Lars Kepler - The Sandman

Mikael Kohler-Frost is sitting at a table in the dining room of his hospital ward. He has one hand wrapped round a cup of warm tea as he speaks to Magdalena Ronander of the National Criminal Investigation Department. Reidar is too agitated to sit, but he stands by the door and watches his son for a while before going down to the entrance to meet Veronica Klimt.

Magdalena smiles at Mikael, then gets out the bulky interview protocols and puts them on the table. They fill four spiral-bound folders. She leafs through to the marker, then asks if he’s ready to continue.

‘I only ever saw the inside of the capsule,’ Mikael explains, as he’s done so many times before.

‘Can you describe the door again?’ she asks.

‘It’s made of metal, and is completely smooth... at the start you could pick little flakes of paint off it with your fingernails... there’s no keyhole, no handle...’

‘What colour is it?’

‘Grey...’

‘And there was a hatch which—’

She breaks off when she sees him swipe the tears from his cheeks and turn his face away.

‘I can’t tell Dad,’ he says, his lips trembling. ‘But if Felicia doesn’t come back...’

Magdalena gets up and goes round the table, hugs him and repeats that everything is going to be OK.

‘I know,’ he says, ‘I know I’d kill myself.’

Reidar Frost has barely left Södermalm Hospital since Mikael came back. He’s been renting a room at the hospital, on the same floor as Mikael, so he can be with his son the whole time.

Even though Reidar knows it wouldn’t do any good, it’s all he can do to stop himself running out to join the search for Felicia. He’s paid for adverts in the national press every day, pleading for information and promising a reward. He’s employed a team of the country’s best private detectives to look for her, but her absence is tearing at him, stopping him sleeping, forcing him to roam the corridors hour after hour.

The only thing that makes him feel calm is watching Mikael get better and stronger with each passing day. Inspector Joona Linna says it’s a huge help if he can stay with his son, letting him talk at his own pace, listening and writing down every memory, every detail.

When Reidar gets down to the entrance Veronica is already waiting for him inside the glass doors that lead to the snow-covered car park.

‘Isn’t it a bit early to be sending Micke home?’ she asks, handing over the bags.

‘They say it’s fine,’ Reidar smiles.

‘I bought a pair of jeans and some softer trousers, shirts, T-shirts, a thick jumper and a few other—’

‘How are things at home?’ Reidar asks.

‘Lots of snow,’ says Veronica, laughing, then she tells him about the last few guests leaving.

‘What, even my cavaliers?’ Reidar asks.

‘No, they’re still there... you’ll see.’

‘What do you mean?’

Veronica just shakes her head and smiles.

‘I told Berzelius that they’re not allowed to come here, but they’re very keen to meet Mikael,’ she replies.

‘Are you coming up?’ Reidar asks, smiling and adjusting her collar.

‘Another time,’ Veronica replies, looking him in the eye.

As Reidar drives, Mikael sits there in his new clothes, changing stations on the radio. Suddenly he stops. Satie’s ballet music fills the car like warm summer rain.

‘Dad, isn’t it a bit over the top to live in a manor?’ Mikael smiles.

‘Yes.’

He actually bought the run-down estate because he could no longer bear the neighbours in Tyresö.

Snow-covered fields spread out before them. They turn into the long avenue where Reidar’s three friends have lit torches all along the drive. When they stop and get out of the car, Wille Strandberg, Berzelius and David Sylwan come out onto the steps.

Berzelius takes a step forward, and for a moment it looks as though he doesn’t know whether to embrace or shake hands with the young man. Then he mumbles something and hugs Mikael hard.

Wille wipes some tears away behind his glasses.

‘You’re all grown up, Micke,’ he says. ‘I’ve—’

‘Let’s go inside,’ Reidar interrupts, coming to his son’s rescue. ‘We need to eat.’

David blushes and shrugs his shoulders apologetically:

‘We’ve organised a backwards party.’

‘What’s one of those?’ Reidar asks.

‘You start with dessert and conclude with the starter.’ Sylwan smiles, slightly embarrassed.

Mikael is first through the imposing doorway. The broad oak tiles in the hallway smell as if they’ve recently been scrubbed.

There are balloons hanging from the ceiling of the dining room, and on the table is a large cake decorated with a figure of Spiderman made out of coloured marzipan.

‘We know you’re grown up, but you used to love Spiderman, so we thought...’

‘We got it wrong,’ Wille concludes.

‘I’d love to try some,’ Mikael says kindly.

‘That’s the spirit!’ David laughs.

‘Then there’s pizza... and alphabet soup to finish up with,’ Berzelius says.

They sit down at the huge oval table.

‘I remember one time when you said you had to keep an eye on a cake in the kitchen until the guests arrived,’ Berzelius says, cutting Mikael a large slice. ‘It was completely hollow by the time we came to light the candles...’

Reidar excuses himself, gets up and leaves the table. He tries to smile at the others, but his heart is pounding with angst. He’s missing his daughter so much it hurts, enough to make him want to scream. Seeing Mikael sitting there with that childish cake. As if resurrected from the dead. He takes a few deep breaths and goes out into the hall, remembering the day he buried the children’s empty caskets next to Roseanna’s ashes. Then he went home. Invited everyone to a party, and was never properly sober again.

He stands in the hall, looking back into the dining room where Mikael is eating cake while Reidar’s friends try to make conversation and cajole him into laughing. Reidar knows he shouldn’t keep doing it, but he gets out his phone and calls Joona Linna.

‘It’s Reidar Frost,’ he says, feeling a faint pressure in his chest.

‘I heard that Mikael was discharged,’ the detective says.

‘But Felicia, I have to know... she’s, she’s so...’

‘I know, Reidar,’ Joona says gently.

‘You’re doing what you can,’ Reidar whispers, feeling that he has to sit down.

He hears the detective ask something, but he still ends the call in the middle of a sentence.

Reidar swallows hard, time after time, leans against the wall and feels the texture of the wallpaper under his hand, and notices some dead flies on the dusty base of the standard lamp.

Mikael said that Felicia didn’t think he’d look for her, that she was sure he didn’t care about her going missing.

He was an unfair father, he knew that, but he couldn’t help it.

It wasn’t that he loved the children differently, just that...

The pressure in his chest increases.

Reidar glances towards the corridor where he threw down his coat with the little nitroglycerine spray.

He tries to breathe calmly, takes a few steps, stops and thinks that he ought to turn and face his memories and let himself be overwhelmed by guilt.

Felicia had turned eight that January. There had been a slight thaw in March, but it was about to get colder again.

Mikael was always so sharp and aware, he would look at you attentively and do whatever was expected of him.

Felicia was different.

Reidar had a lot to do back then, he would write all day, answering letters from his readers, giving interviews, having his picture taken, travelling to other countries for book launches. He never had enough time and he hated it when people kept him waiting.