The Sandman Page 34

  As she tells him about Disa, her face starts to quiver. Joona looks at the veins in her hand and watches her rib cage rise and fall. He tries to understand what she’s saying, and suddenly it comes back to him. Disa’s white face, the cut on her neck, the frightened twist of her mouth. Her slender foot in her nylon stocking.

  “Leave me alone,” he says in a hoarse voice.

  168

  Joona Linna is lying still, feeling the glucose running through his veins and the warm air from the heater above his bed, but he’s not feeling any warmer. Waves of cold are rolling through his body, and every so often his vision goes black.

  An impulse to grab his gun, put the barrel in his mouth, and shoot himself flickers through his thoughts.

  Jurek Walter has escaped.

  Joona knows he’ll never be able to see his daughter or wife again. They’ve been taken from him for good, in the same way that Disa was torn from his hands. Jurek’s twin brother worked out that Summa and Lumi were still alive. Joona knows it’s only a matter of time before Jurek realizes as well.

  Joona tries to sit up but doesn’t have the energy.

  It’s impossible.

  He can’t escape the feeling that he’s sinking deeper and deeper into the mosaic of icy water.

  The door opens, and Saga Bauer walks in. She’s wearing a black jacket and dark jeans.

  “Jurek Walter is dead,” she says. “It’s over. We found his body in Söderleden Tunnel.”

  She stands at the foot of the bed and looks at Joona. His eyes are closed again. She feels as if her heart’s about to stop. He looks terribly ill. His face is almost white, his lips pale gray.

  “I’m heading over to see Reidar Frost now,” Saga tells him. “He needs to know that Felicia’s alive. The doctors say that Felicia’s going to make it. You saved her life.”

  He listens to what she says and turns his face aside, keeping his eyes closed to hold back the tears. Suddenly he understands the pattern.

  Jurek is closing a circle of revenge and blood.

  Joona repeats the thought to himself, moistens his mouth, takes several deep breaths, then says, “Jurek’s on his way to Reidar.”

  “Jurek’s dead,” Saga says. “It’s finally over—”

  “Jurek’s going to take Mikael again. He doesn’t know that Felicia is free. We can’t let him find out that she—”

  Saga looks perplexed. “I’m about to see Reidar, to tell him you saved his daughter.”

  “Jurek only let Mikael out on loan. He’s going to take him again.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Joona looks at her, and the expression in his gray eyes is so cold it makes her shiver.

  “The real victims aren’t the ones who were locked up or killed,” he says. “The victims are the ones who were left behind, the ones who were waiting until they couldn’t bear to wait anymore.”

  She places her hand on his. “I have to go now. Reidar needs to know about Felicia. The hospital hasn’t been able to reach him.”

  “Make sure you’re armed,” he says.

  “I’m just going to tell Reidar and—”

  “Do as I say,” he commands.

  169

  It’s not yet dawn when Saga reaches the manor. There’s only one light visible, in a window on the ground floor.

  Saga walks up the driveway, shivering. The snow is untouched, and the darkness stretches across the fields. There aren’t any stars visible in the night sky. The only sounds are from a river nearby.

  As she approaches the house, she sees a man sitting at the kitchen table with his back to the window. There’s a book on the table next to him. He’s drinking slowly from a cup.

  Saga continues up the stone steps to the big front door and rings the bell. The man who had been sitting in the kitchen opens the door.

  It’s Reidar Frost. He’s wearing striped pajama pants and a white T-shirt. White stubble covers his chin.

  “Hello. My name’s Saga Bauer. I work for the Security Police.”

  “Come in,” he says.

  She takes a couple of steps into the dimly lit hall with its broad staircase. Reidar backs away with a fearful expression.

  “No, not Felicia, not—”

  “We’ve found her,” Saga reassures him. “She’s alive, and she’s going to be all right.”

  “I…I have to…”

  “She’s seriously ill,” Saga explains. “Your daughter has advanced Legionnaires’ disease. But she’s going to be okay.”

