The Sandman Read online

  Still consumed by rage, Saga holds him in the blind spot and hits him with another right hook. His head is knocked aside, his cheeks flap, and his glasses fly off and hit the wall.

  Bernie sinks to his knees, his head hanging, as blood drips onto the floor.

  Saga pulls his head up, sees that he’s about to black out, and punches him in the nose once more.

  “I warned you,” she growls, letting go of him.

  Bernie falls forward and throws his arms out to stop himself. Blood drips from his face through his hands and onto the vinyl floor.

  Saga steps away, breathing hard. Jurek Walter has gotten off the treadmill and is watching her with his pale eyes. His face is motionless, his body strangely relaxed.

  As she walks past Jurek toward her own room, the thought that crosses Saga’s mind is that she’s ruined everything.

  99

  The computer’s fan whirrs as Anders logs in. The second hand moves jerkily on a clock with an image of Bart Simpson’s face on the dial. Anders remembers that he has to leave early today because he’s attending a class on Socratic conversations at the Autism Education Center.

  A Post-it note next to the keyboard says that it’s recycling week. He has no idea what that means.

  Once the secure unit’s medical-chart program opens up, he types in his username and password. He checks the log, then taps in Saga Bauer’s ID number, to make a note about her medication.

  Twenty-five milligrams of Haldol Depot, he writes. Two intramuscular injections in the outer top quadrant of the gluteal region.

  It was the right decision, he thinks, and in his mind’s eye he can see her writhing on the floor with her breasts exposed.

  Her pale nipples had stiffened. Her mouth had been afraid.

  If that doesn’t help her, he can try Cisordinol, although that can sometimes have serious side effects. Possibly extrapyramidal symptoms, combined with problems with vision, balance, and orgasm.

  Anders closes his eyes and remembers how he pulled the patient’s underwear down.

  “I don’t want to,” she had repeated several times.

  But he didn’t have to listen to her. He did what he had to do. Pia Madsen had supervised the intervention.

  He gave her two injections in the buttock, and stared between her legs at her blond pubic hair and pink, closed vagina.

  Anders goes to the surveillance room. My is already sitting at the control desk. She shoots him a friendly glance as he walks in.

  “They’re in the dayroom,” she says.

  Anders leans over her and looks at the screen. Jurek is on the treadmill. Saga is standing and watching television. She seems fairly unaffected by the new medication. Bernie goes over to her, says something, and stands behind her.

  “What’s he doing now?” Anders asks.

  “Bernie seems unsettled,” My says, frowning.

  “I would really have liked to increase his dosage yesterday. Maybe I should have.”

  “He keeps following the new patient, chattering manically—”

  “Damnit,” Anders says, a note of stress in his voice.

  “Leif and I are ready to go in,” My reassures him.

  “But you shouldn’t have to,” he says. “That means the medication is wrong. I’m raising his dose this evening from two hundred to four hundred milligrams.”

  Anders watches as Bernie circles Saga. The other cameras show security doors, corridors, and empty cells. In one square, Sven Hoffman has a mug of coffee in his hand outside the security lock leading to the dayroom. He’s talking to two of the guards.

  “Shit,” My suddenly yells, and pulls the emergency alarm.

  100

  A harsh, pulsing sound echoes through the room. Anders is still staring at the dayroom on the monitor. The light in the ceiling reflects off the dusty glass of the screen. He leans forward. He can see only two patients. Jurek is standing next to the television, and Saga is on her way to her room.

  My is on her feet, shouting something into the emergency radio unit. The desk lamp topples over, and her office chair rolls back into the filing cabinet. She’s yelling that Bernie Larsson is injured, and that the response team has to go in immediately.

  Only now does Anders notice that Bernie is hidden behind the protruding section of the wall.

  All he can see is a bloody hand on the floor. Bernie must be right in front of Jurek.

  “You have to go in,” My repeats into the radio unit several times, then rushes out.

