Lars Kepler - The Nightmare

“Just a second,” Joona says mildly.

They see him point at the floor.

“What is it?” asks Pollock.

“We’re looking at a suicide,” Joona replies.

“What a typical suicide!” Tommy Kofoed laughs. “He flaps his wings and flies-”

“The briefcase,” Joona says. “If he set it upright, he’d reach the noose.”

“But he couldn’t have reached the ceiling,” Pollock points out.

“He could have fastened the noose beforehand.”

“I think you’re wrong.”

Joona shrugs and says, “Keep in mind the music and the knots…”

“Let’s take a look at the briefcase,” Pollock says.

“Let me just secure the area first,” says Kofoed.

They watch Kofoed, his bent, short body, as he creeps forward and rolls out over the floor a sheet of black plastic film with a bottom layer of thin gelatin. Then he carefully presses on the film with a rubber roller.

“Can you get me a couple of bio-packs and a large container?” he requests as he points to his collection bag.

“Wellpapp?” asks Pollock.

“Yes, thanks,” Tommy says as he catches the packs that Pollock throws in a high arch to him.

He secures any biological traces on the floor and then waves Pollock into the room.

“You’ll find the marks of his shoes on the outer edge of the briefcase,” Joona says. “It has fallen over backward and the body has swung diagonally.”

Pollock says nothing, just walks over to the leather briefcase and gets on his knees beside it. His silver ponytail falls forward as he leans down to put the briefcase on its edge. Obvious light gray marks are clearly visible on the black leather.

“So it’s so, then,” Joona remarks quietly.

“Fucking awesome,” Tommy Kofoed says, and his whole tired face smiles up at Joona.

“Suicide,” Pollock mutters.

“Technically speaking, yes,” Joona says.

They stand looking at the body for a while.

“What do we really have here?” asks Kofoed. He’s still smiling. “Someone high up, with a job deciding who can export military equipment, who decides now to take his own life.”

“Not our department,” sighs Pollock.

Tommy Kofoed rolls off his gloves and gestures at the hanging man.

“Joona? What’s the deal with the knots and the music?” he asks.

“It’s a double sheet bend,” Joona says and points to the knots around the lamp hook. “I connect it to Palmcrona’s long naval career.”

“And the music?”

Joona stops and looks at him meditatively.

“What do you think?” he asks.

“Well, I know it’s a sonata for violin. Early nineteenth century or-”

He is interrupted by the doorbell. The four of them glance at one another. Joona starts to walk back to the hallway and the rest follow but stop before they can be seen from the landing.

At the front door, Joona considers a quick view through the peephole but decides against it. He can feel air stream through the keyhole as he presses down the door handle. The heavy door swings open. The landing is dark. Joona’s hand goes for his pistol as he checks behind the open door. A tall woman is caught in a faint gap of light by the handrail. She has huge hands. She’s probably about sixty-five years old. She’s completely still. Her gray hair is cut in a short, girlish pageboy style, and there’s a large, skin-colored bandage on her chin. She looks Joona right in the eye without a hint of a smile.

“So have you cut him down yet?” she asks.

Joona had thought he’d have time to make the National Criminal Investigation Department meeting at one o’clock.

But he’d wanted to have lunch with Disa first. They were to meet at Rosendal’s Garden on Djurgarden. Joona arrived early and had to wait for a while in the sunshine. He idly watched the mist hovering over the small vineyard. Then he saw Disa coming, her cloth purse slung over her shoulder. Her narrow, intelligent face was closely sprinkled with late-spring freckles and her hair flowed free over her shoulders, loosed from its customary tight braids. She’d prettied up in a dress patterned in small flowers; on her feet were sandals with wedge heels.

Carefully they hugged each other.

“Hi,” Joona said. “You look great.”

“You, too,” said Disa.

Together they went to the buffet to choose their food and then sat down at an outdoor table. Joona noticed that her nails wore a new coat of polish. Usually they were short and ragged, embedded with the dirt Disa picked up in her work as an archaeologist. Joona’s gaze wandered away from her hands and out over the orchard.

“Queen Kristina received a leopard as a present from the Count of Kurland. She kept it here at Djurgarden.”

“I didn’t know that,” Joona said absentmindedly.

“I read in the palace accounts that the Royal Treasury paid forty daler in silver coins, the cost of a serving girl’s funeral. She was ripped apart by that leopard.”

Disa leaned back in her chair and picked up her glass.

“Stop talking so much, Joona Linna,” she said.

“Sorry,” Joona said. “I just…”

He fell silent again, suddenly exhausted.

“What’s up?” She was suddenly concerned.

“Please, just tell me more about the leopard.”

“You look so sad.”

“I was thinking about my mother… It’s been one year today since she passed away. I went to lay a wreath at her grave.”

“I miss Ritva very much,” Disa said.

She put her fork down and sat quietly for a while.

Finally she said, “Do you know what she said the last time I saw her? She took my hand and told me that I should seduce you and make sure I got knocked up.”

Joona laughed. “I can believe that!”

The sun sparkled in Disa’s quiet, dark eyes. “I told her that I didn’t believe that would happen. Then she told me I should leave you and never look back.”

He nodded but was at a loss for words.

“And then you’d be all alone,” Disa continued. “A large, lonely Finn.”

He stroked her fingers.

“I don’t want that,” he said.

“Don’t want what?”

“Don’t want to be a large, lonely Finn.”

“And I now want to use my teeth on you. Bite you hard. Can you explain that? My teeth always start to itch when I look at you,” Disa said with a smile.

Joona reached out to touch her face. He knew he was already late to the meeting with Carlos Eliasson and the CID, but he kept sitting there across from Disa, making small talk and thinking at the same time that he should go down to the Nordic Museum to look at the Sami bridal crown.

While he was waiting for Joona Linna, Carlos Eliasson had told the National Criminal Investigation Department about the young woman who’d been found dead on a motorboat in the Stockholm archipelago, and Benny Rubin noted for the record that there was no rush to begin an investigation and that they should wait for the Coast Guard’s findings.

Joona had come in a little later but had hardly taken part in the meeting when a call came from John Bengtsson of Routine Patrol.

Joona and John had a history together over the years. They’d played floorball more than a decade before. John Bengtsson was popular, but when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, a lot of his friends had fallen away. Although he was now fully recovered, like other people who’d had a brush with death, he had a slight air of fragility, of a depth of understanding, about him.

Joona had stood in the hallway outside the conference room listening on the phone to John’s slow recitation. His voice was filled with the tiredness that comes immediately after high stress. He described how he’d just found the general director for the National Inspectorate of Strategic Products hanging from the ceiling in his home.