Lars Kepler - The Sandman

The light from the powerful lamps in the ceiling reflects off his pilot’s glasses. He’s wearing a white polo-neck under his doctor’s coat.

They hear rustling footsteps from the corridor, and moments later Carlos Eliasson comes in, with pale-blue shoe covers on his feet.

‘Have you managed to identify the dead man?’ he asks, stopping abruptly when he catches sight of the corpse on the table.

The raised edges make the autopsy table look like a draining board where someone’s left a piece of dried meat, or some strange, blackened root. The corpse is desiccated and distorted, its severed head placed above the neck.

‘There’s no doubt that it’s Jeremy Magnusson,’ Åhlén replies. ‘Our forensic dentist – who plays the guitar, by the way – has compared the body’s oral characteristics with Magnusson’s dental records.’

Åhlén leans over, takes the head in his hands and opens the wrinkled black hole that was Jeremy Magnusson’s mouth.

‘He had an impacted wisdom tooth, and—’

‘Please,’ Carlos says, beads of sweat glinting on his forehead.

‘The palate has gone,’ Åhlén says, forcing the mouth open a bit further. ‘But if you feel with your finger—’

‘Fascinating,’ Carlos interrupts, then looks at the time. ‘Do we have any idea how long he was hanging there?’

‘The drying process would probably have been impeded slightly by the low temperatures,’ Åhlén replies. ‘But if you look at the eyes, the conjunctiva dried out very quickly, as did the undersides of the eyelids. The parchment-like texture of the skin is uniform, apart from round the neck where it was in contact with the rope.’

‘Which means...?’ Carlos says.

‘The post-mortal process forms a sort of diary, an ongoing life after death, as the body changes... And I would estimate that Jeremy Magnusson hanged himself...’

‘Thirteen years, one month and five days ago,’ Joona says.

‘Good guess,’ Åhlén says.

‘I just got a scan of his farewell note from Forensics,’ Joona says, taking out his mobile.

‘Suicide,’ Carlos says.

‘Everything points to that, even if Jurek Walter could feasibly have been there at the time,’ Åhlén replies.

‘Jeremy Magnusson was on the list of Jurek’s most likely victims,’ Carlos says slowly. ‘And if we can write off his death as suicide...’

An indefinable thought is flitting through Joona’s mind. It’s as if there were some sort of hidden association tucked away in this conversation – one he can’t quite grasp.

‘What did he say in the note?’ Carlos asks.

‘He hanged himself just three weeks before Samuel and I found his daughter Agneta in Lill-Jan’s Forest,’ Joona says, bringing up the image of the dated note that Forensics had sent him.

I don’t know why I’ve lost everyone, my children, my grandson and my wife .

I’m like Job, but with no restitution .

I have waited, and that waiting must end .

He took his life in the belief that everyone he loved had been taken from him. If he had only put up with loneliness for a little longer, he would have got his daughter back. Agneta Magnusson lived on for several more years before her heart finally stopped. She was cared for in a long-stay ward at Huddinge Hospital, under constant supervision.

Reidar Frost has ordered food from Noodle House, and had it delivered to the foyer of Södermalm Hospital. Steam is rising from mince and coriander dim sum, spring rolls that smell of ginger, rice noodles with chopped vegetables and chilli, fried pork fillet and chicken soup.

Because he doesn’t know what Mikael likes, he’s ordered eight different dishes.

Just as he emerges from the lift and starts walking along the corridor, his phone rings.

Reidar puts the bags down by his feet, sees that the caller has withheld their number, and hurries to answer:

‘Reidar Frost.’

The phone is silent, nothing but a crackling sound.

‘Who is this?’ he asks.

Someone groans in the background.

‘Hello?’

He’s on the point of ending the call when someone whispers:

‘Daddy?’

‘Hello?’ he repeats. ‘Who is this?’

‘Daddy, it’s me,’ a strange, high voice whispers. ‘It’s Felicia.’

The floor starts to spin under Reidar’s feet.

‘Felicia?’

It’s almost impossible to hear her voice now.

‘Daddy... I’m so scared, Daddy...’

‘Where are you? Please, darling...?’

Suddenly he hears giggling, and he feels a shiver run through his whole body.

‘Darling Daddy, give me twenty million kronor...’

It’s obvious now that it’s a man disguising his voice and trying to make it sound higher.

‘Give me twenty million and I’ll sit in your lap and—’

‘Do you know anything about my daughter?’ Reidar asks.

‘You’re such a bad writer it makes me sick.’

‘Yes, I am... but if you know anything about—’

The call ends and Reidar’s hands are shaking so much that he can’t tap in the number for the police. He tries to pull himself together, and tells himself that he’s going to report the call, even though it won’t lead anywhere, even though they’re bound to think he has only himself to blame.

Anders Rönn is still at the hospital, even though it’s evening now. He wants to check up on the third patient, the young woman.

She’s come direct from Karsudden Hospital, and shows no sign of wanting to communicate with the staff. Her medication is extremely conservative, considering the findings of the psychiatric evaluation.

Leif has gone home and a well-built woman named Pia Madsen is working the evening shift. She doesn’t say much, mostly sits there reading thrillers and yawning.

Anders finds himself staring at the new patient on the screen again.

She’s astonishingly beautiful. Earlier in the day he stared at her for so long that his eyes started to dry out.

She is regarded as dangerous and an escape risk, and the crimes she was convicted of in the District Court were deeply unpleasant.

As Anders watches her, he can’t believe it’s true, even though he knows it must be.

She’s as slight as a ballet dancer, and her shaved head makes her look fragile.

Maybe she was only prescribed Trilafon and Stesolid at Karsudden Hospital because she’s so beautiful.

After his meeting with hospital management, Anders almost has a senior consultant’s authority over the secure unit.

For the foreseeable future he makes the decisions about the patients.

He has consulted Dr Maria Gomez in Ward 30. Usually an initial period of observation would be advisable, but he could go in and give her an intramuscular injection of Haldol now. The thought makes him tingle, and he is filled with a heavy, remarkable sense of anticipation.

Pia Madsen returns from the toilet. Her eyelids are half-closed. A bit of toilet paper has got stuck to one of her shoes and is trailing after her. She’s approaching along the corridor with shuffling steps, her face lethargic.

‘I’m not that tired,’ she laughs, meeting his gaze.

She removes the toilet paper and throws it in the bin, then sits down at the control desk next to him and looks at the time.

‘Shall we sing a lullaby?’ she asks, before logging on to the computer and switching out the lights in the patients’ rooms.

The image of the three patients stays on Anders’s retina for a while. Just before everything went dark Jurek was already lying on his back in bed, Bernie was sitting on the floor holding his bandaged hand to his chest, and Saga was sitting on the edge of her bed, looking angry and vulnerable in roughly equal measure.