Page 49 of The Sleepwalker (Joona Linna #10)

Hugo is sprawled on his bed, sucking on a CBD vape and scrolling on his phone. The light is off, and the rice paper shade hangs above him like a pale winter moon.

He is wearing a pair of striped pyjama bottoms and a flowery T-shirt, and the dense network of tattoos on his arms make his skin look bruised.

Outside, the sky is dark.

Hugo is daydreaming about his trip to Canada, about getting to know his mother again when he takes her out to a restaurant full of colourful lights and gives her his lucky coin. His silver dinar.

He hears Agneta laugh upstairs, and he closes his eyes.

An hour ago, they ordered pizzas and ate a late dinner in the kitchen. His dad said he was happy that the family was back together again, and opened a bottle of American wine called Opus One that his editor at Knopf had given him in New York.

Hugo’s thoughts turn to the hypnotist and the fact that when Erik Maria Bark tried to get him to describe the reflection of the blonde woman’s face, he had seen the skeleton man from his nightmare, his skull and cracked eye sockets.

Could it be another case of double exposure? Maybe the woman was wearing some kind of weird makeup, or maybe she had heavy eyebrows that cast shadows onto her forehead.

Hugo puffs on his vape and decides that this is probably something he should share with his dad, that he and Agneta might be able to use in their book.

He stares up at the lampshade and tells himself to write it down before he forgets it, but changes his mind when he realises his notepad is out of reach on the armchair blocking the disused door into the living room.

Hugo lowers his phone to his chest and slumps back against the pillow.

Every time he inhales on his vape, a small light comes on at the end of the device, casting a soft glow onto the ceiling.

He closes his eyes for a moment to compose himself before he puts the vape down on the nightstand, picks up his phone and calls Olga.

‘Hi, babe.’

‘Are you alone?’ he asks.

‘Very.’

‘Who was that guy at your place?’

‘Which guy? Oh, you mean Hachim? I helped him with a job,’ she replies, sipping something.

Hugo sits up and pushes a pillow behind his back.

‘Olga, we need to talk .?.?. What was going on there? Redrum is .?.?. I mean, that’s not a normal club.’

‘Normal club? I hate normal clubs. They’re all so fucking lame and—’

‘But that place .?.?.’ he cuts her off. ‘Do you even, like, know what was going on—’

‘Enough of the fucking moralising. What the hell’s wrong with you?’ she says with a laugh.

‘I just want to know what you’re mixed up in.’

‘Relax. I know a bunch of people. What can I say? I told you not to come. Hachim likes posing, and he earns a fucking fortune. It means he can send a bunch of money home,’ she says, a new defensiveness to her voice.

‘I saw someone being raped,’ says Hugo.

‘It’s all fake, don’t you get it?’ she replies, softer this time. ‘These guys, they make so much every day. People aren’t allowed to actually hurt them. It wouldn’t work if they did.’

‘I dunno .?.?. I know what I saw.’

‘Everyone sets their own rules.’

‘OK, great .?.?. so everyone’s happy?’

‘Come on, Hugo. There are broken people everywhere .?.?. You know I’m not all sweetness and light, but I’m nice to you.’

‘Are you?’

‘If you’re nice to me, yeah.’

Hugo hears her light up and take a deep, bubbling drag on a pipe. He lies still, looking out of the window. The blinking light of a plane cuts across the night sky.

‘Did you have time to check whether my mum is registered in Le Grand-Village?’ he asks once the bubbling stops.

‘Huh?’

‘We talked about it, her family home was there .?.?. You said you’d check with the Canadian authorities.’

‘Désolé, mais je n’ai pas eu le temps.’

She takes another hit on the pipe and holds the phone away from her as she coughs.

‘This is important to me,’ he explains.

‘It’s important to you, you want us to go there, but clearly I don’t earn money the right way,’ she snaps.

‘Come on, I just don’t want you getting mixed up in anything bad.’

‘Olga’s a big girl.’

‘OK.’

Through the phone, Hugo can hear subdued dance music.

‘I added more money to the account, anyway,’ she says after a moment.

‘Me too.’

‘I saw. That’s great .?.?. though we still have a long way to go,’ she says, clearing her throat. ‘I know you don’t really want to ask your dad for a loan, but we could pay him back together, come up with some sort of repayment plan and—’

‘It’s just that he already thinks I’m a failure,’ Hugo speaks up.

‘You’re not a failure.’

‘Yeah, I am.’

‘In that case, anyone who hasn’t written an international bestseller is a failure.’

‘Nah, it just applies to me,’ he says with a sigh.

‘And that’s why you can’t borrow money from him?’

‘I would rather not.’

‘Would he notice if you just took some from his safe?’ she asks after a moment.

‘No, but I would never do that.’

‘OK, but as a loan?’

‘I’ve already embarrassed myself enough with that Aftonbladet interview.’