  “She’s going to be okay,” Reidar repeats. “I have to go. I have to see her.”

  “She’s being moved from intensive care to the infectious-diseases unit at seven o’clock.”

  He looks at her with tears trickling down his cheeks.

  “Then I have time to get dressed and wake Mikael.”

  Saga follows him to the kitchen. The ceiling light casts a pleasant glow over the table.

  The radio is on, playing gentle piano music.

  “We’ve been trying to call,” she says. “But your phone—”

  “That’s my fault,” Reidar says, wiping the tears from his cheeks. “I’ve had to start turning off the phone at night. I don’t know, so many crazy people keep calling with tip-offs, people who—”

  “I understand.”

  “Felicia’s alive,” Reidar says tentatively.

  “Yes,” Saga says.

  His face cracks, and he looks at her with bloodshot eyes. It seems as if he’s going to ask her again, but he just shakes his head and takes a deep breath. He picks up a large pot of coffee from the black stove and pours a cup for Saga.

  “Some warm milk?”

  “No, thanks,” she says, taking the cup.

  “I need to wake Mikael and tell him.”

  He starts to head for the hall but stops and turns back toward her.

  “I have to know. Did you catch him? The Sandman?” he asks. “The man Mikael calls the—”

  “He and Jurek Walter are both dead,” Saga says. “They were twin brothers.”

  “Twin brothers?”

  “Yes, they were working togeth—”

  The light in the ceiling goes out, and the music on the radio stops. It’s pitch-black and silent.

  “Power outage,” Reidar mutters, testing the light switch. “I have candles in the cupboard.”

  “Felicia was locked up in an old bomb shelter,” Saga explains.

  As their eyes adjust, the glow of the snow outside seems to penetrate the darkness of the kitchen, and Saga can see Reidar feeling his way toward a large cupboard.

  “Where was the shelter?” he asks.

  Saga hears a rattling sound as Reidar rummages through a drawer.

  “In the old quarry out in Rotebro,” she replies.

  Saga sees him pause thoughtfully and take a step back.

  “That’s where I’m from,” he says slowly. “And I remember that there were twins. I used to play with them when I was little. Could it—could it have been Jurek Walter and his brother? I don’t remember their names. But why, why would…”

  “I’m not sure there are any answers,” she says.

  Reidar finds some matches and lights a candle.

  “I lived fairly close to the quarry as a child,” he says. “The twins were a year or so older than me. They were just sitting in the grass behind me one day when I was fishing in the river that runs into the small lake nearby.”

  Reidar takes an empty wine bottle from under the sink, pushes the lit candle into it, and sets it on the table.

  “They were a bit odd. But we started to play, and I went to their house once. I remember it was spring, and I was given an apple.”

  The light from the candle makes the windows opaque.

  “They took me to the quarry,” Reidar continues. “It was off-limits, but they’d found a hole in the fence, and we’d meet to play there every evening. It was exciting. We would run up the mounds and roll down in the sand, and—”

  Reida
r falls silent.

  “What were you about to say?”

  “I haven’t thought about this for a long time, but one evening I heard them whispering to each other, and then they just vanished. I rolled down myself, and was about to go looking for them when the foreman showed up. He grabbed me and started shouting…you know, saying he’d tell my parents and all that. And I was terrified. I told him that I didn’t know it was off-limits, that the boys had said we could play there. He asked who the boys were, and I pointed to their house.”

  Reidar lights another candle from the first. The light bounces off the walls and ceiling. A smell of wax spreads through the kitchen.

  “I never saw the twins again after that,” he says, then leaves the kitchen to go wake Mikael.

  170

  Saga stands at the kitchen table, drinking the strong coffee and gazing absently at the reflections of the two candles in the double layer of glass in the window.

  Joona’s so badly hurt, she thinks. He didn’t even understand her when she told him Jurek was dead. He just kept saying that Jurek was on his way to get Mikael.

