Stalker

108

Rocky looks paler today, and has dark patches under his eyes – he’s probably suffering from withdrawal. Arne Melander sits in the adjoining room watching them, but he can’t hear what they are saying. The soundproof glass wall is intended to protect the confidentiality of conversations between defence lawyers and their clients, but also to allow the police to question suspects without the contents of their conversations leaking out.

‘They say they can keep me locked up in this fucking place for six months,’ Rocky says in a gruff voice, rubbing under his nose.

‘You’ve talked about a preacher,’ Joona says, in a final attempt to avoid putting his plan into action.

‘I have problems with my memory after-’

‘I know,’ Joona interrupts. ‘But try to remember the preacher, you saw him kill a woman called Tina.’

‘That’s possible,’ Rocky says, his eyes narrowing.

‘He chopped off her arm with a machete. Do you remember that?’

‘I don’t remember anything,’ Rocky whispers.

‘Do you know someone called Nestor?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Look at this picture,’ Joona says, handing him the printout.

Rocky studies Nestor’s thin face carefully, then nods.

‘He was in Karsudden, I think…’

‘Did you know him?’

‘I don’t know, there were different sections.’

‘Are you prepared to meet Erik Maria Bark and let yourself be hypnotised?’

‘OK,’ Rocky says with a shrug.

‘The problem is that the prosecutor is refusing to let you out,’ Joona says slowly.

‘Erik can always come and hypnotise me here.’

‘That isn’t possible, because the police think Erik carried out the murders.’

‘Erik?’

‘But he’s as innocent as you were.’

‘Vanitas vanitatum,’ Rocky says with a broad smile.

‘Erik found Olivia, who…’

‘I know, I know, I go down on my knees and thank him every evening… But what do you expect me to do about it?’

‘We’re leaving together, you and me,’ Joona replies calmly. ‘I’ll take one of the guards hostage and all you have to do is come along with me.’

‘Hostage?’

‘We’ll be out in seven minutes, long before the police get here.’

Rocky looks at Joona, then at Arne sitting behind the glass.

‘I’ll do it if I can have my wraps back,’ Rocky says, leaning back and stretching his legs.

‘What sort of heroin was it?’ Joona asks.

‘White, from Nimroz… but Kandahar would do fine.’

‘I’ll sort it,’ Joona says, taking a flattened roll of duct tape from his pocket.

With his eyes half-closed, Rocky watches the former police officer wrap the heavy-duty tape round his hands.

‘I’m sure you know what you’re doing,’ Rocky says.

‘Bring the bag of sandwiches,’ Joona says, pressing the button on the intercom to indicate that the meeting is over.

A few moments later Arne opens the door and lets Joona out into the corridor. The idea is for him to lead Joona out of the prison, then take Rocky back to his cell.

While the prison officer locks Rocky inside the interview room, Joona goes over to the other door where the bottom of the skirting board has come loose. He leans down. Slips his fingers into the gap and pulls upwards. The screws spring free from the concrete wall along with their brown plastic rawlplugs.

‘You can’t do that!’ Arne exclaims.

Crumbs of cement rain down on the floor as Joona yanks up the skirting board. The top screws are stuck and Joona jerks hard, twisting the metal until there’s a bang as the last screws come loose.

‘Are you listening?’ Arne says, drawing his baton. ‘I’m talking to you.’

Joona takes no notice of him. He holds the skirting board out in front of him, stamps down hard with his foot, bends down and turns it, then stamps again.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Arne asks with a nervous smile, coming closer.

‘I’m sorry,’ Joona says simply.

He knows what sort of training Arne Melander has received, and that he’s going to approach with his left hand outstretched, trying to hold him off while he attempts to strike Joona on the thighs and upper arms with sweeping movements of the baton.

Joona moves towards him with long strides, knocks his arm away and then lands his elbow in the heavy man’s chest, making him stagger back. His knees give way but he puts out a hand to support himself and manages to sit down on the floor.

