The Nightmare. Ларс Кеплер

gives anything back.

      Claudia Fernandez is standing in the doorway, a frightened-looking woman in her sixties. Her face bears traces of tears and anxiety, and her body looks frozen and hunched.

      Joona gently introduces himself:

      ‘Hello, my name is Joona Linna. I’m a detective superintendent – it was me you spoke to on the phone.’

      The Needle introduces himself very quietly as he shakes hands with the woman, then immediately turns his back on her and pretends to sort through some files. He appears very brusque and dismissive, but Joona knows that he’s really very upset.

      ‘I’ve tried calling them, but I can’t get hold of either of my girls,’ Claudia whispers. ‘They ought …’

      ‘Shall we go?’ Nils interrupts, as if he hasn’t heard her.

      They move silently through the familiar corridors. With each step Joona can’t help thinking that the air is getting thinner. Claudia Fernandez is in no hurry to get to what lies ahead. She walks slowly, several metres behind Nils, whose tall, sharply defined figure hurries off ahead of them. Joona Linna turns and tries to smile at Claudia. But he has to steel himself against the look in her eyes: panic, pleading, prayer, desperate attempts to do a deal with God.

      It feels like they’re dragging her into the cold room where the bodies are kept.

      Nils mutters something, sounding almost angry, then he bends over, unlocks one of the stainless steel doors and pulls out the drawer.

      The young woman comes into view. Her body is covered with a white sheet. Her eyes are dull, half-closed, her cheeks sunken.

      Her hair lies like a black wreath around her beautiful head.

      A small, pale hand is visible beside her hip.

      Claudia Fernandez is breathing fast. She reaches out and cautiously touches the hand, then lets out a whimpering moan. It comes from deep within her, as if she is breaking apart at that moment, her soul shattering.

      Claudia’s body starts to shake and she sinks to her knees, pressing her daughter’s lifeless hand to her lips.

      ‘No, no,’ she sobs. ‘Oh God, dear God, not Viola. Not Viola …’

      Joona is standing a few steps behind Claudia, sees her back shake with weeping, hears her voice, as her desperate sobbing gets gradually louder, then slowly dies away.

      She wipes the tears from her face, but is still breathing fitfully as she gets up from the floor.

      ‘Can you confirm that this is her?’ The Needle says curtly. ‘Is this Viola Fernandez, your …’

      His voice tails off and he clears his throat quickly and angrily.

      Claudia shakes her head and gently strokes her daughter’s cheek with her fingertips.

      ‘Viola, Violita …’

      Very shakily, she pulls her hand back, and Joona says gently:

      ‘I’m so very, very sorry.’

      Claudia almost falls, but reaches out to the wall for support, turns away and whispers to herself:

      ‘We’re going to the circus on Saturday, it’s a surprise for Viola …’

      They look at the dead woman, her pale lips, the veins on her neck.

      ‘I’ve forgotten your name,’ Claudia says helplessly, looking at Joona.

      ‘Joona Linna,’ he says.

      ‘Joona Linna,’ the woman repeats in a thick voice. ‘I’ll tell you about Viola. She’s my little girl, my youngest, my happy little …’

      Claudia glances over at Viola’s white face and sways sideways. The Needle pulls up a chair, but she just shakes her head.

      ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘It’s just that … my elder daughter, Penelope, she went through so many terrible things in El Salvador. When I think about what they did to me in that prison, when I remember how frightened Penelope was, she cried and called out for me … hour after hour, but I couldn’t go to her, I couldn’t protect her …’

      Claudia looks Joona in the eye and takes a step towards him, and he gently puts his arm round her. She leans heavily against his chest, catches her breath, then pulls away and fumbles for the back of the chair without looking at her dead daughter, and sits down.

      ‘My proudest achievement … was making sure that little Viola was born here in Sweden. She had a lovely room, with a pink lampshade, and lots of toys and dolls, she went to school, watched Pippi Longstocking … I don’t suppose you can understand, but I was so proud that she never had to be hungry or afraid. Not like us … like Penelope and me, who still wake up in the middle of the night, ready for someone to break in and do terrible things …’

      She falls silent, then whispers:

      ‘Viola has known nothing but happiness and …’

      Claudia leans forward and hides her face in her hands, and weeps softly. Joona very gently puts his hand on her back.

      ‘I’ll go now,’ she says, still crying.

      ‘There’s no hurry.’

      She calms down, but then her face contorts into another fit of tears.

      ‘Have you spoken to Penelope?’ she asks.

      ‘We haven’t been able to get hold of her,’ Joona says quietly.

      ‘Tell her I want her to call me, because …’

      She stops herself, the colour drains from her face again and then she looks up.

      ‘I just thought maybe she wasn’t answering because she saw it was me calling, because I … I was … I said a horrible thing, but I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean …’

      ‘We’ve started to look for Penelope and Björn Almskog with a helicopter, but …’

      ‘Please, tell me she’s alive,’ she whispers to Joona. ‘Tell me that much, Joona Linna.’

      Joona’s jaw muscles tense as he strokes Claudia’s back, then he says:

      ‘I’m going to do everything I can to …’

      ‘She’s alive. Say it!’ Claudia interrupts. ‘She has to be alive.’

      ‘I’m going to find her,’ Joona says. ‘I know I’m going to find her.’

      ‘Say that Penelope’s alive.’

      Joona hesitates, then meets Claudia’s clouded gaze, and different thoughts flash through his head, linked in fleeting combinations, and suddenly he hears himself say:

      ‘She’s alive.’

      ‘Yes,’ Claudia whispers.

      Joona lowers his eyes; he can no longer grasp the thoughts that passed through his consciousness just moments before, which made him change his mind and tell Claudia that her eldest daughter is alive.

       16

       The mistake

      Joona goes with Claudia Fernandez to the waiting taxi, helps her in, and then waits by the turning circle until the car is out of sight before he starts to search his pockets for his phone. When he realises he must have put it down somewhere, he hurries back inside the Department of Forensic Medicine, walks straight into Nils Åhlén’s office, picks up The Needle’s phone as he sits down behind the desk, dials Erixon’s number and waits as the call goes through.