Stalker

by Lars Kepler

  ‘But some of what he’s told you has to be real memories?’ Joona says.

  ‘It should all be real, in theory … it’s just that it sounds psychotic,’ Erik points out.

  ‘If Rocky agrees to be hypnotised again, do it at once … try to get hold of concrete details, like names and places.’

  ‘I can do that, I know I can.’

  ‘If you can, I’ll be able to stop this serial killer,’ Joona says.

  ‘I’ll go down there first thing tomorrow morning,’ Erik says.

  They eat in silence. The glazed root vegetables lend an earthy sweetness to the acidity of the redcurrant sauce, the salad is dressed with balsamic vinegar and truffle oil, the lamb spiced with coarsely ground black pepper and cut in slightly pink slices.

  ‘You really do look much better already,’ Erik says as Joona helps himself to more food. ‘Six injections of penicillin and a bit of cortisone …’

  He tails off when his mobile starts to ring in his pocket. He pulls it out and sees from the screen that it’s Margot.

  ‘Yes, Erik here.’

  ‘Is Joona there?’ she asks in a shaky voice.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Rocky Kyrklund has escaped.’

  Erik passes the phone to Joona, then sits with his hands over his face, trying to gather his thoughts.

  Joona listens as Margot tells him that the senior consultant at Karsudden decided that Rocky should begin his rehabilitation that evening, before being formally granted parole.

  Rocky was supposed to try ordering food at the Pizzeria Primavera on Storgatan in Katrineholm. Two guards were seated at another table a short distance away, so as not to put him off. Rocky ate his pizza, drank a large glass of water, ordered coffee, then went into the toilet and climbed out through the window.

  Some youngsters saw him running along the railway line towards the forest beyond Lövåsen, but after that there had been no sign of him.

  ‘We’re not making a public appeal,’ Margot says. ‘The administrative court has already decided that he’s eligible to apply for parole, so Karsudden are looking after this themselves.’

  ‘How?’ Joona asks.

  ‘By not doing a thing,’ she replies. ‘I’ve spoken to the senior consultant, and he’s so relaxed I almost nodded off … Apparently it’s not uncommon for patients to run off the first time they get the chance. They almost always come back of their own accord when they realise how much things have changed, that their friends, flat, wife are all gone.’

  Joona ends the call, wipes his mouth on a napkin, puts it on his plate and meets Erik’s tired gaze.

  ‘I was the one who recommended he be let out on supervised excursions,’ Erik says, running his hand through his hair. ‘But he’ll come back, they nearly always do.’

  ‘We haven’t got time to sit and wait,’ Joona says. ‘We need to find him and get him to talk before the preacher kills again.’

  ‘He doesn’t have any family, and he’s never mentioned any friends … And the rectory isn’t there any more …’

  ‘Couldn’t he hide in the church itself, or somewhere nearby?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure he’s going to try to make his way to somewhere called the Zone before too long … That was where he used to get hold of heroin, and it sounded like he thought someone owed him money there.’

  ‘I don’t know about this Zone,’ Joona says.

  ‘It sounds like somewhere for heavy drugs … a fairly large place, given that there’s a stage and a load of prostitutes.’

  ‘I’ll find out where it is,’ Joona says, and stands up.

  ‘Thanks for dinner.’

  ‘There’s ice cream for dessert,’ Joona says, heading towards the hall.

  Erik starts to clear the table, but exhaustion hits with such ferocity that he leaves everything and staggers off to the library. His silver glasses case is no longer beside the stack of books on the smoking table. He shudders and turns to look out of the window, which is rattling on its catch. It’s still light out, but it will soon be dark, he thinks, as he sinks into the leather armchair and closes his eyes.

  He needs to pull himself together and try to understand what’s happening to him.

  Without opening his eyes he pops an Imovane from the pack on the table, holds it in his sweaty palm for a moment, then puts it in his mouth.

  Milky stillness empties his thoughts and he feels sleep rising up like a heavy wave when the phone rings. He can’t manage to focus his eyes enough to see who’s calling, and almost drops the phone but somehow catches it.

