Page 65 of The Sleepwalker (Joona Linna #10)

A grubby police car is parked with the engine running in one of the icy bays outside Millesg?rden Museum. The two officers inside are eating clementines, dropping the peel into a paper bag on the centre console between them.

A handful of thujas loom tall behind the stone wall, snow clinging to the side closest to the water.

The sun is shining, and the large windows above the main entrance to the museum reflect the light like the lens in a lighthouse.

The officer in the passenger seat is called Petrus Lyth, though at the station in Lidingo he is better known as Pingu, because of his tendency to make a loud tooting sound to get people to shut up whenever a discussion spirals out of hand.

Petrus has been having trouble with his hip lately, so he asked his new partner to drive.

He is due to retire in the New Year, and is looking forward to playing golf with his older brother.

His colleagues have jokingly started telling him to be careful while he is out on patrol, because cops who are looking forward to retirement have a tendency to meet an early death in Hollywood movies.

Petrus’s new partner, Danny Imani Ingmarsson, is still a trainee, which also puts him at risk in the film version of their profession.

Danny is young and ideological, full of admiration for his older colleagues, and desperate to be fully accepted as a member of the team.

He is muscular, with short hair, kind brown eyes and slanted brows that give him a slightly melancholic air.

His father is a car salesman, and his mother fled from Iran following the revolution.

She studied in Sweden and now has her own dental practice.

Despite his long career, Petrus has only fired his service weapon once in the line of duty. That was ten years ago now, but he still thinks about it every single day.

The young man didn’t even suffer any lasting damage.

He had – like some sort of Don Quixote – been wearing a pan on his head as he roamed around a supermarket with a samurai sword, and it was obvious to anyone who saw him that he was having some sort of psychotic episode.

He had stabbed a watermelon, displayed threatening behaviour, and refused to drop his sword.

The confrontation had ended with Petrus Lyth shooting him in the thigh, and the officer has never forgotten his face, the way his eyes welled up and he thrust out his lower lip like a toddler before collapsing to the floor and screaming in pain.

Petrus looks down at the control unit.

He can’t explain it, but he has always been able to sense when an alert is about to come in, as though he can see the dispatcher taking a call at their computer, making a split-second assessment and pressing the pedal on the floor.

As a result, Petrus is ready and waiting when the call comes in from regional command, and he realises that the situation must be serious before the words ‘priority one’ have even been uttered.

The operator’s voice is sharp, with a slight note of stress, as she briefs them about the ongoing attempted murder at a villa on Jaktstigen.

The information also flashes up on the display.

Danny turns on the blue lights and sirens and speeds out of the parking area. He takes a sharp right, mounting the pavement and scraping up against a wall.

‘Shit, shit .?.?.’

They thud back down onto the road, and he accelerates up the hill and takes the next right onto Stj?rnv?gen. The tyres skid on the tarmac, and the car slams into the grey bank of ploughed snow at the edge of the road, sending lumps of ice flying up over the bonnet and windscreen.

Petrus pushes his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose and focuses on the directions as he talks to the operator.

Both men understand that the call is likely to do with the serial killer known as the Widow, and also that they will be the first unit at the scene.

*?*?*

Nina feels the heat from her phone against her ear as the operator explains that a patrol car in the area is on its way.

‘Should I leave the house?’ she asks. ‘Or should—’

‘Stay on the line,’ the operator tells her, quickly adding that she is going to patch Nina through to a detective superintendent.

‘Hi, Nina,’ says a man with a Finnish accent. ‘We’ve got a car in the area, and there are another two on the way. I’ve also requested a tactical unit.’

‘What should I do?’ Nina asks, conscious of her own frightened breathing.

Through the window, she sees Frank open a wardrobe door, pull out a drawer and pick some underwear.

‘I understand that you’re on the first floor and that you can see your husband and a woman with an axe on the ground floor, is that correct?’

‘I don’t want to die,’ Nina whimpers.

‘Are you able to leave the house?’

‘I’d have to go downstairs.’

‘Has the woman seen you? Does she know you’re at home?’

‘I don’t think so,’ she replies, swallowing hard.

‘OK, good. I want you to find somewhere to hide and wait for us. Hide in a wardrobe, sit down on the floor and don’t make a sound.’

Nina nods, but she remains where she is behind the curtain and peers out of the window. Snow swirls through the air.

The blonde woman has started moving around the room, looking behind furniture and checking potential hiding places as she approaches the stairs leading up to the kitchen.

‘Please, just get over here,’ Nina whispers to the detective.

Frank has pulled on a pair of boxers and gone into the bedroom. He tears open the thin plastic bag around his dry-cleaned shirt and tosses the metal hanger to the floor.

