by Lars Kepler
Rocky slowly raises his head. His eyelids are heavy, his pupils like pinpricks of black ink.
‘Judas Iscariot,’ he mumbles when he sees Erik.
‘Yes,’ Erik says.
Rocky smiles happily and slowly closes his eyes. The woman beside him puts a ball of cotton-wool in the solution, holds her syringe on top of it and sucks up the solution, then attaches a needle to the syringe.
Joona notices that the man in camouflage trousers is sitting on a chair outside the staffroom again, looking at his phone. At the other end of the room the man with the grey moustache disappears through the beaded curtain with the woman.
‘Do you remember telling me about the unclean preacher?’ Erik asks, squatting down in front of Rocky.
Rocky opens his tired eyes and shakes his head.
‘Is that supposed to be me? The preacher?’
‘I don’t think so. I think you meant someone else,’ Erik says. ‘You talked about a man in make-up with scarred veins.’
Next to them the woman uses her briefs as a tourniquet round her arm, tightening them as hard as she can by twisting a pen through them a couple of times.
‘Do you remember him killing a woman here at the Zone?’
‘No,’ Rocky grins.
‘She was known as Tina, but her real name was Natalia,’ Erik goes on.
‘Yes, that … that was him, that was the preacher,’ Rocky mutters.
The woman on the sofa bed looks for a vein in the usual places, a soft spot without too many scars.
‘I need to know … are we talking about a real preacher, a priest?’
Rocky nods and closes his eyes.
‘Which church?’ Erik asks.
Rocky whispers to himself and Erik leans forward until he can smell his rancid breath.
‘The preacher is jealous … just like God,’ he whispers.
The woman inserts the needle and a drop of blood mixes with the yellow liquid before she injects it. With nimble fingers she undoes the tourniquet and lets out a long groan as the kick washes through her. Erik watches her stretch her legs, tense her ankles, then relax as her body goes completely soft.
‘We believe the preacher has murdered at least five women, and we need a name, a parish, or an address,’ Erik says.
‘What are you saying?’ Rocky mutters, closing his eyes again.
‘You were going to tell me about the preacher,’ Erik persists. ‘I need a name, or—’
‘Stop banging on,’ the woman says, lying back against Rocky’s hairy thigh.
‘Say hello to Ying,’ Rocky murmurs, stroking her head clumsily.
While Erik tries to get Rocky to remember, Joona is keeping an eye on the room. The fat man in the camouflage trousers gets up from the chair outside the staffroom and peers out across the room. Joona watches him put his phone in his pocket and set off through the sofas. He stops by one man who’s lying with his eyes closed, a lit cigarette between his lips, then returns to his place.
‘You want me to tell you things,’ Rocky says. ‘But all I remember from purgatory is that I was sitting in a little monkey cage … and there were long wooden poles with glowing ends—’
‘Blah, blah, blah,’ Ying interrupts with a hoarse laugh.
‘I howled, tried to get away, tried to protect myself with my food bowl … blah, blah, blah,’ he smiles.
‘Seriously, though,’ Erik says in a louder voice. ‘I won’t disturb you any more, if you can just tell me something that will help us find him.’
It looks as though Rocky’s dozed off. His mouth slips open a few millimetres and a string of saliva dribbles into his beard.
The man with the grey moustache comes back from the other side of the room. The curtain sways behind him, letting a yellow glow into the room before the Mona Lisa’s face reforms.
‘We can’t stay here much longer,’ Joona tells Erik.
Ying tries to put her briefs on but they catch between her toes and she leans back and rests with her eyes shut.
‘My brain is mush,’ Rocky mumbles. ‘You need to …’
‘Blah, blah, blah,’ Ying says.
‘Give me a name,’ Erik persists.
‘You’re probably going to have to hypnotise me if …’
‘Can you stand up?’ Erik asks. ‘Let me help you.’
Joona sees the fat man in the camouflage trousers get up from his chair again. He’s speaking on his phone as he sets off towards them.
