The Sandman

30

Joona had already tried to talk to Summa about taking off and starting a new life, but she had never encountered Jurek Walter, she didn’t know the extent of what he had done, and she simply didn’t believe that he was behind Rebecka’s, Joshua’s and Reuben’s disappearance.

With fevered concentration, Joona began to confront the inevitable. A chill focus consumed him as he started to examine every detail, every aspect of it, and draw up a plan.

A plan that would save all three of them.

The National Criminal Investigation Department knew almost nothing about Jurek Walter. The disappearance of Samuel Mendel’s family after his arrest provided strong support for the theory that he had an accomplice.

But this accomplice hadn’t left a single shred of evidence.

He was a shadow of a shadow.

His colleagues said it was hopeless, but Joona wouldn’t give up. Naturally he understood it wasn’t going to be easy to find this invisible accomplice. It might take several years, and there was only one of Joona. He couldn’t search and protect Summa and Lumi at the same time, not every second.

If he hired two bodyguards to accompany them everywhere, the family’s savings would be exhausted in six months.

Jurek’s accomplice had waited months before seizing Samuel’s family. Clearly this was a man who was in no hurry, patiently biding his time until he was ready to strike.

Joona tried to find a way they could stay together. They could move, get new jobs and change identities, and live quietly somewhere.

Nothing mattered more than being with Summa and Lumi.

But as a police officer, he knew that protected identities aren’t secure. They just give a breathing space. The further away you got, the more breaths you would manage to take, but in the file of Jurek Walter’s suspected victims was a man who went missing in Bangkok, disappearing without trace from the lift in the Sukhothai Hotel.

There was no escape.

Eventually Joona was forced to accept that there was something that mattered more than him being together with Summa and Lumi.

Their lives mattered more.

If he ran away or disappeared with them, it would be a direct challenge to Jurek to try to track them down.

And Joona knew that once you start looking, sooner or later you are going to find your quarry, no matter how hard they might try to hide.

Jurek Walter mustn’t look, he thought. That’s the only way not to be found.

There was only one solution. Jurek and his shadow had to believe that Summa and Lumi were dead.