The Sandman

174

Saga sweeps the corridor with her pistol as she creeps towards the staircase in the hall.

She has to reach Mikael and Reidar, and get them out to the car.

The sky may actually have brightened up slightly, because it’s now possible to make out the pictures on the walls and the shapes of the furniture.

The adrenalin in her body makes her icily alert.

The sound of her footsteps vanishes as she walks over a rug and past the black grand piano. Something glints in the corner of her eye. She turns her head and sees a cello with its endpin extended.

The walls are clicking, as if the temperature outside has suddenly fallen several degrees.

Saga creeps along quickly, with her pistol aimed down at the floor. Slowly she moves her finger to the trigger, squeezing it carefully, past the first notch.

She stops mid-step and listens. The house is completely silent. The hall ahead of her is darker than the other rooms, its double doors almost closed.

Saga is moving forward when she hears a rushing sound behind her. She spins round quickly and sees snow that has slipped off the roof of the bay window sliding past the glass.

Her heart is thudding in her chest.

When she turns back towards the hall she sees a hand at the door. Someone’s skinny fingers are reaching round the edge of the door.

Saga aims her pistol at the door, ready to shoot through it, but suddenly there’s a terrible scream and the hand slides down and disappears, followed by a thud as something hits the floor, and both doors swing open.

A man is lying on the floor. One leg is twitching spasmodically.

She goes over and sees that it’s Wille Strandberg, the actor. He’s gasping and clutching his stomach.

Blood is bubbling out between his fingers.

He stares at Saga in confusion, then blinks rapidly.

‘I’m a police officer,’ she says, as she hears the stairs creak under someone’s weight. ‘The ambulance is on its way.’

‘He wants Mikael,’ the actor groans.