The woman in the studded collar is standing in the doorway leading to the stage, holding the curtain open. She seems to be hesitating about whether to come in or not.
Behind her Joona can see a tall figure in a yellow oilskin coat. The sort fishermen used to wear.
At first he doesn’t understand how he knows that he’s staring at the preacher, but his mind suddenly brings a moment from the past into sharp focus.
‘Erik,’ Joona says quietly. ‘The preacher is here, he’s standing over there by the curtain, in a yellow raincoat.’
The woman in the studded collar waves to someone and stumbles into the room. The beads of the curtain swing back and sway in front of the yellow figure.
And now Joona remembers how Filip Cronstedt described the man who was filming Maria Carlsson.
The last thing he heard before he collapsed in the storeroom was that the thin man with the camera was wearing yellow oilskins, like the fishermen in Lofoten.
Joona starts walking, but the man in the camouflage trousers steps round the flowery sofa and stops him.
‘I have to ask you and your friend to come with me,’ he says.
‘Erik,’ Joona says. ‘You saw him, didn’t you? Over there by the curtain. That’s the preacher. You have to follow him, try to get a look at his face.’
‘This club is for members only,’ the man says.
‘We were thinking of buying a sofa,’ Joona says, as he sees Erik hurry away towards the curtain.
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The fat man shouts at him to stop, but Erik carries on, weaving quickly between the sofas. The man yells at Joona to move out of the way. An armchair gets shoved backwards, making a scraping sound on the floor.
‘Pydään anteeksi,’ Joona says in Finnish, stopping him again.
The man brushes Joona’s hand away, steps back and pulls out a projectile taser.
‘Nyt se pian sattuu,’ Joona goes on with a smile.
He takes a step forward, sliding out of the line of fire, pushes the taser aside with his hand and kicks the man in the knee, making his leg buckle. The man gasps and two projectiles with spiral wires slam into the back of a sofa. Joona twists the taser out of the man’s hand and hits him in the collarbone with it, then wraps the wires round his neck and pulls. The man collapses to the floor, rolls over and tries to get up again. Joona forces him back down with his foot, winds the wires round his hand and pulls them tighter until the man loses consciousness and slumps to the floor.
Erik disappears through the bead curtain beside the stage.
The door of the staffroom at the other end of the room opens. A broad-shouldered man in a shiny jacket emerges with a phone to his ear, and looks round.
Joona sits down to stay out of sight, but knows he has to stop the man from going after Erik.
Rocky still has his eyes closed, but he’s now got a cigarette between his lips.
The prostitute with the studded collar pushes a used tissue between the cushions of a sofa and walks over to Joona in her high heels.
‘Shall we go to a room? I can show you a good time,’ she says, moving closer.
‘Stay out of the way,’ he replies abruptly.
She wipes her mouth and starts to walk towards the beaded curtain.
The man in the shiny jacket has seen Joona. He heads towards him, pushing a chair over as he approaches. Joona stands up and sees that the man is hiding a weapon by his hip, a high-calibre pistol with a short barrel.
The fat man is lying on his back, untangling the wires from his neck, coughing and tryi
ng to get up.
The man in the shiny jacket stops in front of Joona, with the flowery sofa between them, and screws a silencer on to his Sig Pro.
‘I’ll shoot you in both knees unless you come with me,’ he says.
Joona holds up one hand in a calming gesture and tries to back away, but the fat man on the floor grabs hold of his legs.
‘I didn’t know this was a private club,’ Joona says, trying to pull his legs free.
The armed man has finished fitting the silencer, raises the gun and squeezes the trigger. Joona throws himself aside, lands on his shoulder and hits his temple on the floor.
There’s no sound as the gun goes off, but the powder is hanging in the air, and a naked man behind Joona stands up with blood streaming from a bullet hole in his stomach. A woman screams and hurries to move away from him, and falls on all fours.
