Ларс Кеплер - Stalker

‘You can’t do that!’ Arne exclaims.

Crumbs of cement rain down on the floor as Joona yanks up the skirting board. The top screws are stuck and Joona jerks hard, twisting the metal until there’s a bang as the last screws come loose.

‘Are you listening?’ Arne says, drawing his baton. ‘I’m talking to you.’

Joona takes no notice of him. He holds the skirting board out in front of him, stamps down hard with his foot, bends down and turns it, then stamps again.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Arne asks with a nervous smile, coming closer.

‘I’m sorry,’ Joona says simply.

He knows what sort of training Arne Melander has received, and that he’s going to approach with his left hand outstretched, trying to hold him off while he attempts to strike Joona on the thighs and upper arms with sweeping movements of the baton.

Joona moves towards him with long strides, knocks his arm away and then lands his elbow in the heavy man’s chest, making him stagger back. His knees give way but he puts out a hand to support himself and manages to sit down on the floor.

Joona stumbles forward from the momentum of the blow, but stays on his feet and snatches the prison officer’s alarm from him before he has time to react. He cuts his lower arm as he puts the bent part of the skirting board around Arne’s neck, then pulls the handcuffs from his belt and attaches one cuff to the point where the ends of the skirting board intersect.

‘Stand up and let Rocky out,’ he says.

Arne coughs and turns round heavily, crawls to the wall and leans against it as he gets to his feet.

‘Unlock the door.’

Arne’s hands are free, but Joona is steering him from behind with the protruding ends of the skirting board. His neck is trapped in the noose-like bend, the sharp edges of the metal pressing against his neck.

‘Don’t do this,’ Arne pants.

Sweat is running down his face and his hands are shaking as he unlocks the door of the interview room. Rocky comes out, picks up the baton and presses it on the floor to make it contract again.

‘Arne, if you help us we’ll be out in four minutes and then I’ll let you go,’ Joona says.

The prison officer limps ahead of Joona, and keeps trying to slip his fingers under the metal noose.

‘Use your passcard and type in the code,’ Joona says, steering him towards the lift.

As they travel down through the building Arne holds one hand against the mirror and keeps looking up at the camera in the hope that someone will see him.

The metal has already cut through one layer of the duct-tape around Joona’s hands.

When they emerge into the lobby it takes just a matter of seconds before the rest of the prison staff realise what’s going on. Like a pressure wave, the atmosphere goes from relaxed to intense. Some sort of silent alarm has evidently been activated, a light is flashing beneath one desk, and prison officers who had been sitting talking moments before hurry to their feet. Chairs scrape the floor, papers fall to the ground.

‘Let us through!’ Joona calls, steering Arne towards the exit.

Seven guards are approaching anxiously from the corridor, they’re clearly having trouble reading the situation, and Joona tells Rocky to watch his back.

Rocky extends the baton again and walks backwards behind Joona towards the airlock.

The officer who was sitting in the security command centre hurries over. His task now is to slow things down and delay the escape for as long as possible.

‘I can’t let you out,’ he says. ‘But if you give yourselves up, then—’

‘Look at your colleague,’ Joona interrupts.

Arne whimpers as Joona pulls the ends of the metal outwards. The noose tightens around his neck and blood starts to trickle down his dark sweater. He tries to hold the metal back with his hands, but stands no chance.

‘Stop!’ the security officer yells. ‘For God’s sake, stop!’

Arne stumbles sideways, into a display of information for visitors, sending brochures falling to the ground around him.

‘I’ll let him go when we get outside,’ Joona says.

‘OK, everyone move back,’ the security officer says. ‘Let them through, let them go.’

They pass through the bleeping metal detector. Prison officers and other staff get out of the way. One officer is recording everything on his mobile phone.

‘Forward,’ Joona says.

Arne whimpers quietly as they approach the exit.

‘Oh, God,’ he whispers, holding his left arm.

A dog is barking frantically on the other side of the security airlock, as guards rush outside the glass doors to get into formation.

‘Let them through!’ the security officer calls, following them out through the airlock. ‘I’ll come with you, make sure you get out.’

He pulls out his card, taps in the code and opens the door.

‘Who the hell are you, really?’ he gasps, looking at Joona Linna.

Outside the prison the sun is shining, the sky is a radiant blue above them as they walk across the paved entrance area towards Joona’s grey Porsche.

Joona walks round the vehicle and pushes Arne to the ground, and apologises as he fastens the other handcuff to the metal fence behind the car. The security officer stands and watches them as the prison guards mill about inside the glass doors only a dozen metres away from them.

Joona gets in quickly and starts the car.

Before Rocky has time to close the door he drives over the kerb, down the grass slope, past the cement blocks and out on to the road, where he accelerates hard towards the forest where the old Volvo is waiting.

Nestor was taken to the Karolinska University Hospital in Huddinge, where a team operated on him and managed to stop the bleeding. Nestor was lucky, his condition is already stable, and he’s been moved from the Intensive Care Unit.

Margot has put two uniformed officers outside the post-operative care unit.

Nestor is conscious again, but in a state of severe shock. He’s being given extra oxygen through a tube in his nose, and the saturation of his blood is under constant monitoring. A pleural drain has been inserted above his diaphragm, and bubbly blood is running out through the tube.

Nelly has spoken to Nestor’s consultant and has suggested a low-level sedative out of consideration for his medical history.

Nestor cries the whole time Margot tries to explain the chain of events from the police’s point of view, up to the storming of his flat.

‘But Erik wasn’t there — so where was he?’ she asks.

‘I d-don’t know,’ Nestor sobs.

‘Why did you call and say that...’

‘Nestor, you have to understand that none of what happened is your fault, it was just an accident,’ Nelly says, holding his hand.

‘Has Erik been in touch with you at all?’ Margot asks.

‘I d-don’t know,’ he repeats, staring past her.

‘Of course you know.’

‘I d-don’t want to talk to you,’ he says quietly, and turns his face away.

‘What line of work are you in?’ Margot asks, taking a ham sandwich out of her large bag.

‘I’m retired... but I d-do a bit of gardening work...’

‘Where?’

‘For the council... d-different places,’ he says.

‘Do you have a lot of trouble with weeds?’ Margot asks.

‘Not really,’ he says, looking curious.

‘Stinging nettles?’

‘No,’ he says, picking at a tube.

‘Nestor,’ Nelly says gently. ‘You’ve probably worked out that Erik and I are good friends... and like you I think it would be best for him to hand himself in to the police.’

Tears well up in Nestor’s eyes again, and Margot goes over to the window so she doesn’t have to watch him cry.