Читать книгу The Sandman онлайн

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They approached the windowless gable-end of the building, walking quietly along the strip of grass, past a wallpaper shop on the ground floor.

The glow from the nearest streetlamp reached out across the smooth snow to the open space behind the houses. They stopped at the corner, hunched over, trying to check the trees as they got denser towards the Royal Tennis Club and Lill-Jan’s Forest.

At first Joona couldn’t see anything in the darkness between the crooked old trees.

He was about to give Samuel the signal to proceed when he saw the figure.

There was a man standing among the trees. He was as still as the snow-covered branches.

Joona’s heart began to beat faster.

The slim man was staring like a ghost up at the window where Roseanna Kohler was sleeping.

The man showed no sign of urgency, had no obvious purpose.

Joona was filled with an icy conviction that the man in the garden was the serial killer whose existence they had speculated about.

The shadowy figure was thin and crumpled.

He was just standing there, as if the sight of the house gave him a sense of calm satisfaction, as if he already had his victim in a trap.