  ‘Hello?’ he says hoarsely, putting the mobile to his ear.

  ‘You won’t forget Maddy, will you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Erik, what’s wrong?’ Jackie asks seriously.

  ‘Nothing, I was just sitting … and …’

  He loses his train of thought and clears his throat instead.

  ‘You’re picking Maddy up – but you knew that?’

  ‘Of course, no problem … it’s on the calendar.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she says warmly.

  ‘I’ve been practising,’ he slurs, and shuts his eyes.

  ‘Call me if there’s a problem and I’ll come, they’ll have to manage without an organist. Promise you’ll call me.’

  72

  Joona is sitting in Erik’s car, driving towards the centre of Stockholm while he waits for Anja Larsson of the National Criminal Investigation Department to call him back. He’s passed the Globe and is on his way into the tunnels beneath Södermalm when his phone lights up.

  Anja’s fingernails are still tapping at the keyboard of her computer as she tells him she hasn’t managed to find anything yet.

  ‘The Zone isn’t in our register, it never has been,’ she says in a resigned voice.

  ‘Maybe its real name is something different?’

  ‘I’ve tried the border control agency, the security section, IT, and Surveillance … I’ve started asking questions on a load of really nice online forums and sex websites.’

  ‘Can you get hold of Milan?’ he asks.

  ‘I’d rather not,’ Anja replies bluntly.

  The car windows sigh as Joona heads into the narrow mouth of the tunnel. The lights in the roof and along the walls pulse towards him and Anja’s voice disappears.

  ‘We’ve got to find Rocky Kyrklund,’ he says, unsure if the connection has been lost altogether.

  ‘Wait outside the front door,’ she says distantly. ‘I’ll come down and …’

  Then silence, and Joona drives deeper into the tunnel as he thinks about everything Erik has told him.

  Ten minutes later he parks on the steep hill leading to the park, gets his stick and walks down to the glazed entrance of the National Police Headquarters.

  Through the layers of glass he sees Margot pass the airlocks and head outside with heavy steps.

  ‘I happened to hear that Anja has arranged a meeting between you and Milan on the steps below Barnhusbron,’ Margot says.

  ‘You’ll have to stay at a distance.’

  They walk down Bergsgatan together, past the solid façade of the Kronoberg swimming pool and the heavy metal gate to the prison.

  ‘When can I have my pistol back?’ Joona says, leaning on his stick with each step.

  ‘I’m not even allowed to talk to you,’ she points out.

  As they pass the oldest parts of Police Headquarters, where the regional police chief has his offices, Margot tells him that Björn Kern has started to talk. Apparently his hypnosis had the effect that Erik was hoping for, providing him with a key to help him past the shock and find a way of structuring his memories.

  ‘Björn says his wife was sitting on the floor with her hand over her ear when he found her.’

  ‘The same pattern,’ Joona nods.

  ‘We’ve got nothing but the murders and the recurring modus operandi. We’ve gathered a hell of a lot of questions, but no answers at all so far.’

  They cut a
cross Rådhusparken. Joona is limping and Margot holds both hands around her big stomach.

  ‘The act of filming them through windows is central,’ Joona says after a while.

  ‘What are you thinking? I’m not getting anywhere,’ she admits, glancing sideways at him.

  The trees are shimmering grey with damp, and there are yellow leaves in their crowns.

  Joona is thinking that the murderer is a voyeur, a stalker who gets to know his victims, and chooses to capture a recurrent moment of life in his films.

  ‘And the hands,’ he mutters.

  ‘Yes, what the hell is going on with the hands?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replies, thinking that the hands are used to mark different places on the body.

  It wasn’t Filip Cronstedt who took the Saturn tongue-stud from Maria, it was the murderer, the person Filip had caught a glimpse of in the garden, filming in the rain.

  Maybe the tongue-stud was the reason why the preacher went in, the incitement that was needed for him to cross the boundary?

  They walk past a 7-Eleven shop. The tabloids’ flysheets are offering a test to check if your boss is a psychopath.

