The Sandman

7

Mikael stands up in the darkness when the Sandman blows his terrible dust into the room. He’s learned that there’s no point holding your breath. Because when the Sandman wants the children to sleep, they fall asleep.

He knows full well that his eyes will soon feel tired, so tired that he can’t keep them open. He knows he’ll have to lie down on the mattress and become part of the darkness.

Mum used to talk about the Sandman’s daughter, the mechanical girl, Olympia. She creeps in to the children once they’re asleep and pulls the covers up over their shoulders so they don’t freeze.

Mikael leans against the wall, feels the furrows in the concrete.

The thin sand floats like fog. It’s hard to breathe. His lungs struggle to keep his blood oxygenated.

He coughs and licks his lips. They’re dry and already feel numb.

His eyelids are getting heavier and heavier.

Now the whole family is swinging in the hammock. The summer light shines through the leaves of the lilac bower. The rusty screws creak.

Mikael is smiling broadly.

We’re swinging high and Mum’s trying to slow us down, but Dad keeps us going. A jolt to the table in front of us makes the glasses of strawberry juice tremble.

The hammock swings backwards and Dad laughs and holds up his hands like he was on a rollercoaster.

Mikael’s head nods and he opens his eyes in the darkness, stumbles to the side and leans his hand against the cool wall. He turns towards the mattress, thinking that he should lie down before he passes out, when his knees suddenly give way.

He falls and hits the floor, trapping his arm beneath him, feeling the pain from his wrist and shoulder in the sleep to which he has already succumbed.

He rolls heavily onto his stomach and tries to crawl, but doesn’t have the energy. He lies there panting with his cheek against the concrete floor. He tries to say something, but has no voice left.

His eyes close even though he’s trying to resist.

Just as he is slipping into oblivion he hears the Sandman pad into the room, creeping on his dusty feet straight up the walls to the ceiling. He stops and reaches down with his arms, trying to catch Mikael with his porcelain fingertips.

Everything is black.

When Mikael wakes up his mouth is dry and his head aches. His eyes are grimy with old sand. He’s so tired that his brain tries to go back to sleep, but a little sliver of his consciousness registers that something is very different.

Adrenalin hits him like a gust of hot air.

He sits up in the darkness and can hear from the acoustics that he’s in a different room, a larger room.

He’s no longer in the capsule.

Loneliness makes him ice-cold.

He creeps cautiously across the floor and reaches a wall. His mind is racing. He can’t remember how long it’s been since he gave up any thought of escape.

His body is still heavy from its long sleep. He gets up on shaky legs and follows the wall to a corner, then carries on and reaches a sheet of metal. He quickly feels along its edges and realises that it’s a door, then runs his hands over its surface and finds a handle.

His hands are shaking.

The room is completely silent.

Carefully he pushes the handle down, and is so prepared to meet resistance that he almost falls over when the door simply opens.

He takes a long stride into the brighter room and has to shut his eyes for a while.

It feels like a dream.

Just let me get out, he thinks.

His head is throbbing.

He squints and sees that he is in a corridor, and moves forward on weak legs. His heart is beating so fast he can hardly breathe.

He’s trying to be quiet, but is still whimpering to himself with fear.

The Sandman will soon be back – he never forgets any children.

Mikael can’t open his eyes properly, but nonetheless heads towards the fuzzy glow ahead of him.

Maybe it’s a trap, he thinks. Maybe he’s being lured like an insect towards a burning light.

But he keeps on walking, running his hand along the wall for support.

He knocks into some big rolls of insulation and gasps with fear, lurches to the side and hits the other wall with his shoulder, but manages to keep his balance.

He stops and coughs as quietly as he can.

The glow in front of him is coming from a pane of glass in a door.

He stumbles towards it and pushes the handle down, but the door is locked.

No, no, no …

He tugs at the handle, shoves the door, tries again. The door is definitely locked. He feels like slumping to the floor in despair. Suddenly he hears soft footsteps behind him, but daren’t turn round.

8

Reidar Frost drains his wine glass, puts it down on the dining table and closes his eyes for a while to calm himself. One of the guests is clapping. Veronica is standing in her blue dress, facing the corner with her hands over her face, and she starts to count.

The guests vanish in different directions, and footsteps and laughter spread through the many rooms of the manor house.

The rule is that they have to stick to the ground floor, but Reidar gets slowly to his feet, goes over to the hidden door and creeps into the service passageway. Carefully he climbs the narrow backstairs, opens the secret door in the wall and emerges into the private part of the house.

He knows he shouldn’t be alone there, but carries on through the sequence of rooms.

