The Nightmare. Ларс Кеплер

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СКАЧАТЬ a very unusual natural death.’

      They end the call, but The Needle’s words are echoing through Joona’s head: mors subita naturalis. There’s something mysterious about Penelope Fernandez’s death. Her body wasn’t just found in the water by someone and brought on board. Because then she would have been lying on deck. Okay, so whoever found her may have wanted to show the dead woman some respect. But in that case they would have carried her into the saloon and laid her on the sofa.

      The last alternative, Joona thinks, is of course that she was taken care of by someone who loved her, who wanted to put her to bed in her own room, in her own bed.

      But she was sitting on the bed. Sitting.

      Maybe The Needle is wrong, maybe she was still alive when she was helped back on board and shown to her room. Her lungs could have been badly damaged, beyond salvation. Maybe she felt ill, wanted to lie down and be left in peace.

      But why was there no water on her clothes, or the rest of her body?

      There’s a fresh-water shower on board, Joona thinks, and tells himself that he’s going to have to search the rest of the boat: check the aft-cabin, as well as the bathroom and galley. There’s a lot left to look at before the whole picture starts to emerge.

      When Erixon gets to his feet and takes a couple of steps, the whole boat rocks again.

      Once more Joona looks out through the glass doors from the saloon, and for a second time finds himself staring at the bucket on a rope. It’s standing next to a zinc wash-tub where someone had left a wetsuit. There are water-skis by the railing. Joona looks back at the bucket again. He looks at the rope tied to the handle. The curved zinc tub shimmers in the sun, shining like a new moon.

      Suddenly it hits him: Joona can see the sequence of events with icy clarity. He waits, lets his heart settle down, and thinks through what happened once more, until he is now absolutely certain that he’s right.

      The woman now identified as Penelope Fernandez was drowned in the wash-tub.

      Joona thinks back to the curved mark on her chest that he noticed in the pathology lab, which made him think of a smiling mouth.

      She was murdered, then placed on the bed in her cabin.

      His thoughts start to come faster now as adrenalin pumps through his body. She was drowned in brackish seawater and then placed on her bed.

      This isn’t an ordinary death, and this isn’t an ordinary murderer.

      A tentative voice starts to echo inside him, getting faster and more insistent. It keeps repeating the same five words, louder and louder: Get off the boat now, get off the boat now.

      Joona looks at Erixon through the glass as he drops a swab in a small paper bag, seals it with tape and writes on it with a ballpoint pen.

      ‘Peekaboo,’ Erixon smiles.

      ‘We’re going ashore,’ Joona says calmly.

      ‘I don’t like boats, they keep moving the whole time, but I’ve only just got …’

      ‘Take a break,’ Joona says sharply.

      ‘What’s got into you now?’

      ‘Just follow me and don’t touch your phone.’

      They go ashore and Joona leads Erixon a short way from the boat before he stops. He can feel his cheeks flush as calmness spreads through his body, settling as a weight in his thighs and calves.

      ‘There could be a bomb on board,’ he says quietly.

      Erixon sits down on the edge of a concrete plinth. Sweat is dripping from his forehead.

      ‘What are you talking about?’

      ‘This is no ordinary murder,’ Joona says. ‘There’s a risk that …’

      ‘Murder? There’s nothing to suggest …’

      ‘Hold on,’ Joona interrupts. ‘I’m certain that Penelope Fernandez was drowned in the wash-tub that was out on deck.’

      ‘Drowned? What the hell are you saying?’

      ‘She drowned in seawater in the tub, then was moved to the bed,’ Joona goes on. ‘And I think the plan was that the boat should sink.’

      ‘But …’

      ‘Because then … then she’d be found in her water-filled cabin with water in her lungs.’

      ‘But the boat never sank,’ Erixon says.

      ‘That’s what made me start to wonder if there is some sort of explosive device on board, a device that didn’t go off, for whatever reason.’

      ‘It’s probably next to the fuel tank or the gas cylinders in the galley,’ Erixon says slowly. ‘We’ll have to get the area evacuated and call in the Bomb Squad.’

       13

       Reconstruction

      At seven o’clock that evening five very serious men meet in room 13 of the Department of Forensic Medicine at the Karolinska Institute. Detective Superintendent Joona Linna wants to take charge of the preliminary investigation into the case of the woman who was found dead on a boat in the Stockholm archipelago. Even though it’s Saturday, he has summoned his immediate boss, Petter Näslund, and Chief Prosecutor Jens Svanehjälm to a reconstruction in order to try to convince them that they’re actually dealing with a murder.

      One of the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling keeps flickering. The cool lighting glints off the dazzling white tiled walls.

      ‘Need to change the starter,’ The Needle murmurs.

      ‘Yes,’ Frippe agrees.

      Petter Näslund mutters something under his breath from where he’s standing over by the wall. His wide, strong face looks like it’s shaking in the flickering light. Beside him stands Chief Prosecutor Jens Svanehjälm with an irritable expression on his young face. He seems to be considering the risks of putting his leather briefcase down on the floor and leaning against the wall in his smart suit.

      There’s a strong smell of disinfectant in the room. Large, adjustable lamps hang from the ceiling above a free-standing stainless steel table, with a double tap and deep drainage channels. The floor is covered with pale grey linoleum. A zinc tub like the one on the boat is already half full of water. Joona Linna keeps fetching more water in a bucket from the tap on the wall above the drain, and then emptying it into the tub.

      ‘It isn’t actually against the law for someone to be found drowned on a boat,’ Svanehjälm says impatiently.

      ‘Quite,’ Petter says.

      ‘This СКАЧАТЬ