The Hypnotist (45 page)

Erik runs downstairs to the hospital lobby, pushes through a group of teenagers bearing flowers and Mylar balloons, dashes across the dirty floor past an old man in a wheelchair, and out through the main exit. Dodging traffic, he runs across the street and vaults the low shrubbery planted along the perimeter of the visitors’ car park. The keys are already in his hand as he races along the line of grubby vehicles toward s his car. He starts the engine and reverses out so violently that the side of his car scrapes the bumper of the car next to him.

His breathing is still uneven as he turns west. He drives as fast as he can, but as he approaches Edsberg School, a line of children appears, crossing the street. While he waits he takes out his mobile and calls Joona.

“It’s Lydia Everson,” he almost screams.

“Who?”

“Lydia has taken Benjamin!” he continues. “I told you about her. She’s the one who made the complaint against me.”

“We’ll check her out,” says Joona.

“I’m on my way.”

“Give me an address.”

“It’s a house on Tennisvägen in Rotebro. I can’t remember the number, but it’s a red house, quite big.”

“Wait for me somewhere in— ”

“I’m going straight there.”

“Don’t rush in.”

“Benjamin will die if he doesn’t get his medication.”

“Wait for me.”

Erik ends the call, speeding up as he follows the railway line beside the long narrow lake. Recklessly, he overtakes another car by the yeast factory, passing on the right with inches to spare. As he turns off by the Co-op Forum supermarket, he feels his pulse pounding in his temples.

Not much has changed here. The pizzeria has been replaced by a sushi bar, and all the back gardens sport trampolines (they’re all the rage). He parks next to the same fir hedge as ten years ago, when he and the social worker were about to visit Lydia.

As he looks at the house from inside the car, he can almost feel his presence there ten years earlier. He remembers there were no signs of a child, no toys in the garden, nothing to indicate that Lydia was a mother. On the other hand, they hadn’t really looked around the house. They had only gone down the steps to the cellar and back up again, and then Lydia had rushed after him with the knife in her hand. He remembers how she looked when she drew the blade across her throat without taking her eyes off him.

Leaving the key in the ignition, he abandons the car without even closing the door behind him and rushes up the slope. He opens the gate and goes into the garden. Patches of damp snow lie amid the tall yellow grass. Icicles sparkle beneath the broken guttering. The same hanging baskets full of dead plants swing by the door.

He tries the door, but it is locked. He looks under the doormat; a few wood-lice scuttle away from the wet rectangle on the concrete steps. No key. He gropes under the wooden hand-rail: no key there, either. He walks around to the back of the house, picks up an edging stone from the flower bed, and hurls it at the patio door. The outer pane shatters, and the stone thuds back onto the grass. He picks it up and throws it again, harder this time, knocking out the entire window. He unlocks the door and walks into a bedroom where the walls are covered with pictures of angels and the Indian guru Sai Baba.

“Benjamin,” he yells. “Benjamin!”

Erik calls to his son in spite of the fact that he can see the place is deserted; everything is dark and still in the house, with a closed-in smell of dust and old fabric. He moves quickly into the hall, opens the door leading down to the cellar, and is met by a powerful stench, a heavy smell of ash, charred wood, and burnt rubber. He races down the steps, trips, bangs into the wall with his shoulder, and regains his balance. The lights are not working, but enough sunlight comes from a high window to see that there’s been a fire down here. Cinders crunch beneath his feet. Much of the room is black with soot, but some items of furniture appear to be intact. The table with its tiled surface is just slightly sooty, while the scented candles on the tray have melted, blending into a multicoloured pool of solid wax. Erik finds his way to the door leading into the other room. It hangs loosely from its hinges, and the inside of the door is completely blackened.

“Benjamin,” he says, his voice full of fear.

Ash whirls up in his face and he blinks, his eyes smarting. In the middle of the floor are the remains of what looks like a cage, big enough to hold a person.

“Erik,” a voice calls from upstairs.

