Lars Kepler - The Nightmare

“Jasmin tells me it’s good for me,” Erixson explains.

“Who’s Jasmin?”

“My physical therapist. She looks like a sweet little cupcake, but she’s hard as nails: Keep quiet, stop complaining, sit up straight. She even called me a little potbelly.” Erixson smiles shyly as they step into the hallway.

They turn into a room set aside for meditation. It has a simple altar with a smooth wooden cross hung on a meter-long stand above it. There is also a tapestry on the wall, a Christ figure surrounded by a series of light-colored triangles.

Down the hall, Joona pulls from a storage closet a large set of flip charts and markers that he’d stashed earlier. Back in the meditation room, he sees Erixson has already pulled down the Christ tapestry and draped it over the cross that’s now propped in a corner.

“All that we know is that at least one person is willing to kill for this photograph,” Joona says.

“Yes, but why?”

Erixson pulls out a glue stick from his supplies and adheres Bjorn Almskog’s bank-account withdrawals to the wall. He also sets up lists from each phone call, copies of bus tickets, receipts from Bjorn’s wallet, and notes from the voice mails they’d collected.

“This photograph must reveal something so important someone is desperate to keep it a secret,” Joona says, as he takes out a marker and begins to write a timeline on the largest flip chart.

“Right,” Erixson answers.

“Let’s just stop him by finding this photo,” Joona says.

06:40 Penelope takes a taxi from her apartment

06:45 Bjorn arrives at Penelope’s apartment

06:48 Bjorn leaves the apartment with the photograph

07:07 Bjorn mails the photograph from the Pressbyran at Central Station

Erixson rolls up to look carefully at each point while he peels the wrapper and foil from a chocolate bar.

“Penelope Fernandez leaves the television studio and calls Bjorn ten minutes later,” he says, pointing to the list with the phone calls. Her strip of transportation coupons is stamped ten thirty. Her little sister, Viola, calls Penelope at ten forty-five. Penelope is probably already with Bjorn at the marina on Langholmen.”

“But what does Bjorn do in the meanwhile?”

“That’s what we need to find out,” Erixson says contentedly and cleans his fingers with a white handkerchief.

Erixson rolls his wheelchair along the wall and points to another strip of transportation coupons.

“Bjorn leaves Penelope’s apartment with the photograph. He takes the subway and at seven minutes after seven he buys the envelope and two stamps.”

“And mails the letter,” says Joona.

Erixson clears his throat and continues. “The next piece of evidence is a transaction on his Visa card. He pays twenty crowns to Dreambow Internet Cafe on Vattugatan at seven thirty-five.”

“Five minutes after seven thirty,” Joona says as he writes this on the chronology.

“Where in the hell is Vattugatan?”

“It’s a fairly small street,” Joona says. “It’s in the old Klara Quarter.”

Erixson nods and continues. “I’m guessing that Bjorn continues on the same stamp to Fridhemsplan. After that we have a phone call from his landline in his apartment. It was an unanswered call to his father, Greger Almskog.”

“We’ll have to ask his father about it.”

“The next piece of evidence is a new stamp on the coupon strip for nine o’clock. Apparently, he took the number 4 bus from Fridhemsplan to Hogalindsgatan on Sodermalm. From there he went to the boat at Langholmen Harbor.”

Joona fills in the last notes on his paper and then steps back to take a good look at the timeline of that morning.

“So Bjorn is in a real hurry to get that photograph,” Erixson says. “But he doesn’t want to run into Penelope so he waits until she’s left, rushes inside, takes it off the glass pane, leaves the apartment, and heads to Central Station.”

“I want to look at all the security tapes,” says Joona.

“After that, Bjorn heads to a nearby Internet cafe, stays there about half an hour at most, and then goes-”

“That’s it,” Joona says.

“What’s it?”

“Both Bjorn and Penelope already have Internet access at home.”

“So why’d he go to an Internet cafe?”

“I’ll head there now,” Joona says, already walking out of the room.

Detective Inspector Joona Linna turns onto Vattugatan from Brunkeberg Square behind the City Theater. He parks, gets out, and hurries through an anonymous metal door and down a steep cement walkway.

It’s quiet at the Dreambow Internet Cafe. The floor has been freshly scrubbed. The scent of lemon and plastic hangs in the air. Shiny Plexiglas chairs have been pushed below the small computer tables. Nothing moves except the patterns on the monitors. A plump man with a pointed black goatee leans against a high counter, sipping coffee from a mug with the inscription “Lennart means Lion.” His jeans are baggy and a shoelace hangs untied from one of his Reeboks.

“I need a computer,” Joona says before he’s even reached the man.

“Get in line,” the man jokes as he makes a sweeping gesture toward the empty seats in the room.

“I need a specific computer,” Joona continues. “A friend of mine was here this past Friday morning and I need to use the same computer he did.”

“I don’t know if I can give out-”

Joona bends over and ties the man’s loose lace. “It’s extremely important.”

“Let me take a look at Friday’s log,” the man says, an embarrassed flush coming to his cheeks. “What’s his name?”

“Bjorn Almskog,” Joona says.

“He used number five, the one in the corner,” the man says. “I need to see your ID.”

Joona hands over his police ID, and the man looks confused as he writes it all down in the log.

“Go ahead and start surfing.”

“Thanks,” Joona says in a friendly way as he walks over to computer number 5.

Joona takes out his cell phone and places a call to Johan Jonson, a young man in the CID’s department for cyber crimes.

“Just a mo,” answers a ragged voice. “I’ve just swallowed a piece of paper… an old tissue… I blew my nose and at the same time breathed in to sneeze and… no, I really don’t have the energy to explain everything. Who am I talking to?”

“Joona Linna, detective inspector with the National Criminal Investigation Department.”

“Oh, damn. Hi, Joona, what a surprise.”

“You’re already sounding better.”

“Yes, I’ve swallowed it.”

“I need to see what a guy was doing on a computer this past Friday.”

“Say no more!”

“I’m in a hurry. I’m sitting in an Internet cafe.”

“Are you on the same machine he used?”

“Right in front of me.”

“Much easier. Much easier. Try to find History. It’s probably been erased. That’s what they do after each user, but there’s always something left on the hard drive. All you have to do is… or really, the best thing to do is to take the thing away and bring it along to me so I can go through the hard drive with a program I’ve designed for-”

“Meet me in a half an hour in the meditation room at Saint Goran’s Hospital,” Joona says as he unplugs the computer, takes it under his arm, and heads toward the exit.

The man with the coffee mug stares at him, astonished, and tries to block him.

“Hey, wait! The computer can’t leave the premises!”

“It’s under arrest,” Joona says in his friendliest manner.

“What’s it suspected of?”

The man’s pale face stares at Joona as Joona waves at him with his free hand and walks out into the bright sunshine.