The Rabbit Hunter

‘What do you say?’ he smiles.

‘No,’ she replies.

‘OK,’ he says quickly, and lets go of the strap.

The buckle makes a tinkling sound as it hits the bedpost.

‘Do you want me to take all of my clothes off?’

‘Wait a while,’ he replies, giving her an oddly searching look.

‘Is it OK if I use the bathroom?’

‘Soon,’ he says. He sounds like he’s trying to control his breathing.

Sofia’s lips feel strangely cool. When she raises one hand to her mouth she sees his face break into a wide smile.

He walks over to her, takes hold of her chin tightly, and then spits straight in her face.

‘What are you doing?’ she asks, as a rush of giddiness sweeps through her head.

Her legs suddenly give out and she lands so heavily on the floor that she bites her tongue. She sinks onto her side as her mouth fills with blood, and she sees him standing over her, unbuttoning his corduroy trousers.

Sofia doesn’t have the strength to crawl away. She rests her cheek on the floor and sees a dead fly in the dust under the bed. Her heart is beating so hard that she can hear it thudding in her ears. She realises that she must have been drugged.

‘Don’t. Don’t do it,’ she gasps, before closing her eyes.

Before Sofia loses consciousness it occurs to her that he might be about to murder her, and that this might be the last thing she ever experiences.

4

Sofia wakes up coughing. She suddenly remembers where she is. She is tied to Wille’s bed. She’s on her back, held in place by the leather straps. He’s tied her so tightly that the muscles in her legs and arms are straining. Her wrists are burning and her fingers are ice-cold.

Her mouth is bone-dry, her tongue feels swollen and sore.

Her thighs have been spread, pushing her dress up around her waist.

This can’t be happening, she thinks.

He must have drugged one of the champagne glasses while it was still in the cabinet.

Sofia hears a business-like conversation from the next room. Someone used to being in charge is talking.

She tries to lift her head up to look out of the window, to see if it’s night or morning, but she can’t. It hurts her arms too much.

It has just occurred to her that she has no idea how long she’s been lying there when he comes into the room.

Fear fills Sofia’s heart. She feels her throat constrict and her pulse race.

What definitely mustn’t happen has happened.

She tries to calm herself, thinks that she needs to get a conversation going. She has to make him realise that he’s picked the wrong girl, but that she won’t say anything if he lets her go right away.

Sofia promises herself that she’s going to quit being an escort, she’s been doing it for too long, and she wastes the money on things she doesn’t need.

The man is looking at her with the same hunger as before. She tries to adopt a relaxed expression. She knew right from the start there was something wrong here. But instead of turning around and walking away she ignored her gut instinct. She’s made a catastrophic mistake.

‘I said no to this,’ she says in a composed voice.

‘Yes,’ he replies with a slow smile, and lets his eyes roam all over her body.

‘I know girls who think this is OK. I can put you in touch with them if you’d like.’

He doesn’t answer, just breathes heavily through his nose and steps to the end of the bed, between her legs. She feels sweat break out all over her body, and tries to prepare herself for what’s to come.

‘This is assault, you do realise that, don’t you?’

He doesn’t respond, just pushes his glasses up his nose and looks at her with great interest.

‘This is making me feel very uncomfortable and violated,’ Sofia begins to say, but stops when her voice starts to tremble.

She forces herself to breathe more slowly, to try not to seem scared, not to beg. What would Tamara have done? She can see her friend’s freckled face in front of her, that slightly mocking smile, the hardness in her eyes.

‘I’ve got your information written down in a book in my flat,’ she says, looking him in the eye.

‘What details?’ he asks casually.

‘Your name, which is presumably made up, but the address here, your email, the time of our meeting …’

‘So now I know that,’ he nods.

The mattress rocks as he starts to crawl up the bed towards her. He stops between her thighs, swaying, then grabs her underwear and pulls. The seams don’t break, and her shoulder aches as if it’s been dislocated.

The man tugs again, with both hands. It stings as the underwear cuts into her hips, but the reinforced seams won’t tear.

