The Sandman (21 page)

He hears her go to the bathroom and pee, then take her make-up off. He walks slowly closer, towards the light of the bathroom spilling into the corridor.

Anders stands in the dark watching Petra in the mirror above the basin. She brushes her teeth, spits, cups her hand to lift some water to her mouth, then spits again.

When she sees him she looks scared for a few seconds.

‘Are you awake?’

‘I was waiting for you,’ Anders said in a strange voice.

‘That’s sweet of you.’

She turns the light out and he follows her into the bedroom. She sits down on the edge of the bed and rubs cream into her hands and elbows.

‘Did you have a good time?’

‘It was OK … Lena’s got a new job.’

Anders grabs her left hand and holds her tightly by the wrist. She looks into his eyes.

‘You know we’ve got to be up early tomorrow.’

‘Shut up,’ he says.

She tries to pull free, but he grabs her other hand and pushes her down onto the bed.

‘Ow—’

‘Just shut up!’

He forces one knee between her thighs and she tries to twist aside, then lies there quite still and looks at him.

‘I mean it: red light … I have to get some sleep,’ she says gently.

‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

She looks at him for a moment, then nods.

‘Lock the door.’

He gets off the bed, listens out for any sounds from the corridor, but the house is quiet, so he shuts and locks the door. Petra has taken off her nightdress and is opening the box. With a smile she gets out the soft rope and the carrier bag with the whip, the vibrator and the big dildo, but he pushes her onto the bed.

She tells him to stop, but he roughly pulls off her underwear, leaving red marks on her hips.

‘Anders, I—’

‘Don’t look at me,’ he interrupts.

‘Sorry …’

She doesn’t resist as he ties her tightly, a bit too tightly. It’s possible that the drink has made her less sensitive than usual. He ties the rope round one of the bedposts, and forces her thighs apart.

‘Ow,’ she whimpers.

He fetches the blindfold and she shakes her head as he pulls it down over her face. She tries to pull loose, tugging at the ropes so hard that her heavy breasts swing.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispers.

It’s four o’clock by the time they finish and he loosens the ropes. Petra is silent, her body trembling as she massages her sore wrists. Her hair is sweaty, her cheeks streaked with tears, and the blindfold has slipped down round her neck. He had stuffed the remnants of her underwear in her mouth when she wanted to stop, didn’t want to go on.

Saga abandons any attempt to sleep at five o’clock. Ninety minutes left. Then they’re coming to get her. Her body feels heavy as she pulls on her jogging outfit and leaves the flat.

She jogs a couple of blocks, then speeds up down towards Söder Mälarstrand.

There’s no traffic this early.

She runs along the silent streets. The fresh snow is so airy she can barely feel it under her feet.

She knows she can still change her mind, but today’s the day she’s going to give up her freedom.

Södermalm is asleep. The sky is black above the glow of the streetlamps.

Saga runs quickly, thinking about the fact that she hasn’t been given an assumed identity, that she’s being admitted under her name and doesn’t have to remember anything but her medication. Intramuscular injections of Risperdal, she repeats silently to herself. Oxascand for the side effects, Stesolid and Heminevrin.

Pollock had explained that it didn’t matter what her diagnosis was: ‘You still know exactly what medication you’re on,’ he said. ‘It’s a matter of life or death; the medication is what helps you survive.’

An empty bus swings into the deserted, well-lit terminal for the Finland ferries.

‘Trilafon, eight milligrams three times a day,’ she whispers as she runs. ‘Cipramil thirty milligrams, Seroxat twenty milligrams …’

Just before she reaches the Photography Museum, Saga changes direction and carries on up the steep steps leading away from Stadsgårdsleden. She stops at the highest point of Katarinavägen and looks out across Stockholm as she goes through Joona’s rules once more.

I have to keep to myself, say little, and only in short sentences. I have to mean what I say and only tell the truth.

That’s all, she thinks, and keeps on running towards Hornsgatan.

Over the last kilometre she speeds up again and tries to sprint the last stretch along Tavastgatan to her building.

