Page 153 of The Sleepwalker

‘OK.’

‘Which is something only a father would do,’ he concludes with a troubled smile.

‘Where is Gerald Pedersen now?’

‘They transferred him to Hall.’

53

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

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.