Читать книгу The Sandman - Ларс Кеплер - Страница 23

Snow is swirling through the air as Joona runs out to his car and gets in. He drives straight across the large exercise yard where he trained as a teenager, takes the corner with the tyres crunching, and leaves the garrison.

His heart is beating hard and he’s still having trouble believing what Nathan told him. Beads of sweat have appeared on his forehead, and his hands won’t stop shaking.

He overtakes a convoy of articulated lorries on the E20 motorway just before Arboga. He has to hold the wheel with both hands because the drag from the lorries makes his car shake.

The whole time he can’t stop thinking about the phone call he received in the middle of his training session with the Special Operations Group.

Nathan Pollock’s voice was quite calm as he explained that Mikael Kohler-Frost was still alive.

Joona had been convinced that the boy and his younger sister were two of Jurek Walter’s many victims. Now Nathan was telling him that Mikael had been found by the police on a railway bridge in Södertälje, and had been taken to Södermalm Hospital.

Pollock had said that Mikael’s condition was serious, but not life-threatening. He hadn’t yet been questioned.

‘Is Jurek Walter still locked up?’ was Joona’s first question.

‘Yes, he’s still in solitary confinement,’ Pollock had replied.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about the boy? How do you know it’s Mikael Kohler-Frost?’ Joona had asked.

‘Apparently he’s said his name several times. That’s as much as we know … and he’s the right age,’ Pollock had said. ‘Naturally, we’ve sent a saliva sample to the National Forensics Lab—’

‘But you haven’t informed his father?’

‘We have to try to get a DNA match before we do that, I mean, we can’t get this wrong …’

‘I’m on my way.’