The woman hears the soft clatter it makes, and she turns sharply and starts striding towards the dressing room. She glances back over her shoulder, and Nina catches a glimpse of a strange, crude face.

*?*?*

Joona was in Takiya Sushi Bar, chatting to the woman preparing his order, when the call came in.

He had been planning to visit the Sleep Lab in Uppsala, to talk about Veronica Nagler’s time there.

Dr Grind wasn’t working today, but one of his long-term research assistants, Rakia Dardour, had agreed to meet with him and attempt to answer his questions.

Instead, he ran straight out to the car and turned on his blue lights. As he sped along Surbrunnsgatan to Vallhallav?gen and turned off into the long tunnel to Lidingo, the call handler patched him through to the call with Nina Silverstedt.

‘She heard Frank. I can see her, she’s going towards him now,’ Nina whispers down the line.

‘You don’t have to watch; we’re almost there. Just make sure you find somewhere to hide,’ he says.

The amber-coloured lights in the tunnel race by as he accelerates to 115 miles per hour. Joona blasts the horn, urging the cars up ahead to get out of his way.

*?*?*

Nina moves her phone over to her other hand and wipes her clammy palm on her thigh. The blonde woman has reached the dressing room, and is currently hiding behind the open wardrobe door.

The axe is still in her hand.

Frank is in the bedroom, doing up the mother-of-pearl buttons on his shirt with a distant look on his face. Nina waves, trying to catch his attention, but he doesn’t see her.

She watches as he wanders through to the dressing room and pulls a dark-grey tie from a hanger. He hasn’t noticed the woman, who is standing less than a metre away from him behind the door.

The woman slowly raises the axe.

Frank turns back towards the bedroom, seems to realise he has forgotten something and reaches for a pair of cufflinks. His hand rests on the edge of the wardrobe door for a moment, but he leaves it open.

‘The first car will be with you in less than five minutes,’ the detective says in Nina’s ear.

Frank goes through to the bedroom and puts on his tie. He then picks up his phone from the bedside table and sees her message.

Nina manages to switch her phone to silent just before his call comes through, and she quickly tells the detective that her husband is ringing, that she is going to put him on hold.

She can hear her blood roaring in her ears.

‘Frank,’ she whispers, ‘there’s a woman with an axe in the dressing room. The police are on their way, but you need to get out. Open the door to the terrace and run.’

‘What are you talking about?’

Nina watches the blonde woman rest the axe on her shoulder. She is still hiding in the shadow behind the door, listening to Frank.

‘You need to go, right now! Run!’ Nina shouts.

‘Hey, hey, what’s going on?’ he asks.

‘Frank, listen to me, you—’

‘I’ll be up soon,’ he says, ending the call.

‘Frank?’

He puts the phone back down on the charging pad and cranes his neck in the direction of the dressing room. The woman lifts the axe again, getting ready to strike.

‘I accidentally raised my voice,’ Nina whispers once she is back on the line with the detective.

‘Did she hear you?’

‘I don’t know .?.?.’

‘You need to stay hidden. We’re almost with you.’

As Frank turns his back to the dressing room, the woman steps out from her hiding place.

She tiptoes behind him, gripping the axe with both hands.

Frank pauses in the doorway.

Nina doesn’t dare shout to tell him to run. Her heart is beating so hard it is almost painful.

The woman takes aim, but she changes her mind as Frank starts moving again.

Instead, she follows him like a shadow.

He pauses, as though he can sense her presence, and has just started to turn around when she swings the axe through the air and strikes him in the upper arm.

Nina clamps both hands to her mouth, almost managing to stifle her scream.

The power in the blow must have been huge, because Frank stumbles towards the wall and hits his head.

He manages to stay upright, but his arm has been completely severed from his body.

It drops to the floor, and blood immediately starts pouring down his side, spattering around his feet on the white carpet as he staggers forward.

The woman rotates the axe in her hands, following him with what seems like curiosity. She pauses when he pauses and then taps him on the back of the head with the heel of the blade.

‘Oh God .?.?.’

Frank slumps to his knees, looks up and meets Nina’s eye through the windows and the swirling snow.

This time, the blade of the woman’s axe hits his throat from the front, almost completely severing his neck. His head drops down behind him, hanging against his back like some sort of rucksack as blood spills down over his chest.

‘She’s killing him,’ Nina pants. ‘She’s killing him.’

‘Go and hide, Nina. You need to hide. We’ll be there in a few seconds.’

Nina’s eyes lose their focus, and she staggers away from the window, throwing up all over herself.

She braces herself against the kitchen worktop, blinks hard and goes through to the dark living room in search of somewhere to hide.

She whimpers when she hears the woman’s furious, guttural scream from the floor below.