Joona Linna: Stalker Part 61

Joona believes that the perpetrator is intentionally trying to make it look like Erik is guilty of the murders, but he can't find any connection between Erik and any of the men on the list.

What Joona is looking for now among the reports and a.n.a.lysis is something definite that will allow him to cross most of the names off the list.

There's nothing that stands out in the material, but perhaps different elements could be combined in an unexpected way. Joona tries separating the pieces of the puzzle and seeing if there are other ways of putting them together.

He walks across to the pictures of the deer's head and a tub of melted ice cream, and stops in front of the photograph of Sandra Lundgren's murder weapon. The stained knife was photographed where it was found, on the floor beside her dead body. The flash from the camera shimmers like a dark sun in the brown blood.

He reads that it is a chef's knife, with a stainless steel blade that's twenty centimetres long, and then examines Erixon's careful sketches attempting to reconstruct the brutal process of the attack from blood traces and spatter patterns.

The perpetrator has worn the same footwear each time: touring boots, size 43.

Joona tries to identify clues that have been missed, things that don't match the overall picture. He pores over picture after picture, and stops in front of a photograph with the number 311: a blue pottery fragment that resembles a bird's skull, with white bubbles along one edge, and a sharp point that's smooth as ice.

He leafs forward to the item in Erixon's report and reads that it was tucked between the cracks in Sandra's floor, and was only found when low-level light was shone across the floor. According to the laboratory a.n.a.lysis, the tiny, two-millimetre-long fragment consists of gla.s.s, iron, sand and chamotte clay.

Joona moves to the report from Adam Youssef's home. In spite of the gunfire, the murderer chose to go through with his plan, and according to the preliminary report Katryna was missing the false fingernails from both her hands.

The preacher takes trophies, then marks the places he's taken them from with the victim's hands, like a judgement in a trial.

At quarter past three Anja Larsson calls to say that she has just been informed about an imminent operation. The police have received a tip-off that is regarded as highly credible. A man claims that Erik is sleeping in the spare room in his flat. Erik had been his psychiatrist some years ago.

'The man has been told to leave the flat.'

'Who's leading the operation?' Joona asks.

'Daniel Frick.'

'He's one of Adam's best friends.'

'I understand what you're saying,' Anja says. 'But I don't think there's anything to worry about, because this operation is still being led by the National Response Unit.'

Joona goes over to the window and looks down at the hire car he's left parked on the pavement rather than in the hotel's garage. It's a gun-metal grey Porsche with six cylinders and 560 horsepower.

'Where's the flat?'

'Because everyone knows that I'm loyal to you, Margot has decided that I should be kept outside the current investigation ... and she's got a point, because if I knew the address I'd tell you.'

Anja doesn't know where the operation is going to take place, but she's worked out that it must be somewhere south of Stockholm. She says the response unit has been given permission to use pump-action shotguns, a.s.sault rifles, repeaters and PSG 90 sniper rifles.

After the call Joona stands and gazes at the floor of the hotel room. Hundreds of pictures, lined up in rows, from wall to wall, with the floor lamp reflecting off the glossy surface of the photographs.

He carries on reading Erixon's crime scene a.n.a.lysis, but his mind keeps wandering to Erik and the impending operation.

Joona walks to the other side of the room, looks at a picture of a fragment of yellow fibre, then reads a lab report about a piece of trampled leaf left on the kitchen floor in Maria Carlsson's home. It turned out to be a fragment of stinging nettle.

He looks at the enlargement on the photograph. The tiny piece of leaf fills the whole sheet of paper, like a spiky green tongue. The hairs look like crystal needles, or fragile pipettes.

Dawn comes and the sky in the east grows paler. Narrow streaks of sunlight filter past chimneys and gables, over the roofs and copper ornaments of Vasastan.

The operation must be over by now, Joona thinks, and calls Erik on his new phone.

He tries a second time, but gets no answer.

Even though it's only half past five in the morning, he decides to call Margot. He has to know if they've caught Erik, but can't ask straight out about the operation because he doesn't want to get Anja in trouble.

'Have you managed to arrest an innocent suspect yet, then?'

'Joona, I'm asleep ...'

'I know, but what's going on?'

'What's going on? You're not actually allowed to ask, but a former patient of Erik's called and said that Erik was in his flat,' she replies in a tired voice.

'Can I have a name?'

'Confidential, I can't talk to you, I told you that.'

'Just say if it's something I ought to know about.'

'The patient told the police he'd left Erik alone in the flat ... The National Response Unit went in, saw an armed man and shot live ammunition ... it turned out that the person in the window was the patient, who had returned to the flat.'

'And Erik wasn't there?'

