Slowly We Die. Emelie Schepp

funeral took place.

      Jana didn’t care that a heart attack was the most common cause of death in Sweden. The only thing she could think about was how sad she felt now that her mother was really gone—forever. And that the sadness surprised her.

      She rested her elbow on the inside of the car door and decided there was no reason to get all emotional. Her mother was dead, and she might as well just notify her father immediately. He should know.

      She started to drive, passed a small truck, swung through a roundabout and continued on Lindövägen. She darted around a bus marked with orange-and-red circles that was about to swing out from its stop. The driver honked the horn loudly with annoyance several times at her.

      When she stopped in front of the large white house in the wealthy Lindö neighborhood, she realized that her palms were damp. Her keys jingled as she unlocked the front door to her childhood home.

      In the hallway, she was met by a musty odor that repulsed her. She felt a fleeting panic in her chest and fought the impulse to leave, to escape the rotten, sickly sweet smell of illness.

      But she had no choice.

      She had to tell her father.

      Her palms were still sweating as she unbuttoned her coat and hung it on the brass hook.

      Jana glanced down the hallway lined with rooms, then walked toward the kitchen. The house was unlit, but sunlight peeked in through the curtains of the living room and was reflected on the ceiling as she passed through.

      She could hear a strange rolling sound coming from the kitchen.

      She stood still, listening.

      It was almost three months ago that her father tried to commit suicide when she confronted him about his involvement in Policegate. She alone knew that he had been corrupt throughout his career as a prosecutor. And she had made a promise to him to never reveal it.

      She heard it again. A heavy, swinging sound, as if a person was slowly wheeling himself across a wooden floor.

      As she entered the kitchen, she saw the wheelchair and stood observing for a long time.

      There he sat.

      Old. Gray. Miserable. Incapacitated.

      “Hello, Father,” she said.

      * * *

      Lead investigator Gunnar Öhrn opened a can of Coca-Cola and drank it quickly, as if he were worried it would go flat. Henrik and Mia stood next to him near the window. It was afternoon, and the staff kitchen was otherwise empty.

      “It feels shitty to be hunting Danilo Peña again,” Mia said, slurping her coffee.

      “The boathouse where you caught him, might he have gone back there?” asked Henrik.

      “Hardly,” Mia said. “He’s definitely fucking disturbed, but he’s not that crazy. Arkösund has to be the last place he’d go.”

      Mia thought of the boathouse, and she could almost feel the cold whirling flakes as she watched the ambulance helicopter take off into the sky above her. They had managed to rescue a Thai girl from drowning, a girl who had been used as a mule in the Policegate drug ring. Close to the boathouse they had also found Danilo, the man who was holding the Thai girl captive in the boathouse and who had tried to kill her.

      Gunnar sighed.

      “But how could he be in a medically induced coma and then just suddenly stand up, plan his escape and just walk away? The doctors at Vrinnevi must not have been monitoring his condition very closely,” he said. “Why was he in the hospital for so long, anyway?”

      “I talked with one of the doctors,” Henrik said. “There’d been a complication after the various surgeries he underwent for his injuries. Something had started leaking after the last of the operations when they stitched up his intestines. It caused an infection, if I understood the doctor correctly,” Henrik said. “Danilo was on a number of medications as he recovered, including Stesolid, which is a muscle relaxant and a sedative...”

      “And which put Mattias right to sleep,” Mia said.

      “Yes, Stesolid makes you drowsy. But if you stick a needle full directly into your chest, you risk hitting the heart or lungs. You can die if you don’t get care immediately.”

      “So Mattias Bohed got lucky,” Gunnar said. “Have we gotten any information from the guard who was beaten and locked in the closet?”

      “Nothing worthwhile,” Henrik said.

      Anneli Lindgren came into the staff kitchen and nodded at them, her eyebrows raised.

      “Are you having a meeting in here?” she asked.

      “Only of the more informal variety,” Henrik replied.

      She took a mug from the cupboard and filled it with hot water. Gunnar tried to ignore Anneli, pretending that his former live-in partner and the mother of his child hadn’t entered the room.

      “Was his name Anders, the guard?” he asked.

      “Andreas,” Henrik said.

      “Sorry, I...”

      Gunnar took three long, slow gulps of his Coke as he waited for Anneli to leave the room with her cup of tea.

      “So. Where were we?” he said once the sound of her footsteps had disappeared down the hallway.

      “The guard’s name is Andreas Hedberg, and he’s twenty-four years old,” Henrik said. “Worked as a guard for a year or so.”

      “And he probably won’t stay after this,” Mia said.

      “Why did they have a relative rookie outside the door? I thought we insisted on only the most experienced,” Gunnar said. “Have we checked him out thoroughly? He didn’t help Peña, did he?”

      “And received a beating as thanks, you mean?” Mia said.

      “Probably not,” Henrik said. “But we’re questioning him this afternoon.”

      “Should we put Danilo’s name out there?” Gunnar asked. “I assume the media has already snapped up the news. You don’t cordon off the entrance to Vrinnevi without good reason.”

      Henrik furrowed his brow.

      “What do you mean?”

      “I mean that Danilo Peña is a dangerous criminal.”

      “But we’ve already issued a BOLO for him once, in connection with Policegate,” Henrik said, looking resolute. “Won’t it make us look completely ridiculous if we put his name and picture out there again?”

      “Yes, but do we have a choice?” Mia said. “How long can we hide that Peña has escaped from his guarded room at the hospital? If something happens while he’s AWOL, it will only mean that we have to deal with a whole new mess of shit. Haven’t we already had enough to deal with?”

      “You have a point there, Mia,” Gunnar said, setting his empty can on the table. “But I agree with Henrik, that it’s probably better to work quietly for a bit longer.”

      “Good,” Henrik said. “We have to focus on finding him before the media even knows that he has escaped and prove that our new organization actually works.”

      Gunnar grinned.

      “Okay, then,” he said. “Collect all of the information we have on Danilo.”

      “What do you want to know?” Henrik asked.

      “I want to know everything. Again.”

       CHAPTER

       THREE

      PHILIP