Stalker

by Lars Kepler

  Margot puts her heavy bag on the floor, sits down on her chair and calls Forensics.

  ‘Hi, Margot here. Have you downloaded a copy?’ she asks, sounding stressed. ‘Listen, I need a location or a name – try to identify either the location or the woman … All the resources you’ve got, you can have five minutes, do whatever the hell you like, just give me something and I promise I’ll let you go so you can enjoy your Friday evening.’

  She puts the phone down and opens the lid of the pizza box on Adam’s desk.

  ‘Are you done with this?’ she asks.

  There’s a ping as an email arrives and Margot quickly stuffs a piece of pizza crust in her mouth. An impatient worry line deepens on her forehead. She clicks on the video file and maximises the image on screen, pushes her plait over her shoulder, hits play and rolls her chair back so Adam can see.

  The first shot is an illuminated window wavering in the darkness. The camera moves slowly closer, leaves brushing the lens.

  Margot feels the hairs on her arms stand up.

  A woman is standing in the well-lit room in front of a television, eating ice cream from the tub. She’s tugged her jogging pants down and is balancing on one foot to pull her sock off.

  She glances at the television and smiles at something, then licks the spoon.

  The only sound in the room in Police Headquarters comes from the fan in the computer.

  Just give me one detail to go on, Margot thinks as she looks at the woman’s face, the fine features of her eyes, cheeks and the curve of her head. Her body seems to be steaming with residual heat. She’s just been for a run. The elastic of her underwear is loose after too many washes, and her bra is clearly visible through her sweat-stained vest.

  Margot leans closer to the screen, her stomach pressing against her thighs, and her heavy plait falls forward over her shoulder again.

  ‘One minute to go,’ Adam says.

  The woman puts the tub of ice cream on the coffee table and leaves the room, her jogging pants still dangling from one foot.

  The camera follows her, moves sideways past a narrow terrace door until it reaches the bedroom window, where the light goes on and the woman comes into view. She tramples the jogging pants off and kicks them towards an armchair with a red cushion. The trousers fly through the air, hit the wall behind the chair and fall to the floor.

  2

  The camera glides slowly through the last of the dark garden and stops right outside the window, swaying slightly as if it were floating on water.

  ‘She’d see him if she just looked up,’ Margot whispers, feeling her heart beat faster in her chest.

  The light from the room reaches beyond the leaves of a rosebush, casting a slight flare across the top of the lens.

  Adam is sitting with his hand over his mouth.

  The woman pulls her vest off, tosses it onto the chair, then stands for a moment in her washed-out underwear and stained bra, looking over at the mobile phone charging on the bedside table beside a glass of water. Her thighs are tense and pumped with blood after her run, and the top of the jogging pants has left a red line across her stomach.

  There are no tattoos or visible scars on her body, just faint white stretch-marks from a pregnancy.

  The room looks like millions of other bedrooms. There’s nothing worth even trying to trace.

  The camera trembles, then pulls back.

  The woman takes the glass of water from the bedside table and puts it to her mouth, then the film ends abruptly.

  ‘Bloody hell, bloody hell,’ Margot repeats irritably. ‘Nothing, not a sodding thing.’

  ‘Let’s watch it again,’ Adam says quickly.

  ‘We can watch it a thousand times,’ Margot says, rolling her chair further back. ‘Go on, what the hell, go ahead, but it’s not going to give us a fucking thing.’

  ‘I can see a lot of things, I can see—’

  ‘You can see a detached house, twentieth-century, some fruit trees, roses, triple-glazed windows, a forty-two-inch television, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream,’ she says, gesturing towards the computer.

  It hasn’t struck her before, the way we’re so similar to each other. Seen through a window, a broad spectrum of Swedes conform to the same pattern, to the point of being interchangeable. From the outside we appear to live exactly the same way, we look the same, do the same things, own the same objects.

