Page 83 of The Sleepwalker (Joona Linna #10)

Other than in the most sheltered bays, the lake is clear of ice, and the surface is the colour of lead.

The bow of the RIB cuts through the tunnel of swirling snow formed by the bright headlights, and the hull slams against the waves.

Back at the marina, the man with the beard had slumped down onto his side, tiny droplets of blood flecking the snow beneath him as he gasped for air. His friend with the ponytail had tossed the knife away when Joona turned to face him.

‘I’m taking your boat. Pack his nose with snow and take him to hospital as soon as the storm passes,’ Joona told them.

‘The keys are in the ignition.’

Before loosening the cable and getting into the RIB, Joona had explained that what was happening was a case of force majeure.

‘You or the weather?’ the other man had asked.

Joona found a headtorch among the fenders, life jackets and ropes, and he put it on as he swung out onto the water and left the broken jetty behind.

The shaky light from the torch now flashes on the windscreen in front of the steering console, the wipers powerless to keep up with the sheer volume of snow and water crashing against the glass.

Behind him, the two six-cylinder engines roar.

Joona doesn’t spot the ice floe in the churning tunnel of light until it is too late, and he sways as the boat hits it with a dull clang.

M?laren is the third biggest lake in Sweden, stretching from Koping in the west to Stockholm in the east.

Viewed from above, its countless bays, channels, islands and skerries resemble a tangled web, as though a child has blown droplets of watercolour paint across a sheet of paper.

Despite the patchy GPS coverage, Joona tracks his progress using the electronic nautical chart, convinced he has found the best way to reach Bernard’s house under the circumstances.

Time could be running out.

Bernard is in an intense phase of killing, displaying near-senseless violence.

He has mercilessly executed witnesses, purely to avoid being caught, and his drive is all-consuming. Nothing seems to be able to stop him.

*?*?*

Hugo’s mind starts to wander as he sits by the hot fire, eating his second hotdog. The sausage is charred on one side, cracked on the other.

Bernard coats his last piece of hotdog in Dijon mustard, pops it in his mouth and helps himself to more potato salad.

Agneta’s untouched plate is on the floor beside her armchair. She doesn’t look well, with a greyish tinge to her face and beads of sweat glistening at her hairline.

The wind is still howling down the chimney, and there is another loud crack outside as a branch breaks.

Hugo turns to the window and watches the swirling snow.

The memory he touched upon a few minutes ago comes back to him: as a child, while sleepwalking, he had climbed out of the window in this room and fallen into the large rhododendron outside.

All he really remembers is how upset his father was afterwards, interrogating his mother about what happened, going through the whole thing over and over again and demanding to know why she hadn’t reacted to the alarm.

Bernard had made her cry when he said that Hugo could have died.

‘You never said what you’d remembered,’ Bernard reminds him, tossing his crumpled napkin into the fire.

‘Huh?’

‘I mentioned the accident on the swing, and you said you remembered.’

‘He was only a child,’ Agneta speaks up.

‘I didn’t ask you.’

‘Dad, what’s going on? Are you drunk or something?’ Hugo asks, watching the napkin catch fire and turn black.

‘I’m just interested, that’s all,’ Bernard replies, forcing himself to speak softly.

‘I remember falling off the roof and you being mad at Mum,’ Hugo says.

‘She was supposed to be looking after you. I was away, we’d had motion detectors fitted in your room.’

‘It was an accident.’

Bernard’s eyes drift to one side, and Hugo follows his line of sight over to the lamp with the grey snakeskin shade.

In the pulsing light from the stove, it almost looks like it is breathing.

Adrenaline courses through Hugo’s veins as fragments of the hypnosis session come back to him. He doesn’t notice that he has dropped his glass.

In his mind’s eye, he is a child again, bathed in pulsing pink light as he stares through the window in the door in the corridor.

His father has fashioned a kind of poncho out of the black shower curtain from the bathroom in the basement, the one with a pattern of skulls and bones.

Hugo’s stomach turns, and he swallows hard repeatedly.

Skulls, thigh bones, ribs, knees and fingers.

A tangle of quivering images dart by, racing around a corner and getting lost in the darkness.

Hugo’s fingertips are tingling.

He notices his glass on the floor, droplets of wine flecking the pale boards, and he mumbles a quick apology, bends down to pick it up and mops up the wine with his sock.

‘You fell off the roof,’ says Bernard. ‘Is that OK?’

‘It wasn’t her fault,’ Hugo replies.

‘Maybe not.’

‘I need to use the toilet,’ Agneta whispers, getting up on unsteady legs.

‘Sit down,’ Bernard tells her.

‘But I really need—’

‘Not now,’ he snaps, gripping her wrist again.

‘Dad, cut it out.’

‘I was away, and Claire was meant to be looking after you. We’d had motion detectors fitted, but you still managed to fall off the roof,’ he replies, letting go of Agneta. ‘The next time I was supposed to go away, I decided to stay behind instead .?.?. In the basement.’

‘What have you done?’ Hugo whispers.

Bernard gets up, grabs the axe from the wood basket and follows Agneta out into the hallway. The bathroom door closes, and the lock clicks.

Hugo forces himself to stand up and slowly turns around. He goes out into the hall and sees his father lurking in the darkness by the bathroom.