He stops and listens. The walls creak. Burnt fragments of ceiling tiles drop to the floor. He moves slowly toward the stairs. In the distance he can hear a dog barking.

“Erik!”

It’s Joona’s voice. He’s inside the house. Erik goes up the stairs. Joona looks at him, his expression anxious.

“What happened?”

“There’s been a fire in the cellar,” Erik replies.

“Nothing else?”

Erik gestures vaguely toward the stairs. “The remains of a cage.”

“I brought a dog with me.”

Joona moves quickly along the hall and opens the front door. He waves in the uniformed dog handler, a woman whose dark hair is braided thickly. The black Labrador, its coat groomed to a glossy sheen, walks obediently to heel. The handler nods to Erik, then crouches down in front of the dog and talks to him. The animal moves eagerly through the house, sniffing constantly, breathing quickly, seeking all the time. The dog’s stomach moves as he pants, systematically searching each room. Erik suddenly feels as if he’s going to throw up and leaves the house. Two police officers are chatting beside a police minibus. He goes through the gate, heads towards his car, then stops and takes out the little box with the parrot and the native. He stands there with it in his hands; then he goes over to a sewer grate and tips the contents down between the bars. His forehead covered in a cold sweat, he moistens his lips as if he is about to say something after a long silence, but then he drops the box too and hears the splash as it hits the surface of the water.

When he returns to the garden, Joona is standing outside the house. He meets Erik’s gaze, and shakes his head. Erik goes inside. The dog handler is on her knees, patting the Labrador and scratching the loose skin behind his ears.

“Have you been down to the basement?” asks Erik.

“Of course,” she replies, without looking at him.

“Into the inner room?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps all the ash is preventing the dog from picking up the scent.”

“Rocky can find a corpse underwater, at a depth of two hundred feet,” she says.

“And what about the living?”

“If there was anything here, Rocky would have found it.”

“But you haven’t been outside yet,” says Joona, who has followed Erik inside.

“I didn’t know we were supposed to,” says the dog handler.

“Yes,” Joona answers tersely.

She shrugs her shoulders and gets to her feet.

“Come on then,” she says to the Labrador in a deep, thick voice. “Shall we go outside and have a look? Shall we go and have a look?”

Erik goes with them. The black dog moves rapidly back and forth across the overgrown lawn, sniffing around the rain barrel, where an opaque layer of ice has formed on the surface, searching among the old fruit trees. The sky is dark and cloudy. Erik notices that the neighbour has switched on Christmas lights strung in a tree. The air is bitterly cold. Joona remains close to the handler and the dog, pointing in a particular direction from time to time. Erik follows them around the back of the house. Suddenly he recognizes the mound at the far end of the garden. That’s the place in the picture, he thinks. The photograph Aida sent to Benjamin before he disappeared. Erik is breathing heavily. The dog sniffs around the compost, moves over to the mound and sniffs it, pants, trots all the way around it, sniffs among the low bushes and at the back of the brown fence, comes back, trots around a leaf basket, and goes over to a small herb garden. Wooden labels with seed packets attached to them show what has been planted in the various rows. The black Labrador whines uneasily and then lies down in the middle of the little plot. He flattens himself completely on the wet, freshly dug earth. The dog’s body is shaking with excitement, and the handler’s expression is one of deep sadness as she praises him. Joona turns on his heel, runs back, and stands in front of Erik, refusing to let him go over to the plot. Erik has no idea what he screams, what he tries to do, but Joona moves him away from the spot and out of the garden.

“I have to know,” says Erik, his voice trembling.

Joona nods. “The dog has indicated that there’s a human corpse in the ground.”

Erik feels his entire body give way. He sinks down onto the pavement. When he sees the police officers climb out of the bus carrying spades, he closes his eyes.

