Page 78 of The Sleepwalker

‘I’ll try, but you know how things are.’

The National Forensic Centre processes around thirteen thousand DNA samples a year, and simply doesn’t have the resources for a quick turnaround. Thanks to Joona, Erixon has already used up a lifetime’s quota of priority cases.

Joona’s thoughts turn to the two premeditated murders and the niggling sense that, once again, he is chasing a serial killer.

Serial killers are rare, no doubt about it, but there are also far more of them than are ever brought to justice.

Sweden is a small country with a functional social security net, and of the twenty-five thousand or so people reported missing every year, the majority are eventually found safe and well.

Statistically speaking, however, around three thousand of them turn up dead. And thirty are never found.

Many are not victims of any crime, but there is definitely scope for some to have fallen prey to unknown serial killers.

On top of that, there are all the unreported cases, missed leads and opportunities no one is willing or able to talk about.

Across the world, the majority of all serial killers operate under the cover of armed conflict. They are soldiers, willing to do whatever is asked of them in battle, but their psychological driving force is pathological.

Many serial killers fall under the umbrella of organised crime networks, while other faceless perpetrators stalk the corridors of neonatal wards or palliative care facilities like angels of death.Some are protected by religious organisations.

And those serial killers whose victims come from the most marginalised groups of society – street children, the homeless, drug addicts, sex workers and refugees – tend not to be caught.

It is only when the victims belong to a certain social class, when the circumstances cannot be explained away, that the perpetrator attracts attention – and is labelled a serial killer.

With the bittersweet taste of chocolate still lingering in his mouth, Joona wonders whether he isn’t some kind of serial killer too.

On the basis of certain criteria, the answer would be yes, but not the most important of all: the drive.

He has a trail of dead bodies behind him, and he can almost always hear the sound behind his back: the rustling of feathers and the pecking and cawing of crows.

But that isn’t his goal; it’s the price he pays.

He has to believe that.

Joona has often thought that regardless of a serial killer’s choice of victim, the setting in which they are active and their individual justifications for killing, they are all actually incredibly alike.

No one can singlehandedly create life, but a serial killer fills the emptiness inside themselves with others’ deaths. Their motives may vary – some believe they are punishing sinners or cleansing society, some that they are sparing their victims from suffering; others still reduce murder to a pragmatic consequence in order to satisfy their need for money or sex – but all lack empathy for their victims.

Joona would guess that the person they are currently trying to stop sees their own driving force as economical, killing the best way to do away with any witnesses, but in actual fact it is the other way around.

The murder itself is always the focus.

The economical explanation is, in essence, a fictitious motive dreamed up to prevent the killer from becoming incomprehensible to themselves, to keep the looming madness at bay.

29

Joona clears the table, starts the half-empty dishwasher and then moves over to the window in the living room and looks down at the church tower outside.

Not for the first time, he tells himself that he needs to stop this killer. That the responsibility lies with him.

If he manages it, and Noah Hellman is happy .?.?. well, then he might just be able to get the boss to listen to him about wanting to work with Saga again.

Joona thinks back to his initial encounter with her, to the colourful ribbons in her hair, her temperament and her self-confidence, and he smiles when he remembers that her first words to him were, ‘I don’t want you here, this is my investigation.’

His eyes drift over the rooftops to the pale green towers of Police Headquarters, and he mumbles, ‘The hunt starts now’ and dials Erixon’s number.

‘How’s it going?’ Joona asks. ‘What does the lab say?’

Erixon takes a deep breath. ‘I feel like lying down and dying like a beached whale,’ he replies.