The Sandman. Ларс Кеплер
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Samuel’s phone buzzed on the café table next to his espresso cup. The screen showed a picture of his wife Rebecka. Joona listened idly to the conversation as he picked the crystallised sugar from his cinnamon bun. Evidently Rebecka and the boys were heading out to Dalarö earlier than planned, and Samuel agreed to pick up some food on the way. He told her to drive carefully, and ended the call with lots of kisses.
‘The carpenter who’s been repairing our veranda wants us to take a look at the carving as soon as possible,’ Samuel explained. ‘The painter can start this weekend if it’s ready.’
Joona and Samuel returned to their offices in the National Criminal Investigation Department and didn’t see each other again for the rest of the day.
Five hours later Joona was eating dinner with his family when Samuel called. He was panting and talking so fast that it was difficult to make out what he was saying, but apparently Rebecka and the boys weren’t at the house in Dalarö. They hadn’t been there, and weren’t answering the phone.
‘There’s bound to be an explanation,’ Joona said.
‘I’ve called the police, and all the hospitals, and—’
‘Where are you now?’ Joona asked.
‘I’m out on the Dalarö road, but I’m heading back to the house again.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Joona asked.
He had already thought the thought, but the hairs on the back of his neck still stood up when Samuel said:
‘Make sure Jurek Walter hasn’t escaped.’
Joona checked with the secure criminal psychology unit of the Löwenströmska Hospital at once, and spoke to Senior Consultant Brolin. He was told that nothing unusual had occurred in the secure unit. Jurek Walter was in his cell, and had been in total isolation all day.
When Joona called Samuel back, his friend’s voice sounded different, shrill and hunted.
‘I’m out in the forest,’ Samuel almost shouted. ‘I’ve found Rebecka’s car, it’s in the middle of the little road leading to the headland, but there’s no one here, there’s no one here!’
‘I’m on my way,’ Joona said at once.
The police searched intensively for Samuel’s family. All traces of Rebecka and the boys vanished on the gravel road five metres from the abandoned car. The dogs couldn’t pick up any scent, just walked up and down, sniffing and circling, but they couldn’t find anything. The forests, roads, houses and waterways were searched for two months. After the police had withdrawn, Samuel and Joona carried on looking on their own. They searched with a determination and a fear that grew until it was on the brink of being unbearable. Not once did they mention what this was all about. Both refused to voice their fears about what had happened to Joshua, Reuben and Rebecka. They had witnessed Jurek Walter’s cruelty.
Throughout this period Joona suffered such terrible anxiety that he couldn’t sleep. He watched over his family, following them everywhere, picking them up and dropping them off, making special arrangements with Lumi’s preschool, but he was forced to accept that this wouldn’t be enough in the long term.
Joona had to confront his worst horror.
He couldn’t talk to Samuel, but he could no longer deny the truth to himself.
Jurek Walter hadn’t committed his crimes alone. Everything about Jurek Walter’s understated grandiosity suggested that he was the leader. But after Samuel’s family was abducted, there could be no doubt that Jurek Walter had an accomplice.
This accomplice had been ordered to take Samuel’s family, and he had done so without leaving a single piece of evidence.
Joona realised that his family was next. It was probably only good fortune that had spared him this far.
Jurek Walter showed no mercy to anyone.
Joona raised this with Summa on numerous occasions, but she refused to take the threat as seriously as he did. She humoured him, accepting his concern and precautionary measures, but she assumed that his fears would subside over time.
He had hoped that the intensive police operation that followed the disappearance of Samuel Mendel’s family would lead to the capture of the accomplice. When the search first got under way, Joona saw himself as the hunter, but as the weeks went by the dynamic changed.
He knew that he and his family were the prey, and the calm he tried to demonstrate to Summa and Lumi was merely a façade.
It was half past ten in the evening, and he and Summa were lying in bed reading when a noise from the ground floor made Joona’s heart suddenly begin to beat faster. The washing machine hadn’t finished its programme yet and it sounded like a zip rattling against the drum, nevertheless he couldn’t help getting up and checking that all the windows downstairs were in one piece, and that the outside doors were locked.
When he returned, Summa had switched off her lamp and was lying there watching him.
‘What did you do?’ she asked gently.
He forced himself to smile and was about to say something when they heard little footsteps. Joona turned and saw his daughter come into the bedroom. Her hair was sticking up and her pyjama trousers had twisted round her waist.
‘Lumi, you’re supposed to be asleep,’ he sighed.
‘We forgot to say goodnight to the cat,’ she said.
Every evening Joona would read Lumi a story, and before he tucked her in for the night they always had to look out of the window and wave to the grey cat that slept in their neighbours’ kitchen window.
‘Go back to bed now,’ Summa said.
‘I’ll come and see you,’ Joona promised.
Lumi mumbled something and shook her head.
‘Do you want me to carry you?’ he asked, and picked her up.
She clung onto him and he suddenly noticed her heart beating fast.
‘What is it? Did you have a dream?’
‘I only wanted to wave to the cat,’ she whispered. ‘But there was a skeleton out there.’
‘In the window?’
‘No, he was standing on the ground,’ she replied. ‘Right where we found the dead hedgehog … he was looking at me …’
Joona quickly put her in bed with Summa.
‘Stay here,’ he said.
He ran downstairs silently, not bothering to get his pistol from the gun cabinet, not bothering to put shoes on, and just opened the kitchen door and rushed outside into the cold night air.
There was no one there.
He ran behind the house, climbed over the neighbours’ fence and carried on into the next garden. The whole area was quiet and still. He returned to the tree in the garden where he and Lumi had found a dead hedgehog in the summer.
There was no doubt that someone had been standing in the tall grass, just inside their fence. From there you could see very clearly in through Lumi’s window.
Joona went inside, locked the door behind him, fetched his pistol, and searched the whole house before going back to bed. Lumi fell asleep almost instantly between him and Summa, and a little while later his wife was asleep beside him.