Stalker

106

Joona sits down on a chair for the first time in several hours and reads more about the killer’s steps in Sandra Lundgren’s flat, looks at the sketches and thinks that there’s something unusually agitated and frenetic about the murders. They’re planned, but they aren’t rational.

Joona compares this with the post-mortem reports’ description of theatrical aggression, but can’t help thinking that the degree of controlled preparation is actually a disguise, and that the aggression itself is the perpetrator’s natural state.

He is about to make a note to investigate the medical history of Erik’s former patient when his phone rings.

‘Joona, it’s me,’ Erik whispers. ‘They tried to kill me. I was hiding out at Nestor’s, he’s an old patient of mine, the police must have thought it was me they could see in the window. They shot him twice, it was like an execution. I didn’t think the police in Sweden could do something like that, it’s completely insane.’

‘Are you somewhere safe now?’

‘Yes, I think so… You know, he only came back to tell me what he’d done, to say that the police had promised not to hurt me, and then they shot him through the window.’

‘Has it occurred to you that he could be the preacher?’

‘He isn’t,’ Erik replies instantly.

‘What was his problem when he was-’

‘Joona, that doesn’t matter, I just want a trial, I don’t care if they convict me, I can’t stay-’

‘Erik, I don’t think I’m being monitored, but don’t tell me where you are,’ Joona interrupts. ‘I only want to know how long you can stay hidden where you are.’

The phone crackles as Erik moves.

‘I don’t know, twenty-four hours, maybe,’ he whispers. ‘There’s a tap here, but nothing to eat.’

‘Are you likely to be found?’

‘There’s probably not much risk of that,’ Erik replies, then falls silent.

‘Erik?’

‘I don’t understand how I could have ended up in this situation,’ he says quietly. ‘Everything I’ve done has only made things worse.’

‘I’m going to find the preacher,’ Joona says.

‘It’s too late for that, it’s too late for everything now, I just want to give myself up without being killed!’

Joona can hear Erik’s agitated breathing down the phone.

‘If we manage to hand you over and keep you alive in prison, these crimes carry a life sentence,’ Joona says.

‘But I don’t think I’d be convicted – I can hypnotise Rocky before the trial.’

‘They’d never let you do that.’

‘No, maybe not, but…’

‘I went to see Rocky,’ Joona says. ‘He’s in Huddinge Prison for possession of drugs, he remembered you, but nothing about the Zone or the preacher.’

‘It’s hopeless,’ Erik says.

Joona leans against the window and feels the cool glass against his forehead. Down in the street a taxi stops outside the hotel. The driver’s face is grey with tiredness as he walks round the car to take the luggage out.

Joona glances down at his hire-car, watches the taxi drive off, and when he looks up again he’s made up his mind.

‘I’ll try to find a way of getting Rocky out today… and then we’ll meet up so you can hypnotise him,’ he says.

‘Is that your plan?’ Erik asks.

‘You said you could unearth specific details about the preacher if you were able to hypnotise Rocky again.’

‘Yes, I can, I’m pretty sure of that.’

‘In that case I’ll be able to find the real killer while you stay in hiding.’

‘I just want to hand myself in and-’

‘You’ll be found guilty if it goes to trial.’

‘That’s ridiculous, I just happened to be nearby when-’

‘It’s not just that,’ Joona interrupts. ‘Your fingerprints were on an object found in Susanna Kern’s hand.’

‘What object?’ Erik asks in astonishment.

‘Part of a porcelain animal.’

‘I don’t get it, that doesn’t mean anything to me.’

‘But the fingerprint match is one hundred per cent.’

Joona hears Erik walk up and down, it sounds as though he’s walking across a wooden floor.

‘So everything points at me,’ he says in a low voice.

‘Have you got a picture of Nestor?’

Erik tells him how to log into the medical records of the Psychology Clinic before they end the call. Joona puts his pistol and jacket on, then goes down to reception to get a printout of Nestor’s picture before leaving the hotel room again.

He walks past his hire-car and turns into the much narrower Frejgatan.

Outside one of the doorways stands an old Volvo, the sort with no ignition lock. Joona looks round quickly. The street is completely deserted. He takes a step back, then kicks in the rear side-window.

The alarm of a car further down the street goes off.

Joona opens the front door from the inside, moves the seat back, pulls his screwdriver out of his pocket, prises off the cover around the ignition and loosens the panels on the steering column. He leans over and inserts the screwdriver into the upper part of the column, and carefully breaks the steering lock.

Quickly he pulls on a pair of gloves, gets in the driving seat, loosens the red cables on the ignition cylinder and peels back their plastic covering. As soon as he twists the ends together music starts to play on the radio and the inside light comes on. He shuts the door, pulls out the brown wires and puts them together, and the engine starts.

The streets aren’t yet full of cars as he drives out to Huddinge. A plastic rosary hangs off the rear-view mirror. There are already lorries on the road, but the commuters are still drinking coffee in their homes.

In Huddinge he drives past the imposing prison building and carries on south, pulls on to a track leading into the forest, turns the car round, parks, then starts walking back towards Stockholm.