Stalker

by Lars Kepler

  She tells herself that she doesn’t have to creep about in her own home, but can’t help moving quietly.

  She passes the closed door to the basement, sees the dark windows in the dining room from the corner of her eye, and carries on towards the living room.

  She knows she locked the front door after her run, but still wants to go and check. It would be just as well – then she won’t have to think about it again.

  There’s a whistling sound from the open window in the living room and the curtain is being sucked back towards the narrow opening.

  She starts to walk towards the dining room and notices that the wild flowers in the vase on the heavy oak table have run out of water, before coming to an abrupt halt.

  It feels as though her whole body is covered by a thin layer of ice. In an instant adrenalin is coursing through her blood.

  The three windows of the dining room act as large mirrors. The table and eight chairs are lit up by the light from the ceiling lamp, and behind them stands a figure.

  Susanna stares at the reflection of the room, her heart pounding so hard it almost deafens her.

  In the doorway to the hall someone is standing with a kitchen knife in their hand.

  He’s inside, he’s inside the house, Susanna thinks.

  She’s shut and locked the kitchen door when she should have escaped into the garden.

  She moves slowly backwards.

  The intruder is standing completely still with his back to the dining room, staring at the corridor to the kitchen.

  The large knife is hanging from his right hand, twitching impatiently.

  Susanna backs away, her eyes fixed on the figure in the hall. Her right foot slides across the floor and the parquet creaks slightly as she shifts her weight.

  She has to get out, but if she tries to get to the kitchen she’ll be visible along the passageway. Maybe she’d have time to get the key from the bowl, but it’s by no means certain.

  She continues backing away cautiously, now seeing the intruder in the last window.

  The floor creaks beneath her left foot and she stops and watches as the figure turns round to face the dining room, then looks up and catches sight of her in the dark windows.

  Susanna takes another slow step back. The intruder starts to walk towards her. Whimpering with fear, she turns and runs into the living room.

  She slips on the carpet, loses her balance and hits her knee on the floor, putting her hand out to break her fall and gasping with pain.

  The sound of a chair hitting the dining table.

  She brings the standard lamp down as she gets up. It hits the wall before clattering to the floor.

  She can hear rapid footsteps behind her.

  Without looking round she rushes into the bathroom again and locks the door behind her. The air in there is still warm and damp.

  This can’t be happening, she thinks in panic.

  She hurries past the basin and toilet and pulls the curtain back from the little window. Her hands are shaking as she tries to undo one of the catches. It’s stuck. She tugs at it and tries to force herself to calm down. She fiddles with it and tugs it sideways, and manages to get the first catch open as she hears a scraping sound from the lock on the bathroom door. She rushes back and grabs hold of the lock just as it starts to turn. She clings on to it with both hands, and feels her heart racing in terror.

  5

  The intruder has slipped a screwdriver, or possibly the back of the knife blade, into the little slot on the other side of the lock. Susanna is holding on to the handle of the lock, but is shaking so badly that she’s scared she might lose her grip.

  ‘God, this can’t be happening,’ she whispers to herself. ‘This isn’t happening, it can’t be happening …’

  She glances quickly towards the window. It’s far too small for her to be able to throw herself through it. The only hope of escape is to run to the window, undo the second catch, push it open and then climb up, but she daren’t let go of the lock.

  She’s never been so terrified in her life. This is a bottomless, mortal dread, beyond all control.

  The lock now feels hot and slippery under her tensed fingers. There’s a metallic scraping sound from the other side.

  ‘Hello?’ she says towards the door.

  The intruder tries to open the door with a quick twist, but Susanna is prepared and manages to resist.

  ‘What do you want?’ she says, in as composed a voice as she can muster. ‘Do you need money? If you do, I can understand that. It’s not a problem.’

  She gets no answer, but she can hear the scrape of metal against metal, and feel the vibration through the lock.

