‘Dad doesn’t want that,’ Sammy replies quietly.
‘Of course I do!’ Rex protests, rinsing his hands.
‘No, you don’t,’ Sammy says.
Rex blends the soup together, flash-fries the fat buds of asparagus and grabs the bowl of peeled shrimp.
‘It would be great,’ he says enthusiastically. ‘We could make food for the investors, Sammy, and I promise, you’ll love the scenery up there.’
‘But I can’t kill animals.’
‘Neither can I,’ Rex says.
‘Maybe you’ll find out you’ve got it in you, when it comes down to it,’ DJ says, trying to force the sound of his mother’s screams from his head.
Only two of the rapists have been hard to kill. One because he knew it would lead to a lot of media attention and a large police operation, and the other because he lives in Washington DC and had been heavily protected by Blackwater for many years.
His plan was so ingenious that no one could have spotted it before it was too late.
He knew that Teddy Johnson would attend the Foreign Minister’s funeral.
But he had to entice him at exactly the right time, before he found out that any of his other old friends from the Rabbit Hole had died, otherwise he would suspect a trap.
And then it wouldn’t have made any difference what bait the hunter had set at the back of the rabbit cage.
But he had walked into the trap, and DJ had managed to give Rex the slip in the crowded church. He made sure he sat on the balcony, close to the stairs, with Sammy off to his right. During one particularly rousing hymn they threw little balls of paper at Rex.
DJ snuck out of the service, and managed to get up to the top of the tower on Kungs Street ten minutes before the priest’s closing words. He knew that the chaos after Teddy Johnson was shot would hide the fact that he had disappeared. People would be running around screaming. It would take hours before the three of them found each other again, back at Rex’s flat.
A .300 Win Mag was the obvious weapon of choice. He usually follows his gut feeling when it comes to choosing a weapon.
When he killed the Foreign Minister he had chosen a pistol with a silencer, because he knew all too well that no matter how carefully you prepare and plan and map your victim’s routines, there are always things you can’t foresee.
He had been there twice before he broke in to identify the locations of the alarms and cameras and to check the security routines. But unlike most people, a man in the Foreign Minister’s position could very easily have had armed bodyguards in the house.
The Rabbit Hunter would have preferred to slit his wrists in the bath, but after the prostitute managed to free herself and raise the alarm, he didn’t want to take any risks.
There were three reasons to kill the Foreign Minister while he had a prostitute tied to his bed. The first was that he knew his victim only arranged that sort of encounter when the rest of his family were away.
The second was that the Foreign Minister always got rid of his bodyguards before he saw a prostitute.
The third was that the prostitute increased the likelihood that the circumstances surrounding the Foreign Minister’s death would be hushed up.
DJ smiles at Rex as they sit down at the table, but inside him his mother screams in terror as the rabbits slip out of the trap. They panic as they try to escape the shovel he’s using to hit them with.
92
Joona marches through the hallway on the eighth floor of Police Headquarters. His blond hair is untidy, his grey eyes sharp. He’s wearing a new black suit and a pale grey shirt. The jacket is unbuttoned and the butt of his Colt Combat is visible in the worn leather holster beneath his left shoulder.
A young woman with laughter lines on her face smiles at him warmly, and a man with a silvery beard who’s standing in the staffroom puts his hand on his heart as Joona walks past.
Outside his boss’s office is a map showing Sweden’s seven police districts, on which Stockholm is the smallest and the northernmost covers half the entire country.
Carlos is bent over his aquarium and when Joona walks in he jumps as if he’s been caught doing something illegal.
‘You spoil them,’ Joona says, looking at the fish.
‘I know, but they love it,’ Carlos nods.
He’s changed the décor of the aquarium. Instead of the wrecked ship and plastic diver, the fish are now swimming around white spaceships, Stormtroopers, a prone Darth Vader and a Han Solo half hidden by the bubbles from the oxygen pump.
‘We’ve got a picture of the murderer’s face now,’ Joona explains. ‘But the photograph doesn’t match anyone with a criminal record or who’s ever been a suspect.’
Carlos opens the picture on his computer and looks at the face that Johan J?nson was able to extract from the reflection in the silver vase.
The murderer is a white man in his thirties, with blond hair and a neat, full beard, a straight nose and furrowed brow.
The face is turned to the side, his thick neck is twisted, and his neck muscles stand out from the shadows. His mouth is slightly open, and his blue eyes are glistening, and have a distant look in them.
‘We need to get this picture out to every unit in the force, and it has to come from you,’ Joona says. ‘Top priority. We’ll give it fifteen minutes, then if there’s no response we can get the picture up on the newspapers’ websites and ask for information from the general public—’
‘Why is it always such a rush when you …?’
He cuts himself off when Anja comes into his office without knocking. She walks around the large desk and rolls Carlos and his chair out of the way, as if he’s a barbecue that’s in the way.
She quickly disseminates the picture across the internal network that covers the entire force, giving it top priority, then opens an attachment to an email she herself has sent, containing a suggested text to newsrooms around the country.
The killer’s picture appears on Carlos’s own radio display, which is lying next to the keyboard.
‘Now we just have to wait,’ she says, folding her arms.
‘So, what’s new around here apart from the name?’ Joona asks, looking out at the park through the low window.
‘We’re working exactly the same way we were before,’ Carlos replies. ‘Just a little worse.’
‘Sounds great,’ Joona says, checking his watch and wondering why Saga hasn’t been in touch.
A call comes in on another terminal. Carlos realises he’s going to have to answer, and fumbles with the buttons until he manages to switch the speaker function on.
‘Rikard Sj?gren, Stockholm Response Team,’ the officer says by way of introduction. ‘I don’t know if it’s any use, but I was part of the operation guarding the Foreign Minister’s funeral at St Johannes’ Church, and I’m sure I saw this man among the mourners.’
‘But you don’t know who he is?’ Carlos asks, his mouth close to the unit.
‘No.’
‘Was he with anyone else, or near anyone you recognised?’ Joona asks.
‘I’m not sure … but I saw him talking to that chef who’s always on television.’
‘Rex Müller?’
‘Yes, that’s the one, Rex Müller.’
Anja has already started looking through the newspapers’ and weekly magazines’ archives of photographs from the funeral. Faces sweep past, mostly politicians and businessmen in the bright sunshine outside the church.
‘Here he is,’ she says. ‘That’s him, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Joona says.
There’s a man standing in a line of people in the background of a photograph of the President of Estonia. He’s shading his eyes against the sun, which is shining brightly on his blond beard.
‘But no name,’ Anja mutters to herself, and goes on looking.
It doesn’t take long before she finds another photograph of him, this time standing next to Rex Müller and his son. Rex has his arm around his son’s shoulders, and is looking into the camera with a mournful expression on his face, while the murderer is in the process of turning away. His brow is wet with sweat and the look in his eyes seems oddly tense.