The Nightmare

‘No, nothing like that – she drowned, that was the cause of death.’

‘You’re sure?’ Joona persists.

‘I’ve found fungus inside her nostrils, perforations in the mucous membrane in her throat, probably the result of a severe vomit reflex, and there are bronchial secretions in both her trachea and bronchi. Her lungs look typical for a drowning: full of water, increased weight, and … well.’

They fall silent. Joona can hear a scraping sound, as if someone were pushing a metal trolley.

‘You had a reason for calling,’ Joona says.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you feel like telling me?’

‘She had a high concentration of tetrahydro‌cannabinol in her urine.’

‘Cannabis?’

‘Yes.’

‘But she didn’t die of that,’ Joona says.

‘Hardly,’ Nils says, sounding amused. ‘I just assumed that you were probably busy reconstructing the sequence of events on the boat, and that this was one little detail of the puzzle that you may not have known about.’

‘Her name is Penelope Fernandez,’ Joona says.

‘Good to know,’ Nils mutters.

‘Was there anything else?’

‘No.’

Nils breathes down the phone.

‘Say it anyway,’ Joona says.

‘It’s just that this isn’t an ordinary death.’

He falls silent.

‘What have you spotted?’

‘Nothing, it’s just a feeling …’

‘Great,’ Joona says. ‘Now you’re starting to sound like me.’

‘I know, but … Obviously it could be a case of mors subita naturalis, a swift but entirely natural death … There’s nothing to contradict that, but if this is a natural death, it’s a very unusual natural death.’

They end the call, but The Needle’s words are echoing through Joona’s head: mors subita naturalis. There’s something mysterious about Penelope Fernandez’s death. Her body wasn’t just found in the water by someone and brought on board. Because then she would have been lying on deck. Okay, so whoever found her may have wanted to show the dead woman some respect. But in that case they would have carried her into the saloon and laid her on the sofa.

The last alternative, Joona thinks, is of course that she was taken care of by someone who loved her, who wanted to put her to bed in her own room, in her own bed.

But she was sitting on the bed. Sitting.

Maybe The Needle is wrong, maybe she was still alive when she was helped back on board and shown to her room. Her lungs could have been badly damaged, beyond salvation. Maybe she felt ill, wanted to lie down and be left in peace.

But why was there no water on her clothes, or the rest of her body?

There’s a fresh-water shower on board, Joona thinks, and tells himself that he’s going to have to search the rest of the boat: check the aft-cabin, as well as the bathroom and galley. There’s a lot left to look at before the whole picture starts to emerge.

When Erixon gets to his feet and takes a couple of steps, the whole boat rocks again.

Once more Joona looks out through the glass doors from the saloon, and for a second time finds himself staring at the bucket on a rope. It’s standing next to a zinc wash-tub where someone had left a wetsuit. There are water-skis by the railing. Joona looks back at the bucket again. He looks at the rope tied to the handle. The curved zinc tub shimmers in the sun, shining like a new moon.

Suddenly it hits him: Joona can see the sequence of events with icy clarity. He waits, lets his heart settle down, and thinks through what happened once more, until he is now absolutely certain that he’s right.

The woman now identified as Penelope Fernandez was drowned in the wash-tub.

Joona thinks back to the curved mark on her chest that he noticed in the pathology lab, which made him think of a smiling mouth.

She was murdered, then placed on the bed in her cabin.

His thoughts start to come faster now as adrenalin pumps through his body. She was drowned in brackish seawater and then placed on her bed.

This isn’t an ordinary death, and this isn’t an ordinary murderer.

A tentative voice starts to echo inside him, getting faster and more insistent. It keeps repeating the same five words, louder and louder: Get off the boat now, get off the boat now.

Joona looks at Erixon through the glass as he drops a swab in a small paper bag, seals it with tape and writes on it with a ballpoint pen.

‘Peekaboo,’ Erixon smiles.

‘We’re going ashore,’ Joona says calmly.

‘I don’t like boats, they keep moving the whole time, but I’ve only just got …’

‘Take a break,’ Joona says sharply.

‘What’s got into you now?’

‘Just follow me and don’t touch your phone.’

They go ashore and Joona leads Erixon a short way from the boat before he stops. He can feel his cheeks flush as calmness spreads through his body, settling as a weight in his thighs and calves.

‘There could be a bomb on board,’ he says quietly.

Erixon sits down on the edge of a concrete plinth. Sweat is dripping from his forehead.

‘What are you talking about?’