Stalker

55

Erik is sitting in his reading chair with a copy of the Swedish Psychiatric Association’s journal in his lap, thinking about dinner at Nelly and Martin’s. They invite him round fairly often to their huge modernist house with its curved windows and a terrace that looks like the bridge of an old sailing yacht.

After dinner Martin took off his tie and led them through the house clutching a glass of Calvados in his hand. In his study he had a fairly small oil painting he had just been given by his aunt in Westphalia. It was of a gloomy-looking angel. Nelly thought it was horrible and tried to offer it to Erik. Martin agreed with her, but Erik declined the offer because it was obvious that he wanted to keep it really.

When Martin had to take a call from Sydney, Erik and Nelly went to the billiard room. Nelly poured more wine, she was already fairly drunk. Her eyes were moist and she was leaning against the raised edge of the table.

‘Martin looks at porn,’ she slurred.

‘Why do you think that?’ Erik asked, rolling a ball across the green baize.

‘I don’t care, it’s nothing perverse.’

‘Does it make you sad?’

‘Not jealous, but… I don’t know, you should see the women… They’re young and beautiful and they do things I’d never dare to try,’ she said, reaching out and touching his lips.

‘Talk to him.’

‘Is youth the only thing that counts?’ she drawled.

‘Not to me.’

‘What does matter, then? What do you want? What does any man really want?’ she said, swaying slightly.

He helped her to her bedroom, but left before she took off her mocha-coloured dress.

When Nelly called him to discuss two Iranian patients from the unit for survivors of torture out in Danderyd, he took the opportunity to thank her for dinner. She just laughed and said he should be grateful she didn’t get too drunk and embarrassing.

Now Erik leans back in his armchair and thinks about the bottle of champagne in the fridge that he opened earlier, all alone. He sealed it with some argon, a noble gas that will have kept it tasting like new if he were to have a glass now.

That would get rid of my headache, Erik thinks, as he sees the car headlights sweep in through the large glass window.

With a short sigh he gets up and puts the journal on the smoking table, leaves his slippers on the floor and goes to open the door. He watches Margot struggle out of her car and wave to him, then another car pulls into the drive.

A younger man with short dark hair hurries over to Margot and exchanges a few words with her. Behind the pair of them comes a beautiful young woman with clear eyes and a serious face.

Erik shakes hands with Margot and the young man, whom she introduces as a colleague working on the murder investigation with her.

The young woman hesitates in the doorway. Her black coat is shiny with rain, and she looks frozen.

‘I didn’t have time to take my wife home,’ Adam explains, looking unexpectedly awkward. ‘This is Katryna.’

‘Adam didn’t want me to wait in the car,’ she says softly.

‘You’re more than welcome to come in,’ Erik says, shaking her hand.

‘Thank you.’

‘What wonderful fingernails,’ he says, holding on to her hand to look at them for a few seconds.

She smiles in surprise and her dark eyes warm up instantly.

Erik invites them to take their coats off, then steps into the porch to close the front door properly. The gentle rain is dripping rhythmically through the leaves of the lilac. The road is shimmering under the streetlights, and suddenly he imagines he can see the silhouette of a tall figure in his own garden. He switches the outside light on, thinking that it must have been the scrawny juniper next to the wheelbarrow.

Erik shuts the door and shows them into the library, where Katryna stops, looking a little embarrassed.

‘I’m probably not supposed to overhear your conversation,’ she says.

‘You can sit here if you like,’ Erik says, pulling a folio off the shelf. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit addicted to Caravaggio.’

He puts the art book down on the table, then shows the detectives into his study. Adam closes the door behind them.

‘We found a third victim today,’ Margot says at once.

‘A third victim,’ Erik says.

‘We were expecting it, but it’s still a blow.’

She looks down towards her stomach, and the corners of her mouth twitch slightly, possibly from exhaustion. She has a deep frown on her forehead that stretches down between her eyebrows.

‘What can I help you with?’ Erik asks neutrally.

‘Do you know a man called Rocky Kyrklund?’ Margot asks, looking up at him.

‘Should I?’

‘You ought to know that he was sentenced to psychiatric care after a forensic psychiatric evaluation nine years ago.’

‘Of course, I’m sure that’s right,’ Erik says gently.

As soon as she mentioned Rocky’s name, it occurred to him that she might know everything, that he’s been found out.

‘You were part of the team,’ Margot explains.

‘OK,’ Erik says.

He’s spent hours conjuring up different scenarios in which he’s confronted with what happened, and then imagining possible reactions and answers that couldn’t be regarded as lies even though they keep him out of it.

‘And we have reason to believe that he confided in you…’

‘I don’t remember that, but-’

‘He had murdered a woman in Salem in a way that’s reminiscent of the murders that I’m currently investigating,’ Margot says, without further elaboration.

‘If he’s been released and is killing again, then something has gone very wrong with the parole process,’ Erik replies, just as he had planned.

‘He hasn’t been released. He’s still in Karsudden and he hasn’t left the facility at all,’ she says. ‘I’ve just been out there and spoken to the head of security.’