Czytaj książkę: «The Rabbit Hunter»
THE RABBIT HUNTER
LARS KEPLER
Translated from the Swedish by Neil Smith
Copyright
This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
1
Copyright © Lars Kepler 2016
Translation copyright © Neil Smith 2018
All rights reserved
Originally published in 2016 by Albert Bonniers Förlag, Sweden, as Kaninjägaren
Lars Kepler assert the moral right to
be identified as the authors of this work
Cover layout design by Claire Ward © HarperCollinsPublishers 2018
Cover photography © plainpicture / Dave Wall (main image);
Mark Owen / Trevillion Images (man); DenGuy / Getty Images (boatyard).
Back cover photography © Mark Owen / Arcangel Images
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books
Ebook Edition © MAY 2018 ISBN: 9780008205928
SOURCE ISBN: 9780008205904
Version: 2018-09-24
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Epilogue
Keep Reading …
About the Author
Also by Lars Kepler
About the Publisher
It’s early morning, and the still water of the inlet is shimmering like brushed steel. The luxurious villas are asleep, but outdoor lights glint behind tall fences and hedges.
A drunk man is walking along the road by the shore, a bottle of wine in his hand. He stops in front of a white house whose elongated façade faces the water. Very carefully, he puts the bottle down in the middle of the road, steps across the ditch, and climbs the black metal railing.
The man weaves his way across the lawn, then stops and sways as he stares at the big windows, the reflections of the patio lights, the indistinct outline of the furniture inside.
He heads towards the house, waving at a large, porcelain garden gnome, and then stumbles out onto the wooden deck. He manages to hit one knee, but keeps his balance.
The water of the pool shines like a blue sheet of glass.
The man stands unsteadily on the edge, unzips his trousers and starts to urinate into the pool, then weaves his way over to the navy-blue garden furniture and proceeds to soak the cushions, chairs and round table.
Steam rises from his urine in the chill air.
He zips up his trousers and watches a white rabbit as it hops across the lawn and disappears under a bush.
Smiling, he walks back towards the house, leaning against the fence. He makes his way down to the lawn, then stops and turns around.
His befuddled brain tries to make sense of what he just saw.
A black-clad figure with a strange face was staring at him.
Either the person was standing inside the dark house, or was outside, watching him in the reflection.
1
Summer
Drizzle is falling from the dark sky. The city lights glow high above the rooftops. There’s no wind, and the illuminated drops form a misty dome that covers Djursholm.
Beside the still waters of Germaniaviken lies a sprawling villa.
Inside a young woman walks across the polished floor and Persian carpet as warily as an animal.
Her name is Sofia Stefansson.
Her anxiety makes her register tiny details about the room.
There’s a black remote control on the arm of the sofa, its battery cover taped in place. There are water rings on the table. An old plaster is stuck to the long fringe of the carpet.
The floor creaks, as if someone is creeping through the rooms behind Sofia.
There are splashes of mud from the wet stone path on her high heels and toned calves. Her legs are still muscular even though she stopped playing football two years ago.
Sofia keeps the pepper spray in her hand hidden from the man waiting for her. She keeps telling herself that she has chosen this situation. She’s in control and she wants to be here.
The man is standing by an armchair, watching her move with unabashed frankness.
Sofia’s features are symmetrical, but she has a youthful plumpness in her cheeks. She is wearing a blue dress that shows off her bare shoulders. A row of small, fabric-covered buttons stretches from her neck down between her breasts. The little gold heart on her necklace bobs up and down at the base of her throat in time with her increased heart-rate.
She could say she’s not feeling well, that she needs to go home. It would probably annoy him, but he’d accept it.
The man is looking at her with a hunger that makes her stomach flutter with fear.
She is seized by the feeling that she has met him before – could he have been a senior manager somewhere she worked, the father of a classmate a long time ago?
Sofia stops a short distance away from him, smiles, and feels the rapid beat of her heart. She’s planning to keep her distance until she’s figured out his tone and gestures.
His hands don’t look like they belong to a violent man: his nails are neatly trimmed and his plain wedding ring is scratched from years of marriage.
‘Nice house,’ she says, tucking a stray lock of hair away from her face.
‘Thanks,’ he replies.
He can’t be much more than fifty, but he still moves ponderously, like an old man in his old home.
‘You took a taxi here?’ he asks, and swallows hard.
‘Yes,’ she replies.
They fall silent again. The clock in the next room strikes twice with a brittle clang.
Some saffron-coloured pollen falls silently from a lily in a vase.
Sofia realised at an early age that she found sexually charged situations exciting. She enjoyed being appreciated, the sense of being chosen.
‘Have we met before?’ she asks.
‘I wouldn’t have forgotten something like that,’ he replies.
The man’s grey-blond hair is thin, combed back over his head. His slack face is shiny, and his brow is deeply furrowed.
‘Do you collect art?’ she asks, nodding towards the wall.
‘I’m interested in art,’ he says.
His pale eyes look at her through horn-rimmed glasses. She turns away and slides the pepper spray into her bag, then walks over to a large painting in a gilded frame.
He follows her and stands slightly too close, breathing through his nose. Sofia startles when he raises his right hand to point.
‘Nineteenth century … Carl Gustaf Hellqvist,’ he lectures. ‘He died young. He had a troubled life, full of pain. He got electric shock therapy, but he was a wonderful artist.’
‘Fascinating,’ she replies quietly.
‘I think so,’ the man says, then walks towards the dining room.
Sofia follows him even though she feels like she is being lured into a trap. It’s as if the way out is closing behind her with sluggish slowness, cutting off her escape route little by little.
The huge room is furnished with upholstered chairs and highly polished cupboards. There are rows of leaded windows looking out across the water.
She sees two glasses of red wine on the edge of the oval dining table.
‘Can I offer you a glass of wine?’ he asks, turning back towards her.
‘I’d prefer white, if you have any,’ she replies, worried that he might try to drug her.
‘Champagne?’ he says, without taking his eyes off her.
‘That would be lovely,’ she replies.
‘Then we shall have champagne,’ he declares.
When you visit the home of a complete stranger every room could be a trap, every object a weapon.
Sofia prefers hotels, because at least there’s a chance that someone would hear her if she had to call for help.
She’s following him towards the kitchen when she hears a peculiar, high-pitched sound. She can’t figure out where it’s coming from. The man doesn’t seem to have noticed it, but she stops, and turns to look at the dark windows. She’s about to say something when there’s a very distinct sound, like an ice-cube cracking in a glass.
