by Lars Kepler
“Let’s go ahead,” she whispers. “Let’s try.”
“Maybe,” he says in a low voice.
She holds him tightly, very tightly, and then she eases from his arms.
“There are times I get really mad at you,” she mutters as she turns away.
“Disa, I am who I am, but I—”
“I am very happy that we’re not living together,” she says, and then she leaves the kitchen.
He hears her lock herself in the bathroom and wonders whether he should follow and knock on the door, but he also knows that she really wants to be left alone, so he just continues making lunch. He picks up a piece of fish, places it on his palm, and then spreads a line of wasabi onto it.
A few minutes later, Disa comes back. She stands in the doorway and watches him finish making the sushi.
“Do you remember,” she says, laughing, “how your mother always took the salmon off the sushi and fried it before she put it back on the rice?”
“Of course.”
“Should I set the table?”
“Please.”
Disa carries plates and chopsticks to the big room, stops next to the window, and looks down at Wallingatan. A grove of trees lights up the view with its green late-spring leaves. Her eyes wander over the pleasant area all the way to Norra Bantorget where Joona Linna has been living for the past year.
She sets the off-white dinner table, returns to the kitchen to take a sip of wine. The wine has lost its crispness from being chilled. She dismisses the sudden urge to sit down on the lacquered wooden floor under the table and have lunch, eating with their hands as if they were still children.
Instead, she says, “I’ve been asked out.”
“Asked out?”
She nods and feels she wants to be a little bit mean, even though she doesn’t really.
“Tell me about it,” Joona says calmly as he carries the tray with sushi to the table.
Disa picks up her glass and says in an easy tone, “It’s just that there’s a man at the museum who’s been asking me out to dinner for the last six months.”
“Do people still ask people out to dinner these days?”
Disa smiles somewhat crookedly. “Are you jealous?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a little,” Joona says as he walks over to her. “It’s always pleasant to be asked out to dinner.”
“That’s right.”
Disa pushes her fingers through a bit of Joona’s thick hair.
“Is he good-looking?”
“Actually, yes he is.”
“How nice.”
“But you know that I really don’t want to.” Disa smiles.
He doesn’t answer and turns his head away.
“You know what I want,” Disa says softly.
Joona’s face is now a little pale. She sees a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He slowly turns his face back to her. His eyes have darkened until they’re as black and hard as an abyss.
“Joona?” she asks. “Forget about it. I’m sorry—”
It looks like Joona is about to say something and begins to take a step when his legs buckle.
“Joona!” Disa cries and knocks her glass off the table as she hurries to his side. She holds him closely and whispers that it will be over soon.
After a few minutes, Joona’s face relaxes bit by bit from its tight expression of pain.
Disa gets up to sweep the broken glass off the floor. Then they sit at the table and eat in silence.
After a while, Disa says, “You’re not taking your medicine.”
“It makes me sleepy. I have to think. It’s important to think clearly right now.”
“You promised me that you’d continue with it.”
“I will, I will,” he reassures her.
“It’s dangerous not to. You know that,” she whispers.
“As soon as I’ve solved this case, I’ll start taking it again.”
“What if you never solve it?”
At a distance, the Nordic Museum appears to be a fancy image carved in ebony, despite being built of sandstone and limestone. It’s a Renaissance dream of elegance with its many towers and pinnacles. The museum was planned as an homage to the sovereignty of the Nordic peoples, but by the time it was inaugurated one rainy day in the summer of 1907, the union between Sweden and Norway had dissolved and the king was dying.
Joona walks swiftly through the enormous great hall of the museum and stops only after he’s climbed the stairs. He collects himself, then walks slowly past the lighted display cabinets. Nothing there catches his eye. He keeps going, his thoughts bound in memories and the sadness of loss.
The guard has seen him coming and has set a chair out for him next to one particular display case. Joona Linna takes his seat and lifts his eyes to the Sami bridal crown before him. The eight points of the crown are like linked hands, and the crown shines softly in the light behind the thin glass. Inside himself, Joona can hear a voice, and he sees a face smiling at him as he sits behind the wheel of his car. He is driving. It rained that day, but now the sun is reflecting in the puddles on the road so brightly, it’s as if they’re lit by fires below. He turns towards the backseat to make sure that Lumi has been buckled in properly.
The bridal crown appears to have been made from light branches of leather or braided hair. He drinks in its promise of love and joy and remembers how his wife looked: her serious smile, her sand-coloured hair brushing her face.
“How are you doing today?” the guard asks.
Joona looks up at the guard in surprise. The man has been working here for many years. He’s middle-aged with stubble on his cheeks and tired eyes.
“I really don’t know,” Joona replies as he gets up from the chair.
49
the blurred face
Joona Linna and Saga Bauer are in the car on their way to the interview with Pontus Salman in Silencia Defense’s main office. They’re bringing the photograph that the technicians at the National Bureau of Investigation have enlarged. Quietly they travel south on Highway 73, which runs like a dirty track down to Nynäshamn.
