Joona Linna: Stalker Part 42

'Thanks for dinner.'

'There's ice cream for dessert,' Joona says, heading towards the hall.

Erik starts to clear the table, but exhaustion hits with such ferocity that he leaves everything and staggers off to the library. His silver gla.s.ses case is no longer beside the stack of books on the smoking table. He shudders and turns to look out of the window, which is rattling on its catch. It's still light out, but it will soon be dark, he thinks, as he sinks into the leather armchair and closes his eyes.

He needs to pull himself together and try to understand what's happening to him.

Without opening his eyes he pops an Imovane from the pack on the table, holds it in his sweaty palm for a moment, then puts it in his mouth.

Milky stillness empties his thoughts and he feels sleep rising up like a heavy wave when the phone rings. He can't manage to focus his eyes enough to see who's calling, and almost drops the phone but somehow catches it.

'h.e.l.lo?' he says hoa.r.s.ely, putting the mobile to his ear.

'You won't forget Maddy, will you?'

'What?'

'Erik, what's wrong?' Jackie asks seriously.

'Nothing, I was just sitting ... and ...'

He loses his train of thought and clears his throat instead.

'You're picking Maddy up but you knew that?'

'Of course, no problem ... it's on the calendar.'

'Thanks,' she says warmly.

'I've been practising,' he slurs, and shuts his eyes.

'Call me if there's a problem and I'll come, they'll have to manage without an organist. Promise you'll call me.'

72.

Joona is sitting in Erik's car, driving towards the centre of Stockholm while he waits for Anja Larsson of the National Criminal Investigation Department to call him back. He's pa.s.sed the Globe and is on his way into the tunnels beneath Sdermalm when his phone lights up.

Anja's fingernails are still tapping at the keyboard of her computer as she tells him she hasn't managed to find anything yet.

'The Zone isn't in our register, it never has been,' she says in a resigned voice.

'Maybe its real name is something different?'

'I've tried the border control agency, the security section, IT, and Surveillance ... I've started asking questions on a load of really nice online forums and s.e.x websites.'

'Can you get hold of Milan?' he asks.

'I'd rather not,' Anja replies bluntly.

The car windows sigh as Joona heads into the narrow mouth of the tunnel. The lights in the roof and along the walls pulse towards him and Anja's voice disappears.

'We've got to find Rocky Kyrklund,' he says, unsure if the connection has been lost altogether.

'Wait outside the front door,' she says distantly. 'I'll come down and ...'

Then silence, and Joona drives deeper into the tunnel as he thinks about everything Erik has told him.

Ten minutes later he parks on the steep hill leading to the park, gets his stick and walks down to the glazed entrance of the National Police Headquarters.

Through the layers of gla.s.s he sees Margot pa.s.s the airlocks and head outside with heavy steps.

'I happened to hear that Anja has arranged a meeting between you and Milan on the steps below Barnhusbron,' Margot says.

'You'll have to stay at a distance.'

They walk down Bergsgatan together, past the solid facade of the Kron.o.berg swimming pool and the heavy metal gate to the prison.

'When can I have my pistol back?' Joona says, leaning on his stick with each step.

'I'm not even allowed to talk to you,' she points out.

As they pa.s.s the oldest parts of Police Headquarters, where the regional police chief has his offices, Margot tells him that Bjrn Kern has started to talk. Apparently his hypnosis had the effect that Erik was hoping for, providing him with a key to help him past the shock and find a way of structuring his memories.

'Bjrn says his wife was sitting on the floor with her hand over her ear when he found her.'

'The same pattern,' Joona nods.

'We've got nothing but the murders and the recurring modus operandi. We've gathered a h.e.l.l of a lot of questions, but no answers at all so far.'

They cut across Rdhusparken. Joona is limping and Margot holds both hands around her big stomach.

'The act of filming them through windows is central,' Joona says after a while.

'What are you thinking? I'm not getting anywhere,' she admits, glancing sideways at him.

The trees are shimmering grey with damp, and there are yellow leaves in their crowns.

Joona is thinking that the murderer is a voyeur, a stalker who gets to know his victims, and chooses to capture a recurrent moment of life in his films.

'And the hands,' he mutters.

'Yes, what the h.e.l.l is going on with the hands?'

