Stalker

by Lars Kepler

  One of them turns in Erik’s direction just as the light of the helicopter reaches him through the canopy of trees.

  Adrenalin shoots through Erik’s blood like an injection of ice.

  A shot fires just as everything goes dark again. He see the flare of the barrel as the bullet slams into the tree trunk immediately above his head.

  The sound of the shot echoes off the rocks.

  The helicopter rises up and the clattering sound is deafening.

  Erik rushes at a crouch across a clearing without looking back, sliding down on his backside, running through dense undergrowth, until he can see streetlights through the branches.

  He carries on, approaching the road with caution. A car drives past and some distance away he can see a roadblock, spike strips, patrol cars and officers in black uniforms.

  Erik hides behind some bushes, his back wet with sweat. The uniformed officers are close now. He can hear them talking into their radios, then they walk away, in the other direction, towards the command vehicle with its black windows.

  The helicopter makes another circuit of the woodland. The sound echoes hard between the houses along the road. Erik slides down into the ditch and climbs up the other side, not looking at the police, and walks straight across the tarmac road. He hurries through two crooked gates next to a rusty turnstile, and follows a path leading to Västberga School’s playing field. A red running track forms a huge ellipsis round a football pitch, and the floodlights on their tall poles are illuminated.

  Erik’s heart is beating so hard that it hurts his throat as he picks up one of the footballs by the fence behind the goal and walks over the touchline. He heads slowly across the pitch, in the middle of the lights, kicking the ball in front of him.

  As he reaches the centre circle the helicopter flies over again. He doesn’t look up, just keeps kicking the football ahead of him.

  With every metre the distance between him and the police is growing. With the ball at his feet he makes his way across the whole playing field.

  The helicopter is already a long way away when Erik kicks the ball into the goal, crosses the track, climbs over the gate and emerges on to a road where the traffic appears to be flowing perfectly normally. He passes Telefonplan underground station, and is still heading away from the police operation when Joona Linna calls him.

  ‘Joona, what’s going on?’ Erik asks, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘The police are hunting me with a helicopter, they’ve tried to shoot me. This is crazy, I haven’t done anything, I was just following the preacher …’

  ‘Hang on, Erik, just hold on … Where are you now? Are you safe?’

  ‘I don’t know, I’m walking along an empty street, past Telefonplan … I don’t understand any of this.’

  ‘You followed the preacher to Adam’s home,’ Joona says. ‘His wife is the latest victim, she’s dead.’

  ‘No …’ Erik gasps.

  ‘They’re all panicking,’ Joona says darkly. ‘They seem to think you’re guilty of the murder because—’

  ‘So talk to them!’ Erik interrupts.

  ‘You were seen near the house right after the murder.’

  ‘Yes, but if I—’

  Erik falls silent as he hears a car approaching. He ducks into a doorway and turns his back to the street.

  ‘Can’t I just hand myself in?’ he asks once the car has gone.

  ‘Not without a plan,’ Joona replies.

  ‘You don’t trust the police?’ Erik asks.

  ‘They just tried to shoot you,’ Joona says. ‘And if that wasn’t a mistake, then there are people in the force who are out for revenge.’

  Erik runs his hands through his wet hair, struggling to understand all the improbable things that have happened over the past few days.

  ‘What are my options?’ he asks in the end. ‘What do you think I should do?’

  ‘If you can let me have a bit of time, I’ll try to find out what’s happening with the police operation,’ Joona says. ‘I’ll find out what they’re saying about you internally, and if there’s a safe way for you to come in.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘But you need to lie low,’ Joona says.

  ‘How do I do that? What do I do?’

  ‘They’ve already got your car, you can’t go home, you can’t go to any of your friends. Ditch your phone after this conversation, because you know they can track it even when it’s switched off. They’re probably tracing it now, so we don’t have much time.’

  ‘I understand.’

  Sweat is running down Erik’s cheeks as he tries to listen to Joona’s advice.