  ‘You’re welcome to look, but there’s nothing especially valuable in the house … the television’s fairly new, but …’

  She falls silent, because she’s shaking so much it’s hard to understand what she’s saying. She whispers to herself that she must stay calm, as she clutches the lock tight and thinks that her fear is dangerous, that it might make the intruder think bad thoughts.

  ‘My bag’s hanging in the hall,’ she says, then swallows hard. ‘A black bag. Inside it there’s a purse containing some cash and a Visa card. I’ve just been paid, and I can tell you the code if you want.’

  The intruder stops trying to turn the lock.

  ‘OK, listen, the code is 3945,’ she says to the door. ‘I haven’t seen your face, you can take the money and I’ll wait until tomorrow before I report the card missing.’

  Still holding the lock tightly, Susanna puts her ear to the door, and imagines she can hear footsteps moving away across the floor before an advert break on television drowns out all other sounds.

  She doesn’t know if it was stupid to give him her real code, but she just wants this to end, and she’s more worried about her jewellery, her mother’s engagement ring and the necklace with the big emeralds she was given after Morgan was born.

  Susanna waits behind the door and keeps telling herself that this isn’t over yet, that she mustn’t lose her concentration for a moment.

  Carefully she changes hands on the lock, without letting go of it. Her right thumb and forefinger have gone numb. She shakes her hand and puts her ear to the door, thinking that it’s now been more than half an hour since she told him the code to her card.

  It was probably just a junkie who saw an open kitchen door and came inside to look for valuables.

  The last part of the programme is over. More adverts, and after them the news. She changes hands again and waits.

  After another ten minutes she lies down on the floor and peers under the door. There’s no one standing outside.

  She can see a large stretch of the parquet floor, she can see under the sofa, and the glow of the television reflected on the varnish.

  Everything’s quiet.

  Burglars aren’t violent, they just want money as quickly and simply as possible.

  Trembling, she gets up, takes hold of the lock again, then stands still with her ear to the door, listening to the news and weather forecast.

  Grabbing the shower scraper from the floor as a rudimentary weapon, she steels herself and cautiously unlocks the door.

  The door swings open without a sound.

  She can see almost the whole of the living room through the passageway. There’s no sign of the intruder. It’s as if he had never been there.

  She leaves the bathroom, her legs shaking with fear. Every sense is heightened as she approaches the living room.

  She hears a dog bark in the distance.

  Carefully she moves forwards, and sees the light from the television play on the closed curtains, the upholstered suite and the glass coffee table with the tub of ice cream on top of it.

  She’s planning to go into the bedroom, get her phone, then lock herself in the bathroom again and call the police.

  To her left she catches a glimpse of the glass-fronted cabinet containing the collection of Dresden china that Björn inherited. Her heart st
arts to beat faster. She’s almost at the end of the passageway, and only then will she be able to see all the way to the hall.

  She takes a step into the living room, looks round and notes that the dining room is empty, before realising that the intruder is right next to her. Just one step away. The thin figure is standing there waiting for her by the wall at the end of the passage.

  The stab of the knife is so fast that she doesn’t have time to react. The sharp blade goes straight into her chest.

  Her muscles tense around the metal deep inside her body.

  Her heart has never beaten as hard as it does now. Time stands still as she thinks that this can’t be real.

  The knife is pulled out, leaving behind a burning easing of tension. She presses her hand to the wound and feels warm blood pumping out between her fingers. The shower scraper clatters to the floor. She reels to one side, her head feels heavy and she can see her blood splattered across the shiny material of the raincoats. The light seems to be flickering and she tries to say something, that this must be some sort of misunderstanding, but she has no voice.

  Susanna turns round and walks towards the kitchen, feels quick jabs to her back and knows that she is being stabbed repeatedly.

  She stumbles sideways, fumbling for support, and knocks the display cabinet against the wall, making all the porcelain figures topple over with a clattering, tinkling sound.

