Lars Kepler - The Sandman

‘Twin brothers?’

‘Yes, they were working togeth—’

Suddenly the light in the ceiling goes out and the music on the radio goes quiet. It’s pitch-black and silent.

‘Power cut,’ Reidar mutters, trying the switch a couple of times. ‘I’ve got candles in the cupboard.’

‘Felicia was locked up in an old bomb shelter,’ Saga explains.

After a while the glow of the snow outside starts to penetrate the darkness of the kitchen, and Saga can see Reidar feeling his way towards a large cupboard.

‘Where was the shelter?’ he asks.

Saga hears a rattling sound as Reidar searches a drawer.

‘In the old quarry out in Rotebro,’ she replies.

Saga sees him stop, take a step back and turn round.

‘That’s where I’m from,’ he says slowly. ‘And I remember the twins. I don’t know why, but it must have been Jurek Walter and his brother... I played with them for a few weeks when I was little... but why, why have...’

He falls silent and just stands there, staring into the darkness.

‘I’m not sure there are any answers,’ she says.

Reidar finds some matches and lights a candle.

‘I lived fairly close to the quarry as a child,’ he says. ‘The twins were a year or so older than me. They were just sitting in the grass behind me one day when I was fishing for roach... in the river that runs into Edssjön...’

Reidar takes an empty wine bottle from under the sink, pushes the lit candle into it and sets it on the table.

‘They were a bit odd... But we started to play, and I went back home with them. I remember it was spring, and I was given an apple...’

The light from the candle spreads through the room, making the windows black and impenetrable.

‘They took me to the quarry,’ Reidar goes on, evidently remembering as he speaks. ‘It was out of bounds, but they’d found a hole in the fence and we’d meet to play there every evening. It was exciting, we would clamber up the mounds and roll down in the sand...’

Reidar falls silent.

‘What were you about to say?’

‘I’ve never thought about it, but one evening I heard them whispering to each other, then they just vanished... I rolled down and was about to go looking for them when the foreman suddenly appeared. He grabbed me by the arm and began shouting... you know, saying he’d tell my parents and all that... And I was terrified, said I didn’t know it was out of bounds, that the boys had said we could play there... and he asked about the boys and I pointed to the house...’

Reidar lights another candle from the first. The light bounces off the walls and ceiling. A smell of wax spreads through the kitchen.

‘I never saw the twins again after that,’ he says, then leaves the kitchen to go and wake Mikael.

Saga is standing at the kitchen table drinking the strong coffee and looking at the reflections of the two candles in the double layer of glass in the window.

Joona’s so badly hurt, she thinks. He didn’t even hear her when she said Jurek was dead. He just repeated that Jurek was on his way to get Mikael.

Saga turns her weary body and feels the weight of her Glock 17 against her side, then moves away from the window and listens to the sounds of the large house.

Something makes her suddenly alert.

She takes a few steps towards the door, stops and imagines she can hear a faint metallic scraping sound.

It could be anything, a loose window ledge moving in the wind, a branch against a window.

She waits for a moment, then goes back to the table and drinks some coffee. She looks at the time, takes her phone out and calls Nils Åhlén on his mobile.

‘Nils Åhlén, Forensic Medicine Department,’ he answers after a few rings.

‘This is Saga Bauer,’ she says.

‘Good morning, good morning.’

A gust of cold air suddenly sweeps across the floor round Saga’s legs. She goes and stands with her back to the wall.

‘Have you looked at the body from the Söderleden Tunnel?’ she asks, as she sees the candlelight flicker.

‘Yes, I’m here now, they dragged me out of bed to deal with a body that...’

She sees the candle flicker again and hears Åhlén’s nasal voice echo off the tiled walls of the post-mortem room at the Karolinska Hospital.

‘The body suffered severe burns, it’s all cracked, pretty much charcoal, the heat shrivelled it up badly. The head’s missing, as well as both—’

‘But have you been able to identify him?’

‘I’ve only been here quarter of an hour, and it’s going to be several days before I can come up with any sort of reliable identification.’

‘Of course, but I was wondering—’

‘All I can say right now,’ Åhlén goes on, ‘is that this man was approximately twenty-five years old, and he’s—’

‘So it isn’t Jurek Walter?’

‘Jurek Walter? No, this... Did you think it was Jurek?’

There’s the sound of rapid footsteps upstairs. Saga looks up and sees the kitchen lamp quivering, and, caught in the candlelight, it casts a wavering shadow over the ceiling. She pulls her pistol from her holster and says in a low voice into the phone:

‘I’m at Reidar Frost’s house – you have to help me get an ambulance and police backup out here, as soon as possible.’

Reidar is walking through the silent rooms upstairs. His left hand is shielding the candle from draughts. The light flickers over walls and furniture, and its reflection is multiplied on the rows of black windows.

He imagines he can hear steps behind him, but when he stops and turns round all he can see is the shiny leather furniture and the big bookcase with its glass doors.

The door to the sitting room that he’s just walked through is a gaping black rectangle. It’s impossible to tell if anyone’s in there. He takes a step forward, and something glints in the shadows then disappears.

Reidar turns again, sees the light shimmer in the windows, and carries on. Hot wax is running over his fingers.

The floor creaks beneath him and unease is spreading through his body as he stops outside Mikael’s room.

He looks back down the long corridor with its rows of old portraits.

The floor is creaking slightly after his footsteps.

Reidar knocks cautiously on Mikael’s door, waits a few moments, then opens it.

‘Mikael?’ he asks into the dark room.

He holds the candle up towards the bed. The walls sway in the yellow light. The covers are bunched up, and are hanging over the edge, down onto the rug.

He goes in and looks round, but Mikael has vanished. Reidar feels beads of sweat break out on his forehead as he bends over to look under the bed.

Suddenly he hears rustling behind him and spins round so fast that the candle almost goes out.

The flame shrinks and turns a tremulous blue before growing again.

His heart is beating faster and his chest is starting to ache.

There’s no one there.

He walks slowly towards the doorway, trying to see something.

There’s a scraping, creaking sound from inside the wardrobe. Reidar looks at the closed doors, then walks over, hesitates, reaches out a hand and opens one of the doors.

Mikael is sitting huddled up among the clothes.

‘The Sandman’s here,’ he whispers, creeping further into the wardrobe.

‘It’s just a power cut,’ Reidar says. ‘We’re going—’

‘He’s here,’ Mikael whispers.

‘The Sandman’s dead,’ Reidar says, holding out his hand. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying? Felicia’s safe. She’s going to be fine, she’s getting the same treatment as you, we’re going to go and see her now—’

A scream rips through the walls, it’s muffled but sounds bestial, like the cry of a man in terrible pain.