  ‘Find a cash machine and take some money out, as much as you can, this is your only chance to do that … But before you withdraw the money you need to work out how to get to another part of town quickly, because they’ll be ready if you make the slightest mistake.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Buy a used pay-as-you-go phone and call me so I’ve got the number,’ Joona goes on. ‘Don’t contact anyone else, and go and sleep in a shelter that won’t demand any ID.’

  ‘After this, everyone’s going to believe I’m guilty,’ Erik says.

  ‘Only until I find the preacher,’ Joona replies.

  ‘If I can get a chance to hypnotise Rocky, I know I could find out the sort of details that—’

  ‘That’s no longer possible,’ Joona interrupts. ‘He’s back in custody.’

  95

  When Joona gets back to his old room early the next morning, Margot is sitting behind her desk wearing a T-shirt with the text ‘Guys with trucks are not lesbians’. Her thick plait has almost come unravelled, she has dark rings under her eyes and deep lines around her mouth.

  ‘I’ve been to an emergency meeting of senior officers,’ she tells him, helping herself to a bag of sweets. ‘The regional police chief, Carlos, Annika from the National Police Board. The preliminary investigation is now top priority, we’re getting a lot more resources … A national alert has been issued, and they’re preparing for a press conference tomorrow.’

  ‘How’s Adam?’ Joona asks.

  ‘I don’t know, he’s been relieved of duty, doesn’t want to see a counsellor … he’s got his family round him, but …’

  ‘Terrible,’ Joona says.

  Joona hopes Erik has taken his advice to destroy his phone immediately after their conversation.

  During the large police and emergency services operation at Sofa Zone in Högdalen they had to charter a bus to take all the people they’d apprehended to the custody unit in Huddinge while they waited for a decision from the prosecutor about arrests. The high number of dead and injured were assumed to be the victims of a bloody power-struggle in the criminal underworld.

  One of the men taken into custody for possession of narcotics was Rocky Kyrklund. He had eleven capsules each containing 250 milligrams of 30 per cent heroin hidden in his clothes.

  ‘We saw the murderer at the Zone. Erik followed him to Katryna,’ Joona says, leaning forward.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Erik didn’t do it,’ Joona says.

  ‘Joona,’ Margot sighs. ‘You can discuss this with me. I know the two of you are friends, but be careful when you see the others.’

  ‘They need to know that he’s innocent.’

  ‘You don’t want it to be Erik, but perhaps he’s been deceiving you,’ she says patiently.

  ‘I saw a man in a yellow raincoat at the Zone, and remembered what Filip Cronstedt said about yellow oilskins … Erik followed him, and ended up at Adam’s.’

  ‘So how do you explain the fact that he knew all the victims, including Katryna?’ Margot says, holding his gaze.

  ‘When did he meet her?’

  ‘She was with us one time when Adam and I were round at his,’ she replies. ‘And Susanna Kern worked at the Karolinska as a nurse, she was on a course where Erik was one of the lecturers … We’ve got security camera footage of him talking to her.’

  Jo
ona gestures with his hand as if to say that the information is irrelevant.

  ‘So why would Erik be known as the preacher?’ he asks.

  ‘He’s smart, he’s tricked you … he can make Rocky remember anything he wants him to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Joona, I don’t know everything yet, but Erik has been close to the investigation, and has been hampering our progress … We’ve finally got a witness statement from Björn Kern and it’s very clear that Erik didn’t tell us that Susanna’s body was posed with her hand over her ear.’

  ‘Did he see that when he was hypnotised?’

  ‘Erik knew the information about the ear would lead us to Rocky, and then to him, and—’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense, Margot.’

  ‘And Erik visited Rocky at Karsudden a few days before I asked him to go.’

  Joona’s eyes turn cold as ice as he puts his hand on the folder.

  ‘This isn’t evidence,’ he says. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s enough to bring him into custody, and enough for a search warrant, enough for a national alert,’ she replies stiffly.

  ‘It sounds to me like he’s been conducting his own investigations, and the rest is just coincidence.’

