by Kepler, Lars
It’s almost twenty past six. They’re picking her up in eleven minutes. She puts her watch back on the bedside table, next to her glass of water. Where she’s going, time is dead.
First she’ll be going to Kronoberg Prison, but she’ll only be there a couple of hours before she’s transported to Katrineholm. Then she’ll spend a day or so at Karsudden Hospital before the decision to transfer her to the secure psychiatric unit at Löwenströmska Hospital is put into action.
She walks slowly through the flat, switching off lights and pulling out a few plugs, before going into the hall and putting on her green parka.
It’s not such a difficult mission, she thinks once more.
Jurek Walter is an elderly man, probably heavily medicated and not really with it.
She knows he’s guilty of terrible things, but all she has to do is stay calm, wait for him to approach her, wait for him to say something that could be useful.
Either it will work, or it won’t.
It’s time to leave now.
Saga turns off the lamp in the hall and goes out into the stairwell.
She’s thrown out all the perishable goods from the fridge, but she hasn’t asked anyone to look after the flat, water the flowers and take care of the post.
72
Saga double-locks the door, then goes downstairs to the main entrance. She feels a flutter of anxiety as she sees the Prison Service van waiting in the dark street.
She opens the door and gets in beside Nathan Pollock.
‘It’s dangerous to pick up hitch-hikers,’ she says, trying to smile.
‘Did you get any sleep?’
‘A bit,’ she replies, and fastens her seat belt.
‘I know you already know this,’ Pollock says, glancing at her. ‘But I’m still going to remind you not to try to manipulate him into revealing any information.’
He puts the van in gear and it pulls out into the silent street.
‘That’s almost the hardest thing,’ Saga says. ‘What if he only wants to talk about football? What if he doesn’t talk at all?’
‘That will just be how it is, there’ll be nothing you can do about it.’
‘But Felicia might only survive a few more days …’
‘That’s not your responsibility,’ Pollock replies. ‘This infiltration is a gamble, we all know that, we’re agreed on that … we can’t second-guess the results. What you’re doing is entirely separate from the ongoing preliminary investigation. We’re going to carry on talking to Mikael Kohler-Frost, follow up all the old lines of inquiry, and—’
‘But no one believes … no one believes we’ll be able to save Felicia unless Jurek starts talking to me.’
‘You mustn’t think like that,’ Pollock says.
‘OK, I’ll stop now.’ She smiles.
‘Good.
She starts tapping her feet, and raises her arm to shield a sudden sneeze. Her pale-blue eyes are still glassy, as if part of her had taken a step back to observe the situation from a distance.
Dark buildings flit past as they drive on.
Saga puts her keys, wallet and other loose possessions in a Prison Service personal effects bag.
Before they reach Kronoberg Prison, Pollock hands her the fibre-optic microphone inside a silicon capsule and a small portion of butter.
‘Digestion of fatty foods takes longer,’ he says. ‘But I still don’t think you should ever wait more than four hours.
She opens the pack of butter, swallows the contents, then examines the microphone in the soft capsule. It looks like an insect in amber. She straightens up, pops the capsule in her mouth, tips her head back and swallows. It hurts her throat and she can feel herself breaking out into a sweat as it slowly slips down.
73
The morning is still black as midnight and all the lights are on in the women’s section of Kronoberg Prison.
Saga takes two steps forward and stops when they tell her to. She tries to shut herself off from the world around her and not look at anyone.
The radiators are ticking with the heat.
Nathan Pollock puts her bag of personal effects on the counter and hands over Saga’s papers. He is given a written receipt and then disappears.
From now on she will have to cope on her own, no matter what happens.
The automated gates whirr briefly, then fall abruptly silent.
No one looks at her, but she can’t help noticing the way the atmosphere gets more tense when the guards realise that she’s got the highest security classification.
She is to be kept in strict isolation until her transfer.
Saga stands still, eyes fixed on the yellow vinyl floor, not answering any questions.
She is patted down before being led along a corridor for the full-body search.
Two thickset women are discussing a new television series as they lead her through a door with no window in it. The room looks like a small medical examination room, with a narrow bunk covered with rustling paper and locked cabinets along one wall.
‘Remove all your clothes,’ one of the women says in a blank voice as she pulls on a pair of latex gloves.
Saga does as she is told and drops her clothes in a heap on the floor. When she is naked she just stands there under the bare fluorescent light with her arms hanging by her sides.
Her pale body is girlishly slender, toned and athletic.
The warder with the gloves breaks off mid-sentence and just stares at Saga.
‘OK,’ one of them sighs after a few seconds.
‘What?’
‘Let’s try to do what we’ve got to do.’
Carefully they set about examining Saga, shining a light in her mouth, nose and ears. They tick each thing off from a list, then ask her to lie on the bunk.
‘Lie on your side and pull one knee up as far as you can,’ the woman with the gloves says.
Saga obeys, unhurriedly, and the woman moves between the bunk and the wall behind her back. She shivers, and feels her skin break out in goosebumps.
The dry paper rustles against her cheek as she turns her head. She shuts her eyes tight as lubricant is squeezed from a bottle.