  Anders remains seated and watches as Jurek leans over and drags Bernie by his hair to the middle of the room.

  A trail of blood shimmers on the floor.

  He sees Leif giving instructions to two guards outside the security lock as My runs up to join them.

  The alarm is still ringing.

  Bernie’s face is covered in blood. His eyes are twitching spasmodically, and his arms are flailing in the air.

  Anders locks the door to Patient Room 3, then checks in with Sven over the radio. A group of guards is being sent down from Ward 30.

  Someone switches the alarm off.

  Anders’s radio bleeps, and he can hear someone breathing hard.

  “I’m opening the door now, repeat, opening the door,” My calls.

  Jurek’s impassive face is visible on the screen. He’s standing over Bernie as the injured patient coughs and sprays blood across the floor.

  Guards and orderlies with batons are amassing outside the dayroom. Their expressions look tense.

  The outer door locks, and there’s a rumbling sound.

  Jurek says something to Bernie, bends forward, and hits him hard across the mouth.

  “Christ,” Anders mutters.

  The emergency team enters the dayroom and fans out. Jurek stands up and shakes the blood from his hand, then takes a step back and waits.

  “Give him forty milligrams of Stesolid,” Anders tells My.

  “Four ampoules of Stesolid,” My repeats over the radio.

  Three guards approach from different directions with their batons raised. They shout at Jurek to move away and instruct him to kneel on the floor.

  Jurek looks at them, slowly sinks to his knees, and closes his eyes. Leif takes a few quick steps forward and hits Jurek on the back of the neck with his baton. It’s a hard blow. Jurek’s head jerks forward, and his body follows. He falls to the floor and stays there.

  The second guard holds a knee on Jurek’s spine as he grabs his arms and twists them behind his back. My is unwrapping a syringe. On the screen, Anders can see her hands shaking.

  Jurek is lying on his stomach. Two guards are holding him down now, and they cuff his wrists and pull his pants down so that My can inject straight into his muscle.

  101

  Anders looks into the emergency doctor’s brown eyes and quietly thanks her. Her white coat is flecked with Bernie’s blood.

  “His nasal bone has been reset. I’ve stitched up his eyebrow, but tape was fine everywhere else. He probably has a concussion, so you’ll need to keep him under close supervision.”

  “We always do,” Anders replies, glancing at Bernie on the monitor.

  He’s lying on his bed, his face covered in bandages. His mouth is half open, and his bulging stomach moves in time with his breathing.

  “He says some really revolting things,” the doctor says as she walks out.

  Leif returns to the surveillance room and runs his hand through his wavy hair. “That was unexpected.”

  “I’ve reviewed the chart,” Anders says. “This is the first time in thirteen years that Jurek has done anything violent.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t like company,” Leif suggests.

  “Jurek’s an old man, and he’s used to having things his way, but he has to understand that that’s not going to work from now on.”

  “How are we going to make him understand that?” Leif says, and smiles grimly.

  Anders pulls his card through the reader and lets Leif in ahead of him. They go
past Patient Rooms 3 and 2, and stop outside Jurek’s cell.

  Anders looks into the room. Jurek is lying on the bed, strapped down.

  Leif takes a pair of earplugs out of his pocket and offers them to Anders, but he shakes his head.

  “Lock the door once I’m inside, and be ready to sound the alarm.”

  “Just go in and do what you need to. Don’t talk to him, and pretend you can’t hear what he’s saying,” Leif says.

  Anders goes in and hears Leif quickly lock the door behind him. Jurek’s wrists and ankles are fastened to the edges of the bed. Thick fabric straps are stretched across his thighs, hips, and torso. He still looks tired after the emergency tranquilizer, and blood has dribbled out of one ear. The blood from his nose has congealed, and his nostrils appear oddly black.

  “I’ve decided to change your medication in light of what happened in the dayroom,” Anders says.

  “Yes. I was expecting a punishment,” Jurek says hoarsely.