Two hours ago, Joona had been looking again at the four people sitting in the box: Raphael with his calm face and balding pate; Palmcrona with his weak smile and steel-framed glasses; Pontus Salman with his placid, almost boyish demeanour; and Agathe al-Haji with her wrinkled cheeks and intelligent, heavy gaze.
“I have an idea,” Joona had said slowly, catching Saga’s eye. “If we could reduce the picture quality and touch it up so that Pontus Salman is no longer identifiable …”
He falls silent as he follows his internal train of thought.
“What would we achieve?” asks Saga.
“He doesn’t know that we have a sharp original picture—right?”
“How could he? He’d expect us to make the photo more in focus, not the opposite.”
“Exactly. We’ve done all we could to identify the four people in the picture and we’ve figured out three. The fourth is somewhat turned away and the face is too blurry.”
“You’re thinking we should give him the chance to lie,” Saga says. “To claim that he wasn’t there and that he hasn’t met Palmcrona, Agathe al-Haji, and Raphael.”
“If he denies he was there, then the meeting itself was the secret.”
“And if he starts to lie, we have him in a trap.”
They pass Handen and then turn off at the Jordbrolänken exit. They roll into an industrial area surrounded by silent forest.
The head office for Silencia Defense is located in a dull-grey impersonal concrete building. Joona takes a good look at it, with its black-tinted windows. He thinks again about the four people in the photo, which unleashed a chain of violence leading to a dead young girl and the sorrow of her mother. Perhaps Penelope Fernandez and Björn Almskog are also dead by now because of this picture. Joona steps out of the car and his jaw tightens. Pontus Salman, one of the people in this enigmatic photograph, is inside this building right now.
The original phot
ograph is safely in the hands of the National Forensic Laboratory in Linköping. Tommy Kofoed has created a copy that appears old and worn like the original. One corner is missing and tape remains are seen on the others. Kofoed has rendered Pontus Salman’s face and hand blurry so that it appears that Salman was moving at the moment the photograph was taken.
Salman will think that he’s in luck—he alone is unrecognisable. Nothing connects him to the meeting with Raphael Guidi, Carl Palmcrona, and Agathe al-Haji. The only thing he needs to do is deny that it’s him. It’s not a crime to not recognise oneself in a blurry picture and to not remember meeting certain people.
They start towards the entrance.
If he denies it, we’ve caught him in a lie and we know he wants to keep something secret.
The air is oppressively hot and humid.
Saga nods seriously at Joona as they walk through the shiny, heavy entrance doors.
And if Salman starts to lie, Joona thinks, we’ll make sure he continues to lie until he’s so entangled he can’t get free.
The reception area is large and cold.
When Pontus Salman looks at the photograph and says that he can’t identify the people in it, we’ll say that it’s unfortunate that he can’t help us, Joona continues to think. We’ll get ready to leave and then we’ll stop and ask him to take one more look with a magnifying glass. The technician has left a signet ring visible on the hanging hand. We’ll ask Pontus Salman if he recognises the clothes, the shoes, or the pinkie ring. He’ll be forced to lie again, and then we will have reason to bring him in for questioning and press him harder.
Behind the reception desk, there is a lighted red emblem emblazoned with the company name and a serpentine logo encircled by runes.
“‘He fought as long as he had a weapon,’” Joona says.
“Can you read runes now?” asks Saga sceptically.
Joona points at the sign with the translation as he walks to the reception desk. A pale man with thin, dry lips is ensconced behind the desk.
“Pontus Salman,” Joona says shortly.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Two o’clock,” Saga says.
The receptionist shuffles through some papers, flips to one, and reads.
“Yes, that’s right,” he says as he raises his eyes. “Unfortunately, Pontus Salman sends his regrets. He cannot make this meeting.”
“We received no notice of a cancellation,” Saga says. “We must talk to him—”
“I am very sorry.”
“Please call him. Tell him we’re here,” Saga says.
“I’ll try, but I believe … he’s in a meeting.”
“On the fourth floor,” Joona inserts.
“The fifth,” the receptionist corrects automatically.
Saga sits down in one of the reception chairs. The sun streams in through the windows and spreads like fire in her hair. Joona remains standing as the receptionist lifts his phone to his ear and taps a number. The busy signal sounds and the receptionist shakes his head.
“Hang up,” Joona says. “We’ll just surprise him instead.”
“Surprise him?” the receptionist repeats uncertainly.
Joona simply walks to the glass door beyond the reception desk and opens it.
“You don’t even need to tell him we’re coming,” Joona says. Saga gets up from the chair and follows Joona.
“Wait!” the man calls out. “I’ll try to—”
They keep walking through the hallway and into an open lift. They punch the button for the fifth floor. The door closes and the lift moves silently upwards.
Pontus Salman is waiting for them when the doors open. He is about forty years old and there is a worn, tired look to his face.
“Welcome,” he says drily.
“Thanks.”
Pontus Salman looks them over.
“A detective and a fairy-tale princess,” he says.
As they follow Salman through a long hallway, Joona runs through their plan in his mind.
Joona feels a cold shiver down his back—as if Viola Fernandez is opening her eyes right then in her cold box, watching him expectantly.
