The Sandman

124

Johan Jönson presses his lips together in a way that makes him look like August Strindberg as he surveys the fifteen different curves.

‘You’re not really supposed to do this,’ he mutters.

With fingertip precision he adjusts the timing of the curves and extends some of the peaks to longer plateaux.

He tries replaying the loop, and the room is filled with strange, underwater sounds. Corinne stands with her hand over her mouth as Jönson stops it, makes some more adjustments, pulls certain sections further apart, then plays it again.

Sweat has broken out on Nathan Pollock’s forehead.

There’s a deep rumble from within the loudspeakers, followed by a long exhalation divided into indistinct syllables.

‘Listen,’ Joona says.

What they can hear is a slow sigh that’s been unconsciously formed out of a thought. Jurek Walter isn’t using his larynx, just moving his lips and tongue as he breathes out.

Johan Jönson moves one of the curves slightly, then gets up from his chair with a grin as the loop of the whisper repeats over and over again.

‘What’s he saying?’ Pollock says in a tense voice. ‘It sounds a bit like Lenin?’

‘Leninsk,’ Corinne says, wide-eyed.

‘What?’ Pollock says, almost shouting.

‘There’s a city called Leninsk-Kuznetsky,’ she says. ‘But because he was just talking about red clay, I think he means the secret city.’

‘A secret city?’ Pollock mutters.

‘The cosmodrome at Baikonur is well-known,’ she explains. ‘But fifty years ago the town was called Leninsk, and it was top secret.’

‘Leninsk in Kazakhstan,’ Joona says quietly. ‘Jurek has a childhood memory from Leninsk...’

Corinne sits down at the table, her back straight, tucks her hair behind her ear and explains:

‘Kazakhstan was part of the Soviet Union in those days... and it was so sparsely populated that they could build an entire town without the rest of the world noticing anything. There was an arms race going on, and they needed research bases and launch sites for rockets.’

‘Kazakhstan is a member of Interpol,’ Pollock says.

‘If they can give us Jurek Walter’s real name, we can start to uncover his background,’ Joona says. ‘Then the hunt would really be on...’

‘It shouldn’t be impossible,’ Corinne says. ‘I mean... now we have a location and an approximate time for his birth. We know he arrived in Sweden in 1994. We’ve got pictures of him, we’ve documented the scars on his body and...’

‘We even have his DNA and blood type,’ Pollock smiles.

‘So either Jurek’s family belonged to the local Kazakhstan population, or they were among the scientists, engineers and military who were sent there from Russia...’

‘I’ll put everything together,’ Pollock says quickly.

‘I’ll try to get hold of the NSC in Kazakhstan,’ Corinne says. ‘Joona? Do you want me to...?’

She falls silent and gives him a quizzical look. Joona stands up slowly, meets her gaze and nods, picks up his coat from a chair and starts walking towards the hall.

‘Where are you going?’ Pollock asks.

‘I need to talk to Susanne Hjälm,’ Joona mutters, and keeps walking.