‘Are you sure there’s no one else here?’ she asks.
She could slip her shoes off and run towards the front door if anything happened. She’s more agile than him, and if she were to run, leaving her coat hanging where it is, she’d be able to get out.
She stands in the kitchen door as he takes a bottle of Bollinger from a wine fridge. He opens it and fills two slender glasses, waits for the bubbles to settle and then tops them up before walking over to her.
2
Sofia sips the champagne. She lets the taste spread through her mouth, hears the bubbles burst in the glass. Something makes her look over towards the windows again. A deer, maybe, she thinks. It’s dark outside. In the reflection she can see the sharp outline of the kitchen and the man’s back.
The man raises his glass again and drinks. His hand is shaking ever so slightly as he gestures towards her.
‘Unbutton your dress a little,’ he says weakly.
Sofia empties her glass, sees the mark of her lipstick on the rim, and puts it down on the table before gently teasing the top button open.
‘You’re wearing a bra,’ he says.
‘Yes,’ she replies, and undoes the second button.
‘What size?’
‘Sixty C.’
The man stays where he is and watches her with a smile, and Sofia feels her armpits prickle as she starts to sweat.
‘What panties are you wearing?’
‘Pale blue, silk.’
‘Can I see?’
She hesitates, and he notices.
‘Sorry,’ he says quickly. ‘Am I being too direct? Is that it?’
‘We should probably handle payment first,’ she says, trying to sound simultaneously firm and casual.
‘I understand,’ he says tersely.
‘It’s best to get it out of the—’
‘You’ll get your money,’ he interrupts with a hint of irritation in his voice.
When she sees her regulars things are usually very straightforward – pleasant, even – but new clients always make her nervous. She worries about things she’s experienced in the past, like the father of two in Täby who bit her on the neck and locked her in his garage.
She advertises on Pink Pages and Stockholmgirls. Almost all the people who contact her are a waste of time. Lots of crude language, promises of wonderful sex, threats of violence and punishment.
She always trusts her gut instinct when she starts to correspond with someone new. This particular message was well-written. It was fairly direct, but not disrespectful. He said his name was Wille, his phone number was blocked, and he lived in a nice area.
In his third email he explained what he wanted to do to her, and how much he was willing to pay.
She took that as a warning.
If it sounds too good to be true, then there’s something wrong. There are no free meal-tickets in this world, and it’s better to miss out on a generous deal than put yourself in danger.
Still, she’s here now.
The man returns and hands her an envelope. She counts the money quickly and puts it in her bag.
‘Is that enough for you to show me your underwear?’ he says.
She smiles warmly, gently takes hold of both sides of her dress and slowly lifts it above her knees. The hem rubs against her nylon tights. She pauses and looks at him.
He doesn’t meet her gaze, just stares down between her legs as she gradually raises the dress to her waist. Her silk underwear shimmers like mother-of-pearl beneath her pale tights.
‘Are you shaved?’ he asks in a slightly hoarser voice.
‘Waxed.’
‘Completely?’
‘Yes,’ she replies.
‘That must hurt?’ he says, sounding genuinely interested.
‘You get used to it,’ she says with a nod.
‘Like a lot of things in life,’ he whispers.
She lets her dress drop again and takes the opportunity to wipe the sweat from her palms as she smooths the fabric over her thighs.
Even though she has the money she’s starting to feel nervous again.
Possibly because he paid so much, five times more than any previous client.
In one of his emails he explained that he was prepared to pay extra for her discretion, and for his specific wishes, but this is way above her normal rate.
When he wrote to tell her what he wanted to do, she didn’t think it sounded that bad.
She remembers one man with worried eyes who dressed up in his mother’s underwear and wanted her to kick him in the crotch. He paid for her to pee on him as he lay on the floor crying in pain, but she couldn’t do it. She just grabbed the money and ran.
‘People get turned on by all sorts of things,’ Wille says with an embarrassed smile. ‘Obviously you can’t force anyone … I mean, you have to pay for some things. I’m not expecting you to actually enjoy what you do.’
‘It depends, but I do sometimes enjoy it if the man’s gentle,’ she lies.
Naturally Sofia promises full discretion in her ad, but she still has one safety measure as a precaution. She keeps a diary at home, where she makes a note of the names and addresses of people she’s arranged to meet, so that someone will be able to find her if she ever goes missing.
Besides, Tamara saw Wille once, just before she stopped working as an escort, got married and moved to Gothenburg. Sofia knows that Tamara would have posted a warning on the sex-workers’ forum if he’d behaved inappropriately.
‘As long as you don’t find me revolting and repulsive,’ the man says, taking a step closer to her. ‘I mean, you’re so beautiful, and I’m … well, I know what I look like. I was OK when I was your age, but …’
‘You look good now,’ she assures him.
Sofia thinks of all the times she’s heard people say that escorts have to be like psychologists, but most of the men she sees never say anything personal.
‘Shall we go up to the bedroom?’ Wille asks lightly.
3
Sofia follows him up the broad wooden staircase thinking about how badly she needs to pee. The soft carpet is held in place on each step by thin brass rods. The light from the large chandelier reflects off the varnished banister.
Sofia’s initial plan had been to concentrate on exclusive clients, the ones who were prepared to pay more for an entire night, ones who wanted company at a party or on a trip.
In the three years she’s been working as an escort she’s had maybe a couple of dozen jobs like that, but most of her clients just want a blow-job after work before they go home to their families.
The master bedroom is well-lit, dominated by an imposing double bed with beautiful grey silk sheets.
On the wife’s side there’s a Lena Andersson novel and a jar of fancy hand cream, and on Wille’s side there’s an iPad with finger-marks on the dark glass.
He shows her the black leather straps he’s already tied around the bedposts. She notes that they’re not new, the creases are slightly cracked and the colour has begun to flake off.
The room suddenly shudders and spins around a couple of times. She looks at the man, but he seems unconcerned.
He has white marks at the corners of his mouth, from toothpaste.
The staircase creaks and he glances towards the hallway before looking back at her.
‘I have to be able to trust you to release me when I say so,’ he says as he unbuttons his shirt. ‘I have to be sure that you won’t try to rob me or just run off now that you have your money.’
‘Of course,’ she replies.
His chest is covered with fair hair, and he’s making an effort to suck in his stomach while she looks at him.
Sofia thinks that she can ask to go to the bathroom once he’s tied up. There’s an en-suite. The door is open and she can see the shower and a patch of gold mosaic wall in the mirror.