Outside, the storm is still raging.

Hugo tiptoes across the worn parquet floor, over the brass edging strip, and gazes towards the door in the hallway behind his father.

He takes in the reflection of his father’s back, the axe hidden behind him, and his own silhouette in the bright bedroom doorway.

‘What did you do to Mum?’ Hugo asks, anxiety writhing in his chest.

‘Nothing,’ Bernard replies without looking at him. ‘I just got the truth out of her.’

‘She never went to Canada, did she?’ Hugo whispers, overcome by a dizzying sense of surreality.

‘Of course she did. You know that.’

‘I was sleepwalking, Dad, but I saw everything.’

‘You were dreaming. It was just a dream,’ Bernard says, turning to look at him.

A sudden jolt, dark as death, drags Hugo back to that moment behind the door as a child.

He glances into the bedroom and sees his father’s face flecked with red spots, as though he has chickenpox.

He sees blood running down the skulls and bones on the shower curtain, dripping from the axe in his father’s hand, a severed foot on the floor in front of him.

‘I saw you kill a man, right here in the bedroom,’ says Hugo, licking his lips.

‘You really think I would—’

‘What did you do to Mum?’

‘This isn’t how I wanted it to be.’

‘What have you done?’

‘You don’t understand,’ Bernard says with a strange smile. ‘I honestly think you’d be dead if I hadn’t intervened before—’

‘Stop!’ Hugo cuts him off.

‘I can’t stop,’ says Bernard, bringing the axe out where Hugo can see it.

For a brief, shuddering moment, the house is completely silent. Any sense of surreality is gone, and sheer panic has taken over, ferociously pulsing through Hugo’s chest.

‘Dad?’ he whispers, taking a step back.

‘You know I’d never be able to hurt you, don’t you?’ Bernard says, looking down at the axe.

‘We can work this out, Dad. It’s going to be OK.’ Hugo rubs his mouth with a shaking hand.

‘It’s going to be OK.’

‘We’ll talk to the police, just you and me.’

‘Yes .?.?.’

‘You don’t need the axe. You’re done with all that.’

‘But Agneta will never understand.’

‘We’ll talk to her. It’ll be OK. She’ll keep quiet for my sake,’ says Hugo, conscious that he has begun to tremble all over.

‘I don’t even think you will keep quiet,’ Bernard says coldly.

‘Of course I—’

‘But that .?.?. No, it’s by no means certain, not at all, though it’s a choice you have every right to make. I have no intention of letting Agneta stop me, nor the police, nor—’

‘Dad, listen to what I—’

‘No, you listen.’

‘OK, I’m listening.’

Hugo’s back is drenched in sweat. He has no idea what to do, hasn’t quite managed to put all of the pieces together yet, but what he does know is that the murder in the bedroom was real and that it was his father who killed the man in the caravan.

‘Bringing a child into this world is a great responsibility, and not one you can just shrug off,’ Bernard says, running his free hand through his hair.

‘I agree,’ Hugo whispers.

‘Did you know that my father abandoned my mother and me for a circus girl? Can you believe that? A real-life circus girl from Bulgaria,’ he continues with a smile. ‘What can I say? I was left all alone with my mother, and that didn’t go so well .?.?. But I survived. Against all odds, I might add.’

‘Why don’t we go back to the bedroom?’

‘You don’t understand. This has to be done. It’s what’s right,’ says Bernard, looking down at the axe in his hand again. ‘Perhaps I’ve gone too far, but I was doing it for the children. I almost felt like a superhero at first.’

‘Let’s—’

‘No, hold on, damn it. Let me explain .?.?. It’s all connected.

You were so small, sleepwalking,’ says Bernard, knocking impatiently on the bathroom door.

‘All your mother had to do was take care of you, go to your room when she heard the alarm, make sure you got back into bed and didn’t hurt yourself, but she couldn’t even manage that. She was too preoccupied.’

‘I can see why you were angry.’

‘I tried to tell myself that it was a one-off, that she’d learned her lesson.

I mean, it was so serious. You really could have died .

.?. But when she did the same thing again two weeks later, it was like it lit a fire in my belly.

It was unbearable. All I knew was that I had to put a stop to it, right there and then,’ he says, pointing down at the floor.

‘For my sake.’

‘For your sake, for mine, for all those who .?.?. I don’t know. I’m not done yet, far from it .?.?. That fire is still burning brighter than anyone else’s,’ he says, pounding on the bathroom door.

‘Leave Agneta alone.’

‘Open the door!’ Bernard shouts. ‘No one is going to read whatever you write on your phone, surely you must see that? I’ll delete whatever statement or little farewell note you’ve written.’

‘I don’t want you to talk to her like that,’ says Hugo, moving towards his father.

‘No,’ Bernard sighs, taking a step back.

‘What’s done is done, Dad, but it’s over now,’ Hugo continues in a soft tone of voice, positioning himself between Bernard and the bathroom door.

His heart is beating so hard that he can feel it in his neck and nostrils.

The lock clicks, and Agneta opens the door. She steadies herself against the doorframe for a moment, then moves past them into the hallway.

Bernard lifts his head and looks straight at his son.

Agneta’s breathing is ragged and shallow as she starts making her way down the stairs to the library.

Hugo holds up both hands and takes a step to one side to block Bernard from following her.