The Sandman

It’s only a twenty-minute drive from home, and it could well lead to a permanent appointment.

Since working as an intern at Skaraborg Hospital and in a health centre in Huddinge, he has had to get by on temporary contracts at the regional clinic of Sankt Sigfrid’s Hospital.

The long drives to Växjö and the irregular hours proved impossible to combine with Petra’s job in the council’s recreational administration and Agnes’s autism.

Only two weeks ago Anders and Petra had been sitting at the kitchen table trying to work out what on earth they were going to do.

‘We can’t go on like this,’ he had said, perfectly calmly.

‘But what alternative do we have?’ she had whispered.

‘I don’t know,’ Anders had replied, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

Agnes’s teaching assistant at her preschool had told them that Agnes had had a difficult day. She had refused to let go of her milk-glass, and the other children had laughed. She hadn’t been able to accept that break-time was over, because Anders hadn’t come to pick her up like he usually did. He had driven straight back from Växjö, but hadn’t reached the preschool until six o’clock. Agnes was still sitting in the dining room with her hands round the glass.

When they got home, Agnes had stood in her room, staring at the wall beside the doll’s house, clapping her hands in that introverted way she had. They don’t know what she can see there, but she says that grey sticks keep appearing, and she has to count them, and stop them. She does that when she’s feeling particularly anxious. Sometimes ten minutes is enough, but that evening she had to stand there for more than four hours before they could get her into bed.

2 (#u9630d5a6-d60e-52b1-a926-c87b31ab989e)

The last security door closes and they head down the corridor to the only one of the isolation cells that is being used. The fluorescent light in the ceiling reflects off the vinyl floor. The textured wallpaper has a groove worn into it from the food trolley, one metre up from the floor.

The Senior Consultant puts his pass card away and lets Anders walk ahead of him towards the heavy metal door.

Through the reinforced glass Anders can see a thin man sitting on a plastic chair. He is dressed in blue jeans and a denim shirt. The man is clean-shaven and his eyes seem remarkably calm. The many wrinkles covering his pale face look like the cracked clay at the bottom of a dried-up riverbed.

Jurek Walter was only found guilty of two murders and one attempted murder, but there’s compelling evidence linking him to a further nineteen murders.

Thirteen years ago he was caught red-handed in Lill-Jan’s Forest on Djurgården in Stockholm, forcing a fifty-year-old woman back into a coffin in the ground. She had been kept in the coffin for almost two years, but was still alive. The woman had sustained terrible injuries, she was malnourished, her muscles had withered away, she had appalling pressure sores and frostbite, and had suffered severe brain damage. If the police hadn’t followed and arrested Jurek Walter beside the coffin, he would probably never have been stopped.

Now the consultant takes out three small glass bottles containing yellow powder, puts some water into each of the bottles, shakes them carefully, then draws the contents into a syringe.

He puts his earplugs in, then opens the small hatch in the door. There’s a clatter of metal and a heavy smell of concrete and dust hits them.

In a dispassionate voice the Senior Consultant tells Jurek Walter that it’s time for his injection.

The man lifts his chin and gets up softly from the chair, turns to look at the hatch in the door and unbuttons his shirt as he approaches.

‘Stop and take your shirt off,’ Roland Brolin says.

Jurek Walter carries on walking slowly forward and Roland quickly closes and bolts the hatch. Jurek stops, undoes the last buttons and lets his shirt fall to the floor.

His body looks as if it was once in good shape, but now his muscles are loose and his wrinkled skin is sagging.

Roland opens the hatch again. Jurek Walter walks the last little bit and holds out his sinewy arm, mottled with hundreds of different pigments.

Anders washes his upper arm with surgical spirit. Roland pushes the syringe into the soft muscle and injects the liquid far too quickly. Jurek’s hand jerks in surprise, but he doesn’t pull his arm back until he’s given permission. The Senior Consultant closes and hurriedly bolts the hatch, removes his earplugs, smiles nervously to himself and then looks inside.

Jurek Walter is stumbling towards the bed, where he stops and sits down.

Suddenly he turns to look at the door and Roland drops the syringe.

He tries to catch it but it rolls away across the floor.

Anders steps forward and picks up the syringe, and when they both stand and turn back towards the hatch they see that the inside of the reinforced glass is misted. Jurek has breathed on the glass and written ‘JOONA’ with his finger.

‘What does it say?’ Anders asks weakly.

‘He’s written Joona.’

‘Joona?’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

The condensation clears and they see that Jurek Walter is sitting as if he hadn’t moved. He looks at the arm where he got the injection, massages the muscle, then looks at them through the glass.

‘It didn’t say anything else?’ Anders asks.

‘I only saw …’

There’s a bestial roar from the other side of the heavy door. Jurek Walter has slid off the bed and is on his knees, screaming as hard as he can. The sinews in his neck are taut, his veins swollen.

‘How much did you actually give him?’ Anders asks.

Jurek Walter’s eyes roll back and turn white, he reaches out a hand to support himself, stretches one leg but topples over backwards, hitting his head on the bedside table, then he screams and his body starts to jerk spasmodically.

‘Bloody hell,’ Anders whispers.

Jurek slips onto the floor, his legs kicking uncontrollably. He bites his tongue and blood sprays out over his chest, then he lies there on his back, gasping.

‘What do we do if he dies?’

‘Cremate him,’ Brolin says.

Jurek is cramping again, his whole body shaking, and his hands flail in every direction until they suddenly stop.

Brolin looks at his watch. Sweat is running down his cheeks.

Jurek Walter whimpers, rolls onto his side and tries to get up, but fails.

‘You can go inside in two minutes,’ the Senior Consultant says.

‘Am I really going in there?’

‘He’ll soon be completely harmless.’

Jurek is crawling on all fours, bloody slime drooling from his mouth. He sways and slows down until he finally slumps to the floor and lies still.

3 (#u9630d5a6-d60e-52b1-a926-c87b31ab989e)