Ларс Кеплер - The Rabbit Hunter

‘You realise you’re going to have to give us the computer,’ he says patiently.

‘No,’ Saga replies.

Before they reach her she drops the thin laptop between the grille of a drain-cover. There’s a splash as it hits the water below. The two agents stop and stare at her.

‘That was a bit stupid, wasn’t it?’ the older agent says with a frown.

‘You have to come with us, Bauer,’ the other one says.

‘You should have seen the looks on your faces,’ she says, smiling, and heads off along the side of the building with the two agents.

She’s much shorter than them, and her leather jacket shimmers damply from her wet hair.

‘Do you want me to do anything for you?’ Joona calls after her.

‘You need to call Verner,’ she replies, turning to look at him. ‘He promised you wouldn’t have to go back to prison.’

Once Saga is in the agents’ car and they’ve driven off, Joona takes out his phone and tries Carlos again, then calls the Security Police Communication Centre.

‘Security Police.’

‘I want to speak to Verner Sandén,’ Joona says.

‘He’s in a meeting right now.’

‘He needs to take this call.’

‘Who shall I say is calling?’ the woman asks.

‘Joona Linna. He knows who I am.’

The line crackles, then Joona hears a recorded voice encouraging him to follow the Security Police on Twitter and Facebook. The voice stops abruptly when the woman comes back.

‘He says he doesn’t know you,’ she says in a reserved voice.

‘Tell him—’

‘He’s in a meeting and can’t take any calls right now,’ she interrupts, then ends the call before he has time to say anything else.

Even though Joona knows there’s no point, he calls the main government building and says that the Prime Minister is expecting a call from him. In a friendly voice, the secretary asks Joona to send an email to the admin department.

‘The address is on our website,’ he says, then hangs up.

Joona gets in the car and dials Janus Mickelsen’s number, but the call doesn’t go through and an automated voice informs him that the number is not in use. He tries the other contacts on the borrowed phone, but none of the numbers is in use now.

He looks at his watch.

If he starts driving now, he can be back at Kumla in time. He has no alternative. He can’t risk getting an extended prison sentence.

He starts the car and reverses out, then stops to let a woman and guide-dog pass on the pavement before turning right towards Norrtull.

The news on the radio includes a report that says the security services have averted a major attack on Sweden. As usual, no details of the operation are given, including whether the suspected terrorists were arrested. The Security Police’s Press Officer has issued a statement praising comprehensive strategic surveillance and a highly successful operation.

Joona walks across the wide stretch of tarmac and hears the electronic gates clang shut behind him.

He walks into the shadow of the dirty yellow wall of the prison, stops ten metres from the command centre and makes one last attempt to reach Carlos. A recorded voice informs him that the Chief of Police is busy and will be unavailable all day.

As he is checked back in, it feels like time is slowing down. His hands move sluggishly as they place his watch, wallet, car keys and phone in the blue plastic tray.

A guard with nicotine-stained fingers counts his money, then signs a receipt for the amount.

Joona gets undressed and walks naked through the security scanner. Big bruises have blossomed like thunderclouds across his chest, and the wound from the axe has swollen, making the black stitches stick out.

‘I see you had fun out there,’ the guard says.

Joona sits down on the worn wooden bench and puts on the colourless prison clothes and trainers.

‘It says here that you’re going to be put in solitary confinement,’ the guard goes on.

‘What for? I didn’t request isolation,’ Joona says, taking the grey sack containing linen and hygiene items.

Another prison guard takes Joona to his new section.

The empty tunnel smells like damp concrete and the only sound is the guard’s radio.

Joona tells himself to stop worrying about the killer, he knows he’s going to be cut off from the outside world from now on.

He isn’t involved in the investigation.

He’s no longer a police officer.

They emerge into the isolation unit and he is signed in. He has the rules explained to him, then is led along a silent hallway to his new room, the confined space where he will be spending every hour of the day without any contact with the other inmates.

When the door of the isolation cell slams shut behind him, he goes over to the heavily barred window and stares out at the yellow wall.

‘ Olen väsynyt tähan hotelliin ,’ Joona says to himself in Finnish.

He puts the grey sack on the bunk and thinks about the fact that the killer had rabbits’ ears tied around his head like trophies, or fetishised symbols.

Perhaps hunting and killing rabbits was a form of ritual preparation before the murder.

He’s killed William Fock and is planning to kill Absalon Ratjen, Joona thinks, picking two pieces of grit from the floor and putting them on the narrow windowsill.

Two victims.

He leans over and looks more closely: one piece of grit is yellowish quartz, with a pointed end, and the other has a shiny surface, like a fish-scale.

Joona thinks about the recording of the child’s voice, and the rhyme about the rabbits going to hell, one after the other.

Ten little rabbits, he says to himself.

Joona looks under the bed, picks up another eight pieces of grit and lines them up on the windowsill beside the others.

The perpetrator is hunting rabbits. He’s going to kill all ten of them.

Time doesn’t really seem to reach the isolation cell.

People in prison are dying almost imperceptibly.

Joona stands still and watches the light move slowly across the row of tiny stones. The shadows get longer, turn like the hands of a clock.

Every piece of grit is its own sundial.

The Security Police thought they were hunting terrorists.

A terrorist would have been a hell of a lot easier than an elite soldier who’s cracked, he thinks.

A spree killer.

A trained terrorist would never leave a witness alive, but for spree killers it’s important not to kill the wrong people.

He could have a religious or political motive, just like a terrorist. The biggest difference is that he doesn’t answer to anyone but himself.

And that’s what makes him so hard to predict.

Joona runs a hand through his unruly hair.

The chrome around the hatch in the door is full of fingerprints. The light-switch is grimy with dirt, and there are pale lumps of chewing tobacco stuck to the ceiling.

It doesn’t really make any difference if the police are hunting a serial killer, a rampage killer or a spree killer. The decisive factor is the way that their motivation and behaviour fit together.

A particular background can nudge someone in a particular direction, which leads to a particular modus operandi.

A ‘spree killer’ is ‘a person who commits two or more murders without any cooling-off period’, according to the FBI.

No killer is going to fit any definition perfectly, but some of the pieces of the puzzle can become easier to slot into place with the right knowledge.

A mass murderer commits his killings in one place, whereas a spree killer moves around.

A serial killer often sexualises his murders, whereas a spree killer rationalises his.

The gap between killings is rarely longer than seven days.