‘This is going to feel a bit cold now,’ the woman says, sticking two fingers as far up Saga’s vagina as she can.
It doesn’t hurt, but it’s extremely unpleasant. Saga tries to breathe evenly, but can’t help gasping as the woman sticks a finger in her anus.
The examination is over in a matter of seconds, and the woman quickly pulls the gloves off and throws them away.
She hands Saga a piece of paper to wipe herself with, and explains that she’ll be given new clothes while she’s there.
Dressed in a baggy green outfit and a pair of white gym shoes, she is taken to her cell in Ward 8:4.
Before they close and lock the door behind her they ask amiably if she’d like a cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee.
Saga just shakes her head.
Once the women have gone, Saga stands completely still in her cell for a moment.
It’s hard to know what the time is, but before it’s too late she goes over to the sink and fills her hands with water, drinks some, then sticks her fingers down her throat. She coughs and her stomach clenches. After a couple of hard, painful cramps, the microphone comes back up.
She can’t help her eyes watering as she washes the capsule and then rinses her face.
She lies on the bunk and waits, holding the microphone hidden in her hand.
The corridor outside is silent.
Saga can smell the toilet and drain in the floor as she lies staring at the ceiling and reads the messages and names that have been carved into the walls over the years.
Rectangles of sunlight have moved left towards the floor by the time Saga hears footsteps outside. She quickly pops the capsule in her mouth, stands up and swallows as the lock clicks and the door is opened.
It’s time for her to be taken to Karsudden Hospital.
The uniformed guard signs he
r out, along with her possessions and transfer documents. Saga stands still as they cuff her hands and ankles, then sign the forms.
74
The police team consists of thirty-two people in total, civilian staff and officers from the surveillance and detection units of the National Criminal Investigation Department and the National Murder Squad.
In one of the big workrooms on the fifth floor the walls are covered with maps marking the locations of the disappearances and finds in the Jurek Walter case. Colour copies of photographs of the missing people are surrounded by constellations of their families, colleagues and friends.
Old interviews with the relatives of victims are examined again, and new interviews conducted. Medical and forensic reports are checked, and anyone who knew any of the victims is spoken to, no matter how peripheral the relationship.
Joona Linna and his team are standing in the winter light by the window reading the printout of the latest interview with Mikael Kohler-Frost. As they read, a sombre mood settles over the group. There’s nothing in Mikael’s account that can take the investigation forward.
Once the analysts have discounted the expressions of regret and despair from his statements, there’s very little left.
‘Nothing,’ Petter Näslund mutters, rolling the printout up.
‘He says he can feel his sister’s movements, that she tries to find him every time she wakes up in the darkness,’ Benny says with a sorrowful expression on his face. ‘He can feel how much she hopes he might have returned—’
‘I don’t believe any of that,’ Petter interrupts.
‘We have to assume that Mikael is telling the truth, at least in some form or other,’ Joona says.
‘But this business with the Sandman,’ Petter says with a grin. ‘I mean …’
‘The same thing with the Sandman,’ Joona replies.
‘He’s talking about a character in a fairytale,’ Petter says. ‘Are we going to question everyone who sells barometers, or—’
‘As a matter of fact I’ve already compiled lists of manufacturers and dealers,’ Joona replies with a smile.
‘What the hell?’
‘I’m aware that there’s a barometer salesman in E. T. A. Hoffmann’s story about the Sandman,’ Joona goes on. ‘And I know Mikael’s mother used to tell them a bedtime story about the Sandman. But none of that precludes the possibility that he might actually exist in real life.’
‘We haven’t got a fucking thing, we might as well admit it,’ Petter says, tossing his rolled-up printout on the desk.
‘Almost nothing,’ Joona gently corrects him.
‘Mikael was sedated when he was moved to the capsule, and sedated when he was removed from it,’ Benny sighs, rubbing a hand over his bald head. ‘It’s impossible even to start identifying a location. In all likelihood, Felicia is in Sweden – but even that isn’t certain.’
Magdalena goes over to the whiteboard and lists what little information they have about the capsule: concrete, electricity, water, Legionella bacteria.
Because Mikael has never seen the accomplice, or heard him speak, they know nothing beyond the fact that it is a man. That’s all. Mikael was sure that the coughs he heard came from a man.
Everything else in the description can be traced back to childhood fantasies about the Sandman.
Joona leaves the room, takes the lift down, walks out of police headquarters and carries on up Fleminggatan, across the Sankt Erik bridge and into Birkastan.
The attic flat of Rörstrandsgatan 19 is where Athena Promacho is based.
When the goddess Pallas Athena is depicted as a beautiful girl with a lance and a shield, she is known as Athena Promacho, the goddess of war.
Athena Promacho is also the name of a secret investigative group that has been put together to analyse the material that Saga Bauer is expected to provide while she is undercover. The group doesn’t exist in any official records, and has no budget from either the National Criminal Investigation Department or the Swedish Security Police.
