‘The forensic examination is a collaboration with National Crime, but apart from that they’re to be kept out of it.’
Saga Bauer nods and waits a few moments before asking:
‘Am I going to be allowed to conclude this investigation? It’s very important to me, so that …’
‘As long as you’re still sitting in the saddle,’ he interrupts. ‘But we have no idea where this is going to end. We don’t even know where it starts.’
On Rekylgatan in Västerås there’s a very long, and very white, housing block. The people who live there have easy access to Lillhags School, the football pitch and tennis courts.
Out of door number 11 comes a young man carrying a motorcycle helmet in one hand. His name is Stefan Bergkvist, and he’s almost seventeen years old, he attends the technical college and lives with his mum and her partner.
He has long fair hair and a silver ring in his bottom lip, and he’s wearing a black T-shirt and baggy jeans whose cuffs have been trodden to pieces.
Without any hurry he walks down to the car park, hangs the helmet on the handlebars of his motocross bike and rides slowly down onto the path around the building, carries on beside the double railway track, under the Norrleden viaduct, into the big industrial estate and stops beside a wooden shack covered with blue and silver graffiti.
Stefan and his friends usually meet here to race on the motocross circuit they’ve made along the railway embankment, riding up and down the various tracks before returning to Terminalvägen.
They started coming here four years ago when they found the keys to the shack hidden on a nail at the back among the thistles. The building had stood untouched for almost ten years. For some reason it had been left behind after a large building project.
Stefan gets off his bike, unlocks the padlock, lowers the steel bar and opens the wooden door. He goes inside the shack, looks at the time on his phone, and sees that his mum’s called.
He doesn’t notice that he’s being watched by a man of about sixty wearing a grey suede jacket and light-brown shoes. The man is standing behind a skip by the low industrial building on the other side of the railway line.
Stefan goes over to the little kitchen corner, picks up the packet of crisps from the sink, tips the last few crumbs into his hand and eats them.
The light inside the shack comes from two dirty windows with bars across them.
Stefan waits for his friends, leafing through one of the old magazines that were left on top of the map cabinet, a copy of a soft porn magazine with the words ‘Imagine being licked and getting paid for it!’ on the front beside a young woman with bare breasts.
The man in the suede jacket calmly leaves his hiding place, passes the gantry holding the overhead power lines and crosses the brown embankment with its double tracks. He goes over to Stefan’s motorcycle, folds the support away and wheels it over to the door of the shack.
The man looks round, then leans the motorbike on the ground and pushes it with his foot so that it’s wedged tightly against the door. He opens the fuel tank and lets the petrol run out beneath the shack.
Stefan goes on looking through the old magazine, looking at faded photographs of women taken in a prison setting. One blonde woman is sitting in a cell with her legs wide apart, showing her genitals to a prison guard. Stefan stares at the picture, then jumps when he thinks he hears a rustling sound from outside. He listens, thinks he can hear footsteps and quickly closes the magazine.
The man in the suede jacket has pulled out the red petrol can the boys had hidden among the bushes behind the shack, and is emptying it around the shack. Only when he reaches the back wall does he hear the first shouts from inside. The boy is banging on the door, trying to push it open. His footsteps thud across the floor, and his worried face appears at one of the dirty windows.
‘Open the door, this isn’t funny,’ he shouts loudly.
The man in the suede jacket carries on around the shack, empties the last of the petrol, then puts the can down.
‘What are you doing?’ the boy cries.
He throws himself at the door, trying to kick it open, but it won’t budge. He calls his mum, but her phone is switched off. His heart is beating hard as he tries to look through the grey-streaked windows, moving from one to the other.
‘Are you mad?’
When he suddenly notices the acrid smell of petrol, fear rises up inside him and his stomach clenches.
‘Hello?’ he shouts in a frightened voice. ‘I know you’re still there!’
The man pulls a box of matches from his pocket.
‘What do you want? Please, just tell me what you want …’
‘It isn’t your fault, but a nightmare needs to be reaped,’ the man says without raising his voice, and lights a match.
‘Let me out!’ the boy screams.
The man drops the match in the wet grass. There’s a sucking sound, like a big sail suddenly filling with air. Pale blue flames fly up with such ferocity that the man is forced to take several steps back. The boy cries for help. The flames spread to surround the shack. The man keeps backing away as he feels the heat on his face and hears the terrified screams.
The shack is ablaze in a matter of seconds, and the glass shatters behind the bars in the heat.
The boy shrieks when the flames set light to his hair.
The man walks across the railway lines, stands beside the industrial building and watches as the old shack burns like a torch.
A few minutes later a goods train approaches from the north. It comes rolling slowly down the track, and with a scraping, rattling sound the row of brown wagons passes the dancing flames as the man in the suede jacket vanishes along Stenbygatan.
Even though it’s the weekend the head of the National Crime Unit, Carlos Eliasson, is in his office. His gradually increasing introversion means that he’s becoming more and more averse to spontaneous visits. The door is closed and he’s got the ‘engaged’ light on. Joona knocks and opens the door in the same gesture.
‘I need to know if the marine police find anything,’ he says.
Carlos puts his book down on the desk and replies calmly:
‘You and Erixon were attacked. That’s a traumatic experience and you need to look after yourselves.’
‘We will,’ Joona says.
‘The helicopter search has been concluded.’
Joona stiffens.
‘Concluded? How large an area did …’
‘I don’t know,’ Carlos interrupts.
‘Who’s in charge of the operation?’
‘It’s nothing to do with National Crime,’ Carlos explains. ‘The marine police are …’
‘But