Page 31 of The Sleepwalker (Joona Linna #10)

Joona pulls on his coat in the stairwell, then makes his way out into the cold night.

A cat is sniffing around a heap of rubbish bags and discarded beer cans.

He can hear the whirr of a helicopter in the distance, and he notices an empty pack of Tramadol on top of a telecoms cabinet.

Joona turns the corner and sees two men standing beside his car.

Someone has walked the same route as him with a can of red spray paint, leaving a wavy line on the facade of the building, over the bricks, windows and doors.

As Joona gets closer his car, he sees that the two men are trying to jimmy the driver’s side door with a thin piece of metal.

He reaches into his coat pocket and finds his key fob.

‘You need any help, lads?’ he asks.

‘Huh?’ mutters the older of the two.

Joona holds his other hand up in the air and clicks his fingers. The headlights on his car flash, and the wing mirrors fold out.

‘What the fuck .?.?.’ mumbles the younger man.

‘ Juoskaa kuin kanit ,’ Joona says with a smile, flashing them his police ID.

The would-be robbers drop their tools, turn and run, cutting across the dark patch of grass beside the convenience shop and jumping the low fence.

Joona moves around the car and sees that they have damaged the paintwork on the door. He opens it and gets in behind the wheel, then calls Anna Gilbert to tell her about his meeting with Tiffany and ask about Lena O.

‘Yeah, I know who she is .?.?. Olena Veronina. She’s from Ukraine, wound up becoming an escort girl after the Russian invasion. We’ve actually been in touch with her recently.’

‘Do you think she might be willing to talk to me?’

‘You’d need an interpreter, but she’s pretty sharp, studied civil engineering back home.’

‘Anything else I need to know?’

‘No .?.?. well, other than that she doesn’t want to talk about the people she left behind. She sends everything she earns to her family, but she doesn’t have any contact with them.’

‘Can you arrange a meeting with her? The sooner the better.’

*?*?*

It is five to nine in the morning when Joona gets to Café Elektra in the V?stberga industrial estate. He buys a cup of coffee and a sandwich, then sits down at one of the tables to wait.

The paper tablecloth in front of him is decorated with a festive cross-stitch pattern, wishing him a Merry Christmas.

Last night, he woke from a nightmare with a racing heart and teary eyes. He got up and washed his face, took twenty milligrams of morphine, then crawled back into bed and felt himself sink into a warm, artificial calm.

His head now feels heavy, and he is slightly queasy.

Through the window, he notices the interpreter smoking on the other side of the road. Their paths have crossed a few times over the years, but he doesn’t remember her name. She is in her sixties, with oversized glasses, a hard face and short grey hair.

He watches her take one last drag on her cigarette before stamping on the butt, reaching into the pocket of her denim jacket for a pack of gum, waving at someone and crossing the street.

The interpreter comes into the café with another woman, who looks to be around forty. The second woman is bare-faced, with pale-blue eyes and thick blonde hair. She is wearing a navy sweater, black trousers and leather boots.

They make their way over to his table, and Joona gets up to say hello and ask what he can get them.

The women sit down as he goes over to the counter to pay for their coffees and sandwiches, and the interpreter moves the basket of ketchup and mustard over to the next table and takes out a notepad and pen.

‘Thank you for agreeing to meet me,’ Joona tells Olena once he gets back.

The interpreter scribbles something in her notepad, then translates his words. A moment later, she does the same for Olena’s reply.

‘I’m happy to help if I can.’

They start eating, and after a few minutes Joona puts what is left of his sandwich to one side, takes a sip of coffee, lowers his cup to the saucer and looks up at Olena. She takes another bite, then wipes her mouth with the napkin and meets his gaze.

‘I’ve been wondering .?.?. how do you find your clients?’ he asks.

The interpreter repeats his question in Ukrainian, listens to Olena’s answer and mimics her tone of voice as she translates it back into Swedish.

‘They make a request, and if it’s a new name I look them up on various forums before I start communicating with them,’ she says, turning the page in her notepad.

‘What do you talk about?’

‘What he’s looking for, the price, the rules .?.?. Mostly so I can get a sense of who he is, see whether any alarm bells start ringing,’ Olena replies softly.

‘Do you save the messages?’

‘No. I promise discretion. That’s important, for all of them.’

‘But isn’t it useful to save at least some kind of information about your clients?’

‘No. Like what?’

‘Names, phone numbers, preferences. I don’t know.’

Olena shakes her head. ‘I don’t.’

‘So you don’t have any details saved on your computer, or on your phone? No cashbook or any physical records like that?’

‘No, I’m sorry,’ she replies, running a hand over the blue fabric cushion on her chair.

Joona nods, finishes off his sandwich and wipes his mouth.

‘OK, Olena, I’m going to get straight to the point .?.?. I was told that you have a regular who was robbed by another sex worker.’

Olena starts talking, and the interpreter begins scribbling again. The older woman asks a question, listens to the answer, nods and then turns to Joona.

‘I saw him maybe eight times in total, but he had some kind of breakdown. The last time we met, about six months ago, it was impossible to have any sort of conversation with him. He was convinced a criminal network had put a price on his head, and he thought I was working with them.’

‘Did he ever talk about the robbery, when he was beaten up?’ asks Joona.

‘Only once, the first time.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Not much. He wanted to search my place to make sure there was no one hiding,’ she says. ‘I asked him why, and he told me about the assault, that a prostitute had lured him into a trap .?.?. and that she hadn’t looked anything like her pictures.’

‘What did she look like?’

‘He didn’t say, just that she was ugly and crazy and that she started hitting him with a metal bar – in the face, on his back and between his legs.’

‘Do you know her name?’

‘She seems to be one of the women who changes her alias and the forum she uses pretty often, but he called her Miss Liza .?.?. followed by a string of expletives.’

‘Miss Liza?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know anything else about her?’

‘No, I’m sorry.’

‘OK, I won’t take up any more of your time, but is there anything I can do for you? Anything at all?’

‘I don’t think so, thank you. I know what you’re getting at, but if I stop doing this then I’ll be letting my family down and I can’t do that. It would all have been for nothing then,’ she replies, eyes welling up as she holds his gaze.