It was several years since she had last been there, and she took a few tentative steps forward as she tried to get her bearings. The smell was exactly the same as she remembered, cool air mixed with cardboard and whitewashed concrete. A few metres away against one wall was a standard issue computer and she hurried over to it.
She took out Runebergs passcard and inserted it into the little box beside the keyboard. Then she quickly typed in Runebergs user ID and password.
The hourglass on the screen rotated and then the database opened up.
Henrik Pettersson, she typed into the search box for names, then added his date of birth in the next box.
She pressed search and the hourglass rotated once, then twice.
Rebecca looked round, but she was alone in the large room.
She could hear the sound of Sunessons television in the distance. The hourglass vanished and was replaced by a line of text.
Case number K3429302-12, Section 5,
Row 47, shelf 23-25.
The store was actually larger than she remembered, and it took her a couple of minutes to work out where to go.
The main aisle ran along one of the outer walls, with various smaller passageways leading off into the different sections.
Section 5 was at the far end of the store, where the light was much dimmer than near the entrance.
Only every other fluorescent lamp was lit, and she guessed there would be a switch somewhere to correct that, but she didnt have time to look for it.
The racks of shelving all round her stretched up to the ceiling, and they were almost all loaded with brown cardboard boxes that seemed to soak up the already dim light.
On the floor were pallets laden with things that were too big to fit on the shelves, and she walked past items of furniture, rolls of cable and part of what looked like a bronze sculpture.
Four of the boxes on shelf 23 were marked with the right case number. She pulled down the one closest to her and opened the lid.
The box was full of books and films, which explained why it was so heavy. She closed it and put it back on the shelf.
The next box turned out to contain exactly the same sort of thing, but the third looked more promising. A few files, random documents and, at the bottom – bingo!
A large bunch of keys, fifty or so, just as the case register had said.
They had got rid of almost all Dads belongings after his death, but Mum had been adamant about keeping the keys.
You never know when you might need a key, so well keep those …
Presumably Henke had kept them for the same reason.
Half of the keys were so old the metal had started to decay, others were bent and worn with use, but when she looked more closely she saw that there were at least five or six keys for bicycle locks, and a couple that looked like they belonged to mopeds or motorbikes, so – just as she had hoped – it looked like Henke had gone on adding to the collection …
So what did the key to a safe deposit box look like?
A sudden noise interrupted her thoughts. Someone had opened the door to the storeroom.
The note was stuck right over the keyhole. The wording was the same as before. Probably the same note, which suggested his neighbour had worked out where it came from. But right now he really didnt care.
His brain was working in top gear. He had wandered round half of Södermalm trying to digest what he had seen.
If what he had seen at Slussen wasnt just his imagination, if Erman had been real, then wasnt everything he had experienced over the past two years … well, what?
Fucking hell!
His headache from earlier that morning kicked into overdrive and made him pinch the bridge of his nose in reflex. He tore down the note and pulled the keys to the flat from his pocket.
A noise off to his left made him jump and he stood there with the key in the lock. His heart was practically beating a hole in his chest, forcing him to take a few deep breaths to lower his pulse-rate. Fuck, he was twitchy!
Nice and easy now …
He glanced cautiously at his neighbours door. The sound had come from there, he was sure of that, in fact he even recognized it from the previous day. A security chain rattling against the inside of a door. A chain didnt start to swing of its own accord, so someone must have managed to nudge it. His new neighbour was heading out.
For reasons he couldnt explain, his need to know the identity of his new neighbour was much stronger today, so he waited a few more seconds, all the while staring at his neighbours door. But nothing happened. The door remained closed.
He was just about to turn away when he thought he saw movement through the spyhole. A vague shift from light to dark, as if someone had put their eye to the hole. And suddenly he was sure someone was standing on the other side of the door.
Watching him …
He quickly turned the key in the lock, forced open his crooked front door and slammed it quickly behind him.
