The wind is strong out on the open water and he has to take care to steer into the largest of the waves. The radio crackles as he tries to find the right frequency, and he hears fragments of a coastguard conversation about a rescue operation.
The Rabbit Hunter steers towards Munk?n, in order to make his way through the outer archipelago to reach Buller?n.
A wave hits the windshield and the water runs down the glass just as he manages to pick up the coastguard’s message over the radio.
There seems to have been some sort of accident.
The air ambulance has reached S?dermalm Hospital.
The aluminium hull shudders as the bow hits the waves, then he hears that the police have arrested a man on Buller?n and have him on board coastguard vessel 311.
In order to hear better the Rabbit Hunter pulls the cables apart, stopping the engine.
The man has been arrested for attempted murder and kidnapping, and is being taken to Kronoberg Prison in Stockholm.
It’s Oscar, they’ve taken him.
The Rabbit Hunter thinks of a grey rabbit changing direction as it runs, its paws kicking up a cloud of dust.
He sinks onto the deck and covers his ears with his hands.
Oscar got rich from hedge-fund money and other people’s retirement accounts – and, many years ago, he raped a girl with his friends. He kicked her, put on a pair of white rabbit’s ears and a bowtie, then raped her a second time with a bottle.
The boat is rolling hard on the waves, and he has to cling on to stop himself from pitching over.
He can’t understand how the police managed to trace Oscar so quickly. It’s simply not possible.
Oscar is getting away, like a rabbit darting into its hole.
He had been so sure he would succeed.
It was like following a rabbit with myxomatosis, the disease that covers them in sores around their nose and eyes, blinds them, and makes them so weak that in the end you can just walk up and kill them by standing on them.
He doesn’t want to think about it, but his brain conjures up images of him as a boy rinsing the slaughterhouse bench and tiled floor with a hose – the blood and viscera swirling down into the drain.
There’s a sudden bang and he falls sideways, gets up and realises that he’s drifted onto some rocks. A large wave foams over the railing, and he hits his head on the steel frame of the windshield before regaining his balance.
He fumbles with the cables again and there’s a spark. He does it once more, and the engine comes to life.
The boat lurches sideways. Water splashes in around his legs, and the hull buckles against the rocks, shedding dark-blue flakes of paint.
He puts the boat in reverse and it floats reluctantly backward. The rocks scrape a silver groove along the painted side before the boat comes to a halt again.
He screams so loud that his voice breaks.
The next wave rolls in and pushes the boat forward with a shriek of metal, and white spray fills the air. He powers up the engine as the water turns and lifts the boat from the rocks. Moving backwards, he turns and steers back towards V?rmd? again.
Tomorrow he will be waiting outside Police Headquarters until the custody hearing is complete. If Oscar is released on bail, he’ll try to flee the country, either by car or boat. But everything will be far more complicated if he’s remanded in custody until his court date.
81
The Chicago FBI is headquartered in a shimmering glass complex in a drab part of the city.
Saga is sitting with a Commissioner Lowe, in a conference room with a wall to wall blue and yellow carpet.
Saga has apologised and explained that she didn’t see anyone waiting for her at the airport, and that she assumed they would be meeting up after her visit to the treatment centre.
Since her visit to the rehab centre Saga has called Joona more than ten times, but his phone has been switched off.
It’s evening now, and the office is almost empty. A detective from Washington comes into the conference room and puts her bag down on the table. The short woman with black eyes and plaited hair has a deep furrow across her brow.
‘Special Agent López,’ she says in English, without a trace of a smile.
‘Saga Bauer.’
They shake hands and López unbuttons her jacket.
‘Our acting Defence Secretary was murdered in Sweden because you and your colleagues did such a terrible job.’
‘I’m sorry about that,’ Saga says.
‘What can you tell me about the terrorists?’ López asks, leaning back in her chair.
‘Speaking personally, I don’t think we’re dealing with terrorists. But obviously we’re following all possible lines of inquiry.’
López raises her eyebrows sceptically.
‘Such as coming here?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did you find?’
‘It’s way above my pay-grade to determine the extent to which I can share information—’
‘I don’t give a damn about that,’ López interrupts.
‘I need to speak to my boss,’ Saga says.
‘Go ahead.’
Saga gets out her phone and tries Joona again, and this time the call goes through.
‘Joona.’
‘At last,’ she says in Swedish.
‘Have you been trying to call?’ he asks.
‘I’ve left messages.’
‘My phone got wet,’ Joona explains.
Saga looks at the whiteboard containing the erased remnants of red, green and blue writing as she explains that she, as a Security Police agent, absolutely can’t tell him that Grace was subjected to a brutal gang rape in the Rabbit Hole.
‘She remembers the names of the perpetrators … William, Teddy Johnson, Kent, Lawrence and Rex Müller.’
‘Rex Müller?’ Joona says. ‘She named him?’
‘Yes,’ Saga replies, and smiles at López, who stares back at her blankly.
‘Which means that Rex has been identified both as a rapist and the man who’s avenging the rape.’
‘What? What are you talking about?’ Saga asks.
‘I’ve arrested Oscar von Creutz … I want to question him again, but he told me what happened and it’s pretty clear that Rex wasn’t part of it,’ Joona says. ‘They locked him in the stable while they raped his girlfriend. Oscar’s convinced that Rex is the person who’s started taking revenge on them.’
‘So Rex didn’t participate in the rape?’ Saga says.
‘No.’
López digs around in her bag and takes out dark lipstick.
‘And you don’t think he’s the murderer?’ Saga says.
‘He’s got enough money to pay someone to do it for him, but …’
‘None of this feels right,’ Saga concludes.
‘The murders have to be about what happened in the Rabbit Hole,’ Joona says. ‘We’ve got a spree killer who’s murdering the rapists one by one.’
‘But why?’
‘He must have been there.’
‘A witness?’
‘Something else,’ he says. ‘Something else must have happened, something we don’t know about, some unknown factor, a third element.’
‘Who could it be?’ she asks.
‘We’ve got a victim and the perpetrators … but something’s missing.’
‘What?’
‘That’s what we need to find out.’
‘I’ll talk to Grace, and you talk to Rex and Oscar,’ Saga says.
‘There’s no time to lose.’
Saga ends the call, puts her phone in her pocket and turns back towards López with a smile.
‘My boss says he’ll contact you tomorrow,’ she explains.
‘I understand Swedish,’ López says coolly in English.
‘Then you already know that,’ Saga replies, and gets up from her chair.
The corner of López’s mouth twitches at her own bluff, then she nods.
‘Your boss is going to say that you should tell us everything you know.’
‘I hope so,’ Saga says.
‘I’ll pick you up from your hotel after breakfast.’
‘Thanks,’ Saga says, and walks out of the conference room.
On the ground floor she hands her visitor’s badge back in at reception, then gets into her yellow car and starts to drive back to the exclusive rehab centre.
The traffic in the suburbs has died down and the rainy Chicago sky looks like dark-grey clay by the time Saga parks the car on Timberline Drive.
Five hundred metres away she can see the lights in the security lodge and the closed gates glinting in the floodlights’ sharp glare.
Visiting hours are long over, and the patients are probably all in bed.