The Silenced. Литагент HarperCollins USD

Flashing lights and sirens. The sound bounced between the buildings, drowning out everything else for a few seconds.

      “Amante left his job with Europol last Christmas,” Wallin said as soon as the car had passed. “Six months before his contract was due to finish. One unconfirmed rumor is that he fell out with his boss. That there was some sort of scene that got hushed up. No one seems to want to talk about it. Either way, Amante disappeared off the radar for a few months. He wasn’t in Sweden, and he wasn’t at Europol’s offices in The Hague. Then he suddenly shows up in Stockholm and lands in the middle of a murder investigation that has vague connections to the party. The same party that his stepfather is doing his utmost to eject from power.”

      Wallin leaned across the table again and lowered his voice.

      “You’ve been saddled with Amante for a reason. And I’d dearly love to know what that reason is.”

      * * *

      Sarac zipped his jacket up and pulled his hat as far down on his forehead as he could before looking at his watch again. Thirty seconds. This was madness. He was mad. Which made it all the more ironic that he was trying to escape from a mental institution.

      He put his fingers on the door handle. Five, four, three, two, one …

      He stepped out into the corridor. Walked without hesitation straight toward the door to the stairwell, not falling for the temptation of looking up at the spherical camera above it. The change of shift was under way and the likelihood of any member of the staff looking at the picture from the camera for the few seconds it took him to pass it wasn’t very high. At least that was what he tried to tell himself to calm his pounding heart. Panic and fear were being temporarily held at bay by the tranquilizer he had swallowed just over half an hour ago.

      This isn’t a good idea, the voices in his head whispered. But the happy pills had rendered them impotent. Easier to ignore. At least for the time being.

      The doors to the ward were always kept locked, and he fiddled with the key, got it into the lock, but couldn’t turn it. He jerked and twisted it. For a fraction of a second he considered giving up. Going back to his safe little room, forgetting everything, and carrying out his original plan. Gulp down all those sleeping pills at once, tonight. Put an end to everything. But he knew that was impossible. He had to know the truth, had to know how everything fit together.

      He suddenly felt the lock give with a clicking sound. The key Eskil had given him was evidently a cheap copy that took a bit of fiddling to make it work. He guessed that his new pen pal Frank had paid for it, just as he had paid for Eskil’s services.

      Sarac headed down the marble staircase, all the way to the basement. He managed to unlock the heavy steel door almost at once and found himself in a bare, low-ceilinged corridor. Another glance at his watch. Two minutes and ten seconds had elapsed since he began his escape. He quickened his pace, trying to make use of the surplus adrenaline while it lasted.

      He stopped at the door marked District Heating. Once again he used the copied key to unlock the door and stepped inside a large, warm room full of pipes and meters. He stood still for a couple of seconds to get his bearings. Then he identified the incoming pipes and followed them to the far end of the room, just as he had been instructed to do. Another heavy door, and behind it a tunnel where the pipes disappeared into the darkness. He took a few steps forward. Felt for the circuit breaker but couldn’t find it.

      Suddenly the door behind him closed and everything went pitch-black. He was seized by panic as it broke through the chemical barrier protecting him from his anxieties and gripped his rib cage.

      Why are you doing this, David? the voices whispered. Why?

      He put his hand against the concrete wall, leaned forward, and took a couple of deep breaths. He caught the vomit when it was halfway up and forced it back down into his stomach. He stood there for a minute or so until the panic attack subsided. Then he straightened up and felt across the wall with his hand. His fingers nudged the circuit breaker and he turned it. A mechanical click echoed off the concrete walls of the tunnel and a sequence of fluorescent lights flickered slowly to life.

       What if this is a trap? What if someone’s waiting for you out there? Someone who wants revenge.

      Sarac stopped. He’d had time to think through that scenario over the past few days. That and a handful of others. The possibility that his secret pen pal, the man calling himself Frank, didn’t actually exist. That everything, the letter and photographs alike, was a fabrication intended to lure him from his hiding place. But for some reason during their brief correspondence he had become convinced that this wasn’t the case. Besides, he had managed to persuade Eskil to take a surreptitious photograph of Frank, and had studied it carefully on the cracked screen of the nurse’s phone.

      Frank definitely existed. What he said was true. Someone had managed not to face up to his responsibilities so far. Had bought himself free from guilt. Had saved his own life and career by betraying Sarac.

      Justice.

      That was why he was now heading, for the first time in several months, out into the wide world. Exposing himself one last time to the frightening world that he no longer felt able to deal with.

      Even if he was wrong, if all this turned out to be a trap after all and Frank or someone else was waiting out there in the darkness to kill him, then they’d only be doing him a favor.

      He put his hand in his pocket and closed his fingers around the bag of pills. Twenty-five of them now. Enough for him to pull the emergency cord whenever he wanted to.

      It took him seven minutes to make his way through the tunnel and climb up the steps to the boiler room at the other end. The combination of the exertion and the heat in there left him drenched in sweat. He hesitated a few seconds before cautiously nudging the door open. To his left lay the main building and the illuminated yard that he had just passed beneath. To the right was the staff parking lot, and beyond that the security lodge and main gate. Twelve minutes had passed, in another three the change of shift would be over.

      He inhaled the cold evening air and tried to focus. Felt the slight tremble in his muscles that told him that the rush of adrenaline that had brought him this far was ebbing away. But he was almost there now. All it would take was one last burst of effort.

      The car was exactly where Eskil had said it would be, all he had to do was open the unlocked trunk and crawl inside. Close it and make himself as comfortable as he could in the dark. Exhaustion took over his body, his head.

      The picture of the attractive family popped into his mind again, then the dead woman on the hood of the car. They were replaced in turn by pictures of a dark forest where the flare of guns firing flashed among the trees.

      Are you really sure about this, David? the voices whispered.

      * * *

      Julia was about to fetch her last cup of coffee for the afternoon from the unit’s staff room when her cell phone started to buzz. She answered with the phone clamped between her ear and her shoulder as she poured coffee into a chipped mug. For a moment she thought about being nice and getting a cup for Amante, then realized that the phone call gave her an excuse not to. She could carry only one mug back with her.

      “Hello, this is Katarina Lindgren from the National Forensics Lab.”

      Julia took hold of the phone with her left hand, then, with the mug in her right hand, started to walk back toward her office. She passed the closed door to the little cubbyhole that had been found for Amante. A claustrophobic, windowless room that was probably meant to be a janitor’s closet. But he hadn’t complained so far. Another tentative point.

      Before her lunch with Wallin the day before, she had put Amante to work calling everyone who lived near where the body was found; there weren’t too many. The number of permanent residents with an open view of the water was limited to four or five, and she strongly doubted that any of them would have anything to contribute. But a murder investigation was in part just a long list of things that needed to be checked, whether or not you actually