At every stage he closes the doors behind him, until he reaches the gallery at the far end.

Along one wall stand the boxes containing the children’s clothes and toys. One box is open, revealing a pale-green space gun.

He hears Veronica call out, muffled by the floor and walls:

‘One hundred! Coming, ready or not!’

Through the windows he looks out over the fields and paddocks. In the distance he can see the birch avenue that leads to Råcksta Manor.

Reidar pulls an armchair across the floor and hangs his jacket on it. He can feel how drunk he is as he climbs up onto the seat. The back of his white shirt is wet with sweat. With a forceful gesture he tosses the rope over the beam in the roof. The chair beneath him creaks from the movement. The heavy rope falls across the beam and the end is left swinging.

Dust drifts through the air.

The padded seat feels oddly soft beneath the thin soles of his shoes.

Muted laughter and cries can be heard from the party below and for a few moments Reidar closes his eyes and thinks of the children, their little faces, wonderful faces, their shoulders and thin arms.

He can hear their high-pitched voices and quick feet running across the floor whenever he listens – the memory is like a summer breeze in his soul, leaving him cold and desolate again.

Happy birthday, Mikael, he thinks.

His hands are shaking so much that he can’t tie a noose. He stands still, tries to breathe more calmly, then starts again, just as he hears a knock on one of the doors.

He waits a few seconds, then lets go of the rope, climbs down onto the floor and picks up his jacket.

‘Reidar?’ a woman’s voice calls softly.

It’s Veronica, she must have been peeking while she was counting and saw him disappear into the passageway. She’s opening the doors to the various rooms and her voice gets clearer the closer she comes.

Reidar turns the lights off and leaves the nursery, opening the door to the next room and stopping there.

Veronica comes towards him with a glass of champagne in her hand. There is a warm glow in her dark, intoxicated eyes.

She’s tall and thin, and has had her black hair cut in a boyish style that suits her.

‘Did I say I wanted to sleep with you?’ he asks.

She spins round slightly unsteadily.

‘Funny,’ she says with a sad look in her eyes.

Veronica Klimt is Reidar’s literary agent. He may not have written a word in the past thirteen years, but the three books he wrote before that are still generating an income.

Now they can hear music from the dining room below, the rapid bass-line transmitting itself through the fabric of the building. Reidar stops at the sofa and runs his hand through his silvery hair.

‘You’re saving some champagne for me, I hope?’ he asks, sitting down on the sofa.

‘No,’ Veronica says, passing him her half-full glass.

‘Your husband called me,’ Reidar says. ‘He thinks it’s time for you to go home.’

‘I don’t want to, I want to get divorced and—’

‘You mustn’t,’ he interrupts.

‘Why do you say things like that?’

‘Because I don’t want you to think I care about you,’ he replies.

‘I don’t.’

He empties the glass, then puts it down on the sofa, closes his eyes and feels the giddiness of being drunk.

‘You looked sad, and I got a bit worried.’

‘I’ve never felt better.’

There’s laughter now, and the club music is turned up until the vibrations can be felt through the floor.

‘Your guests are probably starting to wonder where you are.’

‘Then let’s go and turn the place upside down,’ he says with a smile.

For the past seven years Reidar has made sure he has people around him almost twenty-four hours a day. He has a vast circle of acquaintances. Sometimes he holds big parties out at the house, sometimes more intimate dinners. On certain days, like the children’s birthdays, it’s very hard indeed to go on living. He knows that without people around him he would soon succumb to the loneliness and silence.

9

Reidar and Veronica open the doors to the dining room and the throbbing music hits them in the chest. There’s a crowd of people dancing round the table in the darkness. Some of them are still eating the saddle of venison and roasted vegetables.

The actor Wille Strandberg has unbuttoned his shirt. It’s impossible to hear what he’s saying as he dances his way through the crowd towards Reidar and Veronica.

‘Take it off!’ Veronica cries.

Wille laughs and pulls off his shirt, throws it at her and dances in front of her with his hands behind his neck. His bulging, middle-aged stomach bounces in time to his quick movements.

Reidar empties another glass of wine, then dances up to Wille with his hips rolling.

The music goes into a quieter, gentler phase and Reidar’s old publisher David Sylwan takes hold of his arm and gasps something, his face sweaty and happy.

‘What?’

‘There’s been no contest today,’ David repeats.

‘Stud poker?’ Reidar asks. ‘Shooting, wrestling …’

‘Shooting!’ several people cry.

‘Get the pistol and a few bottles of champagne,’ Reidar says with a smile.

The thudding beat returns, drowning out any further conversation. Reidar gets an oil painting down from the wall and carries it out through the door. It’s a portrait of him, painted by Peter Dahl.

