patio, twinkled between the dark trunks of trees.
They slowed to a cautious walk, looking carefully around.
People were sitting at a table outside a beautiful summerhouse painted Falun red. Penelope wondered if it was the middle of the night. The sky was still light, but dinner must have ended a while ago. Wineglasses and coffee cups were scattered about along with crumpled napkins and empty potato-chip bowls.
A few partygoers were singing together, while others refilled their glasses from boxes of red wine and chatted. Tendrils of wavy warm air still rose from the grill. Any children must have already been put to bed, snuggled in the house underneath cozy blankets. To Bjorn and Penelope, they seemed like denizens of another planet-a planet where calm, happy people lived safely together under a giant glass dome.
Only one person stood outside of that charmed circle. He lurked at the side, facing the forest as if he expected visitors. Penelope stopped dead and silently gripped Bjorn’s hand. They dropped to the ground and crept behind a low spruce. Bjorn’s eyes were scared and uncomprehending, but Penelope was absolutely sure what she’d seen. Their pursuer had read their minds and gotten ahead of them. He knew they couldn’t resist the lights and the sounds of the party. Like moths to a flame, they’d be drawn here. So he’d waited. He’d want to catch them just inside the darkness of the trees. He hadn’t worried about any screams. He knew the people at the party wouldn’t think to investigate anything so strange until it would be too late.
When Penelope dared look up again, the man was gone. She shook from shock. Perhaps he’d changed his mind and believed he’d made a mistake. She searched around with her eyes. Maybe he’d gone somewhere else.
Hope had just started to creep into her mind. Then she saw him again, closer.
He was a dark form blending into a tree trunk not far from them.
He was calmly unpacking a set of black binoculars with green lenses.
Penelope pressed closer to Bjorn and fought her mindless instinct to leap up and start running again. Instead, she coolly watched the man as he lifted his binoculars to his eyes. He must have night-vision goggles or a heat sensor, she thought.
When the man’s back was turned, Penelope pressed Bjorn’s hand and, bent double, she pulled him away from the house and the music and back deep into the forest. After a while, she felt safe enough to straighten up. They began to run diagonally across a slope, a gently rounded reminder of the ancient glaciers that once ground northern Europe under ice. They kept going-through tangled bushes, behind a huge boulder, over a rocky crest. Bjorn grabbed a thick branch and hurried as carefully as he could down the slope. Penelope’s heart thudded in her chest and her thigh muscles screamed. She tried to breathe quietly, but could not. She slid down a rocky cliff, pulling damp moss with her, and landed on the ground next to the deep shade of a spruce. She looked at Bjorn. All he had on were his knee-length swimming trunks. His body was a pale blur and his lips almost disappeared in his white face.
15
It sounds as if someone is bouncing a ball against the wall beneath Chief Medical Officer Nils Ahlen’s window. The Needle is waiting with Joona Linna for Claudia Fernandez. They don’t have much to say, so they keep quiet. Claudia Fernandez had been asked to appear at the department of forensic medicine early that Sunday morning to identify the body of a dead woman.
When Joona had to phone to tell her they feared her daughter, Viola, was dead, Claudia’s voice sounded unnaturally calm.
“No, that can’t be. Viola is out in the archipelago with her sister,” she’d said.
“On Bjorn Almskog’s boat?” Joona asked.
“Yes. I called Penelope and asked her to take her sister with them. I thought Viola needed to get away for a while.”
“Was there anyone else on the boat?”
“Bjorn, of course.”
Joona had fallen silent and waited a few seconds to force away the heaviness in his heart. Then he’d cleared his throat and said, very softly, “Mrs. Fernandez, I would like you to come to the department of forensic medicine’s pathology office in Solna.”
“Why?” she’d asked.
Now Joona is sitting on an uncomfortable chair in the office of the chief medical officer. Wedged in the corner of the frame of The Needle’s wedding picture is a tiny photo of Frippe. From a distance they keep hearing the ball thud against the wall. It is a lonely sound. Joona remembers how Claudia Fernandez had caught her breath when she finally understood that her daughter might indeed not be alive. They’d arranged for a taxi to pick her up from her town house in the Gustavsberg neighborhood. She should arrive here any minute.
The Needle had tried for some small talk but gave up when Joona did not respond. Both of them wish this moment would soon be over.
Hearing steps in the hallway, they rise from their chairs.
To see the dead body of a loved one is merciless-everyone’s worst fear. The experts say it is a necessary step in the process of grief. Joona has read that once an identification is made, there’s a certain kind of liberation. One can no longer sustain wild fantasies that the person is still alive. These kinds of fantasies and hopes only lead to frustration and emptiness.
Those are nothing but empty words, Joona thinks. Death is horrible and it never gives you anything back.
Claudia Fernandez is now in the doorway. She’s a woman of about sixty, frightened. Traces of worry are etched on her face. She huddles as if chilled.
Joona greets her gently.
“Hello. My name is Joona Linna and I’m a detective inspector. We spoke on the phone earlier.”
The Needle introduces himself almost soundlessly as he briefly shakes the woman’s hand and then turns away to shuffle through some folders and files. It must seem he is a cold person, but Joona knows he’s deeply moved.
“I’ve been calling and calling, but I can’t reach my girls,” Claudia says. “They should-”
“Shall we go in?” The Needle interrupts, as if he hadn’t heard her words.
Silently they walk through the familiar hallway. With each step Joona feels as if air is being squeezed from his body. Claudia is in no rush. She walks slowly a few paces behind The Needle, whose tall silhouette precedes them. Joona turns and tries to smile at Claudia, but then he has to turn away from the expression in her eyes. The panic, the pleading, the prayers-her attempts to make a bargain with God.
It feels as if she is being dragged in their wake as they enter the morgue.
The Needle mumbles something to himself in an angry tone. Then he bends down and unlocks the stainless- steel locker and pulls out the drawer.
The young woman’s body is covered with a white cloth except for her head. Her eyes are dull and half closed, her cheeks a little sunken, but her hair is still a black crown about her beautiful face. A small, pale hand is half uncovered along her side.
Claudia Fernandez reaches out her hand, carefully touches the hand of her daughter, and begins to whimper. It comes from deep within, as if in this moment part of her is breaking to pieces.
She begins to shake. She falls to her knees. She holds her daughter’s lifeless hand to her lips.
“No, no,” she’s crying. “Oh God, dear Lord, not Viola. Not Viola…”
From a few feet behind, Joona watches her shoulders shake as she cries; he hears her despairing wail crescendo and then gradually fall away.
She wipes at the tears streaming down her face, breathing shakily as she slowly gets back up on her feet.
“Can you positively confirm that this is Viola Fernandez?” The Needle says gruffly.