  Joona thinks that the preacher kills the woman, takes her jewellery, marks the place he took it from with the victim’s hand to let us know why, and maybe understand the nature of the accusation.

  It’s a sort of announcement of the accusation, like the one hung on Jesus’s cross.

  Rebecka Hansson was found sitting with her hand around her neck, Maria Carlsson with her hand in her mouth, Susanna Kern with her hand over her ear, and Sandra Lundgren with her hand over her breast.

  ‘He’s taken something from each and every one of them … It could be jewellery, it could be something else,’ he says.

  ‘But why?’ Margot asks.

  ‘Because they’ve broken the rules.’

  ‘Joona, I know you go your own way,’ Margot says. ‘But if you do track Rocky down at that place and find something out, it would be nice if you shared it.’

  ‘I’ll call you privately,’ he replies after a brief pause.

  ‘I don’t care how you go about it,’ she says. ‘But I’d really like to stop this fucking killer before we have any more victims … and preferably without losing my job.’

  As they cross Fleminggatan and approach the location for his meeting with Milan, he tells her to wait.

  ‘Keep your distance now,’ he repeats.

  ‘Who the hell is this Milan, anyway?’

  Milan has steered clear of Police Headquarters for the past six years. The only time Joona has seen him was on a film from a surveillance camera. He was in the background of a shady underworld fight, acting weirdly and then shooting a man in the back.

  Milan Plašil works for the drugs squad, usually on long-term surveillance and infiltration jobs, and he has the largest network of informants in the whole of Stockholm.

  ‘He’s pretty smart,’ Joona replies.

  There are rumours that he has a child with a woman in the Bosnian mafia, but no one really knows. Milan has become a grey, shadowy figure. Always living in the liminal world of the infiltrator, and always having a hidden agenda, has made him a stranger to everyone.

  ‘You might think he’s unarmed, but he’s probably got a Beretta Nano strapped round his ankle,’ Joona says.

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because he’d sacrifice us if we posed a risk to his undercover work.’

  ‘Should I be worried?’ Margot wonders.

  ‘Milan’s kind of unusual, so it would be best to keep your distance,’ Joona repeats.

  He leaves her on the other side of the street and carries on alone past the imposing buildings, to the end of the bridge, then down the steps to the bottom of the first flight, where the addicts usually hang out.

  The air is thick with the smell of stale urine, the ground covered with cigarette butts and the remnants of a broken green-glass bottle.

  The steel arches of the bridge are covered with spikes to stop pigeons landing there, but the entire concrete foundations are still hidden beneath a thick layer of droppings.

  A shadow approaches along the walkway. Joona realises that it’s Milan, leans his stick against the wall and waits for him to climb up to the landing.

  Milan Plašil is thirty years old, with shaved hair and dark, canine eyes. He’s thin as a teenager, and dressed in a shiny black tracksuit and expensive trainers.

  ‘I’ve heard about you, Joona Linna,’ Milan says, glancing down towards the water.

  ‘I need to find a place called the Zone.’

  ‘You usually carry a forty-five.’

  ‘Colt Combat.’

  ‘She can’t stand up there,’ Milan says, nodding up the steps.

  Joona sighs when he realises that Margot has followed him, and turns round to call to her.

  ‘Margot? Come down!’

  She looks over the railing, hesitates, then comes down the steps with her hand on the rail.

  ‘The Zone,’ Milan repeats.

  ‘It’s somewhere that’s existed for more than ten years, probably south of Stockholm, but we don’t know for sure …’

  ‘You can stop there,’ Milan says to Margot when she has almost reached the landing.

  ‘It’s a place where you can buy serious drugs and sex,’ Joona says.

  ‘If I say something, I want a kiss on the lips,’ Milan smiles.

  ‘OK,’ Joona says.

  ‘Her too, she needs to do it as well.’

  ‘What?’ Margot asks, peering at them.

  ‘I want a kiss,’ Milan says, pointing at his lips.

  ‘No,’ she laughs.

  ‘Then you have to look at my cock,’ he says seriously, and pulls his trousers and underpants down.

