The Sandman

72

Saga double-locks the door, then goes downstairs to the main entrance. She feels a flutter of anxiety as she sees the Prison Service van waiting in the dark street.

She opens the door and gets in beside Nathan Pollock.

‘It’s dangerous to pick up hitch-hikers,’ she says, trying to smile.

‘Did you get any sleep?’

‘A bit,’ she replies, and fastens her seat belt.

‘I know you already know this,’ Pollock says, glancing at her. ‘But I’m still going to remind you not to try to manipulate him into revealing any information.’

He puts the van in gear and it pulls out into the silent street.

‘That’s almost the hardest thing,’ Saga says. ‘What if he only wants to talk about football? What if he doesn’t talk at all?’

‘That will just be how it is, there’ll be nothing you can do about it.’

‘But Felicia might only survive a few more days...’

‘That’s not your responsibility,’ Pollock replies. ‘This infiltration is a gamble, we all know that, we’re agreed on that... we can’t second-guess the results. What you’re doing is entirely separate from the ongoing preliminary investigation. We’re going to carry on talking to Mikael Kohler-Frost, follow up all the old lines of inquiry, and—’

‘But no one believes... no one believes we’ll be able to save Felicia unless Jurek starts talking to me.’

‘You mustn’t think like that,’ Pollock says.

‘OK, I’ll stop now.’ She smiles.

‘Good.

She starts tapping her feet, and raises her arm to shield a sudden sneeze. Her pale-blue eyes are still glassy, as if part of her had taken a step back to observe the situation from a distance.

Dark buildings flit past as they drive on.

Saga puts her keys, wallet and other loose possessions in a Prison Service personal effects bag.

Before they reach Kronoberg Prison, Pollock hands her the fibre-optic microphone inside a silicon capsule and a small portion of butter.

‘Digestion of fatty foods takes longer,’ he says. ‘But I still don’t think you should ever wait more than four hours.

She opens the pack of butter, swallows the contents, then examines the microphone in the soft capsule. It looks like an insect in amber. She straightens up, pops the capsule in her mouth, tips her head back and swallows. It hurts her throat and she can feel herself breaking out into a sweat as it slowly slips down.