  ‘This is totally fucked up,’ Adam says angrily. ‘Why is he posting these films? What the hell does he want?’

  Margot glances out of the small window, where the black treetops of Kronoberg Park are silhouetted against the hazy glow of the city.

  ‘There’s no doubt that this is a serial killer,’ she says. ‘All we can do is put together a preliminary profile, so we can—’

  ‘How does that help her?’ Adam interrupts, running one hand through his hair. ‘He’s standing outside her window and you’re talking about offender profiling!’

  ‘It might help the next one.’

  ‘What the fuck?’ Adam says. ‘We’ve got to—’

  ‘Just shut up for a minute,’ Margot interrupts, and picks up her phone.

  ‘Shut up yourself,’ Adam says, raising his voice. ‘I’ve got every right to say what I think. Haven’t I? I think we should get the papers to publish this woman’s picture on their websites.’

  ‘Adam, listen … much as we’d like to be able to identify her, we’ve got nothing to go on,’ Margot says. ‘I’ll talk to Forensics, but I doubt they’re going to find anything more than they did last time.’

  ‘But if we circulate her picture to—’

  ‘I haven’t got time for your nonsense now,’ she snaps. ‘Think for a minute … Everything suggests he’s uploaded the clip directly from her garden, so of course there’s a theoretical chance of saving her.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying!’

  ‘But five minutes have already passed, and that’s a long time to be standing outside a window.’

  Adam leans forward and stares at her. His tired eyes are bloodshot and his hair is on end.

  ‘Are we just going to give up, then?’

  ‘This is a matter of urgency, but we have to think clearly,’ she replies.

  ‘Good,’ he says, still sounding annoyed.

  ‘The perpetrator is brimming with confidence, he knows he’s way ahead of us,’ Margot explains quickly as she picks up the last slice of pizza. ‘But the better we get to know him …’

  ‘Get to know him? Fine, but that’s not really what I’m thinking right now,’ Adam says, wiping sweat from under his nose. ‘We couldn’t trace the previous film, we didn’t find anything at the scene, and we won’t be able to trace this film either.’

  ‘We’re unlikely to get any forensic evidence, but we can try to pin him down by analysing the films and the brutality of his MO,’ Margot replies, as she feels the baby move inside her. ‘What have we really seen so far, what has he shown us, and what’s he seeing?’

  ‘A woman who’s been for a run, and is now eating ice cream and watching television,’ Adam says tentatively.

  ‘What does that tell us about the murderer?’

  ‘That he likes women who eat ice cream … I don’t know,’ Adam sighs, and hides his face in his hands.

  ‘Come on, now.’

  ‘Sorry, but—’

  ‘I’m thinking about the fact that the murderer uploads a film showing the period leading up to the murder,’ Margot says. ‘He takes his time, enjoys the moment, and … he wants to show us the women alive, wants to preserve them alive on film. Maybe it’s the living he’s interested in.’

  ‘A voyeur,’ Adam says, feeling his arms prick with discomfort.

  ‘A stalker,’ she whispers.

  ‘Tell me how to filter the list of creeps who’ve been let out of prison or psychiatric care,’ Adam says, as he logs into the intranet.

  ‘A rapist, violent rape, someone with obsessive fixation disorder.’

  He types qu
ickly, clicks the mouse, types some more.

  ‘Too many results,’ he says. ‘Time’s running out.’

  ‘Try the first victim’s name.’

  ‘No results,’ he sighs, tearing his hair.

  ‘A serial rapist who’s been treated, possibly chemically castrated,’ Margot says, thinking out loud.

  ‘We need to check the databases against each other, but that will take too long,’ he says, getting up from his chair. ‘This isn’t working. What the hell are we going to do?’

  ‘She’s dead,’ Margot sighs, then leans back. ‘She might have a few minutes left, but …’

  ‘I don’t know if I can handle this,’ Adam says. ‘We can see her, we can see her face, her home … Christ, we can see right into her life, but we can’t find out who she is until she’s dead and someone finds her body.’

