Lars Kepler - The Nightmare

He had stopped. Over and over he had stopped.

Axel let himself down on the bed and fell asleep with his violin case beside him.

The next morning, he woke to the sound of the telephone.

Someone walked across the dining-room floor. It always creaked.

A moment later, there were steps on the stairs. His mother walked right into his bedroom without knocking.

“Sit up,” Alice commanded.

Axel was frightened the moment he saw her. Her face was still wet from her tears.

“Mamma, please-”

“Be quiet!” she says in a low voice. “I’ve just gotten a call from your principal-”

“He’s unhappy with me because-”

“Can you be quiet!” Alice yelled.

He stopped talking. She held a trembling hand to her mouth. New tears began to stream down her cheeks.

“It’s about Greta,” she finally was able to say. “She committed suicide last night.”

Axel stared at her and tried to understand what she’d said.

“No!.. Because I-”

“She was ashamed,” Alice says. “They said she felt she let everyone down, that she should have practiced more. You promised to help. I knew it, though, I knew. She never should have come here, she… I’m not saying it’s your fault, Axel, because it isn’t. She was disappointed in herself because when everything was riding on her playing, she couldn’t deal with it, and she couldn’t bear that-”

“But, Mamma, I-”

“Be quiet,” she said. “All of this is over.”

Alice left. Axel got out of bed in a gathering fog. He swayed, but steadied himself. He took his beautiful violin out of its case and banged it violently against the floor. The neck broke and the bridge flopped over under the loose strings. Axel stamped on it and pieces of wood flew in all directions.

“Axel! What are you doing?”

Robert rushed into the room and tried to stop him. Axel pushed him away. Robert fell on his back against the wardrobe behind him, but he started back again.

“Axel, so you messed up, so what?” Robert said. “Greta did, too. I met her in the hallway and she’d also… everyone-”

“Shut up!” Axel screamed. “Don’t ever say her name to me again!”

Robert stared while Axel continued to stamp on the wooden pieces until there was nothing left that resembled a violin. Robert then left the room.

Shiro Sasaki won the Johan Fredrik Berwald Competition. Greta had chosen the easier Beethoven piece, but she’d been unable to play it perfectly, a demand she had made upon herself. As soon as she’d gotten home, she’d locked herself in her bedroom and must have taken a huge amount of sleeping pills. She’d been found in bed the next morning when she’d been missed at breakfast.

Axel’s memory sinks away as if it were a forgotten life down in the depths of the sea. He looks at Beverly. It’s like Greta’s big eyes looking back at him. He looks at the cloth in his own hand and the liquid on the table and the shining intarsia with the woman playing the erhu.

Light slides across the curve of Beverly’s head as she turns to look at the violins hanging on the wall.

“I wish I knew how to play one,” she says.

“Let’s take a class together,” he says, gently smiling.

“I’d like that,” she answers in all seriousness.

He sets the cloth down on the table and feels the terrible exhaustion inside his body. The recording of the piano’s echoing music fills the room. It’s being played without a damper and the notes flow dreamily into one another.

“Poor Axel, you want to sleep,” she says.

“I have to work.”

“This evening, then,” she says, and gets up.

Detective Inspector Joona Linna is at his desk at CID. He’s reading Carl Palmcrona’s memoir. Five years ago, Palmcrona recorded how he’d traveled to Vasteras to watch his son graduate from elementary school. He’d stood at a distance as everyone gathered in the school yard and sang “Den blomstertid nu kommer” while standing in the rain holding umbrellas. Palmcrona described his son’s white jeans and jacket, his long blond hair, and wrote that “the boy had a family resemblance in his nose and eyes, which made me want to cry.” He’d driven back to Stockholm and wrote that his son was worth everything he’d done up to now and everything that he would ever do.

The phone rings. Joona picks it up immediately. It’s Petter Naslund calling from the police bus on Dalaro.

“They’ve got Penelope Fernandez. I’ve just been in contact with the helicopter group, and they’re flying back over Erstavik Bay right now,” he tells Joona. His voice still sounds hunted.

“She’s alive?” Joona asks, and is overwhelmed by a feeling of relief.

“She was swimming in the open ocean when they found her,” Petter explains.

“How’s she doing? Is she all right?”

“It appears so. They’re heading toward Soder Hospital.”

“Too dangerous,” Joona says abruptly. “Fly her to the police station instead. We’ll bring a team of doctors from Karolinska Hospital.”

Petter says he’ll contact the helicopters.

“What about the others?” Joona asks.

“It’s complete chaos. We’ve lost people, Joona. It’s crazy over here.”

“What about Bjorn Almskog?”

“We haven’t found him, but… right now we really know nothing, and it’s hard to find out what went on.”

“What about the killer?”

“We’ll catch him. This is a small island. We’ve got men all over it along with help from the Coast Guard and the naval police.”

“Good,” Joona says.

“You don’t think we’ll get him?” Petter asks grimly.

“If you didn’t catch him right away, he’s probably slipped through.”

“You’re saying it’s my fault?”

“Petter,” Joona says quietly and softly. “If you hadn’t been so fast on the uptake, Penelope would be dead, and without her, we’d have no leads at all.”

An hour later, two doctors from Karolinska converge in a protected room deep underneath the National Police Board headquarters. Penelope lies unmoving in their care. They’re bandaging her wounds, setting up an IV for rehydration and nutrition, and giving her tranquilizers.

Petter Naslund reports to Carlos Eliasson that the remains of their colleagues, Lennart Johansson and Goran Sjodin, have been found in the wreckage of the police launch along with another unidentified body, which is probably the remains of Bjorn Almskog. Ossian Wallenberg’s body was found outside his house, and divers are on the way to the area where the helicopter crashed. Petter fears that all on board are lost.

The police have not caught the suspect, but Penelope Fernandez is still alive.

Flags are lowered to half-staff in front of the police station. Chief of Police Margareta Widding and the head of CID, Carlos Eliasson, are holding a sorrowful press conference in the glass-enclosed pressroom. Detective Inspector Joona Linna does not take part in the press conference. Instead, he and Saga Bauer are on the elevator down to the lowest level of the building to meet Penelope Fernandez.

Five floors beneath the police station’s most modern addition is an area with two apartments, eight guest rooms, and two sleeping areas. It has been created to guarantee security for leaders of the department during crises and catastrophes. For the past decade, the guest rooms have also been used for witness protection. The walls are a cheerful yellow, and pleasant-looking books line a nice bookshelf. It’s obvious that the people staying in these rooms have plenty of time to read. There are no windows, but light behind a sheer curtain mimics one and tries to distract the mind from the thought of being deep underground in a bunker.