Stalker

129

The sun has gone down and Rocky has just woken up beside Joona, the streetlamps are coming on and they are approaching Södertälje when Margot calls back.

‘We’ve received a new video,’ she says in an anguished voice. ‘Presumably it’s someone Erik knows, or has at least-’

‘Describe the film.’

‘Nelly is already inside the victim’s home when she begins filming… The woman seems injured, she’s sitting curled up in a corner… and at the end, at the end of the film there’s a small foot… It’s dark, but it looks like there’s a child lying on the floor.’

‘Go on.’

‘It’s a perfectly ordinary bloody room, old walls and uneven wallpaper… there might be a big chimney outside the window, but Forensics aren’t done yet.’

‘Go on.’

‘I’m watching the video on an iPad right now… the woman has short black hair, she’s thin, and I don’t know… she’s bleeding, she’s almost unconscious and she’s moving her hands as if she can’t see anything, or-’

‘Listen,’ Joona interrupts. ‘Her name is Jackie Federer and she lives at Lill-Jans plan.’

‘I’ll send the rapid response unit,’ she says, and ends the call.

Joona doesn’t have time to explain that she may well no longer be in her flat, because Nelly will want to kill Jackie in front of Erik’s eyes, just as she killed her mother in front of her father, and Natalia in front of Rocky.

They drive past a minibus parked at the side of the road with a puncture. A bearded man in shorts and with sunburned legs is putting out a warning triangle.

‘You talked about a cage, about being locked in a cage,’ Joona says to Rocky.

‘When was that?’

‘Nelly had you locked up somewhere.’

‘I don’t think so,’ he replies, staring out at the road.

‘Do you know where that might have been?’

‘No.’

‘You escaped and stole a car near Norrtälje.’

‘I thought you were the one who goes around stealing cars,’ he mutters.

‘Think… It was a farm, there may have been a chimney…’

Rocky sits there watching the landscape flash by, and as they pass the junction for Salem he lets out a deep sigh. He rubs his face and beard with his big hands, then looks back at the road again.

‘Nelly Brandt murdered Rebecka Hansson,’ he says slowly.

‘Yes.’

‘God came back to look for me after all,’ he says, crumpling an empty cigarette packet.

‘It looks like it,’ Joona replies gently.

‘Maybe I’ll be punished for escaping and for having heroin in my pockets… but after that I can go back to being a priest.’

‘You’ve already been wrongly convicted, you won’t be sentenced again,’ Joona says.

‘Can you stop here?’ Rocky says calmly. ‘I need to take a look at my church.’

Joona pulls over to the verge and lets him out. The big priest closes the car door, knocks on the roof, and then sets off in the direction of the turning for Salem.