The Rabbit Hunter

51

Joona spent two hours waiting in the hallway outside the operating theatre where Gustav was being treated. Eventually he had to leave, but there was still no word about whether Gustav was going to survive.

He parks the car next to the top of Tule Street and feels the cool air from the park. He remembers that part of one of Sjöwall and Wahlöö’s books took place here, in an flat overlooking Vanadislunden.

As he walks down the hill towards the hotel, the local anaesthetic he was given for the axe-wound starts to fade. He had to get eleven stiches, and now the pain is starting to flare up again.

The shoulder of his jacket has been taped together, but it’s still crumpled and spattered with blood. He smells like smoke, has a cut across his nose, and his knuckles are raw.

The woman in reception stares at him open-mouthed. Joona realises that his appearance has changed quite a bit since he checked in.

‘Rough day,’ he says.

‘So I can see,’ she replies with a warm smile.

He can’t help asking if there are any messages, even though he doesn’t really expect Valeria to have called.

The receptionist checks her computer first, then his cubby hole, but there’s nothing there.

‘I can ask Sandra,’ she suggests.

‘There’s no need,’ Joona says quickly.

He still has to wait while she goes to speak to her colleague. He stares at the empty desk and the pattern of scratches in the varnish as he thinks about the fact that his part of the mission is over.

They all knew that the infiltration and ensuing operation were a gamble, but there was no other option. There wasn’t enough time.

Joona has done all he could to help the Security Police, and he wishes he could tell Valeria that now he’s just an ordinary inmate out on leave.

‘No, sorry,’ the woman smiles when she comes back. ‘No one’s asked for you.’

Joona thanks her and goes to his room. He leaves his muddy shoes on a newspaper, runs a hot bath, then sinks into it with his injured arm hanging over the side.

His mobile phone is on the tiled shelf next to him. He asked the hospital to call as soon as there was any news about Gustav.

The tap drips slowly, rings spread out across the water and disappear. His body relaxes in the warm water and the pain starts to fade.

Salim Ratjen’s message had simply meant that Parisa’s sister had been smuggled into the country sooner than expected. And before Salim had time to tell his wife, he had been moved from Hall Prison and isolated from the world outside.

The old couple and their three sons had turned their boatyard into a centre for human-trafficking.

Once Joona stopped reporting back, Janus became worried that they were losing contact with the terrorist cell.

And defeating the threat against the state was the absolute top priority.

That was why he made the decision to fly the National Response Unit into the marina.

Janus had seen that Joona was trying to call him, but had heard nothing but static.

From the helicopter, the response team had seen a number of people next to a large metal building. There were bodies on the ground, and a third person was on their knees. They had to make a split-second decision, and when the sniper saw through his sights that a young man was aiming a pistol at a woman, he had to fire.

The response team couldn’t have known that the two men on the ground were human-traffickers, and that the young man with the pistol had fled from the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The family’s third son was woken up by the commotion outside the workshop, fetched a hunting rifle from the gun cabinet, crept out of the house and hid behind a pallet of tiles.

When the helicopter had set down the response team, the son fired and managed to hit the pilot in the chest.

The rest of the helicopter crew died in the crash, two of the response team died during the ensuing fire-fight, and two migrants were shot by accident.

There were no terrorists at the boatyard.

The operation was a fiasco.

The father shot himself, the middle son was killed by the response team, and the mother and the two other sons were arrested.

Gustav, the team leader, was shot and seriously injured, his condition still critical. Parisa Ratjen is going to be OK, no lasting injuries. Her sister, Amira, and the older woman are both going to seek asylum in Sweden.

Joona gets out of the bath, dries himself, then calls Valeria. As the phone rings, he looks out at the street. A group of Roma are preparing their beds for the night, on the pavement outside a supermarket.

‘I realise you’re not coming,’ he says when she eventually answers.

‘No, it...’

She falls silent, breathing heavily.

‘I’m done with my job for the police, anyway,’ he explains.

‘Did it go well?’

‘I can’t really say that it did.’

‘Then you’re not done,’ she says quietly.

‘There’s no easy way to answer that, Valeria.’

‘I understand, but I feel I need to take a step back,’ she says. ‘I have a life that works, with the boys, the nursery... Look, I don’t want to sound boring, but I’m a grown-up, and things are fine as they are. I don’t need earth-shattering passion.’

Silence on the line. He realises that she’s crying. Someone switches a television on in the next room.

‘Sorry, Joona,’ she says, and takes a shaky deep breath. ‘I’ve been fooling myself. It could never have worked out for us.’

‘Once I get my gardening qualifications, I hope I can still be your apprentice,’ he says.

She laughs, but Joona can still hear a sob in her voice, and she blows her nose before answering:

‘Send in an application, and we’ll see.’

‘I will.’

They run out of words again.

‘You need to get some sleep,’ Joona says quietly.

‘Yes.’

They say goodnight, then fall silent, say goodnight again, and then end the call.

Down in the street a group of youngsters emerge from a bar and head off towards Sveavägen.

He can’t help thinking how unreal it feels not to be locked up as he gets dressed and goes outside into the cool city air. People are still sitting on the outdoor terraces along Oden Street. Joona walks up to the Brasserie Balzac, and gets a table facing the street. He’s just in time to order the pan-fried sole before the kitchen closes.

The police investigation will go on without him.

Nothing is over.

The killer probably isn’t connected to a terrorist group.

His motive for killing the Foreign Minister could easily be something completely different.

And something definitely made him behave oddly: he stayed with his bleeding victim for more than fifteen minutes and left a witness alive.

He knew where the cameras were located, and wore a balaclava, but for some reason he wore strips of fabric around his head.

If he hadn’t actually killed anyone before, he crossed that line on Friday night. Any fear he felt before the killing would now have been replaced by the sense that he controls the situation. Now there’s nothing to stop him from killing again.