The Sandman

58

A ray of sunlight is twinkling on the dirty kitchen window as Carlos Eliasson hands Saga Bauer a dossier. She opens the folder and finds herself staring directly into Jurek Walter’s pale eyes. She moves the photograph and starts to read the thirteen-year-old report. Her face turns white and she sits down on the floor with her back against the radiator, still reading, looking at the pictures, glancing through post-mortem reports and reading about his sentence and where it was being served.

When she closes the file Carlos tells her how Mikael Kohler-Frost was found wandering across the Igelsta Bridge after being missing for thirteen years.

Verner gets out his mobile and plays the recording of the young man describing his captivity and escape. Saga listens to his anguished voice, and when she hears him talk about his sister her face goes red and her heart starts beating hard. She looks at the photograph in the folder. The little girl is standing with her loose plait and riding hat, smiling as if she were planning something naughty.

When Mikael’s voice falls silent she stands up and paces the empty kitchen before stopping in front of the window.

‘National Crime have got nothing more to go on than they had thirteen years ago,’ Verner says.

‘We don’t know anything... but Jurek Walter knows, he knows where Felicia is, and he knows who his accomplice is...’

Verner explains that it’s impossible to get the truth out of Jurek Walter in a conventional interrogation, or by using psychologists or priests.

‘Not even torture would work,’ Carlos says, trying to sit down on the windowsill.

‘What the hell, why don’t we do what we usually do, then?’ Saga asks. ‘Surely all we have to do is recruit just one damn informant, that’s pretty much the only thing our organisation does these days apart from—’

‘Joona says... sorry to interrupt,’ Verner cuts in. ‘But Joona says that Jurek would break down any informer who tried—’

‘So what the hell do we do, then?’

‘Our only option is to install a trained agent as a patient in the same institution,’ he replies.

‘Why would he talk to a patient?’ Saga asks sceptically.

‘Joona reckons we need to find an agent who’s so exceptional that Jurek Walter ends up curious enough to want to know more.’

‘Curious how?’

‘Curious about them as a person... not just in the possibility of getting out,’ Carlos replies.

‘Did Joona mention me?’ she asks in a serious voice.

‘No, but you’re our first choice,’ Verner says firmly.

‘Who’s your second choice?’

‘There isn’t one,’ Carlos replies.

‘So how would this be arranged, in purely practical terms?’ she asks in a neutral tone of voice.

‘The bureaucratic machinery is already hard at work,’ Verner says. ‘One decision leads to another, and if you accept the mission you just have to climb on board...’

‘Tempting,’ she mutters.

‘We’ll arrange for you to be sentenced to secure psychiatric care in the Court of Appeal, and transferred at once to Karsudden Hospital.’

Verner goes over to the tap and refills his plastic cup.

‘We spotted something that might work to our advantage, a formulation in the original county council permit... the one that was granted when the psychiatric unit at Löwenströmska Hospital was first set up.’

‘It states very clearly that the ward is designed to offer treatment to three patients,’ Carlos adds. ‘But for the past thirteen years they’ve had just one patient, Jurek Walter.’

Verner drinks noisily, then crumples up his cup and tosses it in the sink.

‘The hospital managers have always tried to fend off other patients,’ Carlos goes on. ‘But they’re perfectly aware that they have to accept more if they receive a direct request.’

‘Which is precisely what’s happening now... The Prison Service Committee has called an extraordinary meeting, where the decision will be taken to transfer one patient from the secure psychiatric unit at Säter to Löwenströmska, and another from Karsudden Hospital.’

‘In other words, you would be the patient from Karsudden,’ Carlos says.

‘So if I agree to this, I’d be admitted as a dangerous patient?’ she asks.

‘Yes.’

‘Are you going to give me a criminal record?’

‘A decision from the National Judiciary Administration will probably be sufficient,’ Verner replies. ‘But we need to create an entire identity, with guilty court verdicts and psychiatric evaluations.’