Lars Kepler - The Nightmare

“Carlos, we have to talk.”

But before Joona can say anything, there’s a light knock at the door and Verner Zanden, the head of Sapo’s department of security, comes in.

“Nice to see you again,” the tall man says as he shakes Carlos’s hand. Verner greets Joona, then looks around the room and behind his back.

“Where the hell did Saga go?” he asks in a deep bass voice.

Saga Bauer slowly steps through the door. The tension in her thin body almost seems to reflect the silvery shimmer of Carlos Eliasson’s aquarium.

“I didn’t realize you hadn’t kept up.” Verner smiles benevolently.

Carlos turns to Saga but he looks uncertain, as if he can’t decide how to interact with a young woman who looks so much like… like an elf, he thinks. He decides to simply take a step back and open his arms in a welcoming gesture.

“Welcome,” he says, a strange shrill tone in his voice.

“Thanks,” she says.

“You’ve already met Joona Linna.”

Saga just stands still. Her hair is a shimmering mass down to her waist, but her eyes are hard and her jaw is clamped shut. The sharp scar through one of her eyebrows glimmers chalk-white on her face.

“Please feel right at home,” Carlos says, and he almost sounds pleasant.

Saga sits down stiffly next to Joona. Carlos sets a shiny paper folder on the conference table. It is titled “Strategies for Collaborating Units.” Verner lifts his hand jokingly as if he were a schoolboy asking permission to speak before his deep bass fills the room.

“Formally, the entire investigation is in Sapo’s hands. However, without the services of the National Criminal Investigation Department and Joona Linna, we wouldn’t have had this breakthrough.”

Verner points at the folder and Saga’s face turns bright red.

“Perhaps this is not such a ‘breakthrough,’ ” she mumbles.

“What?” Verner says loudly.

“All Joona found was a palm print and a piece of a photo.”

“And you… along with him, yes, you found out that Penelope Fernandez is still alive and someone is hunting her. Of course it’s not just Joona alone…” He tries to soothe her.

“This is sick,” Saga yells and shoves all the paperwork onto the floor. “How the hell can you guys sit here and heap praise on him! He wasn’t even supposed to be there! Someone even spilled the beans about Daniel Marklund-”

“But he did find out,” Verner says.

“But this is all highly classified! What the fuck!”

“Saga,” Verner says in rebuke. “You were also not supposed to be there!”

“True! But if I hadn’t, everything would have-”

She stops herself short.

“Can we continue more calmly now?” Verner asks.

Saga looks at her boss before she turns to Carlos and says, “Forgive me. I’m sorry I lost my temper.”

She bends down and begins to pick up the papers from the floor, her forehead still covered with angry red dots. Carlos tells her to leave them, but Saga picks them all up, shuffles them into their proper order, and puts them back on the table.

“I’m really very sorry,” she says again.

Carlos clears his throat and says tentatively, “We hope that you might come to appreciate Joona’s contribution. Perhaps enough to allow him to join your investigation.”

“No! Seriously,” Saga turns to her boss. “I don’t want to seem so negative, but I don’t see why you’re making such a big deal about him. We would have found all the evidence he did. You talk about breakthroughs, but I don’t think that-”

“I agree with Saga,” Joona says slowly. “I’m sure that eventually you would have found it all without my help.”

“Maybe so,” Verner says.

“Is that it, then?” Saga asks, keeping her voice under control as she stands up.

“But then there’s one thing that you don’t yet know,” Joona continues calmly. “Bjorn Almskog secretly contacted Carl Palmcrona on the same day Viola was killed.”

The room falls completely silent. Saga slowly sinks back into her chair. Verner leans forward and visibly collects his thoughts before he clears his throat. “So, Carl Palmcrona’s suicide and the murder of Viola Fernandez might be connected?” he asks in his booming bass.

“Joona?” Carlos asks.

“Yes, I believe there’s a connection between these two deaths.”

“This is much bigger than we thought,” Verner says, almost in a whisper. “This is very big…”

“Good work, Joona!” Carlos exclaims with a forced smile.

Saga Bauer has crossed her arms tightly across her chest. She’s looking at the floor and the small red spots are reappearing on her forehead.

“Joona,” Carlos says carefully, “I can’t go over Petter’s head, so he’ll still be in charge of our own investigation, but I can let you work on loan to Sapo.”

“What do you think, Saga?” Joona asks softly.

“Perfect,” Verner answers immediately.

“It’s up to me,” Saga answers defiantly. “I’m still the one in charge of this case.”

She gets up and leaves the room at once.

Verner excuses himself and hurries after her.

There’s an icy glitter in Joona’s gray eyes.

Carlos is still in his chair. He clears his throat yet again and says, “She’s young and you have to try… I mean… be nice, watch out for her.”

“I believe she is entirely capable of taking care of herself,” Joona replies.

Saga Bauer is distracted, thinking about Carl Palmcrona, and she barely manages to move her face, even slightly. She’s seen the hit coming from the side, but too late. A low hook that passes over her left shoulder and hits her ear and chin. She’s rocked. Her head protector has slipped to the side again and she can hardly see a thing. Still, she knows the next blow is on its way and sinks her chin and protects her face with both hands.

It’s a hard hit followed by one to her upper ribs. She stumbles backward onto the rope. The referee rushes over but Saga has already figured a way out of the trap. She moves to the side and toward the middle of the ring and at the same time she is weighing her opponent: Svetlana Krantz from Falkoping, a wide woman around forty years old with sloped shoulders and a Guns N’ Roses tattoo. Svetlana is breathing with her mouth open and is hunting Saga with elephantine steps; she believes she’s on the way to a knockout.

Saga dances softly backward, whirling like an autumn leaf over the ground. Boxing is so easy, she thinks, and a wave of joy fills her chest. She stops and smiles so broadly that her mouth guard almost falls out. She knows Svetlana is her match, but she had planned to win on points and not a knockout. However, when Svetlana’s boyfriend howls that Svetlana should turn the blond cunt’s face into mush, Saga changes her mind.

Svetlana is moving too quickly around the ring. Her right hand is eager, almost too eager. She is so convinced that she’s going to beat Saga that she’s no longer concentrating. She’s already decided to end the match with one or more direct right-hand blows. She’s thinking that Saga is already so groggy she won’t be able to land a punch. But Saga Bauer is not weakened. Instead, she zeroes in on her concentration. Saga dances a bit in place as she waits for her opponent to rush forward. She holds her hands over her face as if in defense only. At the perfect moment, Saga executes a surprising shoulder-and-foot combination so that, stepping to the side, she glides away from her opponent’s line of attack. Saga is now beside her and uses all her momentum for one blow-right into Svetlana’s solar plexus.

She feels the edge of Svetlana’s breast shield through her glove as Svetlana’s body simply folds in half. Saga’s next blow glances off Svetlana’s head, but the third is a clean, hard uppercut right to the mouth.