She held her breath as she listened in the direction of the door. She thought she could hear footsteps in the distance. Even if it was just lard-arse Sunesson shuffling along in his Birkenstocks, she didnt feel like letting him know what case she was poking about in. She quickly dropped the bunch of keys in her bag and closed the box again. The steps were approaching along the main passageway.
She recognized hard heels on the concrete floor. A pair of proper shoes, unlike Sunessons sandals or a beat officers boots. Not many people in Police Headquarters wore shoes like that, and whoever this was, she felt no great desire to bump into him. But the only way out was along that main passageway …
She gently lifted the box back into place on the shelf.
The steps were slowly getting closer, steady, almost military.
She looked round and took a few quick steps further down the aisle. One of the bottom shelves on the same side was empty and, mostly on the spur of the moment, she crouched down and crept into it.
The footsteps were close now, but a large box on a pallet blocked the line of sight to the corridor. All she had to do was wait until the person had gone past and then creep out as quietly as possible.
Suddenly the footsteps stopped. Rebecca huddled up even more and held her breath.
Then the person carried on walking, but much slower now. It took her a couple of seconds to realize where they were going. Down the passageway she was in!
She pressed against the side of the large box on the pallet. There were still several shelves between her and the far end of the passageway. If the person was heading towards one of them, she was bound to be seen.
Shit, it had been a really stupid idea to try to hide. She should have brazened it out, saying hello and pretending everything was fine.
What the hell was she supposed to say now?
Hello, yes, I just crawled in to see what things look like from down here.
The steps were getting closer, just a few metres left now.
She would have to climb out, that would be slightly more normal than being found crouching at the back of one of the shelves. Her heart was pounding in her chest.
She took a deep breath and shifted her bodyweight forward. She had to play this calm, as natural as possible.
The steps suddenly stopped. She heard boxes moving, then someone clearing their throat.
A man, no doubt about that, and just a metre or so away.
Rebecca tilted her head, leaned forward and cautiously peeped round the edge of the box.
Shit!
She pulled her head back quick as a flash. A pair of dark trousers belonging to a suit, matching black shoes, that was pretty much all she had seen. Yet she was still quite sure. The man standing in the passageway was Stigsson. He was standing in front of the boxes she had just been looking at.
She heard him lift one of them down, then the thud as he put it on the floor.
The lid came off with a dry rustle, then muffled noises, as if he were rooting around in the box.
A sudden pain in her left calf made her flinch involuntarily. Damn, the uncomfortable position had made her leg start to cramp. The pain was getting worse and spreading upwards. When it reached her thigh she had to bite her lip to stop herself groaning. Stigsson was still rummaging about in the box.
She tried to shift her weight to let some blood through to her tormented muscles, but lost her balance instead and fell against the side of the box.
The noises from the passageway stopped.
The pain in her leg was getting worse and she bit her lip so hard that she could taste blood.
Stigsson cleared his throat again.
Her back was slowly slipping down the cardboard box and she pressed her working leg against the floor to stay upright. But it was impossible to keep her balance. Her body was slowly sliding towards the edge of the box, closer and closer to the passageway.
In just a few seconds she would tumble out and land at his feet.
Suddenly she heard the sound of a box being shoved back onto the shelf. Footsteps snapped on the concrete floor like cracks of a whip, and for a moment she thought her heart had stopped.
Then she realized that the noise was getting quieter, and spent the last of her strength trying to stay upright. Just as the storeroom door slammed shut she fell flat onto the hard floor.
6
Head games
He had spent three mornings in a row with his arse parked on that fucking bench. Starting half an hour before the time of the first sighting, and staying for an hour afterwards. He had his hood up, his cap pulled down over his face and, just to be on the safe side, a cheap pair of sunglasses perched on his nose. All to make sure he couldnt be seen.
But, just like the previous two days, hed failed to see anything, and now the whole project was starting to feel more stupid than was strictly reasonable. As his arse slowly went numb, he realized how ridiculously he was behaving. He had considerably more important problems than a possible doppelganger wandering about Södermalmstorg, and – just like his Playstation, or having a wank – this whole project was yet another way of avoiding getting to grips with the real issue.