The Sandman

42

Joona enters the patient’s room and sees an older man sitting by the boy’s bed. It takes him a few seconds to realise that it’s Reidar Frost. It’s been years since he last saw him, but he’s aged considerably more than that. The young man is asleep, but Reidar is sitting there holding his left hand in both of his.

‘You never believed my children had drowned,’ the father says in a muted voice.

‘No,’ Joona replies.

Reidar’s gaze rests on Mikael’s sleeping face, then he turns to Joona and says:

‘Thank you for not telling me about the murderer.’

The suspicion that Mikael and Felicia Kohler-Frost had been among Jurek Walter’s victims had been strengthened by the fact it was via the children that he had been tracked down and arrested, and that he had first been spotted by Joona and Samuel below their mother’s window.

Joona looks at the young man’s thin face, his straggly beard, his sunken cheeks and the beads of sweat on his forehead.

When Mikael had talked about the way things were at the start, when there were more of them and he met Rebecka Mendel, he had been talking about the first few weeks of Jurek Walter’s isolation, Joona thinks.

Since then more than a decade of imprisonment has gone by.

But Mikael managed to escape – it must be possible to find out where from.

‘I never stopped looking,’ Joona says quietly to Reidar.

Reidar looks at his son and his face cracks into an uncontrollable smile. He has been sitting like that for hours, and still can’t get enough of just gazing at his child.

‘They’re saying he’s going to be fine. They’ve promised, they’ve promised there’s nothing wrong with him,’ he says in a rough voice.

‘Have you talked to him?’ Joona asks.

‘He’s been given a lot of painkillers, so he’s mostly been asleep, but they say that’s good, it’s what he needs.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ Joona agrees.

‘He’s going to be fine... mentally, I mean. It will just take a bit of time.’

‘Has he said anything at all?’

‘He’s whispered things to me, but not so that I can hear them,’ Reidar says. ‘It just sounds confused. But he recognised me.’

Joona knows it’s important to start talking about things right from the outset. Remembering is an important part of the healing process. Mikael needs time, but he mustn’t be left to himself. As time goes by the questions can gradually probe deeper, but there’s always a risk that a traumatised person will shut off entirely.

And there’s no real rush, Joona reminds himself.

It could take months to map out everything that’s happened, but he does need to ask the most important question today.

I need to find out if Mikael knows who the accomplice is, he thinks, feeling his heart beating faster again.

If he can just get a name or a decent description, this nightmare could be over.

‘I have to talk to him as soon as he wakes up,’ Joona says. ‘I just need to ask him a few very specific questions, but he might find it a bit difficult.’

‘As long as it doesn’t frighten him,’ Reidar says. ‘I can’t let that happen...’

He falls silent when a nurse comes in. She says hello quietly, then checks Mikael’s pulse and oxygen levels.

‘His hands have gone cold,’ Reidar tells her.

‘I’m going to give him some antipyretics soon,’ the nurse assures him.

‘He is getting antibiotics, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, but it can take a couple of days before those start to work,’ the nurse says with a reassuring smile as she hangs a new infusion bag on the drip-stand.

Reidar helps her, standing up and holding the tube out of the way to make it easier for her, then walks to the door with her.

‘I want to talk to the doctor,’ he says.

Mikael sighs and whispers something to himself. Reidar stops and turns round. Joona leans forward and tries to hear what he’s saying.