Page 58 of The Sleepwalker (Joona Linna #10)

Svanhildur is unsteady on her feet when she comes back into the pantry with the small camera. She shows Hugo how to attach it and start the recording, explaining that the lens won’t be visible once it is in place.

He catches her hand and feels the heat of her skin, her trembling nerves, then looks deep into her glittering eyes, bends down, kisses her softly on the lips and says goodnight.

‘Night,’ she replies, unable to stop herself from grinning.

As Hugo leaves her room, he hears her lock the door behind him. He staggers down the corridor, keeping one hand on the wall to stay upright. Her heartbreaking smile is all he can think about, and he makes a promise to himself to look out for her.

He can feel the effects of the tequila as he brushes his teeth, then he takes his pills and calls for a nurse to come and attach his night sensors.

Once he is alone again, he takes out the little camera and fastens it to his pyjamas just as Svanhildur showed him.

The lens looks like a tiny black pearl in the buttonhole of his shirt.

He turns out the light and sees the small green LED from the camera above his bed, plus the dull grey glow of the polysomnographic equipment.

Hugo closes his eyes and smiles to himself as he thinks about his evening.

Sleep has begun to reel him in with its soft yarn when he is convinced he hears someone in the other room, crushing the lines of pistachio shells underfoot.

He opens his eyes and stares up at the dark ceiling.

The cold glow of the full moon is seeping through the blind, and there is a soft clicking sound from the hallway outside.

Hugo gets up, steps over the boxes of Lego and makes his way over to the door. He slowly opens it and heads out.

Through the window in the door up ahead, he can see – beyond the bathroom and the closed door to the attic – into his parents’ room.

In the gloom beside the bed, there are two small, pale figures – no more than about thirty centimetres tall – dancing on the floor.

They pause, side by side, and start to tremble.

Hugo blinks firmly and tries to make his eyes focus. Hesitantly, he moves forward, towards the pane of glass in the door, and sees that the two figures are actually bare feet.

Someone is lying flat out on the floor.

From the darkness to one side of the feet, a pile of bones and skulls gets up. Blood drips to the floor.

The door to the attic opens, and Hugo sees his mother tiptoe out into the hallway. She must have been hiding on the stairs.

She is wearing her white silk nightie, and she looks terrified.

Hugo reaches out and quietly opens the door in the hall. He tries to whisper to her to come and hide in his room, but he can’t manage a single sound. He doesn’t have a voice.

She doesn’t see him, just hurries down the stairs to the library.

From the bedroom, there is a series of loud bangs and he sees a couple of sopping-wet towels hit the floor.

Hugo follows his mother to the stairs, puts a hand on the dark railing and shivers as he starts making his way down.

He can hear the dry rattle of loose bones behind him.

The skeleton man has seen him.

Hugo starts running.

He knows that he and his mother need to escape, that they need to get out into the garden, go over to one of the neighbours and call the police.

When he reaches the dark library, he cuts straight across the rug, heading for the hallway.

There are men in the kitchen, mercenaries, shouting at one another and laughing as they pull food out of the pantry and fridge.

His mother creeps over to the front door, pushes her feet into her boots, grabs her coat, opens the door and nips out.

The voices in the kitchen are impatient, accompanied by the sound of bottles from the wine fridge being uncorked and crockery breaking on the floor.

Hugo tiptoes after his mother down the hallway, past green canvas bags full of ammunition and grenades.

The skeleton man is in the library now.

Hugo can hear him dragging a heavy spade behind him as he crosses the rug and the parquet floor.

He reaches the front door just as the skeleton man’s spade thuds over the threshold into the hallway.

Hugo turns the handle, but the door is locked. Starting to panic, he fumbles for the knob, but it isn’t there.

He tugs at the handle and glances back in the direction of the library. The skeleton man has paused at the end of the hallway.

In the dim light, Hugo can make out the curve of five different skulls on his body, several femurs, a pelvis and a number of strangely interlinked vertebrae.

He realises that there is a plastic button featuring a picture of a key on the wall, and he presses it, hears a faint click, and turns around.

As he yanks open the door, the skeleton man starts charging towards him.

The blade of his spade scrapes against the tiles.

Hugo runs outside, gasping when he crashes into something. He cuts across the raked gravel, but his mother is nowhere to be seen.

He hopes she has the same plan as him: to head down to the fence separating the garden from the common land, and then straight over to the closest neighbour.

When Hugo looks back over his shoulder to the house, he sees flickering torchlights in the windows.

He ducks down as he hurries through the garden, which slopes gently towards the water.

The grass is cold beneath his feet.

He catches a glimpse of his mother down by the lake house, her white nightie and pale skin almost glowing in the darkness.

A rabbit bolts away among the flowers.

Hugo’s heart is pounding.

There are raised voices outside the house now, and Hugo lifts a hand to push back the branches of the weeping willow. Up ahead, he can see the silhouette of the lake house against the water.

Hugo is approaching the seating area by the lilacs, and he hears a soft thumping sound, almost like fingertips drumming a table. He slows down a little to listen, but the sound has stopped.

All he can hear is the gentle breeze in the leaves. The lilacs loom dark around the little white garden table.

The gate is just ten metres away.

Hugo is moving more slowly now, trying to spot his mother. He steps over a red frisbee on the grass, notices the heavy flowers on the lilacs and has almost made it past the bush when someone grabs his arm and pulls him back.

It is one of the skeleton man’s soldiers.

He knocks Hugo to the ground and presses his knee between his shoulder blades. Hugo tries to get away, but it is impossible.

The skeleton man appears out of nowhere. He must have been creeping behind him the whole time. Together, the two men haul Hugo onto his feet and start dragging him backwards, towards the shouting and gunfire inside the house.

An explosion in the kitchen shatters the windows, causing glass to rain down on Dad’s new Volvo.