Lars Kepler - The Nightmare

“What did you need to talk to Axel’s brother about?”

“I just got a feeling…” Joona begins.

“Oh great,” Saga mutters. “A feeling.”

“You know… we showed the photograph to Pontus Salman,” Joona continued. “He pointed himself out right away and then talked blah, blah, blah to the International Criminal Court’s decision to indict-” He stops talking as his phone rings. He searches for his phone without taking his eyes off the road and answers, “That was fast.”

“The date is confirmed,” Anja Larsson says. “The Tokyo String Quartet played at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt when Pontus Salman was there.”

“I see,” says Joona.

Saga watches as he listens to what Anja is saying, nods, thanks her, and hangs up.

“So Pontus Salman was telling the truth?” asks Saga.

“That we don’t know.”

“But the date is correct?”

“We only know that Pontus Salman went to Frankfurt and that the Tokyo String Quartet played at the Alte Oper… but Pontus Salman has been to Frankfurt often and the Tokyo String Quartet has also played at the Alte Oper at least once a year.”

“Do you believe he lied about the date even though he knew we’d check it out?”

“No, but… well, I don’t know. As I said, I just had a feeling,” Joona says. “There’s a good reason to lie if he and Carl Palmcrona were discussing business with Agathe al-Haji after the arrest warrant was issued.”

“That would be a criminal offense, against international law. A weapons export directly to the militia in Darfur-”

“We believed Pontus Salman because he seemed so willing to help us, even pointing himself out,” Joona says. “But because he told one truth doesn’t mean that everything he says is true.”

“So that’s your feeling?”

“No, it was something in Salman’s voice… when he said the only strange thing about the picture was that Carl Palmcrona didn’t decline champagne…”

“… since there was nothing to celebrate.” Saga completes the thought.

“That’s how he put it, but my feeling is that there was something to celebrate and they were toasting it with champagne. An agreement-”

“No facts to support what you’ve just said.”

“But think about the picture for a second,” Joona says stubbornly. “There’s an atmosphere in that private box and… look at their faces, they’re very happy about something.”

“Even so, we can’t prove it. We need Penelope Fernandez’s help.”

“What do her doctors have to say?”

“We’ll be able to talk to her soon. But right now, she’s mentally too exhausted.”

“We have no idea what she can tell us,” Joona says.

“No we don’t, but what the hell do we have?”

“We have the photograph,” Joona says. “We have the four musicians in it and perhaps we can tell the piece they were playing by their hand positions.”

“Oh, Joona.” Saga sighs.

“What?” he says, smiling.

“That’s just fucking crazy-I hope you realize that.”

“Robert said that theoretically it might be possible.”

“Let’s just wait until Penelope is a little better.”

“I’ll call,” Joona says. He picks up his phone and calls the police station, requesting a connection to room U 12.

Saga looks at his impassive face.

“My name is Joona Linna and I-”

He stops talking and a large smile spreads across his face.

“Of course I remember you and your red cape,” he says, and listens some more. “Yes, but… I almost believed you were going to suggest hypnosis?”

Saga can hear the doctor’s laughing voice through the phone.

“No, but really-we absolutely, absolutely must talk to her.”

His face takes a serious turn.

“I can understand her feelings, but can’t you change her mind? All right, we’ll just have to figure something else out… Bye.”

He hangs up at the same time he turns onto Bellmansgatan.

“That was Dr. Daniella Richards,” Joona tells Saga.

“What does she say?”

“She feels we can question Penelope in a few days. The big problem is we have to find a different place for her to live-she refuses to stay in that underground room. She says-”

“There’s no more secure place.”

“She refuses,” Joona says simply.

“We’ve got to make it clear how dangerous the situation is.”

“I believe she knows that better than we do.”

In the Mosebacke Etablissement’s restaurant, Disa and Joona are sitting across from each other. Sunshine fills the room through the enormous windows looking out over Gamla Stan, Skeppsholmen, and the glittering water. They are just finishing a lunch of fried Baltic herring with mashed potatoes garnished with lingonberries. They pour the last of the light beer into their glasses. In the background, on a raised platform, Ronald Brautigam performs on a black grand piano. The violinist, Isabelle van Keulen, is finishing the last stroke of her bow, her right elbow lifted.

The last note of the violin trembles, waiting for the piano, then finishes with a high, shivering sound as the music ends. After the concert, Joona and Disa walk out of the restaurant and onto Mosebacke Square. They pause for a moment, facing each other.

“What’s all this about Paganini?” she asks. She pats Joona’s collar into place. “The last time we were together, you talked about Paganini, too.”

He gently catches her hand.

“I just wanted to see you-”

“Just so we can argue about you not taking your medicine?”

“No,” he says seriously.

“Do you take it, then?”

“I’ll start soon,” he says a bit impatiently.

She says nothing more, meets his eyes for a second, then sighs and suggests they keep walking.

“At any rate, it was a very pleasant concert,” she says. “Somehow I felt the music fit this soft light here, outside. I’d always thought Paganini was… well, you know, like a tightrope walker. Actually, I did have the chance to hear Yngwie Malmsteen play the Caprice no. 5 once at Grona Lund.”

“Ah, in the days when you and Benjamin Gantenbein were going out.”

“We’ve just become Facebook friends after all these years.”

They walk to Slussen hand in hand and head down Skeppsbron.

“Do you think you could tell what music a violinist is playing just by the finger positions?”

“Without hearing it, you mean?”

“On a photograph.”

“Maybe. Perhaps you might get pretty close… it depends on how well you know the instrument,” she replies.

“How close? How exact?”

“I’ll ask Kaj if you think it’s important,” she says.

“Who’s Kaj?”

“Kaj Samuelsson. He works in the music history department. He was a good friend of my father’s and I used to practice driving with him.”

“Can you phone him now?”

“Sure,” Disa says, and then raises her eyebrows slightly. “You’re not kidding. You really want me to call him this second.”

“Yes,” Joona says.

Disa drops his hand and pulls out her cell phone. She scrolls through her contact list and then calls the professor.

“Hi, Disa here,” she says. “Am I interrupting your lunch?”

Joona can hear the sound of a man’s voice coming from the phone. After a little small talk, Disa says, “By the way, I have a good friend here with some questions for you.”

She laughs at something he says and then she asks directly, “Can you tell which note a violinist is playing… no, not that way… just by looking at the fingers?”

Joona observes Disa who listens, frowning. From Gamla Stan, he can hear the distant strains of march music.