The Sandman (32 page)

‘You’ve made it very nice,’ Anders says.

Agnes turns, shows him the brush and meets his gaze for a few seconds.

He sits down next to her and puts his arm around her thin shoulders. She pulls slowly away.

‘Now they’re all lying asleep together,’ Anders says cheerily.

‘No,’ she says in her monotonous voice.

‘What are they doing, then?’

‘They’re looking.’

She points at the dolls’ painted eyes, wide open.

‘You mean they can’t sleep if they’re looking? But you can pretend—’

‘They’re looking,’ she interrupts, her head starting to move anxiously.

‘I can see that,’ he says in a soothing voice. ‘But they’re lying in bed, just like they should be, and that’s really good—’

‘Ow, ow, ow …’

Agnes is moving her head jerkily, then she quickly claps her hands three times. Anders holds her in his arms and kisses her head, and whispers that she’s done really well with the dolls. In the end her body relaxes again and she starts lining up pieces of Lego along the floor.

The doorbell rings and Anders leaves the room, glancing at Agnes one last time before going to answer it.

The outside light shows a tall man in a suit, with wet trousers and a torn pocket. The man’s hair is curly and messed up. His cheeks are dimpled, and his eyes look serious.

‘Anders Rönn?’ he says with a Finnish accent.

‘Can I help you?’ Anders says in a neutral tone of voice.

‘I’m from the National Criminal Investigation Department,’ he says, showing his police ID. ‘Can I come in?’

Anders stares at the tall man outside the door. For a fleeting moment he feels chill with fear. He opens the door to let the man in, and as he asks whether his guest would like coffee, a thousand thoughts are going through his fevered mind.

Petra’s called a women’s helpline and talked.

Brolin has fabricated some sort of complaint against him.

They’ve worked out that he isn’t really qualified to work in the secure unit.

The tall detective says his name is Joona Linna, and politely declines the offer of coffee. He goes into the living room and sits down on an armchair. He gives Anders a friendly, appraising look that makes him feel like a guest in his own home.

‘You’re standing in for Susanne Hjälm in the secure unit,’ the detective inspector says.

‘Yes,’ Anders replies, trying to work out what the man is after.

‘What’s your opinion of Jurek Walter?’

Jurek Walter, Anders thinks. Is this just about Jurek Walter? He relaxes, and manages to bring a dry tone to his voice:

‘I can’t discuss individual patients,’ he says sternly.

‘Do you speak to him?’ the man asks, with a sharp look in his grey eyes.

‘We have no conversational therapy in the secure unit,’ Anders says,
running a hand through his short hair. ‘But obviously, the patients talk …’

Joona Linna leans forward:

‘You’re aware that the Supreme Court applied specific restrictions to Jurek Walter because he’s deemed to be extremely dangerous?’

‘Yes,’ Anders says. ‘But everything becomes a matter of interpretation, and as a responsible doctor I’m always having to weigh restrictions and treatment against each other.’

The detective nods a couple of times, then says:

‘He asked you to send a letter – didn’t he?’

Anders loses his grip for a moment, then reminds himself that he’s the one with the responsibility, the one who takes decisions regarding the patients.

‘Yes, I posted a letter for him,’ he replies. ‘I considered it an important way of building up trust between us.’

‘Did you read the letter before you sent it?’

‘Yes, of course … he knew I would, it was nothing remarkable.’

The detective’s grey eyes darken as his pupils expand.

‘What did it say?’

Anders doesn’t know if Petra’s come in, but it feels like she’s standing behind his back watching them.

‘I don’t remember exactly,’ he says, uncomfortably aware that he’s blushing. ‘It was a formal letter to a legal firm … something I consider to be a human right.’

‘Yes,’ the detective says, without taking his eyes off him.

‘Jurek Walter wanted a lawyer to come and see him in the unit, to help him understand the possibilities of getting a retrial in the Supreme Court … that was more or less what he wanted … and that he … if there was to be a retrial, wanted a private defence lawyer to represent him.’

The living room is silent.

‘What address?’ the detective inspector asks calmly.