'I don't know,' he replies, thinking that the hands are used to mark different places on the body.

It wasn't Filip Cronstedt who took the Saturn tongue-stud from Maria, it was the murderer, the person Filip had caught a glimpse of in the garden, filming in the rain.

Maybe the tongue-stud was the reason why the preacher went in, the incitement that was needed for him to cross the boundary?

They walk past a 7-Eleven shop. The tabloids' flysheets are offering a test to check if your boss is a psychopath.

Joona thinks that the preacher kills the woman, takes her jewellery, marks the place he took it from with the victim's hand to let us know why, and maybe understand the nature of the accusation.

It's a sort of announcement of the accusation, like the one hung on Jesus's cross.

Rebecka Hansson was found sitting with her hand around her neck, Maria Carlsson with her hand in her mouth, Susanna Kern with her hand over her ear, and Sandra Lundgren with her hand over her breast.

'He's taken something from each and every one of them ... It could be jewellery, it could be something else,' he says.

'But why?' Margot asks.

'Because they've broken the rules.'

'Joona, I know you go your own way,' Margot says. 'But if you do track Rocky down at that place and find something out, it would be nice if you shared it.'

'I'll call you privately,' he replies after a brief pause.

'I don't care how you go about it,' she says. 'But I'd really like to stop this f.u.c.king killer before we have any more victims ... and preferably without losing my job.'

As they cross Fleminggatan and approach the location for his meeting with Milan, he tells her to wait.

'Keep your distance now,' he repeats.

'Who the h.e.l.l is this Milan, anyway?'

Milan has steered clear of Police Headquarters for the past six years. The only time Joona has seen him was on a film from a surveillance camera. He was in the background of a shady underworld fight, acting weirdly and then shooting a man in the back.

Milan Plail works for the drugs squad, usually on long-term surveillance and infiltration jobs, and he has the largest network of informants in the whole of Stockholm.

'He's pretty smart,' Joona replies.

There are rumours that he has a child with a woman in the Bosnian mafia, but no one really knows. Milan has become a grey, shadowy figure. Always living in the liminal world of the infiltrator, and always having a hidden agenda, has made him a stranger to everyone.

'You might think he's unarmed, but he's probably got a Beretta Nano strapped round his ankle,' Joona says.

'Why are you telling me this?'

'Because he'd sacrifice us if we posed a risk to his undercover work.'

'Should I be worried?' Margot wonders.

'Milan's kind of unusual, so it would be best to keep your distance,' Joona repeats.

He leaves her on the other side of the street and carries on alone past the imposing buildings, to the end of the bridge, then down the steps to the bottom of the first flight, where the addicts usually hang out.

The air is thick with the smell of stale urine, the ground covered with cigarette b.u.t.ts and the remnants of a broken green-gla.s.s bottle.

The steel arches of the bridge are covered with spikes to stop pigeons landing there, but the entire concrete foundations are still hidden beneath a thick layer of droppings.

A shadow approaches along the walkway. Joona realises that it's Milan, leans his stick against the wall and waits for him to climb up to the landing.

Milan Plail is thirty years old, with shaved hair and dark, canine eyes. He's thin as a teenager, and dressed in a shiny black tracksuit and expensive trainers.

'I've heard about you, Joona Linna,' Milan says, glancing down towards the water.

'I need to find a place called the Zone.'

'You usually carry a forty-five.'

'Colt Combat.'

'She can't stand up there,' Milan says, nodding up the steps.

Joona sighs when he realises that Margot has followed him, and turns round to call to her.

'Margot? Come down!'

She looks over the railing, hesitates, then comes down the steps with her hand on the rail.

'The Zone,' Milan repeats.

'It's somewhere that's existed for more than ten years, probably south of Stockholm, but we don't know for sure ...'

'You can stop there,' Milan says to Margot when she has almost reached the landing.

'It's a place where you can buy serious drugs and s.e.x,' Joona says.

'If I say something, I want a kiss on the lips,' Milan smiles.

'OK,' Joona says.

'Her too, she needs to do it as well.'

'What?' Margot asks, peering at them.

'I want a kiss,' Milan says, pointing at his lips.

'No,' she laughs.

'Then you have to look at my c.o.c.k,' he says seriously, and pulls his trousers and underpants down.