Читать книгу The Sandman - Ларс Кеплер - Страница 32

The day before the appeal, Joona, Summa and Lumi went to dinner with Samuel and his family. The sun had been shining through the linen curtains when they started eating, but it was now evening. Rebecka lit a candle on the table and blew out the match. The light quivered over her luminous eyes, and her one strange pupil. She had once explained that it was a condition called dyscoria, and that it wasn’t a problem, she could see just as well with that eye as the other.

The relaxed meal concluded with dark honey cake. Joona borrowed a kippah for the prayer, Birkat Hamazon.

That was the last time he saw Samuel’s family.

The boys played quietly for a while with little Lumi before Joshua immersed himself in a video game and Reuben disappeared into his room to practise his clarinet.

Rebecka went outside for a cigarette, and Summa kept her company with her glass of wine.

Joona and Samuel cleared the table, and as soon as they were alone started talking about work and the following day’s appeal.

‘I’m not going to be there,’ Samuel said seriously. ‘I don’t know, it’s not that I’m frightened, but it feels like my soul gets dirty … that it gets dirtier for every second I spend in his vicinity.’

‘I’m sure he’s guilty,’ Joona said.

‘But …?’

‘I think he’s got an accomplice.’

Samuel sighed and put the dishes in the sink.

‘We’ve stopped a serial killer,’ he said. ‘A lone lunatic who—’

‘He wasn’t alone at the grave when we got there,’ Joona interrupted.

‘Yes, he was.’ Samuel started to rinse the dishes.

‘It’s not unusual for serial killers to work with other people,’ Joona objected.

‘No, but there’s nothing that suggests that Jurek Walter belongs to that category,’ Samuel said brightly. ‘We’ve done our job, we’re finished, but now you want to stick a finger in the air and say .’

‘I do?’ Joona said with a smile. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Perhaps the opposite is the case.’

‘You can always say that.’ Joona nodded.