‘I want you to tie me up, and take your time with it – I don’t like violence or force,’ he says.
Sofia nods and takes her shoes off. She feels dizzy again as she straightens up. She looks him in the eye before lifting her dress up to her navel. It crackles with static. She slips her thumbs beneath the top of her tights and starts to pull them down. The feeling of constriction eases as the thin fabric puddles around her calves.
‘Perhaps you’d rather be tied up instead?’ he asks, smiling at his suggestion.
‘No, thanks,’ she replies as she starts to unbutton her dress.
‘It’s actually pretty comfortable,’ he jokes, tugging gently at one of the straps.
‘I don’t do that sort of thing,’ she explains breezily.
‘I’ve never tried it the other way around … I’d be prepared to double your fee if you did it,’ he says with a laugh, as if the thought surprises and delights him.
What he’s now offering is more money than she earns in two months, but having to lie there tied up is much too dangerous.
‘What do you say?’ he smiles.
‘No,’ she replies.
‘OK,’ he says quickly, and lets go of the strap.
The buckle makes a tinkling sound as it hits the bedpost.
‘Do you want me to take all of my clothes off?’
‘Wait a while,’ he replies, giving her an oddly searching look.
‘Is it OK if I use the bathroom?’
‘Soon,’ he says. He sounds like he’s trying to control his breathing.
Sofia’s lips feel strangely cool. When she raises one hand to her mouth she sees his face break into a wide smile.
He walks over to her, takes hold of her chin tightly, and then spits straight in her face.
‘What are you doing?’ she asks, as a rush of giddiness sweeps through her head.
Her legs suddenly give out and she lands so heavily on the floor that she bites her tongue. She sinks onto her side as her mouth fills with blood, and she sees him standing over her, unbuttoning his corduroy trousers.
Sofia doesn’t have the strength to crawl away. She rests her cheek on the floor and sees a dead fly in the dust under the bed. Her heart is beating so hard that she can hear it thudding in her ears. She realises that she must have been drugged.
‘Don’t. Don’t do it,’ she gasps, before closing her eyes.
Before Sofia loses consciousness it occurs to her that he might be about to murder her, and that this might be the last thing she ever experiences.
4
Sofia wakes up coughing. She suddenly remembers where she is. She is tied to Wille’s bed. She’s on her back, held in place by the leather straps. He’s tied her so tightly that the muscles in her legs and arms are straining. Her wrists are burning and her fingers are ice-cold.
Her mouth is bone-dry, her tongue feels swollen and sore.
Her thighs have been spread, pushing her dress up around her waist.
This can’t be happening, she thinks.
He must have drugged one of the champagne glasses while it was still in the cabinet.
Sofia hears a business-like conversation from the next room. Someone used to being in charge is talking.
She tries to lift her head up to look out of the window, to see if it’s night or morning, but she can’t. It hurts her arms too much.
It has just occurred to her that she has no idea how long she’s been lying there when he comes into the room.
Fear fills Sofia’s heart. She feels her throat constrict and her pulse race.
What definitely mustn’t happen has happened.
She tries to calm herself, thinks that she needs to get a conversation going. She has to make him realise that he’s picked the wrong girl, but that she won’t say anything if he lets her go right away.
Sofia promises herself that she’s going to quit being an escort, she’s been doing it for too long, and she wastes the money on things she doesn’t need.
The man is looking at her with the same hunger as before. She tries to adopt a relaxed expression. She knew right from the start there was something wrong here. But instead of turning around and walking away she ignored her gut instinct. She’s made a catastrophic mistake.
‘I said no to this,’ she says in a composed voice.
‘Yes,’ he replies with a slow smile, and lets his eyes roam all over her body.
‘I know girls who think this is OK. I can put you in touch with them if you’d like.’
He doesn’t answer, just breathes heavily through his nose and steps to the end of the bed, between her legs. She feels sweat break out all over her body, and tries to prepare herself for what’s to come.
‘This is assault, you do realise that, don’t you?’
He doesn’t respond, just pushes his glasses up his nose and looks at her with great interest.
‘This is making me feel very uncomfortable and violated,’ Sofia begins to say, but stops when her voice starts to tremble.
She forces herself to breathe more slowly, to try not to seem scared, not to beg. What would Tamara have done? She can see her friend’s freckled face in front of her, that slightly mocking smile, the hardness in her eyes.
‘I’ve got your information written down in a book in my flat,’ she says, looking him in the eye.
‘What details?’ he asks casually.
‘Your name, which is presumably made up, but the address here, your email, the time of our meeting …’
‘So now I know that,’ he nods.
The mattress rocks as he starts to crawl up the bed towards her. He stops between her thighs, swaying, then grabs her underwear and pulls. The seams don’t break, and her shoulder aches as if it’s been dislocated.
The man tugs again, with both hands. It stings as the underwear cuts into her hips, but the reinforced seams won’t tear.
He whispers something to himself, then leaves her on the bed.
The mattress sways again, and Sofia can feel her thighs starting to cramp.
She has a fleeting memory of football practice, the way she could tell when a cramp was on its way, the tightening of her calves as she tried to pick out lumps of mud from her cleats.
Her friends’ hot red faces. The noisy locker room, the smell of sweat, liniment and deodorant.
How has it come to this? How did she end up here?
Sofia tries not to cry. She feels like she’s finished if she shows fear.
The man returns with a small pair of scissors and cuts through her underwear on both sides, then pulls them off.
‘There are plenty of people willing to do bondage,’ Sofia says. ‘I know—’
‘I don’t want girls who are willing to do it,’ he interrupts, tossing her underwear onto the bed beside her.
‘I mean, there are girls who get turned on by being tied up,’ she says.
‘You shouldn’t have come here,’ he declares bluntly.
Sofia can’t hold her tears back any longer and starts to cry. She arches her back and tugs at the straps so hard that her skin tears and blood starts to trickle down the bottom of her right arm.
‘Don’t do it,’ she sobs.
The man pulls off his shirt, throws it on the floor, pushes his trousers down and rolls a condom onto his half-erect penis.
He kneels down on the bed and she can smell the rubber on his fingers as he pushes her shredded underwear into her mouth. She starts to retch and comes close to throwing up. Her tongue is completely dry and tears are streaming down her cheeks. The man squeezes one of her breasts through the dress, then lies down heavily on top of her.
Sofia wets herself with fear, and a hot pool of urine spreads out beneath her.
