The Sandman

109

Route 267 is covered in snow, and the car leaves a great white cloud behind it. Joona overtakes an old Volvo and the tyres roll softly over the ridge of snow between the carriageways. He turns the headlights on full-beam and the deserted road becomes a tunnel with a black roof over a white floor. To begin with he drives through a landscape of fields, where the snow takes on a blue tone in the deepening darkness, then the road passes through thick forest until the lights of Stäket are flickering ahead of him and the landscape opens up towards Lake Mälaren.

What’s happened to the psychiatrist’s family?

Joona brakes and turns right, driving into a small residential area with snow-covered fruit trees and rabbit hutches on the lawns in front of the houses.

The weather’s been getting worse, and the snow is blowing in from the lake, thick and slanting.

Biskop Nils väg 23 is one of the last houses; beyond it there’s nothing but forest and rough ground.

Susanne Hjälm’s home is a large white villa with pale-blue shutters at the windows and a red tiled roof.

All the windows are unlit, and the driveway is thick with untouched snow.

Joona stops just beyond the house and barely has time to put the handbrake on before the patrol car from Upplands-Bro police pulls up a short distance away.

Joona gets out of the car, grabbing his coat and scarf from the back seat, and walks over to his uniformed colleagues as he does his coat up.

‘Joona Linna, National Crime,’ he says, holding out his hand.

‘Eliot Sörenstam.’

Eliot has a shaved head, a little vertical strip of beard on his chin, and melancholic brown eyes.

The other officer shakes his hand firmly and introduces herself as Marie Franzén. She has a cheerful, freckled face, blonde eyebrows and a ponytail high up at the back of her head.

‘Nice to see you in real life,’ she smiles.

‘It’s good that you could come so quickly,’ Joona says.

‘Only because I have to get home and plait Elsa’s hair,’ she says chattily. ‘She’s desperate to have curly hair for preschool tomorrow.’

‘We’d better hurry up, then,’ Joona says, and sets off towards the house.

‘Only kidding, there’s no rush... I’ve got some curling tongs as backup.’

‘Marie’s been on her own with her daughter for five years,’ Eliot explains. ‘But she’s never had a day off sick, or left early.’

‘That’s a lovely thing to say – considering you’re a Capricorn,’ she adds with real warmth in her voice.

The forest behind the house shelters it from the wind blowing off the lake, and the snow seems to roll up above the trees and fall on the little residential area. There are lights in the windows of most houses on the road, but number 23 is ominously dark.

‘There’s probably a good explanation,’ Joona tells the two officers. ‘But neither of the parents has been at work for the past few months, and the children are off school sick.’

The low hedge facing the road is covered with snow, and the green plastic mailbox next to the electricity meter is bursting with post and adverts.

‘Are Social Services involved?’ Marie asks seriously.

‘They’ve been out here already, but say the family is away,’ Joona replies. ‘Let’s try knocking, then we’re probably going to have to ask the neighbours.’

‘Do we suspect a crime?’ Eliot asks, looking at the virgin snow on the drive.

Joona can’t help thinking about Samuel Mendel. His whole family vanished. The Sandman took them, just as Jurek had predicted. But at the same time, it doesn’t fit. Susanne Hjälm reported the children sick, and herself signed the doctor’s note that was sent to the school.