Читать книгу Stalker - Ларс Кеплер - Страница 35

Margot signs Joona in as her guest at the reception of the National Criminal Investigation Department, and he has to put on a visitor’s badge before they pass through the security doors.

‘There are bound to be loads of people wanting to see you,’ Margot says as they walk towards the lifts.

‘I haven’t got time,’ he says, taking his badge off and throwing it in a waste-paper bin.

‘It’s probably a good idea to prepare yourself for shaking a few hands – can you manage that?’

Joona thinks of the mines he laid out behind the house in Nattavaara. He made the ANNM out of ammonium nitrate and nitromethane, so that he had a stable secondary explosive substance. He had already armed two mines with three grams of pentaerythritol tetranitrate as a detonator, and was on his way back to the outhouse to make the third detonator when the entire bag of PETN exploded. The heavy door was blown off, and knocked his right leg out of its socket.

The pain had been like a flock of black birds, heavy jackdaws landing on his body and covering the ground where he lay. They rose again, as though they’d been blown away, when Lumi ran over to him and held his hand in hers.

‘At least I’ve still got my hands,’ he says as they pass a group of sofa and armchairs.

‘That makes it easier.’

Margot holds the lift door open and waits for him to catch up.

‘I don’t know what you think you’re going to see on the video,’ she says.

‘No,’ he says, and follows her in.

‘I mean, you seem pretty bloody weird,’ she smiles, ‘but I almost think I like that.’

When they emerge from the lift the corridor is already full of their colleagues. Everyone comes out of their rooms, leaving a passageway open between them.

Joona doesn’t look anyone in the eye, doesn’t smile back at anyone, and doesn’t answer anyone. He knows what he looks like. His beard is long and his hair scruffy, he’s limping and leaning on his stick, and he can’t stand up straight.

No one seems to know how to handle his return; they want to see him, but they mostly seem rather shy.

Someone’s holding a bundle of papers, someone else a mug of coffee. These are people he saw every day for many years. He walks past Benny Rubin, who’s standing eating a banana with a neutral expression on his face.

‘I’ll go as soon as I’ve seen the film,’ Joona tells Margot as he carries on past the doorway of his old room.

‘We’re working in room 22,’ Margot says, pointing along the corridor.

Joona stops to catch his breath for a moment. His injured leg hurts and he presses the stick into the floor to give his body a break.

‘Which rubbish tip did you find him on?’ Petter Näslund says with a grin.

‘Idiot,’ Margot says.

The head of the National Criminal Police, Carlos Eliasson, comes towards Joona. His reading glasses are swinging on a chain round his neck.

‘Joona,’ he says warmly.

‘Yes,’ Joona replies.

They shake hands and patchy applause breaks out in the corridor.

‘I didn’t believe it when they said you were in the building,’ Carlos says, unable to contain his smile. ‘I mean … I can’t really take it in.’

‘I just want to look at something,’ Joona says, and tries to walk on.

‘Come and see me afterwards and we’ll have a talk about the future.’

‘What’s there to say about that?’ Joona says, and walks away.

His work there feels distant now, further away than his childhood. There’s nothing for me to come back to, he thinks.

He wouldn’t be here now if the first victim’s hand hadn’t been cupped like a little bowl by her hip.

That made a small spark begin to smoulder inside him.

Her slender fingers could have been Lumi’s. A deep-seated curiosity woke up inside him, and he suddenly felt compelled to get closer to the body.

‘We need you here,’ Magdalena Ronander says as they shake hands.

It’s no longer his job, but when he was confronted with the first victim, he felt a connection that he’d like to be able to control. Maybe he can give Margot a hand with the early stages, just until she can see a way through.

Joona stumbles as pain shoots down his leg, his shoulder hits the wall and he hears his leather jacket scrape against the rough wallpaper.

‘I put a note on the intranet that you were going to be coming,’ Margot says as they stop outside room 822.

Anja Larsson, his assistant for all those years, is standing in the doorway of her room. Her face is red. Her chin starts to quiver and tears well up in her eyes as he stops in front of her.

‘I’ve missed you, Anja,’ he says.

‘Have you?’

Joona nods, and looks her in the eye. His pale grey eyes have a dull shimmer, as if he had a fever.

‘Everyone said you were dead, that you’d … But I couldn’t believe that … I didn’t want to, I … I suppose I always thought you were too stubborn to die,’ she smiles as tears run down her cheeks.

‘It just wasn’t my time,’ he replies.

The corridor starts to empty as everyone returns to their rooms; they’ve already seen enough of the fallen hero.

‘What do you look like?’ Anja says, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her blouse.

‘I know,’ he says simply.

She pats his cheek.

‘You’d better go, Joona. They’re waiting for you.’