The Sandman

154

Joona is sitting in the rear seat of his own car with his eyes closed, while his boss Carlos Eliasson drives him back to Stockholm, talking to him as if he was his dad.

‘She’s going to be OK... I spoke to a doctor at the Karolinska... Felicia’s condition is serious, but not critical... They’re not making any promises, but even so, it’s great news... I think she’s going to make it, I...’

‘Have you told Reidar?’ Joona asks, without opening his eyes.

‘The hospital are dealing with that, you just need to go home and get some rest, and—’

‘I tried to reach you.’

‘Yes, I know, I saw I had a load of missed calls... You might have heard that Jurek mentioned an old brickworks to Saga. There were never that many, but there used to be one in Albano. When we went into the forest the dogs identified graves all over the place. We’re busy searching the whole damn area.’

‘But you haven’t found anyone alive?’

‘Not yet, but we’ll carry on searching.’

‘I think you’re just going to find graves...’

Carlos is driving with exemplary caution, and it’s now so warm inside the car that Joona has to unbutton his coat.

‘The nightmare’s over, Joona... First thing tomorrow the Prison Service Committee will pass the decision to transfer Saga again, and we can go and pick her up and clear all her details from the databases.’

They reach Stockholm, and the light around the streetlamps looks like fog because of the snow. A bus pulls up beside them, waiting for the lights to change. Weary faces look out through the steamed-up windows.

‘I talked to Anja,’ Carlos says. ‘She couldn’t wait till tomorrow... she’s found the records for Jurek and his brother in the Child Welfare Commission’s files in the council archive, and she’s tracked down the decision of the Aliens Department in the National Archive in Marieberg.’

‘Anja’s smart,’ Joona says to himself.

‘Jurek’s father was allowed to stay in the country on a temporary work permit,’ Carlos says. ‘But he didn’t have permission to have the boys with him, and after they were found the Child Welfare Commission was brought in and the boys were taken into care. Presumably the authorities thought they were doing the right thing. The decision was hurried through, but because one of the boys was ill the cases were dealt with separately...’

‘They were sent to different places.’

‘The Aliens Department sent the healthy boy back to Kazakhstan, and then a different caseworker took the decision to send the other boy to Russia, to Children’s Home Number 67, to be precise.’

‘I see,’ Joona whispers.

‘Jurek Walter crossed the border into Sweden in January 1994. Maybe his brother was already at the quarry by that time, maybe not... but by then their father was dead.’

Carlos pulls up smoothly in an empty parking space on Dalagatan, not far from Joona’s flat at Wallingatan 31. They both get out of the car, walk down the snow-covered pavement and stop outside the door.

‘As I mentioned, I knew Roseanna Kohler,’ Carlos says with a sigh. ‘And when their children disappeared I did all I could, but it wasn’t enough...’

‘No.’

‘I told her about Jurek. She wanted me to tell her everything, wanted to see pictures of him, and...’

‘But Reidar didn’t know.’

‘No, she said it was better that way. I don’t know... Roseanna moved to Paris, she used to call all the time, she was drinking far too much... It wasn’t that I was bothered about my career, but I thought it was embarrassing, for her as well as me...’

Carlos falls silent and rubs his neck with one hand.

‘What?’ Joona asks.

‘One night Roseanna called me from Paris, screaming that she’d seen Jurek Walter outside her hotel, but I didn’t listen... Later that night, she killed herself...’

Carlos hands Joona the car keys.

‘Get some sleep,’ he says. ‘I’m going to head down to Norra Bantorget and get a taxi.’