Ларс Кеплер - The Rabbit Hunter

He closes his eyes, then opens them, and is just thinking that this is how it ends when he sees a figure through the rain. Someone is walking up the driveway towards them.

Joona has made his way to the driveway and is walking towards the two figures. The ground itself looks like it’s shaking. He knew he had precisely nineteen minutes to save Rex from the moment the bullet hit his stomach.

The murderer has followed the same pattern every time.

There are two minutes left.

Joona knew he would have just enough time to get Sammy out, and then return before David Jordan decides it’s finally time to execute Rex.

Rain is running through his eyebrows and he’s having difficulty seeing. With each step he takes his pistol swings in the holster inside his soaked jacket. He hasn’t yet revealed to DJ the fact that he’s armed.

The Rabbit Hunter grabs Rex by his hair and pulls his head back, but lets the blade of the knife rest on his shoulder. He stares at the man walking towards them, trying to figure out what he could possibly want. Why is he coming back? He must have realised how serious the situation is, and that he should be doing everything he can to get away from them.

The emergency vehicles will be here in five minutes.

That’s fine.

He has time to do what he needs to do. Nothing else matters, he thinks, and looks at his watch.

The symmetry of vengeance is perfect.

Rex spawned his own nemesis during the rape. At the precise moment of the crime, two cells came together to form the life that grew inside Grace’s womb, the embryo that went with her to Chicago, the child that was born in secret and grew up to become a rabbit hunter who, thirty years later, has returned to punish the rapist.

The stranger is striding towards them along the drive.

The rain is pouring down on them, lashing the bushes until they’re almost flattened.

Without any haste, the Rabbit Hunter moves the blade to Rex’s neck and watches as the tall man seems to slow down mid-stride. He unbuttons the last button on his jacket, puts his hand in and pulls out a pistol, then raises it, all in the same fluid, concentrated movement.

The Rabbit Hunter doesn’t have time to react. It’s as if he can’t comprehend, can’t accept that this is happening.

Joona strides through the rain as he shoots David Jordan three times straight in the chest.

The recoil kicks back, and the final white flare of the barrel shimmers in the grey light like a small explosion.

David Jordan is thrown backwards and lands heavily on his back. The sound of the gunshots echoes off the mountains.

Joona walks the last few steps towards the killer with his pistol aimed at him, and kicks the knife away. The rain is still pouring down on them, rebounding off the ground. David Jordan lies on his back, staring up at him.

‘You had a gun the whole time,’ he says in amazement.

Joona sees that the three entry wounds are all in the centre of his chest and knows that David Jordan has no more than a couple of minutes to live.

There’s no hope of saving him.

Water is gushing down the driveway, carrying the blood away with it.

Joona holds the pistol against David Jordan’s forehead as he quickly searches his clothes, then he stands up and puts his pistol back in its holster.

David Jordan coughs up blood and stares up at the black sky. The falling rain gives him a dizzying sense of being carried upward at great speed.

Rex hasn’t moved. He’s still kneeling on the drive. At first he doesn’t want to lie down when Joona tries to help him.

‘Sammy,’ he gasps.

‘Don’t worry, he’s fine,’ Joona says, gently laying Rex down on his side.

Rex’s lips are white and his body is shaking, as if he has a fever. Joona rips Rex’s shirt open and sees blood seeping from the bullet-hole in his abdomen. One of his kidneys has probably been hit. He’s in serious pain, and will soon go into shock.

Joona’s phone rings. He sees that it’s an American number and guesses it’s Saga. He answers, and says he can’t talk right now.

‘This is important,’ Saga says. ‘I’ve talked to Grace again, and Rex is David Jordan’s father.’

‘But he didn’t take part in the rape,’ Joona says.

David Jordan is lying on his back with his mouth open, but his eyes are still blinking when the raindrops hit them.

The first of the emergency vehicles are driving past the little church, their blue lights sweeping across its dark-red wood.

Joona switches his phone to speaker and puts it down.

‘Did you hear what I said?’ Saga says.

‘Yes,’ Joona replies as he helps Rex to raise his knees slightly to ease the pressure in his blood-filled abdomen.

‘It might not matter any more,’ she says. ‘But David Jordan wasn’t the result of the rape, like he thought — he was actually the fruit of true love.’

Saga goes on talking, but the phone starts to crackle and fade, then her voice vanishes altogether when the screen goes dead.

Rex tries to turn his head to look at DJ, but he doesn’t have the strength. Blood is seeping out between Joona’s fingers and onto the driveway.

Police and paramedics are running towards them now.

DJ has stopped breathing. His face is perfectly calm. Maybe he heard Saga’s words before he died and understood what she was saying.

Joona stands up slowly and starts to walk down the slope. He sees Sammy walk towards the ambulance beside his father. The stone-coloured rain is still battering the valley and lake, and the entire landscape is etched in silver.

Rex walks over to the edge of the swimming pool and looks at the smoke drifting over the teal water. He raises his head and watches the moths flying around the lanterns in the leafy garden.

The fat sizzles as it drips onto the coals, and tiny flames flare up around the thick steaks.

Sammy has set the long table on the deck, and is now blowing up a big, pink inflatable rabbit. Veronica is sitting a short distance away on the hammock, drinking red wine with Umaru, a man she met in Sierra Leone. His nine-year-old daughter comes out through the doors with a bowl of salad.

Rex flew to Chicago with David Jordan’s body, and sat next to Grace at the funeral, holding her hand. She’d taken so many tranquillisers that he had to help support her at the church. As they walked past the pews after the brief service he heard her whisper ‘Sorry’, over and over again.

Rex goes over to the grill and turns the steaks, sees that they look perfect, and drinks some mineral water before putting Sammy’s soya steaks on the grill. He’s just about to get the potato and artichoke gratin from the kitchen when his phone rings.

‘Rex,’ he says as he answers, poking the steaks with the tongs.

‘Hello Rex, this is Edith,’ a high voice says.

‘Hello,’ he says uncertainly.

‘We met just after you won the Chef of Chefs award.’

‘I know — I’ve been thinking about calling, but—’

‘I’m pregnant,’ she says.

‘Congratulations,’ he says without thinking.

‘And you’re the father.’

It’s already evening when Valeria picks up the apples and carries the baskets into the store. She goes up to the house and runs a bath, adding some oil and a few drops of perfume.

With a sigh she sinks into the hot water and feels her muscles relax as she thinks about the fact that Joona never called back after she left that voicemail.

She understands why, though. She pushed him away for no reason, simply because he was who he was.

He’s always going to be a police officer.

Valeria let two months pass but couldn’t stop thinking about him, so last week she picked up the phone and tried to contact him again. It turned out that he’d never received her message.