Ларс Кеплер - Stalker

He turns over the next photograph and his heart starts beating faster when he sees Maria Carlsson. He recognises her too. Before he met Jackie, he had a brief fling with Maria. She used to go to the same gym as him, they started walking to the bus stop together, went to the cinema, and slept together once. He remembers her pierced tongue, and the hoarse laugh he found so attractive.

A sudden lump of discomfort makes it hard for him to breathe and he knows that if he hadn’t taken a Mogadon earlier his hands would be shaking and he wouldn’t be able to hide how upset he is.

‘I... I think I’ve seen her too, at the gym... This feels a bit creepy,’ he says, and tries to smile at Margot.

‘Which gym do you go to?’ Adam asks, taking out a notebook.

‘SATS, on Mäster Samuelsgatan,’ he replies, and swallows hard, but the lump of anxiety keeps growing.

Adam looks at him with a blank expression.

‘And you’d seen her there?’ he says, pointing at the picture of Maria Carlsson.

‘I’ve got a good memory for faces,’ Erik says hollowly.

‘It’s a small world,’ Margot says, without taking her eyes off him.

‘Have you met Susanna Kern as well?’ Adam asks, reaching for the last photograph.

‘No,’ Erik laughs.

But when Adam turns the picture he’s sure he’s seen her before somewhere. He doesn’t know where. The name Susanna Kern meant nothing to him when he heard it, but he recognises her face.

Erik shakes his head and tries to make sense of this. He was brought in to talk to her husband after her murder. He hypnotised Björn Kern and went with him into his memories of the blood-soaked villa, but he never saw a picture of her.

‘Are you sure?’ Adam says, holding up the photograph.

‘Yes,’ Erik replies.

The picture of Susanna smiling folds back over Adam’s hand. Erik takes it and looks at her face, then shakes his head as his mind races and the room shrinks around him.

He realises that he’s on the verge of a panic attack. His mouth is getting drier, and he slowly puts both hands on his lap to stop them shaking.

‘Tell me about... about the perpetrator profile,’ Erik says in a voice that sounds like it belongs to someone else.

He forces himself to sit still while they explain that the evidence suggests that the perpetrator is divorced, with a relatively high socioeconomic status.

He tries to concentrate on what they’re saying, but his heart is pounding and thoughts are racing through his head in an attempt to find some sort of pattern, some sort of sense.

How is this possible? he asks himself, trying to see any kind of system in this. He had a brief affair with Maria Carlsson, Sandra Lundgren was his patient, and he knows he’s met Susanna Kern.

Three pictures of three women he’s met.

It’s like a recurring dream; he can’t work out what it is that he recognises in this terrible situation. Across the table Margot picks up her ringing mobile. Adam stands and walks over to the window. Someone’s left a coffee cup on the windowsill.

Suddenly Erik realises that the feeling of similarity is to do with Rocky.

During hypnosis Rocky described how the unclean preacher had shown pictures of Tina and Rebecka.

Rocky had blamed himself, bellowing with pain and repeating words from the Bible: I should pluck out my eye, for it has offended me.

And now he’s lied to the police again. It felt impossible to say that he’d met all three of them.

When Erik feels he can control his voice and body, he stands up.

‘I have to go, I’ve got an appointment with a patient now,’ he says quietly.

‘When can you next talk to Rocky?’ Margot asks, looking at him.

‘Tomorrow, I think.’

‘Don’t forget the pictures,’ Adam reminds him, passing them to him.

As Erik reaches out his hand to take the photographs from Adam he sways slightly, as it strikes him that he’s a mirror-image of Rocky. Damnation brushes past him like a wind presaging a storm, and for a moment he sees himself gazing out through the six-metre-high fence surrounding the exercise yard at Karsudden.

Joona is practising his knife techniques, his fist and elbow exercises, as well as skipping, weight-training and running. He’s still a long way from his old level, but is getting stronger all the time. His hip ached after his five-kilometre run, and he walked the last bit.

It’s seven o’clock when he sees Erik’s BMW turn into the drive. Joona puts the meat in the oven and pours two glasses of Pomerol as he hears the front door close and the sound of keys being put down on the chest of drawers.

Joona takes the glasses and goes to the library. Pushes the door open with his foot and walks in.

Erik’s jacket is lying on the floor. He’s in his study, searching through the papers on his desk.

‘Food will be ready in forty minutes,’ Joona says.

‘Great,’ Erik murmurs, glancing up with a stressed look in his eyes. ‘You’ve shaved... nice.’

‘It felt like it was time.’

‘How are you?’ Erik asks, switching his computer on.

‘Good,’ Joona says, walking into the room.

‘How’s your hip?’ Erik says, looking at the screen.

‘I’ve done some exercise, and I’m—’

‘Can we talk?’ Erik interrupts, looking Joona in the eye. ‘I’ve just had a meeting with Margot and Adam, and... I’m not prone to paranoia... but I’ve met all three victims... It’s crazy, I don’t understand anything, but that can’t be a coincidence — can it?’

‘How do you know—’

‘What are the chances of that?’ Erik asks, staring at Joona.

‘How do you know the victims?’ Joona prompts, and puts the glasses of wine down on the desk.

‘It feels like this is directed at me. Maybe it’s just my imagination, but if that is the case, then...’

‘Sit down,’ Joona says gently.

‘Sorry, I’m just... I’m pretty shocked,’ Erik says, sinking down on to his chair and taking a deep breath.

‘How do you know the victims?’ Joona repeats, for the third time.

‘I had a brief fling with Maria Carlsson earlier this summer... Sandra Lundgren was a patient at the clinic... And I recognise Susanna Kern... I’ve met her, but I don’t know where.’

‘What does Margot say?’

‘Well, I was so surprised that I didn’t say anything about Susanna Kern... but I’m going to, obviously...’

His mobile rings, making Erik jump.

‘It’s work. I’ll leave it,’ he mutters, clicks to reject the call and drops his phone on the floor.

‘And I couldn’t tell her I’d slept with Maria,’ he goes on, picking up his phone. ‘I just said we went to the same gym.’

‘Anything else?’

‘I said that Sandra had been a patient of mine, but not... I still don’t think this is relevant,’ he smiles, scratching his forehead. ‘But I’ll say it anyway... It’s not unusual for patients to want to control the situation by trying to seduce their therapist... There’s always a connection, that’s only natural, but in this instance the patient went so far that I passed her on to Nelly.’

‘But nothing happened between you?’

‘No...’

Erik’s hand is shaking as he picks up the wine glass, raises it to his lips and takes several large gulps.

‘Could it be a patient taking revenge on you for—’

‘I no longer work with dangerous patients,’ Erik interrupts.

‘But when you were doing research on—’

‘That’s fifteen years ago,’ he says.

‘How far back do your records go?’

‘I record and archive everything.’

‘Can you go through it?’

‘Only if I know what to look for.’

‘Some sort of parallel, a connection, anything — stalking, violence directed at the face, the arrangement of bodies... And we’re probably dealing with trophies of some sort...’