When he tries to push into her, she twists to the side quickly and shoves him with her hip.
A drop of sweat falls from his nose onto her forehead.
He grabs her throat with one hand, looks at her, tightens his grip and lies on top of her again. His weight makes her sink into the mattress, which pulls her thighs further apart. Her ankles sting as the bedposts creak.
She struggles to breathe, tossing her head until she manages to get some air into her lungs.
He tightens his grip on her throat, and her vision starts to flicker. The room fades away as she feels him trying to force his way inside her. Sofia struggles to twist aside, but it’s impossible, this is going to happen anyway. She can’t stay inside her body, she has to think about something else. Flashes of memory dart past, cool evenings on the big football field, ragged breathing, clouds in front of her mouth, the silence down by the lake, the old school in Bollstanäs.
The coach points at the ball, blows the whistle, and then silence.
The grip on her throat disappears, Sofia spits out her underwear and gasps for air as she blinks.
Someone’s ringing the doorbell downstairs.
He grabs her chin and forces her mouth open, then shoves the underwear back in, and she starts to retch again, breathing through her nose, unable to swallow.
The doorbell rings again.
The man spits on her and gets off the bed, pulls his trousers up and grabs his shirt before leaving the room.
As soon as he’s gone Sofia pulls her right hand as hard as she can, without thinking of the consequences.
She feels excruciating pain, but her hand comes out of the strap.
Only the underwear in her mouth stops her from screaming out loud.
Her head is thudding. She’s on the brink of passing out, and her whole body is shaking with pain. Her thumb could be broken, and the ligament feels torn. Her skin looks like an old glove and blood is coursing down her arm. She pulls the underwear from her mouth.
She whimpers out loud as she tries to loosen the strap around her left wrist. Her fingers keep slipping, but eventually she manages to pick the buckle open. She quickly tugs the strap through the catch, then sits up and removes the restraints from her ankles.
She gets up on unsteady legs, clutching her wounded hand to her stomach, and starts to walk across the thick carpet. Her head is pounding with shock and pain. Her feet feel numb and her dress is wet and cold over her backside.
Carefully she makes her way out of the bedroom and creeps along the hallway where the man has just disappeared.
Sofia stops before she reaches the staircase. She can hear another voice downstairs, and decides to shout for help. She can’t hear what the other man is saying, and tentatively moves closer. There are clothes from the dry-cleaners hanging over the banister. Through the thin plastic she can see bundles of identical white shirts.
She clears her throat carefully, ready to shout for help, when she realises that the other man isn’t inside the house. His voice is coming from the intercom. A messenger, asking to be let through the gate. Wille says that he’ll have to come back, then puts the phone down and walks back towards the staircase again.
She staggers but manages to keep her balance. She has pins and needles in her feet as the blood flow returns.
Sofia moves backwards. The floor creaks beneath her and she looks around and sees a larger room further down the hall, with painted portraits on the walls. She thinks about running in and opening a window to call for help, but realises that she doesn’t have time.
5
Sofia makes her way quickly along the wall and past the stairs, until she reaches a narrow cupboard door. She grabs the handle and pulls.
Locked.
Through the prisms of the chandelier, she watches the man walk up the stairs.
He’ll reach her soon.
She walks back towards the stairs and crouches down on the floor, hidden by the dry-cleaned shirts. If he looks directly at her he’ll see her, but if he just walks past she’ll have a few seconds’ headstart.
Her hand hurts so much that she’s shaking, and her neck and throat are swollen.
The steps are old and worn, and the staircase creaks. She sees him between the banisters and shrinks back cautiously.
Wille reaches the top and walks down the hallway.
He walks towards the bedroom without noticing the blood she’s left on the carpet.
Carefully she gets to her feet, watching his back and suntanned neck as he walks into the bedroom.
She walks silently around the railing and starts to run down the stairs.
She realises that he’s turned around, and is already coming after her.
The thudding footsteps speed up.
She clutches the throbbing, bleeding fingers of her injured hand with her good one.
All she knows is that she has to get out of the house. She rushes through the large hallway, hearing the harsh creak of the stairs as the man comes after her.
‘I don’t have time for this!’ he yells.
Sofia runs across a narrow rug towards the door. She trips over a pair of shoes but keeps her balance.
The alarm system is glowing on one side of the front door.
Her fingers are so wet with blood that the catch slips out of her hand. She wipes her hand on her dress and tries again, but it won’t budge. She pushes the handle down and shoves the door with her shoulder, but it’s locked. Her eyes dart around, looking for the keys as she tries twisting the catch again. She gives up and runs through the double doors leading to the living room.
Something metallic hits the floor in another room.
She moves away from the large windows, her own reflection a silhouette against the pale wall behind her.
She hears him coming from the other direction, retraces her steps and hides behind one of the doors.
‘Every door is locked,’ he says loudly as he enters the living room.
She holds her breath, her heart pounding in her chest, and the door creaks gently. He stops in the doorway. She can see him through the crack between the hinges, his mouth half-open, his cheeks flushed.
Her legs start to shake again.
He walks a few more steps, then stops to listen. She tries to keep quiet, but her frightened breathing is loud.
‘I’m tired of this game now,’ he says as he walks past her.
She hears him searching for her, opening doors and closing them again. He says loudly that he just wants to talk to her.
Furniture scrapes the floor, then silence.
She listens. She hears her own breathing, the ominous ticking of a clock, but nothing else.
Just silence.
She waits a little longer, listening for creeping footsteps, knowing this could be a trap, but still chooses to leave her hiding place, because this could be the only chance she gets.
She creeps further into the living room. Everything is quiet, as if enveloped in a hundred-year sleep.
Sofia goes over to one of the chairs around the polished table and tries to lift it, but it’s too heavy. Instead she drags it by its back with her one good hand, pulling it towards the windowed patio doors, groaning with pain when she has to use both hands. She runs two steps, spins her body, and yelps as she swings the heavy chair against the glass.
The chair hits the window and falls back into the room. The inner pane shatters and crashes to the floor, scattering splinters of glass everywhere. Larger pieces slide down and are left leaning against the intact outer glass.
The burglar alarm starts howling at an ear-splitting volume.
Sofia grabs the chair again, ignoring the fact that the splinters are cutting her feet, and is just about to swing it against the window when she sees the man coming towards her.
She lets go of the chair and walks straight into the big kitchen, her eyes darting across the white floorboards and stainless steel countertops.
He follows with measured steps.
