The Sandman

46

A very beautiful woman with Indian features is standing looking down at Reidar when he comes round. She explains that he’s had a coronary spasm.

‘I thought I was having a heart attack,’ he mutters.

‘Naturally we’re considering X-raying the coronary arteries, and—’

‘Yes,’ he sighs, sitting up.

‘You need to rest.’

‘I found out... that my...’ he says, but his mouth starts to tremble so much that he can’t finish the sentence.

She puts her hand against his cheek and smiles as if he were an unhappy child.

‘I have to see my son,’ he explains is a slightly steadier voice.

‘You understand that you can’t leave the hospital before we’ve investigated your symptoms,’ she says.

She gives him a small pink bottle of nitroglycerine for him to spray under his tongue at the first sign of pain in his chest.

Reidar walks to Ward 66, but before he reaches Mikael’s room he stops in the corridor, leans against the wall.

When he enters the room, Joona stands up and offers him the chair. His phone is still next to the bed.

‘Mikael, you have to help me find her,’ he says as he sits down.

‘Dad, how are you?’ his son asks in a steady voice.

‘It was nothing,’ Reidar replies, trying to smile.

‘What have they said, what does the doctor think?’ Mikael asks.

‘She says I have a bit of a problem with my arteries, but I don’t believe that. Anyway it doesn’t matter, we’ve got to find Felicia.’

‘She was convinced you wouldn’t care that she was missing. I said that wasn’t true, but she was sure you’d only be looking for me.’

Reidar sits motionless. He knows what Mikael means, because he’s never forgotten what happened on that last day. His son puts his bony hand on his arm and their eyes meet once more.

‘You were walking from Södertälje – is that where I should start looking?’ Reidar asks. ‘Is that where she might be?’

‘I don’t know,’ Mikael says quietly.

‘But you must remember something,’ Reidar goes on in a subdued voice.

‘I don’t remember anything,’ his son says. ‘It’s just that there’s nothing to remember.’

Joona is leaning on the end of the bed. Mikael’s eyes are half-open and he’s still clutching his father’s hand tightly.

‘You said before that you and Felicia were together, on the floor in the darkness,’ Joona begins.

‘Yes,’ Mikael whispers.

‘How long was it just the two of you? When did the others disappear?’

‘I don’t know,’ he replies. ‘I can’t say, time doesn’t work the way you think.’

‘Describe the room.’

Mikael looks into Joona’s grey eyes with a tortured expression.

‘I never saw the room,’ he says. ‘Apart from at the start, when I was little... there was a bright light that was sometimes switched on, when we could look at each other. But I don’t remember what the room looked like, I was just scared...’

‘But you do remember something?’

‘The darkness, there was almost nothing but darkness.’

‘There must have been a floor,’ Joona says.

‘Yes,’ Mikael whispers.

‘Go on,’ Reidar says softly.

Mikael looks away from the two men. He stares into space as he starts to talk about the place where he was held captive so long:

‘The floor... it was hard, and cold. Six paces one way... four paces the other... And the walls were made of solid concrete, there was no echo when you hit them.’