  3

  Susanna Kern can feel her thighs tingling from her run as she pulls her sweaty jogging pants down and kicks them towards the chair.

  Since she turned thirty she has run five kilometres three evenings each week. After her Friday run she usually eats ice cream and watches television, seeing as Björn doesn’t get home until ten o’clock.

  When Björn landed the job in London she thought it would feel lonely, but fairly quickly she came to appreciate the hours she had to herself in the weeks when Morgan was with his dad.

  She needs this downtime more than ever since she embarked upon a demanding course in advanced neurology at the Karolinska Institute.

  She undoes her sweaty sports bra, thinking that she can use it again on Sunday before she has to wash it.

  She can’t remember a summer as hot as this before.

  A scratching sound makes her turn towards the window.

  The back garden is so dark that all she can see is the reflection of the bedroom. It looks like a theatre set, a television studio.

  She has just made her entrance, and is standing under the floodlights.

  Only I’ve forgotten to put any clothes on, she thinks wryly to herself.

  She stands for a moment, looking at her naked body. The lighting is dramatic, and makes her reflection look thinner than she actually is.

  The scraping noise is repeated, as if someone were running their nails across the windowsill. It’s too dark to see if there’s a bird sitting out there.

  Susanna stares at the window and walks cautiously towards it, trying to see through the reflections, and grabs the dark blue bedspread and holds it up to cover herself. She shivers.

  Fighting an instinctive reluctance she goes over to the window, moves her face closer to the glass and the garden becomes visible, like a dark grey world, like the underworld in a Gustav Doré engraving.

  The black grass, tall shrubs, Morgan’s swing moving in the wind, and the panes of glass behind the playhouse for the garden room that they never got round to building.

  Her breath mists the window as she straightens up and pulls the curtains. She lets the thick bedspread fall to the floor and walks naked towards the door. A shiver runs down her spine and she turns back towards the window again. A strip of black glass is shimmering in the gap between the dark-pink curtains.

  She picks up her phone from the bedside table and calls Björn, and as she listens to the call being put through she can’t help staring at the window.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ he answers, far too loudly.

  ‘Are you at the airport?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you at …’

  ‘I’m at the airport, I’m just having a burger at O’Learys, and—’

  His voice vanishes as a group of male voices in the background shout and cheer.

  ‘Liverpool just scored again,’ he explains.

  ‘Hooray,’ she says, without enthusiasm.

  ‘Your mum called me to ask what you want for your birthday.’

  ‘That’s sweet,’ she says.

  ‘I said you’d like some see-through underwear,’ he jokes.

  ‘Perfect.’

  She stares at the shimmering glass between the curtains as the phone-line crackles.

  ‘Is everything OK at home?’ Björn’s voice says in her ear.

  ‘I was just feeling a bit scared of the dark.’

  ‘Isn’t Ben there?’

  ‘In front of the television,’ she replies.

  ‘And Jerry?’

  ‘They’re both waiting for me,’ she smiles.

  ‘I miss you,’ he says.

  ‘Make sure you don’t miss the plane,’ she whispers.

  They talk some more, then say goodbye and blow kisses to each other, then the line goes dead and she finds herself thinking about a patient who was brought in the previous night. A young man who had crashed his motorbike when he wasn’t wearing a helmet, resulting in severe head injuries. His father had come straight to the hospital from his nightshift. He was still wearing his dirty overalls, and had a breathing mask dangling round his neck.

  Holding her pink kimono in front of her, she walks back to the living room and closes the heavy curtains.

  The room feels suddenly blind, as if a silence had settled on it.

  The curtains sway in front of the windows, and she shudders as she turns away from them.

  She tries the ice cream. It’s much softer now, just right. A dense taste of chocolate fills her mouth.

  Susanna puts the tub down and walks to the bathroom, locks the door, turns the shower on, loosens her ponytail and puts the scrunchie on the edge of the basin.