She remembers being chased as part of a game when she was little: the feeling of impotence when she realised her pursuer was so close that there was no chance of escape.
Sofia leans against the countertop for support and manages to knock a pair of glasses and an unusual-looking bracelet to the floor.
She doesn’t know what to do. She looks over at the closed patio doors, then goes over to the island unit which has two sparkling saucepans standing on top of it, and yanks the drawers open with shaking hands, panting hard. She finds herself staring at a row of knives.
The man comes into the kitchen and she picks up one of the knives and turns to face him, backing away slowly. He stares at her, clutching a soot-stained poker from the fireplace in both hands.
She holds the broad-bladed kitchen knife up at him, but realises immediately that she doesn’t stand a chance.
He could easily kill her. His weapon is much heavier.
The alarm is still shrieking. The soles of her feet are stinging from where she’s cut them, and her injured hand feels numb.
‘Please, stop,’ she gasps, backing into the island unit. ‘Let’s go back to bed, I promise, I won’t give you any trouble.’
She shows him the knife, then puts it down on the stainless steel countertop and tries to smile at him.
‘I’m still going to hit you,’ he says.
‘You don’t have to do that,’ she pleads. She feels like she’s losing control of her face.
‘I’m going to hurt you badly,’ he says, raising the improvised weapon above his head.
‘Please, I give up, I—’
‘You only have yourself to blame,’ he interrupts, then unexpectedly lets go of the poker.
It falls heavily to the floor with a clatter, then lies still. Ash flies up from the prongs.
The man smiles in surprise, then looks down at the circle of blood spreading out from his chest.
‘What the hell?’ he whispers. He fumbles for support with one hand, but misses the countertop and staggers.
Another bloodstain appears in the middle of his white shirt. The red wounds on his body blossom like stigmata.
The man presses one hand to his chest and starts to stumble towards the dining room, but stops and turns his blood-smeared palm over. He looks like a frightened child. He tries to say something before sinking to his knees.
Blood squirts out onto the floor in front of him.
The alarm is still blaring.
Sofia sees a man with a very oddly-shaped head over by the pale curtains.
He is standing with his feet wide apart, and he’s holding a pistol with both hands.
His face is completely covered by a black balaclava apart for his mouth and eyes. What look like strands of hair or stiff scraps of fabric hang down one cheek.
Wille presses his hand to his chest again, but the blood seeps through his fingers and down his arm.
Sofia turns unsteadily and looks straight at the man with the gun. Without taking his eyes from Wille, he takes one hand off the pistol and quickly snatches up the two spent shells from the floor.
He runs forward, passing her as if she doesn’t exist. He kicks the poker away with his military boot, grabs Wille by the hair, yanks his head back, and presses the barrel of the pistol against his right eye.
This is an execution, Sofia thinks, and walks towards the living room as if in a dream. She hits her hip against the edge of the counter, and slides her hand along it. As she passes the two men, a shiver runs down her spine and she starts to run but slips in the blood. Her feet slide away from her, and she falls back and hits her head hard on the floor.
Her vision blurs and goes black for a moment, then she opens her eyes again.
She sees that he hasn’t pulled the trigger yet, the barrel is still pressing softly against Wille’s closed eyelid.
The back of Sofia’s head is burning and throbbing.
Her vision is unfocused, everything is spinning. What she had thought were rough leather strips hanging down the man’s cheek now look more like wet feathers or matted hair.
She shuts her eyes as dizziness clutches at her, then hears voices above the loud wail of the alarm.
‘Wait, wait,’ Wille pleads, breathing fast. ‘You think you know what’s going on, but you don’t.’
‘I know that Ratjen opened the door and now …’
‘Who’s Ratjen?’ Wille gasps.
‘And now hell is going to devour you all,’ the masked man concludes.
They stop talking and Sofia opens her eyes again. A peculiar slow motion seems to have taken hold of the house. The masked man looks at his watch, then whispers something to Wille.
He doesn’t answer, but looks like he understands. Blood is welling from his stomach, pouring down to his crotch. It forms a puddle on the floor.
Sofia sees that his glasses are lying beside her on the floor, next to the object she initially thought was a bracelet.
Now she realises that it’s a personal alarm.
A small steel gadget with two buttons, attached to a watch-strap.
The masked man is standing perfectly still, looking at his victim.
Sofia carefully moves her hand sideways towards the alarm, tucks it against her body and presses the buttons several times.
Nothing happens.
The man lets go of Wille’s hair but continues to press the barrel of the pistol to his right eye. He waits a few seconds, then squeezes the trigger.
There’s a loud click as the bolt hits home. Wille’s head is thrown back and blood cascades from his skull. Fragments of bone and grey matter spray across the kitchen floor, all the way to the dining room.
Sofia feels warm drops spatter her lips as she sees the empty cartridge fall and bounce across the floor.
A cloud of grey powder hangs in the air, and the dead body falls like a sack of wet clothes to the floor and lies there motionless.
The masked man bends over to pick up the shell and his watch slips down towards the back of his hand.
He stands with his legs on either side of the dead body, leans forward and presses the barrel of the pistol to the corpse’s other eye. Then he flicks his head to shake what looks like matted hair away from his face before squeezing the trigger again.
6
Her work phone’s ringtone becomes part of a dream about a stream running through dense vegetation. A moment later Saga Bauer is wrenched from sleep and gets out of bed so fast that she drags the covers onto the floor.
She hurries over to the gun-cabinet in her underwear as she dials the number she knows by heart. The glow of the streetlights filters through the slats of the blind, illuminating her sinuous legs and naked back.
She quickly unlocks the heavy steel door and listens to the instructions on the phone as she pulls out a black bag, and tucks a holstered Glock 21, along with five spare magazines, into it.
Saga Bauer works as an operative with the Security Police, specialising in counter-terrorism.
The ringtone that woke her means that a Code Platinum has been declared.
She runs to the hall as she listens to the final instructions, then drops the phone in her bag.
There’s no time to lose.
She pulls her black leather bodysuit over her naked body, feeling the cool fabric against her back and breasts, then pushes her bare feet into her boots and grabs her helmet, heavy bulletproof vest and gloves from the rack.
Without wasting time locking the door she leaves her flat, tugging her zipper up to her chin. She pulls her helmet on, tucking in a few stray strands of blonde hair.
There’s a filthy Triumph motorcycle out on Tavast Street. It has a shoddy muffler, frame sliders that have been repaired a number of times, and a broken transmission. She runs over to it, and lets the lock fall to the tarmac with its heavy chain.