‘Rosenhane Legal Services … a PO box in Tensta.’

‘Would you be able to reconstruct the exact wording of the letter?’

‘I actually only read it once, and like I said, it was very formal and polite … even if there were a number of spelling mistakes.’

‘Spelling mistakes?’

‘More like dyslexic errors,’ Anders explains.

‘Did you discuss the letter with Roland Brolin?’

‘No,’ Anders replies. ‘Why would I do that?’

Joona goes back to his car and sets off towards Stockholm. He calls Anja and asks her to check for Rosenhane Legal Services.

‘Do you have any idea what time it is?’

‘The time,’ he repeats, suddenly thinking that it’s only been a few hours since Marie Franzén was shot and killed. ‘I … sorry, let’s do it tomorrow.’

He realises that she’s already ended the call. A couple of minutes pass before she calls him back.

‘There’s no Rosenhane,’ she says. ‘No law firm, and no solicitor either.’

‘There was a PO box address,’ Joona insists.

‘Yes, in Tensta, I found that,’ she replies gently. ‘But it’s been closed down and the lawyer who was renting it doesn’t exist.’

‘I see …’

‘Rosenhane is the name of an extinct aristocratic family,’ she says.

‘Sorry I called so late.’

‘I was joking, you can call me whenever you like. I mean, we’ll soon be married and everything …’

The address is a trail that doesn’t lead anywhere, Joona is thinking. No PO box, no law firm, no name.

It suddenly occurs to him how strange it was for Anders Rönn to call Jurek Walter dyslexic.

I’ve seen his writing, Joona thinks.

What Anders Rönn interpreted as dyslexia was probably just the result of long-term medication.

Once again his thoughts go to Marie Franzén, murdered by Susanne Hjälm. Now there’s a child waiting for a parent who’ll never be coming home.

She shouldn’t have rushed forward, but he knows he could easily have made the same mistake if his operational training wasn’t ingrained so deeply – and then he would have been killed, just like his own father.

Maybe Maria Franzén’s daughter has been told the news by now. The world will never be the same again. When he was eleven his father was shot and killed with a shotgun. His father, also a police officer, had only gone to a flat where there had been reports of a domestic disturbance. Some time that day Joona remembers sitting in his classroom when the headmaster came in and got him. The world was never the same again.

It’s morning, and Jurek is striding along on the running machine. Saga can hear his heavy, ponderous breathing. On the television a man is making his own rubber balls. Colourful spheres are floating in various glasses of water.

Saga is feeling a mixture of emotions. Her self-preservation instinct is telling her she ought to avoid all contact with Jurek, but every conversation she has with him increases her colleagues’ chances of finding Felicia.

The man on television is warning viewers against using too much glitter, because it can spoil the ball’s ability to bounce.

Slowly Saga walks over to Jurek. He steps off the running machine and gestures to her to take over.

She thanks him, gets up and starts walking. Jurek stands alongside watching her. Her legs are still tired and her joints sore. She tries to speed up, but is already breathing laboriously.

‘Have you had your injection of Haldol?’ Jurek asks.

‘Had it the first day,’ she replies.

‘From the doctor?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he come in and pull your trousers down?’

‘I was given Stesolid first,’ she replies quietly.

‘Was he inappropriate?’

She shrugs her shoulders.

‘Has he been in your room more times?’

Bernie comes into the dayroom and walks straight over to the running machine. His broken nose has been fixed up with white fabric tape. One eye is closed by a dark grey swelling. He stops in front of Saga, looks at her and coughs quietly.

‘I’m your slave now … fucking hell … I’m here, and I shall follow you for all eternity, like the pope’s butler … until death do us part …’

He wipes the sweat from his top lip and seems unsteady.

‘I shall obey every—’

‘Sit down on the sofa,’ Saga interrupts without looking at him.

He burps and swallows several times.

‘I shall lie on the floor and warm your feet … I am your dog,’ he says, and sinks to his knees with a sigh. ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Go and sit on the sofa,’ Saga repeats.

She’s walking slowly on the machine. The palm leaves are swaying. Bernie crawls over, tilts his head and looks up at her.