‘I like that picture,’ Veronica says, trying to stop him.

Reidar shakes her hand from his arm and carries on towards the hall. Almost all of the guests follow him outside into the ice-cold park. Fresh snow has settled smoothly on the ground. There are still flakes swirling round beneath the dark sky.

Reidar strides through the snow and hangs the portrait on an apple tree, its branches laden with snow. Wille Strandberg follows, carrying a flare he found in a box in the cleaning cupboard. He tears the plastic cover off, then pulls the string. There’s a pop and the flare starts to burn, giving off an intense light. Laughing, he stumbles over and puts the flare in the snow beneath the tree. The white light makes the trunk and naked branches glow.

Now they can all see the painting of Reidar holding a silvery pen in his hand.

Berzelius, a translator, has brought three bottles of champagne, and David Sylwan holds up Reidar’s old Colt with a grin.

‘This isn’t funny,’ Veronica says in a serious voice.

David goes and stands next to Reidar, the Colt in his hand. He feeds six bullets into the barrel, then spins the cylinder.

Wille Strandberg is still shirtless, but he’s so drunk he doesn’t feel the cold.

‘If you win, you can choose a horse from the stables,’ Reidar mumbles, taking the revolver from David.

‘Please, be careful,’ Veronica says.

Reidar moves aside, raises his arm and fires, but hits nothing, the blast echoing between the buildings.

A few guests applaud politely, as if he were playing golf.

‘My turn,’ David laughs.

Veronica stands in the snow, shivering. Her feet are burning with cold in her thin sandals.

‘I like that portrait,’ she says again.

‘Me too,’ Reidar says, firing another shot.

The bullet hits the top corner of the canvas, there’s a puff of dust as the gold frame gets dislodged and hangs askew.

David pulls the revolver from his hand with a chuckle, stumbles and falls, and fires a shot up at the sky, then another as he tries to stand up.

A couple of guests clap, and others laugh and raise their glasses in a toast.

Reidar takes the revolver back and brushes the snow off it.

‘It’s all down to the last shot,’ he says.

Veronica goes over and kisses him on the lips.

‘How are you doing?’

‘Fine,’ he says. ‘I’ve never been happier.’

Veronica looks at him and brushes the hair from his forehead. The group on the stone steps whistles and laughs.

‘I found a better target,’ cries a red-haired woman whose name he can’t remember.

She’s dragging a huge doll through the snow. Suddenly she loses her grip of the doll and falls to her knees, then gets back on her feet again. Her leopard-skin-print dress is flecked with damp.

‘I saw it yesterday, it was under a dirty tarpaulin in the garage,’ she exclaims jubilantly.

Berzelius hurries over to help her carry it. The doll is solid plastic, and has been painted to look like Spiderman. It’s as tall as Berzelius.

‘Well done, Marie!’ David cries.

‘Shoot Spiderman,’ one of the women behind them calls.

Reidar looks up, sees the big doll, and lets the gun fall to the snow.

‘I have to sleep,’ he says abruptly.

He pushes aside the glass of champagne Wille is holding out to him and walks back to the house on unsteady legs.

10

Veronica goes with Marie as she searches the house for Reidar. They walk through rooms and halls. His jacket is lying on the stairs to the first floor and they go up. It’s dark, but they can see flickering firelight further off. In a large room they find Reidar sitting on a sofa in front of the fireplace. His cufflinks are gone and his sleeves are dangling over his hands. On the low bookcase beside him there are four bottles of Château Cheval Blanc.

‘I just wanted to say sorry,’ Marie says, leaning against the door.

‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ Reidar mutters, still gazing into the fire.

‘It was stupid of me to drag the doll out without asking first,’ Marie goes on.

‘As far as I’m concerned, you can burn all the old shit,’ he replies.

Veronica goes over to him, kneels down and looks up at his face with a smile.

‘Have you been introduced to Marie?’ she asks. ‘She’s David’s friend … I think.’

Reidar raises his glass towards the red-haired woman, then takes a big gulp. Veronica takes the glass from him, tastes the wine, and sits down.

She pushes her shoes off, leans back and rests her bare feet in his lap.

Gently he caresses her calf, the bruise from the new stirrup leather of her saddle, then up the inside of her thigh towards her groin. She lets it happen, not bothered by the fact that Marie is still in the room.

The flames are rising high in the huge fireplace. The heat is pulsating and her face feels so hot it’s almost burning.

Marie comes cautiously closer. Reidar looks at her. Her red hair has started to curl in the heat of the room. Her leopard-skin dress is creased and stained.