  Her heart is racing as blood streams down inside the kimono. Her chest is hurting terribly.

  Her field of vision shrinks to a tunnel.

  Her ears are roaring and she is aware that the intruder is shouting something excitedly, but the words are unintelligible.

  Her chin flies up as she is grabbed by the hair. She tries to hold on to an armchair, but loses her grip.

  Her legs give way and she hits the floor.

  She can feel a burning sensation of liquid in one lung, and coughs weakly.

  Her head lolls sideways and she can see that there’s some old popcorn among the dust under the sofa.

  Through the roaring sound inside her she can hear peculiar screams, and feels rapid stabs to her stomach and chest.

  She tries to kick free, thinking to herself that she has to get back to the bathroom. The floor beneath her is slippery, and she has no energy left.

  She tries to roll over on to her side, but the intruder grabs her by the chin and suddenly jabs the knife into her face. It no longer hurts. But a sense of unreality is spinning in her head. Shock and an abstract sense of dislocation blur with the precise and intimate feeling of being cut in the face.

  The blade enters her neck and chest and face again. Her lips and cheeks fill with warmth and pain.

  Susanna realises that she’s not going to make it. Ice-cold anguish opens up like a chasm as she stops fighting for her life.

  6

  Psychiatrist Erik Maria Bark is leaning back in his pale grey sheepskin armchair. He has a large study in his home, with a varnished oak floor and built-in bookcases. The dark brick villa is in the oldest part of Gamla Enskede, just to the south of Stockholm.

  It’s the middle of the day, but he was on call last night and could do with a few hours’ sleep.

  He shuts his eyes and thinks about when Benjamin was small and used to like to hear how Mummy and Daddy met. Erik would sit down on the edge of his bed and explain how Cupid, the god of love, really did exist.

  He lived up amongst the clouds and looked like a chubby little boy with a bow and arrow in his hands.

  ‘One summer’s evening Cupid gazed down at Sweden and caught sight of me,’ Erik explained to his son. ‘I was at a university party, pushing my way through the crowd on the roof terrace when Cupid crept to the edge of his cloud and fired an arrow down towards the Earth.

  ‘I was wandering about at the party, talking to friends, eating peanuts and exchanging a few words with the head of department.

  ‘And at the exact moment that a woman with strawberry-blonde hair and a champagne glass in her hand looked in my direction, Cupid’s arrow hit me in the heart.’

  After almost twenty years of marriage Erik and Simone had agreed to separate, but she was probably the one who agreed the most.

  As Erik leans forward to switch his reading-lamp off, he catches a glimpse of his tired face in the narrow mirror by the bookcase. The lines on his forehead and the furrows in his cheeks are deeper than ever. His dark-brown hair is flecked with grey. He ought to get a haircut. A few loose strands are hanging in front of his eyes and he flicks them away with a jerk of his head.

  When Simone told him that she had met John, Erik realised it was over. Benjamin was pretty relaxed about the whole thing, and used to tease him by saying it would be cool to have two dads.

  Benjamin is eighteen years old now, and lives in the big house in Stockholm with Simone and her new man, his stepbrothers and sisters, and the dogs.

  On Erik’s old smoking table is the latest edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry and a copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, with a half-empty blister-pack of pills as a bookmark.

  Outside the leaded windows the rain is falling on the drenched vegetation of the garden.

  Erik pulls the tablets from the book and pops one sleeping-pill into his hand, trying to work out how long it would take his body to absorb the active substance, but he has to start again, then gives up. Just to be sure, he breaks the tablet in half along the little groove, blows the loose powder off to get rid of the bitter taste, then swallows one half.

  The rain streams down the windows as the muted tones of John Coltrane’s ‘Dear Old Stockholm’ flow from the speakers.

  The tablet’s chemical warmth spreads through his muscles. He shuts his eyes and enjoys the music.

