Stalker

by Lars Kepler

  Joona moves to one side, blinks, and sees in the mirror that there’s a knife sticking out of the box in front of Filip.

  ‘We need to talk to you,’ Adam says, moving forward cautiously.

  ‘How many videos are you in every day?’ Filip asks, staring at the floor. ‘Where does it all go, what decisions does it lead to?’

  ‘We can talk about that if you let the girls go.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit about Snowden and optic nerves,’ he says slowly, pointing at the ceiling.

  ‘Just let the girls go, and—’

  ‘This isn’t Prism or XKeyscore or Echelon,’ he interrupts in a louder voice. ‘This is a fuck of a lot bigger than that.’

  Joona puts his pistol back in its holster and walks slowly towards the woman whose name is evidently Sophia. He can feel the last of his strength draining away, the way icy water makes everything sluggish, but scorchingly sleepy.

  Filip’s hand is getting closer to the knife sticking out of the box.

  Sophia falters, and the wire rattles softly.

  ‘Saturn ate his children,’ Filip goes on, then sniggers. ‘I mean, the NSA is much bigger … and we’re their children …’

  Joona just manages to see him put his hand on the knife before his vision flares again and he has to lean his own hand against the wall to stop himself falling.

  Little dots are still floating before his eyes as he starts to loosen the coarse wire around Sophia’s waist. He has to rest his forehead against her shoulder for a while before going on. He can hear her shallow breathing.

  Without showing any sign of outward anxiety, he unwinds the wire some twenty revolutions before she’s free.

  ‘Are there more of you down here?’ he asks in a subdued voice as he leads her out of the storeroom.

  ‘Just me and my sister,’ she replies.

  ‘We’re going to get you out. What’s your sister’s name?’

  ‘Carola.’

  The metal wire unravels on the cement floor with a scraping sound.

  Filip tugs at the knife, making the side of the box bulge out before he loses his grip.

  ‘We’re here now, but who ends up in Guantánamo? You don’t know, do you?’ he says without looking at them.

  ‘Carola,’ Joona says in a normal tone of voice. ‘Could you come over here, please?’

  Sophia’s sister puts the lid back on the jar of mushrooms and shakes her head without looking up.

  ‘Carola, come to me,’ Sophia says.

  She sits there picking at the jar, as Filip looks at her and scratches his neck.

  ‘Come on,’ Joona says, feeling his gun rub against his chest.

  ‘Eugene is with them, you know, GCHQ … the NSA. Same thing … I’ve been so badly fucking deceived, for years … Everyone’s naked, everyone’s having fun … but how can you protect yourself if you’re completely naked, if everyone can film you from the fucking back?’

  The torch spins round and dark shadows cross their faces and shoulders.

  ‘Sophia wants you to come over here,’ Joona says.

  Carola looks up and smiles at her sister. Sophia brushes the tears from her cheeks and holds out her hand.

  ‘Can we go home now?’ Carola whispers, and stands up at last.

  She’s about to start walking when Filip grabs hold of her hair and pulls her back, tugs the knife from the box and holds it to her throat.

  ‘Hang on, hang on, take it easy now,’ Adam calls. ‘Look, I’m putting my gun down.’

  ‘Go to hell!’ Filip screams and sticks the knife into his forehead before putting it to Carola’s throat again.

  ‘Do something!’ Sophia whimpers.

  Blood from the wound in Filip’s forehead trickles through one eyebrow and drips down on to his cheek.

  ‘I know you’re only trying to protect her,’ Joona says calmly.

  ‘Yes, but you—’

  ‘Listen to me,’ Adam interrupts, breathing quickly. ‘You need to put the knife down.’

  Sophia is sobbing with her hand over her mouth. Filip looks at Adam and grins at him.

  ‘I know where you’re from,’ he says, and presses the knife harder against Carola’s neck.

  ‘Put the knife down now,’ Adam shouts, moving sideways to get a clear line of fire.

  Filip watches Adam and licks his lips nervously. The room is gloomy, but blood is clearly running down the blade.

  ‘Filip, you’re hurting her,’ Joona says, trying to conquer his dizziness. ‘You don’t have to do that, we’re no threat to you …’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘We’re just here to—’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘We’re here to ask about Maria Carlsson,’ Joona concludes.