‘Time to die,’ the man with the gun pants, climbing up on to the sofa to see over the back of it.
Joona grabs hold of the toppled lamp and swings the heavy base in a semi-circle. It hits the man in the shoulder and he staggers to one side. The cable clatters on the floor as it snakes along behind. The man leans against the back of the sofa and Joona reaches him before he has time to fire, knocking the pistol aside and punching him squarely in the throat.
He grabs the warm barrel of the gun and feels a heavy blow to his cheek as he bends the weapon upwards.
The man recoils, clutching his throat. He can’t breathe and saliva is dribbling from his gaping mouth.
Joona takes a step back as he twists the gun round and shoots the man through his right lung.
The only sound is a sharp click, instead of a loud bang.
The empty shell bounces off the cement floor.
The man staggers, trying to cover the entry hole with his hand, coughs, then slumps back onto the sofa.
The fat man gets unsteadily to his feet with a knife in his hand. One of his shoulders is drooping and the taser is still dangling from the wires around his neck.
Joona moves away and glances quickly towards the bead curtain.
The man takes a couple of steps and jabs with the knife. Joona backs into a table as he feels the tip of the blade touch his jacket. He follows the knife as it moves, holds it aside with the pistol, twists his body and rams his right elbow into the man’s cheek with immense force. His head snaps sideways, spraying droplets of sweat in the direction of the blow. Joona moves with him, takes a long stride to keep his balance and feels a stab of pain from his hip.
As the man slumps unconscious to the floor, Joona moves out of the way and scans the room.
Very soon it will be impossible to get out. Crouching down, Joona moves towards the curtain with the pistol pointing at the floor.
The new customer who bought heroin from Anatoly is lying lifeless beside his sofa. His lips are grey and his eyes open.
Joona steps round a low glass table and sees the woman in the studded collar heading towards him between the sofas.
‘Take me away from here with you,’ she whispers, with a desperate look in her eyes. ‘Please, I’m begging you, I have to get away from here …’
‘Can you run?’
She smiles at him and then her head suddenly jerks. A cascade of blood squirts from her temple.
Joona spins round as a bullet slams into the back of the chair next to him and stuffing sprays out across the floor. The man with the grey moustache is approaching between two women with a raised pistol.
Smoke rising from the barrel.
Joona takes aim, lowers the barrel a couple of millimetres, then fires three times. It sounds like the gun isn’t loaded, but a cloud of blood explodes behind the man.
The man takes another two steps before collapsing on top of the two women, dropping his pistol and putting his hand out towards a footstool.
The woman in the studded collar is still standing. Blood is pumping from her temple and running down her body. She looks at Joona and her mouth opens as if she’s trying to speak.
‘I’ll get help,’ he says.
Bewildered, she touches her bloody hair, then falls sideways on to an armchair and curls up as if she wants to sleep.
In the distance a round-shouldered man is approaching at a crouch, using the sofas as cover. Joona runs the last part of the way. A bullet hits the wall beside him, throwing out a shower of plaster. He ducks through the curtain, tucks his gun close to his body and walks as fast as he can towards the passageway.
A fat man is dancing on the stage with his shirt outside his trousers.
There’s no sign of Erik, and Joona starts running as soon as he reaches the narrow corridor.
He can hear his pursuers behind him as he enters the changing room and quickly locks the door. Someone is in the shower, and the plastic tray creaks with their weight. Joona runs past two women standing in front of the make-up table.
In the kitchen a short man is frying frozen meatballs on the stove. He barely has time to snatch up a knife before Joona shoots him in the thigh.
The man falls to the floor and Joona hears him scream as he runs across the old cardboard boxes in the waste-storage room and emerges out of the back of the building. He runs round the warehouse as fast as he can, through tall weeds, then out through the gates, along a barbed-wire fence and round a van before he sees that Erik’s car has gone. He sets off at a limp towards Högdalsplan to alert the police and emergency services.