  ‘Sweet,’ she says without batting an eyelid.

  ‘Shit, I’m only messing about, yeah? I get it, you’re National Crime, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Armed?’ he asks, pulling his trousers back up.

  ‘Glock.’

  Milan laughs silently and looks down at the walkway. A swarm of tiny insects is hovering in the air by the side of the steps.

  ‘The only place that’s at all like your description used to be out in Barkarby,’ he says, giving Joona a quick glance. ‘Club Noir, that was its name. But it’s gone now … This is neither the country nor the time for big brothels. The most usual sort these days is a flat with a couple of girls from Eastern Europe, all done on the Internet, loads of links in the chain, no one’s ever guilty of a fucking thing …’

  ‘But this place did exist?’ Joona says.

  ‘Before my time. It’s not there any more, it can’t be, no one ever mentions it …’

  ‘Who do we ask?’

  Milan turns towards him. A faint shadow of a moustache makes his lips look even thinner. His small black eyes are set deep, close together.

  ‘Me,’ he replies. ‘If it’s possible to buy heroin there, I’d know about it … unless it’s a tiny Russian enclave.’

  ‘So where do people buy heroin?’ Margot asks.

  ‘If you don’t have any contacts, Sergels torg is still the place to go. Nothing changes … Medborgarplatsen and Rinkeby shopping centre too … A lot’s been getting through lately … from Afghanistan, but it gets repackaged several times along the way. Once again, no one’s ever guilty …’

  Milan rubs his nose hard, spits close to Margot’s feet, then repeats that the Zone doesn’t exist.

  73

  Erik has had a terrible headache for two days. He’s spent the morning reading Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry while a morose man tunes the grand piano that’s just been brought in through the terrace doors.

  Erik looks up as Joona Linna emerges from the study. He’s changed into a tracksuit and disappeared into the hall when there’s a ring on the door.

  ‘Erik’s bought a grand piano,’ an excited girl’s voice says.

  ‘You must be Madeleine,�
� Joona says.

  Erik puts his book down when he hears their voices, and quickly goes into the toilet and rinses his face. His hands are shaking, and he feels a pang of angst as he looks into his own bloodshot eyes. The three photographs, the smell of plastic in the meeting room, Sandra’s green eyes and Maria Carlsson’s generous smile are chasing through his mind.

  When he returns Jackie and Madeleine are already standing in the living room in front of the piano, whispering and giggling. Jackie folds her white stick away and puts her hand on her daughter’s shoulder when he walks in.

  ‘Are you trying to impress me?’ she asks.

  ‘It’s really, really lovely,’ Madeleine says.

  ‘Try it,’ Erik says shakily.

  ‘Has it been tuned after the move?’ Jackie asks.

  ‘That was part of the deal,’ he replies.

  Madeleine sits down on the stool and starts playing one of Satie’s nocturnes. She moves her fingers softly, and her little body is upright and focused. When she finishes the last note she turns round with a big smile on her face. Erik applauds and can almost feel tears welling up in his eyes.

  ‘Wonderful … how can you be so good?’

  ‘It’s going to need to be tuned again fairly soon,’ Jackie says.

  ‘OK.’

  She smiles and runs her fingers over the shiny black of the closed lid. Her hand looks like it’s made out of stone in the reflection in the varnish.

  ‘But it sounds very nice.’

  ‘Good,’ Erik says.

  Madeleine tugs at his arm.

  ‘Now I want to hear the robot play,’ she says.

  ‘No,’ Erik protests.

  ‘Yes!’ both Madeleine and Jackie laugh.

  ‘OK, but you’ve set a very high standard,’ Erik mumbles, and sits down.

  He puts his fingers on the keys, feels himself shaking and stops himself before he’s even started.

  ‘I mean, Maddy … I’m so impressed,’ he says.

  ‘You’re good too,’ she says.

  ‘Are you this good at football?’

  ‘No …’

  ‘I bet you are,’ Erik says warmly. ‘I was thinking of coming early, so I have time to see you score a goal tomorrow.’

  The girl’s face stiffens and she looks upset.