Lars Kepler - The Sandman

‘Keep going,’ one of the guards says.

The isolation unit at Löwenströmska Hospital has a very high security level, way above the requirements for level one. That means that the building itself is basically impossible to break in or out of. The rooms have fireproof steel doors, fixed inner ceilings and walls that have been reinforced with thirty-five-millimetre-thick metal plate.

A heavy gate clangs shut behind them as they head down the stairs towards level zero.

The guard at the airlock leading to the secure unit takes the bag of Saga’s possessions, checks the documentation and signs Saga in on the computer. An older man with a baton hanging from his belt is visible on the other side of the airlock. He’s wearing big glasses and has wavy hair. Saga looks at him through the scratched reinforced glass.

The man with the baton takes Saga’s papers, leafs through them, peers at her for a moment, then carries on reading her notes.

Saga’s stomach is aching so much that she could do with lying down. She tries to breathe calmly, but she gets a sudden cramp and leans forward.

‘Stand still,’ the guard says in a neutral voice.

A younger man in a doctor’s coat appears beyond the airlock. He pulls a pass card through the reader, taps in a code and comes out.

‘OK, my name is Anders Rönn, I’m acting Senior Consultant here,’ he says drily.

After a superficial search, Saga follows the doctor and the guard with the wavy hair through the doors of the airlock. She can smell their body odour in the confined space before the second door opens.

Saga recognises every detail of the ward from the plans she memorised.

They walk round a corner in silence and over to the unit’s cramped security control room. A woman with pierced cheeks is sitting at the monitors of the alarm system. She blushes when she sees Saga, but says a friendly hello before looking down and writing something in her logbook.

‘My, would you remove the cuffs from the patient’s ankles?’ the young doctor asks.

The woman nods, gets down on her knees and unlocks the cuffs. The hair on her head rises up from the static electricity in Saga’s clothes.

The young doctor and the guard go through the door with her, wait until it bleeps, then carry on to one of the three doors in the corridor.

‘Unlock the door,’ the doctor orders the man with the baton.

The guard takes out a key, unlocks the door, then tells her to go in and stand on the red cross on the floor with her back to the door.

She does as he asks and hears the lock click as the key is turned again.

In front of her is another metal door, and she knows this one is locked, and leads straight out into the dayroom.

The room is furnished with no thought to anything but security and function. All it contains is a bed fixed to the wall, a plastic chair, a plastic table and a toilet, with no seat or lid.

‘Turn round, but stay on the cross.’

She does as she’s told and sees that the little hatch in the door is open.

‘Come slowly over here and hold out your hands.’

Saga walks over to the door, clasps her hands tightly together and puts them through the narrow opening. The cuffs are removed and she backs away from the door again.

She sits down on the bed while the guard informs her of the unit’s rules and routines.

‘You can watch television and socialise with the other patients in the dayroom between one o’clock and four o’clock,’ he concludes, then looks at her for a few moments before closing and bolting the hatch.

Saga remains seated and thinks that she is in position now, that her mission has started. The seriousness of the moment make her stomach tingle, and the feeling spreads through her arms and legs. She knows she’s a closely guarded patient in the secure unit of Löwenströmska Hospital, and she knows that serial killer Jurek Walter is very close.

She curls up on her side, then rolls over onto her back and stares straight up at the CCTV camera in the ceiling. It’s hemispherical in shape, black and shiny as a cow’s eye.

It’s been a long time since she swallowed the microphone and she daren’t leave it any longer. She can’t let the microphone slip into her duodenum. When she goes over to the tap and drinks some water her stomach ache kicks in again.

Breathing slowly, Saga kneels down by the drain in the floor, turns away from the camera and sticks two fingers down her throat. She vomits the water back up, then sticks her fingers in deeper and eventually manages to retrieve the little capsule containing the microphone and quickly hides it in her hand.

The secret investigative team, Athena Promacho, has been sitting listening to the sounds of Saga Bauer’s stomach for two hours since she arrived at Löwenströmska Hospital.

‘If anyone walked in now they’d think we were some sort of new-age sect,’ Corinne says with a smile.

‘It’s actually quite beautiful,’ Johan Jönson says.

‘Relaxing,’ Pollock grins.

The whole team is sitting with their eyes half-closed, listening to the gently bubbling, fizzing sounds.

Suddenly there’s a roar that almost breaks the big loudspeakers as Saga vomits up the microphone. Johan Jönson knocks over his can of Coca-Cola and Nathan Pollock starts shaking.

‘Well, at least we’re awake now,’ laughs Corinne, and her jade bracelet jangles pleasantly as she runs an index finger over one eyebrow.

‘I’ll call Joona,’ Nathan says.

‘Good.’

Corinne Meilleroux opens her laptop and notes the time in the logbook. Corinne is fifty-four years old, with a French-Caribbean background. She’s slim, and always wears tailored suits with silk tops under her jacket. Her face looks stern, with pronounced cheekbones and narrow temples. She wears her grey-streaked black hair tied with a clasp at the back of her neck.

Corinne Meilleroux worked for Europol for twenty years, and has been with the Security Police in Stockholm for seven years.

Joona is standing in Mikael Kohler-Frost’s hospital room. Reidar is sitting on a chair holding his son’s hand. The three of them have been talking for four hours, trying to identify any fresh details that could help pinpoint the place where Mikael was held captive with his sister.

Nothing new has emerged, and Mikael looks very tired.

‘You need to get some sleep,’ Joona tells him.

‘No,’ Mikael says.

‘Just for a while.’ The detective smiles as he switches off the recording.

Mikael’s breathing is already heavy and even as Joona pulls the newspaper out of his coat-pocket and sets it down in front of Reidar.

‘I know you asked me not to,’ Reidar says, meeting his gaze without wavering. ‘But how could I live with myself if I don’t do absolutely everything I can?’

‘I understand,’ Joona says. ‘But it could cause problems, and you have to be prepared for that.’

One whole page of the paper is covered with a digital image of how Felicia might look today.

A young woman bearing a strong resemblance to Mikael, with high cheekbones and dark eyes. Her black hair is shown hanging loose around her pale, serious face.

Large lettering announces that Reidar is offering a reward of twenty million kronor to anyone who can provide information that leads to Felicia being found.

‘We’re already getting loads of e-mails and calls,’ Joona explains. ‘We’re trying to follow them all up, but... I’m sure most of them mean well, they believe they’ve seen something, but there are still plenty just hoping to get rich.’

Reidar slowly folds the newspaper, whispers to himself, then looks up.

‘Joona, I’m doing whatever I can, I... my daughter’s been held captive for so long, and she might die without ever...’