Lars Kepler - The Sandman

As soon as Saga is transferred to the secure unit at Löwenströmska Hospital they’ll be there twenty-four hours a day to receive, collate and analyse the surveillance recordings.

Athena Promacho has another three officers attached to it. They’ll be responsible for recording the transmissions from the fibre-optic microphone in a minibus belonging to the local council’s parks department that’s been left in the hospital grounds. All the material will be saved on hard disks, encrypted and sent to Athena Promacho’s computers with a delay of no more than a tenth of a second.

Anders Rönn looks at the time again. The new patient from the secure unit at Säter Prison is on his way to the isolation unit at Löwenströmska. Prison Service transport have called to warn him that the man is anxious and aggressive. They’ve given him ten milligrams of Stesolid en route, and Anders Rönn has prepared a syringe with another ten milligrams. An older warder named Leif Rajama throws the packaging of the syringe in the bin, then stands and waits, legs spread.

‘I don’t think he’ll need more than that,’ Anders says, not quite managing to summon up his carefree smile.

‘It normally depends on how much the search upsets them,’ Leif says. ‘I try to tell myself that my job is to help people who are having a hard time... even if they may not actually want help.’

The guard on the other side of the reinforced glass gets a message that the transport is on its way down. There’s a metallic clang from the walls, then a muffled cry.

‘This is only the second patient,’ Anders says. ‘We won’t know how things are going to be until all three are in place.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ Leif smiles.

Anders looks at a monitor showing a view of the staircase from the side. Two security guards are supporting a patient who’s unable to walk unaided, a thickset man with a fair moustache and glasses that have slid down his narrow nose. His eyes are closed and sweat is running down his cheeks. His legs are bowed, but the guards are holding him up.

Anders glances quickly at Leif. They can hear the blond patient babbling nonsensically. Something about dead slaves and the fact that he’s wet himself.

‘I’m standing in piss, right up to my knees, and...’

‘Hold still,’ the guards order, and lay him down on the floor.

‘Ow, it hurts,’ he whimpers.

The guard behind the glass is standing up now, and takes the transfer documents from the senior transport officer.

The patient is lying on the floor with his eyes shut, gasping. Anders tells Leif calmly that they aren’t going to need any more Stesolid, then pulls his pass card through the reader.

Jurek Walter is walking monotonously on the running machine. His face is turned away, but his back is moving with focused determination.

Anders Rönn and head of security Sven Hoffman are standing in the hospital’s security control room looking at a monitor showing the dayroom.

‘You know how to sound the alarm, and how to switch it off,’ Hoffman says. ‘You know someone with a pass card must accompany the guards when they come into contact with the patients.’

‘Yes,’ Anders says, with a hint of impatience in his voice. ‘And the security door behind you has to be locked before you open the next one.’

Sven Hoffman nods.

‘Guards will show up within five minutes of the alarm being sounded.’

‘We won’t be sounding any alarms,’ Anders says, watching the monitor as the new patient comes into the dayroom.

They watch the patient as he sits down on the brown sofa, holding one hand over his mouth as though trying not to be sick. Anders thinks about the handwritten notes from Säter, detailing aggression, recurrent psychosis, narcissism and an antisocial personality disorder.

‘We’ll have to conduct our own evaluation,’ Anders says. ‘And I’ll increase his medication if there’s the slightest reason to...’

The large computer screen in front of him is divided into nine squares, for the nine cameras in the unit. Airlocks, security doors, corridors, dayroom and patients’ rooms are all filmed. There aren’t enough staff to monitor the cameras round the clock, but there always has to be someone with operational responsibility for the system on duty in the unit.

‘You’ll be spending a lot of time in the office, but it’s good if everyone knows how these things work,’ Sven Hoffman says, gesturing towards the monitors.

‘We’ll have to muck in together when we’ve got more patients.’

‘The basic principal is that the staff should always know where all the patients are.’

Sven clicks one of the squares, and the image immediately fills the monitor alongside, and suddenly Anders can see psychiatric nurse My taking off her wet coat.

The changing room is reflected on the screen with unexpected clarity, five yellow metal lockers, a shower, and doors to the toilet and corridor.

The outline of My’s breasts can clearly be seen beneath her black T-shirt bearing an image of an angel of death. She must have been in a rush to get there, because her cheeks are flushed. She has melted snow in her hair. She gets out her uniform, lays it on the bench, then puts a pair of Birkenstock sandals on the floor.

Sven clicks away from the changing room and enlarges the image from the dayroom instead. Anders forces himself not to look at the smaller square as My starts to unbutton her black jeans.

He sits down and tries to sound unconcerned as he asks if recordings are stored.

‘We haven’t got permission to do that... not even in exceptional circumstances.’ Hoffman winks at him.

‘Shame,’ Anders says, running a hand over his short brown hair.

Sven Hoffman starts to go through the cameras covering the rooms. Then Anders tries clicking his way through the monitor, checking the corridors and airlocks.

‘We cover everything where—’

A door opens in the distance, they hear the hum of the coffee machine, then My walks into the security control room.

‘What are you doing huddled up in here?’ she asks with a grin.

‘Sven’s going through the security system with me,’ Anders replies.

‘And there was me thinking you were watching while I took my clothes off,’ she jokes with a sigh.

They fall silent and watch the screen covering the dayroom. Jurek Walter is walking on the running machine with even strides, and Bernie Larsson gradually slips down until he is lying with his neck against the low back of the sofa. His shirt slides up and his fat stomach moves as he breathes. His face is sweaty, one of his legs is bouncing nervously and he seems to be talking to the ceiling.

‘What’s he doing?’ My asks, looking at the others. ‘What’s he saying?’

Anders shrugs. ‘No idea.’

The only sound audible in the security control room is the ticking of a golden, solar-powered Chinese cat waving its paw.

Anders thinks back to Bernie Larsson’s medical notes from Säter. Twenty-one years ago he was sentenced to secure psychiatric care for what was described as a bestial series of rapes.

Now he’s slumped on the sofa, yelling up at the ceiling. Saliva is spraying from his mouth. He’s making aggressive slicing gestures with his hands, and throws the cushion beside him onto the floor.

Jurek Walter does what he has always done. With long strides he walks his nine kilometres on the running machine, then stops it, gets off and heads in the direction of his room.

Bernie shouts something at him as he leaves. Jurek stops in the doorway and turns back towards the dayroom again.

‘What’s happening now?’ Anders asks anxiously.