Lars Kepler - The Nightmare

“As Pontus Salman told us,” Joona says.

“And that’s why they broke off business connections.”

“We have to find Penelope Fernandez,” Joona says as the first raindrops hit the windshield.

They’re now driving into a heavy thunderstorm that immediately obscures their vision. Rain sluices down, drumming on the roof of the car. Joona is forced to slow down to barely more than fifty kilometers per hour. It’s totally dark, but at times lightning illuminates the sky. The windshield wipers swish at top speed back and forth.

Joona’s cell phone rings. Petter Naslund snaps that Penelope has called SOS alarm twenty minutes ago.

“Why didn’t you call me right away?”

“My first priority was to alert the maritime police. They’re already on their way. I also sent a rescue helicopter.”

“Good work, Petter,” Joona says. Saga gives him a questioning look.

“I know you’ll want to question them both as soon as possible.”

“Right,” Joona says.

“I’ll call you as soon as I know anything more. What shape they’re in.”

“Thanks.”

“The Coast Guard should be there by now… wait… something’s happened. Hang on.”

Joona hears Petter put down the phone. He’s talking to someone, and his voice grows louder until he’s yelling. He’s yelling “Keep trying! Keep trying!” before Joona hears him pick up the phone again.

“I’ve got to go,” Petter says.

“What’s going on?” Joona asks.

A thunderclap rolls and fades away.

“We can’t reach the officer on the boat. No answer. It’s that idiot Lance; he’s probably seen a wave he has to try.”

“Petter,” Joona shouts. “Listen! You need to work fast! That boat’s been hijacked… and I believe-”

“Now you’ve gone too far!”

“Shut up and listen! Probably the guys on the boat are already dead. There may be only a few minutes to order a strike force. Take charge of this operation! Call CID on one phone and Bengt Olofsson on another and try to get two patrols from NI. Ask for backup from a Helicopter 14 from the nearest base.”

A thunderstorm is rolling regally over Stockholm. The rain beats on the windows of Carl Palmcrona’s large apartment. Tommy Kofoed and Nathan Pollock have begun the forensic investigation all over again.

It’s so dark that they turn on the ceiling lamps.

In one of the full-length wardrobes in Palmcrona’s dressing room, on the floor beneath a row of gray, blue, and black suits, Pollock unearths a black leather folder.

“Hey, Tommy,” he yells.

Kofoed, in his usual hunched-over, melancholy posture, comes into the room. “What is it?”

Nathan Pollock taps the black leather folder lightly with his gloved fingers.

“I think I found something,” he says simply.

They walk to the high window nook and Pollock undoes the clasp and opens the leather folder.

“What do we have here?” Kofoed whispers reverently.

Pollock lifts up the thin cover page with these few words on it: Carl Palmcrona’s Last Will and Testament.

They read it in silence. The document is dated March 3, three years earlier. Palmcrona has bequeathed all he owns to one person: Stefan Bergkvist.

“Who the hell is Stefan Bergkvist?” asks Kofoed after they’ve finished reading. “Palmcrona has no relatives, and no friends either as far as I’ve found out.”

“Stefan Bergkvist lives in Vasteras… at least when this was written,” Pollock says. “His address is Rekylgatan 11 and-”

Pollock stops and looks up.

“He’s still a kid. According to his personal registration number, he’s just sixteen right now.”

The will had been drawn up by Palmcrona’s lawyer at the firm of Wieselgreen and Sons. Pollock flips through the appendices that list Palmcrona’s property. “There are four pension funds; one forest property, leased, of only two hectares; a partitioned farm in Sormland, also on long-term lease; and the high-priced condominium on Grevgatan 2. The really large inheritance seems to be in a bank account at Standard Chartered Bank on the island of Jersey. Palmcrona sets its value at nine million euros.”

“It looks like Stefan has become a wealthy kid,” Pollock says.

“Yes indeed.”

“But why? What’s the connection?”

Tommy shrugs. “Who knows? Some people give everything to their dogs or their gym trainer.”

“I’m going to call him.”

“You mean, call the boy?”

“What else do you suggest?”

Nathan Pollock picks up his phone and taps in a number, asks to be connected to Stefan Bergkvist, living at Rekylgatan 11 in Vasteras. He finds out that there is a Siv Bergkvist at the same address and guesses this is the boy’s mother. Nathan looks out the window at the pounding rain and the gutters flowing over.

“Siv Bergkvist,” a woman answers in a broken-sounding voice.

“My name is Nathan Pollock and I’m a criminal investigator. Are you the mother of Stefan Bergkvist?”

“Yes,” she says in a whisper.

“May I speak to him?”

“What?”

“Please don’t worry. I just need to ask him-”

“Go straight to hell!” she screams and slams down the phone.

Pollock redials the number but no one answers. He looks out the window, down at the road shining in the rain, and dials yet again.

“Micke here,” a man’s voice says in a reserved tone.

“My name is Nathan Pollock and I-”

“What do you want?”

Nathan hears the woman sobbing in the background. She says something to the man and he tells her he can take care of it.

“No, let me,” she says.

Steps are heard as the telephone is handed over.

“Hello,” the woman says softly.

“I really need-”

“Stefan is dead!” she screams shrilly. “You say you are a police officer and yet you say you need to talk to him! Why are you torturing me? It’s just too much…”

She’s sobbing into the receiver. Something crashes to the floor in the background.

“I’m so sorry,” Pollock says softly. “I didn’t know. I-”

“I can’t take it any longer!” she sobs. “I can’t!”

Steps are heard again and the man takes up the phone.

“This is enough,” he says.

“Please wait a moment,” Pollock says quickly. “Please tell me what happened. It’s important…”

Tommy Kofoed, who has been catching Pollock’s side of the conversation, sees him listen intently, then turn pale and run his hand over his silver ponytail.

\

Officers have gathered in the hallway of police headquarters until it is filled with nervous energy. Everyone waits for the latest reports. First, contact with the Coast Guard boat had been lost; then radio contact with the rescue helicopter had also gone dead.

At CID, Joona stands in his office, reading a postcard that Disa once sent him from a conference in Gotland. “I’m sending along a love letter from a secret admirer. Hugs, Disa.” He guesses that she searched quite a while to find a postcard that would make him shudder so. He bites his lip as he turns the postcard over. SEX ON THE BEACH is printed over a picture of a white poodle wearing sunglasses and a pink bikini. The dog lounges in a deck chair and has a red drink beside it.

There’s a knock on his door. Joona’s smile disappears at the expression on Nathan Pollock’s face.

“Carl Palmcrona willed everything he owned to his son,” Nathan starts.

“I thought he had no relatives.”

“His son is dead. He was sixteen years old. It appears there was an accident yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Joona repeats.