She straddles the motorcycle, kicks the engine into gear and sets off as fast as she can.
Ignoring traffic lights and stop signs, she accelerates to pass a taxi.
The engine vibrates against the inside of her knees and thighs, and the noise in her helmet sounds like a creature bellowing underwater.
Officer Saga Bauer is five foot six, with muscles like a ballet dancer. She was once one of the best boxers in northern Europe, but stopped fighting competitively a couple of years ago.
She’s twenty-nine years old, and still breathtakingly beautiful with her pale skin, slender neck and clear blue eyes.
She doesn’t think about her appearance much, and never notices that people tend to smile and blush in her presence.
A plastic bag swirls into the air in front of the motorcycle and she is dragged from her thoughts.
When she reaches Söder Mälarstrand she turns sharply left. The pedal scrapes the road but she manages to hold the line as she passes beneath the Central Bridge and up the access ramp.
This is the first time she’s been involved with a Code Platinum. It’s the alert reserved for the highest threats to national security.
She feels like she’s flying as she passes the spires and narrow alleyways of Gamla stan and Riddarholmen.
Saga has trained for scenarios like this. She is expected to act independently and not be swayed by anything, even the law.
She can see the gloomy brick buildings of Karolinska Hospital ahead, and pulls onto the E4, pushing the three-cylinder, 900cc engine to its limits and hitting two hundred and twenty kilometres an hour. She passes Roslagstull and turns left towards the university.
The cold air helps her stay calm as she thinks through the information she has been given and formulates an initial operational strategy.
Saga gets off the highway and speeds along Vendevägen towards Djursholm with its lush greenery and sprawling villas. The turquoise glow of swimming pools shimmers between fruit trees and bushes.
She pulls onto a roundabout too quickly, and takes the first exit to the right. Before her brain has time to notice the parked car her muscles instinctively react and the bike swerves sharply. She almost falls, but manages to counteract the momentum using her bodyweight. The rear wheel slides across the road. There’s a muffled thud as she hits a large plastic dustbin before she regains control of the bike and accelerates hard.
Her heart is pumping.
Fortunately, her motorcycle has a low centre of gravity and extremely responsive steering.
That’s probably what saved her.
Saga sees big yachts out on the water as she follows the wide curve of the road through the imposing houses. She’s already leaning hard to her left, but accelerates further as she reaches the shore.
7
Saga slows down as she approaches the address she was given.
She lets the bike fall sideways onto the grass beside the road, drops her helmet and pulls on her bulletproof vest and holster.
Thirteen minutes have passed since her phone woke her up.
The alarm is shrieking inside the house.
For a moment, she wishes Detective Joona Linna was there. She has worked alongside him in all her biggest cases so far. He’s the best police officer she’s ever met.
She let him down once, but will never do it again.
They lost touch after he received his prison sentence. She would have liked to visit him, but she knows he needs to construct a new life for himself. It’s going to take a lot to win the trust of the other prisoners.
Now a Code Platinum has been declared, and Saga is on her own.
No one else from the Security Police has arrived yet.
She climbs over the gate and runs up to the main entrance of the villa. She inserts an opener into the lock, then the thin end of her lock-pick. She moves the pick slightly to the right inside the mechanism until the catch releases.
The lock opens with a dull click.
Dropping her tools on the ground she draws her Glock, releases the safety and opens the door. The sound of the howling alarm drowns out everything else.
Saga quickly checks the entrance and large hallway beyond it, then hurries back to the alarm control panel and taps in the code she memorised.
Silence sweeps through the house. It feels foreboding.
With her pistol raised and her finger on the trigger she goes through the hallway, past the staircase, and reaches a large living room. She checks behind the doors and along the wall to the right, then continues in a crouch.
One of the big windows at the back of the house has been broken. A chair is lying overturned on the floor, surrounded by sparkling fragments of glass.
Saga moves on, towards the door to the kitchen, and sees herself reflected in the glass surfaces.
Blood and fragments of skull are splattered across the floor, sofa and coffee table.
She sweeps the room with her pistol then keeps moving slowly as more and more of the kitchen comes into view. She sees white cupboards and stainless steel countertops.
She stops and listens.
She can hear a low ticking, as if someone is tapping a fingernail on a tabletop.
Aiming her gun at the door to the kitchen, Saga moves silently to one side of it, and sees a man lying on his back on the floor.
He’s been shot through his chest and both eyes.
The back of his head is gone.
A dark puddle has spread out beneath him.
His hands are lying by his sides, as if he’s sunbathing.
Saga raises her pistol again and checks the rest of the kitchen.
The curtains in front of the patio doors are swaying, billowing into the room. The rings on the curtain rod are tapping against each other.
Blood from the first shot to the man’s head has sprayed far across the floor, and been trodden about by bare feet.
The prints lead directly towards Saga.
She quickly turns and sweeps her pistol around the room before walking back towards the double doors leading to the living room.
Saga startles when, from the corner of her eye, she sees a person crawling out from their hiding place behind one of the sofas.
She spins around just as the person stands up. It’s a woman in a blue dress. Saga points her pistol between the woman’s breasts as she takes an unsteady step.
‘Hands behind your head!’ Saga calls out. ‘Get on your knees, get down on your knees!’
Keeping the pistol raised, Saga runs forward.
‘Please,’ the woman whispers, dropping the personal alarm on the floor.
She barely has time to show that her hands are empty before Saga kicks her from the side, just below her knee, so hard that both her legs are knocked out from under her and she falls to the floor with a thud, hip first, then her cheek and temple.
Saga is on her instantly. She punches her in her left kidney, then presses the pistol to the back of her head, holding her down with her right knee as she scans the room again.
‘Is there anyone else in the house?’
‘Only the gunman, he went into the kitchen,’ the woman replies, gasping for breath. ‘He fired and then went—’
‘Quiet!’ Saga interrupts.
Saga quickly rolls her onto her stomach and pulls her arms behind her. The woman submits to everything in a disconcertingly calm way. Saga handcuffs her with a zip tie, then gets to her feet and hurries into the kitchen, past the dead man.
The curtains are still billowing, blown by the wind.
Aiming the pistol ahead of her, she steps over a soot-smeared poker, checks the left-hand side of the kitchen, then moves behind the island unit towards the sliding doors.
There’s a round hole in the glass, made by a diamond cutter, and the door is open. Saga goes out onto the deck, and sweeps the lawn and flowerbeds with her pistol.
