Stalker by Lars Kepler Page A

sits up and sees that she is now in Boden. She has been asleep for almost ten hours, and needs to change trains for the last part of the journey to Nattavaara.
    She stretches, puts her boots on, tucks her gun in its holster, picks up her jacket and gets off the train. She buys a large cup of coffee at the station, then returns to the platform. She watches a group of young men in military fatigues and green berets getting on to a train heading in the other direction.
    Someone has smeared chewing tobacco on the glass of the station clock.
    A black locomotive with red undercarriage approaches with a squeal of brakes. Rubbish blows across the sleepers. The train stops and wheezes slowly at the deserted platform. Saga is the only person who gets on the train to Gällivare, and she has the carriage to herself.
    The journey to Nattavaara is supposed to take less than an hour. Saga drinks her coffee, goes to the toilet, washes her face, then sits in her seat and watches the landscape go past, vast stretches of forest with the occasional red cottage.
    Her plan is to go to the village shop or parish hall and ask about people who have moved in recently – there can hardly be that many.
    It’s almost eleven o’clock in the morning when Saga Bauer steps on to the platform. The station is little more than a shack with a sign on its roof. In the weeds in front of the shack is a bench with peeling paint and rusting armrests.
    Saga starts to walk along the road through the dark green, whispering forest. There’s no sign of anyone, but occasionally she hears dogs barking.
    The road surface is uneven and cracked from frost.
    She carries on, over a bridge that stretches across the valley of the Pikku Venetjoki, then she hears the sound of an engine behind her. An old Volkswagen pickup is heading towards her, and she waves her arms to stop it.
    A suntanned man in his seventies, wearing a grey sweater, winds down his window and nods in greeting. Beside him sits a woman the same age, in a padded green jerkin and pink-framed glasses.
    ‘Hello,’ Saga says. ‘Do you live in Nattavaara?’
    ‘We’re just passing through,’ he replies.
    ‘We’re from Sarvisvaara … another metropolis,’ the woman says.
    ‘Do you know where the grocery store is?’
    ‘It closed last year,’ the old man says, picking at the wheel. ‘But we’ve got a new shop now.’
    ‘That’s good,’ Saga smiles.
    ‘It’s not a shop,’ the old woman says.
    ‘I call it a shop,’ he mutters.
    ‘But that’s wrong,’ she says. ‘It’s a service point.’
    ‘Then I’d better stop doing my shopping there,’ he sighs.
    ‘Where’s the service point?’ Saga asks.
    ‘In the same building as the old shop,’ the woman replies with a wink. ‘Jump up on the back.’
    ‘She’s hardly a high-jumper,’ the man retorts.
    Saga climbs up on to the wheel, grabs hold of the edge of the pickup and swings herself over, then sits down with her back tothe cab.
    During the drive she hears the old couple carry on arguing, to the point where the pickup almost drives into the ditch. The bumper thuds and grit flies up under the vehicle, which is surrounded by a cloud of dust.
    They drive into the village and stop in front of a large, red building with a sign for ice creams outside, along with symbols showing that the shop acts as an agent for the Post Office, the National Lottery, as well as a pickup point for prescriptions and supplies from the state-owned alcohol monopoly.
    Saga clambers down, thanks the pair for the lift, and goes up the steps. A little bell on the door rings as she walks in.
    She finds a bag of dill-flavoured crisps, then goes over to the young man at the counter.
    ‘I’m looking for a friend who moved here just over a year ago,’ she says without further elaboration.
    ‘Here?’ he asks, then looks at her for a while before lowering his eyes.
    ‘A tall man … with his wife and daughter.’
    ‘Ah,’ he says, blushing.
    ‘Do they still live