Stalker (38 page)

Huddinge Prison is one of the largest secure facilities in the Swedish judicial system. Rocky Kyrklund is only suspected of basic narcotics offences and is therefore not subject to any particular restrictions, but he is regarded as a high escape risk.

The prison is a vast V-shaped, brown-brick building, with an entrance flanked by tall pillars. At the rear are two wings shaped like fans, each of whose top floors contain eight individual exercise areas.

Rocky is the only person who knows who the unclean preacher is. He’s met him, spoken to him, and has seen him kill.

Joona has to hand over his keys and phone at the security check. They X-ray his shoes and jacket, and he is searched after passing through the metal detector. A black-and-white cocker spaniel circles him, sniffing for explosives and drugs.

The prison officer waiting for him at the door introduces himself as Arne Melander. As they head towards the lifts he tells Joona that he’s a competitive angler, that he came third in the Swedish coarse fishing championships at the start of the summer, and that he’s heading to the Fyris River at the weekend.

‘I went for bottom fishing,’ Arne explains, pressing the lift button. ‘And used pink- and bronze-coloured maggots.’

‘Sounds good,’ Joona says seriously.

Arne smiles, his cheeks lift and grow rounder. He has a large grey beard and is wearing glasses and a dark-blue Nato sweater that’s stretched tight across his big stomach.

His baton and alarm swing from his belt as they leave the lift and pass through the security doors. Joona waits quietly as the prison officer pulls his card through the reader and taps in the code.

They say hello to the duty officer, a white-haired man with a lazy eye and thin lips.

‘We’re running a bit late today,’ the duty officer says. ‘Kyrklund has just gone out for some air. But we can check if he wants to come back in.’

‘Please do,’ Joona says.

After the murder of prison officer Karen Gebreab the rules have been tightened, and no member of staff is allowed to be alone with any of their clients. The inmates are often desperate, in a state of upheaval after their crimes, the humiliation of their arrest, and the recognition of their failure in life.

Joona watches Arne Melander as he stands a little way off talking into a communications radio. He stares at the bare walls, the doors, the shiny linoleum floor and the coded locks.

Huddinge prison is evidently high security, totally enclosed, with reinforced doors and walls, entrance checks and camera surveillance. But the staff are only armed with batons.

Maybe they’ve got teargas or pepper spray, but no guns, Joona thinks.

A few years before Police Academy Joona was picked to join the paratroopers’ newly formed special ops unit, where he was trained in military Krav Maga, with a particular focus on urban warfare and innovative weaponry.

He still finds himself automatically scanning for potential weapons each time he enters a room.

He’s already spotted the stainless steel skirting boards and door-lintels in the prison.

The grooves on the heads of the screws have been planed off so they can’t be removed with ordinary tools, but the boards have started to drop towards the floor with the passage of time. Maybe the food trolleys have caught on them, or perhaps the floor-cleaner.

Joona has noticed that some of the skirting boards could be nudged off with his foot. If you wrapped your hands in some cloth, you could pull the whole length of skirting board off, bend it twice, and in twenty seconds create a sort of noose that could be wrapped round an opponent’s neck and tightened using the protruding lengths of metal.

Joona remembers the Dutch lieutenant, Rinus Advocaat, a sinuous man with a scarred face and dead eyes, who demonstrated that sort of weapon, and showed how to control your enemy’s movements and basically decapitate him by tightening the noose.

‘He’s on his way,’ Arne says amiably to Joona.

Rocky is walking behind two prison officers. He’s wearing pale green prison overalls and sandals, and has a cigarette tucked behind his ear.

‘Thanks for cutting short your time outside,’ Joona says, walking towards him.

‘I don’t like cages much anyway,’ Rocky says, and clears his throat.

‘Why not?’

‘Good question,’ he replies, and shoots Joona an interested glance.

‘You’re booked into a monitored interview room, number eleven,’ Arne tells Joona. ‘So I’ll be sitting on the other side of the glass.’

‘I remember the crayfish pots when I was little, at night … It’s around this time of year,’ Rocky says.

They stop outside the door while Arne unlocks it.

‘I used to shine my torch at the crayfish, and using just the beam I could force them into the pots,’ Rocky goes on.

Interview room 11 is shabby, and contains a table, four chairs, and an internal phone to summon the prison staff.

The legs of the chairs are supposed to be unbreakable, but if you were to lay one of them on the floor, climb up on to the table and jump on to the curved back, the laminate would shatter and you could quickly fashion a shiv, a simple knife, out of it, Joona thinks.