The hallway is lined with dark-tinted glass, creating an aura of timelessness. The office itself is fairly large and contains a desk of elm wood and a light grey sofa group around a black glass coffee table.
They each take one of the stuffed chairs. Pontus Salman smiles cheerlessly and forms a steeple with his hands. Then he asks, “Why are you here?”
“You know that Carl Palmcrona of ISP is dead?” asks Saga.
Salman nods. “I heard it was a suicide.”
“Our investigation into that is not yet finished,” Saga says in a friendly manner. “We’re following up on a photograph we found. We want to find out who these people are around Palmcrona.”
“Three of them are clear, but one person is blurry,” Joona says.
“We’d like some of your employees to take a look, too. Perhaps someone will recognise him. One hand, for instance, is a little sharper.”
“I understand,” Salman says and purses his lips.
“Maybe someone can tell who it is from the context,” Saga says. “It’s worth a try.”
“We’ve visited Patria and Saab Bofors Dynamics,” Joona says. “None of them knows.”
Pontus Salman’s tired face shows nothing at all. Joona wonders to himself if Salman takes pills to keep calm and self-confident. There’s something remarkably lifeless in his eyes—a lack of expression and contact—as if something inside has slid away, leaving him with no connection to anything at all.
“You must think this is important,” Salman says, crossing one leg over the other.
“Indeed we do,” Saga says.
“May I see this unusual photograph?” Pontus Salman asks in his easy but impersonal manner.
“Besides Palmcrona, we’ve identified the weapons dealer, Raphael Guidi,” Joona says. “We’ve also identified Agathe al-Haji, who is the military adviser for President al-Bashir … but no one recognises this fourth person.”
Joona takes out the folder, and then hands over the photograph in its protective plastic cover. Saga points to the blurred person. Joona watches her concentrate on Salman to register every nuance, every nervous signal in his body if he lies.
Salman moistens his lips and, even though his cheeks turn pale before he smiles, he taps the photograph and says, “But that’s me!”
“It’s you?”
“Yes,” he says with a laugh, revealing small, childlike front teeth.
“But—”
“We had a meeting in Frankfurt,” he continues with a pleased smile. “We were listening to a wonderful … well, I don’t remember what they were playing … maybe Beethoven …”
Joona tries to understand this unexpected confession. He clears his throat.
“You’re absolutely sure?”
“Of course,” Salman says.
“Well, that solves that puzzle,” Saga says warmly with no hint of their miscalculation.
“Maybe I should get a job at Säpo,” Salman jokes.
“If I may ask, what was this meeting about?” asks Joona.
“I can talk about it now.” Salman laughs and looks directly at Joona. “This photo was taken in the spring of 2008. We were discussing a shipment of ammunition to Sudan. Agathe al-Haji was negotiating on behalf of the government. The area needed to stabilise after the peace agreement in 2005. The negotiations were fairly far along, but all our work went up in smoke in the spring of 2009, of course. We were shaken, yes, you understand … and since then, we’ve had no contact with Sudan.”
Joona looks at Saga since he has no idea what happened in the spring of 2009. Saga is wearing a neutral expression, so he decides to ask another question.
“How many meetings did you have?”
“Just the one,” he answers. “And even I can see how it appears odd that the director of ISP is accepting a glass of champagne.”
; “You think?” Saga asks.
“There was nothing to celebrate. But perhaps he was just thirsty,” Salman says with a smile.
50
the hiding place
Penelope and Björn have no idea how long they’ve remained hidden within this deep crevice on the face of a cliff. They simply couldn’t run any further. Their bodies were beyond exhausted and they’d taken turns sleeping and keeping watch.
In the beginning, it seemed as if their pursuer had anticipated every move they’d made, but now the sense of his immediate presence was gone. For some time, he’d been noticeably quiet. That clammy feeling on their backs, the chilling sensation of someone running right behind them, had disappeared the moment they made the unpredictable choice of heading for the centre of the forest and away from humankind and the mainland.
Penelope is uncertain if her mother’s answering machine caught any of her words. But soon someone will find Björn’s boat, she thinks. After that, the police will start looking for us. All they need to do is stay hidden long enough from their pursuer.
Although the rounded rock surface above is covered in moss, the crevice in the cliff is bare stone and in many spots clear water is dripping. It had been hot when they first found this spot, and they had lapped the water and decided to stay for the rest of the day. Towards evening, as the sun sank behind the shadow of the trees, they’d fallen asleep.
Dreams and dozing memories are mixed in Penelope’s mind. She hears Viola play ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ on her tiny violin with stickers on the fingerboard to show where the fingers should go. She watches Viola put on pink eye shadow and pinch her cheeks in front of the mirror.
Penelope gasps when she wakes up.
Björn is sitting wide awake with his arms around his knees and trembling.
This is the dawn after the third night and they can’t bear it any longer. They are hungry and weak. They leave their hiding place and begin to walk.
It’s almost morning when Penelope and Björn come to the water’s edge. The sun’s red rays form glowing streaks along the long veils of clouds. The water is still in the morning calm. Two mute swans glide beside each other on the surface, paddling quietly away.
