Stalker

97

Erik is lying wrapped up in the grey cover he took from a parked motorbike. He wakes up, freezing. It’s light now, and he realises he’s underneath an amelanchier in a thicket of ornamental shrubs. He must have slept for three hours, and his body feels tight with cold. His whole body aches as he sits up and looks around. A dark bronze woman in old-fashioned clothes stares blindly at him from her plinth.

The sun is shining off the green leaves, sparkling in the cold.

Erik climbs over a red fence and crosses over to the shaded side of the street. He slowly warms up as he walks. He can’t really believe everything that happened yesterday.

He was heading towards Aspudden on foot when he spoke to Joona, who told him to get rid of his phone. Erik ducked into a doorway, copied down the most important numbers in his contacts, then switched his phone off.

In front of a bike shop on Hägerstensvägen he found a bus with the word ‘Smälandsbussen’ on the side. A group of weary-looking youngsters in crumpled clothes was gathered on the pavement. Parents were helping to unload rucksacks and sleeping bags from the open baggage compartments.

Erik went inside the bus, pretending to look for something that had been left behind, and quickly pushed his mobile down between two seats.

He stepped out of the rear door, grabbed a cap from a case and tucked it inside his jacket, then carried on towards the underground station. He stopped at the cashpoint in front of the Nordea Bank. He didn’t look up, but was aware of the security camera as he withdrew the maximum amount possible from his account. Then he walked back towards the bus again, and watched as the doors closed and it drove off.

Only a couple of youngsters were left on the pavement.

Erik pulled on the baseball cap as he hurried along Södertäljevägen, crossed the Liljeholmen Bridge, bought water and a large hamburger from the Zinkensgrillen kiosk, and headed into a back street where he stood in a doorway and ate. When he was done he carried on walking, steering clear of main streets with banks and traffic surveillance cameras, and just kept walking for as long as he could, until he eventually found himself in Vitabergsparken.

Erik runs his fingers through his hair to flatten it. His clothes are creased but not dirty enough to attract attention. He needs to stay hidden until he can talk to Joona. He daren’t take any risks, even if the misunderstanding has hopefully been cleared up by now.

Erik starts to cross the street but stops abruptly between two parked cars when he happens to see a convenience store.

His stomach gurgles with unease.

Among the notification of lottery wins and adverts for the football pools, the flysheets of the evening tabloids scream: POLICE HUNT SWEDISH SERIAL KILLER.

He recognises himself from the pixelated photograph. In accordance with press ethics they have kept his identity hidden. It’s only a matter of time, but for the moment his features are concealed by a mass of grainy squares.

The early edition of the other tabloid has no picture, but the headline covers the whole flysheet in capital letters:

NATIONAL ALARM – SWEDISH PSYCHIATRIST SOUGHT FOR FOUR MURDERS.

Under the headline the paper’s contents are listed: victims, pictures, brutality, police.

He steps up on to the pavement and passes the shop as it gradually dawns on him the police really do believe that he murdered Katryna and the other women.

He’s the man they’re hunting.

Erik turns into a side street and his legs start to shake so badly that he has to slow down and eventually stop. He stands there, clutching a trembling hand to his mouth.

‘Oh, God,’ he whispers.

Everyone Erik knows will work out that he’s the man being referred to when they read the articles. Right now they’ll be calling each other, shocked, excited, disgusted.

Some of them will be full of schadenfreude, others will be sceptical.

It feels like he’s falling, but somehow he’s still standing.

Benjamin will know it isn’t true, Erik thinks, and starts walking again. But Madeleine will be frightened once his real identity starts to be blared out.

Through an open car window he catches fragments of a conversation in which he imagines he hears his own name mentioned.

Erik thinks that he’s going to have to hand himself over to the justice system after all, so that he can defend himself.

This can’t go on.

He pulls out a blister-pack containing four Mogadon pills, presses one into his hand, but changes his mind and throws the whole lot in a rubbish bin.

On Östgötagatan he finds a small shop selling second-hand mobile phones. While he’s waiting to be served he listens to the news on the radio. A neutral voice explains coolly that the hunt for the suspected serial killer is now in its second day.

His stomach contracts as if he were about to be sick when he hears the voice say that an arrest warrant has been issued for a psychiatrist at the Karolinska Hospital on reasonable suspicion of having murdered four women in the Stockholm area.

The police are saying little otherwise, out of consideration for the ongoing investigation, but are hoping to receive further information from the public.

The man behind the counter, with the arm of his glasses held together by a piece of tape, asks how he can help, and Erik tries to smile as he explains that he’d like a pay-as-you-go mobile.

A senior police officer is explaining about the resources that have been deployed in the search, and how this has already given positive results.

Erik changes direction as soon as he leaves the shop. He switches streets a number of times, but is aiming to leave the centre of the city via Danvikstull.

He doesn’t dare stop and take out the phone before he’s passed the Tram Museum. He stands facing a yellow brick building and calls Joona Linna.

‘Joona, this is impossible,’ he says quickly. ‘Have you seen the papers? I can’t keep on hiding.’

‘You have to give me more time.’

‘No, I’ve made up my mind. I want you to arrest me and take me to the police.’

‘I can’t guarantee your safety.’

‘I don’t care,’ he says.

‘I’ve never seen the police so cut up, and not just Adam’s colleagues. It’s right across the board,’ Joona says. ‘It’s one thing to risk your own life, you’re aware of that when you enter operational service, but violence of this sort, directed at a police officer’s wife…’

‘You have to tell them I didn’t do this, you-’

‘I have, but they’ve linked you to each of the victims, and you were seen at the crime scene…’

‘What do I do?’ Erik whispers.

‘Stay hidden until I find the preacher,’ Joona replies. ‘I’m going to talk to Rocky, he’s in custody in Huddinge Prison.’

‘I could hand myself over to one of the evening tabloids,’ Erik says, aware of how desperate he sounds. ‘I could tell my own story, my version, and then I’d have journalists with me when I went to the police.’

‘Erik, even if that was possible, they’re already talking about your suicide in custody, about you hanging yourself or swallowing a piece of glass before the trial… It’s all a lot of talk, but I don’t want you to take the risk right now.’

‘I’ll call Nelly, she knows me, she knows I can’t have done this-’

‘You can’t do that. The police are watching her house… you need to find someone else you can stay hidden with, someone more distant, unexpected.’

Erik and Joona end the call. The cars are standing still, the bridge is being opened. Three sailing boats are on their way out to the Baltic.