Lars Kepler 2-book Bundle (50 page)

Her voice dies away and tears spring to her eyes.

“Did they take Benjamin?”

Aida’s mother waves her hand. “That … boy … is … no … good.”

“Answer me, Aida,” Simone says sharply. “You’re going to give me an answer!”

“Don’t … shout … at … my … daughter,” her mother hisses.

Simone ignores the shrunken woman and says, even more firmly this time, “You’re going to tell me what you know, do you hear me?”

Aida swallows hard. “I don’t know much,” she says eventually. “Benjamin stepped in, told us we shouldn’t give those kids anything. Wailord went crazy; he said it was a declaration of war and demanded loads of money from us.”

She lights a fresh cigarette, takes a drag, carefully taps the ash onto the green saucer, then goes on.

“When Wailord found out about Benjamin’s disease, he gave the others needles to scratch him with.” The girl stops and shrugs her shoulders.

“What happened?” Simone asks harshly.

Aida bites her lips and removes a flake of tobacco from her tongue.

“What happened?”

“Wailord just stopped,” she whispers. “Suddenly he was gone. I’ve seen the other kids around; they went after Nicky just the other day. Now they’re following someone who calls himself Ariados, but it’s not the same. They’re confused and desperate since Wailord disappeared.”

“When was this? When did Wailord disappear?”

Aida considers the question. “I think … I think it was last Wednesday. Three days before Benjamin disappeared.” Her mouth begins to tremble. “Wailord’s taken him,” she whispers. “Wailord’s done something terrible to him. And now he’s hiding out.”

She begins to sob, loudly and convulsively. Her mother gets to her feet with difficulty, takes the cigarette out of her hand, and slowly stubs it out on the green saucer.

“Fucking … monstrosity,” wheezes her mother.

Simone has no idea who she’s talking about. “Who is he?” she asks again. “What’s Wailord’s real name? You have to tell me who he is.”

“I don’t know,” yells Aida.
“I don’t know!”

Simone takes out the photograph of the patch of grass and the bushes in front of a brown fence.

“I found this on Benjamin’s computer,” she says firmly.

Aida looks at the print-out, her face blank.

“Where is this?” Simone asks.

Aida shrugs her shoulders and glances briefly at her mother. “Haven’t a clue,” she says tonelessly, handing it back.

“But you sent it to him,” Simone says angrily. “It came from you, Aida.”

The girl’s eyes slide away, seeking out her mother once again, sitting with the hissing oxygen tank at her feet.

Simone waves the sheet of paper in front of her face. “Look at it, Aida. Look again. Why did you send this to my son?”

“It was just a joke,” she whispers.

“A joke?”

Aida nods. “Would you like to live here, Benjamin? Something like that,” she says feebly.

“I don’t believe you,” Simone says doggedly. “Tell me the truth!”

Aida’s mother struggles to her feet again and waves at Simone. “Get out of my house. You people think you can come in here and say whatever the hell you want to whoever the hell you want.”

“Why are you lying?” Simone asks, as Aida finally meets her gaze.

The girl looks deeply unhappy. “Sorry,” she says in a small voice. “Sorry.”

On her way out, Simone meets Nicky. He’s standing in the darkness in the hallway, rubbing his eyes.

“I have no power. I’m a worthless Pokémon.”

“I’m sure that isn’t true,” Simone responds. “I’m sure you do have power.”

When Simone gets back to Kennet’s room, he’s sitting up in bed. His face has a little more colour, and he wears a wry, self-satisfied expression, as if he’d known she was about to walk in.

She goes over, bends down, smiles, and gently presses her cheek against his.

“Do you know what I dreamed, Sixan?” he asks.

“No.”

“I dreamed about my father.”

“About Granddad?”

He laughs quietly. “Can you imagine? He was standing in his workshop with a big grin, sweating.
My boy.
That was all he said. I can still smell the diesel.” Kennet shakes his head cautiously.

Simone swallows. There’s a hard, painful lump in her throat. “Dad,” she whispers. “Do you remember what you were telling me just before the car hit you?”

He looks at her, his expression serious, and suddenly it’s as if a light has come on behind his sharp, intelligent eyes.

“Do you remember, Dad?”

