Part 62 (2/2)

'OK,' Rocky says with a shrug.

'The problem is that the prosecutor is refusing to let you out,' Joona says slowly.

'Erik can always come and hypnotise me here.'

'That isn't possible, because the police think Erik carried out the murders.'

'Erik?'

'But he's as innocent as you were.'

'Vanitas vanitatum,' Rocky says with a broad smile.

'Erik found Olivia, who ...'

'I know, I know, I go down on my knees and thank him every evening ... But what do you expect me to do about it?'

'We're leaving together, you and me,' Joona replies calmly. 'I'll take one of the guards hostage and all you have to do is come along with me.'

'Hostage?'

'We'll be out in seven minutes, long before the police get here.'

Rocky looks at Joona, then at Arne sitting behind the gla.s.s.

'I'll do it if I can have my wraps back,' Rocky says, leaning back and stretching his legs.

'What sort of heroin was it?' Joona asks.

'White, from Nimroz ... but Kandahar would do fine.'

'I'll sort it,' Joona says, taking a flattened roll of duct tape from his pocket.

With his eyes half-closed, Rocky watches the former police officer wrap the heavy-duty tape round his hands.

'I'm sure you know what you're doing,' Rocky says.

'Bring the bag of sandwiches,' Joona says, pressing the b.u.t.ton on the intercom to indicate that the meeting is over.

A few moments later Arne opens the door and lets Joona out into the corridor. The idea is for him to lead Joona out of the prison, then take Rocky back to his cell.

While the prison officer locks Rocky inside the interview room, Joona goes over to the other door where the bottom of the skirting board has come loose. He leans down. Slips his fingers into the gap and pulls upwards. The screws spring free from the concrete wall along with their brown plastic rawlplugs.

'You can't do that!' Arne exclaims.

Crumbs of cement rain down on the floor as Joona yanks up the skirting board. The top screws are stuck and Joona jerks hard, twisting the metal until there's a bang as the last screws come loose.

'Are you listening?' Arne says, drawing his baton. 'I'm talking to you.'

Joona takes no notice of him. He holds the skirting board out in front of him, stamps down hard with his foot, bends down and turns it, then stamps again.

'What the h.e.l.l are you doing?' Arne asks with a nervous smile, coming closer.

'I'm sorry,' Joona says simply.

He knows what sort of training Arne Melander has received, and that he's going to approach with his left hand outstretched, trying to hold him off while he attempts to strike Joona on the thighs and upper arms with sweeping movements of the baton.

Joona moves towards him with long strides, knocks his arm away and then lands his elbow in the heavy man's chest, making him stagger back. His knees give way but he puts out a hand to support himself and manages to sit down on the floor.

Joona stumbles forward from the momentum of the blow, but stays on his feet and s.n.a.t.c.hes the prison officer's alarm from him before he has time to react. He cuts his lower arm as he puts the bent part of the skirting board around Arne's neck, then pulls the handcuffs from his belt and attaches one cuff to the point where the ends of the skirting board intersect.

'Stand up and let Rocky out,' he says.

Arne coughs and turns round heavily, crawls to the wall and leans against it as he gets to his feet.

'Unlock the door.'

Arne's hands are free, but Joona is steering him from behind with the protruding ends of the skirting board. His neck is trapped in the noose-like bend, the sharp edges of the metal pressing against his neck.

'Don't do this,' Arne pants.

Sweat is running down his face and his hands are shaking as he unlocks the door of the interview room. Rocky comes out, picks up the baton and presses it on the floor to make it contract again.

'Arne, if you help us we'll be out in four minutes and then I'll let you go,' Joona says.

The prison officer limps ahead of Joona, and keeps trying to slip his fingers under the metal noose.

'Use your pa.s.scard and type in the code,' Joona says, steering him towards the lift.

As they travel down through the building Arne holds one hand against the mirror and keeps looking up at the camera in the hope that someone will see him.

The metal has already cut through one layer of the duct-tape around Joona's hands.

When they emerge into the lobby it takes just a matter of seconds before the rest of the prison staff realise what's going on. Like a pressure wave, the atmosphere goes from relaxed to intense. Some sort of silent alarm has evidently been activated, a light is flas.h.i.+ng beneath one desk, and prison officers who had been sitting talking moments before hurry to their feet. Chairs sc.r.a.pe the floor, papers fall to the ground.

'Let us through!' Joona calls, steering Arne towards the exit.

Seven guards are approaching anxiously from the corridor, they're clearly having trouble reading the situation, and Joona tells Rocky to watch his back.

<script>