Lars Kepler: The Sandman

He imagines he can hear the sound of shuffling from Jurek.

Perhaps it was nothing.

Anders pulls as hard as he can. The seams strain but don’t tear. He realises that he’s going to have to slide back under the bed to free his coat.

‘What are you doing?’ Roland Brolin calls in a brittle voice.

The little hatch in the door clatters as it is bolted shut again.

Anders sees that one pocket of his coat has caught on a loose strut. He quickly pulls it free, holds his breath and pushes himself out again. He is filled with a rising sense of panic. He scrapes his stomach and knee, but grabs the edge of the bed with one hand and pulls himself out.

Panting, he turns round and gets unsteadily to his feet with the knife in his hand.

Jurek is lying on his side, one eye half-open in sleep, staring blindly.

Anders hurries over to the door and meets the Senior Consultant’s anxious gaze through the reinforced glass and tries to smile, but stress cuts through his voice as he says:

‘Open the door.’

Roland Brolin opens the hatch instead.

‘Pass the knife out first.’

Anders gives him a quizzical look, then hands the knife over.

‘You found something else as well,’ Roland Brolin says.

‘No,’ Anders replies, glancing at Jurek.

‘A letter.’

‘There wasn’t anything else.’

Jurek is starting to writhe on the floor, and is gasping weakly.

‘Check his pockets,’ the Senior Consultant says with a stressed smile.

‘What for?’

‘Because this is a search.’

Anders turns and walks cautiously to Jurek Walter. His eyes are completely shut again, but beads of sweat are starting to appear on his furrowed face.

Reluctantly Anders leans over and feels inside one of his pockets. The denim shirt pulls tighter across Jurek’s shoulders and he lets out a low groan.

There’s a plastic comb in the back pocket of his jeans. With trembling hands Anders checks the rest of his tight pockets.

Sweat is dripping from the tip of his nose. He has to keep blinking hard.

One of Jurek’s big hands opens and closes several times.

There’s nothing else in his pockets.

Anders turns back towards the reinforced glass and shakes his head. It’s impossible to see if Brolin is standing outside the door. The reflection of the lamp in the ceiling is shining like a grey sun in the glass.

He has to get out now.

It’s taken too long.

Anders gets to his feet and hurries over to the door. The Senior Consultant isn’t there. Anders peers closer to the glass, but can’t see anything.

Jurek Walter is breathing fast, like a child having a nightmare.

Anders bangs on the door. His hands thud almost soundlessly against the thick metal. He bangs again. There’s no sound, nothing is happening. He taps on the glass with his wedding ring, then sees a shadow growing across the wall.

His shiver runs up his back and down his arms. With his heart pounding and adrenalin rising through his body, he turns round. He sees Jurek Walter slowly sitting up. His face is slack and his pale eyes are staring straight ahead. His mouth is still bleeding and his lips look weirdly red.

Anders is shouting and pounding at the heavy steel door, but the Senior Consultant still isn’t opening it. His pulse is thudding in his head as he turns to face their patient. Jurek Walter is still sitting on the floor, and blinks at him a few times before he starts to get up.

‘It’s a lie,’ Jurek says, dribbling blood down his chin. ‘They say I’m a monster, but I’m just a human being...’

He doesn’t have the energy to stand up and slumps back, panting, onto the floor.

‘A human being,’ he repeats.

With a weary gesture he puts one hand inside his shirt, pulls out a folded piece of paper and tosses it over towards Anders.

‘The letter he was asking for,’ he says. ‘For the past seven years I’ve been asking to see a lawyer... Not because I’ve got any hope of getting out... I am who I am, but I’m still a human being...’

Anders crouches down and reaches for the piece of paper without taking his eyes off Jurek. The crumpled man tries to get up again, leaning on his hands, and although he sways slightly he manages to put one foot down on the floor.

Anders picks up the paper from the floor, and finally hears a rattling sound as the key is inserted into the lock of the door. He turns and stares out through the reinforced glass, feeling his legs tremble beneath him.

‘You shouldn’t have given me an overdose,’ Jurek mutters.

Anders doesn’t turn round, but he knows that Jurek Walter is standing up, staring at him.

The reinforced glass in the door is like a screen of grainy ice. He can’t see who’s standing on the other side turning the key in the lock.

‘Open, open,’ he whispers as he hears breathing behind his back.

The door slides open and Anders stumbles out of the isolation cell. He stumbles straight into the concrete wall of the corridor and hears the heavy clang as the door shuts, then the rattles as the powerful lock responds to the turn of the key.

Panting, he leans back against the cool wall. Only then does he see that it wasn’t the Senior Consultant who rescued him but the young woman with the pierced cheeks.

‘I don’t know what happened,’ she says. ‘Roland must have lost it completely, he’s always incredibly careful about security.’

‘I’ll talk to him...’

‘Maybe he got ill... I think he’s diabetic.’

Anders wipes his clammy hands on his doctor’s coat and looks up at her again.

‘Thank you for letting me out,’ he says.

‘I’d do anything for you,’ she jokes.

He tries to give her his carefree, boyish smile, but his legs are shaking as he follows her out through the security door. She stops in the control room, then turns back towards him.

‘There’s only one problem with working down here,’ she says. ‘It’s so damn quiet that you have to eat loads of sweets just to stay awake.’

‘That sounds OK.’

On a monitor he can see Jurek sitting on his bed with his head in his hands. The dayroom with its television and running machine is empty.

Anders Rönn spends the rest of the day concentrating on familiarising himself with the new routines, with a doctor’s round up on Ward 30, individual treatment plans and discharge tests, but his mind keeps going back to the letter in his pocket and what Jurek had said.

At ten past five Anders leaves the criminal psychology ward and emerges into the cool air. Beyond the illuminated hospital precinct the winter darkness has settled.

Anders warms his hands in his jacket pockets, and hurries across the pavement towards the large car park in front of the main entrance to the hospital.

It was full of cars when he arrived, but now it’s almost empty.

He screws up his eyes and realises that there’s someone standing behind his car.

‘Hello!’ Anders calls, walking faster.

The man turns round, rubs his hand over his mouth and moves away from the car. Senior Consultant Roland Brolin.

Anders slows down as he approaches the car and pulls his key from his pocket.

‘You’re expecting an apology,’ Brolin says with a forced smile.

‘I’d prefer not to have to speak to hospital management about what happened,’ Anders says.

Brolin looks him in the eye, then holds out his left hand, palm up.

‘Give me the letter,’ he says calmly.

‘What letter?’

‘The letter Jurek wanted you to find,’ he replies. ‘A note, a sheet of newspaper, a piece of cardboard.’

‘I found the knife that was supposed to be there.’

‘That was the bait,’ Brolin says. ‘You don’t think he’d put himself through all that pain for nothing?’