Stalker

by Lars Kepler

  Joona pulls out of a bend and accelerates again. The white light stretches out along the straight track by the side of the field, forming a glowing tunnel through the darkness.

  Now he can see the tall chimney of the glassworks between the trees, like a black obelisk against the lead-grey sky.

  Far ahead at the very limits of the beam of the headlights he sees two figures. They’re standing in the road, in a motionless embrace.

  It’s Erik and Jackie, he’s almost certain of that.

  A stone strikes the undercarriage and the light disappears from the road for a few seconds.

  Branches lash the windscreen and it’s hard to see their faces, unsteady in the wavering light.

  Up ahead near the ruined buildings he can see empty cisterns and heaps of crushed glass.

  A deep pothole in the road forces Joona to slow down and swerve. There’s a bang, and the light of the headlamps lurches high above the two figures.

  And then he sees the light reflect off something yellow at the side of the road.

  Nelly.

  She’s standing not far behind Erik and Jackie. Her raincoat catches the light from the headlamps. She’s moving forward with her face lowered, across a shimmering green layer of crushed glass.

  Joona blows his horn, changes gear and puts his foot down. Grit flies up beneath the underside of the car. The car lurches and the glove compartment opens, scattering its contents across the seat. He veers off the side of the track and tall weeds lash the windscreen.

  Joona blows his horn as Nelly gets closer to the pair from behind. She’s striding purposefully through the nettles and undergrowth.

  Erik squints towards the car, he looks relieved as he waves.

  Joona blows his horn again and again, loses sight of them for a moment, rounds a slight bend and sees that Nelly is holding a knife in her hand.

  She steps across the ditch and now she’s right behind them, crouching down and staying in their shadow.

  Still blowing his horn, Joona speeds up along the track, and the engine roars. In the shaky light of the headlamps he sees Nelly walk right up to Jackie and stick the knife into her.

  A heavy branch smashes one of the headlights and the ruins to the right of the car disappear in sudden darkness.

  In the weakened light Joona sees Jackie collapse on the rough track. Erik is still holding her hand.

  Some branches are swaying by the side of the road, but Nelly has vanished.

  Joona brakes hard, the tyres smoke as they slide across the loose grit, he swerves and the windscreen smashes, sending glass swirling into the car and hitting his face. Branches and grass lash the body of the car as it slides to a halt with two wheels in the ditch.

  Joona clambers out onto the bonnet of the unsteady car, jumps down onto the track and runs over to Erik, who’s kneeling down next to Jackie.

  ‘I didn’t see anything,’ he says, tugging Jackie’s blouse open and touching the knife to see how deep it goes. ‘It could have hit one of her kidneys, we need an ambulance as soon as—’

  ‘Where’s Maddy?’ Joona interrupts.

  ‘At home in the flat, we’ve got to call—’

  ‘She’s not in the flat,’ Joona says. ‘Nelly snatched her along with Jackie.’

  ‘Dear God,’ Erik whispers, looking up at him.

  ‘Could she be inside the house?’

  ‘There’s a cage in the basement, and loads of tunnels that …’

  Jackie is gasping for breath and Erik can feel her pulse getting weaker. He glances quickly towards the house, brushes his fringe from his face and sees something yellow glint in one of the windows on the upper floor.

  ‘There’s a light in the window,’ he points. ‘They must be …’

  He breaks off when Jackie’s pulse disappears completely, and puts his ear to her chest. Her heart has stopped, all he can hear is a muffled sound from deep within her.

  ‘Get an air ambulance!’ he yells. ‘Her heart’s stopped, it’s urgent, it’s desperately urgent!’

  So as not to have to pull the knife out, Erik leaves her on her side. He begins chest compressions, no longer aware of the pain in his arm as he counts thirty quick compressions, then blows into her lungs twice before resuming the compressions again, hearing Joona give the address and coordinates to the emergency services operator.

  ‘Make sure Jackie survives – I’ll get her daughter,’ Joona says, and sets off running towards the house.