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There’s barely any traffic, and Erik is taking care to keep a safe distance between him and the car in front all the way through the industrial estate and up on to Älvsjövägen. The preacher is driving a blue Peugeot which is so dirty it’s impossible to see what the registration number is. Erik has no other plan beyond following it as long as he can without being seen.
The amber glow of the streetlights fills the car, then vanishes between the lampposts, like slow breathing.
Erik wonders if the preacher was at the Zone to buy drugs or to meet Rocky.
Concern about what has happened to Joona flutters in his chest. Erik didn’t look back, just did what he had to do: he left the room full of addicts, passed through the bead curtain and carried on through the crowd.
The heavy bass of the music grew louder as the beat was turned up and the throb of the music reached deep inside his body.
In the flickering light from the stage he suddenly caught sight of the yellow raincoat. The preacher was heading for the exit and Erik followed him. A woman tried to stop him, but he just shook his head and forced his way past.
No one gave him a second glance as he passed the search area and hurried on through the metal door and out onto the loading bay.
Joona seemed so sure of what he had said that the only thing on Erik’s mind was that he mustn’t lose the preacher now that they were so close.
The yellow oilskin glinted in the darkness over by the cars, and Erik followed as quickly as he could without being heard. The preacher walked out through the gates and stopped in front of the blue car.
He has now been following the red tail-lights for quarter of an hour, and keeps telling himself that he mustn’t let too much of a gap form. He speeds up a little on a long straight past a bare-grit football pitch and a school. The sparse lights of a large housing estate flicker through the greenery.
A night bus pulls out from a stop and Erik has to slow down. He loses sight of the preacher, puts his foot down and overtakes the bus on the wrong side of a central reservation.
A set of traffic lights ahead turns red. Erik speeds up, swerves and just makes it past the back of a car crossing his path.
It’s already too late, though, as he realises that the blue Peugeot has turned off to the right. He sees its lights flickering between the houses.
There’s no time to think if he isn’t to lose the preacher altogether.
Erik turns into the next road, and in the boot a bag of empty bottles for recycling falls over. He’s trying to double-guess the other car’s
likely direction as he drives past lush gardens and dark houses.
He brakes and turns left, glancing the side of a letterbox and accelerating hard past a number of villas, then realises that there’s a dead end up ahead, beyond the next junction, and brakes hard, sending the tyres skidding across the tarmac, jerks the wheel and swerves sharply to the right.
The back wheels lose their grip and there’s a crash as the rear wing hits an electricity pole. The bottles in the boot shatter as Erik lurches out on to the main road again.
He accelerates hard up a hill, reaches the top and just manages to spot the preacher driving into the tunnel under the motorway bridge.
He slows down and feels his hands shaking on the steering wheel. The wing mirror has come loose again and is dangling from its wires.
Someone has sprayed the words ‘Another world is possible’ on the concrete walls of the tunnel.
Everything goes dark, then a moment later he emerges into an area of attractive four-storey buildings.
The blue Peugeot passes a bin lorry emptying dustbins with measured mechanical movements, and Erik wonders if the preacher lives here in Hökmossen.
Even though he has a reasonable grasp on reality, the idea of the preacher having an ordinary life seems incredible: a man who stabs knives into the faces of his victims long after they’re dead, then goes home to his lovely villa with apple trees and lawn-sprinklers and sits down to watch television with his family.
Erik follows the blue car as it turns right off Korpmossevägen and into Klensmedsvägen.
The preacher slows down and stops just after the third side-street.
Without changing his speed, Erik drives past the blue car and looks in the rear-view mirror as the light inside the car goes out. He passes a small patch of woodland, turns into the next road, stops and hurries back. The yellow raincoat is disappearing into the forest to the left of the road, and Erik stops on the pavement and realises how badly his legs are shaking.
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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is located on Järfallavägen, next to a large, tarmacked car park. It’s a low building with a terracotta-coloured façade, panelled roof and a red tower rising from the centre of a circular stone foundation.