Athena Promacho consists of Joona Linna from National Crime, Nathan Pollock from the National Murder Squad, Corinne Meilleroux from the Security Police, and forensic officer Johan Jönson.
As soon as Saga is transferred to the secure unit at Löwenströmska Hospital they’ll be there twenty-four hours a day to receive, collate and analyse the surveillance recordings.
Athena Promacho has another three officers attached to it. They’ll be responsible for recording the transmissions from the fibre-optic microphone in a minibus belonging to the local council’s parks department that’s been left in the hospital grounds. All the material will be saved on hard disks, encrypted and sent to Athena Promacho’s computers with a delay of no more than a tenth of a second.
75
Anders Rönn looks at the time again. The new patient from the secure unit at Säter Prison is on his way to the isolation unit at Löwenströmska. Prison Service transport have called to warn him that the man is anxious and aggressive. They’ve given him ten milligrams of Stesolid en route, and Anders Rönn has prepared a syringe with another ten milligrams. An older warder named Leif Rajama throws the packaging of the syringe in the bin, then stands and waits, legs spread.
‘I don’t think he’ll need more than that,’ Anders says, not quite managing to summon up his carefree smile.
‘It normally depends on how much the search upsets them,’ Leif says. ‘I try to tell myself that my job is to help people who are having a hard time … even if they may not actually want help.’
The guard on the other side of the reinforced glass gets a message that the transport is on its way down. There’s a metallic clang from the walls, then a muffled cry.
‘This is only the second patient,’ Anders says. ‘We won’t know how things are going to be until all three are in place.’
‘It’ll be fine,’ Leif smiles.
Anders looks at a monitor showing a view of the staircase from the side. Two security guards are supporting a patient who’s unable to walk unaided, a thickset man with a fair moustache and glasses that have slid down his narrow nose. His eyes are closed and sweat is running down his cheeks. His legs are bowed, but the guards are holding him up.
Anders glances quickly at Leif. They can hear the blond patient babbling nonsensically. Something about dead slaves and the fact that he’s wet himself.
‘I’m standing in piss, right up to my knees, and …’
‘Hold still,’ the guards order, and lay him down on the floor.
‘Ow, it hurts,’ he whimpers.
The guard behind the glass is standing up now, and takes the transfer documents from the senior transport officer.
The patient is lying on the floor with his eyes shut, gasping. Anders tells Leif calmly that they aren’t going to need any more Stesolid, then pulls his pass card through the reader.
76
Jurek Walter is walking monotonously on the running machine. His face is turned away, but his back is moving with focused determination.
Anders Rönn and head of security Sven Hoffman are standing in the hospital’s security control room looking at a monitor showing the dayroom.
‘You know how to sound the alarm, and how to switch it off,’ Hoffman says. ‘You know someone with a pass card must accompany the guards when they come into contact with the patients.’
‘Yes,’ Anders says, with a hint of impatience in his voice. ‘And the security door behind you has to be locked before you open the next one.’
Sven Hoffman nods.
‘Guards will show up within five minutes of the alarm being sounded.’
‘We won’t be sounding any alarms,’ Anders says, watching the monitor as the new patient comes into the dayroom.
They watch the patient as he sits down on the brown sofa, holding one hand over his mouth as though trying not to be sick. Anders thinks about the handwritten notes from Säter, detailing aggression, recurrent psychosis, narcissism and an antisocial personality disorder
.
‘We’ll have to conduct our own evaluation,’ Anders says. ‘And I’ll increase his medication if there’s the slightest reason to …’
The large computer screen in front of him is divided into nine squares, for the nine cameras in the unit. Airlocks, security doors, corridors, dayroom and patients’ rooms are all filmed. There aren’t enough staff to monitor the cameras round the clock, but there always has to be someone with operational responsibility for the system on duty in the unit.
‘You’ll be spending a lot of time in the office, but it’s good if everyone knows how these things work,’ Sven Hoffman says, gesturing towards the monitors.
‘We’ll have to muck in together when we’ve got more patients.’
‘The basic principal is that the staff should always know where all the patients are.’
Sven clicks one of the squares, and the image immediately fills the monitor alongside, and suddenly Anders can see psychiatric nurse My taking off her wet coat.
The changing room is reflected on the screen with unexpected clarity, five yellow metal lockers, a shower, and doors to the toilet and corridor.
The outline of My’s breasts can clearly be seen beneath her black T-shirt bearing an image of an angel of death. She must have been in a rush to get there, because her cheeks are flushed. She has melted snow in her hair. She gets out her uniform, lays it on the bench, then puts a pair of Birkenstock sandals on the floor.
Sven clicks away from the changing room and enlarges the image from the dayroom instead. Anders forces himself not to look at the smaller square as My starts to unbutton her black jeans.
He sits down and tries to sound unconcerned as he asks if recordings are stored.
‘We haven’t got permission to do that … not even in exceptional circumstances.’ Hoffman winks at him.
‘Shame,’ Anders says, running a hand over his short brown hair.
Sven Hoffman starts to go through the cameras covering the rooms. Then Anders tries clicking his way through the monitor, checking the corridors and airlocks.
