Ларс Кеплер - Stalker

‘How did it happen?’ she asks, her eyes still wide-open and empty.

‘We’re not sure yet,’ Erik replies.

‘Her heart was always... she didn’t want to worry us, but sometimes it would just stop beating, it felt like an eternity before it...’

Irina’s chin begins to tremble, she hides her mouth with her hand, looks down and swallows hard.

‘Have you got anyone to talk to after work?’ Nelly asks.

‘What?’

She quickly wipes the tears from her cheeks, swallows again and looks up.

‘OK,’ she says, in a more focused voice. ‘What do I have to do, do I have to pay anything?’

‘Nothing, we’d just like to ask a few questions,’ Joona says. ‘Would that be OK?’

She nods, and starts picking at the crumbs on the table again. They hear a metallic sound from the kitchen and someone tries the door.

‘Did you have any contact with your sister while she was in Sweden?’

Irina shakes her head, her mouth moves slightly, then she looks up.

‘I was the only person who knew she was heading to Stockholm, but I promised not to say anything. I was young, I didn’t understand... She was very stern with me, said she wanted to surprise Mum with her first wages... Nothing ever came, but I spoke to her on the telephone once, she just said that everything would be all right...’

Irina falls silent and drifts off.

‘Did she say where she was living?’

‘We haven’t got any brothers,’ she replies. ‘Dad died when we were little, I don’t remember him but Natalia did... and after Natalia had gone, there was just me and Mum left... Mum missed her so much, she used to cry and worry about her weak heart, and said she just knew that something terrible had happened. So I thought if I could find my sister and take her back home, then everything would be fine... Mum didn’t want me to leave, and she was alone when she died.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Joona says.

‘Thank you. Well, now I know that Natalia is dead,’ Irina says, getting to her feet. ‘I suppose I suspected as much, but now I know.’

‘Do you know where she was living?’

‘No.’

She takes a step towards the door, clearly keen to get away from the whole situation.

‘Please, sit down for a moment,’ Erik asks.

‘OK, but I need to get back to work.’

‘Irina,’ Joona says, with a dark resonance in his voice that makes the young woman listen. ‘Your sister was murdered.’

‘No, I just told you, her heart—’

Irina’s coat catches on the back of the chair, dragging it backwards with her. As the truth sinks in, she loses control of her face. Her cheeks turn white, her lips quiver and her pupils dilate.

‘No,’ she whimpers.

She leans back against the worktop, shakes her head, fumbles across the front of the fridge for something to hold on to. Nelly tries to calm her down, but she pulls free.

‘Irina, you need to—’

‘God, no, not Natalia!’ she cries. ‘She promised...’

She grabs hold of the handle of the fridge, and the door swings open as she falls, dislodging a shelf full of ketchup and jam. Nelly hurries across to her and holds her slender shoulders.

‘ Nje maja ciastra ,’ she gasps. ‘ Nje maja ciastra ...’

She curls up in Nelly’s lap and tries to hold her hand over her mouth as she cries, screaming into her palm and shaking uncontrollably.

After a while she calms down and sits up, but she’s still breathing unevenly between sobs. She wipes her tears and clears her throat weakly, trying to control her breathing.

‘Did someone hurt her?’ she asks in a ragged voice. ‘Did they hit her, did they hit Natalia?’

Her face contorts again as she tries to hold her tears back, but they run down her cheeks.

Joona takes some napkins from a pack on the worktop and hands them to her, then pulls a chair over and sits down in front of her.

‘If you know anything at all, it’s very important that you tell us,’ he says sternly.

‘What could I know?’ she says, looking at them in confusion.

‘We’re just trying to find the person who did this,’ Nelly says, brushing the hair from Irina’s face.

‘You spoke to your sister on the phone,’ Joona goes on. ‘Did she tell you where she lived, or what her job was?’

‘There are those men who trick girls from poor countries, who say they’re going to get good jobs, but Natalia was smart, she said it wasn’t anything like that, that it was real. She promised me, but I’ve been to the furniture factory... no one there had heard of Natalia, durnaja dziau ˇ tjynka ... They’re not employing anyone, haven’t done for years.’

Her eyes are red from crying, and tiny red spots have appeared on the fair skin of her forehead.

‘What’s the name of the factory?’ Erik asks.

‘Sofa Zone,’ she says blankly. ‘It’s out in Högdalen.’

Nelly remains seated on the floor with Irina, stroking her head and promising to stay with her for as long as she wants. Erik exchanges a quick glance with Nelly, then walks back out through the noisy kitchen with Joona.

Margot Silverman is sitting in front of a computer in the investigation room, looking at Erik’s recording of Rocky’s hypnosis again.

His large head is drooping forward as he describes his visit to the Zone in a languid voice. He talks about the dealers and strippers, and the fact that he thought he could pick up some money there.

As Margot listens her eyes drift along the walls of the room. The victims’ patterns of movement are marked in three different colours on the large map.

Every place, every street where they could have come into contact with the preacher is marked.

On the screen, Rocky shakes his head as he says that the preacher smells of fish-guts.

Margot sees the pin in the map marking Rebecka Hansson’s home in Salem.

Serial killers usually stick to their home patch, but in this case the locations are spread out across the most densely populated metropolitan district in Scandinavia.

‘ The preacher snorts back some snot, then starts to speak in a really high voice ,’ Rocky says, breathing unevenly.

Margot shudders, and watches the big man squirm on his chair and howl with angst as he describes the way the preacher cuts the woman’s arm off.

‘ It sounds like when you stick a spade into mud ...’

After the discovery out in Skogskyrkogården, no one doubts that the preacher is the serial killer that they’re all looking for.

She knows it was Joona who persuaded Nils Åhlén to order the body to be exhumed. It would have been much easier if she could work with Joona openly, but Benny Rubin and Petter Näslund are backing up Adam, resisting his involvement.

Margot doesn’t have the authority to let Joona join the investigation, but she’s sure as hell not going to stop him from conducting his own inquiries.

Rocky shakes his head and his shadow moves across the glossy Playboy pinup on the wall behind him.

‘ The preacher chops her arm off at the shoulder ,’ Rocky gasps. ‘ Loosens the tourniquet and drinks ...’

‘ Listen to my voice now ,’ Erik says.

‘ And drinks the blood from her arm... while Tina lies bleeding to death on the floor... Dear God in heaven... Dear God ...’

Inside Margot’s womb the baby moves so violently that she has to lean back and close her eyes for a while.

The preliminary investigation is proceeding systematically according to established routines, but no one really believes that’s going to produce results in time.

The police have knocked on doors and questioned many hundreds of neighbours, they’ve examined all the footage from surveillance and traffic cameras around the crime scenes.