Erik Maria Bark sits alone in Joona Linna’s car, looking through the windscreen. Black, sprawling branches against a dark winter sky. His mouth is dry, his head aches, and his face and scalp are itchy. He whispers something to himself, gets out of the car, climbs over the police tape cordoning off the area, and walks around the house through the tall, frosty grass. Joona is watching the uniformed officers with the shovels. They work in dogged silence, their movements almost mechanical. The whole of the small plot has been dug up. It is now only a large rectangular hole. Beside it is a plastic sheet on which muddy scraps of clothing and fragments of bone have been placed. The sound of the shovels continues, metal strikes rock, the digging stops, and the officers straighten up. Erik slowly moves closer, his footsteps heavy and reluctant. Joona turns and smiles with the whole of his tired face.

“What is it?” Erik whispers.

Joona comes to meet him, looks Erik straight in the eye, and says, “It isn’t Benjamin.”

“It isn’t?”

“The body has been here for at least ten years.”

Erik thinks for a moment. “Is it a child?”

Joona’s face darkens. “Five years old, perhaps,” he says.

“So Lydia had a son after all,” says Erik with a shudder.

Wet, heavy snow is falling, and a dog scurries back and forth in a rest area next door to police headquarters, barking excitedly at the snow, leaping happily among the flakes, snapping at the air and shaking itself. The sight of the animal makes Erik’s heart contract. He has forgotten what it’s like to simply exist. He’s forgotten what it’s like not to think constantly about a life without Benjamin.

He feels sick and his hands are shaking. He hasn’t taken a single pill for almost twenty-four hours, and he didn’t sleep at all last night.

As he walks towards the main entrance, he thinks about the old decorative woven patterns Simone had once showed him at an exhibition of women’s craft. They had been like images of the sky on days like this: cloudy, dense, grey, and fluffy.

Simone waits in the corridor outside the interview room. When she catches sight of Erik, she comes to meet him and takes his hands. For some reason he is grateful for the gesture. She looks pale and composed.

“You didn’t have to come,” she whispers.

“Kennet said you wanted me here.”

She nods almost imperceptibly. “I’m just so . . .” She pauses and clears her throat. “I’ve been so angry with you,” she says calmly. Her eyes are moist, red-rimmed.

“I know, Simone.”

“At least you’ve got your pills,” she says acidly. She turns away and stares out the window. Erik looks at her slender figure, her arms hugging her upper body. A cold draft leaks through the air vents under the window.

The door of the interview room opens, and a stocky woman in uniform calls to them. “You can come in now.” She smiles gently; her lips are glossy pink. “My name is Anja Larsson,” she says to Erik and Simone. “I’ll be taking your statement.” The woman holds out a well-manicured hand. Her nails are long, painted red with sparkly tips. “I thought it was sort of Christmassy,” she says cheerfully.

“Nice,” Simone says distractedly.

Joona Linna is already sitting in the room. His jacket is on the back of the chair. His blond hair is tousled and looks unwashed. He hasn’t shaved. As they sit down opposite him, he gives Erik a serious, thoughtful look.

Simone clears her throat quietly and takes a sip from her glass of water. When she puts it down, she brushes against Erik’s hand. Their eyes meet, and her lips form a silent
sorry
.

Anja Larsson places the digital tape recorder on the table between them, presses record, checks that the red light is showing, and then briefly states the time and date and lists those present in the room. Then she pauses, tilts her head to one side, and says in a bright, friendly voice, “OK, Simone, we’d like to hear what happened in your apartment the evening before last.”

Simone nods, looks at Erik, and lowers her eyes.

“I . . . I was at home— ” She stops.

“Were you alone?” asks Anja Larsson.

Simone shakes her head. “Sim Shulman was with me,” she says, her tone neutral.

Joona makes a note on his pad.

“Can you tell us how you think Josef and Evelyn Ek got into the apartment?” asks Anja Larsson.

“I don’t really know, because I was in the shower,” Simone says slowly, and for a moment her face flushes bright red. The colour disappears almost immediately but leaves a warm glow on her cheeks.

“I was in the shower and Sim shouted to me that there was someone at the door . . . No, wait, he shouted that my phone was ringing.”

Anja Larsson repeats. “You were in the shower and you heard Sim Shulman shout that your phone was ringing.”

