Page 79 of The Sleepwalker (Joona Linna #10)

The storm is howling outside, tugging at the eaves and roaring in the chimneys. Snow swirls past in the darkness on the other side of the window.

Agneta is at the PC in Bernard’s office, typing up her notes following the latest hypnosis session.

She adds details from memory, makes tweaks to certain aspects and then starts comparing the session with the previous two, noting how, little by little, Erik Maria Bark managed to coax out Hugo’s memories.

The lamp beside her flickers, but it doesn’t go out.

Bernard put in a large order of books about serial killers, police work and profiling a few days ago, and is currently reading in the library downstairs.

They worked together to tidy up his office following the break-in, straightening the furniture, sweeping up the splintered wood and vacuuming the broken glass.

The papers that had been scattered across the floor are in a moving box for the time being, until they can find a moment to sort through them properly.

Bernard carried the damaged door from his J?rvso cabinet down to the hallway, and is planning to send it off for repair.

Agneta turns the page in her notepad, skims through her notes on Joona’s description of the killer’s modus operandi – the arrows carved into the victim’s bodies and the chaotic dismemberment process – and has just started typing when the desk lamp goes out, she hears a click, and the computer screen goes black.

The fan stops whirring.

She gets up and squints out of the window.

It must be a pretty big outage, because all she can see is darkness.

There are no lights on the other side of the water.

With a sigh, she slumps down onto the chair and stares at the computer screen.

She hears footsteps on the stairs, and a flickering light appears in the doorway.

Bernard is singing an old Christmas tune as he comes into the room with a candle in a cast-iron chamberstick.

The soft, swaying glow fills the office as he sets the candle down on the desk.

‘It doesn’t matter how many weather reports or warnings you hear, it always comes as a surprise when the power goes out,’ he says with a smile.

‘I was busy writing,’ she says, trailing a finger over the keyboard.

‘Hope we haven’t lost too much material.’

‘I know. I’ll make a few more notes before I come down, just to be on the safe side,’ she says, turning to a clean page in her pad.

A sudden gust of wind makes the roof trusses creak and hurls snow at the window. It feels as though the storm is tugging at the house, trying to test how sturdy it is. One of the brackets on the gutter breaks, and a section of pipe swings up and hits the weather vane.

‘This gale,’ Bernard says quietly.

‘It’s mad.’

‘I’m a bit worried about Hugo. He said he was planning to come home today.’

‘Let’s just hope he doesn’t head out in this,’ she replies, checking her phone.

The network is still down, and not even the emergency number seems to be working.

The section of gutter cracks and comes loose, clattering away over the roof.

‘I’ll get a fire going in the stove to keep the bedroom nice and warm,’ says Bernard. ‘And we’ll probably have to change our dinner plans unless the power comes back on.’

A couple of roof tiles tumble to the frozen lawn, shattering on impact.

‘We could always grill some sausages on the fire,’ she suggests.

‘Yes, very cosy. I’ll go and make some potato salad.’

Bernard uses the torch on his phone to light his way as he heads back down the stairs.

The storm whistles around the corners of the house, making the windows rattle worryingly.

The flame sways, and Agneta notices something catch the light inside the J?rvso cabinet. It almost looks like a small, floating halo.

She gets up, grabs her phone and shines it in on the middle shelf.

At the very back, there is a small loop of darkened iron wedged between the edge of the shelf and the backboard.

Agneta reaches inside. Whatever it is seems to be stuck at first, but when she wiggles it to one side she hears a soft click and sees a section of shelf pop up slightly.

She pulls on the loop, and the lid of a shallow hidden compartment opens.

The smell of old wood fills the air.

Inside the compartment, there is a dark cardboard folder with a black band around it.

Agneta pushes back the urge to shout for Bernard when she realises that the folder might contain more letters from Hugo’s mother. Letters that he – for whatever reason – has chosen to hide.

She takes the folder over to the desk, sits down and loosens the band held in place by a small silver clip in the shape of a fleur-de-lys.

Bernard’s report card from Year 9 is on top of the pile, along with a swimming certificate and a class photograph from Year 1.

Agneta holds it up to the candle.

In the picture, young Bernard is wearing a brown-and-black-striped polo shirt.

He is a skinny little thing, with a plaster on the bridge of his nose and messy hair.

Oblivious to the camera, he is laughing at a taller boy, who is pulling a funny face by pushing his tongue against the inside of his lower lip.

Agneta flicks through documents about foster home placements, football diplomas, letters of reference from summer jobs and high school exam results, until she reaches an old colour photograph with dog-eared corners and a diagonal crease across the middle.

A strange sensation takes hold of her as she holds it up to the light.

In the image, a blonde woman in a dirty vest, jeans and a pair of work gloves is standing outside a workshop. She looks to be around thirty, with a resolute expression on her face and piercing eyes, and is holding a heavy wrench in her slim, muscular arms.

Behind her, on the wall of the run-down shed, there is a red neon arrow bearing the words SERVICE – FORD TRACTOR .

On the back of the photo, someone has written ‘My poor mum’ in black ink.

The next picture is a wedding photograph. It features the same woman, smiling this time, in a white bridal gown. She is standing beside a tall man with a black moustache in a slim-fitting dress coat.

