Page 246 of The Sleepwalker

‘Go on,’ she says.

‘Do you want me to?’

‘I won’t be able to sleep otherwise,’ she replies, flashing him a smile that makes the tip of her chin crease.

Joona gives her a brief overview of the Sleep Lab and Lars Grind’s particular role in the investigation, explaining that for a brief time, he was their key suspect. But Dr Grind had no idea that Bernard was using his property or his deregistered Opel. He committed suicide once he realised that his less-than-ethical methods would be exposed. His secret research had been focused on the interaction between sleepwalkers, and the effect their medication had on their approach to various rules and regulations.

‘The way Bernard managed to avoid drawing any suspicion to himself is remarkable,’ says Joona. ‘No connection was ever drawn between the murders. The first two – Claire and her lover – were seen as separate disappearances, the third as an accident. I haven’t gone into detail about the fourth yet, but it happened in the south of the country, and the wrong man took the blame .?.?. It wasn’t until the murder in the caravan that a wider investigation was actually launched.’

‘After Hugo ended up in jail?’

‘Exactly.’

Joona tells her that the victim had arranged to meet two prostitutes – women who didn’t know each other – in a caravan at Bredäng Campsite.

‘You might question his judgement,’ Joona says with a wry smile. ‘He had a beautiful wife and a young son at home, but he arranged to meet both a woman who made a habit of robbing and assaulting johnsandan active serial killer.’

At eleven that evening, after Agneta had fallen asleep, Bernard drove out to the silo in Grillby, picked up an axe and Lars Grind’s old car, and drove to the campsite. He then walked home to get changed.

Wearing a padded coat and a blonde wig, he returned to thecampsite, entered the caravan and knocked the man to the floor with the broadside of his axe. Rage took hold of him, and he then chopped off one of the man’s legs, beheaded him and began the rest of the dismemberment process.

What he didn’t know was that the female robber was also at the campsite, and that she turned around and left when she heard the victim’s screams. Nor that his son had followed him while sleepwalking, and had witnessed the entire murder.

Once he had finished dismembering his victim, Bernard walked over to Grind’s car, shoved his bloody clothes into a couple of rubbish bags and drove back to the silo. He cleaned the car, burned the bags in an oil drum, left his trophies in his underground room, washed himself with chlorine and then got dressed and drove home in his own car.

‘Following the second murder – that we knew about, anyway – I asked Saga what she thought.’

‘How is she doing?’

‘Much better. My boss has agreed to let her join the team with a view to eventually bringing her back into operative service.’

‘That’s great news.’

‘I’ve told him I want her as my partner.’

‘And what does he say to that?’

‘That it sounds like a nightmare.’

‘OK.’ Valeria laughs.

‘But he didn’t say no.’

Joona explains that he had described the first two murders to Saga, and that her immediate reaction was that they sounded like medieval punishments.

‘Aggravated capital punishment, as it was known. When death wasn’t considered harsh enough.’

‘Always so smart,’ Valeria says.

‘She was right, and that led me to the real question .?.?.’

‘Of what they were being punished for.’

‘Bravo. That was the question we needed to answer in order to understand the killer,’ says Joona. ‘The punishment is obvious, but as for thecrime .?.?.that was only visible in the murderer’s head.’

‘Buying sex, infidelity .?.?.’

‘Right, a kind of selfish lust – and one that impacts upon a child who is already suffering for whatever reason.’