The Rabbit Hunter

33

The prison warden has granted Joona’s application for a thirty-six-hour leave.

Joona reaches the end of the underground tunnel. The prison guard in front of him hesitates for a few seconds, then raises his hand and opens the door. They walk through, wait until the lock clicks, then walk to another door and wait for central command to authorise their progress into the next section.

Just as Joona had predicted, Salim Ratjen concluded that Joona was his only chance to get a message out before Wednesday. Ratjen’s message seems to consist of little more than a telephone number and a name, but it could still be coded authorisation for a murder.

After retrieving his belongings, Joona is led to Central Command by another guard.

His suit fitted him perfectly at his trial two years ago, but since then Joona has spent four hours a day exercising and now it’s too tight across the shoulders.

The lock whirrs and he opens the door and leaves the huge wall behind him.

A familiar pain behind his left eye flares up as he starts to walk across the asphalt. The electric fence with its coil of barbed wire is the last obstacle before freedom. Tall floodlights rise up ahead of him, their white pylons standing out against the steely grey sky.

He resists the temptation to walk faster, and finds himself thinking back to when he was a child, following his dad through the forest to fish for char.

Whenever he spotted the sparkle of the lake through the trees he became so excited that he wanted to run the last stretch, but he always forced himself to hold back. His dad had explained that you had to approach the water carefully.

The huge gate slides back with a heavy metallic whirr.

The sun emerges from behind a cloud, prompting him to look up. For the first time in two years he can see the horizon. He’s looking out across fields and roads and forests.

Joona leaves the prison grounds and reaches the car park. The gate slides shut behind him. It’s like breathing fresh air into his lungs, having a drink of water, catching his dad’s eye in unspoken agreement.

The memory of those fishing trips comes back again, the way they would walk slowly towards the shore and see that the water was full of fish. The bright surface was broken by little rings, as if it was raining.

The feeling of freedom is overwhelming. Emotions are churning in his chest. He could easily stop and weep, but he keeps walking without looking back. As he walks to the bus-stop, his muscles start to relax.

He feels like he’s slowly getting back to his normal self.

In the distance he can see the bus approaching through a cloud of dust. According to Joona’s pass, he has to get on and travel to Örebro, and then catch the train to Stockholm from there.

He climbs onto the bus, but knows he won’t be catching the train. Instead he’s going to meet a handler from the Security Police. The meeting is due to take place in the car park beneath the Vågen shopping centre in forty-five minutes.

He checks his watch, then leans back in his seat with a smile.

He has the plain Omega watch that he inherited from his dad back again. His mum never sold it, even though they could have used the money.

The sun has disappeared and the wind has picked up by the time Joona steps off the bus and makes his way to the shopping centre. Even though he only has five minutes, he stops at a fast-food stand and orders a ‘Pepper Cheese Bacon Meal with Future Fries’.

‘Drink?’ the owner of the restaurant asks as he prepares the food.

‘Fanta Exotic,’ Joona replies.

He puts the drinks can in his pocket, then stands next to the little red flag advertising ice-cream and eats his hamburger.

Down in the car park, a man dressed in jeans and a down jacket is standing beside a black BMW, staring at his phone.

‘You should have been here twenty minutes ago,’ he says sullenly when Joona appears and shakes his hand.

‘I wanted to get you a drink,’ Joona replies, and hands him the can.

Taken aback, the handler thanks him and takes it before opening the car door for Joona.

On the back seat are a basic mobile phone, a debit card and three bulky envelopes from Saga Bauer containing the forensics report from the Foreign Minister’s murder. Everything Joona has requested is in the envelopes: the preliminary investigation report, the initial findings from the post-mortem, the lab results and printouts of all the witness interviews.

They drive past the railway station and out onto the highway towards Stockholm.

Joona reads up on Salim Ratjen’s background, how he escaped from Afghanistan and sought asylum in Sweden, then got dragged into the drug trade. Apart from his wife, his only other family member in the country is his brother, Absalon Ratjen. The Security Police have conducted a thorough investigation, and are confident that the brothers haven’t been in contact in eight years. According to correspondence they have uncovered, Absalon severed all ties with Salim when Salim asked him to hide a large block of hash for a dealer.

Joona has just picked up the folder of photographs from the Foreign Minister’s home when his phone rings.

‘Were you able to establish contact with Ratjen?’ Saga Bauer asks.

‘Yes. He’s given me a task, but it’s impossible to know where that might lead,’ Joona says. ‘He asked me to see his wife and tell her to make a phone call and ask for Amira.’

‘OK. Good work. Really good work,’ Saga says.

‘It’ll be a big operation tonight, won’t it?’ Joona asks, looking down at the glossy photographs: blood, splattered kitchen cabinets, an overturned potted plant, the Foreign Minister’s body from various angles, his blood-soaked torso, hands, and crooked, yellowish toes.

‘Do you really think you can pull this off?’ she asks seriously.

‘Pull it off? This is what I do,’ he replies.

He hears her laugh to herself.

‘You’re aware that you’ve been away for two years, and that this killer is particularly efficient?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have you read the forensic timeline?’

‘He knows what he’s doing, but there’s something else, I can feel it. There’s something disturbed about it.’

‘What do you mean?’