Page 54 of The Sleepwalker (Joona Linna #10)

Hall Prison, one of Sweden’s highest-security facilities, is at the end of the long railway bridge on the outskirts of Sodert?lje.

It took Joona just thirty-five minutes to drive down there.

He leaves his car in the parking area and turns towards the low administrative building on the other side of the tall fence topped with tight coils of razor wire.

A couple of Prison Service flags strain on their poles.

Joona walks over to the drab grey gates and reports to the control room.

A woman with a lifeless face comes out to collect him, and after leaving his personal effects in a locker, he shows his ID at the security desk, goes through a metal detector and past an eager sniffer dog.

As he then follows a guard with a ginger beard down a corridor in which the doors and walls are all painted the same glossy shade of milky white, he feels an ache in his heart.

Joona will never forget his time as a prisoner in Kumla. The blue vinyl mattresses, the underground tunnels, the long corridors, the dusty yard and the dirty yellow walls.

The air in the corridor smells like cleaning products, and their footsteps sound oddly muffled. Someone has carved a swastika into one of the doors, and Joona hears a man shouting for help through the thick walls.

The guard is talking about the fact that plastic is choking the oceans as they walk down a row of heavy steel doors with tiny windows.

Because all of the other visiting rooms are already in use, Joona is shown into a family room with floral curtains, a birch-bark Advent star, furniture suitable for both adults and children, a round pink rug and a box of toys and games.

He thanks the guard and sits down to wait. After just a few minutes, the guard returns with the inmate.

‘Will you come back and get me in ten minutes? I’ve got a PULS meeting,’ Gerald Pedersen asks him before turning to Joona. ‘Sorry, but they tell me I’ve got to attend a bunch of group sessions about “my struggles with violence and aggression” if I want to get out on parole in a few years.’

‘No problem.’

‘I’m a busy man, y’see. Got a job in the workshop, screwing long screws into really long plastic tubes .?.?. and then there’s the big gingerbread house contest tonight.’

‘Take a seat.’

‘I’d shake your hand, but .?.?.’ Gerald says, extending his stump towards him.

‘Joona Linna. I’m a detective superintendent with the National Crime Unit,’ Joona says once Gerald is sitting down.

‘Detective superintendent, huh? Fuck me,’ he mutters, getting back onto his feet. ‘They said it was my lawyer .?.?. I don’t talk to the cops. You can’t do this, I—’

‘Hold on.’

‘Hello! I want to go back to my cell now!’

‘I know you didn’t kill your wife.’

‘What’s that now?’ Gerald replies, turning to him with a troubled look on his face.

‘You didn’t kill Lucia, did you?’

‘No,’ he says, licking his lips.

‘Please, sit down. I’ve done time in Kumla. I know how popular the police are in a place like this.’

‘But .?.?.’

‘I’ve spoken to the warden. This will be registered as a meeting with your lawyer.’

‘OK, but what the hell .?.?. I thought this was about me transferring to Fosie,’ he says, taking a seat again.

‘Gerald, it’s going to take a little while to organise your release. It’s a process that starts with the prosecutor reopening the case,’ Joona explains.

‘You think I’ll be released?’

‘There’ll be a High Court review, and you’ll be acquitted on all charges.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Yes.’

Gerald nods slowly as he tries to process the news.

‘So I’ll get to see my daughter again, tell her that I’m innocent?’ he says after a moment, wiping the tears from his cheeks.

Joona gives him some time, allowing him to repress the wave of emotion and compose himself, to put on a hard face again before he continues.

‘You’ll be exonerated, which is one thing. The other is finding the real killer.’

‘Amen.’

‘Whoever murdered Lucia must have been to your house before,’ says Joona. ‘He or she knew that you had an axe in the woodshed and that your daughter has asthma.’

‘Could it have been one of her .?.?. acquaintances?’ Gerald asks.

‘Lucia was a notorious cheat. She swore she’d stop after we got married, but I don’t know how long that lasted.

She tried to claim that it wasn’t about me, that she was talking to a psychologist, and I thought she’d get bored of it, told everyone that we had an open relationship and that it was good for us. ’

‘Are you thinking of anyone in particular?’

‘Nah, it wasn’t exactly like I wanted to be buddies with them,’ he says with a sad smile. ‘The few times I caught her at it, I just went over to my mum’s and slept there.’

‘Did you ever see anyone who seemed different to her usual type?’ Joona asks.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Not necessarily a man.’

There is a loud knock at the door. The lock rattles, and the guard with the ginger beard comes into the room.

‘Gotta go,’ says Gerald, getting up from the table. ‘Thank you for this, though. I can hardly believe it .?.?. Don’t go getting hit by a bus or anything, will you? I’ve got to get out of here. I need to get my daughter back.’

*?*?*

As he drives back to Stockholm, Joona learns that the officers knocking on doors in the neighbourhood where Ida Forsgren-Fisher was murdered have found another dead body.

Former Chancellor of Justice Rutger von Reisen was sprawled in a frozen pool of blood on his driveway, killed by a deep axe wound to the back of his head.

His black Labrador was keeping watch beside him, and started barking as the officers approached.

In all likelihood, Rutger witnessed Ida’s murder while he was out walking his dog that night.