  ‘Maria? My Maria?’ he says in a low voice. ‘Why …?’

  Joona nods and thinks that he could shoot Filip in the shoulder, disarm him and then lie down on the floor. He’s waited too long. He can hardly see anything now, through the burning pain behind his eyes.

  ‘Look, I’m taking my gun out and giving it to you,’ Joona says, carefully drawing his Colt.

  Filip stares at him with bloodshot eyes.

  ‘Maria said the NSA have started creeping about in her garden,’ he explains. ‘I went over and saw for myself, a skinny man in yellow overalls, like the Lofoten fishermen when I was little, he was filming her through the window, and …’

  Joona wipes some blood from his nose and then his head explodes and his legs give way.

  Sophia screams when he slumps on to his side, tries to get up, but falls on to his back and lies there with his eyelids quivering.

  She goes over to him and kneels down. A bubbling, pulsing sensation behind one eye makes him hold his breath. Before it goes completely dark he feels her pull the pistol from his hand.

  She stands up, straightens her back, takes a few shallow, panting breaths, then aims the pistol at Filip.

  ‘Let my sister go!’ she says sharply. ‘Just let her go!’

  ‘Put the gun down,’ Adam says in a shaky voice, and moves between them. ‘I’m a police officer, you need to trust me.’

  ‘Get out of the way!’ she yells. ‘Filip’s not going to let her go!’

  ‘Don’t do anything silly,’ Adam says, holding out his hand.

  ‘Don’t touch me – I’ll shoot!’

  She’s clutching the pistol with both hands, but the barrel is still shaking.

  ‘Give me the gun and—’

  There’s a deafening explosion as the pistol goes off. The bullet grazes Adam’s torso and hits Filip in the top of his arm. The knife falls to the floor and Filip stares at Sophia in astonishment as blood seeps through his fingers.

  ‘Get out of the way!’ she shouts again.

  Adam lurches to the side, and feels warm blood pulsing out beneath his clothes. Sophia fires again, and hits Filip right in the chest. Blood spatters the boxes behind him and runs across the glass of the mirror. The empty cartridge falls to the ground with a tinkling sound.

  Carola is still standing there with her head bowed, and slowly raises her hand to her neck. Sophia lowers the gun and stares blankly at Filip, who slumps down and sits on the floor, leaning back against a box.

  He picks listlessly at the wound in his chest as blood pumps out, and his eyes flit about as he tries to say something.

  46

  On his way to his piano lesson, Erik stops at the ICA supermarket next to the Globe. He knows Madeleine loves popcorn, so he’s thinking of buying a few bags. As he walks through the shop he catches sight of his former patient, Nestor, in the dairy section. The tall, slim man is dressed in pressed trousers and a knitted grey sweater over a white shirt. His thin, clean-shaven face and small head with its white hair and side-parting look exactly the same as ever.

  Nestor has seen him, and smiles in surprise, but Erik doesn’t go over to talk to him, just waves from a distance and carries on through the shop.

  He picks up some popcorn and is on his way towards t
he checkout when he sees a popcorn machine on special offer. He knows he has a tendency to go over the top, but it doesn’t weigh much, and isn’t particularly expensive.

  When he emerges into the car park with his bags of corn and the popcorn machine, he catches sight of Nestor again. The tall man is waiting at the crossing, on his way towards the underground. He has six full bags of shopping by his sides. They’re so heavy that he can only carry them a few metres at a time.

  Erik opens the boot of his car and puts the box inside. He’s sure Nestor hasn’t spotted him. The shy man is muttering to himself as he picks up the bags, shuffles a few metres, then puts them down again.

  Nestor is standing blowing into his thin hands as Erik goes up to him.

  ‘That looks heavy,’ he says.

  ‘Erik? No, it’s f-fine.’ Nestor smiles.

  ‘Where do you live? I’ll give you a lift.’

  ‘I don’t want to be a nuisance,’ he whispers.

  ‘You’re not,’ Erik says, picking up four of the bags.

