The Sandman. Ларс Кеплер

Чтение книги онлайн.

       20

      Joona looks at the petrol gauge as he passes the Statoil filling station and a snow-covered lay-by.

      He remembers talking to Reidar Frost and his wife Roseanna Kohler three days after their two children went missing. He didn’t mention his suspicions to them – that they had been murdered by a serial killer whom the police had stopped looking for, a murderer whose existence they had only managed to identify in theory.

      Joona just asked his questions, and let the parents cling onto the idea that the children had drowned.

      The family lived on Varvsvägen, in a beautiful house facing a sandy beach and the water. There had been several mild weeks and a lot of the snow had thawed. The streets and footpaths were dark and wet. There was barely any ice along the shoreline, and what remained was grey slush.

      Joona remembers walking through the house, passing a large kitchen and sitting down at a huge white table next to a window. But Roseanna had closed all the curtains, and although her voice was calm her head was shaking the whole time.

      The search for the children was fruitless. There had been countless helicopter searches, divers had been called in, and the water had been dragged for bodies. The surroundings had been searched by chain gangs of both volunteers and specialist dog units.

      But no one had seen or heard anything.

      Reidar Frost looked like a captured animal.

      He just wanted to keep on searching.

      Joona had sat opposite the two parents, asking routine questions about whether they had received any threats, if anyone had behaved oddly or differently, if they had felt they were being followed.

      ‘Everyone thinks they fell in the water,’ the wife had said, her head starting to shake again.

      ‘You mentioned that they sometimes climb out of the window after their bedtime prayers,’ Joona went on calmly.

      ‘Obviously, they’re not supposed to,’ Reidar said.

      ‘But you know that they sometimes creep out and cycle off to see a friend?’

      ‘Rikard.’

      ‘Rikard van Horn, number 7 Björnbärsvägen,’ Joona said.

      ‘We’ve tried talking to Micke and Felicia about it, but … well, they’re children, and I suppose we didn’t think it was that harmful,’ Reidar replied, gently laying his hand over his wife’s.

      ‘What do they do at Rikard’s?’

      ‘They never stay for long, just play a bit of Diablo.’

      ‘They all do,’ Roseanna whispered, pulling her hand away.

      ‘But on Saturday they didn’t cycle to Rikard’s, but went to Badholmen instead,’ Joona went on. ‘Do they often go there in the evening?’

      ‘We don’t think so,’ Roseanna said, getting up restlessly from the table, as if she could no longer keep her internal trembling in check.

      Joona nodded.

      He knew that the boy, Mikael, had answered the phone just before he and his younger sister had left the house, but the number had been impossible to trace.

      It had been unbearable, sitting there opposite the children’s parents. Joona said nothing, but was feeling more and more convinced that the children were victims of the serial killer. He listened, and asked his questions, but he couldn’t tell them what he suspected.