He whispers something to himself, then leaves her on the bed.

The mattress sways again, and Sofia can feel her thighs starting to cramp.

She has a fleeting memory of football practice, the way she could tell when a cramp was on its way, the tightening of her calves as she tried to pick out lumps of mud from her cleats.

Her friends’ hot red faces. The noisy locker room, the smell of sweat, liniment and deodorant.

How has it come to this? How did she end up here?

Sofia tries not to cry. She feels like she’s finished if she shows fear.

The man returns with a small pair of scissors and cuts through her underwear on both sides, then pulls them off.

‘There are plenty of people willing to do bondage,’ Sofia says. ‘I know—’

‘I don’t want girls who are willing to do it,’ he interrupts, tossing her underwear onto the bed beside her.

‘I mean, there are girls who get turned on by being tied up,’ she says.

‘You shouldn’t have come here,’ he declares bluntly.

Sofia can’t hold her tears back any longer and starts to cry. She arches her back and tugs at the straps so hard that her skin tears and blood starts to trickle down the bottom of her right arm.

‘Don’t do it,’ she sobs.

The man pulls off his shirt, throws it on the floor, pushes his trousers down and rolls a condom onto his half-erect penis.

He kneels down on the bed and she can smell the rubber on his fingers as he pushes her shredded underwear into her mouth. She starts to retch and comes close to throwing up. Her tongue is completely dry and tears are streaming down her cheeks. The man squeezes one of her breasts through the dress, then lies down heavily on top of her.

Sofia wets herself with fear, and a hot pool of urine spreads out beneath her.

When he tries to push into her, she twists to the side quickly and shoves him with her hip.

A drop of sweat falls from his nose onto her forehead.

He grabs her throat with one hand, looks at her, tightens his grip and lies on top of her again. His weight makes her sink into the mattress, which pulls her thighs further apart. Her ankles sting as the bedposts creak.

She struggles to breathe, tossing her head until she manages to get some air into her lungs.

He tightens his grip on her throat, and her vision starts to flicker. The room fades away as she feels him trying to force his way inside her. Sofia struggles to twist aside, but it’s impossible, this is going to happen anyway. She can’t stay inside her body, she has to think about something else. Flashes of memory dart past, cool evenings on the big football field, ragged breathing, clouds in front of her mouth, the silence down by the lake, the old school in Bollstanäs.

The coach points at the ball, blows the whistle, and then silence.

The grip on her throat disappears, Sofia spits out her underwear and gasps for air as she blinks.

Someone’s ringing the doorbell downstairs.

He grabs her chin and forces her mouth open, then shoves the underwear back in, and she starts to retch again, breathing through her nose, unable to swallow.

The doorbell rings again.

The man spits on her and gets off the bed, pulls his trousers up and grabs his shirt before leaving the room.

As soon as he’s gone Sofia pulls her right hand as hard as she can, without thinking of the consequences.

She feels excruciating pain, but her hand comes out of the strap.

Only the underwear in her mouth stops her from screaming out loud.

Her head is thudding. She’s on the brink of passing out, and her whole body is shaking with pain. Her thumb could be broken, and the ligament feels torn. Her skin looks like an old glove and blood is coursing down her arm. She pulls the underwear from her mouth.

She whimpers out loud as she tries to loosen the strap around her left wrist. Her fingers keep slipping, but eventually she manages to pick the buckle open. She quickly tugs the strap through the catch, then sits up and removes the restraints from her ankles.

She gets up on unsteady legs, clutching her wounded hand to her stomach, and starts to walk across the thick carpet. Her head is pounding with shock and pain. Her feet feel numb and her dress is wet and cold over her backside.

Carefully she makes her way out of the bedroom and creeps along the hallway where the man has just disappeared.

Sofia stops before she reaches the staircase. She can hear another voice downstairs, and decides to shout for help. She can’t hear what the other man is saying, and tentatively moves closer. There are clothes from the dry-cleaners hanging over the banister. Through the thin plastic she can see bundles of identical white shirts.

