Lars Kepler - The Sandman

Felicia was always late.

And that day, when the unimaginable happened, the day when the stars were in terrible alignment, the day that God abandoned Reidar, that morning was a perfectly ordinary morning and the sun was shining.

The children started school early. Because Felicia was always slow and unfocused, Roseanna had already put some clothes out for her, but it was Reidar’s job to see that the children got to school on time. Roseanna had left early, she used to drive into Stockholm before the rush-hour traffic made the journey take five times as long.

Mikael was ready to go by the time Felicia sat down at the kitchen table. Reidar buttered toast for her, poured her some cereal, and put out the chocolate powder, milk and a glass. She sat and read the back of a cereal packet, tore off the corner of her toast and rolled it into a buttery lump.

‘We’re in a bit of a rush again,’ Reidar said in a measured tone of voice.

Looking down, she spooned some chocolate powder from the packet without moving it closer to the glass, and managed to spill most of it on the table. Leaning forward on her elbows she started to draw in the spilled powder with her fingers. Reidar told her to wipe the table, but she didn’t answer, just licked the finger she’d been poking at the chocolate powder with.

‘You know we have to be out of the door by ten past eight if we’re to get there on time?’

‘Stop nagging,’ she muttered, then got up from the table.

‘Brush your teeth,’ Reidar said. ‘Mum’s laid your clothes out in your room.’

He decided against telling her off for not putting her glass away or wiping the table.

Reidar stumbles and the standard lamp hits the floor and goes out. His chest feels horribly tight now. Pain is coursing down his arm and he can barely breathe. Mikael and David Sylwan are suddenly there beside him. He tries to tell them to leave him be. Berzelius runs over with his coat, and they hunt through the pockets for his medication.

He takes the bottle and sprays some under his tongue, then lets go of it on the floor as the pressure in his chest eases. In the distance he hears them wondering if they should call an ambulance. Reidar shakes his head and notices that the nitroglycerine spray has triggered a growing headache.

‘Go and eat now,’ he tells them. ‘I’m fine, I just... I need to be alone for a while.’

Reidar is sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. He wipes his mouth with a trembling hand, and forces himself to confront his memories again. It was eight o’clock when he went into Felicia’s room. She was sitting on the floor reading. Her hair was a mess and she had chocolate round her mouth and smeared across one cheek. To make herself more comfortable she had crumpled up her freshly ironed blouse and skirt to form a cushion to sit on. She had one leg in her woolly tights and was still sucking her sticky fingers.

‘You need to be on your bicycle in nine minutes,’ he told her. ‘Your teacher has said you mustn’t be late any more this term.’

‘I know,’ she said in a monotone, without looking up from her book.

‘And wash your face, it’s filthy.’

‘Stop nagging,’ she muttered.

‘I’m not nagging,’ he tried to say. ‘I just don’t want you to be late. Can’t you understand that?’

‘You’re nagging so much it’s making me sick,’ she said to the book.

He must have felt stressed by his writing and the journalists who wouldn’t leave him alone, because he suddenly exploded. He’d had enough. He grabbed her arm hard and dragged her into the bathroom, turned the tap on and scrubbed her face roughly.

‘What’s wrong with you, Felicia? Why can’t you ever do anything properly?’ he yelled. ‘Your brother’s ready, he’s waiting for you, he’s going to be late because of you. But you don’t get it, you’re just a filthy little monster, not fit to be in a nice, tidy home...’

She started to cry, which only made him more angry.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ he went on, grabbing hold of a brush. ‘You’re completely useless.’

‘Stop it!’ she sobbed. ‘You’re horrid, Daddy!’

‘I’m horrid? You’re behaving like an idiot! Are you an idiot?’

He started tugging at her hair, his hands rough with rage. She screamed and swore at him, and he stopped.

‘What did you say?’

‘Nothing,’ she muttered.

‘It sounded like something.’

‘Maybe there’s something wrong with your ears,’ she whispered.

He dragged her out of the bathroom, opened the front door and shoved her out so hard that she fell over on the path.

Mikael was standing by the garage door, waiting with both bicycles. Reidar realised that he had refused to ride off without his sister.

Reidar is sitting on the floor in the hall of the manor, his hands over his face. Felicia had been just a child, and had been acting like a child. Timing and messy hair really hadn’t mattered to her.

He remembers the way Felicia had stood in the drive in her underwear. Her right knee was bleeding, her eyes were red and wet from crying, and she still had a bit of chocolate powder on her neck. Reidar was shaking with anger. He went back inside and got her blouse, skirt and jacket, and threw them on the ground in front of her.

‘What have I done?’ she sobbed.

‘You’re ruining this family,’ he said.

‘But I...’

‘Say you’re sorry, say you’re sorry this instant.’

‘Sorry,’ she wept. ‘I’m sorry.’

She looked at him with tears streaming down her cheeks and dripping off her chin.

‘Just make sure you change,’ he replied.

He watched her get dressed, shoulders heaving as she cried, he watched as she wiped the tears from her cheeks and climbed on her bicycle, blouse half tucked in and coat open. He stood there as his rage subsided and heard his little daughter cry as she cycled off to school.

He wrote all day, and felt pleased. He hadn’t bothered to get dressed, just sat in front of the computer in his dressing gown, he hadn’t brushed his teeth or shaved, he hadn’t even made the beds or cleared away the breakfast things. He thought he’d say all this to Felicia, and explain that he was just like her, but he never got the chance.

He was out late, having dinner with his German publisher, and by the time he got home that evening the children had already gone to bed. It was the following morning when they discovered their empty beds. There’s nothing in his life that he regrets more than the unfair way he treated Felicia.

It’s unbearable to think of her sitting alone in that terrible room, believing that he doesn’t care about her, and that he’d only bother to look for Mikael.

Saga is woken the next morning when the light in the ceiling comes on. Her head feels heavy and she can’t focus properly. She’s still lying under the blanket, and feels with her numb fingertips to make sure the microphone is safe in her trousers.

The woman with the pierced cheeks is standing outside the door shouting that it’s time for breakfast.

Saga gets up, takes the narrow tray through the hatch and sits down on the bed. Slowly she forces herself to eat the sandwiches while she thinks to herself that the situation is becoming intolerable.

She won’t be able to handle this much longer.

Cautiously she touches the microphone and wonders about asking to break off the mission.

After lunch she goes over to the sink on unsteady legs, brushes her teeth and washes her face with ice-cold water.

I can’t abandon Felicia, she thinks.

Saga sits back down on the bed and stares at the door until the lock starts to whirr between her cell and the dayroom. It clicks and opens. She counts to five, stands up and goes and gets a drink of water from the tap so she doesn’t look too eager. With a weary gesture she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, then walks straight out into the dayroom.