The Sandman (31 page)

‘Police,’ he calls again. ‘We only want to talk.’

They enter the kitchen, and see a mound of empty packets under the table – cornflakes, pasta, flour and sugar.

‘What the hell is this?’ Eliot whispers.

The fridge and freezer stand dark and empty, all the kitchen chairs are missing, and on the windowsills, next to the closed curtains, the houseplants have all withered.

It’s only from the outside that it looks like the family has left.

They go on, into a television room with a corner sofa. Joona steps over the cushions that have been pulled off it.

Marie whispers something that he can’t make out.

The thick curtains covering the windows reach all the way to the floor.

Through the door to the corridor they can see a staircase leading down to the cellar.

They stop when they see a dead dog with a plastic bag taped round its head. It’s lying on the floor in front of the television stand.

Joona carries on towards the corridor and staircase. He can hear his colleagues’ careful footsteps behind him.

Marie’s breathing has speeded up.

The light from her torch is shaking.

Joona moves to the side so he can see into the unlit corridor. Further along it the bathroom door is ajar.

Joona gestures to the others to stop, but Marie is already beside him, pointing the torch towards the stairs. She takes a step closer and tries to see further down the corridor.

‘What’s that?’ she whispers, unable to control the nervousness in her voice.

There’s something lying on the floor by the bathroom door. She points the torch in that direction. It’s a doll with long blonde hair.

The light hovers over its shiny plastic face.

Suddenly the doll is pulled in behind the door.

Marie smiles and takes a long stride forward, but at the same moment there’s a stomach-churning bang.

The flare as the shotgun goes off fills the corridor like lightning.

It looks as if Marie is hit hard in the back, as some of the hail of shot cuts right through her neck.

Her head flies back and blood spurts out of the exit wound in her throat.

The torch hits the floor.

Marie is really already dead when she takes one last step with her head hanging loose. She collapses in a heap with one leg folded beneath her, raising her hips at an odd angle.

Joona has drawn his pistol, released the safety catch and spun round. The corridor leading to the stairs is empty. There’s no one there. Whoever fired the shot must have disappeared down into the cellar.

Blood is bubbling from Marie’s neck, steaming in the chill air.

The torch is rolling slowly over the floor.

‘Dear God, dear God,’ Eliot whispers.

Their ears are ringing from the blast.

A child suddenly appears with the doll in its arms, slips on the blood, lands on its back and disappears into the darkness by the staircase. Footsteps thud down the stairs and disappear with a clatter.

Joona kneels down and takes a quick look at Marie. There’s nothing to be done, the heavy charge hit her lungs and heart and ripped through her carotid artery.

Eliot Sörenstam is yelling and sobbing into his radio, calling for an ambulance and backup.

‘Police,’ Joona shouts down the stairs. ‘Put the weapon down and—’

The shotgun goes off again from down in the cellar, and the shot hits the wood of the stairs, sending up a cascade of splinters.

Joona hears the metallic click as the gun snaps open. He rushes over, reaches the stairs as he hears the little sigh as the first empty cartridge is released.

Taking several steps at a time, Joona races down the dark stairs, pistol raised.

Eliot Sörenstam has picked up the torch to give him some light, and the beam reaches the bottom of the stairs just in time for Joona to stop himself before he’s impaled.

At the foot of the stairs the kitchen chairs have been piled up to form a barricade. The protruding legs have been sharpened into spears, and kitchen knives have been fixed to them with duct tape.

Joona aims his Colt Combat over the barricade, into a room containing a billiard table.

There’s no sign of anyone, everything’s quiet again.

The adrenalin in his body makes him strangely calm, as if he were in a new, sharper version of reality.

Slowly he takes his finger off the trigger and loosens the rope that’s tied to the end of the banister to help him get round the barricade.

‘What the hell are we going to do?’ Eliot whispers with panic in his voice as he comes down.

‘Are you wearing a bulletproof vest?’

‘Yes.’

‘Shine the torch further into the cellar,’ Joona says as he starts to move.