She clears her throat carefully, ready to shout for help, when she realises that the other man isn’t inside the house. His voice is coming from the intercom. A messenger, asking to be let through the gate. Wille says that he’ll have to come back, then puts the phone down and walks back towards the staircase again.

She staggers but manages to keep her balance. She has pins and needles in her feet as the blood flow returns.

Sofia moves backwards. The floor creaks beneath her and she looks around and sees a larger room further down the hall, with painted portraits on the walls. She thinks about running in and opening a window to call for help, but realises that she doesn’t have time.

5

Sofia makes her way quickly along the wall and past the stairs, until she reaches a narrow cupboard door. She grabs the handle and pulls.

Locked.

Through the prisms of the chandelier, she watches the man walk up the stairs.

He’ll reach her soon.

She walks back towards the stairs and crouches down on the floor, hidden by the dry-cleaned shirts. If he looks directly at her he’ll see her, but if he just walks past she’ll have a few seconds’ headstart.

Her hand hurts so much that she’s shaking, and her neck and throat are swollen.

The steps are old and worn, and the staircase creaks. She sees him between the banisters and shrinks back cautiously.

Wille reaches the top and walks down the hallway.

He walks towards the bedroom without noticing the blood she’s left on the carpet.

Carefully she gets to her feet, watching his back and suntanned neck as he walks into the bedroom.

She walks silently around the railing and starts to run down the stairs.

She realises that he’s turned around, and is already coming after her.

The thudding footsteps speed up.

She clutches the throbbing, bleeding fingers of her injured hand with her good one.

All she knows is that she has to get out of the house. She rushes through the large hallway, hearing the harsh creak of the stairs as the man comes after her.

‘I don’t have time for this!’ he yells.

Sofia runs across a narrow rug towards the door. She trips over a pair of shoes but keeps her balance.

The alarm system is glowing on one side of the front door.

Her fingers are so wet with blood that the catch slips out of her hand. She wipes her hand on her dress and tries again, but it won’t budge. She pushes the handle down and shoves the door with her shoulder, but it’s locked. Her eyes dart around, looking for the keys as she tries twisting the catch again. She gives up and runs through the double doors leading to the living room.

Something metallic hits the floor in another room.

She moves away from the large windows, her own reflection a silhouette against the pale wall behind her.

She hears him coming from the other direction, retraces her steps and hides behind one of the doors.

‘Every door is locked,’ he says loudly as he enters the living room.

She holds her breath, her heart pounding in her chest, and the door creaks gently. He stops in the doorway. She can see him through the crack between the hinges, his mouth half-open, his cheeks flushed.

Her legs start to shake again.

He walks a few more steps, then stops to listen. She tries to keep quiet, but her frightened breathing is loud.

‘I’m tired of this game now,’ he says as he walks past her.

She hears him searching for her, opening doors and closing them again. He says loudly that he just wants to talk to her.

Furniture scrapes the floor, then silence.

She listens. She hears her own breathing, the ominous ticking of a clock, but nothing else.

Just silence.

She waits a little longer, listening for creeping footsteps, knowing this could be a trap, but still chooses to leave her hiding place, because this could be the only chance she gets.

She creeps further into the living room. Everything is quiet, as if enveloped in a hundred-year sleep.

Sofia goes over to one of the chairs around the polished table and tries to lift it, but it’s too heavy. Instead she drags it by its back with her one good hand, pulling it towards the windowed patio doors, groaning with pain when she has to use both hands. She runs two steps, spins her body, and yelps as she swings the heavy chair against the glass.

The chair hits the window and falls back into the room. The inner pane shatters and crashes to the floor, scattering splinters of glass everywhere. Larger pieces slide down and are left leaning against the intact outer glass.

The burglar alarm starts howling at an ear-splitting volume.

Sofia grabs the chair again, ignoring the fact that the splinters are cutting her feet, and is just about to swing it against the window when she sees the man coming towards her.

She lets go of the chair and walks straight into the big kitchen, her eyes darting across the white floorboards and stainless steel countertops.

