The Nightmare. Ларс Кеплер
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after her with machetes. We imitated the antelope, the woman explained in the book. Those of us who survived in the jungle imitated the antelope’s flight from its predators. We ran, we chose unexpected paths, we split up and changed direction to confuse our pursuers.
Penelope knows that the way that she and Björn are running is completely wrong. They have no plan, no ideas, and that’s only going to benefit the man chasing them. There’s no guile to the way they’re running. They want to go home, they want to find help, they want to call the police. And their pursuer knows all this, he understands that they’re going to try to find people who can help them, that they’re going to try to find inhabited areas, heading towards the mainland and home.
Penelope tears a hole in her jogging bottoms on a fallen branch. She staggers a few steps but keeps going, only noting the pain as a burning snare round her leg.
They mustn’t stop. She can taste blood in her mouth. Björn stumbles through a thicket, they change direction at a fallen tree with a pool of water in the hole left by its roots.
As she runs alongside Björn, her fear suddenly brings to mind an unexpected memory, a memory of a time when she was just as frightened as she is now. It was when she was in Darfur. There was something about people’s eyes there, a difference in the eyes of those who had been traumatised, who couldn’t go on, and those who were still fighting, who refused to give up. She will never forget the children who came to Kubbum one night with a loaded revolver. She will never forget the fear she felt then.
The main offices of the Security Police are on the third floor of the main block at Police Headquarters, with its entrance on Polhemsgatan. The sound of a whistle can be heard from the exercise yard of the prison, which is situated at the top of the same building. The head of the department for security measures is called Verner Zandén. He is a tall man with a pointed nose, dark, jet-black eyes and a very deep voice. He’s sitting with his legs wide apart on the chair behind his desk, holding up a calming hand. Weak light is coming in through the little window facing the inner courtyard. The room smells of dust and hot light-bulbs. In this unusually drab room stands a young woman named Saga Bauer. She is a superintendent, and has specialised in counter-terrorism. Saga Bauer is only twenty-five years old, and has green, yellow and red ribbons threaded through her long, blonde hair. She looks like a wood-nymph, always in the middle of a beam of light in a forest glade. She is wearing a large-calibre pistol in a shoulder holster beneath an open hooded jacket with the logo of Narva Boxing Club on it.
‘I’ve led the operation for more than a year,’ she pleads. ‘I’ve done the surveillance, I’ve spent whole nights and weekends …’
‘But this is something different,’ her boss interrupts with a smile.
‘Please … You can’t just ignore me again.’
‘Ignore you? A forensics expert from National Crime has been seriously injured, a detective superintendent has been attacked, the apartment could have exploded, and …’
‘I know all that. I’m on my way there now …’
‘I’ve already sent Göran Stone.’
‘Göran Stone? I’ve worked here for three years, and I haven’t been allowed to finish a single case. This is my area of expertise. Göran doesn’t know anything about …’
‘He did well in the tunnels.’
Saga swallows hard before replying:
‘That was my case too, I found the link between …’
Verner says seriously:
‘But it got dangerous, and I still consider that I made the right decision.’
She blushes and looks down, composes herself and then says calmly:
‘I can do this. It’s what I’ve been trained to …’
‘Yes, but I’ve already made my decision.’
He rubs his nose, sighs, then puts his feet up on the waste-paper basket under the desk.
‘You know I’m not here because of some equal opportunities programme,’ Saga says slowly. ‘I’m not part of any quota, I came top of my group in all the tests, I was the best ever at sniper fire, I’ve investigated two hundred and ten different …’
‘I’m just worried about you,’ he says weakly, looking into her clear blue eyes.
‘I’m not a doll, I’m not some princess or fairy.’
‘But you’re so … so …’
Verner turns bright red and then he holds his hands up helplessly.
‘Okay, what the hell, you can be in charge of the preliminary investigation, but Göran Stone is part of the team, so he can keep an eye on you.’
‘Thanks,’ she says with a relieved smile.
‘This isn’t a game, remember that,’ he says in his deep voice. ‘Penelope Fernandez’s sister is dead, executed, and she herself is missing …’
‘And I’ve noticed an increase in activity among a number of extreme left-wing groups,’ Saga says. ‘We’re investigating whether the Revolutionary Front are behind the theft of explosives in Vaxholm.’
‘Obviously the most important thing is to find out if there’s any immediate threat,’ Verner explains.
‘Right now there’s a lot of radicalisation going on,’ she says, a little too keenly. ‘I’ve just been in touch with Dante Larsson at the Military Intelligence and Security Service, and he says they’re expecting acts of sabotage during the summer.’
‘But for the time being we’re concentrating on Penelope Fernandez,’ Verner smiles.
‘Of course,’ Saga says quickly. ‘Of course.’
‘The forensic examination is a collaboration with National Crime, but apart from that they’re to be kept out of it.’
Saga Bauer nods and waits a few moments before asking:
‘Am I going to be allowed to conclude this investigation? It’s very important to me, so that …’
‘As long as you’re still sitting in the saddle,’ he interrupts. ‘But we have no idea where this is going to end. We don’t even know where it starts.’
On Rekylgatan in Västerås there’s a very long, and very white, housing block. The people who live there have easy access to Lillhags School, the football pitch and tennis courts.
Out of door number 11 comes a young man carrying a motorcycle helmet in one hand. His name is Stefan Bergkvist, and he’s almost seventeen years old, he attends the technical college and lives with his mum and her partner.
He has long fair hair and a silver ring in his bottom lip, and he’s wearing a black T-shirt and baggy jeans whose cuffs have been trodden to pieces.
Without any hurry he walks down to the car park, hangs the helmet on the handlebars of his motocross bike and rides slowly down onto the path around the building, carries on beside the double railway