Stalker. Ларс Кеплер

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СКАЧАТЬ hand shake as he points at the screen.

      ‘The details of the initial level are rather vague … mostly just patterns,’ Åhlén explains, and clears his throat quickly. ‘The second level are so-called Galton details … you can see the length of the papillary lines and the way they relate to each other. The differences are only the result of tissue breakdown … And the third level, that’s primarily concerned with the layout of pores, and there the match is perfect.’

      ‘Do you mean that we’ve found Jurek?’ she whispers.

      ‘I’ll send the DNA to the National Forensics Lab in Linköping, but purely as a formality,’ he replies with a nervous smile. ‘You’ve found him, there’s no doubt that it’s him. It’s over now.’

      ‘Good,’ she says, feeling hot tears well up in her eyes.

      The initial relief is full of contradictory impulses and emptiness. Her heart is still pounding hard in her chest.

      ‘You’ve said all along that you were sure you killed Jurek – why was it so important to find his body?’ Åhlén asks.

      ‘I couldn’t try to find Joona before I’d found it,’ she replies, rubbing her cheeks with her hand to wipe the tears away.

      ‘Joona’s dead,’ Åhlén says.

      ‘Yes,’ she smiles.

      Joona’s jacket and wallet were found in the possession of a homeless man who hung around Strömparterren, at the end of the island housing the parliament building in Stockholm. Saga’s watched the video of the interview plenty of times. The homeless man identified himself as Constantine the First. He usually borrowed one of the fishing boats and slept outside a heating vent.

      He sat in the interview room with his big beard and dirty fingers, cracked lips and a wary look in his eyes. In a rattling voice he told them about the big Finn who told him to keep his distance, before taking his jacket off and swimming out into the water. He watched him swim out towards Strömbron until he reached the fast-flowing current and disappeared.

      ‘You don’t believe he’s dead?’ Åhlén asks calmly.

      ‘Several years ago he phoned me … he wanted me to find out some information about a woman in Helsinki, in secret,’ Saga says. ‘At the time I thought the woman had something to do with the case at Birgittagården.’

      ‘What about her, then?’

      ‘She was seriously ill, she was in hospital for an operation … Her name was Laura Sandin,’ Saga says, holding Åhlén’s gaze. ‘But she was really … really Summa Linna, his wife, wasn’t she?’

      ‘Yes,’ he nods.

      ‘I tried to get hold of Laura to tell her that Joona was dead,’ Saga explains. ‘Laura had been in a cancer hospice for palliative care, but two days after Joona’s suicide she was discharged to spend her last days at home … but neither Laura nor her daughter are still at their address on Elisabetsgatan.’

      ‘Really?’ Åhlén says, his thin nostrils turning pale.

      ‘They aren’t anywhere,’ Saga says, taking a step towards him.

      ‘That’s good to hear.’

      ‘I think Joona arranged his suicide so he could go and pick up his wife and daughter and go into hiding with them.’

      Nils Åhlén’s eyes are red, and his mouth is twitching slightly with emotion when he speaks:

      ‘Joona was the only person who believed that Jurek’s reach extended beyond the isolation unit, and as usual, he was right … If we hadn’t done this, Jurek would have killed Summa and Lumi, just as he killed Disa.’

      ‘Nils, I need to find Joona and tell him that Jurek Walter is dead,’ Saga says. ‘He needs to know that the body’s been found.’

      She puts her hand on his arm and sees his shoulders slump when he makes his mind up.

      ‘I don’t know where they are,’ he eventually says. ‘But if Summa is dying, like you say … I know where you could try looking …’

      ‘Where?’

      ‘Go to the Nordic Museum,’ he says in a thick voice, as if he were worried about changing his mind. ‘There’s a small bridal crown, a Sámi bridal crown made of woven roots. Look at it carefully.’

      ‘Thanks.’

      ‘Good luck,’ Åhlén says seriously, then hesitates. ‘No one wants to hug a pathologist, but …’

      Saga hugs him hard, then leaves the room and hurries along the corridor.

       21

      Saga parks in front of the large flight of steps leading up to the Nordic Museum, drinks a sip of cold coffee from a 7-Eleven mug, and looks at the people around her, all dressed for summer. It’s as if she hasn’t really paid attention to her surroundings before now. Adults and children, tired from the sun or long picnics, or excited and expectant on their way to the amusement park or some restaurant.

      She’s barely noticed the summer passing her by again. Since Joona disappeared she has withdrawn from the world, searching for Jurek’s body.

      Now it’s time to bring this to an end.

      Saga gets out of the car and goes up the steps. There’s a broken syringe on one of the top steps.

      She walks in through the imposing entrance, buys a ticket, picks up a plan of the museum and carries on into the entrance hall. A colourful statue of Gustav Vasa sits on a huge wooden throne gazing off towards the replica of a post-war home that’s been installed in the museum.

      As she walks towards the staircase she catches a glimpse of a text about the people’s home and the Social Democratic vision of a modern, supportive and equal Sweden in which all families had the right to a home with hot water, a kitchen and bathroom.

      She jogs up the stone steps and carries on to the section for Sámi handicrafts. A few visitors are walking along the glass cabinets containing jewellery, knives with reindeer-horn handles, cultural artefacts and clothes.

      She stops in front of a display featuring a bridal crown. This must be the one Åhlén meant. It’s a beautiful piece of work, made of woven birch-root, with points that look like the fingers of two interlaced hands.

      Saga looks at the small lock on the case, sees that it would be easy to pick, but the cabinet is alarmed and there’s a risk that a guard would arrive before she had time to look at the crown.

      An elderly woman stops next to her and says something in Italian to a man pushing a stroller a short distance away.

      The man speaks to the guard and is helped towards the lifts. A girl with straight fair hair is looking at the ceremonial Sámi costumes.

      There’s a crackle of velcro as Saga pulls out her tiny dagger for hand-to-hand fighting СКАЧАТЬ