Stalker. Ларс Кеплер

to her card.

      It was probably just a junkie who saw an open kitchen door and came inside to look for valuables.

      The last part of the programme is over. More adverts, and after them the news. She changes hands again and waits.

      After another ten minutes she lies down on the floor and peers under the door. There’s no one standing outside.

      She can see a large stretch of the parquet floor, she can see under the sofa, and the glow of the television reflected on the varnish.

      Everything’s quiet.

      Burglars aren’t violent, they just want money as quickly and simply as possible.

      Trembling, she gets up, takes hold of the lock again, then stands still with her ear to the door, listening to the news and weather forecast.

      Grabbing the shower scraper from the floor as a rudimentary weapon, she steels herself and cautiously unlocks the door.

      The door swings open without a sound.

      She can see almost the whole of the living room through the passageway. There’s no sign of the intruder. It’s as if he had never been there.

      She leaves the bathroom, her legs shaking with fear. Every sense is heightened as she approaches the living room.

      She hears a dog bark in the distance.

      Carefully she moves forwards, and sees the light from the television play on the closed curtains, the upholstered suite and the glass coffee table with the tub of ice cream on top of it.

      She’s planning to go into the bedroom, get her phone, then lock herself in the bathroom again and call the police.

      To her left she catches a glimpse of the glass-fronted cabinet containing the collection of Dresden china that Björn inherited. Her heart starts to beat faster. She’s almost at the end of the passageway, and only then will she be able to see all the way to the hall.

      She takes a step into the living room, looks round and notes that the dining room is empty, before realising that the intruder is right next to her. Just one step away. The thin figure is standing there waiting for her by the wall at the end of the passage.

      The stab of the knife is so fast that she doesn’t have time to react. The sharp blade goes straight into her chest.

      Her muscles tense around the metal deep inside her body.

      Her heart has never beaten as hard as it does now. Time stands still as she thinks that this can’t be real.

      The knife is pulled out, leaving behind a burning easing of tension. She presses her hand to the wound and feels warm blood pumping out between her fingers. The shower scraper clatters to the floor. She reels to one side, her head feels heavy and she can see her blood splattered across the shiny material of the raincoats. The light seems to be flickering and she tries to say something, that this must be some sort of misunderstanding, but she has no voice.

      Susanna turns round and walks towards the kitchen, feels quick jabs to her back and knows that she is being stabbed repeatedly.

      She stumbles sideways, fumbling for support, and knocks the display cabinet against the wall, making all the porcelain figures topple over with a clattering, tinkling sound.

      Her heart is racing as blood streams down inside the kimono. Her chest is hurting terribly.

      Her field of vision shrinks to a tunnel.

      Her ears are roaring and she is aware that the intruder is shouting something excitedly, but the words are unintelligible.

      Her chin flies up as she is grabbed by the hair. She tries to hold on to an armchair, but loses her grip.

      Her legs give way and she hits the floor.

      She can feel a burning sensation of liquid in one lung, and coughs weakly.

      Her head lolls sideways and she can see that there’s some old popcorn among the dust under the sofa.

      Through the roaring sound inside her she can hear peculiar screams, and feels rapid stabs to her stomach and chest.

      She tries to kick free, thinking to herself that she has to get back to the bathroom. The floor beneath her is slippery, and she has no energy left.

      She tries to roll over on to her side, but the intruder grabs her by the chin and suddenly jabs the knife into her face. It no longer hurts. But a sense of unreality is spinning in her head. Shock and an abstract sense of dislocation blur with the precise and intimate feeling of being cut in the face.

      The blade enters her neck and chest and face again. Her lips and cheeks fill with warmth and pain.

      Susanna realises that she’s not going to make it. Ice-cold anguish opens up like a chasm as she stops fighting for her life.

       6

      Psychiatrist Erik Maria Bark is leaning back in his pale grey sheepskin armchair. He has a large study in his home, with a varnished oak floor and built-in bookcases. The dark brick villa is in the oldest part of Gamla Enskede, just to the south of Stockholm.

      It’s the middle of the day, but he was on call last night and could do with a few hours’ sleep.

      He shuts his eyes and thinks about when Benjamin was small and used to like to hear how Mummy and Daddy met. Erik would sit down on the edge of his bed and explain how Cupid, the god of love, really did exist.

      He lived up amongst the clouds and looked like a chubby little boy with a bow and arrow in his hands.

      ‘One summer’s evening Cupid gazed down at Sweden and caught sight of me,’ Erik explained to his son. ‘I was at a university party, pushing my way through the crowd on the roof terrace when Cupid crept to the edge of his cloud and fired an arrow down towards the Earth.

      ‘I was wandering about at the party, talking to friends, eating peanuts and exchanging a few words with the head of department.

      ‘And at the exact moment that a woman with strawberry blonde hair and a champagne glass in her hand looked in my direction, Cupid’s arrow hit me in the heart.’

      After almost twenty years of marriage Erik and Simone had agreed to separate, but she was probably the one who agreed the most.

      As Erik leans forward to switch his reading-lamp off, he catches a glimpse of his tired face in the narrow mirror by the bookcase. The lines on his forehead and the furrows in his cheeks are deeper than ever. His dark-brown hair is flecked with grey. He ought to get a haircut. A few loose strands are hanging in front of his eyes and he flicks them away with a jerk of his head.

      When Simone told him that she had met John, Erik realised it was over. Benjamin was pretty relaxed about the whole thing, and used to tease him by saying it would be cool to have two dads.

      Benjamin is eighteen years old now, and lives in the big house in Stockholm with Simone and her new man, his stepbrothers and sisters, and the dogs.

      On Erik’s old smoking table is the latest edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry and a copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, with a half-empty blister-pack of pills as a bookmark.

      Outside the leaded windows the rain is falling on the drenched vegetation of the garden.

      Erik pulls the tablets from the book and pops one sleeping-pill into his hand, trying to work out how long it would take his body to absorb the active substance, but he has to start again, then gives up. Just to be sure, he breaks the tablet in half along the little groove, blows the loose powder off to get rid of the bitter taste, then swallows one half.

      The rain streams down the windows as the muted tones of John Coltrane’s ‘Dear Old Stockholm’ flow from the speakers.

      The tablet’s chemical warmth spreads through his muscles. He