Stalker

94

Erik takes a deep breath and stares up at the night sky and dark treetops. He must have passed out after he fell. His back is hurting badly. He knows he scraped himself as he slid down the slope.

He stands up and reaches his hand out to the wet rock face. He can smell moss and ferns, and looks up to see the glow of bright lights flickering through the trees above.

He crouches down and pushes his way through the undergrowth, holding a branch out of the way and moving away from the slope.

The distant sound of dogs barking merges with the clattering noise of an approaching helicopter.

Erik followed the preacher down a narrow path, but it grew so dark as the trees became thicker that he lost track of him. He stood for a while and listened, but heard nothing more than the wind through the branches high above him. In the end he decided to go back to the car and wait there, when sirens from a number of emergency vehicles all seemed to converge somewhere on the road on the far side of the woodland.

He began to walk in that direction instead, thinking that Joona must have put the police on the right track, that they may even have caught the preacher.

The forest was overgrown and rocky, and it took him time to make his way through in the dark, but after a while he could make out flashing blue-grey lights between the trees, and suddenly he was standing in front of Adam Youssef from the National Criminal Investigation Department.

Adam looked me in the eyes and fired, Erik thinks as he runs down a slope. What’s happened? What happened at the Zone after I left?

Loose stones slide under his feet and he almost falls, grabs a branch with his hand and cuts himself on something. He feels his palm grow wet with blood and stops, gasping, trying to calm his breathing as he hears the helicopter above the treetops again.

Do they think he’s involved in the murders because he didn’t tell the whole truth about knowing the victims?

Erik thinks about how he lied to the police, how he withheld Rocky’s alibi and kept quiet about what Björn said under hypnosis.

The helicopter hovers above the forest, searching with spotlights, getting closer and closer. He needs to hide. Branches rustle, treetops sway, leaves come loose and swirl through the air.

He can feel the clattering of the rotors inside him. Erik presses against a tree, standing absolutely still as the branches lash around him.

This is completely mad, Erik thinks, feeling the whirling air tug at his clothes.

I was very nearly shot.

Dry earth and fallen pine needles fly up into his face.

The helicopter sweeps on, and the searchlight moves away through the forest, flickering through the tree trunks.

He’s the person they’re hunting.

In a few rays of light some twenty metres away he sees two heavily armed response unit officers with helmets, bulletproof vests and green assault rifles.

One of them turns in Erik’s direction just as the light of the helicopter reaches him through the canopy of trees.

Adrenalin shoots through Erik’s blood like an injection of ice.

A shot fires just as everything goes dark again. He see the flare of the barrel as the bullet slams into the tree trunk immediately above his head.

The sound of the shot echoes off the rocks.

The helicopter rises up and the clattering sound is deafening.

Erik rushes at a crouch across a clearing without looking back, sliding down on his backside, running through dense undergrowth, until he can see streetlights through the branches.

He carries on, approaching the road with caution. A car drives past and some distance away he can see a roadblock, spike strips, patrol cars and officers in black uniforms.

Erik hides behind some bushes, his back wet with sweat. The uniformed officers are close now. He can hear them talking into their radios, then they walk away, in the other direction, towards the command vehicle with its black windows.

The helicopter makes another circuit of the woodland. The sound echoes hard between the houses along the road. Erik slides down into the ditch and climbs up the other side, not looking at the police, and walks straight across the tarmac road. He hurries through two crooked gates next to a rusty turnstile, and follows a path leading to Västberga School’s playing field. A red running track forms a huge ellipsis round a football pitch, and the floodlights on their tall poles are illuminated.

Erik’s heart is beating so hard that it hurts his throat as he picks up one of the footballs by the fence behind the goal and walks over the touchline. He heads slowly across the pitch, in the middle of the lights, kicking the ball in front of him.

As he reaches the centre circle the helicopter flies over again. He doesn’t look up, just keeps kicking the football ahead of him.

With every metre the distance between him and the police is growing. With the ball at his feet he makes his way across the whole playing field.

The helicopter is already a long way away when Erik kicks the ball into the goal, crosses the track, climbs over the gate and emerges on to a road where the traffic appears to be flowing perfectly normally. He passes Telefonplan underground station, and is still heading away from the police operation when Joona Linna calls him.

‘Joona, what’s going on?’ Erik asks, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘The police are hunting me with a helicopter, they’ve tried to shoot me. This is crazy, I haven’t done anything, I was just following the preacher…’

‘Hang on, Erik, just hold on… Where are you now? Are you safe?’

‘I don’t know, I’m walking along an empty street, past Telefonplan… I don’t understand any of this.’

‘You followed the preacher to Adam’s home,’ Joona says. ‘His wife is the latest victim, she’s dead.’

‘No…’ Erik gasps.

‘They’re all panicking,’ Joona says darkly. ‘They seem to think you’re guilty of the murder because-’

‘So talk to them!’ Erik interrupts.

‘You were seen near the house right after the murder.’

‘Yes, but if I-’

Erik falls silent as he hears a car approaching. He ducks into a doorway and turns his back to the street.

‘Can’t I just hand myself in?’ he asks once the car has gone.

‘Not without a plan,’ Joona replies.

‘You don’t trust the police?’ Erik asks.

‘They just tried to shoot you,’ Joona says. ‘And if that wasn’t a mistake, then there are people in the force who are out for revenge.’

Erik runs his hands through his wet hair, struggling to understand all the improbable things that have happened over the past few days.

‘What are my options?’ he asks in the end. ‘What do you think I should do?’

‘If you can let me have a bit of time, I’ll try to find out what’s happening with the police operation,’ Joona says. ‘I’ll find out what they’re saying about you internally, and if there’s a safe way for you to come in.’

‘OK.’

‘But you need to lie low,’ Joona says.

‘How do I do that? What do I do?’

‘They’ve already got your car, you can’t go home, you can’t go to any of your friends. Ditch your phone after this conversation, because you know they can track it even when it’s switched off. They’re probably tracing it now, so we don’t have much time.’

‘I understand.’

Sweat is running down Erik’s cheeks as he tries to listen to Joona’s advice.

‘Find a cash machine and take some money out, as much as you can, this is your only chance to do that… But before you withdraw the money you need to work out how to get to another part of town quickly, because they’ll be ready if you make the slightest mistake.’

‘OK.’

‘Buy a used pay-as-you-go phone and call me so I’ve got the number,’ Joona goes on. ‘Don’t contact anyone else, and go and sleep in a shelter that won’t demand any ID.’

‘After this, everyone’s going to believe I’m guilty,’ Erik says.

‘Only until I find the preacher,’ Joona replies.

‘If I can get a chance to hypnotise Rocky, I know I could find out the sort of details that-’

‘That’s no longer possible,’ Joona interrupts. ‘He’s back in custody.’