  ‘He fits the perpetrator profile. He’s divorced, single, has a history of substance abuse, and—’

  ‘So have half the police force,’ Joona interrupts.

  ‘The murders are extremely voyeuristic … we know that Erik is obsessed with filming his patients, even under hypnosis, when they don’t know anything about it.’

  ‘That’s just to stop him having to take notes.’

  ‘But he’s got thousands of hours in his archive, and … and a stalker is almost always slow, methodical … The investment in time is part of the ownership process, part of the quasi-relationship that develops.’

  ‘Margot, I hear what you’re saying, but could you at least entertain the possibility that Erik is innocent?’ Joona asks.

  ‘That’s possible, certainly,’ she replies honestly.

  ‘In which case you also have to consider the possibility that we’re losing sight of the real murderer, the one we’re calling the preacher.’

  She forces herself to look away from him and glances at the time.

  ‘The meeting’s about to start,’ she says, getting to her feet.

  ‘I can find the preacher if you want me to,’ Joona says.

  ‘We’ve already got him,’ she replies.

  ‘I need my gun, I need all the material, the reports from the crime scenes, the post-mortems.’

  ‘I really shouldn’t agree to that,’ she says, opening the door.

  ‘And can you arrange for me to see Rocky Kyrklund in prison?’ Joona asks.

  ‘You don’t give up, do you?’ she says with a smile.

  They walk slowly along the corridor together. Margot stops Joona outside the meeting room.

  ‘Bear in mind that the people waiting in here are Adam’s colleagues,’ she says with her fingers on the door handle. ‘The tone of the meeting is likely to be pretty tough, they need to vent their anger. It’s their way of showing their support for him, and the force as a whole.’

  96

  Joona follows Margot into the large meeting room. She makes a gesture that simultaneously say hello to everyone and tells them to remain seated.

  ‘Before we start … I know emotions are running high at the moment, and we’re a tolerant bunch, but I’d still like to encourage everyone to stick to a civilised tone,’ she says. ‘The preliminary investigation is entering a new phase, and will now be actively led by the prosecutor while we focus on making a quick arrest.’

  She stops and catches her breath.

  ‘But our bosses have asked me to bring in Joona Linna, seeing as he is the homicide detective with the best results … there’s no contest, frankly, and …’

  A few of the officers clap while others sit there staring at the table.

  ‘Naturally he won’t be officially involved in the preliminary investigation, but I hope he’ll be able to give the rest of us mere mortals a few tips along the way,’ Margot jokes, even though her eyes show no sign of amusement.

  Joona takes a steps forward and looks at his former colleagues seated around the pale wooden table before speaking:

  ‘Erik is no murderer.’

  ‘What the fuck?’ Petter mutters.

  ‘Let’s hear him out,’ Margot says curtly.

  ‘I appreciate that there’s a lot of evidence pointing at Erik … and he should certainly be brought in for questioning, but seeing as I’m here to tell you what I think—’

  ‘Joona, I just want to say that I’ve had a meeting with the prosecutor,’ Benny says. ‘Her opinion is that we have very compelling evidence.’

  ‘The puzzle isn’t finished just because three pieces fit together.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Erik was there,’ Benny goes on, ‘outside the house. We found his car, he knows the victims, he’s lied to the police, et cetera, et cetera.’

  ‘I understand that you’ve already shot at him with live ammunition,’ Joona says.

  ‘He’s regarded as extremely dangerous and probably armed,’ Benny says.

  ‘But it’s all a mistake,’ Joona says, pulling out a chair.

  He sits down at the table and leans back in his chair, making it creak.

  ‘We’re going to bring Erik in,’ Margot says. ‘And he’ll be remanded in custody and given a fair trial.’

  ‘Try catching a will-o’-the-wisp,’ Joona says quietly, thinking how the law is doomed never to achieve justice.

  ‘What’s he talking about?’ Benny asks.

  ‘The fact that you’re directing your own fears against an innocent man, because—’

  ‘We’re not fucking afraid,’ Petter interrupts.

  ‘Calm down,’ Margot says.