‘An admirer,’ Veronica says, holding the glass away from Reidar when he tries to reach it.

‘I love your books,’ Marie says.

‘Which books?’ he asks brusquely.

He gets up and fetches a fresh glass from the dresser and pours some wine. Marie misunderstands the gesture and holds out her hand to take it.

‘I presume you go to the toilet yourself when you want to have a piss,’ Reidar says, drinking the wine.

‘There’s no need—’

‘If you want wine, then drink some fucking wine,’ he interrupts in a loud voice.

Marie blushes and takes a deep breath. With her hand trembling she takes the bottle and pours herself a glass. Reidar sighs deeply, then says in a gentler tone of voice:

‘I think this vintage is one of the better years.’

Taking the bottle with him, he goes back to his seat.

Smiling, he watches as Marie sits down beside him, swirls the wine in her glass and tastes it.

Reidar laughs and refills her glass, looks her in the eye, then turns serious and kisses her on the lips.

‘What are you doing?’ she asks.

Reidar kisses Marie softly again. She moves her head away, but can’t help smiling. She drinks some wine, looks him in the eye, then leans over and kisses him.

He strokes the nape of her neck, under her hair, then moves his hand over her right shoulder and feels how the narrow strap of her dress has sunk into her skin.

She puts her glass down, kisses him again, and thinks that she’s mad as she lets him caress one of her breasts.

Reidar suppresses the urge to burst into tears, making his throat hurt, as he strokes her thigh under her dress, feeling her nicotine patch, and moves his hand round to her backside.

Marie pats his hand away when he tries to pull her underwear down, then stands up and wipes her mouth.

‘Maybe we should go back down and join the party again,’ she says, trying to sound neutral.

‘Yes,’ he says.

Veronica is sitting motionless on the sofa and doesn’t meet her enquiring gaze.

‘Are you both coming?’

Reidar shakes his head.

‘OK,’ Marie whispers and walks towards the door.

Her dress shimmers as she leaves the room. Reidar stares through the open doorway. The darkness looks like dirty velvet.

Veronica gets up and takes her glass from the table, and drinks. She has sweat patches under the arms of her dress.

‘You’re a bastard,’ she says.

‘I’m just trying to get the most out of life,’ he says quietly.

He catches her hand and presses it to his cheek, holding it there and looking into her sorrowful eyes.

11

The fire has gone out and the room is freezing cold when Reidar wakes up on the sofa. His eyes are stinging, and he thinks about his wife’s story about the Sandman. The man who throws sand in children’s eyes so that they fall asleep and sleep right through the night.

‘Shit,’ Reidar whispers, and sits up.

He’s naked, and has spilled wine over the leather upholstery. In the distance is the sound of an aeroplane. The morning light hits the dusty windows.

Reidar gets to his feet and sees Veronica lying curled up on the floor in front of the fireplace. She’s wrapped herself in the tablecloth. Somewhere in the forest a deer is calling. The party downstairs is still going on, but is more subdued now. Reidar grabs the half-full bottle of wine and leaves the room unsteadily. A headache is throbbing inside his skull as he starts to climb the creaking oak stairs to his bedroom. He stops on the landing, sighs, and goes back down again. Carefully he picks Veronica up and lays her on the sofa, covers her, then retrieves her glasses from the floor and puts them on the table.

Reidar Frost is sixty-two years old and the author of three international bestsellers, the so-called Sanctum series.

He moved from his house in Tyresö eight years ago, when he bought Råcksta Manor, outside Norrtälje. Two hundred hectares of forest, fields, stables and a fine paddock where he occasionally trains his five horses. Thirteen years ago Reidar Frost ended up alone in a way that shouldn’t happen to anyone. His son and daughter vanished without trace one night after they sneaked out to meet a friend. Mikael and Felicia’s bicycles were found on a footpath near Badholmen. Apart from one detective with a Finnish accent, everyone thought the children had been playing too close to the water and had drowned in Erstaviken.

The police stopped looking, even though no bodies were ever found. Reidar’s wife Roseanna couldn’t deal with him and her own loss. She moved in temporarily with her sister, asked for a divorce and used the money from the settlement to move abroad. A couple of months later she was found in her bath in a Paris hotel. She’d committed suicide. On the floor was a drawing Felicia had given her on Mother’s Day.

The children have been declared dead. Their names are engraved on a headstone that Reidar rarely visits. The same day they were declared dead, he invited his friends to a party, and ever since has taken care to keep going, the way you would keep a fire alight.

Reidar Frost is convinced he’s going to drink himself to death, but at the same time he knows he’d kill himself if he was left alone.