‘It’s your life. You’re allowed to do whatever you want. You don’t have to sit there and take his shit,’ says Olga.

‘He was just worried .?.?.’

‘Worried,’ she repeats, taking another drag. ‘Do you want to come over?’

‘I can’t, I’m heading back to the lab in the morning. Thinking about helping the police again.’

‘Why?’ She laughs.

‘Because that’s, like, the basic requirement of moral courage: trying to help if you can,’ Hugo replies, feeling his eyelids grow heavy.

They have just ended the call when Hugo hears quick footsteps on the stairs from the floor above, followed by a hesitant knock on his door. He sighs and closes the drawer in the nightstand, then gets up, steadies himself against the wall with one hand and unlocks the door.

‘Come with me,’ Bernard whispers.

‘What’s going on?’

His father is wearing his navy-blue dressing gown, and his hair is standing on end, his eyes anxious.

‘There’s someone outside, in the garden,’ Bernard explains.

‘What? Who?’

‘Just come with me.’

As Hugo follows his father down the dark hallway, he thinks about how similar the situation is to his nightmares.

The floorboards creak underfoot, and the crystals on the baroque wall sconce clink softly as they pass.

They make their way into the large library, where there is a staircase up to the next floor. The door to the kitchen is wide open, and the window out onto the drive shimmers darkly. It feels like a beady eye, following them up the stairs.

On the first floor, the lights are out and the curtains drawn.

The only source of illumination is coming from the main bedroom, where Agneta is standing beside the bed with a tablet in her hand.

In the pale glow from the screen, her hair looks grey.

She has her glasses on, and is wearing a pink cardigan over her nightie. Her cheeks are glossy with night cream.

‘Is he still there?’ Bernard asks quietly.

‘Yes.’

‘Does someone want to tell me what’s going on?’ says Hugo.

‘Keep your voice down,’ Bernard tells him, taking the tablet from Agneta and putting it down on the bed. ‘We don’t know what’s happening, but there’s someone sneaking around in the garden.’

They huddle together so that they can study the feed from the six security cameras outside.

‘I can’t see him,’ says Bernard.

Agneta reaches out and touches one of the six frames, making it fill the screen.

The cameras have switched to night-vision mode.

A figure dressed in black passes through a dark spot and moves around the east wing of the house before disappearing from view.

‘Jeez .?.?.’ Hugo whispers.

The bushes in the garden look like black cracks against the light dusting of snow, but towards the top edge of the screen, the soft glow from the Christmas lights on the driveway is visible.

Agneta switches back to the main feed.

The intruder is now on the third camera, crossing the grass by the sunroom where there was once a small play area.

They pause in a dark corner.

‘Is he taking a piss?’ Bernard asks, enlarging the image.

The camera is mounted almost four metres above the ground, and the wide-angle lens makes the facade of the building bend like a bow.

‘What’s he doing?’ Hugo whispers.

The man is standing with his back to the camera, holding something in his right hand. It almost looks like a short magic wand, shiny and black at one end. He raises his arm and makes a few exaggerated movements towards the wall before setting off again.

Agneta switches to the next camera, covering the other side of the sunroom.

‘Where the hell did he go?’ asks Bernard.

They switch back to the overview feed, but the figure in black has vanished.

The lamps lining the footpath resemble small balls of light. The wooden bench by the lilacs is just about visible, but other than that the screen is dark.

The intruder is still nowhere to be seen.

‘The door’s locked, isn’t it?’ Agneta asks. ‘You locked it earlier?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bernard replies. ‘I think so.’

‘After taking the rubbish out?’

‘I think I locked it,’ he says, gritting his teeth.

Hugo thinks he spots movement on the fourth camera, and he enlarges the feed covering the west wing of the house. The intruder is now visible from above and to one side as he moves forward, takes off his rucksack and stops outside Hugo’s bedroom window.

‘Call the police,’ says Agneta.

‘Hugo, call them now,’ Bernard blurts out.

‘What should I say?’ Hugo asks, unlocking his phone just as the alarm starts blaring.

A loud, pulsing siren fills the house, and the lights in the garden come on.

Bernard’s phone starts ringing, and he fishes it out of the pocket in his robe.

‘It’s the alarm compa—’

‘Answer it!’ Agneta tells him.

Hugo looks down at the tablet again, but the intruder is gone. He switches to the six-camera view and hears his father giving the operator the security code and quickly explaining what is happening before ending the call.

‘What did they say?’ asks Agneta.

‘They’re on their way,’ Bernard replies. ‘Said they’ll be here in fifteen minutes and that—’

He stops talking at the sound of a loud thud on the floor below.

‘They said we should lock ourselves in the bathroom and get in the tub.’

In the hallway downstairs, the crystals on the wall sconce jingle softly. Agneta hurries over to the door and turns the lock. Bernard’s hand is shaking as he dials 112, and Hugo reaches for the cast-iron poker from the stand beside the stove.