‘Anything, I’ll obey you,’ he says. ‘If your breasts are getting sweaty, I can wipe—’

‘Go and sit on the sofa,’ Jurek says in a detached voice.

Bernie crawls away instantly and lies down on the floor in front of the sofa. Saga has to lower the speed of the machine slightly. She forces herself not to look at the swaying palm leaf and tries not to think about the microphone and transmitter.

Jurek is standing motionless, watching her. He wipes his mouth, then rubs his hand through his short, metal-grey hair.

‘We can get out of the hospital together,’ he says calmly.

‘I don’t know if I want to,’ she replies honestly.

‘Why not?’

‘I haven’t really got anything left outside.’

‘Left?’ he repeats quietly. ‘Going back is never an option … not to anything, but there are better places than this.’

‘And probably some worse.’

He looks genuinely surprised and turns away with a sigh.

‘What did you say?’ she asks.

‘I just sighed, because it occurred to me that I can actually remember a worse place,’ he says, gazing at her with a dreamy look in his eyes.
‘The air was filled with the hum from high-voltage electricity wires … the roads were wrecked by big diggers … and the tracks full of red, clayey water, up to your waist … but I could still open my mouth and breathe.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘That worse places might be preferable to better ones …’

‘You’re thinking about your childhood?’

‘I suppose so,’ he whispers.

Saga stops the running machine, leans forward and hangs over the handles. Her cheeks are flushed, as if she’d run ten kilometres. She knows she ought to continue the conversation, without seeming too eager, and get him to reveal more.

‘So now … have you got a hiding place, or are you going to find a new one?’ she asks, without looking at him.

The question is far too direct, she realises that at once, and forces her face upwards, forces herself to meet his gaze.

‘I can give you an entire city if you like,’ he replies seriously.

‘Where?’

‘Take your pick.’

Saga shakes her head with a smile, but suddenly remembers a place she hasn’t thought of for many years.

‘When I think about other places … I only ever think about my grandfather’s house,’ she says. ‘I had a swing in a tree … I don’t know, but I still like swings.’

‘Can’t you go there?’

‘No,’ she replies, and gets off the running machine.

In the attic flat at Rörstrandsgatan 19, the members of Athena Promacho are listening to the conversation between Jurek Walter and Saga Bauer.

Johan Jönson is sitting at his computer in a grey tracksuit top. Corinne is at her desk, transcribing the whole conversation onto her laptop. Nathan Pollock has drawn ten flowers in the margin of his notebook, and has written down the words ‘high-voltage electricity wires, big diggers, red clay’.

Joona is merely standing by the speaker, feeling a cold shiver run up his spine as Saga talks about her grandfather. She mustn’t let Jurek inside her head, he thinks. Susanne Hjälm’s image flits through his memory. Her dirty face and the terrified look in her eyes down there in the cellar.

‘Why can’t you go there if you want to?’ he hears Jurek ask.

‘It’s my dad’s house now,’ Saga Bauer replies.

‘And you haven’t seen him for a while?’

‘I haven’t wanted to,’ she says.

‘If he’s alive, he’s waiting for you to give him another chance,’ Jurek says.

‘No,’ she replies.

‘Obviously that depends on what happened, but—’

‘I was little, I don’t remember much,’ she explains. ‘But I know I used to call him all the time, promising I’d never be a nuisance again
if he’d come home … I’d sleep in my own bed and sit nicely at the table and … I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘I understand,’ Jurek says, but his words are almost drowned out by a rattling sound.

There’s a whining noise, then the rhythmic thud of the running machine.

Jurek is walking on the running machine. He looks stronger again. His strides are long and forceful, but his pale face is calm.

‘You’re disappointed in your father because he didn’t come home,’ he says.

‘I remember all those times I called him … I mean, I needed him.’

‘But your mother … where was she?’

Saga pauses, and thinks to herself that she’s saying too much now, but at the same time she has to respond to his openness. It’s an exchange, otherwise the conversation will become superficial again. It’s time for her to say something personal, but as long as she sticks to the truth, she’ll be on secure territory.