  139

  Joona runs across the yard and draws his pistol. The headlights of the police car are still shining towards the car with the open boot, as well as straight at the yellow house. A smell of fire suddenly fills the still night air. He pushes through the tall nettles and sees white smoke billowing like steam from the weeds around the foundations of the building.

  He jumps up on to the veranda, raises his gun, opens the front door and sees the dead police officer on the floor.

  His torso is dark with blood, his face turned aside.

  Joona aims his pistol at the next door as he steps over the body, leans down and picks up the cracked torch from the floor and shines it into the kitchen.

  In the dwindling light he can see a scene of horrific brutality. The floor is covered with blood and the other policeman’s head is lying a metre away from his body. He never even managed to pull his pistol from its holster. Blood has splashed the glass of an unlit paraffin lamp standing on a chair. There’s a roaring sound from deep down in the basement, and a thin veil of grey smoke slips across the ceiling and envelops an old smoke alarm.

  Joona hurries through the chaotic kitchen and through another door. He carries on past a living room and into a narrow passageway with an open staircase leading to the next floor. Sooty smoke is rolling beneath the ceiling like a murky river.

  A paraffin lamp explodes from the heat in the next room, and pale blue flames take hold of the walls and ceiling. Parts of the burning floor collapse into the basement and sparks and smoke swirl up.

  He can feel the rising heat in his face as he carries on up the stairs. The wallpaper is alight and the fire is curling around the floor of the upper storey.

  Joona realises that Nelly is burning the little that implicates her as the perpetrator. If Jackie doesn’t survive and the house is gone, all that will be left is the evidence against Erik.

  The light from the torch turns yellow as it grows even weaker.

  He reaches the upper floor, aims the pistol in front of him and makes his way into a girl’s room. The pink, rose-patterned wallpaper is covered with photographs of Erik. A lot have been taken surreptitiously, but some are portraits, and others seems to have come from professional journals and photograph albums.

  On a shelf in the darkness stands a collection of things she’s stolen from Erik. Wine glasses, books, deodorant, and the wooden elephant from Malaysia. A brown corduroy jacket is draped over a blue shirt on a wooden hanger.

  There’s a hissing sound from deep below the floor under his feet. He hears the fire sucking up more oxygen and can feel the air getting harder to breathe.

  The torch goes out and he shakes it and gets back a weak, unsteady beam.

  Joona carries on and sees that Nelly has arranged her trophies from the victims in front of a mirror on a dressing-table.

  It doesn’t amount to much, just some bottles of nail-varnish, a lipstick from H&M and a red bra. On a pink plate lies the metal tongue-stud in the shape of Saturn, a hairclip and Susanna Kern’s earrings, some false fingernails and a pearl necklace that’s blackened with blood.

  The torch goes out and Joona puts it down carefully on the floor.

  He approaches the door to a bedroom with a sloping roof, moves slightly to one side and suddenly catches sight of Madeleine in the murky light.

  She’s lying on the floor next to a bed, in the middle of the room. Her mouth is covered with tape, and there’s a pool of blood under her head.

  Joona thinks that the little girl is the trophy Nelly took from Jacki
e.

  She’s breathing, but seems to be unconscious.

  He can’t see any sign of Nelly, but the door beside the bed is sticky with blood around its handle.

  The room is rapidly filling with pale smoke, and Joona is aware that time is running out.

  He glances quickly at the little girl, then aims his gun to the right and hurries forward.

  The heavy axe comes towards him from the left. Joona has misread the room and sees the movement too late. He just manages to pull his head back, and the blade swings past his face and embeds itself deep in the wall.

  The air fills with dust and plaster.

  Nelly tries to yank the axe free, but Joona hits her from below across the face with the butt of his pistol.

  Her head flies back and saliva sprays from her mouth. She lands crookedly on her back and the floor seems to rock beneath her as black smoke billows from the gaps between the floorboards.

  Joona stumbles backwards from the force of his own blow, and knocks over a chair holding some plastic hangers.

  Nelly sits up and is suddenly beside Madeleine. Joona can’t understand how it happened in less than a second.