  She lets out a sigh as the hot water washes over her head and neck and envelops her whole body. Her ears are roaring as her shoulders relax and her muscles soften. She soaps herself and runs her hand between her legs, noticing that the hair has already started to grow again since the last time she waxed.

  Susanna wipes the steam from the glass door with her hand so she can see the handle and lock of the bathroom door.

  She suddenly remembers what she thought she had seen in the bedroom window just as she was pulling the bedspread towards her to cover herself.

  She dismissed it as a trick of her imagination. It’s silly to let yourself get scared like that. She had thrust her anxieties aside, and told herself that she couldn’t even see through the glass.

  The room was too bright and the garden too dark.

  But in the reflection of the dark bedspread she had thought she could see a face staring back at her.

  The next moment it was gone, and she realised she must have been mistaken, but now she can’t help thinking it might have been real.

  It wasn’t a child, but possibly a neighbour out looking for their cat, who then stopped to look at her.

  Susanna turns the water off and her heart is beating so hard that it’s pounding at the top of her chest as she realises that the kitchen door leading out to the garden is open. How could she have forgotten that? She’s had it open all summer to let in the cool evening air, but usually shuts and locks it before taking a shower.

  She wipes the steam from the glass door and looks at the lock on the bathroom door again. Nothing has changed. She reaches for the towel and thinks to herself that she’ll phone Björn and ask him to stay on the line as she looks through the house.

  4

  Susanna can hear applause on the television as she leaves the bathroom. The thin silk of the kimono sticks to her damp skin.

  There’s a cold draught along the floor.

  Her feet leave wet footprints on the worn parquet tiles.

  There’s a dark shimmer from the windows at the far side of the dining room. Black glass sparkling behind the ferns in their hanging pots. Susanna feels like she’s being watched, but forces herself not to look out, scared of frightening herself even more.

  Nonetheless, she keeps her distance from the closed door to the basement as she approaches the kitchen.

  Her wet hair is soaking through the back of the kimono. It’s so wet that it’s dripping inside the fabric, trickling between her buttocks.

&nb
sp; The floor gets colder the closer she gets to the kitchen.

  Her heart is pounding hard in her chest.

  She suddenly finds herself thinking of the young man with serious head injuries again. He was sedated with Ketalar. His whole face was crushed, squashed up towards his temples. His father kept repeating quietly that there was nothing wrong with his son. He could have done with someone to talk to, but Susanna hadn’t had time.

  Now she is imagining that the heavily built father has found her, that he holds her to blame, and is standing outside the kitchen door in his dirty overalls.

  A different song on the television now.

  There’s a breeze blowing straight through the kitchen. The door to the garden is wide open. The thin curtain of plastic strips is fluttering into the room. She walks slowly forward. It’s hard to see anything behind the dancing curtain. There could be someone standing just outside.

  She holds her hand out, pushes the swirling plastic strips aside, slips past them and reaches for the door handle.

  The floor is chill from the night air flowing into the kitchen.

  Her kimono slips open.

  She has time to notice that the gloomy garden is deserted. The bushes are moving in the wind, the swing swaying rhythmically.

  She quickly closes the door, not bothered about catching part of the curtain in it, and hurriedly locks it, then pulls the key out and backs away.

  She puts the key in the bowl of loose change and adjusts the kimono.

  At least it’s locked now, she thinks, as she hears a creak behind her back.

  She spins round and then smiles at her own reaction. It was just the window in the living room shifting on its hinges when the flow of air stopped.

  The audience is booing and whistling at the judges’ decision.

  Susanna thinks about getting her phone from the bedroom and calling Björn. He ought to be waiting at the gate by now. She wants to hear his voice as she searches the house before settling down in front of the television. She’s wound herself up too much to relax otherwise. The only problem is that there’s no reception at all in the basement. Maybe she could put it on speaker and leave it halfway down the stairs.