  Saga feels the weight of her Glock 17 against her side, then moves away from the window and listens to the sounds of the large house.

  Something makes her suddenly alert.

  She takes a few steps toward the door, stops, and imagines she can hear a faint metallic scraping sound.

  It could be anything. A loose shutter moving in the wind. A branch against a window.

  She takes a sip of coffee. She looks at the time, takes her phone out, and calls the Needle.

  “Nils Åhlén, Forensics Lab,” he answers after a few rings.

  “It’s Saga Bauer,” she says.

  “Good morning, good morning.”

  A gust of cold air sweeps across the floor around Saga’s legs. She goes and stands with her back against the wall.

  “Have you seen the body from Söderleden Tunnel?” she asks. The candlelight flickers.

  “Yes, I’m here now. They dragged me out of bed to deal with it.”

  She sees the candle flicker again, and hears the Needle’s nasal voice echo off the walls of the postmortem room.

  “The body suffered severe burns. It’s all cracked, pretty much charcoal. The heat shriveled it up badly. The head’s missing, as well as both—”

  “But have you been able to identify him?”

  “I’ve only been here a quarter of an hour, and it’s going to be several days before I can come up with any sort of reliable identification.”

  “Of course, but I was wondering—”

  “All I can say right now,” the Needle goes on, “is that this man was approximately twenty-five years old, and he’s—”

  “So it isn’t Jurek Walter?”

  “Jurek Walter? No, this…Did you think it was Jurek?”

  Saga hears rapid footsteps upstairs. She looks up and sees the kitchen lamp quivering. Caught in the candlelight, it casts a wavering shadow over the ceiling. She pulls her pistol from her holster and says in a low voice: “I’m at Reidar Frost’s house. You have to help me get an ambulance and police backup out here, as soon as possible.”

  171

  Reidar is walking through the silent rooms upstairs. His left hand shields the candle flame. The light flickers over walls and furniture, its reflection multiplied over rows of black windows.

  He imagines he can hear steps behind him, but when he turns around, all he can see is the shiny leather furniture and the big bookcase with glass doors.

  The entrance to the living room is a gaping dark rectangle. It’s impossible to tell if anyone’s in there. Something glints in the shadows, then disappears.

  Hot wax is running over his fingers.

  The floor creaks beneath him. Unease spreads through his body as he stops outside Mikael’s room.

  Reidar looks back down the long corridor with its rows of old portraits.

  He knocks lightly on Mikael’s door, then opens it.

  “Mikael?” he calls.

  He holds the candle up toward the bed. The walls seem to sway in the yellow light. The covers are bunched up and hanging over the edge of the bed, down onto the rug.

  He looks around, but Mikael has vanished. Beads of sweat break out on his forehead as he bends over to look under the bed.

  He hears rustling behind him and spins around so fast that the candle almost goes out. The flame shrinks into a tremulous blue before growing again.

  His heartbeat accelerates, and his chest starts to ache.

  Something creaks inside the closet. Reidar slowly edges over and hesitates before opening one of the doors.

  Mikael is huddled among the clothes.

  “The Sandman’s here,” he whispers, shrinking farther into the closet.

  “It’s just a power outage,” Reidar says. “We’re going—”

  “He’s here,” Mikael insists. “He’s here.”

  “The Sandman’s dead,” Reidar says, holding out his hand. “Felicia’s safe. She’s going to be fine. She’s getting the same treatment as you. We’re going to go and see her now—”

  A scream rips through the walls. It’s muffled but sounds bestial, like the cry of a man in terrible pain.

  Reidar’s heart seizes as a chill shoots down his spine. He urges his son out of the closet. Wax drips to the floor.

  “Dad…”

  “It’s going to be okay, Mikael,” Reidar says, trying to keep his voice calm. “I’m right here. We’ll be okay, but we need to leave the house.”

  “No, no, no…I can’t….”

  Mikael tries to curl up on the floor, but Reidar drags him to his feet.