  Erik Maria Bark is a trained doctor, psychiatrist and psychotherapist, specialising in psychological trauma and disaster counselling, and worked for the Red Cross in Uganda for five years.

  He spent four years leading a ground-breaking research project into group therapy involving deep hypnosis at the Karolinska Institute. He is a member of the European Society of Hypnosis, and is regarded as a leading international authority on clinical hypnotherapy.

  At the moment Erik is part of a small team specialising in acutely traumatised and post-traumatic patients. They are regularly called in to help the police and public prosecutors with complex interviews of crime victims.

  He often uses hypnosis to help witnesses relax, so that they can get to grips with their memories of traumatic situations.

  He’s got three hours before he needs to be at a meeting at the Karolinska Institute, and he’s hoping to spend most of that time asleep.

  But he’s not allowed to.

  He’s dragged straight into deep sleep, and starts dreaming that he’s carrying an old, bearded man through a very small house.

  Simone is shouting at him from behind a closed door when the phone rings. Erik jumps, and fumbles for the smoking-table. His heart is beating hard from the sudden anxiety of being yanked out of a state of deep relaxation.

  ‘Simone,’ he answers groggily.

  ‘Hello, Simone … I’m not sure, but maybe you should try to give up those French cigarettes?’ Nelly jokes in her laconic way. ‘Sorry to have to say this, but you almost sound like a man.’

  ‘Almost.’ Erik smiles, feeling the heaviness of the sleeping pill in his head.

  Nelly laughs, a fresh, tinkling laugh.

  Nelly Brandt is a psychologist, Erik’s closest colleague in the specialist team at the Karolinska Hospital. She’s extremely competent, works very hard, but is also very funny, often in a rather earthy way.

  ‘The police are here, they’re really agitated,’ she says, and only now does he hear how stressed she sounds.

  He rubs his eyes to get them to focus, and tries to listen to what Nelly is telling him about the police rushing in with an acutely shocked patient.

  Erik squints towards the window facing the street, as water streams down the glass.

  ‘We
’re checking his somatic status and running the routine tests,’ she says. ‘Blood and urine … liver status, kidney and thyroid function …’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Erik, the superintendent has asked for you specifically … It’s my fault, I happened to let slip that you were the best.’

  ‘Flattery doesn’t work on me,’ he says, getting to his feet somewhat unsteadily. He rubs his face with his hand, then grabs hold of the furniture as he makes his way towards the desk.

  ‘You’re standing up,’ she says cheerily.

  ‘Yes, but I …’

  ‘Then I’ll tell the police that you’re on your way.’

  Beneath the desk are a pair of black socks with dusty soles, a long, thin taxi receipt and a mobile phone charger. As he bends over to grab the socks the floor comes rushing up to meet him, and he would have fallen if he hadn’t put his hand out to stop himself.

  The objects on the desk merge and spread out in double vision. The silver pens in their holder radiate harsh reflexions.

  He reaches for a half-empty glass of water, takes a small sip and tells himself to get his act together.

  7

  The Karolinska University Hospital is one of the largest in Europe, with more than fifteen thousand members of staff. The Psychology Clinic is located slightly apart from the vast hospital precinct. From above, the building looks like a Viking ship from an ancient burial site, but when approached through the park it doesn’t look out of place among the other buildings. The nicotine-yellow stucco of the façade is still damp from the rain, with rust-coloured water running down the drainpipes. The front wheel of a bicycle is dangling from a chain in the bike-rack.

  The car tyres crunch softly as Erik turns into the car park.

  Nelly is standing on the steps waiting for him with two mugs of coffee. Erik can’t help smiling when he sees her happy grin and the consciously disinterested look in her eyes.

  Nelly is fairly tall, thin, and her bleached hair is always perfect, her make-up tasteful.

  Erik often sees her and her husband Martin socially. There’s no real need for Nelly to work, seeing as her husband is the main shareholder of Datametrix Nordic.