The water is still, the night silent.
Someone who broke into a house and carried out such a clean execution would never stay at the scene of the crime.
Saga goes back inside to the woman. She ties her ankles with more zip ties, but keeps one knee on the small of her back.
‘I need some answers,’ she says quietly.
‘I have nothing to do with this, I just happened to be here, I didn’t see anything,’ the woman whispers.
Saga pulls the woman’s dress down to cover her bare backside before she gets up. Soon five SUVs will pull up outside and the Security Police will pour into the house.
‘How many gunmen?’
‘Just one, I only saw one.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘I don’t know. He had a mask over his face, I didn’t see anything, black clothes, gloves, it all happened so quickly. I thought he was going to kill me too, I thought—’
‘OK, just wait,’ Saga interrupts.
She goes over to the dead body. The man’s round face is intact enough that she has no trouble identifying him. She pulls out her phone, moves a short distance away and calls the head of the Security Police. It’s the middle of the night, but he’s been waiting for the call and answers immediately.
‘The Foreign Minister’s dead,’ she says.
8
Seven minutes later the house and grounds are swarming with members of the Security Police’s specialist unit.
For the past two years the Security Police has dramatically increased the level of protection for members of the government, with bodyguards and modern personal alarms. There are different levels of alert, but because the terrified woman managed to press both buttons on the alarm simultaneously for longer than three seconds, a Code Platinum was declared.
The crime scene has been cordoned off, three separate zones around the Greater Stockholm area are being closely monitored, and roadblocks have been set up.
Janus Mickelsen comes in and shakes Saga’s hand. He’s taking over command of the operation inside the house, and she quickly briefs him on the situation.
Janus has an almost hippie-like charm, with his strawberry-blond hair and pale ginger stubble. Saga always thinks he looks all peace and love, but she knows he used to be a professional soldier before he ended up in the Security Police. He took part in Operation Atalanta, and was stationed in the waters off Somalia.
Janus positions one agent at the door, even though they won’t be keeping the usual list of people visiting the crime scene. Under Code Platinum regulations, no one can know who is informed or aware of events and who isn’t.
Two Security Police officers walk over to the young woman Saga handcuffed. Her eyes are red from crying and her mascara has run down her temple.
One of the two men kneels down beside her and takes out a syringe. She becomes so scared that she starts to shake, but the other officer holds her tightly as the sedative is injected directly into her vein.
The woman’s cheeks turn red, she cranes her neck, her body tenses and then goes limp.
Saga watches them cut the zip ties, put an oxygen-mask over her nose and mouth, then lift the sedated woman into a body-bag and zip it closed. They carry the inert form outside to a waiting van.
The four other teams are already busy with their examination of the crime scene, scrupulously documenting everything. They’re recording finger- and shoe-prints, mapping splatter patterns, bullet-holes and firing angles, gathering biological evidence, textile fibres, strands of hair, bodily fluids, fragments of bone and brain, as well as pieces of glass and splinters of wood.
‘The minister’s wife and children are on their way home,’ Janus says. ‘Their plane lands at Arlanda at 08.15, and everything needs to be cleaned up here by then.’
The members of the unit have to gather information in one search. They won’t get another chance.
Saga goes up the creaking staircase and into the Foreign Minister’s bedroom. The room smells like sweat and urine. Leather straps hang from the four bedposts. There are bloodstains on the sheets.
A riding crop is visible on top of a chest of drawers, in the glow of a watch-winding case. Behind the glass a Rolex ticks silently next to a Breguet.
Saga wonders if the minister’s wife knew about the prostitutes.
Probably not.
Maybe she just didn’t ask.
Over the years you realise that you can put up with all sorts of cracks in your self-image and still cling to security.
Saga herself spent years in a relationship with a jazz pianist, Stefan Johansson, before he walked out on her.
He’s moved to Paris now. He plays in a band and he’s engaged.
When Stefan is on tour in Sweden, he calls her late at night and she lets him come over. She knows there’s no chance he’ll leave his fiancée for her, but has nothing against sleeping with him.
Saga knows she isn’t easy to live with. She has a fiery temper and a tendency to overreact in certain situations.
She goes back downstairs to the bullet-riddled body in the kitchen.
The glare from the lights reflects off the ridged aluminium floor. It feels like she’s standing on a silver bridge above a scene of bloodstained chaos.
Saga spends a long time looking at the dead man’s upturned palms, the yellow callus beneath his wedding ring, the sweat-stains under the arms of his shirt.
The team around her are working quickly and silently. They’re filming and cataloguing everything on an iPad using three-dimensional coordinates. Strands of hair and fabric are taped to transparent film, while tissue and skull-fragments are placed in test-tubes which are then immediately chilled.
Saga walks over to the patio door and examines the circular hole in the three layers of glass.
The alarm didn’t go off until the chair was thrown at the window, when the acoustic detectors and magnetic contacts reacted.
So the chair wasn’t thrown by the killer.
Saga thinks back to the look of terror on the woman’s face, her wounded wrists, the smell of urine.
Was she being held captive here?
Two men are covering the floor with large expanses of chilled foil, pressing it down using a wide rubber roller.
One IT specialist wraps the hard-drive from the security-camera controller in bubble-wrap, then puts it in a cool-box.
Janus is stressed. His jaw is clenched, and his freckled brow almost white and beaded with sweat.
‘OK … what do you think?’ he asks, coming over to stand beside Saga.
‘I don’t know,’ she replies. ‘The first shot to his abdomen was fired from a distance, and from a slightly strange angle.’
Blood has been oozing from the Foreign Minister’s stomach onto the floor.
A bullet leaves a ring of dirt around its entrance hole. There are two circles of powder dust on the man’s shirt.
The first two shots were from a distance, then there were two at extremely close range.
Saga bends over the body and looks at the entrance wounds in the eye-sockets, noting that there is none of the usual cratering around the openings.
‘He used a silencer,’ she whispers.
The killer must have used the kind of silencer that also muffles the flare, because there is no evidence of the percussive gases igniting. Otherwise the gas would have forced its way under the skin and left an obvious depression around the wound.
She straightens up and steps aside to make room for a forensics officer, who spreads a sheet of plastic over the dead man’s face. He presses it against the bullet-holes in an effort to gather particles from the ring of dirt, then marks the centre of the entrance holes on the plastic with a marker.
‘He was rolled onto his stomach after his death, then over onto his back again,’ Saga says.