“I remember everything.” He tries to get up, but moves too quickly and falls back onto the bed. “Help me, Simone,” he says impatiently. “We need to hurry, I can’t stay here.”

He runs his hand over his eyes, clears his throat, and extends his arms. “Grab hold of me,” he orders, and this time, with Simone’s help, he manages to sit up in bed and swing his legs over the side. He rests for a moment, breathing heavily.

“I need my clothes.”

Simone quickly pulls his clothes from the wardrobe. She is helping him on with his socks when the door is opened by a young doctor.

“I’m getting out of here,” Kennet says belligerently, before the man is even fully inside the room.

Simone gets to her feet. “Good afternoon,” she says, shaking hands with the young doctor. “Simone Bark.”

“Ola Tuvefjäll,” he says, looking slightly confused as he turns to Kennet, who is busy fastening his trousers.

“Listen,” says Kennet, tucking his shirt into his waistband. “I’m sorry we won’t be staying, but this is an emergency.”

“I can’t force you to stay here,” the doctor says calmly, “but I would advise against leaving. You’ve suffered a very severe blow to your head, and we haven’t yet determined the extent and severity of your other injuries. You might feel fine at the moment, but serious complications could arise at any time.”

Kennet goes over to the sink and splashes cold water over his face. “They won’t be any less complicated here than out there,” he says.

“It’s your decision,” the doctor says.

“As I said, I’m sorry,” Kennet says, straightening up. “But I have to go to the sea.”

The doctor looks puzzled as he watches them go down the corridor, Kennet leaning on the wall for support.

“Where are we going?” Simone asks, and for once Kennet doesn’t protest as she climbs into the driver’s seat. He simply gets in beside her and fastens his seatbelt. “Dad, you have to tell me where we’re going,” she repeats. “How do we get there?”

He gives her a strange look. “To the sea … I need to think.” He leans back in his seat, closes his eyes, and remains silent for a while.

Mistake, she thinks, he’s in no shape for this. I have to get him back upstairs. But all at once he opens his eyes and speaks clearly.

“Take Sankt Eriksgatan across the bridge and right into Odengatan. Go straight down to Östra Station, follow Valhallavägen east all the way to the Swedish Film Institute, and turn off onto Lindarängsvägen. That goes right down to the harbour.”

“Who needs GPS?” says Simone with a smile as she pulls out into the heavy traffic.

As she manoeuvres her way through it, Simone tells him about her visit to see Aida.

“I wonder …” Kennet says thoughtfully, but then stops.

“What?”

“I wonder if the parents have any idea what their kids are up to.”

Simone gives him a quick sideways glance. They are passing Gustav Adolfs Church. She catches a glimpse of a long procession of children dressed in robes. They are carrying candles and slowly making their way in through the door of the church.

“Extortion, abuse, violence, and threats,” Simone replies wearily. “Mummy and Daddy’s little darlings.”

She thinks back to the day she went to Tensta, to the tattoo parlour. The boys holding the little girl over the railing. They hadn’t been afraid at all; they had been threatening, dangerous. She remembers Benjamin trying to keep her from confronting the boy in the underground station. He must have been one of them. He was one of the ones who use Pokémon names.

“What’s wrong with people?” she asks rhetorically.

“I didn’t have an accident, Sixan. I was pushed in front of a car,” Kennet says suddenly, a sharp edge to his voice. “And I saw who did it.”

“Pushed? Who did it?”

“It was one of them. It was a child, a little girl.”

Christmas decorations glow from the dark windows of the Film Institute. The temperature has risen slightly, and the surface of the road is covered in wet slush. Swollen, heavy clouds hang over the park; it looks as if a real shower of thawing rain will soon be falling on the dog owners and their happy animals.

Loudden is a promontory just to the east of Stockholm’s harbour. At the end of the 1920s an oil dock with almost one hundred tanks was built here. The area is composed of low industrial buildings, a water purification plant, a container port, underground storage areas, and docks.

Kennet takes out the crumpled card he found in the child’s wallet.

“Louddsvägen eighteen,” he says, gesturing to Simone to stop the car. She pulls over onto a patch of asphalt surrounded by high metal fences.

“We’ll walk the last bit,” says Kennet, undoing his seatbelt.

