Page 88 of The Sleepwalker

After checking the time, Rikard eats a quick sandwich in the kitchen. He is just feeding Velour when Joona calls to tell him that the backup team is ready and in position.

He leaves the house, locks the door and gets in the car to drive south to Lidingö. The plan is to stop somewhere along the way to put on his body armour, rather than doing it when he gets to the hotel. Jezebel could very well be staking out the entrance, waiting for him to arrive, after all.

The tactical unit and sharp shooters are all in place, poised to make a swift intervention and block off all exits.

Rikard will head inside, pay for a room and then text Jezebel to let her know the number.

He will keep the door locked while he waits, and once she knocks, he will give the green light over the radio. Two tactical teams will then move in with weapons and stun grenades and carry out the arrest.

If she tries to break through the door with the axe before his colleagues arrive, Rikard will fire as many rounds as it takes to stop her.

He asks himself what it says that he has chosen to act as bait for a serial killer – like a worm on a hook – over an evening at home with his partner.

This is part of the job, of course, but the truth is that it feels like something has stagnated between him and Kennet lately. They have both been too tired for sex.

Rikard had been planning a romantic evening in. He was going to set the table, light some candles and make Kennet’s favourite meal. But instead, he is alone in the car with a gun on the passenger seat and a gnawing anxiety in the pit of his stomach.

He is approaching Lahäll on the motorway when the phone he has been using to communicate with Jezebel pings with a message. Rikard gets into the outside lane, takes the next exit and pulls over to the side of the road by a Max burger restaurant to read the text:

Hi. Need to meet somewhere else. Hope you haven’t gone out to Lidingö already, because I’ve booked room 111 at Hotell Norrort in Vallentuna. Afraid I’ll have to cancel if that doesn’t work for you.

Works for me.

Come as soon as you can. The door code is 1939.

Rikard turns around and starts driving north again, calling Joona from his usual phone to tell him about the change of plan.

‘We’re calling it off,’ says Joona. ‘Head home.’

‘I’m almost there. This is our only shot. I’ll arrest her and wait for you. Just get there as quick as you can.’

‘OK, but listen to me: we’re coming. Wait outside. Do not go in. You’re only there to observe.’

* * *

After turning off from the 264, Rikard Roslund stops at the side of the road, gets out of the car, pulls his stab vest over his head and adjusts his shoulder holster. He then puts on his black windbreaker, does up the zip, gets back in the car and sets offagain.

The hotel looks like an enormous lump of metal in the middle of the drab industrial estate.

Beyond the high fences on both sides of the road, Rikard can see workshops, plumbing wholesalers and sheet metal firms.

Yellow light spills across the tarmac from the petrol station nearby, and the flags in the forecourt flutter limply in the gentle breeze.

There isn’t another soul in sight.

Rikard turns off into the hotel parking area and pulls into a space, watching as a skinny fox drags a dead crow from the road to the ditch.

He is currently thirty kilometres from the hotel in Lidingö, and has just calculated that the first members of the tactical unit should be with him in twenty-five minutes when he gets another message from Jezebel:

I need to know if you’re coming.

Wait. I’m almost there.

He switches his comms unit to silent and gets out of the car. The temperature has dropped, but he doesn’t think it will snow; the dark sky is almost clear.

His breath forms a pale cloud in the air around his face.

Rikard doesn’t know whether he is being watched or not, and he tries to be discreet as he takes a picture of the two other cars parked nearby.