There are two empty shotgun cartridges on the floor, surrounded by broken glass and empty tins of food. Eliot is breathing too fast, holding the torch next to his pistol as he shines it into the corners. It’s warmer down here, and there’s a sharp smell of sweat and urine.

There’s wire strung across the passageway at neck height, forcing them to duck down. Behind them the wires tap against each other.

Suddenly they hear whispering, and Joona stops and signals to Eliot. A ticking sound, followed by footsteps.

‘Run, run,’ someone whispers.

Cold air rushes in and Joona hurries forward, while the shaky light from Eliot Sörenstam’s torch sweeps round the cellar. There is a boiler room to their left, and in the other direction some concrete steps lead up to an open cellar door.

Snow is blowing in over the steps.

Joona has already caught sight of the concealed figure as the light of the torch glints off the knife-blade.

He takes another step forward, and hears rapid breathing followed by a sudden whimper.

A tall woman with a dirty face rushes out with a knife in her hand, and Joona instinctively aims his pistol at her torso.

‘Watch out!’ Eliot cries.

It’s a matter of no more than a second, but Joona still has time to decide not to shoot. Without thinking he moves towards her, stepping quickly aside as she lunges. He blocks her arm, grabs it and lets his shoulders carry on moving, hitting the left side of her neck with his lower right arm. The blow is so hard and sudden that it knocks her backwards.

Joona is holding the arm holding the knife. There’s a cracking
sound, like two stones knocking together underwater, as her elbow breaks. The woman falls to the floor, howling with pain.

The knife clatters to the ground. Joona kicks it away, then aims his pistol towards the boiler room.

A middle-aged man is half-lying over the geo-energy pump. He’s been tied up with rope and duct tape, and there’s a rag in his mouth.

Eliot Sörenstam cuffs the woman to a water pipe as Joona cautiously approaches the man, explains that he’s a police officer, and removes the gag.

‘The girls,’ the man gasps. ‘They ran out, you mustn’t hurt the girls, they’re—’

‘Is there anyone else here?’

Eliot’s already run up the concrete steps.

‘Only the girls.’

‘How many?’

‘Two … Susanne gave them the shotgun, they’re just scared, they’ve never used a gun, you mustn’t hurt them,’ the man pleads desperately. ‘They’re just scared …’

Joona runs up the steps and out into the back garden. Behind him the man calls out over and over again, telling them not to hurt the girls.

Footsteps lead across the garden and straight into the forest. A beam of light is flickering among the trees.

‘Eliot,’ Joona shouts. ‘There’s only children out here!’

He follows the tracks into the forest and feels the sweat on his face cooling.

‘They’re armed!’ Joona calls.

He runs towards the light between the trees. Twigs snap beneath the snow under his weight. Ahead of him he can see Eliot pushing through the snow with his pistol and torch.

‘Wait!’ Joona shouts, but Eliot doesn’t seem to hear.

Loose snow falls from a tree with soft thumps.

In the weak light he can make out the children’s tracks among the trees, at different angles, then the straight line of Eliot’s steps following them.

‘They’re just children!’ Joona cries again, trying to gain on him by sliding down a steep slope.

He slips onto one hip, bringing down loose stones and pine cones, and scrapes his back on something, but gets to his feet again as he reaches the bottom.

Through the dense foliage he can make out the searching beam of the torch, and close by a skinny girl is standing next to a tree, holding the shotgun in both hands.

Joona runs straight through the thicket of dry twigs. He tries to shield his face, but his cheeks still get scratched. He sees Eliot’s frame moving between the tree trunks, then the little girl behind the tree steps out and fires the gun at the policeman.

The cloud of shot hits the snow just a metre or so in front of the end of the barrel. The butt jerks back and the girl’s thin frame is shaken by the recoil. She falls and Eliot spins round and aims his pistol at her.

‘Wait!’ Joona shouts, trying to force his way through the branches.

He ends up with snow all over him and inside his coat, but the branches give way and he emerges on the other side, and stops abruptly.

Eliot Sörenstam is sitting on the ground, with his arms round the sobbing girl. A few steps away her little sister is standing and staring at them.