He can hear her trying to sit up in bed.

'We don't even know if he'd been there at all, and the patient's on an operating table right now and can't be interviewed or-'

'What if he's the preacher?' Joona interrupts.

'Erik's guilty ... But maybe the patient knows where he is. We'll question him as soon as we can.'

'You should station armed guards at the hospital.'

'Joona, we've found blood in Erik's car, it might not mean anything, but it's been sent for a.n.a.lysis.'

'Have you looked for a set of yellow rain-clothes in the patient's flat?'

'We didn't find anything special,' she replies.

'Are there stinging nettles outside the flat?'

'No, I don't think so,' she says in a bemused tone.

106.

Joona sits down on a chair for the first time in several hours and reads more about the killer's steps in Sandra Lundgren's flat, looks at the sketches and thinks that there's something unusually agitated and frenetic about the murders. They're planned, but they aren't rational.

Joona compares this with the post-mortem reports' description of theatrical aggression, but can't help thinking that the degree of controlled preparation is actually a disguise, and that the aggression itself is the perpetrator's natural state.

He is about to make a note to investigate the medical history of Erik's former patient when his phone rings.

'Joona, it's me,' Erik whispers. 'They tried to kill me. I was hiding out at Nestor's, he's an old patient of mine, the police must have thought it was me they could see in the window. They shot him twice, it was like an execution. I didn't think the police in Sweden could do something like that, it's completely insane.'

'Are you somewhere safe now?'

'Yes, I think so ... You know, he only came back to tell me what he'd done, to say that the police had promised not to hurt me, and then they shot him through the window.'

'Has it occurred to you that he could be the preacher?'

'He isn't,' Erik replies instantly.

'What was his problem when he was-'

'Joona, that doesn't matter, I just want a trial, I don't care if they convict me, I can't stay-'

'Erik, I don't think I'm being monitored, but don't tell me where you are,' Joona interrupts. 'I only want to know how long you can stay hidden where you are.'

The phone crackles as Erik moves.

'I don't know, twenty-four hours, maybe,' he whispers. 'There's a tap here, but nothing to eat.'

'Are you likely to be found?'

'There's probably not much risk of that,' Erik replies, then falls silent.

'Erik?'

'I don't understand how I could have ended up in this situation,' he says quietly. 'Everything I've done has only made things worse.'

'I'm going to find the preacher,' Joona says.

'It's too late for that, it's too late for everything now, I just want to give myself up without being killed!'

Joona can hear Erik's agitated breathing down the phone.

'If we manage to hand you over and keep you alive in prison, these crimes carry a life sentence,' Joona says.

'But I don't think I'd be convicted I can hypnotise Rocky before the trial.'

'They'd never let you do that.'

'No, maybe not, but ...'

'I went to see Rocky,' Joona says. 'He's in Huddinge Prison for possession of drugs, he remembered you, but nothing about the Zone or the preacher.'

'It's hopeless,' Erik says.

Joona leans against the window and feels the cool gla.s.s against his forehead. Down in the street a taxi stops outside the hotel. The driver's face is grey with tiredness as he walks round the car to take the luggage out.

Joona glances down at his hire-car, watches the taxi drive off, and when he looks up again he's made up his mind.

'I'll try to find a way of getting Rocky out today ... and then we'll meet up so you can hypnotise him,' he says.

'Is that your plan?' Erik asks.

'You said you could unearth specific details about the preacher if you were able to hypnotise Rocky again.'

'Yes, I can, I'm pretty sure of that.'

'In that case I'll be able to find the real killer while you stay in hiding.'

'I just want to hand myself in and-'

'You'll be found guilty if it goes to trial.'

'That's ridiculous, I just happened to be nearby when-'

'It's not just that,' Joona interrupts. 'Your fingerprints were on an object found in Susanna Kern's hand.'

'What object?' Erik asks in astonishment.

'Part of a porcelain animal.'

'I don't get it, that doesn't mean anything to me.'

'But the fingerprint match is one hundred per cent.'

Joona hears Erik walk up and down, it sounds as though he's walking across a wooden floor.

'So everything points at me,' he says in a low voice.

'Have you got a picture of Nestor?'

Erik tells him how to log into the medical records of the Psychology Clinic before they end the call. Joona puts his pistol and jacket on, then goes down to reception to get a printout of Nestor's picture before leaving the hotel room again.

He walks past his hire-car and turns into the much narrower Frejgatan.

Outside one of the doorways stands an old Volvo, the sort with no ignition lock. Joona looks round quickly. The street is completely deserted. He takes a step back, then kicks in the rear side-window.

The alarm of a car further down the street goes off.