Lars Kepler: The Sandman

The last security door closes and they head down the corridor to the only one of the isolation cells that is being used. The fluorescent light in the ceiling reflects off the vinyl floor. The textured wallpaper has a groove worn into it from the food trolley, one metre up from the floor.

The Senior Consultant puts his pass card away and lets Anders walk ahead of him towards the heavy metal door.

Through the reinforced glass Anders can see a thin man sitting on a plastic chair. He is dressed in blue jeans and a denim shirt. The man is clean-shaven and his eyes seem remarkably calm. The many wrinkles covering his pale face look like the cracked clay at the bottom of a dried-up riverbed.

Jurek Walter was only found guilty of two murders and one attempted murder, but there’s compelling evidence linking him to a further nineteen murders.

Thirteen years ago he was caught red-handed in Lill-Jan’s Forest on Djurgården in Stockholm, forcing a fifty-year-old woman back into a coffin in the ground. She had been kept in the coffin for almost two years, but was still alive. The woman had sustained terrible injuries, she was malnourished, her muscles had withered away, she had appalling pressure sores and frostbite, and had suffered severe brain damage. If the police hadn’t followed and arrested Jurek Walter beside the coffin, he would probably never have been stopped.

Now the consultant takes out three small glass bottles containing yellow powder, puts some water into each of the bottles, shakes them carefully, then draws the contents into a syringe.

He puts his earplugs in, then opens the small hatch in the door. There’s a clatter of metal and a heavy smell of concrete and dust hits them.

In a dispassionate voice the Senior Consultant tells Jurek Walter that it’s time for his injection.

The man lifts his chin and gets up softly from the chair, turns to looks at the hatch in the door and unbuttons his shirt as he approaches.

‘Stop and take your shirt off,’ Roland Brolin says.

Jurek Walter carries on walking slowly forward and Roland quickly closes and bolts the hatch. Jurek stops, undoes the last buttons and lets his shirt fall to the floor.

His body looks as if it was once in good shape, but now his muscles are loose and his wrinkled skin is sagging.

Roland opens the hatch again. Jurek Walter walks the last little bit and holds out his sinewy arm, mottled with hundreds of different pigments.

Anders washes his upper arm with surgical spirit. Roland pushes the syringe into the soft muscle and injects the liquid far too quickly. Jurek’s hand jerks in surprise, but he doesn’t pull his arm back until he’s given permission. The Senior Consultant closes and hurriedly bolts the hatch, removes his earplugs, smiles nervously to himself and then looks inside.

Jurek Walter is stumbling towards the bed, where he stops and sits down.

Suddenly he turns to look at the door and Roland drops the syringe.

He tries to catch it but it rolls away across the floor.

Anders steps forward and picks up the syringe, and when they both stand and turn back towards the hatch they see that the inside of the reinforced glass is misted. Jurek has breathed on the glass and written ‘JOONA’ with his finger.

‘What does it say?’ Anders asks weakly.

‘He’s written Joona.’

‘Joona?’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

The condensation clears and they see that Jurek Walter is sitting as if he hadn’t moved. He looks at the arm where he got the injection, massages the muscle, then looks at them through the glass.

‘It didn’t say anything else?’ Anders asks.

‘I only saw...’

There’s a bestial roar from the other side of the heavy door. Jurek Walter has slid off the bed and is on his knees, screaming as hard as he can. The sinews in his neck are taut, his veins swollen.

‘How much did you actually give him?’ Anders asks.

Jurek Walter’s eyes roll back and turn white, he reaches out a hand to support himself, stretches one leg but topples over backwards, hitting his head on the bedside table, then he screams and his body starts to jerk spasmodically.

‘Bloody hell,’ Anders whispers.

Jurek slips onto the floor, his legs kicking uncontrollably. He bites his tongue and blood sprays out over his chest, then he lies there on his back, gasping.

‘What do we do if he dies?’

‘Cremate him,’ Brolin says.

Jurek is cramping again, his whole body shaking, and his hands flail in every direction until they suddenly stop.

Brolin looks at his watch. Sweat is running down his cheeks.

Jurek Walter whimpers, rolls onto his side and tries to get up, but fails.

‘You can go inside in two minutes,’ the Senior Consultant says.

‘Am I really going in there?’

‘He’ll soon be completely harmless.’

Jurek is crawling on all fours, bloody slime drooling from his mouth. He sways and slows down until he finally slumps to the floor and lies still.

Anders looks through the thick reinforced glass window in the door. Jurek Walter has been lying motionless on the floor for the last ten minutes. His body is limp in the wake of his cramps.

The Senior Consultant pulls out a key and puts it in the lock, then pauses and peers in through the window before unlocking the door.

‘Have fun,’ he says.

‘What do we do if he wakes up?’ Anders asks.

‘He mustn’t wake up.’

Brolin opens the door and Anders goes inside. The door closes behind him and the lock rattles. The isolation room smells of sweat, but of something else as well. A sharp smell of acetic acid. Jurek Walter is lying completely still, with just the slow pattern of his breathing visible across his back.

Anders keeps his distance from him even though he knows he’s fast asleep.

The acoustics in there are odd, intrusive, as if sounds follow movements too quickly.

His doctor’s coat rustles softly with each step.

Jurek is breathing faster.

The tap is dripping in the basin.

Anders reaches the bed, then turns towards Jurek and kneels down.

He catches a glimpse of the Senior Consultant watching him anxiously through the reinforced glass as he leans over and tries to look under the fixed bed.

Nothing on the floor.

He moves closer, looking carefully at Jurek before lying flat on the floor.

He can’t watch Jurek any longer. He has to turn his back on him to look for the knife.

Not much light reaches under the bed. There are dustballs nestled against the wall.

He can’t help imagining that Jurek Walter has opened his eyes.

There’s something tucked between the wooden slats and the mattress. It’s hard to see what it is.

Anders stretches out his hand, but can’t reach it. He’ll have to slide beneath the bed on his back. The space is so tight he can’t turn his head. He slips further in. Feels the unyielding bulk of the bed-frame against his ribcage with each breath. His fingers fumble. He needs to get a bit closer. His knee hits one of the wooden slats. He blows a dustball away from his face and carries on.

Suddenly he hears a dull thud behind him in the isolation cell. He can’t turn round and look. He just lies there still, listening. His own breathing is so rapid he has trouble discerning any other sound.

Cautiously he reaches out his hand and touches the object with his fingertips, squeezing in a bit further in order to pull it free.

Jurek has made a short knife with a very sharp blade fashioned from a piece of steel skirting.

‘Hurry up,’ the Senior Consultant calls through the hatch.

Anders tries to get out, pushing hard, and scratches his cheek.

Suddenly he can’t move, he’s stuck, his coat is caught and there’s no way he can wriggle out of it.