Saga runs up the stairs, kicks her shoes off on the hall mat and goes straight into the bathroom for a shower.

It feels strange to be able to dry herself so quickly afterwards without all that long hair. All she has to do is rub a towel over her head.

She pulls on the most basic underwear she owns. A white sport bra and a pair of pants she only wears when she’s got her period. A pair of jeans, a black T-shirt and a washed-out tracksuit top.

She doesn’t usually feel worried, but all of a sudden she has butterflies in her stomach.

It’s almost twenty past six. They’re picking her up in eleven minutes. She puts her watch back on the bedside table, next to her glass of water. Where she’s going, time is dead.

First she’ll be going to Kronoberg Prison, but she’ll only be there a couple of hours before she’s transported to Katrineholm. Then she’ll spend a day or so at Karsudden Hospital before the decision to transfer her to the secure psychiatric unit at Löwenströmska Hospital is put into action.

She walks slowly through the flat, switching off lights and pulling out a few plugs, before going into the hall and putting on her green parka.

It’s not such a difficult mission, she thinks once more.

Jurek Walter is an elderly man, probably heavily medicated and not really with it.

She knows he’s guilty of terrible things, but all she has to do is stay calm, wait for him to approach her, wait for him to say something that could be useful.

Either it will work, or it won’t.

It’s time to leave now.

Saga turns off the lamp in the hall and goes out into the stairwell.

She’s thrown out all the perishable goods from the fridge, but she hasn’t asked anyone to look after the flat, water the flowers and take care of the post.

Saga double-locks the door, then goes downstairs to the main entrance. She feels a flutter of anxiety as she sees the Prison Service van waiting in the dark street.

She opens the door and gets in beside Nathan Pollock.

‘It’s dangerous to pick up hitch-hikers,’ she says, trying to smile.

‘Did you get any sleep?’

‘A bit,’ she replies, and fastens her seat belt.

‘I know you already know this,’ Pollock says, glancing at her. ‘But I’m still going to remind you not to try to manipulate him into revealing any information.’

He puts the van in gear and it pulls out into the silent street.

‘That’s almost the hardest thing,’ Saga says. ‘What if he only wants to talk about football? What if he doesn’t talk at all?’

‘That will just be how it is, there’ll be nothing you can do about it.’

‘But Felicia might only survive a few more days …’

‘That’s not your responsibility,’ Pollock replies. ‘This infiltration is a gamble, we all know that, we’re agreed on that … we can’t second-guess the results. What you’re doing is entirely separate from the ongoing preliminary investigation. We’re going to carry on talking to Mikael Kohler-Frost, follow up all the old lines of inquiry, and—’

‘But no one believes … no one believes we’ll be able to save Felicia unless Jurek starts talking to me.’

‘You mustn’t think like that,’ Pollock says.

‘OK, I’ll stop now.’ She smiles.

‘Good.

She starts tapping her feet, and raises her arm to shield a sudden sneeze. Her pale-blue eyes are still glassy, as if part of her had taken a step back to observe the situation from a distance.

Dark buildings flit past as they drive on.

Saga puts her keys, wallet and other loose possessions in a Prison Service personal effects bag.

Before they reach Kronoberg Prison, Pollock hands her the fibre-optic microphone inside a silicon capsule and a small portion of butter.

‘Digestion of fatty foods takes longer,’ he says. ‘But I still don’t think you should ever wait more than four hours.

She opens the pack of butter, swallows the contents, then examines the microphone in the soft capsule. It looks like an insect in amber. She straightens up, pops the capsule in her mouth, tips her head back and swallows. It hurts her throat and she can feel herself breaking out into a sweat as it slowly slips down.

The morning is still black as midnight and all the lights are on in the women’s section of Kronoberg Prison.

Saga takes two steps forward and stops when they tell her to. She tries to shut herself off from the world around her and not look at anyone.

The radiators are ticking with the heat.

Nathan Pollock puts her bag of personal effects on the counter and hands over Saga’s papers. He is given a written receipt and then disappears.

