Lars Kepler - The Nightmare

“Axel, you realize, of course, that I have no choice but to take her to the police,” he says.

“I understand,” Axel says.

Robert can’t look at his brother any longer. He rubs his hand over his face and sighs.

“I might as well take her there now,” Robert says.

“I’ll go get her.” Axel returns to the bedroom.

Beverly is sitting upright in bed and smiles at him while wiping away tears.

“Go on and get dressed,” Axel says. “You have to go with Robert.”

As Axel returns to the library, Robert stands up. They both stand while avoiding each other’s gaze.

“You should stay here,” Robert says.

“Right,” Axel whispers.

Beverly enters the library a few minutes later. She’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt. She’s not wearing makeup, so she appears even younger than she is.

Robert drives without saying anything. He stops the car at the light and waits for it to turn green.

“I’m very sorry about what happened to you,” Robert says in a sad voice. “My brother told me that he was helping you by giving you a place to live until you got your own student apartment. I don’t really understand why he’d do such a thing. I never believed-”

“Axel is not a pedophile,” Beverly says.

“Why would you want to defend him? He doesn’t deserve it.”

“He doesn’t touch me like that. He never has.”

“What does he do, then?”

“He hugs me,” Beverly answers.

“Hugs you!” Robert exclaims. “You’ve just said-”

“He hugs me so he can sleep,” she explains in her frank, clear voice.

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s nothing ugly about what he does,” Beverly says. “At least not as far as I can tell.”

Robert sighs and says she’ll have to explain everything to the police. He wonders if he’s doing the right thing.

“It’s all about his insomnia,” Beverly explains slowly. “He can’t sleep unless he takes his pills. But he can’t take his pills anymore. But when I’m there, he calms down and he-”

“But you’re underage!” Robert says.

Beverly looks through the windshield at the light green leaves on the trees, which flutter in the warm breeze. A few pregnant women are chatting on the sidewalk. An elderly woman is standing still with her face turned toward the sun.

“Why?” Robert asks. “Why can’t Axel sleep at night?”

“He says he’s always been like that.”

“I know that he wrecked his liver by taking all those pills.”

“He told me all about why he can’t sleep. It was when we were still in the hospital together,” Beverly says. “Something sad happened to him.”

Robert stops at a pedestrian crossing. A child drops his pacifier in the street and his mother doesn’t notice but keeps walking. The child rips himself away from his mother and dashes back. The mother screams horribly but then notices that Robert has observed the scene and understood that the child would run back. The mother picks up her child and carries him to the sidewalk while he shrieks.

“He knew a girl who died,” Beverly says.

“Who was it?”

“He only told me about it once, while we were at the hospital. He doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Beverly twists her fingers together.

“Tell me what he told you,” Robert says. There’s tension in his voice.

“They were in love and they slept together and then the next day she killed herself.” Beverly glances at Robert. “I kind of look like her, right?”

“You do,” Robert answers.

“When he was in the hospital, he told me that he was the one who killed her,” Beverly whispers.

Robert jerks and turns to her.

“What are you talking about?”

“He said there’s something he did that made her want to kill herself.”

Robert’s mouth drops open. “He said that? He said it was his fault?”

Beverly nods.

“He said it was his fault because they were supposed to be practicing together, and instead they had sex and she thought he’d lured her into it so he could win the violin competition.”

“None of that was his fault,” Robert says.

“Of course it was. He said so.”

Robert sinks behind the wheel and rubs his face with his hands.

“Oh, good Lord,” he says. “There’s something I have to tell him.”

Robert stops the car and the car behind him honks. Beverly looks at him with worry.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

Robert starts to turn the car around.

“There’s… there’s something very important I must tell him. I was behind the stage right before Axel was going to go on and I know what really happened. Greta had already played right before he was supposed to go on because she was first on the program and-”

“You were there?”

“Just a minute,” Robert says. “I heard everything that happened. I know that Greta’s death had nothing to do with Axel.”

Robert is so upset that he has to stop the car again. His face is pale as ash as he says to Beverly, “Please, forgive me, but I really have to-”

“Do you know that for sure?” Beverly asks.

“What?” Robert looks at her in confusion.

“Are you absolutely sure that it wasn’t Axel’s fault that Greta died?”

“Of course!”

“But what happened?”

Robert wipes a tear from his cheek. He opens the car door.

“Just a second,” he says. “I have to… I must speak to him.”

Robert gets out of the car and stands on the sidewalk.

The enormous linden trees on Sveavagen are shedding their seeds, which dance in the sunshine. Robert has a big smile on his face as he reaches for his cell phone and punches in Axel’s number. After three rings, his smile disappears, and he starts to walk back to the car with his cell phone to his ear. Only when he breaks off the call and attempts to redial the number does he notice that his car is empty. Beverly is gone. He looks around but can’t see her anywhere. City traffic is picking up. Students in their cars are rushing down to Sergel’s Square.

Robert shuts the door, starts his car, and begins to drive slowly as he looks for Beverly.

Axel Riessen doesn’t know how long he’s been standing at the window. He’d watched Robert and Beverly drive away until they were out of sight. His thoughts had gone back into the past. He forces himself to stop remembering and walks over to his music system and puts on the first side of David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. He jacks up the volume.

Pushing through the market square…

Axel walks over to his bar and takes out one of the most expensive whiskey bottles in his collection. It’s a Macallan 1939, from the first year of the Second World War. He pours himself half a glass and then goes to the sofa and sits down. He listens to the music with his eyes closed-Bowie’s young voice and the sloppy piano playing-and he sniffs the aroma of oak barrels, heavy reservoirs and dark cellars, straw and citrus. He drinks and the strong liquor burns his lips as it fills his mouth. Guarding its precious taste, this liquor has been waiting through decades: generations, changes of government, war and peace.

Now Axel is thinking that maybe what just happened is a good thing. Maybe Beverly will finally get the help she needs. He has a sudden impulse to call his brother and tell him that he loves him, but frowns at the pathetic thought. He won’t be killing himself-he’s just going to meet what’s coming to him soon enough and try to die on his feet.

He takes the whiskey to his bedroom and stares at the unmade bed. He’s able to hear the sound of vibrations coming from his jacket, which is hanging over the back of a chair. Just then, he also hears the sound of footsteps behind him. He whirls around.