‘What for?’ the forensics officer asks. ‘Why would—’
‘Shut up,’ Janus interrupts.
‘I want to see his back,’ Saga says.
‘Do what she says.’
They all feel like time is starting to run out. They anxiously fasten bags around the Foreign Minister’s hands, and lay out a body-bag beside him. They lift him up carefully and lay him down on his stomach in the bag. Saga looks at the wide exit wounds in his back and the messy void at the back of his head.
She stares at the floor where he was lying and sees the bullet-holes from the two final shots, then realises why the body had been rolled aside.
‘The gunman took the bullets with him.’
‘No one does that,’ Janus mutters.
‘He used a semiautomatic pistol with a silencer … Four shots fired, two of which were clearly lethal,’ she says.
A heavyset man is going around the dark-toned furniture in the living room, spraying luminol over the fabric as another forensics officer puts an armchair back into place over the depressions in the rug.
‘Get ready to pack up, everyone,’ Janus shouts, clapping his hands. ‘We’re cleaning the house in ten minutes, and the glazier and painter will be here within an hour.’
The heavyset man removes the forensic team’s floor-tiles behind them as they leave. As soon as they exit the door a team enters the house to clean it.
The killer not only took the spent cartridges with him, but also dug the bullets out of the floor and walls while the alarm was howling and the police were on their way. Not even the very best hit men do that.
They’re dealing with a perfectly executed murder, yet he left a witness. He could hardly have failed to notice someone watching him at the crime scene.
‘I’ll go and talk to the witness,’ Saga says. The woman must be involved somehow.
‘You know we’ve already got our experts there,’ Janus says.
‘I need to ask my own questions,’ Saga replies, and sets off towards her motorbike.
9
The bomb-shelter beneath Katarinaberget in Stockholm was the biggest nuclear shelter in the world when it was built at the start of the Cold War. Today the whole place, other than the section that used to house the backup generators and ventilation units, is used as a parking garage.
The machine house is a separate building, blasted into the bedrock alongside the actual shelter.
These days it is used by the Security Police.
It’s the site of the secret prison known as the Spinnhuset. The most highly classified interrogations take place deep in the bowels of the old ice pools.
It’s still early in the morning when Saga passes the Slussen junction on her motorcycle. Her sweaty leather bodysuit feels cold against her breasts. She drives in through the arched entrance next to the petrol station, and heads down into the garage. The shift in acoustics amplifies the sound of the engine.
Rubbish has gathered beneath the peeling yellow railings, and loose cables hang from the loudspeakers.
The panels covering the wide groove in the floor rumble beneath the tyres as Saga passes the shelter’s immense sliding doors, designed to protect against a pressure wave.
As she heads down the concrete ramp, her mind ponders the unsolved riddle.
Why would the woman activate the security alarm and then stay at the crime scene if she was involved in the murder?
Why would the killer leave a witness if she wasn’t involved in the murder?
The Security Police see her as a security risk whether she was involved or just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Saga brakes carefully as she circles deeper and deeper inside the parking garage.
The woman’s identity has been verified. Her name is Sofia Stefansson, and she appears to work part-time as a prostitute, though that hasn’t been confirmed.
So far they’re relying on what she said, and the very limited documentation they’ve found in her flat.
Saga can’t rule out the possibility that Sofia has been recruited by a terrorist organisation.
Maybe she was the bait; maybe she filmed what happened in bed in order to blackmail the Foreign Minister?
But in that case, why was he killed?
Saga lets go of the brakes and swings into the lowest level.
She drives past a few parked cars, tyres squealing. Red dust swirls up around the motorcycle. She parks and walks over to a blue blast-proof door.
She swipes her ID, taps in the nine-digit code and waits a few seconds. The door opens onto an airlock.
She shows her ID again and is signed in by a guard who takes her pistol and keys. After passing through the full-body scanner she is let through the inner door of the airlock.
Jeanette Fleming sits inside the staffroom. She’s a psychologist, and one of the Security Police’s specialist interviewers. She’s a beautiful middle-aged woman, with ash-blonde hair cut in a boyish style.
Jeanette is elegantly dressed as usual. She’s eating salad from a plastic container.‘You know I’m not hitting on you, but you really are ridiculously attractive,’ she says, pushing her plastic fork into the salad. ‘I somehow forget about it every time … some sort of self-preservation instinct, I assume.’
Jeanette puts the rest of the salad in the fridge. They walk towards the lifts.
‘How’s your appeal going?’ Saga asks.
‘I’ve been turned down.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’
Jeanette waited eight years for her husband to decide he was ready to have children, and then he left her. She then spent three years trying Internet dating before applying for artificial insemination from the Swedish health service.
‘I don’t know, if they say no, I might go down to Denmark to do it … but I still want the child to speak Swedish,’ Jeanette jokes as she gets into the lift with Saga.
She presses the button for the lowest level.
‘I’ve only read the initial report on my phone,’ Saga says.
‘They were too rough on the girl. She got scared and clammed up,’ Jeanette says. ‘They had orders to go in hard.’
‘Who gave the orders?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jeanette replies.
The lift descends quickly. The light from the cage reflects off the rough rock walls, and the counterweight shimmers briefly as it glides up past them.
‘Sofia’s afraid of being hurt again. She needs someone who’ll listen to her, protect her.’
‘Who doesn’t need that?’ Saga smiles.
They reach the bottom and walk quickly down the hallway. At this depth everything seems still and grey.
Sofia Stefansson’s story has been corroborated by the discovery of a high dose of the fast-acting sedative flunitrazepam in her blood. Her wrists and ankles are wounded and there’s bruising on the inside of her thighs. Her fingerprints have been found on the chair that smashed the window.
If her story is true, then she’s a victim according to the law prohibiting the purchase of sexual services: she was assaulted and exploited by her customer, and should be allowed to speak to both the police and a psychologist.
But since she could also be involved in a serious act of terrorism, the law doesn’t matter.
‘I think it’s best if I wait in the control room to start,’ Jeanette says.
Saga taps in the code and opens the door to the former ice-store.
The lighting in the windowless room is very bright. A security camera is recording at all times.
The store was built to fit two hundred tons of ice to keep the shelter cool in case of nuclear war.
Sofia Stefansson is standing uncomfortably in the middle of the floor on a plastic sheet. Her shoulders are pulled back tightly, and her hands are tied behind her back. Her weight is held by the cable she’s hooked to, which stretches up to a plank beneath one of the beams. Her head is lowered and her lank hair hides her face.
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