Simone steps over Shulman’s body. The tips of his fingers still tremble slightly. She slides the long key into the deadlock. Her hand is shaking violently.
“Josef,” Evelyn shouts desperately. “Look in the bedroom! I think he’s in the bedroom!”
As Simone turns the key, Josef Ek rushes into the hall and stares at her, an angry growl rumbling in his throat. Simone fumbles with the latch, her hand slips, but she manages to turn it. Josef has a carving knife in his hand. He hesitates for a moment, then moves rapidly towards her. Simone’s hands are shaking so much she can’t push the handle down. Evelyn rushes into the hall and hurls herself at Josef ’s legs, trying to restrain him, screaming for him to wait. Without looking back, he reaches behind him and slashes at her with the knife, and Evelyn loses her grip. Simone manages to get the door open, and as she stumbles out into the stairwell the bath towel slips off. Josef stops for a moment and stares at her naked body. Behind him Simone sees Evelyn rub her hand in the blood around Shulman’s body, smearing it over her face and throat and sinking to the floor.
“Josef, I’m bleeding,” she screams. “Darling… you cut me!”
She coughs and falls silent, lying on her back.
“Evelyn?” he says in a terrified voice.
He goes back into the hall, and as he bends over his sister, Simone suddenly sees the knife in Evelyn’s hand. It shoots straight up as if from some kind of primitive trap and penetrates the space between two of Josef ’s ribs with considerable force. His body goes completely slack. His head tilts to one side, he slumps to the floor, and he is motionless.
Chapter 87
Kennet passes two female police officers in the corridor at Danderyd Hospital, whispering intently to each other. In the room behind them he can see a young girl sitting on a chair staring blankly into space, a blanket draped around her shoulders. Her face and hair are spattered with blood. She is sitting with her feet slightly turned inwards, unself-conscious and childlike. He assumes this is Evelyn Ek, sister of serial killer Josef Ek. As if she hears him say her name in his mind, she looks up and gazes straight at him. There is such a strange expression in her eyes- a mixture of pain and shock, triumph and regret- that it looks almost obscene. Kennet instinctively turns away, feeling that he has caught sight of something private, something taboo. He shudders. You should be glad you’re retired, glad you don’t have to be the one who goes into that room, pulls out a chair, and sits down to question Evelyn Ek. Nobody should have to carry through life the things she has to tell about growing up with Josef Ek, he thinks.
A uniformed officer with a grey rectangular face is standing guard outside the closed door of Simone’s room. Kennet recognizes him from his years of service but at first can’t quite recall his name.
“Kennet,” the man says. “Everything all right?”
“No.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Suddenly Kennet remembers his name, Reine, and the fact that his wife died unexpectedly just after they had their first child.
“Reine,” says Kennet. “Do you know how Josef got in to see his sister?”
“It seems as if she just let him in.”
“Voluntarily?”
“Not exactly.”
Reine explains that Evelyn said she’d woken up in the middle of the night and gone to the front door to look through the peephole. She could see the police officer on duty sleeping on the stairs. At the changeover earlier, she’d heard him tell his colleague that he had young children at home. Evelyn didn’t want to wake him, so she went and sat on the sofa, where once again she looked through the pictures in the photo album Josef had put in her box, incomprehensible glimpses of a life that had disappeared long ago. She put the album back in the box, and wondered whether it might be possible for her to change her name and move abroad. When she’d gone to the window and peeped through the venetian blind, she thought she could see someone standing on the pavement down below. She immediately pulled back, waited awhile, and peeked again. It was snowing heavily, and the street was deserted. The streetlamp suspended between the buildings was swinging wildly in the strong wind. Suddenly she got goose bumps and crept over to the front door, put her ear to the wood, and listened. She had the feeling someone was standing just outside. Josef had a particular smell about him, a smell of rage, of burning chemicals. Evelyn thought she could smell him. Perhaps she was imagining things, but she’d remained standing by the door, too afraid to look through the peephole.
After a while she leaned forward and whispered, “Josef?”
There hadn’t been a sound from outside. She was just about to go back into the apartment when she heard him whisper from the other side of the door. “Open up.”
She tried not to sob as she replied, “Yes.”
“Did you think you could get away?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Do what I tell you.”
“I can’t.”
“Look through the peephole,” he said.
“I don’t want to.”
“Just do it.”
Trembling, she’d leaned toward the door. Through the wide angle of the lens she could see the stairwell. The police officer who had fallen asleep was still sitting on the stairs, but now a dark pool of blood was spreading beneath him on the landing. She could see that he was still breathing. She could also see Josef hiding at the outer edge of the circular field of vision provided by the lens. He pressed himself against the wall, but then leaped up and slammed his hand against the hole. Evelyn recoiled and tripped over her shoes in the hall.
“Open the door,” he said. “Otherwise I’ll kill the cop. Then I’ll ring the neighbours’ doorbells and kill them, too. I’ll start with this one, right next door.”
Evelyn had no strength left. She resigned herself to the situation; she would never escape Josef. She unlocked the door and let her brother in. Her only thought was that she would rather die than let him kill anyone else.
“Her police guard is going to make it,” Reine says. “She saved him by doing as her brother said.” He explains the sequence of events as best as he can, based on what he’s been told. Josef was hiding in the house when the police returned to retrieve Evelyn’s personal belongings, and he heard them speak about where to drop off the box. As for why Evelyn opened the door, Reine assumes it was because she wanted to help the wounded policeman and prevent further bloodshed.
Kennet shakes his head. “What’s the matter with people?” he mutters.
“She saved your daughter’s life,” Reine says.
Kennet taps gently on the door of Simone’s room, then pushes it open a little way. It’s dark inside. On a couch he can just make out something that could be his daughter.
“Sixan,” he says quietly.
“I’m here, Dad.”
“Do you want it this dark? Shall I put the light on?”
“I can’t cope, Dad,” she whispers. “I just can’t cope.”
Kennet sits down on the couch and puts his arms around his daughter. She starts crying, convulsive, agonized sobs.
“Once,” he whispers, rubbing her back, “when I was passing your nursery school in my patrol car, I saw you in the playground. You were standing with your face pressed to the fence, just crying: snot pouring from your nose, your face streaked and filthy, and the staff were doing nothing to console you. They were just standing there, chatting, totally indifferent.”
“What did you do?” This is a story Simone has heard many times, but she always asks.