  ‘I’m not going to sit here and listen to—’

  ‘Petter,’ she warns.

  The room falls silent. Magdalena Ronander fills her glass of water and tries to catch Joona’s eye.

  ‘Joona, maybe you’re thinking slightly differently because you’re no longer a police officer,’ she says. ‘I don’t mean anything negative, but that might be why we don’t understand what you’re saying.’

  ‘I’m saying that you’re letting the real murderer get away,’ Joona replies.

  ‘Right, that’s enough of this bullshit,’ Benny roars, slamming both hands down on the table.

  ‘Is he drunk?’ someone whispers.

  ‘Joona doesn’t give a shit about the force, and he doesn’t give a shit about us,’ Petter says in a loud voice. ‘There’s so much fucking talk about him, I don’t get it. Look at him, he dropped his fucking gun, it was his fault Adam got shot, and now—’

  ‘Maybe it would be best if you left,’ Margot says, putting a hand on Joona’s shoulder.

  ‘And now he comes here and tries to tell us how to run an investigation,’ Petter concludes.

  ‘One more thing,’ Joona says, standing up.

  ‘Just shut up,’ Petter snaps.

  ‘Let him speak,’ Magdalena says.

  ‘I’ve seen this plenty of times,’ Joona says. ‘When family, friends or colleagues are directly affected, it’s easy to start thinking of revenge.’

  ‘Are you trying to say that we aren’t going to act professionally?’ Benny asks with a cold smile.

  ‘I’m saying that there’s a chance that Erik will contact me, and I’d like to be able to offer him safe passage,’ Joona says seriously. ‘So that he dares to turn himself in and have his innocence proven in court.’

  ‘Of course,’ Magdalena replies, looking at the others. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘But if it’s true that you’ve already fired at him – how am I supposed to convince him to hand himself in?’

  ‘Just tell him we guarantee his safety,’ Benny says.

  ‘And if that isn’t enough?’ Joona says.


  ‘Lie better,’ he grins.

  ‘Joona, have you actually seen the pictures of Katryna?’ Petter says agitatedly. ‘I can’t believe it’s even her … What do I say to my wife? This is so fucking sick … I mean, think about Adam, think about what he’s going through right now … I have to say, I personally don’t give a shit what happens to your friend.’

  ‘Everyone’s upset,’ Margot says. ‘Obviously, we want to make it easier for him to hand himself in, and naturally, he’ll get a fair trial—’

  ‘Assuming he doesn’t hang himself in his cell before then,’ says a young officer who has been quiet up to now.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Magdalena says.

  ‘Or swallows some broken glass,’ Benny mutters.

  Joona pushes his chair back and nods towards the others.

  ‘I’ll be in touch when I’ve found the real killer,’ he says, and leaves the room.

  ‘He’s totally fucking pathetic,’ Petter mutters as his steps fade away down the corridor.

  ‘Before we go on I want to say something,’ Margot begins. ‘Like you, I believe that Erik is the murderer, but if we all take a step back … Can we even entertain the possibility that we might be wrong, that Erik is actually innocent?’

  ‘Aren’t you supposed to be giving birth soon?’ Benny asks sarcastically.

  ‘I’ll give birth when I’m done with this case,’ she replies drily.

  ‘Let’s get to work,’ Magdalena says.

  ‘OK … This is how things stand at the moment,’ Margot says. ‘We’ve issued a national alert, but we know that Erik’s got enough money to leave the country … We’ve started our searches, of both Erik’s home and his place of work … We’re trying to trace his mobile phone … his bank cards have been blocked, but he managed to withdraw a large amount last night … the area around the cash machine is being searched … We’re watching five addresses, and …’

  She tails off when there’s a knock at the door. Anja Larsson enters the room. Without acknowledging the others she leans over and has a whispered conversation with Margot.

  ‘OK,’ Margot says after a while. ‘It looks like we’ve managed to trace Erik’s mobile. He’s somewhere close to Växjö, in Småland. It looks like he’s heading south.’