David Lagercrantz - The Girl in the Spider's Web

A figure was racing along in the shelter of the trees, and even if Balder did not see the person for more than a matter of seconds, he could make out that it was a powerfully built man with a rucksack and dark clothes. The man ran in a crouch and something about the way he moved had a trained look to it, as if he had run like that many times before, perhaps in a distant war. It took a few moments for Balder to fumble for his mobile, and he tried to work out which of the numbers on his call list belonged to the policemen out there.

He had not put their names into his contacts, and now was uncertain. With a shaking hand he tried one which he thought was right. No-one answered, not at first. The ring tone sounded three, four, five times before a voice panted out, “Blom here, what’s up?”

“I saw a man running along the line of trees by my neighbour’s house. I don’t know where he is now. But he could very well be up by the road near you.”

“O.K., we’ll check it out.”

“He seemed...” Balder said.

“What?”

“I don’t know, quick.”

Dan Flinck and Peter Blom were sitting in the police car chatting about their young colleague, Anna Berzelius, and the size of her bum.

Both had recently got divorced. Their divorces had been pretty painful at first. They both had young children, wives who felt let down and parents-in-law who to varying degrees called them irresponsible shits. But once the dust had settled and they had got shared custody of the children and new if modest homes, they had both been struck by the same realization: that they missed their bachelor days. Lately, during the weeks when they were not looking after the kids, they had lived it up as never before. Afterwards, just like when they were in their teens, they had discussed all the parties in detail, especially the women they had met, reviewing their physiques from top to bottom, and their prowess in bed. But on this occasion they had not had time to discuss Anna Berzelius in as much depth as they would have liked.

Blom’s mobile rang and they both jumped, partly because he had changed his ringtone to an extreme version of “Satisfaction”, but mainly of course because the night and the storm and the emptiness out here had made them edgy. Besides, Blom had his telephone in his pocket, and since his trousers were tight — his waistline had expanded as a result of all the partying — it took a while before he could get it out. When he hung up he looked worried.

“What’s that about?” Flinck said.

“Balder saw a man, a quick bastard, apparently.”

“Where?”

“Down by the trees next to the neighbour’s house. The guy’s probably on his way up towards us.”

Blom and Flinck stepped out of the car. They had been outside many times over the course of this long night, but this was the first time they shivered right down to the bone. For an instant they just stood looking awkwardly to the right and the left, shocked by the cold. Then Blom — the taller of the two — took command and told Flinck to stay up by the road while he himself went down towards the water.

It was a short slope which extended along a wooden fence and a small avenue of newly planted trees. A lot of snow had fallen, it was slippery and at the bottom lay the sea. Baggensfjärden , Blom thought, and in fact he was surprised that the water had not frozen over, but that may have been because of the waves. Blom cursed at the storm and at this night duty which wore him out and ruined his beauty sleep. He tried to do his job all the same, not with his whole heart perhaps, but still.

He listened out for sounds and looked about him, and at first he could not pick out anything from the surroundings. It was dark. Only the light from a single lamp post shone into the property, immediately in front of the jetty, and he went down, past a garden chair which had been flung about in the storm, and in the next moment he could see Balder through the large windowpane.

Balder was standing some way inside the house, bent over a large bed, his body in a tensed position. Perhaps he was straightening the covers, it was hard to tell. He seemed busy with some small detail in the bed. Blom should not be bothering about it — he was meant to be keeping watch over the property — yet there was something in Balder’s body language which fascinated him and for a second or two he lost his concentration before he was brought back to reality again.

He had a chilling feeling that someone was watching him, and he spun around, his eyes searching wildly. He saw nothing, not at first, and had just begun to calm down when he became aware of two things — a sudden movement by the shiny steel bins next to the fence, and the sound of a car up by the road. The engine stopped and a car door was opened.

Neither occurrence was noteworthy in itself. There could be an animal by the rubbish bins and cars could come or go here even late at night. Yet Blom’s body stiffened completely and for a moment he just stood there, not knowing how to react. Then Flinck’s voice could be heard.

“Someone’s coming!”

Blom did not move. He felt that he was being watched and almost unconsciously he fingered the service weapon at his hip and thought of his mother and his ex-wife and his children, as if something serious really was about to happen. Flinck was shouting again, now with a desperate tone in his voice, “Police! You! Stop right there!” and then Blom ran up towards the road, although it did not seem the obvious option even then. He could not rid himself of the apprehension that he was leaving something threatening and unpleasant down there by the steel bins. But if his partner shouted like that, he did not have a choice, did he? And he felt secretly relieved. He had been more frightened than he cared to admit and so he hurried off and came stumbling up onto the road.

Up ahead, Flinck was chasing after an unsteady man with a broad back and clothes that were far too thin and, even though he hardly fitted the description of a “quick bastard”, Blom ran after him. Soon afterwards they brought him down by the side of the ditch, right next to a couple of letterboxes and a small lantern which cast a pale light over the whole scene.

“Who the hell are you?” Flinck bellowed with surprising aggression — he had been scared too — and the man looked at them in confusion and terror.

He was not wearing a hat, he had hoarfrost in his hair and in the stubble on his chin and you could tell that he was cold and in pretty bad shape. But above all there was something extraordinarily familiar about his face.

For a few seconds Blom thought that they had arrested a known and wanted criminal and he swelled with pride.

Balder had gone back to the bedroom and tucked August in again, perhaps to hide him under the blanket if anything should happen. Then he had a completely crazy thought, prompted by the sense of foreboding he had just felt, which was accentuated by his conversation with Warburton. Probably his mind was just clouded by panic and fear.

He realized it was not a new idea but something which had been developing in his subconscious during many sleepless nights in California. So he got out his laptop, his own little supercomputer connected to a series of other machines for sufficient capacity, and opened the A.I. program to which he had dedicated his life, and then...

He deleted the file and all of the back-up. He barely thought it through. He was like an evil God snuffing out a life, and perhaps that was exactly what he was doing. Nobody knew, not even he himself, and he sat there for a little while, wondering if he would be floored by remorse and regret. It was incomprehensible, wasn’t it? His life’s work was gone, with just a few taps of a key.