Lars Kepler - The Sandman

He’s trying to breathe calmly, and limps on up the steps, even though the pain is making him groan.

Leaning on the wrought-iron railing, he tugs at the locked door as he feels blood trickling from his knee inside his trousers.

An illuminated sign bearing the number 1B is glowing dull yellow from the entrance.

Reidar bangs on the door as hard as he can, and eventually the window alongside creaks as someone pushes it open.

‘What are you up to?’ a bald old man asks through the gap.

‘Open the door,’ Reidar gasps. ‘My daughter’s in here...’

‘Oh,’ the old man says, then closes the window.

Reidar starts banging on the door again and after a while the lock begins to turn. Reidar yanks the door open, marches in and shouts into the stairwell:

‘Felicia! Felicia!’

The old man looks scared and backs away towards his door, and Reidar follows him.

‘Who are you?’ he asks. ‘Was it you who wrote the letter?’

‘I’m just—’

Reidar forces his way past the man and marches straight into his flat. On the left is a cramped kitchen with a table and one chair. The man remains standing in the doorway as Reidar walks into the next room. In front of a red sofa covered in blankets is a television on legs. Reidar’s feet leave wet marks on the linoleum floor. He pulls the wardrobe open and hunts through the clothes hanging inside it.

‘Felicia!’ Reidar yells, looking in the bathroom.

The old man steps out into the stairwell when he sees Reidar coming.

‘Unlock the basement!’

‘No, I—’

Reidar follows him. His eyes are darting about the walls, doors, and the worn stone steps leading down.

‘Open it!’ Reidar shouts, grabbing the man’s tanktop.

‘Please,’ the man begs, pulling the keys from his trouser pocket.

Reidar snatches the keys and runs down the steps, weeping as he opens the steel door and rushes in amongst the storage compartments.

‘Felicia!’ he cries.

He’s coughing as he walks round the chicken-wire walls, calling for his daughter, but there’s no one there and he runs back upstairs again. His chest is starting to hurt, but he carries on to the next floor and kicks on the door. He opens the letterbox and calls for Felicia, then goes up to the next floor and rings on the door. The building smells of damp and rotten wood.

Sweat is pouring down his back and he’s starting to have trouble breathing.

A young woman with her hair dyed red opens the door and Reidar forces his way past her without saying anything.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ she yells.

‘Felicia!’

A man in a leather waistcoat and long black hair stops Reidar and shoves him backwards. Reidar sticks out an arm and manages to pull a calendar onto the floor. He tries to get past the man again, but is struck so hard he stumbles back, tripping over shoes and junk mail and falls to the floor. He hits the back of his head on the doorstep, loses consciousness for a few moments, then rolls onto his side as he hears the woman shouting that they need to call the police.

Reidar stands up and comes close to falling again, pulling a coat down off its hanger and muttering an apology as he turns back towards the flat.

‘I have to get in,’ he says, wiping blood from his mouth.

The man with long black hair is holding a hockey stick in both hands and is glaring at him intently.

‘Felicia,’ Reidar whispers, feeling tears pricking his eyes.

‘I’ve got her, but I don’t think she’s very well,’ a woman says behind his back.

Reidar turns to see an old woman in a blonde wig with bright red lips. She’s standing on the dimly lit staircase, a couple of steps down, cradling a striped cat in her arms.

‘What did you say?’ he gasps.

‘You were calling for Felicia,’ she smiles.

‘My daughter...’

‘She was stealing food from me.’

He walks towards the woman on the stairs. She’s frowning and holding the cat out in front of her. Now he can see that the cat’s neck is broken.

‘Felicia,’ the woman said. ‘She was in the flat when I moved in, and I’ve been looking after her and—’

‘The cat?’

‘It says Felicia on the collar...’

Her unease after the doctor’s nocturnal visit is like rain on a window – it’s not too close, but is keeping her shut inside.

Her medication is making Saga feel oddly cut off from reality, but she still has a very strong sense that her cover is about to be blown.

That doctor would have raped me if I’d really been asleep, she thinks. I can’t let him touch me again.

She just needs a bit more time to complete her mission. She’s so close now. Jurek is talking about escape with her. And if her cover isn’t blown he’ll soon give her a location, a clue, something that could lead to Felicia.

He was on the point of confiding in her yesterday. Maybe today.

As long as the microphone is working.

Time and time again, thinking about Felicia helps Saga.

She needs to concentrate on what she came here to do. Not feel sorry for herself.

She’s going to save the captive girl.

The rules are simple. Under no circumstances must she let Jurek escape. But she can plan the escape with him, she can show interest and ask questions.

The most common problem with escapes is that people have nowhere to go once they’re out. Jurek won’t make that mistake. He knows where he’s going.

The lock on the door to the dayroom whirrs. Saga gets up from her bed, rolls her shoulders as if preparing for a bout, then goes out.

Jurek Walter is standing by the wall opposite, waiting for her. She can’t understand how he could have got out into the dayroom so quickly.

There’s no reason to stay close to the running machine now that the lead is gone. She just hopes the range of the microphone is wide enough.

The television isn’t turned on, but she goes and sits on the sofa.

Jurek is standing in front of her.

It feels as if she hasn’t got any skin, as if he has a strange ability to see straight into her bare flesh.

He sits down beside her and she discreetly passes him the tablet.

‘We only need four more,’ he says, looking at her with his pale eyes.

‘Yes, but I...’

‘And then we can leave this terrible place.’

‘Maybe I don’t want to.’

When Jurek Walter reaches out his hand and touches her arm she almost jumps. He notices her fear and looks at her blankly.

‘I’ve got a place I think you’d love,’ he says. ‘It’s not that far away from here. It’s only an old house behind an old brick factory, but at night you could go outside and swing.’

‘A real swing?’ she asks, trying to smile.

Jurek needs to keep talking to her, she thinks. His words are little pieces that will form a pattern in the puzzle Joona is putting together.

‘It’s just an ordinary swing,’ he replies. ‘But you can swing out over the water.’

‘What, a lake, or—’

‘You’ll see, it’s lovely.’

‘I like apple trees as well,’ she says quietly.

Saga’s heart is beating so hard it seems to her that Jurek must be aware of it. If the microphone is working, then her colleagues will be identifying every derelict brickworks, they might even be on their way already.

‘It’s a good place to hide until the police give up the hunt,’ he goes on, looking at her. ‘And you can stay in the house if you like it there—’

‘But you’ll be moving on?’ she says.

‘I have to.’

‘And I can’t come with you?’

‘Do you want to?’

‘Depends where you’re going.’

Saga’s aware that she might be pushing him too far, but right now he seems keen to involve her in his escape attempt.