The Nightmare

‘What’s happened?’ Nils asks.

‘Nothing, I just need to think,’ he replies quickly.

Joona gets up from the chair and walks out of the room without another word. He walks through the foyer without hearing what the twinkly-eyed woman at reception says to him. He just carries on, out into the early sunshine, and stops on the grass by the car park.

A fourth person who isn’t well-acquainted with the two women killed Viola, Joona thinks. He killed Viola, but thought he had killed Penelope. That means that Penelope was still alive when Viola was killed, because otherwise he wouldn’t have made that mistake.

Maybe she is still alive, Joona thinks. It’s possible that she’s lying dead somewhere out in the archipelago, on some island or deep underwater. But there’s still every reason to hope that she’s still alive, and if she is alive, then she’ll be found before too much longer.

Joona strides off purposefully towards his car without actually knowing where he’s going. His phone is on the roof of the car. He realises he must have left it there when he locked the car. When he picks it up to call Anja Larsson it’s very hot. No answer. He opens the door, gets in, puts on his seat belt, then sits there and tries to find a flaw in his reasoning.

The air is stuffy, but the heavy scent of the lilac bushes by the car park eventually succeeds in driving the yeasty smell of the body in the mortuary from his nostrils.

His phone rings in his hand, and he looks at the screen before answering.

‘I’ve just been talking to your doctor,’ Anja says.

‘Why were you talking to him?’ Joona asks in surprise.

‘Janush says you never show up,’ she chides.

‘I haven’t had time.’

‘But you’re taking the medication?’

‘It’s disgusting,’ Joona jokes.

‘Seriously, though … he called because he’s worried about you,’ she says.

‘I’ll talk to him.’

‘When you’ve solved this case, you mean?’

‘Have you got a pen and paper handy?’ Joona asks.

‘Don’t worry about me.’

‘The woman who was found on the boat isn’t Penelope Fernandez.’

‘No, it was Viola. I know,’ she says. ‘Petter told me.’

‘Good.’

‘You were wrong, Joona.’

‘Yes, I know …’

‘Say it,’ she jokes.

‘I’m always wrong,’ he says quietly.

Neither of them speaks for a moment.

‘So we’re not allowed to joke about that?’ she asks tentatively.

‘Have you managed to find out anything the boat and Viola Fernandez?’

‘Viola and Penelope are sisters,’ she says. ‘Penelope and Björn have been in a relationship, or whatever you want to call it, for the past four years.’

‘Yes, that’s pretty much what I thought.’

‘Right. Do you want me to go on, or is it all unnecessary?’

Joona doesn’t answer, just leans his head back and notices that the windscreen is covered with pollen from a nearby tree.

‘Viola wasn’t supposed to be going out on the boat with them,’ Anja goes on. ‘She’d had a row with her boyfriend, Sergey Jarushenko, that morning, and had phoned her mother in tears. It was her mother’s idea that she should ask Penelope if she could go with them.’

‘What do you know about Penelope?’

‘I’ve actually been prioritising the victim, Viola Fernandez, seeing as …’

‘But the murderer thought he’d killed Penelope.’

‘Hang on, what did you just say, Joona?’

‘He made a mistake, he was planning to cover the murder up, make it look like an accident, but he put Viola on her sister’s bed.’

‘Because he thought Viola was Penelope.’

‘I need to know everything about Penelope Fernandez and her …’

‘She’s one of my biggest idols,’ Anja says, cutting him off. ‘She’s a peace campaigner, and she lives at Sankt Paulsgatan 3.’

‘We’ve sent out an alert for her and Björn Almskog on the intranet,’ Joona says. ‘And the coastguard have got two helicopters searching the area around Dalarö, but they need to organise a proper search of the island with the marine police.’

‘I’ll find out what’s going on,’ she says.

‘And someone needs to talk to Viola’s boyfriend, and Bill Persson, the fisherman who found her on the boat. We need a comprehensive forensics report on the boat, and we need to speed up the results from the National Forensics Lab.’

‘Do you want me to call Linköping?’

‘I’ll talk to Erixon, he knows them. I’ll be seeing him shortly to take a look at Penelope’s apartment.’

‘Sounds like you’re in charge of the preliminary investigation. Are you?’

17 (#ulink_2d65109f-dfe6-59ae-a6cd-29501c76cfad)

A very dangerous man (#ulink_2d65109f-dfe6-59ae-a6cd-29501c76cfad)