Agneta gasps when she sees the next picture, adrenaline flooding through her veins.

In it, Bernard is around ten, standing on a pebbly beach beneath a pale sky. He is wearing a pair of swimming trunks and black flippers.

He looks cold, his shoulders hunched.

On his wiry torso, he has an arrow-shaped scar, bumpy and red, stretching from his collarbone to his navel.

The same scar she has felt beneath the hairs on his chest.

She hears footsteps on the stairs up to the attic and starts gathering everything back into a pile with shaking hands, catching a quick glimpse of a number of self-portraits drawn by a child.

A boy in floods of tears, a boy holding a black balloon, a boy with an angry dog – all with the same downward arrow on their bodies.

A boy in a coffin, a boy on a train track, and then nothing but arrows. Hundreds and hundreds of red arrows, filling sheet after sheet of paper.

Agneta closes the folder and puts it back into the hidden compartment. She shuts the lid, hears the latch click, and hurries back over to the desk.

Her heart is racing.

The flame of the candle tilts anxiously in the draught from her movements.

Bernard comes into the office, the smell of woodsmoke clinging to his clothes.

‘I was starting to think you must have dozed off up here,’ he says.

‘No, I .?.?.’

She trails off, panicking as she remembers that all of the victims had incomplete arrows carved into their torsos – just as Bernard had as a child. Like he still has.

‘Hello?’ He smiles.

‘Did you manage to get the fire going?’ she asks, conscious that she has broken out in a cold sweat.

‘Of course.’

‘Great.’

‘You seem jittery.’

‘Do I?’

‘What’s on your mind?’

‘I don’t know. Nothing.’

‘Maybe it’s just this apocalyptic storm?’ he says.

‘Mmm, maybe.’

Agneta desperately tries to come up with some sort of rational explanation for what she just saw. Could he be an early victim? Was he part of some sort of weird cult as a child?

But as terrifying and emotionally impossible as it is, there seems to be only one logical conclusion: that Bernard is, in some way, involved in the murders.

She doesn’t even need to think back to know that she can’t give him an alibi for any of them.

The night one of the victims was slaughtered at the campsite, she had taken a sleeping pill and was out for the count. And on the day of the murder at the tennis club, Bernard had headed into the city for dinner with his Czech publisher.

Agneta doesn’t want to believe this. It makes no sense. Why has he been talking about writing a book with her? Why has he been trying to help the police?

In order to gain access to the case and remain one step ahead, she thinks.

‘Do you think Hugo will agree to any more hypnosis?’ Bernard asks, making a strange swooping movement with one arm.

‘No, he .?.?.’

The flame flickers, causing shadows to dance across the wall.

Agneta looks down and realises that the elastic band with the little silver clasp is still lying on the desk.

‘You don’t think so?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she replies, looking away. ‘It made him so anxious, both during the session and after, but .?.?. but he also wants to help the police. And you, with the book.’

‘Maybe I should have a chat with him,’ Bernard says with an unfamiliar softness to his voice.

‘Mmm, maybe.’

Agneta can hear her blood pounding in her ears as she reaches for her notepad, scribbles something in it and then puts it down on top of the elastic band.

‘Just to tell him that he’s done enough, that he shouldn’t feel like he has to do any more,’ Bernard continues. ‘That he’s already gone above and beyond.’

Every one of Agneta’s senses is on high alert, and from the slight twitch beneath Bernard’s eye she realises she must be acting strangely. She needs to continue the conversation as she would have prior to her terrible discovery.

‘Yes, he has,’ she says, struggling to keep her voice steady. ‘But .?.?. I mean, he is a key figure in the investigation, whether he likes it or not.’

‘From our point of view, and the book’s, it would be incredible if Hugo’s testimony helped stop the killer.’

‘It’ll be great either way,’ she says softly.

Agneta meets Bernard’s eye. She has no idea whether he noticed the elastic band on the desk before she hid it.

‘The best thing would be if we managed to find the killer before the police,’ he says.

‘True .?.?. but I don’t think that’s something we should be aiming for .?.?. We should just help them as best we can.’

‘So what are you thinking? Who is our killer?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But what does your gut tell you?’ he asks, lifting her notepad slightly.

‘Nothing .?.?. yet,’ she replies.

He is toying with her, she thinks. She needs to get away.

‘It’s just that I’ve had the sense you’re getting close to solving the puzzle,’ he says, looking her straight in the eye.

‘There are still far too many missing pieces for that, I think,’ she says, trying to make herself smile.

‘Who knows?’ he says, dropping the book.

Agneta might not have the full picture, but she knows that Bernard is involved in the awful murders.

Perhaps he acted alone.

Perhaps he was the one who killed all those people with an axe. Who beheaded, dismembered and carved arrows into their flesh.

Who killed men and women, witnesses and police officers.

‘Shall we go downstairs?’ he asks, glancing into the empty J?rvso cabinet.

‘Let’s,’ she replies, getting up.

Agneta meets his eye, and it is as though she can see the cogs turning in his mind, trying to work out whether his cover has been blown. She feels like a panicked wasp inside a crushed nest when he smiles suddenly and announces that he is going to open a bottle of wine.

With a sinking feeling, Agneta realises that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if he knew what she now knows about him.