Page 48 of The Sleepwalker (Joona Linna #10)

Ida is on her knees among the shoes and boots in the hallway, hands pressed to her mouth to muffle the sound of her breathing.

This can’t be happening, she thinks. This can’t be happening. The woman is in the house.

Ida watched as she bumped into the floor lamp, causing the orb of light to sway.

Her breathing is much too quick.

She slowly turns around and squints back towards the lounge, taking in the sofa, the candles on the coffee table, the reflections in the glass.

Her panicked brain desperately tries to come up with a logical explanation, and she asks herself whether Sven Erik might have been calling to tell her that the woman was coming over. Maybe he said she could swing by to borrow something.

If that is the case, she might already have left through the patio doors.

Ida crawls forward over the vinyl floor as quietly as she can, feeling stray bits of gravel and damp pools of melted snow beneath her palms.

She can see a little more of the lounge now.

There is no one there.

She slowly gets up, legs shaking, and hears the parquet floor creaking beneath the weight of someone slowly moving across it.

Ida takes another step forward, glances to the left and sees the woman in the angled window. Her reflection is cautiously picking its way across the patio, past the barbecue and towards the rusty fence.

That means she is actually heading towards the door to the boiler room beneath the stairs.

Ida only has a few seconds.

She needs to get to her phone.

The door to the boiler room opens and closes.

Ida tiptoes out from the hall and sees herself on the lawn in front of the apple tree. She then hurries over to the stairs and starts climbing them as quietly as she can.

She looks down, between the steps, and gasps.

The woman isn’t in the boiler room at all. She is standing just outside, hidden in a dark corner.

Ida meets her eye.

The woman lunges forward and swings an axe, and Ida just has time to lift her foot before the sharp blade slices through the tread and hits the side panel.

She screams and starts running, reaching the kitchen counter and managing to knock over her wineglass as she grabs her phone.

It falls to the floor and shatters on the tiles, causing wine to spray across the cupboards and kick plates.

Ida can hear the woman’s heavy footsteps on the stairs as she hurries through to the bedroom, locks the door behind her and backs away.

Her hands are shaking so much that it takes her three attempts to unlock her phone.

The woman is now tugging on the door handle.

Ida dials 112.

The call handler answers just as the intruder starts pounding on the door.

‘You have to help me,’ Ida whispers.

‘What’s the nature of the emergency?’

‘There’s a madwoman in my house,’ she says between shaky breaths.

‘What do you mean by a madwoman?’ the call handler asks in a patient voice.

‘A woman with an axe, she’s broken in.’

‘Is anyone hurt?’

Ida screams as the axe slams into the solid wood door.

‘What’s happening? Do you need help?’ asks the call handler.

‘You have to come, as soon as you—’

There is a cracking sound as the blade hits the door for a second time.

‘Where are you?’

‘I’ve locked myself in the bedroom.’

‘What’s your address?’

Ida reels it off and hears the call handler’s fingers rattling over the keys.

‘A patrol car is heading to you now,’ he says.

‘Oh God,’ Ida gasps as the axe hits the door again. ‘Please, tell them to hurry.’

‘Could you give me your number in case the line drops?’

‘There’s no time, she’s using the axe—’

There is another loud thud and a splintering sound as the blade breaks through the panel.

‘Talk to me. Are you alone?’

‘Yes, I’m alone!’

‘Do you know who the woman is?’

‘Please, just send help, I don’t know what’s going on.’

The next blow causes pieces of broken wood to fall to the floor.

Ida realises she is out of time, and she ends the call, opens the door to the linen cupboard and shoves a pile of towels to the floor.

She then climbs up onto the shelf, pulls the door shut behind her and crawls forward.

Using her shoulder, she tries to move Oliver’s big wooden cupboard, but it is too heavy.

From the bedroom, she can hear more loud bangs and cracking.

‘Please, God. Please, God,’ she whispers between quick breaths.

She manages to find a foothold, and she pushes back using her legs. The cupboard budges slightly, no more than around ten centimetres.

The woman kicks the door to the bedroom open.

