Lars Kepler - The Sandman

‘Dad...’

Reidar pulls his son out of the wardrobe. Drops of wax fall to the floor. It’s completely silent again. What’s going on?

Mikael tries to curl up on the floor, but Reidar drags him to his feet.

Sweat is running down Reidar’s back.

They leave the bedroom together and start to walk down the corridor. A cold draught is blowing across the floor.

‘Wait,’ Reidar whispers as he hears a creak from the floor of the sitting room in front of them.

A slender figure emerges from the doorway at the far end of the corridor. It’s Jurek Walter. His eyes are shining in his butcher’s face, and the knife hanging in his right hand glints heavily.

Reidar backs away and loses his slippers. He throws the candle at Jurek. It goes out in midair and hits the ground.

They turn and run down the corridor without looking back. It’s dark and Mikael runs into a chair, he almost falls and stumbles against the wall, his hand flailing over the wallpaper.

A picture crashes to the floor and the glass shatters, spreading splinters around the room.

They push open a heavy door and stumble into the old reception room.

Reidar has to stop, he’s coughing and fumbling for something to lean on. Rapid steps are approaching along the corridor.

‘Dad!’

‘Close the door, close the door!’ he pants.

Mikael slams the heavy door shut and turns the key in the lock three times. A moment later the handle is pushed down and the frame creaks. Mikael backs away across the parquet floor, staring at the door.

‘Have you got your phone?’ Reidar says, then coughs.

‘It’s still in my bedroom,’ Mikael whispers.

Pain is spreading through Reidar’s chest and down his left arm.

‘I have to rest,’ he says weakly, feeling his legs getting unsteady.

The heavy wood of the door creaks as Jurek thuds against it with his shoulder, but it doesn’t give way.

‘He can’t get in,’ Reidar whispers. ‘I just need a few seconds...’

‘Where’s your nitroglycerine spray? Dad?’

Reidar is sweating, and the pressure in his chest is so bad he can hardly speak.

‘Downstairs in the hall, in my coat...’

Saga sweeps the corridor with her pistol as she creeps towards the staircase in the hall.

She has to reach Mikael and Reidar, and get them out to the car.

The sky may actually have brightened up slightly, because it’s now possible to make out the pictures on the walls and the shapes of the furniture.

The adrenalin in her body makes her icily alert.

The sound of her footsteps vanishes as she walks over a rug and past the black grand piano. Something glints in the corner of her eye. She turns her head and sees a cello with its endpin extended.

The walls are clicking, as if the temperature outside has suddenly fallen several degrees.

Saga creeps along quickly, with her pistol aimed down at the floor. Slowly she moves her finger to the trigger, squeezing it carefully, past the first notch.

She stops mid-step and listens. The house is completely silent. The hall ahead of her is darker than the other rooms, its double doors almost closed.

Saga is moving forward when she hears a rushing sound behind her. She spins round quickly and sees snow that has slipped off the roof of the bay window sliding past the glass.

Her heart is thudding in her chest.

When she turns back towards the hall she sees a hand at the door. Someone’s skinny fingers are reaching round the edge of the door.

Saga aims her pistol at the door, ready to shoot through it, but suddenly there’s a terrible scream and the hand slides down and disappears, followed by a thud as something hits the floor, and both doors swing open.

A man is lying on the floor. One leg is twitching spasmodically.

She goes over and sees that it’s Wille Strandberg, the actor. He’s gasping and clutching his stomach.

Blood is bubbling out between his fingers.

He stares at Saga in confusion, then blinks rapidly.

‘I’m a police officer,’ she says, as she hears the stairs creak under someone’s weight. ‘The ambulance is on its way.’

‘He wants Mikael,’ the actor groans.

Mikael is whispering to himself and staring at the locked door, when the key is suddenly pushed out and falls onto the parquet floor with a muffled clunk.

Reidar is standing with his hand pressed against the pain in his chest. His face is wet with sweat. He’s in agony now. He’s tried several times to tell Mikael to run, but he has no voice left.

‘Can you walk?’ Mikael whispers.

Reidar nods and takes a step. There’s a scraping sound from the lock as Mikael puts his father’s arm over his shoulder and tries to lead him towards the library.

Behind them the scraping sound from the lock continues.

They carry on slowly past a tall cupboard, along a wall lined with large tapestries stretched over wooden frames.

Reidar stops again, coughing and gasping for breath.

‘Hold on,’ he says.

He slips his fingers along the edge of the third tapestry and opens a concealed door leading to a servants’ staircase down to the kitchen. They creep into the narrow passageway and gently close the door behind them.

Reidar fastens the little catch and then leans against the wall. He coughs as quietly as he can, feeling the pain radiating down his arm.

‘Keep going down the stairs,’ he whispers in a muffled voice.

Mikael shakes his head and is about to say something when the door in the other room crashes open.

Jurek’s broken in.

They stand there as if paralysed and watch him approach through the fabric covering the hidden door.

He’s creeping forward, crouched down, with the long knife in his hand, peering around him like a predator.

His soft breathing is clearly audible through the door.

Reidar clenches his teeth and leans against the wall; his chest hurts badly, and the pain is spreading to his jaw.

Jurek is so close now that a cloying smell of sweat hits them through the tapestry.

They both hold their breath as Jurek walks past the tapestry door, heading towards the library.

Mikael tries to get Reidar down the narrow staircase before Jurek realises he’s been deceived.

Reidar shakes his head and Mikael looks at him in anguish. He stifles a cough, tries to take a step, then stumbles, making a floorboard creak under his right foot.

Jurek turns and looks straight at the hidden door, and his pale eyes become strangely calm when he realises what he’s looking at.

There’s the sound of a loud bang in the corridor, and splinters from the edge of the tall cupboard fly through the air.

Jurek slips aside like a shadow and takes cover.

Mikael pulls Reidar with him down the narrow staircase towards the kitchen.

Behind them Berzelius comes into the passageway leading to the library. He’s holding Reidar’s old Colt in his hand. The little man’s cheeks are red as he pushes his glasses further up his nose and moves forward.

‘Leave Micke alone!’ he shouts, walking past the tall cupboard.

Death comes so quickly that Berzelius’s main reaction is surprise. At first he feels the tight grip on the wrist holding the revolver, then there’s a burning pain in his side as the rigid knife-blade penetrates his ribs and hits his heart.

There isn’t much pain.

It’s more like a protracted attack of cramp, but at the same time a profuse quantity of warm blood runs down his hip as the blade slips out again.

He realises that he’s wetting himself as he falls to his knees and suddenly recalls the time when he was courting his wife Anna-Karin, long before the divorce and her illness. She had looked so surprised and happy when he came home early from Oslo and stood below her low balcony, singing ‘Love Me Tender’ with four bags of crisps in his arms.