“Yes,” Simone whispers. “I told him to answer it.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“But he did answer it?”

“I think so, I’m almost sure he did.”

“What time was that?” Joona suddenly asks.

Simone jumps as if she hadn’t noticed him up to now. “I don’t know,” she says apologetically, turning to face him.

He doesn’t smile, he simply insists. “Roughly.”

Simone shrugs her shoulders and says hesitantly, “Five.”

“Not four?” asks Joona.

“What do you mean?”

“I just want to know,” he replies.

“But you already know this,” Simone says to Anja.

“Five, then,” says Joona, writing down the time.

“What were you doing before you took a shower?” asks Anja. “It’s easier to remember times if you go through the whole day.”

Simone shakes her head. She looks very tired, almost listless. She isn’t looking at Erik. He is sitting quietly beside her, his heart pounding.

“I didn’t know,” he says suddenly, then stops. She glances at him. He tries again. “I didn’t know you and Shulman were— ”

She nods. “That’s how it was.”

He looks at her, at the woman police officer, and at Joona. “Sorry to interrupt,” he stammers.

Anja turns to Simone again, her tone indulgent. “Let’s go on. Sim Shulman shouted that your phone was ringing.”

“He went into the hall and . . .” Simone pauses, then corrects herself once again. “No, that’s not what happened. I heard Sim say, ‘There’s someone at the door, too,’ or something along those lines. I finished my shower, dried myself, and asked him who it was. But he didn’t answer. I opened the door carefully and saw— ”

“Why carefully?” asks Joona.

“What?”

“Why did you open the door carefully, and not just the way you would normally open it?”

“I don’t know. When he didn’t answer, I felt . . . there was something in the air, it felt threatening . . . I can’t explain it.”

“Had you heard anything?”

“I don’t think so.” Simone stares straight ahead.

Anja encourages her. “Go on.”

“I saw a girl through the gap in the door. There was a girl standing in the hallway, she was looking at me, she seemed scared, and she signalled to me to hide.” Simone frowns. “I went into the hall and there was Sim, lying on the floor . . . There was so much blood, and more coming all the time; his eyelids were trembling, and he was trying to move his hands . . .”

Simone’s voice thickens, and Erik realizes she is trying hard not to cry. He would like to comfort his wife, support her, take her hand or put his arm around her. But he doesn’t know if she would get annoyed or push him away if he tried.

“Shall we take a break?” Anja asks gently.

“I . . . I . . .” Simone breaks off and lifts the glass of water to her lips, her hands shaking violently. She swallows hard and rubs her hand over her eyes. “The front door was locked.” She goes on, her voice steadier now. “The girl said he had the key in the kitchen, so I sneaked into Benjamin’s room and turned on the computer.”

“Why did you do that?” asks Anja.

“I . . . the computer plays a little tune when it starts up. I wanted him to think I was in there. I wanted him to hear the computer and go in so I could get the key.”

“Him? Who are you talking about?”

“Josef.”

“Josef Ek?”

“Yes.”

“How did you know it was him?”

“I didn’t, at the time.”

“I understand,” says Anja. “Go on.”

“I turned on the computer and then hid in the bathroom until I heard them go into Benjamin’s room. Then I snuck into the kitchen and got the key. The girl kept trying to persuade Josef to look in different places, to delay him. I could hear them, but I think I bumped into something in the hall, because suddenly Josef came after me. The girl tried to stop him, she threw her arms around his legs and— ”

She swallows hard.

“I don’t know, he managed to shake her off. And then the girl pretended she’d been cut; she smeared herself with Sim’s blood and lay down and played dead.”

Simone goes quiet for a moment; it sounds as if she is having difficulty breathing.

Anja prompts her again. “Go on, Simone.”

Simone nods. “Josef saw her and went back, and when he bent down she stabbed him in the side with the knife.”

“Did you see who stabbed Sim Shulman?”

“It was Josef.”

“Did you see it happen?”

“No.”

The room is silent.

“Evelyn Ek saved my life,” Simone whispers.