From now on she will have to cope on her own, no matter what happens.

The automated gates whirr briefly, then fall abruptly silent.

No one looks at her, but she can’t help noticing the way the atmosphere gets more tense when the guards realise that she’s got the highest security classification.

She is to be kept in strict isolation until her transfer.

Saga stands still, eyes fixed on the yellow vinyl floor, not answering any questions.

She is patted down before being led along a corridor for the full-body search.

Two thickset women are discussing a new television series as they lead her through a door with no window in it. The room looks like a
small medical examination room, with a narrow bunk covered with rustling paper and locked cabinets along one wall.

‘Remove all your clothes,’ one of the women says in a blank voice as she pulls on a pair of latex gloves.

Saga does as she is told and drops her clothes in a heap on the floor. When she is naked she just stands there under the bare fluorescent light with her arms hanging by her sides.

Her pale body is girlishly slender, toned and athletic.

The warder with the gloves breaks off mid-sentence and just stares at Saga.

‘OK,’ one of them sighs after a few seconds.

‘What?’

‘Let’s try to do what we’ve got to do.’

Carefully they set about examining Saga, shining a light in her mouth, nose and ears. They tick each thing off from a list, then ask her to lie on the bunk.

‘Lie on your side and pull one knee up as far as you can,’ the woman with the gloves says.

Saga obeys, unhurriedly, and the woman moves between the bunk and the wall behind her back. She shivers, and feels her skin break out in goosebumps.

The dry paper rustles against her cheek as she turns her head. She shuts her eyes tight as lubricant is squeezed from a bottle.

‘This is going to feel a bit cold now,’ the woman says, sticking two fingers as far up Saga’s vagina as she can.

It doesn’t hurt, but it’s extremely unpleasant. Saga tries to breathe evenly, but can’t help gasping as the woman sticks a finger in her anus.

The examination is over in a matter of seconds, and the woman quickly pulls the gloves off and throws them away.

She hands Saga a piece of paper to wipe herself with, and explains that she’ll be given new clothes while she’s there.

Dressed in a baggy green outfit and a pair of white gym shoes, she is taken to her cell in Ward 8:4.

Before they close and lock the door behind her they ask amiably if she’d like a cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee.

Saga just shakes her head.

Once the women have gone, Saga stands completely still in her cell for a moment.

It’s hard to know what the time is, but before it’s too late she goes over to the sink and fills her hands with water, drinks some, then sticks her fingers down her throat. She coughs and her stomach clenches. After a couple of hard, painful cramps, the microphone comes back up.

She can’t help her eyes watering as she washes the capsule and then rinses her face.

She lies on the bunk and waits, holding the microphone hidden in her hand.

The corridor outside is silent.

Saga can smell the toilet and drain in the floor as she lies staring at the ceiling and reads the messages and names that have been carved into the walls over the years.

Rectangles of sunlight have moved left towards the floor by the time Saga hears footsteps outside. She quickly pops the capsule in her mouth, stands up and swallows as the lock clicks and the door is opened.

It’s time for her to be taken to Karsudden Hospital.

The uniformed guard signs her out, along with her possessions and transfer documents. Saga stands still as they cuff her hands and ankles, then sign the forms.

The police team consists of thirty-two people in total, civilian staff and officers from the surveillance and detection units of the National Criminal Investigation Department and the National Murder Squad.

In one of the big workrooms on the fifth floor the walls are covered with maps marking the locations of the disappearances and finds in the Jurek Walter case. Colour copies of photographs of the missing people are surrounded by constellations of their families, colleagues and friends.

Old interviews with the relatives of victims are examined again, and new interviews conducted. Medical and forensic reports are checked, and anyone who knew any of the victims is spoken to, no matter how peripheral the relationship.

Joona Linna and his team are standing in the winter light by the window reading the printout of the latest interview with Mikael Kohler-Frost. As they read, a sombre mood settles over the group. There’s nothing in Mikael’s account that can take the investigation forward.