He follows with measured steps.

She remembers being chased as part of a game when she was little: the feeling of impotence when she realised her pursuer was so close that there was no chance of escape.

Sofia leans against the countertop for support and manages to knock a pair of glasses and an unusual-looking bracelet to the floor.

She doesn’t know what to do. She looks over at the closed patio doors, then goes over to the island unit which has two sparkling saucepans standing on top of it, and yanks the drawers open with shaking hands, panting hard. She finds herself staring at a row of knives.

The man comes into the kitchen and she picks up one of the knives and turns to face him, backing away slowly. He stares at her, clutching a soot-stained poker from the fireplace in both hands.

She holds the broad-bladed kitchen knife up at him, but realises immediately that she doesn’t stand a chance.

He could easily kill her. His weapon is much heavier.

The alarm is still shrieking. The soles of her feet are stinging from where she’s cut them, and her injured hand feels numb.

‘Please, stop,’ she gasps, backing into the island unit. ‘Let’s go back to bed, I promise, I won’t give you any trouble.’

She shows him the knife, then puts it down on the stainless steel countertop and tries to smile at him.

‘I’m still going to hit you,’ he says.

‘You don’t have to do that,’ she pleads. She feels like she’s losing control of her face.

‘I’m going to hurt you badly,’ he says, raising the improvised weapon above his head.

‘Please, I give up, I—’

‘You only have yourself to blame,’ he interrupts, then unexpectedly lets go of the poker.

It falls heavily to the floor with a clatter, then lies still. Ash flies up from the prongs.

The man smiles in surprise, then looks down at the circle of blood spreading out from his chest.

‘What the hell?’ he whispers. He fumbles for support with one hand, but misses the countertop and staggers.

Another bloodstain appears in the middle of his white shirt. The red wounds on his body blossom like stigmata.

The man presses one hand to his chest and starts to stumble towards the dining room, but stops and turns his blood-smeared palm over. He looks like a frightened child. He tries to say something before sinking to his knees.

Blood squirts out onto the floor in front of him.

The alarm is still blaring.

Sofia sees a man with a very oddly-shaped head over by the pale curtains.

He is standing with his feet wide apart, and he’s holding a pistol with both hands.

His face is completely covered by a black balaclava apart for his mouth and eyes. What look like strands of hair or stiff scraps of fabric hang down one cheek.

Wille presses his hand to his chest again, but the blood seeps through his fingers and down his arm.

Sofia turns unsteadily and looks straight at the man with the gun. Without taking his eyes from Wille, he takes one hand off the pistol and quickly snatches up the two spent shells from the floor.

He runs forward, passing her as if she doesn’t exist. He kicks the poker away with his military boot, grabs Wille by the hair, yanks his head back, and presses the barrel of the pistol against his right eye.

This is an execution, Sofia thinks, and walks towards the living room as if in a dream. She hits her hip against the edge of the counter, and slides her hand along it. As she passes the two men, a shiver runs down her spine and she starts to run but slips in the blood. Her feet slide away from her, and she falls back and hits her head hard on the floor.

Her vision blurs and goes black for a moment, then she opens her eyes again.

She sees that he hasn’t pulled the trigger yet, the barrel is still pressing softly against Wille’s closed eyelid.

The back of Sofia’s head is burning and throbbing.

Her vision is unfocused, everything is spinning. What she had thought were rough leather strips hanging down the man’s cheek now look more like wet feathers or matted hair.

She shuts her eyes as dizziness clutches at her, then hears voices above the loud wail of the alarm.

‘Wait, wait,’ Wille pleads, breathing fast. ‘You think you know what’s going on, but you don’t.’

‘I know that Ratjen opened the door and now …’

‘Who’s Ratjen?’ Wille gasps.

‘And now hell is going to devour you all,’ the masked man concludes.

They stop talking and Sofia opens her eyes again. A peculiar slow motion seems to have taken hold of the house. The masked man looks at his watch, then whispers something to Wille.

He doesn’t answer, but looks like he understands. Blood is welling from his stomach, pouring down to his crotch. It forms a puddle on the floor.