Joona stumbles forward from the momentum of the blow, but stays on his feet and snatches the prison officer’s alarm from him before he has time to react. He cuts his lower arm as he puts the bent part of the skirting board around Arne’s neck, then pulls the handcuffs from his belt and attaches one cuff to the point where the ends of the skirting board intersect.

‘Stand up and let Rocky out,’ he says.

Arne coughs and turns round heavily, crawls to the wall and leans against it as he gets to his feet.

‘Unlock the door.’

Arne’s hands are free, but Joona is steering him from behind with the protruding ends of the skirting board. His neck is trapped in the noose-like bend, the sharp edges of the metal pressing against his neck.

‘Don’t do this,’ Arne pants.

Sweat is running down his face and his hands are shaking as he unlocks the door of the interview room. Rocky comes out, picks up the baton and presses it on the floor to make it contract again.

‘Arne, if you help us we’ll be out in four minutes and then I’ll let you go,’ Joona says.

The prison officer limps ahead of Joona, and keeps trying to slip his fingers under the metal noose.

‘Use your passcard and type in the code,’ Joona says, steering him towards the lift.

As they travel down through the building Arne holds one hand against the mirror and keeps looking up at the camera in the hope that someone will see him.

The metal has already cut through one layer of the duct-tape around Joona’s hands.

When they emerge into the lobby it takes just a matter of seconds before the rest of the prison staff realise what’s going on. Like a pressure wave, the atmosphere goes from relaxed to intense. Some sort of silent alarm has evidently been activated, a light is flashing beneath one desk, and prison officers who had been sitting talking moments before hurry to their feet. Chairs scrape the floor, papers fall to the ground.

‘Let us through!’ Joona calls, steering Arne towards the exit.

Seven guards are approaching anxiously from the corridor, they’re clearly having trouble reading the situation, and Joona tells Rocky to watch his back.

Rocky extends the baton again and walks backwards behind Joona towards the airlock.

The officer who was sitting in the security command centre hurries over. His task now is to slow things down and delay the escape for as long as possible.

‘I can’t let you out,’ he says. ‘But if you give yourselves up, then-’

‘Look at your colleague,’ Joona interrupts.

Arne whimpers as Joona pulls the ends of the metal outwards. The noose tightens around his neck and blood starts to trickle down his dark sweater. He tries to hold the metal back with his hands, but stands no chance.

‘Stop!’ the security officer yells. ‘For God’s sake, stop!’

Arne stumbles sideways, into a display of information for visitors, sending brochures falling to the ground around him.

‘I’ll let him go when we get outside,’ Joona says.

‘OK, everyone move back,’ the security officer says. ‘Let them through, let them go.’

They pass through the bleeping metal detector. Prison officers and other staff get out of the way. One officer is recording everything on his mobile phone.

‘Forward,’ Joona says.

Arne whimpers quietly as they approach the exit.

‘Oh, God,’ he whispers, holding his left arm.

A dog is barking frantically on the other side of the security airlock, as guards rush outside the glass doors to get into formation.

‘Let them through!’ the security officer calls, following them out through the airlock. ‘I’ll come with you, make sure you get out.’

He pulls out his card, taps in the code and opens the door.

‘Who the hell are you, really?’ he gasps, looking at Joona Linna.

Outside the prison the sun is shining, the sky is a radiant blue above them as they walk across the paved entrance area towards Joona’s grey Porsche.

Joona walks round the vehicle and pushes Arne to the ground, and apologises as he fastens the other handcuff to the metal fence behind the car. The security officer stands and watches them as the prison guards mill about inside the glass doors only a dozen metres away from them.

Joona gets in quickly and starts the car.

Before Rocky has time to close the door he drives over the kerb, down the grass slope, past the cement blocks and out on to the road, where he accelerates hard towards the forest where the old Volvo is waiting.