“Here we have something,” says Johan Jonson.
Other fragments are appearing on his screen: rec I contact ith
“Ads to connect with people.” Erixson grins. “I’ve tried those, and they never work…”
He falls silent at once. Johan has carefully scrolled past incomprehensible graphic garbage and stops. He pushes back from his machine with a big grin.
Joona takes his spot and peers at the monitor to read what’s at the center of the screen:
Carl Palmcr
Ck ph graf. Rec I contact withi
Joona feels hair rising on the back of his neck. Palmcrona, he thinks again and again as he writes down what he sees on the screen. He tries to think clearly and breathe calmly. The small stab of an oncoming migraine comes and then goes.
Erixson stares at the screen and swears to himself.
“Are you absolutely sure Bjorn Almskog wrote this?” Joona asks.
“No doubt about it,” replies Johan Jonson.
“Absolutely sure?”
“If he was at this computer at this point in time, he wrote this e-mail.”
“So it is definitely from him,” Joona tells himself, wanting to make sure, but his thoughts already zoom away. “What the fuck,” Erixson whispers.
Johan Jonson scans the address field fragments scattered over the screen: “crona@isp. se.” He drinks Fanta straight out of the thermos. Erixson leans back into his wheelchair and closes his eyes for a moment.
“Palmcrona,” murmurs Joona again, his voice tense in concentration.
“This is fucking crazy,” Erixson says. “What the hell does Carl Palmcrona have to do with all this?”
Joona silently walks out the door, concentrating on his thoughts and leaving his colleagues behind. He walks quickly down the stairs and out of the hospital into strong sunshine. He hurries across the parking lot to his black car.
Lars Kepler
The Nightmare
37 collaborating units
Joona Linna heads straight to Carlos’s office, full of the news about Carl Palmcrona. To his surprise, the door to Carlos’s office is wide open. Carlos is looking out the window.
“She’s still standing there,” he says.
“Who?”
“The mother of those girls.”
“You mean Claudia Fernandez?” Joona asks as, in turn, he goes to look out the window.
“She’s been standing there for an entire hour.”
Joona can’t see her. A father in a dark blue suit is walking past. He’s wearing a king’s crown on his head and holding the hand of a little girl dressed in a pink princess dress. But then, almost directly across from the National Police Board, he sees a slumped woman next to a dirty Mazda pickup truck. It’s Claudia, staring intently at the foyer of the police building.
“I went outside and asked her if she wanted someone in particular. I thought maybe you’d forgotten a meeting with her.”
“No,” Joona says quietly.
“She said she was waiting for her daughter, Penelope.”
“Carlos, we have to talk.”
But before Joona can say anything, there’s a light knock at the door and Verner Zanden, the head of Sapo’s department of security, comes in.
“Nice to see you again,” the tall man says as he shakes Carlos’s hand. Verner greets Joona, then looks around the room and behind his back.
“Where the hell did Saga go?” he asks in a deep bass voice.
Saga Bauer slowly steps through the door. The tension in her thin body almost seems to reflect the silvery shimmer of Carlos Eliasson’s aquarium.
“I didn’t realize you hadn’t kept up.” Verner smiles benevolently.
Carlos turns to Saga but he looks uncertain, as if he can’t decide how to interact with a young woman who looks so much like… like an elf, he thinks. He decides to simply take a step back and open his arms in a welcoming gesture.
“Welcome,” he says, a strange shrill tone in his voice.
“Thanks,” she says.
“You’ve already met Joona Linna.”
Saga just stands still. Her hair is a shimmering mass down to her waist, but her eyes are hard and her jaw is clamped shut. The sharp scar through one of her eyebrows glimmers chalk-white on her face.
“Please feel right at home,” Carlos says, and he almost sounds pleasant.
Saga sits down stiffly next to Joona. Carlos sets a shiny paper folder on the conference table. It is titled “Strategies for Collaborating Units.” Verner lifts his hand jokingly as if he were a schoolboy asking permission to speak before his deep bass fills the room.
“Formally, the entire investigation is in Sapo’s hands. However, without the services of the National Criminal Investigation Department and Joona Linna, we wouldn’t have had this breakthrough.”
Verner points at the folder and Saga’s face turns bright red.
“Perhaps this is not such a ‘breakthrough,’ ” she mumbles.
“What?” Verner says loudly.
“All Joona found was a palm print and a piece of a photo.”
“And you… along with him, yes, you found out that Penelope Fernandez is still alive and someone is hunting her. Of course it’s not just Joona alone…” He tries to soothe her.
“This is sick,” Saga yells and shoves all the paperwork onto the floor. “How the hell can you guys sit here and heap praise on him! He wasn’t even supposed to be there! Someone even spilled the beans about Daniel Marklund-”
“But he did find out,” Verner says.
“But this is all highly classified! What the fuck!”
“Saga,” Verner says in rebuke. “You were also not supposed to be there!”
“True! But if I hadn’t, everything would have-”
She stops herself short.
“Can we continue more calmly now?” Verner asks.
Saga looks at her boss before she turns to Carlos and says, “Forgive me. I’m sorry I lost my temper.”
She bends down and begins to pick up the papers from the floor, her forehead still covered with angry red dots. Carlos tells her to leave them, but Saga picks them all up, shuffles them into their proper order, and puts them back on the table.
“I’m really very sorry,” she says again.
Carlos clears his throat and says tentatively, “We hope that you might come to appreciate Joona’s contribution. Perhaps enough to allow him to join your investigation.”
“No! Seriously,” Saga turns to her boss. “I don’t want to seem so negative, but I don’t see why you’re making such a big deal about him. We would have found all the evidence he did. You talk about breakthroughs, but I don’t think that-”
“I agree with Saga,” Joona says slowly. “I’m sure that eventually you would have found it all without my help.”
“Maybe so,” Verner says.
“Is that it, then?” Saga asks, keeping her voice under control as she stands up.
“But then there’s one thing that you don’t yet know,” Joona continues calmly. “Bjorn Almskog secretly contacted Carl Palmcrona on the same day Viola was killed.”
The room falls completely silent. Saga slowly sinks back into her chair. Verner leans forward and visibly collects his thoughts before he clears his throat. “So, Carl Palmcrona’s suicide and the murder of Viola Fernandez
