Ларс Кеплер - Stalker

Joona gazes out into the nave. The choir is gathering once more, the choir leader claps her hands to get their attention.

‘You asked for evidence before,’ Margot continues. ‘These fingerprints are evidence, aren’t they?’

‘In a judicial sense,’ he says in a low voice.

‘The searches are still going on,’ she says. ‘We’ve found our serial killer.’

‘Have you?’

Margot puts the bag containing material from the preliminary investigation on Joona’s lap.

‘I really wanted to believe you, and the idea of the preacher,’ she says, leaning back and breathing hard.

‘You should,’ Joona replies.

‘You met Rocky, I arranged for you to be able to question him,’ she says, with a hint of impatience. ‘You said you needed to do that before you could find this unclean preacher.’

‘He doesn’t remember anything now.’

‘Because there isn’t anything to remember,’ she concludes.

The choir starts singing, and the girls’ voices fill the church. Margot tries to make herself more comfortable and tucks her plait over her shoulder.

‘You traced Erik to Småland,’ Joona says.

‘The rapid response team stormed a charter bus and found his phone tucked between two seats.’

‘Oops,’ Joona says drily.

‘He hasn’t put a foot wrong so far, he’s staying out of the way like a professional,’ she says. ‘It’s almost as if he’s been given advice about what to do.’

‘I agree,’ Joona says.

‘Has he contacted you?’ Margot asks.

‘No,’ Joona replies simply.

He looks down at the other bag, still on the floor between them.

‘Is that my pistol?’

‘Yes,’ she replies, pushing the bag towards him with her foot.

‘Thanks,’ Joona says, gazing down into it.

‘If you carry on looking for the preacher, I have to remind you that you’re not doing so on my orders,’ Margot says, starting to squeeze out of the pew again. ‘You haven’t received any material from me, and we never met here — do you understand?’

‘I’m going to find the murderer,’ Joona says quietly.

‘Fine, but we can’t have any more contact...’

Joona pulls out his pistol, under cover of the pew, ejects the magazine in his lap, pulls the bolt back, checks the mechanism, trigger and hammer, then puts the safety catch back on and reinserts the magazine.

‘Who the hell uses a Colt Combat?’ Margot asks. ‘I’d have backache within a week.’

Joona doesn’t reply, just tucks the pistol into his shoulder holster and slips the spare magazine in his jacket pocket.

‘When are you going to accept that Erik might be guilty?’ she asks roughly.

‘You’ll see that I’m right,’ he says, meeting her gaze with icy calmness.

Nelly Brandt is sitting at her computer, typing. Her neatly made-up face is blank with concentration as her blonde hair curls softly over her shoulders. She’s wearing a beige suede skirt and a gold polo-necked sweater that sits tightly round her body.

When Joona comes in and says hello to her she doesn’t answer, just stands up and goes over to the window and picks a deep pink flower from the bush outside.

‘There you go,’ she says, giving the flower to Joona. ‘With my heartfelt thanks for the magnificent detective work—’

‘I can understand that—’

‘Hang on,’ she interrupts. ‘I need to pick another one.’

She reaches out and picks a second flower, and hands it to Joona.

‘For the whole of the Swedish police force,’ she says. ‘Fucking impressive... No, I’m going to have to go out and dig up the whole bush... if you open the boot of your car, then—’

‘Nelly, I know the police have got it wrong,’ Joona says.

It’s as if all the air goes out of her, she sits down at the desk and rests her head on her hands, tries to say something but can’t get the words out.

‘I’m still trying to find the real murderer,’ Joona goes on. ‘But I need someone who can take over where Erik left off.’

‘I’d be happy to help,’ she says, looking up at him.

‘Can you hypnotise people?’

‘No,’ she laughs, taken aback. ‘I thought... that’s not my area, I actually find it a bit creepy.’

‘Do you know anyone who could help me?’

She twists the engagement ring on her freckled finger a couple of times and tilts her head.

‘Hypnosis is tricky,’ she says bluntly. ‘But there are a few people with a good reputation... Not that that’s the same thing as being brilliant. It’s like a generally applicable algorithm: the reputation of the best people in any field goes down to compensate for brilliance.’

‘You mean there’s no one as good as Erik?’

She laughs, flashing her white teeth.

‘Nowhere near as good... even if he’s not exactly doing much for his reputation right now.’

‘Is there someone I could talk to?’

‘Anna Palmer here is supposed to be pretty good. It depends what you’re after. She hasn’t got Erik’s experience when it comes to psychological trauma and states of shock, of course.’

Nelly leads Joona along the corridor, but after a little while she slows down and asks him if she’s in danger.

‘I can’t answer that,’ Joona replies honestly.

‘My husband’s working late all week.’

‘You should ask for police protection.’

‘No, not police protection, this is all too much... It’s just that we noticed that the lock at the back of the house was damaged yesterday.’

‘Have you got someone you can go and stay with?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she says, blushing slightly.

‘Do that, until this is over.’

‘I’ll think about it...’

Anna Palmer sees Joona in a small, book-lined room. There’s a desk, and a narrow window overlooking the hospital grounds. She’s a tall woman with short, lead-grey hair and visible veins beneath her eyes.

‘I know someone who was in a car accident ten years ago,’ Joona begins. ‘He suffered fairly severe brain damage... This isn’t my area, obviously, but the way it’s been explained to me, he suffers from ongoing epileptic activity in the temporal lobes of both sides of his brain.’

‘That can certainly happen,’ she says, jotting down what he says.

‘His big problem is his memory,’ Joona goes on. ‘Short and long-term... sometimes he remembers every detail of an event, sometimes he forgets that it ever took place... I’m hoping that hypnosis might help him break through the barriers.’

Anna Palmer lowers her notepad and folds her hands on the desk. Joona notices tiny red eczema scabs on her knuckles.

‘I don’t want to disappoint you,’ she says in a weary tone of voice. ‘But a lot of people have unrealistic expectations about what hypnosis can be used for.’

‘It’s very important for this person to remember,’ Joona replies.

‘Clinical hypnosis... is about making suggestions, as a sort of internal self-help... and it’s nothing to do with revealing truths,’ she explains apologetically.

‘But this sort of brain injury doesn’t mean that his memory has been erased. It’s all there, it’s just that the path to it is blocked... I mean, couldn’t hypnosis help him to find a different path?’

‘It would certainly be possible to get to that point, if you were very skilful,’ she concedes, scratching the red marks on her hands. ‘But what do you do when you get there? No one would be able to differentiate between his real memories and his imagination, seeing as his brain can’t tell the difference.’

‘Are you sure? I mean, we think we can tell the difference between memory and imagination, we’re convinced that we can.’