Lars Kepler - The Sandman

Anders doesn’t reply, just prepares the syringe and makes sure that the needle is completely dry.

‘You know that the intoxication can be fatal,’ Jurek goes on. ‘But I’m strong, so I’ll probably be OK... I’ll scream, I’ll suffer terrible clonic cramps, and I’ll lose consciousness.’

‘There’s always a risk of side effects,’ Anders replies laconically.

‘Pain doesn’t bother me.’

Anders feels his face glowing as he squeezes a couple of drops from the needle. One drop runs down the syringe. It smells a bit like sesame oil.

‘We’ve noticed that the other patients have unsettled you,’ Anders says, without looking at Jurek.

‘You don’t have to make excuses to me,’ Jurek says.

Anders presses the needle into Jurek’s thigh, injects three hundred milligrams of Cisordinol, then waits.

Jurek gasps, his lips quiver and his pupils contract to pinpricks. Saliva dribbles from his mouth, down his cheek and neck.

His body twitches and jerks, then suddenly goes completely rigid, his head straining backwards, his back bowed off the bed, the straps over his body straining.

He remains in that position, without breathing.

The frame of the bed creaks.

Anders is staring at him open-mouthed. He’s having a protracted, unbearable cramp attack.

Suddenly the tonic state ends and Jurek’s body begins to spasm instead. He’s jerking uncontrollably, biting his tongue and emitting guttural roars of pain.

Anders tries to tighten the straps across his body. Jurek’s arms are flailing and pulling so hard that his wrists start to bleed.

He sinks back, whimpering and panting, as all the blood drains from his face.

Anders steps away, and can’t help smiling as he sees tears trickling down Jurek’s cheeks.

‘It’ll soon feel better,’ he lies softly.

‘Not for you,’ Jurek gasps.

‘What did you say?’

‘You’ll just look surprised when I chop your head off and throw it in—’

Jurek is interrupted by a fresh attack of cramps. He screams as his head twists to one side; a fan of veins stand out on his throat as the bones in his neck crack, then his whole body starts to shake again, making the bed rattle.

Saga lets ice-cold water run over her hands. Her swollen knuckles are sore and she’s got three small wounds on them.

Everything has gone wrong.

She lost control, beat Bernie up, and Jurek got the blame.

Through the door she heard the guards shouting about four ampoules of Stesolid before they dragged him into his cell.

They thought he was the one who had attacked Bernie.

Saga turns the tap off, lets her hands drip on the floor and sits down on the bed.

The adrenalin has left a drowsiness, a quivering heaviness in her muscles.

An emergency doctor was called in to take care of Bernie. She heard him chattering manically until the door closed.

Saga is so frustrated she’s almost in tears. She has ruined everything with her wretched anger. Her complete inability to control her damn emotions. Why couldn’t she just keep out of the way? How could she possibly have let herself be provoked into fighting?

She shudders and clenches her jaw. It’s quite possible that Jurek Walter will want to get his own back for the fact that he got blamed.

The security doors clatter and she can hear rapid steps in the corridor, but no one comes to her cell.

Silence.

Saga sits on the bed with her eyes closed as the noises start to reverberate through the walls. Her heart is beating faster. Suddenly Jurek Walter lets out a guttural howl and screams with pain. She thinks she can hear someone kicking their bare heels against the reinforced steel. It sounds a bit like a fist hitting a punchbag.

Saga stares at the door, thinking about electric shocks and lobotomies.

Jurek is still screaming, his voice cracking, then she hears some heavy thuds.

Then silence again.

All she can hear now is the gentle clicking of the water pipes in the wall. Saga gets up and stares through the thick glass of the window in the door. The young doctor walks past. He stops and looks at her with a blank expression on his face.

She sits on the bed until the light in the ceiling goes out.

Life in the secure unit is much harder to bear than she had imagined. Instead of crying, she goes through her mission in her head, thinking about the rules for long-term infiltration and the purpose of the entire operation.

Felicia Kohler-Frost is completely alone in a locked room. She could be starving, and may well have Legionnaires’ disease.

Time is running out.

Saga knows that Joona is looking for the girl, but without any information from Jurek Walter the chances of making any kind of breakthrough aren’t very high.

Saga has to stick it out, she has to try to bear this for a while longer.

As the light goes out she shuts her eyes and feels them pricking.

She ponders the fact that the life she left behind had already left her first. Stefan is gone. She has no family.

Joona Linna is in one of the large offices in the headquarters of National Crime, along with part of the investigating team. The walls are covered with maps, photographs and printouts of the tip-offs that are currently being prioritised. On a large-scale map of Lill-Jan’s Forest, the sites of the various finds are clearly marked.

With a yellow pen, Joona traces the railway line from the harbour through the forest, then turns to the group.

‘One of the things Jurek Walter used to work on was train gearboxes,’ he says. ‘It’s possible that the victims were buried in Lill-Jan’s Forest because of this railway line.’

‘Like Ángel Reséndiz,’ Benny Rubin says, smiling for no reason.

‘So why the hell don’t we just go in and interrogate Jurek Walter?’ Petter Näslund demands, far too loudly.

‘It wouldn’t work,’ Joona says patiently.

‘Petter, I presume you’ve read the psychiatric report?’ Magdalena Ronander says. ‘Is there really any point interrogating someone who’s both schizophrenic and psychotic, and who—’

‘We’ve got eighteen thousand kilometres of railway lines in Sweden,’ he interrupts. ‘We might as well get digging.’

‘Sit on my Facebook,’ Benny mutters.

Joona can’t help thinking that Petter Näslund has a point. Jurek Walter is the only person who can lead them to Felicia before it’s too late. They’re checking every single line of inquiry from the old preliminary investigation, they are looking into all the tip-offs that have come in, but they’re still not making any progress. Saga Bauer is their only real hope. Yesterday she beat up another patient and Jurek Walter got the blame. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, Joona thinks. It might even help bring them together.

It’s getting dark outside, and sparse snowflakes hit Joona’s face as he gets out of the car and hurries in to Södermalm Hospital. He finds out from the reception desk that Irma Goodwin is doing an extra shift in the emergency room. He spots her as soon as he walks in. The door to one of the examination rooms is open. A woman with a split lip and bleeding wound on her chin is sitting quietly while Irma Goodwin talks to her.

There’s a smell of damp wool and the floor is damp with slush. A construction worker is sitting on one of the benches with one foot in a steamed-up plastic bag.

Joona waits until Irma Goodwin emerges from the room, then walks with her along the corridor towards another treatment room.

‘This is the third time she’s been here in as many months,’ Irma says.

‘You should refer her to a women’s refuge,’ Joona says.

‘I already have. But what good will that do?’