  “I’m sorry you choose to see it like that, but it’s my responsibility to prevent violence in this ward.”

  102

  Anders lines up the vials of yellow liquid for the injection on the table. The restraint belts fix Jurek’s body to the bed, but his eyes follow the doctor’s every move.

  “I can’t feel my fingers,” Jurek says, trying to free his right hand.

  “You know we have to take emergency measures sometimes,” Anders says.

  “The first time we met, you looked scared. Now you’re looking for fear in my eyes,” Jurek says.

  “Why do you think that?” Anders asks.

  Jurek takes several breaths, then moistens his mouth and looks Anders in the eye.

  “I can see that you’re preparing three hundred milligrams of Cisordinol, even though you know that’s too much, and that the combination with my normal medication is risky.”

  “I’ve reached a different conclusion,” Anders says, feeling his cheeks blush.

  “Yet you’ll write in my notes that you’ve tried merely fifty milligrams.”

  Anders doesn’t respond. He prepares the syringe and checks that the needle is completely dry.

  “You know that an overdose could be fatal,” Jurek continues. “But I’m strong, so I’ll probably be okay. Still, I’ll scream, I’ll suffer terrible cramps, and I’ll lose consciousness.”

  “There’s always a risk of side effects,” Anders says laconically.

  “Pain doesn’t bother me.”

  Anders squeezes a couple of drops from the needle. One drop runs down the syringe.

  “The other patients seem to have unsettled you,” Anders says, without looking at Jurek.

  “You don’t have to make excuses to me,” Jurek says.

  Anders presses the needle into Jurek’s thigh, injects three hundred milligrams of Cisordinol, and waits.

  Jurek gasps. His lips quiver, and his pupils contract to pinpricks. Saliva dribbles from his mouth, down his cheek and neck. His body twitches and jerks, then suddenly goes completely rigid, his head straining backward, his back bowed off the bed, the straps over his body straining.

  He remains in that position, without breathing.

  The frame of the bed creaks.

  Anders stares at him. He’s having a protracted seizure.

  Suddenly the tonic state ends, and Jurek’s body begins to spasm instead. He’s jerking uncontrollably, biting his tongue and emitting guttural roars of pain.

  Anders tries to tighten the straps across his body. Jurek’s arms are pulling so hard that his wrists start to bleed.

  He sinks back, whimpering, as the blood drains from his face.

  Anders steps away and can’t help feeling satisfied when he sees tears trickling down Jurek’s cheeks.

  “It’ll feel better soon,” he lies.

  “Not for you,” Jurek gasps.

  “What did you say?”

  “When I chop your head off and throw it in—”

  Jurek is interrupted by a fresh wave of cramps. He screams as his head twists to one side. A fan of veins stands out on his throat as the bones in his neck crack. His whole body starts to shake again, making the bed rattle.

  103

  Saga lets ice-cold water run over her hands. Her swollen knuckles are sore, and she has three small cuts on them.

  Everything’s gone wrong.

  She lost control and attacked Bernie, and Jurek was blamed.

  Through the door she heard the guards shouting about four ampoules of Stesolid before they dragged him into his cell.

  They thought he was the one who had attacked Bernie.

  Saga turns the tap off, lets water drip from her hands onto the floor, and sits down on the bed. Adrenaline has been replaced with a quivering heaviness in her muscles.

  An emergency doctor was called in to take care of Bernie. She heard him babbling feverishly until the door closed.

  Saga is so frustrated she’s almost in tears. Her complete inability to control her damn emotions. Her goddamn anger has ruined everything. She shudders. It’s possible that Jurek will want revenge for getting the blame.

  The security doors clatter, and she hears rapid steps in the corridor, but no one comes to her cell.

  Silence.

  Saga sits on the bed with her eyes closed as growls start to reverberate through the walls. Her heart beats faster. She listens as Jurek lets out a guttural howl and screams with pain. She thinks she can hear someone kicking his bare heels against the reinforced steel of the bed frame. It sounds a bit like a fist hitting a punching bag.

