but a faulty bullet is lodged in the barrel,” narrates Pollock.
The grainy film flickers. Joona retreats as the man with the knife leaps at him. The whole thing is spooky and silent. Joona ejects the magazine and reaches for a new one. There is no time. Swiftly he reverses the useless gun until the barrel becomes an extension of his forearm.
“I don’t get it,” says a female officer.
“He’s transforming the pistol into a tonfa,” Pollock explains.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a kind of stick or baton. American police use something similar. Obviously, your reach is lengthened and if you must strike, the impact is intensified.”
The man with the knife has reached Joona. Almost in slow motion, he strikes at Joona’s abdomen, the blade glittering in a half arc. His other arm is up and turns with his body. Joona does not look at the knife at all. He moves straight into the robber and instantly strikes him in the throat, right under the Adam’s apple, with the shaft of his gun.
As if in a dream, the knife falls slowly, swirling to the ground. The man goes to his knees, clutching his throat, and then falls forward.
10
the woman who drowned
Joona Linna is in his car, driving towards the Karolinska Institute, the medical research center in Solna, a suburb north of Stockholm. He’s thinking about Carl Palmcrona’s hanging body, the tight laundry rope, the urine on the floor.
To the picture in his mind, Joona adds two sets of shoe prints on the floor circling the dead man.
This case is not over.
The department of forensic medicine is in a redbrick building set among the well-tended lawns on the large campus of the Karolinska Institute.
Joona swings into the empty visitors’ car park. He sees that the chief medical officer, Nils Åhlén, The Needle, has driven his white Jaguar over the curb and right onto the manicured lawn next to the main entrance.
Joona waves at the woman sitting in reception, who answers with a thumbs-up. He continues down the hallway, knocks at The Needle’s door, and goes right in. As usual, The Needle’s office is completely barren of anything extraneous. The blinds have been drawn but sunshine still filters in between the slats. The light is bright on white surfaces but disappears into the grey areas of brushed steel.
As if to match his environment, The Needle wears white aviator glasses and a white polo shirt underneath his lab coat.
“I just put a parking ticket on a white Jaguar outside,” Joona says.
“Good for you.”
Joona pauses in the middle of the room, his serious grey eyes darkening.
“So how’d he really die?”
“You’re talking about Palmcrona?”
“Right.”
The telephone rings and The Needle hands the autopsy report to Joona.
“You didn’t need to come all the way here to find that out,” The Needle says before he picks up the phone.
Joona sits down on a white leather chair. The autopsy on Carl Palmcrona’s body is complete. Joona flips through the file and picks out a few entries at random:
74. Kidneys weigh 290 grams together. Surfaces are smooth. Tissues are grey-red. Consistency is firm and elastic. Renal capsule is clear.
75. The ureters have normal appearance.
76. The bladder is empty. Mucous membrane is pale.
77.The prostate is normal size. Tissues are pale.
The Needle pushes his glasses up his narrow, hooked nose and finishes his phone call. He looks up.
“As you see,” he says, yawning, “nothing unusual. Cause of death is asphyxiation, that is, suffocation … but with a successful hanging we’re not talking about your typical meaning of suffocation. Rather, here we have closure of artery supply.”
“So the brain dies when the flow of oxygenated blood is stopped.”
The Needle nods. “That’s right. Artery compression, bilateral closure of the carotids. It happens unbelievably quickly, o
f course. Unconsciousness within seconds—”
“But he was alive before the hanging?” Joona asks.
“Right.”
The Needle’s narrow, smooth face is gloomy.
“Can you determine the drop?”
“I imagine it was a matter of decimetres. There aren’t any fractures of the cervical vertebra or at the base of the skull.”
“I see …”
Joona is thinking of the briefcase with Palmcrona’s shoe prints. He opens the file again and flips to the external examination: the investigation of the skin of the neck and the measurement of the angles.
“What’s bothering you?”
“Could the same rope have been used to strangle him before the hanging?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“Well, first of all there is just one line and it’s perfect.” The Needle starts to explain. “When a person is hanged, the rope or line cuts into the neck and it—”
“But a killer might know that,” Joona says.
“But it’s practically impossible to reconstruct … you know, with a successful hanging, the line around the neck is like the point of an arrow with the edge on the upward side, right at the knot—”
“Because the weight of the body tightens the loop.”
“Exactly. And for the same reason the deepest part must be precisely across from the edge.”
“So hanging was the cause of death.”
“No doubt about it.”
The tall, thin pathologist gently gnaws his lower lip.
“But could he have been forced to kill himself?” Joona asks.
“There are no signs of it on the body.”
Joona shuts the file, drums on it with both hands, and thinks about the housekeeper’s statement that other people had been involved in Palmcrona’s death. Was it just confused rattling on? But what about the two sets of shoe prints Tommy Kofoed had found?
“So you’re absolutely sure of the cause of death?” Joona stares into The Needle’s eyes.
“What did you expect?”
“I expected this,” Joona says slowly, tapping the autopsy. “Exactly this. But still, something’s not right.”