‘So the guard can see me through glass?’ Rocky asks, nodding towards the dark window.

‘It’s just a security precaution.’

‘But you’re not frightened of me?’ Rocky smiles.

‘No,’ Joona replies calmly.

The thickset priest sits down and his chair creaks beneath him.

‘Have we met before?’ he asks with a frown.

‘At the Zone,’ Joona says evenly.

‘At the Zone,’ Rocky repeats. ‘Should I know where that is?’

‘It was where the police arrested you.’

Rocky screws up his eyes and gazes into the distance.

‘I don’t remember any of that … They say I had a load of heroin on me, but how could I have afforded that?’

‘You don’t remember the Zone? Sofa Zone in Högdalen?’

Rocky purses his lips and shakes his head.

‘An industrial unit with loads of sofas and armchairs, prostitutes, people openly dealing heavy drugs, guns …’

‘Well, I’ve got a neurological injury from a car crash, I have trouble remembering things,’ Rocky explains.

‘I know.’

‘But you want me to confess to the drugs offences?’

‘I don’t care about that,’ Joona says, sitting down opposite him. ‘You only have to say it wasn’t your jacket, that you picked up a jacket you found on the floor.’

Neither of them speaks for a short while, and Rocky stretches out his long legs.

‘So you want something else,’ he says warily.

‘You’ve mentioned a person you call the unclean preacher several times … I need your help to identify him.’

‘Have I met this preacher?’

‘Yes …’

‘Is he a priest?’

‘I don’t know.’

Rocky scratches his beard and neck.

‘I’ve no idea,’ he says after a while.

‘You described how he killed a woman called Natalia Kaliova, he chopped her arm off,’ Joona goes on.

‘A preacher …’

‘He was the one who murdered Rebecka Hansson.’

‘What the hell are you up to?’ Rocky roars and stands up suddenly, toppling his chair behind him. ‘I murdered Rebecka Hansson. Do you think I’m stupid or something?’

Rocky backs away, stumbles over the overturned chair and almost falls, throws his arm out and plants his large hand on the reinforced glass.

The prison officer comes in but Joona holds up a calming hand towards him as he sees several more guards running along the corridor.

‘We don’t believe you did it,’ Joona says. ‘Do you remember Erik Maria Bark?’

‘The hypnotist?’ Rocky says, licking his lips and brushing his hair back.

‘He’s found a woman who can give you an alibi.’

‘And I’m supposed to believe that?’

‘Her name is Olivia,’ Joona says.

‘Olivia Toreby,’ Rocky says slowly.

‘You started to remember under hypnosis … and everything suggests that you were convicted of a murder that the preacher committed.’

Rocky comes closer to him.

‘But you don’t know who this preacher is?’ he asks.

‘No,’ Joona replies.

‘Because everything is locked inside my mashed-up brain,’ Rocky says hollowly.

‘Would you agree to be hypnotised again?’

‘Wouldn’t you if you were in my position?’ he asks, and sits down again.

‘Yes,’ Joona replies honestly.

Rocky opens his mouth to say something, but falls silent and puts his hand to his forehead. One of his eyes has started to quiver, the pupil seems to be vibrating, and he leans forward, holding on to the table and breathing hard.

‘Bloody hell,’ he says after a while, and looks up.

His forehead is shiny with sweat, and he gazes up at Joona and the prison officers that have entered the room with a look of dreamy bemusement.

Joona stops District Prosecutor Sara Nielsen in the middle of the steps outside the district court on Scheelegatan. Because he can’t take Erik with him into the prison, he needs to persuade the prosecutor to release Rocky on bail in advance of his trial.

‘I called you about Kyrklund,’ he says, standing in front of her. ‘He can’t stay in prison.’

‘That’s for the district court to decide,’ she replies.

‘But I don’t understand why,’ Joona persists.

‘Buy a book on Swedish law.’

A strand of blonde hair blows across Sara’s face, and she brushes it aside with one finger and raises her eyebrows as Joona starts to speak.

‘According to chapter twenty-four, paragraph twenty,’ he says, ‘a prosecutor can revoke the decision to remand a suspect in custody if that decision is no longer justified.’

‘Bravo,’ she smiles. ‘But there’s a clear risk that Kyrklund will evade the course of justice, and a tangible danger that he would commit further offences.’

‘But we’re only talking about minor narcotics offences, punishable by a year’s imprisonment at most … and it’s extremely doubtful that possession could even be proven.’

‘You said it wasn’t his jacket over the phone,’ she says in a bright voice.

‘And that the reason for holding him in custody in no way warrants this degree of intrusion into his life.’