  Saga stares at the door, thinking about electric shocks and lobotomies.

  Jurek’s voice cracks as he screams. She hears heavy thuds.

  Then silence.

  Now all she can hear is the gentle clicking of the water pipes in the wall. Saga gets up and stares through the thick glass of the window in the door. The young doctor walks past. He stops and looks at her with a blank expression.

  Living here is much more difficult than she imagined. Instead of crying, she goes through her mission in her head, running through the rules for long-term infiltration and the purpose of the entire operation.

  Felicia Kohler-Frost is completely alone in a locked room. She could be starving, and may have Legionnaires’ disease.

  Time is running out.

  Saga knows that Joona is looking for the girl, but without any clues from Jurek the chances of making a breakthrough aren’t good.

  Saga has to stick it out for a while longer.

  The life she left behind had left her first. Stefan is gone. She has no family.

  As the light goes out, she shuts her eyes and feels them pricking.

  104

  Joona is in one of the large offices at headquarters, along with part of the investigative team. The walls are covered with maps, photographs, and printouts of the tip-offs that are currently being prioritized. On a map of Lill-Jan’s Forest, the sites of the various discoveries are clearly marked.

  With a yellow pen, Joona traces the railroad line from the harbor through the forest.

  “Jurek used to work on railroad switches,” he says. “It’s possible that the victims were buried in Lill-Jan’s Forest because of this railroad line.”

  “Like the Railroad Killer, Ángel Reséndiz,” Benny Rubin says.

  “So why the hell don’t we just go in and interrogate Jurek?” Petter Näslund demands.

  “It wouldn’t work,” Joona responds.

  “Petter, I assume you’ve read the psychiatric report?” Magdalena Ronander says. “Is there really any point interrogating someone who’s both schizophrenic and psychotic, and who—”

  “We have eighteen thousand kilometers of railroad lines in Sweden,” Petter interrupts. “We might as well get digging.”

  Joona can’t help thinking that Petter Näslund has a point. Jurek is the only person who can lead them to Felicia before it’s too late. They’re checking every single line of inquiry from the old investigation, and the
y’re looking into all the tip-offs that have come in, but they’re not making any progress. Saga Bauer is their only real hope. Yesterday she beat up another patient and Jurek was blamed. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Joona thinks. It might even help bring them together.

  * * *

  —

  It’s getting dark outside, and pinpricks of snow land on Joona’s face as he gets out of the car and hurries in to Södermalm Hospital. He spots Dr. Goodwin as soon as he walks in. The door to one of the examination rooms is open. A woman with a split lip and a bleeding wound on her chin is sitting quietly while Dr. Goodwin talks to her.

  There’s a smell of damp wool, and the floor is slippery with slush. A construction worker sits on one of the benches with one foot in a fogged-up plastic bag.

  Joona waits until Dr. Goodwin emerges from the room, then walks with her down the corridor toward another examination room.

  “This is the third time she’s been here in as many months,” Dr. Goodwin says.

  “You should refer her to a women’s shelter,” Joona says.

  “I already have. But what good will that do?”

  “It helps,” Joona insists.

  “So what can I do for you?” she asks, stopping outside the door.

  “I need to know about the progression of Legionnaires’ disease—”

  “He’s going to be fine,” she interrupts, opening the door.

  “Yes, but what if he hadn’t been treated?” Joona says.

  “How do you mean?” she asks.

  “We’re trying to find his sister,” Joona says. “And it seems likely that she would’ve been infected at the same time as Mikael.”

  “In that case, it would be serious,” Dr. Goodwin says.

  “How serious?”

  “Without treatment—it depends on her general condition, but she probably has a high fever by now.”

  “And then what?”

  “She’ll be coughing already and having trouble breathing. It’s impossible to say with any degree of accuracy, but I’d say that by the end of the week she’ll be at risk of brain damage. And, well, you know that Legionnaires’ disease can be fatal.”