Susanne Hjälm’s arms are cuffed behind her back. Her broken elbow juts out at an odd angle. She’s screaming hysterically and putting up fierce resistance as two uniformed police officers drag her up the cellar steps. The blue lights from the various emergency vehicles make the snowy landscape ripple like water. Neighbours are watching events from a distance, like silent ghosts.

Susanne stops screaming when she sees Joona and Eliot emerge from the forest. Joona is carrying the younger girl, and Eliot is holding the other one by the hand.

Susanne’s eyes open wide and she breathes hard in the ice-cold winter night. Joona puts the girl on the ground so she can go over to her mother with her sister. They hug for a long time, and she tries to calm them.

‘It’s going to be all right now,’ she says in a broken voice. ‘Everything’s going to be all right …’

An older female officer starts talking to the girls, trying to explain that their mother needs to go with the police.

The father is led out of the cellar by the paramedics, but he’s so weak that he has to be put on a stretcher.

Joona follows as the officers lead Susanne through the deep snow towards one of the police cars in the drive. They put her in the back seat while a senior officer talks to a prosecutor over the phone.

‘She needs to go to hospital,’ Joona says, stamping the snow from his shoes and trousers.

He walks over to Susanne Hjälm. She’s sitting quietly in the car, her face turned towards the house as she tries to catch a glimpse of her daughters.

‘Why did you do this?’ Joona asks.

‘You’d never understand,’ she mumbles. ‘No one could understand.’

‘Maybe I could,’ he says. ‘I was the person who arrested Jurek Walter thirteen—’

‘You should have killed him,’ she interrupts, looking him in the eye for the first time.

‘What happened? After so many years working as a psychiatrist in the secure unit …’

‘I should never have spoken to him,’ she says through gritted teeth. ‘We’re not supposed to, but I never imagined …’

She falls silent and looks up at the house again.

‘What did he say?’

‘He … demanded that I post a letter,’ she whispers.

‘A letter?’

‘There are loads of restrictions limiting what he’s allowed to do, so I couldn’t … but I, I …’

‘You couldn’t send it? So where’s the letter now?’

‘Maybe I should talk to a lawyer,’ she says.

‘Have you still got the letter?’

‘I burned it,’ she says, then turns away again.

Tears start to trickle down her exhausted, filthy face.

‘What did it say in the letter?’

‘I want to see a lawyer before I answer any more questions,’ she says resolutely.

‘This is important, Susanne,’ Joona persists. ‘You’re going to get medical treatment now, and you can see a lawyer, but first I need to know where the letter was to be sent … Give me a name, an address.’

‘I don’t remember … it was a PO box.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t remember … there was a name,’ she says, shaking her head.

Joona watches the eldest daughter being carried towards an
ambulance on a stretcher. She looks scared, and is trying to undo the straps holding her on.

‘Do you remember the name?’

‘It wasn’t Russian,’ Susanne whispers. ‘It was—’

The daughter suddenly panics in the ambulance and starts screaming.

‘Ellen!’ Susanne cries. ‘I’m here, I’m here!’

Susanne tries to get out of the car, but Joona forces her to stay where she is.

‘Leave me alone!’

She struggles to pull free and get out. The doors of the ambulance close and everything is quiet again.

‘Ellen!’ she calls.

The ambulance drives off and Susanne turns her head away with her eyes closed.

When Anders Rönn gets home from the parents’ meeting organised by the Autism and Asperger Association, Petra is sitting at the computer paying bills. He goes over and kisses her on the back of the neck, but she shrugs him off. He tries to smile, and pats her cheek.

‘Stop it,’ she says.

‘Can we try to be friends?’

‘You went far too far,’ she tells him wearily.

‘I know, sorry, I thought you wanted—’

‘Well, stop thinking it,’ she interrupts.

Anders looks her in the eye, nods and then goes off to Agnes’s room. She’s sitting by her dolls’ house with her back to him. He can see that she’s got the hairbrush in her hand, she’s brushed all the dolls and has piled then on top of each other in one of the beds in the dolls’ house.