Stalker

42

Joona is driving fast as he ignores the red light and turns left into Odengatan.

A homeless woman with two overloaded shopping trolleys is sitting asleep outside the 7-Eleven.

Adam tells him how Filip has been overdosing on several different varieties of MDPV for a while now, and that Eugene thinks he’s entered a paranoid psychosis.

The drug has caused a number of deaths in Sweden, and was referred to in the evening tabloids as ‘the cannibal drug’ after a man who’d taken it tried to eat the face of a homeless man.

‘We haven’t got much time, they won’t be able to hold Eugene for long, he’ll be out soon and I reckon he’s likely to warn Filip,’ Adam says in a tense voice.

Joona overtakes a taxi on the inside, pulls in front of it, then swerves into the oncoming lanes and turns into Vanadisvägen.

The bumper thuds as he drives up on to the pavement and stops in front of the pale mocha-coloured building with red garage doors.

Within central Stockholm the self-storage companies have had to make do with using existing basements so as not to change the visible appearance of the city. Huge areas of small, locked rooms spread out just below the ground, like old catacombs beneath cathedrals.

Joona and Adam get out of the car and head over to the closed office looking out onto the little car park. In the gloom through the window they can make out flat stacks of removal boxes, a reception desk, and a large monitor for security cameras on the wall.

‘I want to look at a map of the storerooms, and I want to look at those cameras,’ Joona says.

‘It’s closed, we’re going to have to go through a prosecutor,’ Adam replies.

Joona nods, taps his stick against the edge of the pavement and thinks how it feels to sink through broken ice. It’s when you warm up that you start to freeze, he thinks as he picks up a heavy kerb-stone and throws it through the window. There’s a loud crash as the glass shatters and a red light begins to flash over on the reception desk.

‘The alarm will have gone off at their security company,’ Adam says feebly.

Joona pushes some loose splinters from the window frame with his stick, then goes in. Adam looks round, then follows him.

There’s a plan hanging on the wall, showing a grid system of wide and narrow passageways.

Every storeroom is numbered, and they’re arranged in blocks. A list of staff codes for the stores is neatly pinned up alongside.

Joona sits down at the computer. The passageways between the storerooms are monitored by security cameras. Twenty-five small squares cover the screen. All the cameras are filming windowless darkness. It’s night, and the lights have all been switched off.

‘See if you can find a list of customers,’ Adam says.

Joona minimises the security cameras, tries to open various programs but can’t get anywhere. Everything apart from the cameras requires a password.

He quickly returns to the cameras and enlarges the first square and stares at the grey-black stillness, like a black square of linen. Then the next one. The camera is filming nothing but darkness. Adam shuffles nervously behind him. He looks at the plan on the wall.

Everything is quiet, sunk in darkness.

The third camera is pointed towards an emergency exit. A green sign above the door casts an algae-like glow across the flecked cement floor and corrugated metal walls.

There’s some rubbish outside one of the storerooms, and the underwater lighting from the emergency exit illuminates an abandoned barrow.

Joona glances at the plan on the wall and locates the emergency exit, and works out where the camera is mounted. Everything is still quiet. A numbing feeling of exhaustion washes over him like a wave, forcing him to close his eyes for a couple of seconds.

The darkness on the computer screen is monotonous. Some of the cameras register light from coded locks, but nothing else.

‘Dark,’ Adam says.

‘Yes,’ Joona says, enlarging the fourteenth square.

He’s just about to close it when there’s a flicker in the bottom corner.

‘Hang on,’ he says.

Adam leans forward and looks at the dark image. There’s nothing in sight, everything is still, but then the little light in the corner flashes again.

‘What was that?’ Adam whispers, leaning closer to the screen.

The little light flashes again. It’s faint, and only manages to light up a small area of floor, revealing the pattern of the cement.

Joona clicks to enlarge the next camera image, then the next, and waits a while, but they show nothing but blackness. He looks at the overview, with all twenty-five cameras at the same time. Number fourteen flickers again, but the others remain lifeless.

‘The source of the light ought to be here, or here,’ Joona says, pointing at the plan. ‘But it’s not covered by one single camera, which makes no sense.’

‘Where are we?’ Adam asks, looking at the plan on the wall.

‘Camera fourteen must be at the far end of corridor C,’ Joona says.

He enlarges the images one by one. All black, still, but suddenly he stops.

‘Did you see something?’ Adam asks.

They both stare at the static black image.

‘That’s what I mean,’ Joona replies. ‘Where’s the green light? This is the camera pointing at the emergency exit.’

‘Try that one,’ Adam says, pointing. ‘That ought to pick up the light from the lock leading to the next section.’

Joona quickly enlarges the image. Also completely black. The door and lock can’t be seen at all.

That can only be because there’s something wrong with the camera. There seem to be an awful lot of faulty cameras down there.

‘There’s a huge area missing, loads of cameras,’ he says, looking at Adam.

‘Where?’

‘The whole of this upper area, along corridors C, D and E… that’s maybe fifty storerooms,’ Joona says, looking back at the image from camera fourteen again.

The faint light flickers across the uneven floor, and remains on for a moment. He can just make out the bottom of the metal doors before the light goes off, then comes on again.

‘That light’s an emergency signal,’ Joona says, getting up from the chair.

Security camera number fourteen is registering fragments of an emergency signal. Further along the corridor, where the cameras aren’t working, someone is flashing a light. It’s the international emergency signal using Morse code. SOS: three quick flashes followed by three longer ones, then three short ones again.