Dark Angel (Anders Knutas 6)

uneven, covered with stones and stumps, and Knutas had already tripped several times.
    Jacobsson’s heart was pounding hard. All the recent events flitted through her mind as they jogged along. Three faces kept appearing: Andreas, Mikaela and Simon. Each of them marked by sorrow and loneliness. And then there was Mats, the man with two faces. The boy who had been handed over to strangers, just like her own daughter, whom she had known for only a few minutes. But those minutes had affected the rest of her life and everything she did. She raced along as fast as she could. She was determined to save him. She had to save Mats before he did something crazy again. If only they could get there in time.
    Then they saw the lights of the lambing shed. Thank God. It wasn’t far now. It was a wooden building, nearly a hundred metres long, with a corrugated metal roof. It was divided into stalls where the ewes could have their lambs in peace and quiet. The lambing season was over, so the ewes and their offspring had been sent out to graze.
    Several sheep in an outdoor pen began bleating as they approached. Both the red pick-up and a motorcycle were parked outside the building. The door was ajar, but it was dark inside. Knutas crept over to the door and stuck his arm inside, attempting to turn on the light switch. Nothing happened. The light was broken. The door creaked as they stepped inside. The faint light that seeped in through the dust-covered windows allowed them to fumble their way forward. The only sound was an occasional mournful bleating from the sheep outside.
    Slowly they moved past the rows of stalls. Suddenly Knutas gave a shout.
    ‘I see something! Come over here!’
    Among the bales of hay inside one of the stalls they saw the figure of a man lying on his back on the ground.
    ‘Damn it to hell!’ exclaimed Jacobsson. ‘We’re too late.’
    To her embarrassment she felt tears well up in her eyes. Stop it, you idiot, she thought to herself. You don’t even know these people.
    Knutas cautiously opened the stall door and stepped inside. He gasped when he looked at the man’s face.
    It wasn’t Andreas.

JOHAN HAD NO idea how much time had passed when the door finally opened. He saw a man wearing a white coat and glasses, his expression sombre. Johan’s vision blurred, as if he were looking through a fog. As he watched the doctor coming down the long corridor towards them, all sorts of memories flashed through his mind. Fragments of his life with Emma.
    Her hand frantically clutching his when she gave birth to Elin; her smile when she said ‘I do’ in the church; her fevered expression when they made love. A minor quarrel at the breakfast table a few days ago; Emma wearing a white bathrobe with a towel wrapped around her head after taking a shower and then making coffee in the kitchen.
    The doctor had reached them now. He stood very close. Johan didn’t dare look up.
    ‘It’s over now. The worst of it, anyway. She’s out of danger, and she’s going to be fine. The baby too.’
    ‘The baby?’ whispered Johan.

KNUTAS STOOD MOTIONLESS , trying to gather his thoughts. He recognized Mats from the photographs. Now here he lay, looking up at the ceiling, his eyes unseeing, his body limp. But he was breathing.
    ‘Mats, my name is Anders Knutas and I’m a police officer. You’re under arrest for the murder of Viktor Algård and Veronika Hammar. Do you hear what I’m saying?’
    He crouched down and shook Mats by the shoulder. No reaction. The man seemed almost catatonic.
    The next moment two people appeared in the doorway, carrying torches. They stopped abruptly, surprised to see the police officers. Knutas looked in confusion from one person to the other. He couldn’t make sense of what he saw: There stood the sheep farmer Andreas Hammar and the TV camerawoman Pia Lilja, hand in hand. To make matters worse, Jacobsson had fallen to the ground and was staring glassy-eyed into space. As if she were the victim of a blackout.
    Then the man on the floor suddenly turned his head to look at Knutas. His expression displayed such pain that Knutas almost shrank back. Slowly Mats lifted one arm, holding something in his hand. For a fraction of a second a danger warning flashed through Knutas’s brain. Was it a weapon? The next second he was relieved to see that it was a mobile phone. Mats’s voice shook as he whispered his question: ‘Is this true?’
    Puzzled, Knutas tried to make out the words on the tiny,