Page 244 of The Sleepwalker
Bernard refuses to let go.
Joona moves directly above them.
The cold glow of his headtorch illuminates Bernard’s wide eyes and the small bubbles of air escaping from his nose.
Joona takes his Colt Combat off safety, gets down onto one knee and presses the barrel of the gun to the ice above Bernard’s torso. He then looks him straight in the eye and pulls the trigger.
There is a sharp crack, and shards of ice spray upwards. Joona shoots again, then again.
The third bullet breaks through the ice and hits Bernard in the heart.
A bright red sea anemone of blood unfurls from his chest.
Bernard’s mouth starts to tremble, and bloody water seeps up through the hole in the ice.
His grip on Hugo’s wrist loosens, and Agneta staggers back, pulling the boy away from his father. Bernard is swept away on the current, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
Joona rushes back over to Agneta and grabs the rope. He reels it in, then gets onto his stomach, shuffles over to the edgeand reaches down into the cold water. He manages to grab the boy’s coat and drag his lifeless body up onto the ice, away from the edge and over to Agneta.
She clutches him to her, and her face breaks into a smile as he begins to splutter. With her arms wrapped around him, the scene is like a joyful Pietà in the middle of the blizzard.
85
It is the day before Christmas Eve, and the fields and meadows are blanketed beneath a thick layer of shimmering snow.
Joona and Valeria are eating dinner at the table in her kitchen.
After the storm, a solemn calm descended over the country. People came together to restore and repair their communities, to take care of those who had been injured or bereaved. The roads were ploughed and cars dug out. Masts were raised, the power restored and communication made possible once again.
In anticipation of Valeria’s return, Joona busied himself getting ready for the holiday. He bought food, wine, beer and snaps, put up the Christmas decorations, chopped down a tree and wrapped the presents.
Valeria got home late yesterday evening. They took a shower together, made love, and she then slept for thirteen hours straight.
They have just finished the last few preparations ahead of their family arriving for the holidays: Lumi and Laurent, Valeria’s sister, her husband and their three daughters.
Joona went out to buy mussels that morning, and he cooked a simple spaghetti vongole – a contrast to all of the heavy festive food that awaits them over the next few days.
As they eat, Valeria tells him about her trip and how grieffound its place in their everyday routines. Her mother had taken a chair to the grave and spent every day sitting there, giving her husband admonitions and advice to take with him to the afterlife.
They clear the table, take out the box of chocolate coins, sit back down and pour a couple of glasses of wine.
Valeria’s amber eyes have a ring of bronze around the edge of her irises. She has lost weight during the trip, but says that it is Joona who seems thinner.
Joona has placed the only decoration he still has from childhood on the window sill. It belonged to his father: a snowy landscape featuring a red cottage with a yellow cellophane window. He has lit a tea light behind the little house, creating a cosy glow in the window.
Valeria sets the two glasses down on the table and holds Joona’s gaze as she asks what he has been up to while she was in Brazil.
‘Just the usual.’
‘You’ve eaten two of the chocolate coins.’
‘I waited to have a third until now.’
They both smile as the chocolate melts in their mouths, and Joona then leans into Valeria and starts telling her about the complex hunt for a serial killer that became world news when it emerged that famous author Bernard Sand was the perpetrator.
Using the material Agneta found in an antiques cabinet, Joona has been able to piece together a fairly detailed timeline of Bernard’s journey from vulnerable young boy to compulsive axe murderer.
As a child, Bernard lived with his parents on a farm outside of Gislaved. His mother and father ran a car and tractor repair service there, and Bernard suffered from the same sleepwalking issues his son Hugo would later exhibit.