Ida whimpers as she tries again, pushing as hard as she can. This time, the heavy cupboard slides across the floor. She can taste blood as she squeezes through the gap onto the carpet on the other side.

Oliver’s roller blind swings in the draught from her movements.

Ida gets up on shaking legs, straightens her robe and tightens the belt, then tiptoes as fast as she can over to the door.

She steps on one of her son’s toys, making it squeak loudly.

Back in the main bedroom, a window breaks.

Ida opens the door.

Her feet barely make a sound as she runs through to the kitchen and down the stairs, but the woman comes after her, stomping loudly.

Ida swings around the corner at the bottom of the stairs and reaches the door to the boiler room. Between the steps, she can see the woman’s legs, and she quietly opens the door, hurries through and pulls it shut behind her.

The ground source heat pump, underfloor heating manifold and boiler make the cramped space hot.

Ida blinks in the darkness, breathing heavily through her nose.

She can’t see a thing as she fumbles her way over to the narrow door to the garage.

Something clicks, and there is a hissing sound.

She has almost reached the door when the hem of her robe catches on a pipe.

Her heart is beating so hard that she can hear her blood roaring in her ears.

The fabric strains as she tugs on it, and she has to take a step back and unhook it from the pipe before she can keep going.

The nightlight on the ceiling casts a pale bluish glow over the plastic boxes of Christmas decorations, bikes, roof racks, summer tyres, lawnmowers and bags of compost.

The rough concrete floor is cold beneath her feet as she runs over to the button for the automatic garage door and presses it.

There is a loud whirr as the mechanism starts to turn, but after just a few seconds the door shudders to a halt and starts closing.

Ida glances back at the door to the boiler room, presses the button again and reties the belt around her robe. As before, the garage door starts to open, grinds to a halt and closes again.

Something must be blocking the mechanism.

In the boiler room, the light comes on.

A thin chink of it spills into the garage like a crack in the floor.

Ida presses the button and runs over to the door.

She gets onto her back and starts crawling through the gap as soon as it is wide enough for her head.

The door shudders as it stops rising and begins lowering for the third time.

Ida desperately tries to get out, but the door is too quick and pins her down by the waist.

The cold night air claws at her lungs.

Panting heavily, she tries to drag herself through, grazing the skin on her hips.

The mechanism starts turning again, and the door begins to lift. The pressure on her eases, and she scrambles to get out with a whimper.

Right then, she spots her neighbour, the former Chancellor of Justice. He is standing with his back to her as his old Labrador sniffs a lamppost a little further down the street.

‘Help!’ she shouts as she feels the woman grip her ankle and drag her back inside.

Ida’s head thuds against the concrete floor, and her robe rides up beneath her.

Yet again, the garage door closes with a whirr.

Ida is sobbing, and she lashes out with both feet, rolls over onto her stomach and scrambles onto her knees.

She has just started to get up when something hits her hard on the back, and her legs give way beneath her.

She attempts to break her fall as she crashes to the floor, but her forehead hits the rough concrete.

Ida tries to get up again, but she can no longer feel the lower half of her body.

As it dawns on her that her spine has been severed, she screams, and an excruciating wave of pain surges up through her torso.

The muscles in her upper body tense convulsively. Her heart is racing, and her breathing is laboured.

Ida hears herself roar in terror, breaking her nails as she frantically claws at the concrete.

She knows she needs to get out, but that isn’t a conscious thought; it is an animal urge to survive.

The woman is breathing heavily, and she kicks a stool angrily out of the way. Growling, she paces around Ida and nudges her twice on the cheek with her axe.

‘Please,’ Ida begs her.

Panicking, she tries to drag herself back towards the boiler room, but the woman lashes out with the axe and chops off half of her right hand.

Sparks fly as the sharp steel blade hits the concrete.

Ida is drifting in and out of consciousness, but she can see one of the sparks hovering in front of her like a small fairy with fluttering silver wings.

A pool of blood has begun to form beneath her.

She allows herself to relax, resting her cheek against the cold floor.

Ida registers the woman’s axe beginning to sever her limbs as nothing but a series of soft jolts, like the points on the railway taking her back to her mum and dad.