  As Nestor gets in the car beside him, he repeats that he could have managed. Erik replies that he knows that, and pulls out slowly from his parking space.

  ‘Thanks for the coffee … but you shouldn’t be buying things for me,’ Erik says.

  ‘You saved m-my life,’ Nestor replies quietly.

  Erik recalls how Nestor’s psychotic breakdown happened when his seriously ill dog had to be put down three years ago.

  When he was allocated to Erik as a patient, Erik had read the notes from the secure psychiatric unit where Nestor had been admitted. He used to talk to dead people: a grey lady who brushed dandruff from her hair, and a mean old man who twisted his arms in different directions.

  During Erik’s conversations with him, it emerged that Nestor was fixated upon his dog’s death. He talked a lot about the syringe being stuck in his right front paw, and how the fluid was injected. The dog shook and urine spread across the bench as its muscles relaxed. He felt he had been tricked by the vet and the vet’s wife.

  Nestor responded well to treatment, but when he tried to cut down his daily dose of Risperdal, he began hearing strange voices again.

  Erik was never sure if had actually managed to hypnotise Nestor, he may have belonged to the small group who weren’t receptive, but during those relaxed sessions in the dimly lit treatment room they did at least begin to get to grips with things.

  Nestor had grown up with his mother, younger brother, and a black Labrador. When he was seven, his five-year-old brother became seriously ill with a lung infection, which exacerbated his already bad asthma. The boys’ mother told Nestor that his brother would die unless they had the dog put down. Nestor took the dog to Söderbysjön and drowned it in a trunk full of stones.

  But his brother died anyway.

  In Nestor’s mind, the two events became intertwined. He had always suffered from the belief that he had drowned his brother in a trunk, and had no memory of the dog.

  They worked on his anger with his mother’s damaging manipulation, and after a month he finally let go of the idea of his own guilt, and the notion that his mother could sometimes control his actions from beyond the grave.

  Nestor was living normally again now, didn’t need to take any medication, and was incredibly grateful to Erik.

  They pass St Mark’s Church in Björkhagen and pull up outside Axvallsvägen 53.

  Nestor unbuckles his seat belt and Erik helps him carry his food to the door of his ground-floor flat.

  ‘Thanks for everything,’ the former patient says in a tremulous voice. ‘I’ve got ice cream, and time to—’

  ‘I need to get going,’ Erik says.

  ‘But I have to offer you s-something,’ Nestor says, opening the door.

  ‘Nestor, I’ve got an appointment.’

  ‘Walk across the dead without a s-sound. Walk across the dead and hear their murmuring resound.’

  ‘I haven’t got time for riddles now,’ Erik says, and walks out of the door of the building.

  ‘Promise!’ Nestor calls after him.

  47

  Jackie and Madeleine are sitting together on the sofa eating popcorn while Erik tries to play his étude.

  Madeleine says he’s very good every time he makes a mistake. She’s tired and her yawns are getting bigger and bigger.

  Jackie tries to explain the quaver rests and the rhythmic pattern, and gets up and puts her right hand on top of his.

  She asks him to start from the twenty-second bar with his left hand, then she suddenly falls silent, goes back to her daughter, and listens to her breathing.

  ‘Could you manage to carry her to bed?’ she asks. ‘My elbow isn’t up to it.’

  Erik gets up from the piano and picks the child up. Jackie walks ahead of them, opens the door to the girl’s room, turns the light out and pulls the covers back for Erik.

  Erik carefully lays Madeleine down on her bed, and brushes the hair from her face.

  Jackie tucks her daughter in and kisses her on the cheek, whispers something in her ear, and turns on the little pink nightlight on the bedside table.

  Only now does Erik see that the walls of the child’s bedroom are covered in rude words, curses and obscenities.

  Some of the words are written in childish scribble in chalk, misspelled, whereas others are written in more confident handwriting. Erik presumes Madeleine must have been doing this for several years. Her mother is the only person unable to see what she’s done.

  ‘What is it?’ Jackie says, noticing his silence.

  ‘Nothing,’ he says, closing the door gently behind him.

  As they walk through the hall, Erik wonders if he should tell Jackie about what he saw, or just let it go.

  ‘Should I leave?’ Erik asks.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jackie replies.