‘Suddenly it feels like I’m standing on the steps of the City Court holding fresh custody negotiations with a former police officer …’

‘I can arrange for supervision,’ Joona says, following her down the steps.

‘It doesn’t work like that, as you well know.’

‘I understand that, but he’s ill and needs constant medical attention,’ Joona says.

She stops and lets her eyes roam over his face.

‘If Kyrklund needs a doctor, the doctor can come to prison.’

‘But if I were to say that this is a particular treatment that can’t be carried out in prison …’

‘Then I’d say you were lying.’

‘I can get a medical certificate,’ Joona persists.

‘Go ahead, but I’m pressing charges next Tuesday.’

‘I’ll appeal.’

‘Nice try,’ she smiles, and starts walking again.

Joona is sitting on one of the rear pews in Adolf Fredrik Church. A girls’ choir is rehearsing for a concert up at the front. The choir leader gives them the right note and the teenagers start to sing
O viridissima virga
.

Joona sinks into memories of the long, light nights in Nattavaara after Summa’s death. Sunlight floods through the arched windows of the church, mixed with autumn leaves and stained glass.

The choir pauses after a few minutes, the girls take out their mobiles, gather in groups and walk through the aisles, chatting as they go.

The door to the porch opens and closes quickly. The churchwarden looks up from her book, then carries on reading.

Margot comes in with two heavy plastic bags in her hands. They hit the pew as she squeezes in next to Joona. Her stomach has swollen so much that it presses again the shelf for hymnbooks.

‘I really am sorry,’ Margot says in a half-whisper. ‘I know you don’t want to believe it, but take a look at this.’

With a sigh she lifts one of the bags on to her lap and pulls out a printout showing a fingerprint match. Joona quickly reads through the various parameters of the comparison, then checks the first-level details himself, and sees the similarities in the lines and patterns.

There are three perfectly defined fingerprints, and the match with Erik Maria Bark is one hundred per cent.

‘Where were the prints found?’ Joona asks.

‘On the little porcelain deer’s head that was in Susanna Kern’s hand.’

Joona gazes out into the nave. The choir is gathering once more, the choir leader claps her hands to get their attention.

‘You asked for evidence before,’ Margot continues. ‘These fingerprints are evidence, aren’t they?’

‘In a judicial sense,’ he says in a low voice.

‘The searches are still going on,’ she says. ‘We’ve found our serial killer.’

‘Have you?’

Margot puts the bag containing material from the preliminary investigation on Joona’s lap.

‘I really wanted to believe you, and the idea of the preacher,’ she says, leaning back and breathing hard.

‘You should,’ Joona replies.

‘You met Rocky, I arranged for you to be able to question him,’ she says, with a hint of impatience. ‘You said you needed to do that before you could find this unclean preacher.’

‘He doesn’t remember anything now.’

‘Because there isn’t anything to remember,’ she concludes.

The choir starts singing, and the girls’ voices fill the church. Margot tries to make herself more comfortable and tucks her plait over her shoulder.

‘You traced Erik to Småland,’ Joona says.

‘The rapid response team stormed a charter bus and found his phone tucked between two seats.’

‘Oops,’ Joona says drily.

‘He hasn’t put a foot wrong so far, he’s staying out of the way like a professional,’ she says. ‘It’s almost as if he’s been given advice about what to do.’

‘I agree,’ Joona says.

‘Has he contacted you?’ Margot asks.

‘No,’ Joona replies simply.

He looks down at the other bag, still on the floor between them.

‘Is that my pistol?’

‘Yes,’ she replies, pushing the bag towards him with her foot.

‘Thanks,’ Joona says, gazing down into it.

‘If you carry on looking for the preacher, I have to remind you that you’re not doing so on my orders,’ Margot says, starting to squeeze out of the pew again. ‘You haven’t received any material from me, and we never met here – do you understand?’

‘I’m going to find the murderer,’ Joona says quietly.

‘Fine, but we can’t have any more contact …’

Joona pulls out his pistol, under cover of the pew, ejects the magazine in his lap, pulls the bolt back, checks the mechanism, trigger and hammer, then puts the safety catch back on and reinserts the magazine.

‘Who the hell uses a Colt Combat?’ Margot asks. ‘I’d have backache within a week.’

Joona doesn’t reply, just tucks the pistol into his shoulder holster and slips the spare magazine in his jacket pocket.

‘When are you going to accept that Erik might be guilty?’ she asks roughly.

‘You’ll see that I’m right,’ he says, meeting her gaze with icy calmness.