  The bed has moved.

  Then he realises that he’s been looking at a large mirror. The reflection made him think that Maddy was in the middle of the room, at a safe distance.

  The fire crackles and hisses as it absorbs oxygen.

  Holding his pistol by his side, Joona tries to get a grip on the room again. Large fragments of mirrored glass are leaning against the walls and furniture, throwing the perspective and making the room look very different.

  Nelly’s nose is bleeding, she’s pulled the girl towards her and is clutching her tight. Smoke is swirling around them and Joona can’t see if she’s armed.

  ‘Let the girl go,’ Joona calls, moving cautiously closer.

  Above the closed door to his left oily black smoke is filtering into the room. Pictures of Erik on the floor are curling up in the heat from below.

  ‘Will you let the girl go?’ Joona repeats.

  ‘Yes,’ she replies softly, but carries on holding her in her arms.

  Madeleine opens her tired eyes and Nelly kisses her on the head.

  ‘Nelly, we have to get out … all of us. Do you understand?’

  She nods weakly and looks into his eyes.

  The door ahead of Joona flares up in a bright blue glow, and is suddenly surrounded by billowing flames that lap at the ceiling, leaving black marks behind them. The room beneath them is roaring and the entire house is creaking, as if great rocks were rubbing against each other.

  ‘Can you help me?’ she asks, without taking her eyes off him.

  ‘Yes, I can,’ he replies, trying to see what she’s hiding by her hip.

  She smiles at him oddly, almost devotedly, as if she were suddenly full of reassuring certainty.

  Sparks and sooty smuts are drifting upwards on the hot-air currents and the cooler air is being sucked down towards the floor, closer to the fire. The dirty curtains in front of the window flare up as the flames coil around the fabric.

  ‘What does the fire say?’ she mutters, getting to her feet.

  With unthinking harshness she pulls Madeleine up from the floor by her hair. The girl is frightened, there are tears running down her cheeks.

  ‘Nelly,’ Joona says again. ‘We have to get out. I’ll help you, but I—’

  With a crash a large panel of the wall to the next room collapses on to the floor between them, plasterboard, torn wallpaper and wooden laths, all enveloped in black smoke. Tiny glowing sparks flicker in the grey fog above their heads.

  ‘But I won’t let you hurt the girl,’ he finishes his sentence.

  In one of the mirrors Joona sees that Nelly has pulled out a knife. She’s holding Madeleine by the hair with her other hand, pulling it so hard that the girl is having to stand on tiptoe.

  The floor is vibrating beneath their feet.

  Heat is flooding in from the side now, and the collapsed door frame catches fire. Black smoke fills the room and the flames climb greedily towards the ceiling.

  ‘Drop the knife – you don’t have to do this,’ Joona cries, aiming his pistol towards the shape behind the flames.

  He tries to move sideways, but can only just make out the yellow oilskin through the smoke and fire.

  ‘It’s never enough,’ a very high child’s voice says.

  Joona’s thoughts switch in a fraction of a second. At first he thinks it’s Madeleine speaking, then the realisation that her mouth is taped shut makes him squeeze the trigger of his pistol instead.

  He fires through the flames three times.

  The bullets hit Nelly in the middle of her chest, and in the mirror off to one side behind her Joona sees blood spurt out between her shoulder blades. The large mirror collapses beneath her and shatters on the floor.

  Madeleine is standing perfectly still, with her hand on the wound to her neck. Blood is running between her fingers, but she’s alive.

  Nelly’s high-pitched voice has been a foreboding of death every time.

  Joona rushes over to the girl, kicks the knife from Nelly’s hand even though he knows she’s dead, picks Madeleine up and backs away through the smoke.

  Nelly is lying on her back among the fragments of broken mirror, her mouth open. She’s lost one of her boots and her foot is twitching in her filthy nylon stocking.

  A plastic bottle topples over and paraffin splashes out across the floorboards, there’s a hiss and then the fire leaps up through the floor.

