Ларс Кеплер - Stalker

Joona seemed so sure of what he had said that the only thing on Erik’s mind was that he mustn’t lose the preacher now that they were so close.

The yellow oilskin glinted in the darkness over by the cars, and Erik followed as quickly as he could without being heard. The preacher walked out through the gates and stopped in front of the blue car.

He has now been following the red tail-lights for quarter of an hour, and keeps telling himself that he mustn’t let too much of a gap form. He speeds up a little on a long straight past a bare-grit football pitch and a school. The sparse lights of a large housing estate flicker through the greenery.

A night bus pulls out from a stop and Erik has to slow down. He loses sight of the preacher, puts his foot down and overtakes the bus on the wrong side of a central reservation.

A set of traffic lights ahead turns red. Erik speeds up, swerves and just makes it past the back of a car crossing his path.

It’s already too late, though, as he realises that the blue Peugeot has turned off to the right. He sees its lights flickering between the houses.

There’s no time to think if he isn’t to lose the preacher altogether.

Erik turns into the next road, and in the boot a bag of empty bottles for recycling falls over. He’s trying to double-guess the other car’s likely direction as he drives past lush gardens and dark houses.

He brakes and turns left, glancing the side of a letterbox and accelerating hard past a number of villas, then realises that there’s a dead end up ahead, beyond the next junction, and brakes hard, sending the tyres skidding across the tarmac, jerks the wheel and swerves sharply to the right.

The back wheels lose their grip and there’s a crash as the rear wing hits an electricity pole. The bottles in the boot shatter as Erik lurches out on to the main road again.

He accelerates hard up a hill, reaches the top and just manages to spot the preacher driving into the tunnel under the motorway bridge.

He slows down and feels his hands shaking on the steering wheel. The wing mirror has come loose again and is dangling from its wires.

Someone has sprayed the words ‘Another world is possible’ on the concrete walls of the tunnel.

Everything goes dark, then a moment later he emerges into an area of attractive four-storey buildings.

The blue Peugeot passes a bin lorry emptying dustbins with measured mechanical movements, and Erik wonders if the preacher lives here in Hökmossen.

Even though he has a reasonable grasp on reality, the idea of the preacher having an ordinary life seems incredible: a man who stabs knives into the faces of his victims long after they’re dead, then goes home to his lovely villa with apple trees and lawn-sprinklers and sits down to watch television with his family.

Erik follows the blue car as it turns right off Korpmossevägen and into Klensmedsvägen.

The preacher slows down and stops just after the third side-street.

Without changing his speed, Erik drives past the blue car and looks in the rear-view mirror as the light inside the car goes out. He passes a small patch of woodland, turns into the next road, stops and hurries back. The yellow raincoat is disappearing into the forest to the left of the road, and Erik stops on the pavement and realises how badly his legs are shaking.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is located on Järfallavägen, next to a large, tarmacked car park. It’s a low building with a terracotta-coloured façade, panelled roof and a red tower rising from the centre of a circular stone foundation.

Stake president Thomas Apel lives with his wife and two children in a cement-grey villa very close to the temple. From the garden’s wooden decking with its covered barbeque, the red tower is visible above the trees and tiled roofs.

Adam and Margot are sitting in the living room with glasses of lemonade. Thomas Apel and his wife Ingrid are sitting opposite them. Thomas is a skinny man, dressed in grey trousers, a white shirt, and a pale grey tie. His face is clean-shaven and thin, with fair eyebrows and a narrow, crooked mouth.

Margot has just asked Thomas where he was at the times of the murders, and he’s replied that he was at home with his family.

‘Is there anyone else who could vouch for that?’ Margot asks, looking at Ingrid.

‘Well, of course the children were at home,’ Thomas’s wife says in an amiable voice.

‘No one else?’ Adam asks.

‘We lead a quiet life,’ Thomas replies, as if that explained everything.

‘You have a lovely home,’ Margot says, glancing round the smart room.

An African mask is hanging on the wall next to a painting of a woman in a black dress with a red book in her lap.

‘Thank you,’ Ingrid says.

‘Each family is a kingdom,’ Thomas says. ‘Ingrid is my queen, the girls princesses.’

‘Naturally.’ Margot smiles.

She looks at Ingrid’s face, free of make-up, at the small pearls in her earlobes, and the long dress that reaches up to her neck and halfway over her hands.

‘You probably think we dress in a very old-fashioned, boring way,’ Ingrid says when she sees Margot looking.

‘It looks nice,’ Margot lies, and tries to find a comfortable position on the deep sofa with crocheted antimacassars on the back.

Thomas leans forward, pours more lemonade in her glass, and she thanks him soundlessly.

‘Our lives aren’t boring,’ Thomas says calmly. ‘There’s nothing boring about not using drugs, or alcohol or tobacco... or coffee or tea.’

‘Why not coffee?’ Adam asks.

‘Because the body is a gift from God,’ he replies simply.

‘If it’s a gift, then surely you can drink coffee if you want to?’ Adam retorts.

‘Of course, it isn’t set in stone,’ Thomas says lightly. ‘It’s just guidance...’

‘OK,’ Adam nods.

‘But if we listen to this guidance, the Lord promises that the angel of death will pass our home and not kill us.’ Thomas smiles.

‘How quickly does the angel come if you mess up badly?’ Margot asks.

‘You said you wanted to look at my diary?’ Thomas says, the veins in his temples darkening slightly.

‘I’ll get it,’ Ingrid volunteers, and rises to her feet.

‘I’ll just get some water,’ Margot says, and follows her.

Thomas makes a move to stand up but Adam stops him by asking about the role of the stake president.

Ingrid is standing at a bureau looking for the diary when Margot walks into the immaculately tidy kitchen.

‘Could I have some water?’ Margot asks.

‘Yes, of course,’ Ingrid says.

‘Were you here last Sunday?’

‘Yes,’ the woman replies, and a tiny frown appears across the bridge of her nose. ‘We were at home.’

‘What did you do?’

‘We did... the usual, we had dinner and watched television.’

‘What was on television?’ she asks

‘We only watch Mormon television,’ Ingrid says, checking that the tap is properly turned off.

‘Does your husband ever go out alone in the evening?’

‘No.’

‘Not even to the temple?’

‘I’ll have a look in the bedroom,’ the woman says, her cheeks flushing as she leaves the kitchen.

Margot drinks, then puts the glass down on the worktop and goes back out to the living room. She can see the tension in Adam’s face, and a tiny hint of sweat above his top lip.

‘Are you on any medication?’ Adam asks.

‘No,’ Thomas replies, wiping his palms on his pale grey trousers.

‘No psychoactive drugs, no anti-depressants?’ Margot asks, sitting down on the sofa again.

‘Why do you want to know that?’ he asks, looking at her with calm, blank eyes.