“Is there anything you’d like to add?”

“No.”

“In that case, thank you for your cooperation. This interview is now concluded.” And Anja reaches out a sparkling finger to stop the re cording.

“Wait,” says Joona, holding up a hand. “Who called you?”

Simone looks at him in confusion. It’s as if she had forgotten about him already.

“On your mobile. Who was it who called?”

“I don’t know.” She shakes her head. “I don’t even know where my phone went.”

“No problem,” Joona says calmly. “We’ll find it.”

Anja Larsson waits for a moment, looks at them inquiringly, then switches off the tape recorder.

Without looking at anyone, Simone stands up and walks slowly out of the room. Erik nods briefly at Joona and then follows her.

“Wait,” he says.

She stops and turns around.

“Wait. I just want to . . .”

He pauses, sees her naked, vulnerable face, the pale, sandy freckles, the wide mouth, and the light green eyes. Without a word they hug each other, weary and sad.

“It’s all right,” he says. “It’s all right.”

He kisses her hair, her curly, strawberry-blonde hair.

“I don’t know anything any more,” she whispers.

“I can find out if they have a room where you can rest.”

She slowly pulls away from him and shakes her head. “I’m going to look for my phone,” she says earnestly. “I have to know who was calling when Shulman answered.”

Joona comes out of the interview room with his jacket draped over one shoulder.

“Is Simone’s phone here?” Erik asks.

Joona nods toward s Anja Larsson, who is heading for the lifts farther down the hall.

“Anja should know that,” he replies.

Erik is just about to hurry after her when Joona holds up his hand to stop him. He takes out his own phone and makes a call.

They see Anja stop and answer hers.

“One last thing, my treasure,” says Joona. She turns around with a sullen expression and waits as they walk toward her. “Have you got the list of items we sent to the lab?”

“It’s not finished. You’ll have to go down and check.”

They walk with her to the lift, which creaks as they travel downwards. Anja gets off at the second floor and waves to them as the doors close.

On the ground floor, Joona, Erik, and Simone head quickly down the corridor to the forensic department. The department is almost shockingly bright and antiseptically clean. Most of the staff wear white lab coats. Joona shakes hands with a very fat man who introduces himself as Erixon and takes them to another room, where a number of objects are spread out on a steel-topped table. Erik recognizes them. Two kitchen knives with black stains on them, lying in separate metal bowls. He sees a familiar towel, the hall rug, several pairs of shoes, and Simone’s mobile in a plastic pocket. Joona points at the phone.

“We’d like to take a look at this,” he says. “Have you finished with it?”

The fat man goes over to the list that is pinned up next to the items. He glances at the paper and says hesitantly, “I think so . . . yes, we’ve finished with the outside of it.”

Joona takes the phone out, wipes it on a paper towel, and casually hands it to Simone. She clicks through the list of calls, concentrating hard, mumbles something to herself, places her hand over her mouth, and suppresses a cry when she looks at the display.

“It’s . . . it’s Benjamin,” she stammers. “The last call came from Benjamin.”

They crowd around the phone. Benjamin’s name flashes a couple of times before the battery gives out.

“Did Shulman speak to Benjamin?” Erik asks, raising his voice.

“I don’t know,” she replies feebly.

“But he answered, didn’t he? I just want to clarify that.”

“I was in the shower. I think he answered the phone before he— ”

“Surely you can see whether it was a missed bloody call or not.”

“It wasn’t a missed call,” she interrupts. “But I don’t know if Sim had time to hear or say anything before he opened the door to Josef.”

“I don’t mean to sound angry,” says Erik, struggling to remain calm, “but we have to know if Benjamin said anything.”

Simone turns to Joona. “Aren’t all mobile phone calls stored these days?”

“It could take weeks to get hold of that particular one,” he replies.

Erik places a hand on Simone’s arm. “We have to talk to Shulman.”

“It’s impossible; he’s in a coma,” she says, sounding upset. “I told you he was in a coma.”

“Come with me,” Erik says to Simone, and leaves the room.