  They’re hit by a wave of heat. Joona stumbles backwards with the girl, just making it through the doorway as the floor of the bedroom gives way under Nelly’s weight.

  She’s sucked down and vanishes into a shaft of raging flame.

  Joona’s trouser leg catches fire as he shuffles backwards with the girl in his arms.

  The flames are reaching up with a howl all the way from the cellar, striking the bedroom ceiling. Burning pieces of the lamp fall in a cloud of swirling sparks. The windowsill is ablaze and the glass shatters with a bang.

  Joona pulls Madeleine with him further into the girl’s bedroom. The walls covered with pictures of Erik are on fire.

  ‘I’m going to take this off,’ Joona says, and pulls the tape from her mouth. ‘Did that hurt?’

  ‘No,’ she whispers.

  A tall cupboard collapses through the floor of the bedroom and disappears into the shrieking inferno.

  ‘Let’s try to get out,’ he says, wrapping his leather jacket around her. ‘The smoke’s dangerous, so I want you to breathe through the lining. Can you do that?’

  She nods, and he picks her up and starts to carry her down the stairs. The glow from the fire is flickering across the walls. Sparks are drifting up between the steps. From somewhere deep in the basement there’s a screech of twisting metal.

  The fire is climbing the wall then pulling back, leaving sooty traces across the wallpaper.

  Joona breathes hot air into his lungs and begins to cough.

  There’s a crash in the room beneath them as the heat blows out all the windows at the same time. Glass rains down onto the floor and air streams in, making the flames leap up towards the ceiling with a roar.

  The burning lampshade spins on its cable.

  The girl coughs and Joona shouts to her to keep breathing through the lining of his jacket.

  In the living room below the bedroom the walls are burning from floor to ceiling. The heat forces him towards the television room. Parts of the ceiling are collapsing and the girl screams as burning dust rains down on them.

  Joona coughs again and puts his hand down on the hot floor to steady himself. His lungs are burning, and smoke-poisoning is making him dizzy and tired. He knows he doesn’t have many seconds left, so holds his breath and gets to his feet again. With the girl in his arms he takes a few faltering steps forward, then carries on through the thick smoke in the next room.

  His eyes are str
eaming and he’s having trouble seeing. The sofa catches alight and sparks swirl up into his face on the hot wind.

  There’s a thunderous roar behind their backs, like a lashing sail, and the fire throws itself at them.

  He steps over a smoking bundle of carpets and shoves the door open.

  The kitchen is ablaze, and burning sections of the ceiling are crashing down. An explosion sends splinters of glass and fire across the room.

  Joona’s lungs are straining and burning, he’ll have to breathe soon, his heart is pounding desperately.

  The end of one of the roof beams comes loose and falls like a heavy pendulum, crushing the kitchen table and embedding itself deep in the floor.

  The linoleum floor is bubbling and the walls are rippling with fire.

  A bucket of water is boiling.

  The powerful spring mechanism has contorted out of shape, bending the door back on one hinge.

  Joona steps over the dead police officer’s body. The hall is full of flames. The heat and howling roar wrap themselves around him and the child. He knows he needs oxygen desperately, but forces himself to fight the urge to take a breath.

  Surrounded by fire, he fights his way forward and kicks the burning front door open. It comes loose from its hinges and crashes down the front steps.

  Joona emerges on to the veranda with the girl in his arms. His face is black with soot and his clothes are burning. Police and paramedics rush towards them with fire-extinguishers and blankets.

  Margot Silverman is forced to take a step back from the heat and lets out a gasp as a powerful contraction hits her, then feels her waters break and run down between her thighs.

  The clattering downdraught from the helicopter’s rotor-blades sends rubbish and dust flying in a wide circle.

  Erik is holding Maddy’s hand as the helicopter takes off. She’s lying strapped to a stretcher next to Jackie, and smiles up at him before closing her eyes.

  They rise unsteadily into the air, and Erik sees Joona lying on all fours on the ground, coughing. He’s surrounded by police officers and paramedics. Margot is trying to resist as she is led away to a waiting ambulance.