  She holds out her hands and feels his face, stroking his cheeks and chin.

  ‘I’m just going to get some water,’ she says hoarsely, then goes into the kitchen and opens a cupboard.

  He helps her, standing close to her, filling the glass and passing it to her. She drinks, and then he kisses her cool mouth before she has time to wipe her chin.

  They embrace, she stands on tiptoe and they kiss each other deeply, foreheads bumping together.

  Erik’s hands slide over her back and hips. The fabric of her skirt has a peculiar texture, and rustles like thin paper.

  She pulls away slightly, turns her face and puts one hand on his chest.

  ‘We don’t have to,’ he says to her.

  She shakes her head and puts her hand behind his neck again, pulls him to her, kisses his neck, fumbles with the buttons of his trousers, then stops herself.

  ‘Are the curtains closed?’ she whispers.

  ‘Yes.’

  She goes to the door and listens for any sound in the corridor, then closes it carefully.

  ‘Maybe we shouldn’t do this here, not now.’

  ‘OK,’ he says.

  She stands with her back to the draining board, one hand on the counter, her mouth half-open.

  ‘Can you see me?’ she asks, taking her dark glasses off.

  ‘Yes,’ Erik replies.

  Her clothes are disordered, her blouse hanging outside her skirt, and her short hair is rather messed up.

  ‘Sorry, I’m being difficult.’

  ‘There’s no rush,’ Erik mumbles, and walks up to her, takes hold of her shoulders and kisses her again.

  ‘Let’s take our clothes off. Shall we?’ she whispers.

  They get undressed in the kitchen, and Jackie starts talking slowly about a radio report she heard about the persecution of Christians in Iraq.

  ‘Now France is offering asylum to all of them,’ she smiles.

  He unbuttons his trousers and looks at her as she lays item after item on the chair, and undoes her bra.

  Completely naked, Erik goes and stands beside her, thinking that he feels oddly natural. He doesn’t even try to hold his stoma
ch in.

  Jackie’s teeth glisten in the faint light as she pulls her underpants down, wriggles her legs and lets them fall.

  ‘I’m not a shy person,’ she says quietly.

  Her nipples are pale brown, and in the darkness she looks luminous. A marbled tracery of veins is faintly visible beneath her pale skin. Her dark pubic hair makes her inner thighs look fragile.

  Erik takes her outstretched hand and kisses her. She backs into the chair and sits down. He leans forward, kisses her on the lips again, then kneels down and kisses her breasts and stomach. He pulls her carefully to the edge of the chair and parts her legs. Her folded clothes fall to the floor.

  She’s already wet, and tastes of warm sugar to Erik. Her thighs quiver against his cheeks and her breathing grows heavier.

  The salt cellar topples over on the table and rolls in a semi-circle.

  She holds his head between her legs, gasping faster, the chair slides backwards and she slips gently on to the floor with a smile.

  ‘I’m not sure I’m any good at relationships,’ she says, resting the back of her head uncomfortably against the seat of the chair.

  ‘I’m just a pupil,’ he whispers.

  She rolls over on to her stomach and starts to crawl under the table. He follows her and grabs hold of her behind just as she rolls on to her back.

  She pulls him gently to her, between her thighs, hears him hit his head on the table and feels the heat of his bare skin against hers.

  Jackie holds his back hard and gasps for breath as he slowly slides into her and then pauses.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ she whispers.

  Her heart is pounding and the torrent of thoughts has finally fallen silent. She moves her hips, presses herself towards him and feels the silky heat from her crotch.

  The hard floor disappears behind her, her thighs tremble and stretch, and Erik moves faster. She tenses her buttocks and toes and whimpers against his shoulder as her orgasm pulsates through her body.

  Erik wakes up in the darkness to the sound of gentle piano music. It sounds strangely muted, like a piano buried under the ground. At first he thinks he’s dreaming. He reaches out his hand but can’t feel Jackie. Moonlight filters through the fabric of the curtains, casting strange, long shadows across the room. With a shiver he creeps out of bed and into the flat. Jackie is sitting naked on the piano stool in the living room. She’s placed a thin blanket over the piano to muffle the sound.