Sofia sees that his glasses are lying beside her on the floor, next to the object she initially thought was a bracelet.

Now she realises that it’s a personal alarm.

A small steel gadget with two buttons, attached to a watch-strap.

The masked man is standing perfectly still, looking at his victim.

Sofia carefully moves her hand sideways towards the alarm, tucks it against her body and presses the buttons several times.

Nothing happens.

The man lets go of Wille’s hair but continues to press the barrel of the pistol to his right eye. He waits a few seconds, then squeezes the trigger.

There’s a loud click as the bolt hits home. Wille’s head is thrown back and blood cascades from his skull. Fragments of bone and grey matter spray across the kitchen floor, all the way to the dining room.

Sofia feels warm drops spatter her lips as she sees the empty cartridge fall and bounce across the floor.

A cloud of grey powder hangs in the air, and the dead body falls like a sack of wet clothes to the floor and lies there motionless.

The masked man bends over to pick up the shell and his watch slips down towards the back of his hand.

He stands with his legs on either side of the dead body, leans forward and presses the barrel of the pistol to the corpse’s other eye. Then he flicks his head to shake what looks like matted hair away from his face before squeezing the trigger again.

6

Her work phone’s ringtone becomes part of a dream about a stream running through dense vegetation. A moment later Saga Bauer is wrenched from sleep and gets out of bed so fast that she drags the covers onto the floor.

She hurries over to the gun-cabinet in her underwear as she dials the number she knows by heart. The glow of the streetlights filters through the slats of the blind, illuminating her sinuous legs and naked back.

She quickly unlocks the heavy steel door and listens to the instructions on the phone as she pulls out a black bag, and tucks a holstered Glock 21, along with five spare magazines, into it.

Saga Bauer works as an operative with the Security Police, specialising in counter-terrorism.

The ringtone that woke her means that a Code Platinum has been declared.

She runs to the hall as she listens to the final instructions, then drops the phone in her bag.

There’s no time to lose.

She pulls her black leather bodysuit over her naked body, feeling the cool fabric against her back and breasts, then pushes her bare feet into her boots and grabs her helmet, heavy bulletproof vest and gloves from the rack.

Without wasting time locking the door she leaves her flat, tugging her zipper up to her chin. She pulls her helmet on, tucking in a few stray strands of blonde hair.

There’s a filthy Triumph motorcycle out on Tavast Street. It has a shoddy muffler, frame sliders that have been repaired a number of times, and a broken transmission. She runs over to it, and lets the lock fall to the tarmac with its heavy chain.

She straddles the motorcycle, kicks the engine into gear and sets off as fast as she can.

Ignoring traffic lights and stop signs, she accelerates to pass a taxi.

The engine vibrates against the inside of her knees and thighs, and the noise in her helmet sounds like a creature bellowing underwater.

Officer Saga Bauer is five foot six, with muscles like a ballet dancer. She was once one of the best boxers in northern Europe, but stopped fighting competitively a couple of years ago.

She’s twenty-nine years old, and still breathtakingly beautiful with her pale skin, slender neck and clear blue eyes.

She doesn’t think about her appearance much, and never notices that people tend to smile and blush in her presence.

A plastic bag swirls into the air in front of the motorcycle and she is dragged from her thoughts.

When she reaches Söder Mälarstrand she turns sharply left. The pedal scrapes the road but she manages to hold the line as she passes beneath the Central Bridge and up the access ramp.

This is the first time she’s been involved with a Code Platinum. It’s the alert reserved for the highest threats to national security.

She feels like she’s flying as she passes the spires and narrow alleyways of Gamla stan and Riddarholmen.

Saga has trained for scenarios like this. She is expected to act independently and not be swayed by anything, even the law.

She can see the gloomy brick buildings of Karolinska Hospital ahead, and pulls onto the E4, pushing the three-cylinder, 900cc engine to its limits and hitting two hundred and twenty kilometres an hour. She passes Roslagstull and turns left towards the university.