The Sandman. Ларс Кеплер

room upstairs to remove the rope from the beam, but when he reached the door he had been filled instead with an aching sense of longing. He stood with his hand on the door handle and forced himself to turn round, go downstairs and wake his friends. They poured spiced schnapps into crystal glasses and rustled up some boiled eggs with Russian caviar.

      Reidar is walking barefoot along a corridor lined with dark portraits.

      The snow outside is casting an indirect light, like a pale darkness.

      In the reading room with its shiny leather furniture he stops and looks out of the huge window. The view is like a fairytale. As if the king of winter had blown snow across a landscape of apple trees and fields.

      Suddenly he sees flickering lights on the long avenue leading from the gates to the front of the house. The branches of the trees look like embroidered lace in the glow. A car approaching. The snow swirling into the air behind it is coloured red by its rear-lights.

      Reidar can’t recall inviting anyone else to join them.

      He is just thinking that Veronica will have to take care of the new arrivals when he sees that it’s a police car.

      Reidar stops and puts the bottles down on a chest, then goes back downstairs and pulls on the felt-lined winter boots beside the door. He heads out into the cold air to meet the car as it arrives in the broad turning circle.

      ‘Reidar Frost?’ a woman in plain clothes says as she gets out of the car.

      ‘Yes,’ he replies.

      ‘Can we go inside?’

      ‘Here will do,’ he says.

      ‘Would you like to sit in the car?’

      ‘Does it look like it?’

      ‘We’ve found your son,’ the woman says, taking a couple of steps towards him.

      ‘I see,’ he sighs, holding up a hand to silence the police officer.

      He is breathing, feeling the smell of the snow, of water that has frozen to ice high up in the sky. Reidar composes himself, then slowly lowers his hand.

      ‘So where did you find Mikael?’ he says in a voice that has become strangely calm.

      ‘He was walking over a bridge—’

      ‘What?! What the hell are you saying, woman?’ Reidar roars.

      The woman flinches. She’s tall, and has a long ponytail down her back.

      ‘I’m trying to tell you that he’s alive,’ she says.

      ‘What is this?’ Reidar asks uncomprehendingly.

      ‘He’s been taken into Södermalm Hospital for observation.’

      ‘Not my son, he died many years—’

      ‘There’s no doubt whatsoever that it’s him.’

      Reidar is staring at her with eyes that have turned completely black.

      ‘Mikael’s alive?’

      ‘He’s come back.’

      ‘My son?’

      ‘I appreciate that it’s strange, but—’

      ‘I thought …’

      Reidar’s chin trembles as the policewoman explains that his DNA is a one hundred per cent match. The ground beneath him feels soft, rolling like a wave, and he fumbles in the air for support.

      ‘Sweet God in heaven,’ he whispers. ‘Dear God, thank you …’

      His face cracks into a broad smile and he looks completely broken, and he stares up at the falling snow as his legs give way beneath him. The policewoman tries to catch him, but one of his knees hits the ground and he falls to the side, putting his hand out to break his fall.

      The police officer helps him to his feet, and he is holding her arm as he sees Veronica come running down the steps barefoot, wrapped in his thick winter coat.

      ‘You’re sure it’s him?’ he says, staring into the policewoman’s eyes.

      She nods.

      ‘We’ve just had a one hundred per cent match,’ she repeats. ‘It’s Mikael Kohler-Frost, and he’s alive.’

      Veronica has reached him. He takes her arm as he follows the policewoman back to the car.

      ‘What’s going on, Reidar?’ she asks, sounding worried.

      He looks at her. His face is confused and he suddenly seems much older.

      ‘My little boy,’ he says simply.

       37

      From a distance the white blocks of Södermalm Hospital look like gravestones looming out of the thick snow.

      Moving like a sleepwalker, Reidar Frost buttoned his shirt on the way to Stockholm and tucked it into his trousers. He’s heard the police say that the patient who has been identified as Mikael Kohler-Frost has been moved from intensive care to a private room, but it all feels as if it’s happening in a parallel reality.

      In Sweden, when there are grounds to believe someone is dead, the relatives can apply for a death certificate after one year even though there is no body. Reidar had waited six years for his children’s bodies to be found before he applied for death certificates. The Tax Office authorised his request, the decision was taken, and the declarations became legally binding six months later.

      Now Reidar is walking beside the plain-clothed officer down a long corridor. He doesn’t remember which ward they’re on their way towards, he just follows her, staring at the floor and interwoven tracks left by the wheels of countless beds.

      Reidar tries to tell himself not to hope too much, that the police might have made a mistake.

      Thirteen years ago his children disappeared, Felicia and Mikael, when they were out playing late one evening.

      Divers searched the waters, and the whole of the Lilla Värtan inlet was dragged, from Lindskär to Björndalen. Search parties had been organised and a helicopter spent several days searching the area.

      Reidar provided photographs, fingerprints, dental records and DNA samples of both children to assist in the search.

      Known offenders were questioned, but the conclusion of the police investigation was that one of the siblings had fallen into the cold March water, and the other had been dragged in while trying to help the first one out.

      Reidar secretly commissioned a private detective agency to investigate other possible leads, primarily everyone in the children’s vicinity: all their teachers, football coaches, neighbours, postmen, bus drivers, gardeners, shop assistants, café staff, and anyone the children had come into contact with by phone or on the internet. Their classmates’ parents were checked, and even Reidar’s own relatives.

      Long after the police had stopped looking, and when everyone with even the faintest connection to the children had been investigated, Reidar began to realise that it was over. But for several years after that he carried on walking along the shore every day, expecting his children to be washed ashore.

      Reidar and the plain-clothes officer with the blonde ponytail down her back wait while a bed containing an old woman is wheeled into the lift. They head over to the doors to the ward and pull on pale blue shoe-covers.

      Reidar staggers and leans against the wall. He has wondered several times if he’s dreaming, and daren’t let his thoughts get carried away.

      They carry on into the ward, passing nurses in white uniforms. Reidar feels composed, he’s clenched tight inside, but he can’t help walking faster.

      Somewhere