Lars Kepler - The Sandman

‘What’s he doing now?’ Anders asks in a light tone of voice.

‘Bernie seems unsettled,’ My says, frowning.

‘I would really have liked to have increased his dosage yesterday, maybe I should have...’

‘He keeps following the new patient, chattering manically—’

‘Bloody hell,’ Anders says, sounding stressed.

‘Leif and I are ready to go in,’ My reassures him.

‘But you shouldn’t have to,’ he says. ‘That means the medication is wrong. I’m raising his fortnightly dose this evening from two hundred to four hundred milligrams...’

Anders falls silent and watches as Bernie circles Saga Bauer in front of the television.

The other cameras are showing rooms, security doors, corridors and the empty patients’ rooms. In one square Sven Hoffman has a mug of coffee in his hand outside the airlock leading to the dayroom. He’s standing with his legs apart, talking to two of the guards.

‘Bloody hell,’ My suddenly yells, and sets off the emergency alarm.

A harsh, pulsing alarm begins to sound. Anders is staring at the screen showing the dayroom. The light in the ceiling is reflecting off the dusty glass. He leans forward. To begin with he can only see two patients. Jurek is standing still beside the television, and Saga is on her way to her room.

‘What’s going on?’ he asks.

My has got to her feet and is shouting something into the emergency radio unit. The desk lamp topples over and her office chair rolls backwards into the filing cabinet behind her. She’s yelling that Bernie Larsson is injured, and that the response unit has to go in immediately.

Only now does Anders notice that Bernie is hidden behind the protruding section of wall.

All he can see is a bloody hand on the floor.

He must be right in front of Jurek Walter.

‘You’ve got to go in,’ My repeats into the radio unit several times, then rushes out.

Anders remains seated, and watches as Jurek leans over and drags Bernie out by his hair, into the middle of the floor where he lets go of him.

A trail of blood shimmers on the floor.

He watches on the screen as Leif gives instructions to two guards outside the airlock, and sees My running to join them.

The alarm is still ringing.

Bernie’s face is covered in blood. His eyes are twitching spasmodically, and his arms are flailing in the air.

Anders locks the door to patient room number 3, then talks to Sven over the radio. A group of guards is being sent down from Ward 30.

Someone switches the alarm off.

Anders’s radio bleeps and he can hear someone breathing hard.

‘I’m opening the door now, repeat, opening the door,’ My calls.

Jurek’s expressionless face is visible on the screen showing the dayroom. He’s standing still, watching Bernie’s shocked movements, as he coughs and sprays blood across the floor.

There’s a flash of a baton. Guards and carers are entering the airlock. Their faces look tense.

The outer door locks and there’s a rumbling sound.

Jurek says something to Bernie, sinks down on one knee and hits him hard across the mouth.

‘Christ,’ Anders gasps.

The emergency team enter the dayroom and fan out. Jurek straightens his back, shakes the blood from his hand, takes a step back and waits.

‘Give him forty milligrams of Stesolid,’ Anders tells My.

‘Four ampoules of Stesolid,’ My repeats over the radio.

Three guards are approaching from different directions with their batons drawn. They shout at Jurek to move away and lie down on the floor.

Jurek looks at them, slowly sinks to his knees and closes his eyes. Leif takes a few quick steps and hits Jurek on the back of the neck with his baton. It’s a hard blow. Jurek’s head jerks forward, and his body follows. He falls to the floor and just lies there.

The second guard holds him down with a knee on his spine, as he grabs Jurek’s arms and holds them behind his back. My is unwrapping a syringe. Anders can see her hands shaking.

Jurek is lying on his stomach. Two guards are holding him down now, and they cuff his wrists and pull his trousers down so that My can give him the injection straight into his muscle.

Anders looks into the emergency doctor’s brown eyes and thanks her quietly. Her white coat is flecked with Bernie’s blood.

‘His nose bone has been reset. I’ve stitched up his eyebrow, but tape was fine everywhere else... He’s probably got concussion, so you’ll need to keep him under close supervision.’

‘We always do,’ Anders replies, glancing at Bernie on the monitor.

He’s lying on his bed, his face obscured by bandages. His mouth is half-open and his bulging stomach is moving in time with his breathing.

‘He says some really revolting things,’ the doctor says, then walks out.

Leif Rajama opens the security door for her. One camera shows him waving, and another how the doctor’s coat flaps as she heads up the stairs.

Leif comes back to the surveillance room, runs his hand through his wavy hair and says that he really hadn’t been expecting this.

‘I’ve read the journals,’ Anders says. ‘This is the first time in thirteen years that Jurek Walter has done anything violent.’

‘Perhaps he doesn’t like company,’ Leif suggests.

‘Jurek’s an old man and he’s used to having things his way, but he has to understand that that’s not going to work from now on.’

‘How’re we supposed to make him understand that?’ Leif smiles.

Anders pulls his card through the reader and lets Leif in ahead of him. They go past patient rooms 3 and 2, and stop outside the last one, Jurek Walter’s cell.

Anders looks into the room. Jurek is lying on the bed, strapped down. The blood from his nose has congealed and his nostrils look strangely black now.

Leif takes a pair of earplugs out of his pocket and offers them to Anders, but he shakes his head.

‘Lock the door once I’m inside, and be ready to sound the alarm.’

‘Just go in and do what you need to, don’t talk to him, and pretend you can’t hear what he’s saying,’ Leif says, then unlocks the door.

Anders goes in and hears Leif quickly lock the door behind him. Jurek’s wrists and ankles are fastened to the edges of the bed. Thick fabric straps are stretched across his thighs, hips and torso. His eyes are still tired after the emergency tranquiliser, and a trickle of blood has dribbled out of one ear.

‘We’ve decided to change your medication in light of what happened in the dayroom,’ Anders says drily.

‘Yes... I was expecting a punishment,’ Jurek Walter says hoarsely.

‘I’m sorry you choose to see it like that, but as acting Senior Consultant, it’s my responsibility to prevent violence in this ward.’

Anders lines up the ampoules of yellow liquid for the injection on the table. Jurek is lying strapped to his bed, watching him with weary eyes.

‘I’ve got no feeling in my fingers,’ he says, trying to free his right hand.

‘You know we have to apply emergency measures sometimes,’ Anders says.

‘The first time we met you looked scared... now you’re looking for fear in my eyes,’ Jurek says.

‘Why do you think that?’ Anders asks.

Jurek takes several breaths, then moistens his mouth and looks Anders in the eye.

‘I can see that you’re preparing three hundred milligrams of Cisordinol, even though you know that’s too much... and that the combination of that with my normal medication is risky.’

‘I’ve reached a different conclusion,’ Anders says, feeling his cheeks blush.

‘Yet you’ll write in my notes that you’ve merely tried fifty milligrams.’