They go between enormous tanks, with narrow flights of steps twisting like serpents around the cylindrical structures. Every surface is acned with rust: the hand-rails, between the curved, welded metal plates, along the fittings.

A thin, cold rain falls. Very soon it will be dusk, and then they won’t be able to see a thing. There are no streetlamps anywhere. Narrow passageways have been left between the vast shipping containers, piled high: yellow, red, blue, arranged so that a series of narrow passageways runs between them. They pass among the tanks, loading docks, and low offices. Closer to the water the main building looms with its cranes, ramps, barges, and dry docks.

A low shed with a dirty Ford pick-up parked outside sits at an angle to a large warehouse made of corrugated aluminium. Self-adhesive letters, half peeling away now, have been stuck on the dark window of the shed:
THE SEA
. The smaller letters below have been scraped off, but it is still possible to read the words in the dust: diving club. The heavy bar is hanging down beside the door.

Kennet waits for a second, listening, then cautiously pulls open the door. It is dark inside the little office, which contains nothing but a desk, a few folding chairs with plastic seats, and a couple of rusty oxygen tanks. On the wall is a crumpled poster showing exotic fish in emerald-green water. It’s obvious that the diving club is no longer here; maybe it moved or went bust and ceased to exist altogether.

A fan begins to whirr and an inner door clicks. Kennet puts a finger to his lips. They can hear the distinct sound of footsteps. Moving forward, Kennet pushes open the door to reveal an expansive storage area. Someone is running away in the darkness. Kennet takes up the pursuit but suddenly cries out.

“Dad?” shouts Simone.

She can’t see him, but she can hear his voice. He swears and calls to her to be careful. “They’ve put up barbed wire.”

There’s a metallic rattling sound across the concrete floor. Kennet has started to run again. Simone follows him, carefully climbing over the barbed wire and moving on into the large space. The air is cold and damp. It’s dark, and she halts for a moment to get her bearings. She can hear rapid footsteps further away.

Light from the spotlight on a container crane shines in through a dirty window, and Simone can see a figure next to a fork-lift truck. It’s a boy with a mask covering his face, a grey mask made of fabric or cardboard. He’s crouching slightly, and he’s got a piece of iron pipe in his hand.

Kennet is getting close to him, moving quickly along rows of metal shelves.

“Behind the fork-lift,” Simone shouts.

The boy in the mask rushes out and hurls the metal pipe at Kennet. It spins through the air and passes just above his head.

“Wait, we just want to talk to you,” yells Kennet.

The boy slams into a metal door, which opens with a bang. Light floods in as the boy rushes out.

“He’s getting away,” Kennet hisses as he reaches for the door.

The slush has made the ground treacherous, and when Simone follows, she slips on the wet jetty. Getting to her feet, she sees her father running along the edge of the dock. To one side is a steep drop into black, freezing water, enormous shards of ice creaking in the darkness. She runs, following the two figures ahead of her. If she trips and slips over the edge, she knows it wouldn’t take long before the ice-cold water paralyzed her; she would sink like a stone with her thick coat and her boots full of black winter water.

She thinks about the journalist who was assassinated as she drove alongside the dock with a friend. Their car sank like a weighted fishing creel, straight down into the water; it was swallowed up by the soft mud and disappeared.

When she reaches Kennet, she is out of breath, trembling with fear and exertion. Her back is soaked from the rain. Kennet is waiting for her, bent double; the bandage around his head has come loose, and a trickle of blood is running from his nose. His breathing sounds harsh and painful. On the ground lies a mask made of cardboard. It has started to disintegrate in the rain, and when the wind catches hold of it, it swirls up in the air and disappears.

“Fucking hell,” says Kennet.

They move away from the water as the darkness increases around them. The rain has eased, but a strong wind has blown up, howling around the huge metal buildings. They pass a long, rectangular dry dock and Simone hears the wind singing down below. Tractor tyres on rusty chains hang along the side, acting as buffers. She looks down into the huge empty space, blasted out of the rock, a vast pit with rough walls strengthened with concrete and reinforced with steel. Fifty yards below she can see a concrete floor with huge plinth blocks.

A tarpaulin flaps in the wind and the light from a crane flickers across the perpendicular walls of the dry dock. Suddenly Simone spots someone hiding behind a concrete plinth down below.