The Sandman

114

Susanne Hjälm’s arms are cuffed behind her back. Her broken elbow juts out at an odd angle. She’s screaming hysterically and putting up fierce resistance as two uniformed police officers drag her up the cellar steps. The blue lights from the various emergency vehicles make the snowy landscape ripple like water. Neighbours are watching events from a distance, like silent ghosts.

Susanne stops screaming when she sees Joona and Eliot emerge from the forest. Joona is carrying the younger girl, and Eliot is holding the other one by the hand.

Susanne’s eyes open wide and she breathes hard in the ice-cold winter night. Joona puts the girl on the ground so she can go over to her mother with her sister. They hug for a long time, and she tries to calm them.

‘It’s going to be all right now,’ she says in a broken voice. ‘Everything’s going to be all right...’

An older female officer starts talking to the girls, trying to explain that their mother needs to go with the police.

The father is led out of the cellar by the paramedics, but he’s so weak that he has to be put on a stretcher.

Joona follows as the officers lead Susanne through the deep snow towards one of the police cars in the drive. They put her in the back seat while a senior officer talks to a prosecutor over the phone.

‘She needs to go to hospital,’ Joona says, stamping the snow from his shoes and trousers.

He walks over to Susanne Hjälm. She’s sitting quietly in the car, her face turned towards the house as she tries to catch a glimpse of her daughters.

‘Why did you do this?’ Joona asks.

‘You’d never understand,’ she mumbles. ‘No one could understand.’

‘Maybe I could,’ he says. ‘I was the person who arrested Jurek Walter thirteen—’

‘You should have killed him,’ she interrupts, looking him in the eye for the first time.

‘What happened? After so many years working as a psychiatrist in the secure unit...’

‘I should never have spoken to him,’ she says through gritted teeth. ‘We’re not supposed to, but I never imagined...’

She falls silent and looks up at the house again.

‘What did he say?’

‘He... demanded that I post a letter,’ she whispers.

‘A letter?’

‘There are loads of restrictions limiting what he’s allowed to do, so I couldn’t... but I, I...’

‘You couldn’t send it? So where’s the letter now?’

‘Maybe I should talk to a lawyer,’ she says.

‘Have you still got the letter?’

‘I burned it,’ she says, then turns away again.

Tears start to trickle down her exhausted, filthy face.

‘What did it say in the letter?’

‘I want to see a lawyer before I answer any more questions,’ she says resolutely.

‘This is important, Susanne,’ Joona persists. ‘You’re going to get medical treatment now, and you can see a lawyer, but first I need to know where the letter was to be sent... Give me a name, an address.’

‘I don’t remember... it was a PO box.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t remember... there was a name,’ she says, shaking her head.

Joona watches the eldest daughter being carried towards an ambulance on a stretcher. She looks scared, and is trying to undo the straps holding her on.

‘Do you remember the name?’

‘It wasn’t Russian,’ Susanne whispers. ‘It was—’

The daughter suddenly panics in the ambulance and starts screaming.

‘Ellen!’ Susanne cries. ‘I’m here, I’m here!’

Susanne tries to get out of the car, but Joona forces her to stay where she is.

‘Leave me alone!’

She struggles to pull free and get out. The doors of the ambulance close and everything is quiet again.

‘Ellen!’ she calls.

The ambulance drives off and Susanne turns her head away with her eyes closed.