Page 16 of The Sleepwalker (Joona Linna #10)
Jack is waiting, as usual, by the concrete steps beneath the low skyway. He glances over towards the square and the strange red church building.
The sky is dark and heavy.
The cold air helps to alleviate the stench of old urine from the corner nearby.
Used condoms, latex gloves, sooty scraps of foil, pouches of snus and cigarette butts litter the ground around the rusty drain cover.
This might not be the most picturesque spot in Stockholm, but it is secluded. No CCTV cameras and five possible escape routes, two involving stairs.
Jack is shivering, despite the fact that he is wearing two pairs of sweatpants, a fleece and a black hoodie. He has a beanie on beneath his hood, mittens and red trainers with thick soles.
An old regular from the Bengali restaurant nearby comes down the steps, takes a seat on the concrete and shakes out a cigarette.
‘’Sup?’ says Jack.
‘Not much. Shitty vibes in the kitchen today.’
Jack moves over to the wall beside him. He already has a wrapper of twenty fentanyl pills in his hand, and he puts it into the dead bush beside the steps.
The man takes the pills, shoves them in his pocket and leaves a small plastic chutney jar in the same place.
He then takes one last drag, drops his half-smoked cigarette to the ground and gets up and leaves without another word.
Jack puts the jar straight into his rucksack. He knows he doesn’t need to count the money inside, but he will probably do so all the same.
Leaning back against the grubby brown metal door, he checks the time on his phone. His first shift will be over in forty minutes.
That morning, Jack took his little brother to school as always. He talked about how important it is that he studies hard if he wants to be an archaeologist, that he needs to get top grades.
‘I know, I can do it,’ his brother had replied.
‘You should look a bit happier, then.’
Jack himself left school without any qualifications. He has ADHD, but because he was caught with THC in his urine, he was never given any help. Instead, he wound up in this alleyway, self-medicating with amphetamine and racking up debt.
A cute girl with plaits and a skateboard under one arm pauses a few metres away and peers back towards the square.
‘What you looking for?’ he asks.
‘I heard you sold GHB,’ she says, nervously eyeing him up.
‘Just ran out,’ he lies, in an attempt to protect her.
‘OK.’
‘But I’ve got some E if you want it.’
She nods and happily pays triple the street price for two hits before hurrying away.
A gust of wind blows dust and rubbish over the cracked tarmac.
Jack can’t stop thinking about what he saw yesterday, when he went to drop off the money.
The set-up is always the same: Jack hands over the cash to Ibra, who is waiting by the playground in his black van, then he goes to collect the new stash from the tyre swing.
Yesterday, after Ibra drove off, Jack climbed the low fence and grabbed the vacuum pack from the swing. As he straightened up, he noticed a white Volvo parked over by the tennis club, and realised there was music coming from it.
A weird, old-fashioned song, carried on the wind.
Jack shoved the package in his rucksack and left the playground through the gate. The hinges creaked, chirping like a nest full of baby birds.
He got on his e-scooter and started riding along Neptunusv?gen in the dark. The only streetlamp wasn’t working properly, the bulb flickering on and off.
He remembers thinking that people must still try to knock them out with a single kick, like they did when he was a kid.
There was an old car parked at the end of the road, and for a split second, the streetlamp illuminated its windscreen.
With a sudden sense of watchfulness taking over him, he cruised alongside the rocks marking the edge of the grass.
Snatches of the strange music reached him on the breeze.
Jack could see the tall fence around the red clay tennis courts, but beyond that everything was dark.
The streetlamp light continued to flicker on and off, and in its sudden glow he saw a bloody figure clutching an axe in one hand.
The brief bursts of light made it look like they were staggering towards the old car across the yellowed grass.
Jack sped up, swinging around the car and away from the lake. His legs felt like jelly all the way back to Kista.
He can’t get what he saw out of his head, and knows he should call the cops to leave an anonymous tip-off.
Jack caught a glimpse of a face. He has been thinking about it all day and knows he would be able to give a good description – both of the bloody figure and of the car, which had a cluster of air fresheners hanging from the rear-view mirror.
‘I’ll do it,’ he mutters to himself. ‘I’ll call it in.’
He looks down at his phone. It would be good to head into one of the nearby shops to warm up for a bit, but he doesn’t have time.
He needs to get over to the playground.
Jack walks down the alleyway towards the square, unlocks one of the e-scooters and sets off for Edsviken.
When he reaches Neptunusv?gen, he slows down and lets the scooter fall into the grass by the side of the road. He takes off his rucksack and shoves his mittens inside, then pushes back his hood and makes his way over to the black van.
As ever, one of the tinted side windows is slightly open. He knows Ibra will be sitting on the other side, in a bulletproof vest and with a Glock in his hand.
Jack pushes the black bag of money through the gap, and the van pulls away.
He opens the gate to the dark playground and hears the hinges creak. The frozen sand is hard underfoot, crunching beneath his shoes.
He cuts between the miniature climbing wall and a pale-blue slide, and walks over to the swings by the back wall and the dark trees.
Jack looks around, thinking about the bloody figure he saw in the blinking light. About the axe in their hand, and the way they were moving over the dead grass like some sort of demon.
Glancing over to the tennis club, he notices that the police have cordoned off the area around the courts with blue and white tape.
A knot of anxiety settles in his gut.
There are two deer in the middle of the grass, and they both raise their heads, suddenly on high alert.
The wind blows a plastic ball along the edge of the wood.
Jack reaches into the tyre swing and finds the stash, but when he tries to take it out he realises that it is stuck.
The deer bolt away, and he hears a branch break among the trees.
He doesn’t want to rip the bag and risk losing any of the drugs.
He takes out his phone, turns on the torch and has just got onto his knees to get a better look when he hears something rustle behind him.
Jack turns his head and sees a person striding towards him, but he doesn’t have time to get up before something slams into his head.
His teeth smash together, and his phone drops to the sand. His head feels heavy and unsteady.
Jack is still on his knees, and he knows that he should pull his knife to defend himself, but he feels oddly weak.
Blood trickles down his face and neck, dripping onto his phone and turning the beam of light from his torch pink.
Somehow, as his field of vision starts to shrink, he understands that the blade of an axe has just sliced through his hat and skull, burying itself deep in his brain.
Jack just has time to think about his little brother’s sulky face, his fair eyebrows and the dinosaur plaster on his forehead, and then he loses consciousness.