Lars Kepler - Hunter

Jeanette is elegantly dressed as usual. She’s eating salad from a plastic container.‘You know I’m not hitting on you, but you really are ridiculously attractive,’ she says, pushing her plastic fork into the salad. ‘I somehow forget about it every time … some sort of self-preservation instinct, I assume.’

Jeanette puts the rest of the salad in the fridge. They walk towards the lifts.

‘How’s your appeal going?’ Saga asks.

‘I’ve been turned down.’

‘Sorry to hear that.’

Jeanette waited eight years for her husband to decide he was ready to have children, and then he left her. She then spent three years trying Internet dating before applying for artificial insemination from the Swedish health service.

‘I don’t know, if they say no, I might go down to Denmark to do it … but I still want the child to speak Swedish,’ Jeanette jokes as she gets into the lift with Saga.

She presses the button for the lowest level.

‘I’ve only read the initial report on my phone,’ Saga says.

‘They were too rough on the girl. She got scared and clammed up,’ Jeanette says. ‘They had orders to go in hard.’

‘Who gave the orders?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jeanette replies.

The lift descends quickly. The light from the cage reflects off the rough rock walls, and the counterweight shimmers briefly as it glides up past them.

‘Sofia’s afraid of being hurt again. She needs someone who’ll listen to her, protect her.’

‘Who doesn’t need that?’ Saga smiles.

They reach the bottom and walk quickly down the hallway. At this depth everything seems still and grey.

Sofia Stefansson’s story has been corroborated by the discovery of a high dose of the fast-acting sedative flunitrazepam in her blood. Her wrists and ankles are wounded and there’s bruising on the inside of her thighs. Her fingerprints have been found on the chair that smashed the window.

If her story is true, then she’s a victim according to the law prohibiting the purchase of sexual services: she was assaulted and exploited by her customer, and should be allowed to speak to both the police and a psychologist.

But since she could also be involved in a serious act of terrorism, the law doesn’t matter.

‘I think it’s best if I wait in the control room to start,’ Jeanette says.

Saga taps in the code and opens the door to the former ice-store.

The lighting in the windowless room is very bright. A security camera is recording at all times.

The store was built to fit two hundred tons of ice to keep the shelter cool in case of nuclear war.

Sofia Stefansson is standing uncomfortably in the middle of the floor on a plastic sheet. Her shoulders are pulled back tightly, and her hands are tied behind her back. Her weight is held by the cable she’s hooked to, which stretches up to a plank beneath one of the beams. Her head is lowered and her lank hair hides her face.

Saga walks straight over to Sofia. She makes sure she’s still alive and then explains that she’s going to lower her to the ground.

Saga starts to turn the winch. Sofia gradually sinks to the floor. One of her legs starts to buckle.

‘Put your heels on the floor and take the strain,’ Saga calls.

The skin on Sofia’s ankles is torn, and Saga thinks of the bloody straps around the bedposts upstairs in the house.

First she was there, and now she’s down here.

Sofia is lying on her side on the plastic sheet. Her breathing is laboured. She looks even younger without makeup. She could be very young. Her eyelids are swollen and the bruising around her neck is more pronounced.

When Saga loosens the straps on her arms she starts to tremble and her body tenses up.

‘Don’t hurt me,’ she gasps. ‘Please, I don’t know anything.’

Saga winches the empty cable back up towards the ceiling, then pulls a chair over to Sofia.

‘My name is Saga Bauer. I’m an officer with the Security Police.’

‘No more,’ she whispers. ‘Please, I can’t bear it.’

‘Sofia, listen to me … I didn’t know they were treating you like this. I’m sorry about that, and I will be bringing it to my boss this afternoon,’ Saga says.

Sofia lifts her head off the floor. Her cheeks are smeared with tears. All her jewellery has been removed, and her brown hair is plastered to her pale face with sweat.

Saga has experienced waterboarding. It formed part of her advanced training, but she doesn’t consider it particularly effective.

She looks over at a bucket of bloody water with a towel floating in it, and thinks to herself that the only thing torture reveals is the torturer’s own secrets.

Saga gets a bottle of water and helps Sofia drink some, then gives her a piece of chocolate.

‘When can I go home?’ Sofia whispers.

‘I don’t know. We need answers to a few questions first,’ Saga says apologetically.

‘I already told you all I know. I haven’t done anything wrong. I don’t understand why I’m here,’ Sofia sobs.

‘I believe you, but I still need to know what you were doing in that house.’

‘I already told them everything,’ she whimpers.

‘Tell me,’ Saga says gently.

Sofia slowly raises her stiff arms to wipe the tears from her eyes.

‘I work as an escort, and he contacted me,’ she replies in a thin voice.

‘How did he contact you?’

‘I advertise, and he wrote an email explaining what he was interested in.’

The young woman sits up slowly, and accepts another piece of chocolate.

‘You had pepper spray with you. Do you usually have that?’

‘Yes, usually, although most people are pretty kind and considerate … I actually have more trouble with people falling in love with me than people getting violent.’

‘Is there anyone who knows where you’re going, who can come if you need help?’

‘I write the names and addresses in a book … and Tamara, she’s my best friend, she’d already had him as a client and didn’t have any trouble.’

‘What’s Tamara’s last name?’

‘Jensen.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘She moved to Gothenburg.’

‘Do you have a phone number?’

‘Yes, but I don’t know if it works.’

‘Do you have other friends working as escorts?’

‘No.’

Saga takes a few steps back and looks at Sofia. She thinks she’s telling the truth about her work.

There’s nothing that contradicts her story, even though there’s little that backs it up.

‘What do you know about your client?’

‘Nothing. He was just prepared to pay a lot of money to be tied up in bed,’ Sofia replies.

‘And did you tie him to the bed?’

‘Why do you all keep asking the same thing? I don’t get it. I’m not lying. Why would I lie?’

‘Just tell me what really happened, Sofia,’ Saga says, trying to catch her eye.

‘He drugged me and tied me to the bed.’

‘What did the bed look like?’

‘It was big. I don’t remember much about it. Why does that matter?’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘Nothing.’

Forensics have been through her computer, mobile phone and the notebook with the addresses – there’s nothing that suggests Sofia realised her client was Sweden’s Foreign Minister.

Saga looks at the young woman’s drained face. It occurs to her that Sofia could be sticking to her original story a little too well. It’s almost as if she’s avoiding certain details in order not to be found out telling lies.

‘Was there a car parked outside the gate when you arrived?’

‘No.’

‘What did he say on the intercom when you rang the bell?’ Saga asks.

‘I don’t know who he is,’ Sofia says, her voice close to breaking. ‘I get that he’s rich and important, but I don’t know anything about him, just that he said his name was Wille. But it’s normal for men to use fake names.’