Page 119 of The Sleepwalker
‘At the campsite?’
‘Yes .?.?. A strand of hair.’
‘One of mine?’ She massages the back of her neck.
‘When did you cut your hair?’
‘Last spring.’
‘This short?’
‘Shorter,’ she says, running a hand over her scalp. ‘I’ve sold it a few times, to a wigmaker on Storgatan.’
‘You sold your hair?’
‘Never thought of that, did you?’ she replies with a grin.
‘No.’
‘So you killed my man and blew the farm to pieces for a fucking wig?’
‘A prosecutor will be taking over the preliminary investigation into the drugs offences, weapon offences and—’
‘That was all Åke.’
‘OK.’
‘You’ll be needing tighter bars if you’re planning to lock him up,’ she says, leaning back.
Joona leaves the room and walks back down the corridor. The sweet scent of buns is gone, and this time all he can smell are the drains.
From behind one of the steel doors, a woman screams.
Joona knows that they will have to track down the person who bought the wig, but above all he needs to head back over to the Sleep Lab with Erik Maria Bark and beg Hugo Sand to agree to another hypnosis session. The teenager must have seen something other than the blonde hair and the shiny coat.
As Joona leaves the prison, there is just one thought going through his mind. He thinks he can see a pattern among the victims, at long last. They are all men who have taken sexual risks.
43
It is almost midnight, and the sky is a murky shade of black, flickering orbs of snow pulsating around the streetlamps.
Hugo pushes his hands beneath his armpits in an attempt to warm them up as he approaches the doorway on Jenny Linds gata. He heads straight inside, so cold that he is shaking, and brushes the wet snow from his head. He then climbs the stairs and presses a finger to the worn buzzer.
On hearing it ring, he takes a step back, runs a hand through his damp hair and unbuttons his coat.
Olga slowly opens the door and stares out at him from the dim hallway in her leopard print bra and black leather skirt.
‘Sorry for just turning up like this,’ he says, ‘but I didn’t have anywhere else to go.’
Her kohl-lined eyes are heavy, her expression oddly indifferent and her pink lips parted slightly.
‘Hugo?’ she mumbles.
‘I don’t want to cause any trouble .?.?.’ he explains as her heady perfume fills his nose.
‘What’re you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in Uppsala?’ she asks in a flat tone of voice.
‘I bailed. Couldn’t just sit there like some fucking lab rat.’
