Lars Kepler - The Sandman

Somewhere behind him he hears Joona Linna try to find out more from Mikael. His deep voice merges with the heavy thud of Reidar’s heartbeat.

You only see your mistakes in hindsight, and some of them are so painful that you can hardly live with yourself.

Reidar knows that he was an unfair father. That was never his intention, it just turned out that way.

Everyone always says that they love their children equally, he thinks. Yet we still treat them differently.

Mikael was his favourite.

Felicia always irritated him, and sometimes made him so angry that he frightened her. In hindsight it seemed incomprehensible. After all, he was an adult and she was just a child.

I shouldn’t have shouted at her, he thinks, staring out at the overcast sky and feeling that his left armpit is starting to really hurt now.

‘I can feel her the whole time,’ Mikael is telling Joona. ‘Now she’s just lying there on the floor... she’s so terrified.’

Reidar lets out a groan as he feels a burst of pain in his chest. Sweat is running down his neck. Joona rushes over to him, grabs the top of his arm and says something.

‘It’s nothing,’ Reidar says.

‘Does your chest hurt?’ Joona asks.

‘I’m just tired,’ he replies quickly.

‘You seem—’

‘I have to find Felicia,’ he says.

A burning pain shoots through his jaw and he feels another stab in his chest. He falls, hitting his cheek against the radiator, but all he can think is how he shouted at Felicia and told her she was useless the day she disappeared.

He gets to his knees and is trying to crawl as he hears Joona come back into the room with a doctor.

Joona talks to Reidar’s doctor, then returns to Mikael’s room, hangs his jacket on the hook behind the door, pulls up the only chair and sits down.

If it’s true that Felicia is still alive, then all of a sudden it really is urgent. Maybe there are even more captives? He has to get Mikael to talk about his memories.

An hour later Mikael wakes up. He opens his eyes slowly, squinting against the light. As Joona repeats that his father’s not in any danger, he shuts his eyes again.

‘I need to ask you a question,’ Joona says seriously.

‘My sister,’ he whispers.

Joona puts his mobile on the bedside table and starts to record.

‘Mikael, I have to ask you... Do you know who was holding you captive?’

‘It wasn’t like that...’

‘Like what?’

The boy’s breathing speeds up.

‘He just wanted us to sleep, that was all, we had to sleep...’

‘Who?’

‘The Sandman,’ Mikael whispers.

‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing, I can’t go on...’

Joona looks down at his phone and checks that it’s recording the conversation.

‘I thought you mentioned the Sandman?’ he goes on. ‘You mean like Wee Willie Winkie, putting the children to sleep?’

Mikael looks him in the eye.

‘He’s real,’ he whispers. ‘He smells of sand, he sells barometers during the day.’

‘What does he look like?’

‘It’s always dark when he comes...’

‘You must have seen something, surely?’

Mikael shakes his head, sobbing silently as tears run down his cheeks and onto the pillow under his head.

‘Does the Sandman have another name?’ Joona asks.

‘I don’t know, he never says a word, he never spoke to us the whole time.’

‘Can you describe him?’

‘I’ve only heard him in the darkness... his fingertips are made of porcelain and when he takes the sand out of the bag they tinkle against each other... and...’

Mikael’s mouth is moving, but no sound is coming out.

‘I can’t hear what you’re saying,’ Joona says quietly.

‘He throws sand in children’s faces... and a moment later they’re asleep.’

‘How do you know it’s a man?’ Joona asks.

‘I’ve heard him cough,’ Mikael replies seriously.

‘But you never saw him?’

‘No.’

A very beautiful woman with Indian features is standing looking down at Reidar when he comes round. She explains that he’s had a coronary spasm.

‘I thought I was having a heart attack,’ he mutters.

‘Naturally we’re considering X-raying the coronary arteries, and—’

‘Yes,’ he sighs, sitting up.

‘You need to rest.’

‘I found out... that my...’ he says, but his mouth starts to tremble so much that he can’t finish the sentence.

She puts her hand against his cheek and smiles as if he were an unhappy child.

‘I have to see my son,’ he explains is a slightly steadier voice.

‘You understand that you can’t leave the hospital before we’ve investigated your symptoms,’ she says.

She gives him a small pink bottle of nitroglycerine for him to spray under his tongue at the first sign of pain in his chest.

Reidar walks to Ward 66, but before he reaches Mikael’s room he stops in the corridor, leans against the wall.

When he enters the room, Joona stands up and offers him the chair. His phone is still next to the bed.

‘Mikael, you have to help me find her,’ he says as he sits down.

‘Dad, how are you?’ his son asks in a steady voice.

‘It was nothing,’ Reidar replies, trying to smile.

‘What have they said, what does the doctor think?’ Mikael asks.

‘She says I have a bit of a problem with my arteries, but I don’t believe that. Anyway it doesn’t matter, we’ve got to find Felicia.’

‘She was convinced you wouldn’t care that she was missing. I said that wasn’t true, but she was sure you’d only be looking for me.’

Reidar sits motionless. He knows what Mikael means, because he’s never forgotten what happened on that last day. His son puts his bony hand on his arm and their eyes meet once more.

‘You were walking from Södertälje – is that where I should start looking?’ Reidar asks. ‘Is that where she might be?’

‘I don’t know,’ Mikael says quietly.

‘But you must remember something,’ Reidar goes on in a subdued voice.

‘I don’t remember anything,’ his son says. ‘It’s just that there’s nothing to remember.’

Joona is leaning on the end of the bed. Mikael’s eyes are half-open and he’s still clutching his father’s hand tightly.

‘You said before that you and Felicia were together, on the floor in the darkness,’ Joona begins.

‘Yes,’ Mikael whispers.

‘How long was it just the two of you? When did the others disappear?’

‘I don’t know,’ he replies. ‘I can’t say, time doesn’t work the way you think.’

‘Describe the room.’

Mikael looks into Joona’s grey eyes with a tortured expression.

‘I never saw the room,’ he says. ‘Apart from at the start, when I was little... there was a bright light that was sometimes switched on, when we could look at each other. But I don’t remember what the room looked like, I was just scared...’

‘But you do remember something?’

‘The darkness, there was almost nothing but darkness.’

‘There must have been a floor,’ Joona says.

‘Yes,’ Mikael whispers.

‘Go on,’ Reidar says softly.

Mikael looks away from the two men. He stares into space as he starts to talk about the place where he was held captive so long:

‘The floor... it was hard, and cold. Six paces one way... four paces the other... And the walls were made of solid concrete, there was no echo when you hit them.’

Reidar squeezes his hand without saying anything. Mikael closes his eyes and lets the images and memories guide his words.

‘There’s a sofa, and a mattress that we pull away from the drain when we need to use the tap,’ he says, gulping hard.