  Sweat is running down Reidar’s back. He can feel his son trembling with fear as he leads him out of the bedroom and along the corridor.

  “Wait,” Reidar whispers as he hears a creak in the sitting room ahead of them.

  A slender figure emerges from the doorway at the far end of the corridor. It’s Jurek Walter. His eyes are shining in his butcher’s face, and the knife hanging in his right hand glints heavily. Reidar backs away and loses his slippers. Mikael is paralyzed. Reidar throws the candle at Jurek. The flame is extinguished in midair, and the candle clatters to the floor.

  “Follow me,” Reidar says, grabbing Mikael’s hand.

  They run down the corridor without looking back. It’s dark, and Mikael stumbles over a chair, his hand flailing over the wallpaper.

  A picture frame crashes to the floor, and the glass shatters, splintering across the hall.

  They push open a heavy door and stumble into the old dining room.

  Reidar has to stop. He’s coughing and fumbling for something to lean on. Rapid steps approach along the corridor.

  “Dad!”

  “Close the door, close the door!” he pants.

  Mikael slams the heavy door shut and turns the key in the lock three times. A moment later, the handle is pushed down and the door creaks.

  Mikael backs away across the parquet floor, eyes fixed on the door.

  “Don’t let him take me, Dad,” he says, sobbing.

  Pain spreads through Reidar’s chest and down his left arm.

  “I need a moment,” he says weakly. His legs feel unsteady.

  Jurek thuds against the door with his shoulder, but it doesn’t give way.

  Mikael is cowering against his father’s body.

  “He can’t get in,” Reidar whispers. “I promise. I just need a few seconds.”

  The pressure in his chest is so strong he can hardly speak.

  172

  Saga sweeps the corridor with her pistol as she creeps toward the staircase in the hall.

  She has to reach Mikael and Reidar and get them out to the car.

  The sky has brightened slightly, and it’s now possible to detect the pictures on the walls and the shapes of the furniture. The sound of her footsteps vanishes as she walks over a rug and past the black grand piano. Something flashes in the corner of her eye. She turns and sees
a cello balanced on its stand.

  Saga creeps along with her pistol aimed down at the floor. Gradually, she moves her finger to the trigger, squeezing it carefully, just past the first notch.

  She hears a rushing sound behind her and spins around to see snow slipping off the roof past the bay window.

  Her heart is thudding in her chest.

  When she turns back toward the hall, she sees a hand at one of the doors. Someone’s skinny fingers are reaching around the edge.

  Saga aims her pistol at the door, ready to shoot through it, but suddenly there’s a terrible scream. The hand slides down and disappears. There’s a thump as something hits the ground.

  Saga rushes in and sees a man lying on the floor, one leg twitching spasmodically. She recognizes him as the actor Wille Strandberg. He’s gasping and clutching his stomach.

  Blood bubbles out between his fingers.

  He stares at Saga in confusion, then blinks rapidly.

  “I’m a police officer,” she says as she hears the stairs creak. “The ambulance is on its way.”

  “He wants Mikael,” the actor groans.

  173

  Mikael is whispering to himself and staring at the locked door when the key is suddenly pushed out and falls onto the parquet floor with a muffled clunk.

  Reidar is standing with his hand pressed against his chest. He’s in agony now. He’s tried several times to tell Mikael to run, but the boy won’t move.

  “Save me,” Mikael whispers.

  “Mikael, can you come here and help me walk?”

  There’s a scraping sound from the lock as Mikael puts his father’s arm over his shoulder and tries to pull him toward the library.

  Behind them, the scraping sound from the lock continues.

  They carry on slowly past a tall cupboard, along a wall lined with large tapestries stretched over wooden frames.

  Reidar stops, coughing.

  “Hold on,” he says.

  He slips his fingers along the edge of the third tapestry. It’s a concealed door leading to a servants’ staircase down to the kitchen. They creep into the narrow passageway and let the tapestry fall into place softly behind them.