The Nightmare. Ларс Кеплер
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reaches the bottom of the escalator. The feeling of being shut in vanishes. She thinks once more about Björn, waiting at the marina on Långholmen. She loves swimming naked from his boat, diving into the water and not being able to see anything but sea and sky.
The underground train shakes as it rushes through the tunnel, then sunlight streams through the windows when it reaches Gamla stan station.
Penelope Fernandez hates war and violence and military might. It’s a burning conviction which led her to study for a master’s degree at Uppsala University in Peace and Conflict Studies. She has worked for the French aid organisation Action Contre la Faim in Darfur alongside Jane Oduya. She wrote an acclaimed article for Dagens Nyheter about the women in the refugee camps and their attempts to recreate a semblance of normal life after every assault on them. Two years ago she succeeded Frida Blom as chair of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society.
Penelope gets off at Hornstull station and emerges into the sunshine. She suddenly feels inexplicably anxious, so runs down Pålsundsbacken to Söder Mälarstrand, hurries across the bridge to Långholmen and follows the road round to the left, towards the small boats harbour. Dust from the grit on the road hangs like a haze in the still air.
Björn’s boat is moored in the shadow of the Western Bridge, the movements of the water forming a mesh of light reflected onto the grey steel beams high above.
She sees him at the back of the boat, wearing a cowboy hat. He’s standing still, with his arms wrapped round him, his shoulders hunched.
Penelope puts two fingers in her mouth and wolf-whistles. Björn starts, and his face becomes completely unmasked, as if he were horribly afraid. He looks over towards the road and catches sight of her. He still has a worried look in his eyes as he walks to the gangplank.
‘What is it?’ she asks, walking down the steps to the jetty.
‘Nothing,’ Björn replies, then adjusts his hat and tries to smile.
They hug and she feels that his hands are ice-cold, and his shirt soaking wet on his back.
‘You’re really sweaty,’ she says.
Björn looks away evasively.
‘I’m just keen to get going.’
‘Did you bring my bag?’
He nods and gestures towards the cabin. The boat is rocking gently beneath her feet, and she can smell sun-warmed plastic and polished wood.
‘Hello?’ she says breezily. ‘Where are you right now?’
His straw-coloured hair is sticking out in all directions in small, matted dreads. His bright blue eyes are childlike, smiling.
‘I’m here,’ he replies, and lowers his eyes.
‘What’s on your mind?’
‘I just want us to be together,’ he says, and puts his arms round her waist. ‘And have sex out in the open air.’
He nuzzles her hair with his lips.
‘Is that what you’re hoping?’ she whispers.
‘Yes,’ he replies.
She laughs at him for being so upfront.
‘Most people … well, most women, anyway, probably find that a bit overrated,’ she says. ‘Lying on the ground among loads of ants and stones and …’
‘It’s like swimming naked,’ he maintains.
‘You’re just going to have to try to persuade me,’ she says flirtatiously.
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘How?’ she laughs, as her phone starts to ring in her canvas bag.
Björn’s smile seems to stiffen at the sound of the ringtone. The colour drains from his cheeks. She looks at the screen and sees that it’s her younger sister.
‘It’s Viola,’ she says quickly to Björn before she answers.
‘Hola, little sister.’
A car blows its horn and her sister shouts something away from the phone.
‘Bloody lunatic,’ she mutters.
‘What’s going on?’
‘It’s over,’ her sister says. ‘I’ve dumped Sergey.’
‘Again,’ Penelope adds.
‘Yes,’ Viola says quietly.
‘Sorry,’ Penelope says. ‘You must be upset.’
‘It’s not that bad, but … Mum said you were going out on the boat, and I was wondering … I’d love to come along, if that would be okay?’
Neither of them speaks for a moment.
‘Sure, come along,’ Penelope repeats, and hears the lack of enthusiasm in her own voice. ‘Björn and I need a bit of time together, but …’
Penelope is standing at the helm with a light blue sarong wrapped round her hips and a white bikini top with a peace sign over the right breast. She is bathed in summer light coming through the windscreen. She carefully steers round Kungshamn lighthouse, then manoeuvres the large motor cruiser into the narrow strait.
Her sister Viola gets up from the pink sun-lounger on the aft-deck. She’s spent the past hour lying there wearing Björn’s cowboy hat and an enormous pair of mirror sunglasses, sleepily smoking a joint.
Viola makes five half-hearted attempts to pick up the box of matches with her toes before giving up. Penelope can’t help smiling. Viola walks into the saloon through the glass door and asks if Penelope would like her to take over.
‘If not, I’ll go and make a margarita,’ she says, and carries on down the steps.
Björn is lying out on the foredeck on a towel, using his paperback of Ovid’s Metamorphoses as a pillow.
Penelope notices that the base of the railing by his feet has started to rust. Björn was given the boat by his father when he turned twenty, but he hasn’t been able to afford to maintain it properly. The big motor cruiser is the only gift he ever got from his father, apart from a holiday. When his dad turned fifty he invited Björn and Penelope to one of his finest luxury hotels, the Kamaya Resort on the east coast of Kenya. Penelope only managed to put up with the hotel for two days before travelling to the refugee camp in Kubbum in Darfur in western Sudan, where the French aid organisation Action Contre la Faim was based.
Penelope decreases their cruising speed from eight to five knots as they approach the Skurusund Bridge. The heavy traffic high above on the bridge can’t be heard at all on the water. Just as they’re gliding into the shadow of the bridge she spots a black inflatable boat by one of the concrete foundations. It’s the same sort used by the Special Boat Service: a RIB with a fibreglass hull and extremely powerful motors.
Penelope has almost passed the bridge when she realises that there’s someone sitting in the boat. A man crouching in the gloom with his back to her. She doesn’t know why her pulse quickens at the sight of him. There’s something about the back of his head and his dark clothes. She feels as if she’s being watched, even though he’s facing the other way.
When she emerges into the sunshine again she shivers, and the goosebumps on her arms take a long time to go down.
She increases their speed to fifteen knots once she’s past Duvnäs. The two on-board motors rumble, the water foams behind them and the boat