Page 189 of The Sleepwalker

‘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 airand 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.

65

Danny is driving at almost 125 miles per hour along Askrikevägen, heading in the direction of the marina.

He swings out into the oncoming lane as he overtakes a dirty Tesla.

The blue lights from the patrol car sweep across mature gardens on both sides of the road, glaring in the villas’ windows.

‘We’ve lost contact with the caller, and she’s not answering her phone,’ says the operator.