The Sandman

‘Yes,’ Mikael whispers, then shuts his eyes.

Joona looks at the young man in the bed, feeling his pulse roar in his temples, and his voice is brittle and metallic as he asks:

‘Was her name Rebecka?’

34 (#ulink_8688f417-ecac-53e0-9fc1-80c4ced7e198)

Mikael is crying as the sedative enters his bloodstream. His body relaxes, his sobbing grows more weary, then subsides completely seconds before he drifts off to sleep.

Joona feels oddly empty inside as he leaves the patient’s room and pulls out his phone. He stops, pauses for breath, then calls Åhlén, who carried out the extensive forensic autopsies on the bodies found in Lill-Jan’s Forest.

‘Nils Åhlén,’ he says as he takes the call.

‘Are you sitting at your computer?’

‘Joona Linna, how nice to hear from you,’ Åhlén says in his nasal voice. ‘I was just sitting here in front of the screen with my eyes closed, enjoying its warmth. I was fantasising that I’d bought a facial solarium.’

‘Elaborate daydream.’

‘Well, if you look after the pennies …’

‘Would you like to look up some old files?’

‘Talk to Frippe, he’ll help you.’

‘No can do.’

‘He knows as much as—’

‘It’s about Jurek Walter,’ Joona interrupts.

A long silence follows.

‘I’ve told you, I don’t want to talk about that again,’ Åhlén says calmly.

‘One of his victims has turned up alive.’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘Mikael Kohler-Frost … He’s got Legionnaires’ disease, but it looks as though he’s going to pull through.’

‘What are the files you’re interested in?’ Åhlén asks with nervous intensity in his voice.

‘The man in the barrel had Legionnaires’ disease,’ Joona goes on. ‘But did the boy who was found with him show any signs of the disease?’

‘Why are you wondering that?’

‘If there’s a connection, it ought to be possible to put together a list of places where the bacteria might be present. And then—’

‘We’re talking about millions of places,’ Åhlén interrupts.

‘OK …’

‘Joona. You have to realise, even if Legionella was mentioned in the other reports, that doesn’t mean that Mikael was one of Jurek Walter’s victims.’

‘So there were Legionella bacteria?’

‘Yes, I found antibodies against the bacteria in the boy’s blood, so he’d probably had Pontiac fever,’ Åhlén says with a sigh. ‘I know you want to be right, Joona, but nothing you’ve said is enough to—’

‘Mikael Kohler-Frost says he met Rebecka,’ Joona interrupts.

‘Rebecka Mendel?’ Åhlén asks with a tremble in his voice.

‘They were held captive together,’ Joona confirms.

There is a long silence, then: ‘So … so you were right about everything, Joona,’ Åhlén says, sounding as if he’s about to start crying. ‘You’ve no idea how relieved I am to hear that.’

He gulps hard down the phone, and whispers that they did the right thing after all.

‘Yes,’ Joona says, in a lonely voice.

He and Åhlén had done the right thing when they arranged the car-crash for Joona’s wife and daughter.

Two dead bodies were cremated and buried in place of Lumi and Summa. Using fake dental records, Åhlén had identified the bodies. He believed Joona, and trusted him, but it had been such a big decision, so momentous, that he has never stopped worrying about it.

Joona daren’t leave the hospital until two uniformed officers arrive to guard Mikael’s room. On his way out along the corridor he calls Nathan Pollock and says they need to send someone to pick up the man’s father.

‘I’m sure it’s Mikael,’ he says. ‘And I’m sure he’s been held captive by Jurek Walter all these years.’

He gets in the car and slowly drives away from the hospital as the windscreen wipers clear the snow aside.

Mikael Kohler-Frost was ten years old when he disappeared – and he was twenty-three when he managed to escape.

Sometimes prisoners manage to escape, like Elisabeth Fritzl in Austria, who escaped after twenty-four years as a sex-slave in her father’s cellar. Or Natascha Kampusch, who fled her kidnapper after eight years.

Joona can’t help thinking that, like Elisabeth Fritzl and Natascha Kampusch, Mikael must have seen the man holding him captive. Suddenly a conclusion to all this seems possible. In just a few days, as soon as he is well enough, Mikael ought to be able to show the way to the place where he was held captive for so long.

The car’s tyres rumble as Joona crosses the ridge of snow in the middle of the road to overtake a bus. As he drives past the Palace of Nobility the city opens up in front of him once more, with heavy snow falling between the dark sky and the swirling black water below the bridge.

Obviously the accomplice must know that Mikael has escaped and can identify him, Joona thinks. Presumably he has already tried to cover his tracks and switch to a new hiding place, but if Mikael can lead them to where he was held captive, Forensics would be able to find some sort of evidence and the hunt would be on again.

There’s a long way to go, but Joona’s heart is already beating faster in his chest.

The thought is so overwhelming that he has to pull over to the side of Vasa Bridge and stop the car. Another driver blows his horn irritably. Joona gets out of his car and steps up onto the pavement, breathing the cold air deep into his lungs.

A sudden burst of migraine makes him stumble and he grabs the railing for support. He closes his eyes for a moment, waits, and feels the pain ebb away before he opens his eyes again.

Millions and millions of white snowflakes are flying through the air, vanishing on the dark water as if they had never existed.