Lars Kepler - The Hypnotist

There is the Chairman of the Swedish Society for Clinical Hypnosis sitting in a TV studio. Erik knows him very well; he has seen many colleagues affected by his arrogance and his ruthless ambition.

“We expelled Bark ten years ago and we won’t be welcoming him back,” the chairman says, with a tight smile.

“Does an incident like this affect the reputation of serious hypnosis?”

“All our members adhere to strict ethical rules,” he says superciliously. “Moreover, Sweden has laws against charlatans.”

Erik finally takes his outdoor clothes off with clumsy movements, piling them on the sofa beside him. He closes his eyes for a moment to rest but opens them immediately when he hears a familiar voice coming from the television. Benjamin is standing in a sunlit school playground. His brow is furrowed, the tip of his nose and his ears are red, his shoulders are hunched, and he looks very cold.

“So,” asks the reporter. “What’s it like living with the hypnodoc?”

“I don’t know,” says Benjamin.

“Has your dad ever hypnotized you?”

“What? No way.”

“How do you know?” the reporter persists. “If he had hypnotized you, there’s no guarantee that you’d be aware of it, is there?”

“I guess not,” replies Benjamin with a grin, surprised by the reporter’s pushy approach.

“How would you feel if it turned out he had hypnotized you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Pretty mad, I bet,” suggests the reporter.

“Yeah,” agrees Benjamin. His cheeks are flushed.

Erik turns off the television and goes into the bedroom, where he takes off his trousers and sits on the bed, placing the wooden box with the parrot on it in the drawer of the bedside table. He doesn’t want to think about the longing that was aroused in him when he hypnotized Josef Ek and followed him down into that deep blue sea. He lies down, reaches out for the glass of water by the bed, but falls asleep before he has time to drink.

Still half asleep, Erik thinks dreamily about his father when he used to appear at children’s parties, wearing his specially prepared suit, the sweat pouring down his cheeks. He would twist balloons into the shapes of animals and pull brightly coloured feather flowers out of a hollow walking cane. When he had moved from the house in Sollentuna to a nursing home, he would talk of putting an act together with Erik. He would be the gentleman thief and Erik would be the stage hypnotist, making people sing like Elvis and Zarah Leander.

Suddenly Erik is wide awake. He sees Benjamin in his mind’s eye, shivering under the scrutiny of the TV camera and the reporter, there in the school playground in front of his classmates and teachers. He sits up, feeling the searing pain in his stomach, reaches for the telephone, and calls Simone.

“Simone Bark’s gallery,” she replies.

“Hi, it’s me.”

“Just a minute.”

He hears her walk across the wooden floor and close the office door behind her.

“What the hell’s going on?” she asks. “Benjamin called and- ”

“The media circus is in full swing.”

“The media circus ? What are we, rock stars? Erik, what have you done? Why are reporters grilling our kid on television?”

“I haven’t done anything. I was asked to hypnotize the patient by the doctor who was responsible for his care.”

“I know that part. The whole world knows; it’s all over the news. You hypnotized some poor victimized kid and coerced a confession- ”

“Can you listen to me for a second?” he broke in. “Can you do that?”

“All right. Talk.”

“It wasn’t an interrogation,” Erik begins. “It doesn’t matter what you call it.” She falls silent. He can hear her breathing. “Sorry,” she says quietly. “Please finish.”

“It wasn’t an interrogation. We thought he was a victim. And the police needed a description, anything they could go on, because they thought a girl’s life depended on it.”

“But- ”

“The doctor who was responsible for the patient at the time judged that the risk was low. I wouldn’t’ve done it otherwise.” He pauses. “We were just trying to save his sister.” He stops speaking and listens to Simone breathing.

“What have you done?” she says shakily. “You… you promised me you wouldn’t practise hypnosis any more.”

“It’ll sort itself out. No harm done, Simone.”

“No harm done?” she snaps. “You broke your promise, but you don’t think any harm has been done? Erik, all you do is lie and lie and lie.”

Simone stops herself, and falls silent.

Erik stands rock-still for a moment, hangs up the phone, then turns and enters the kitchen, where he mixes a soluble analgesic with antacid and swills the sweet liquid down.

Joona looks out into the dark, empty corridor. It’s evening, almost eight o’clock, and he’s the only one left in the whole department. Advent star lamps shine from every window, and the electric Christmas candles create a soft, round, double glow, reflected in the black glass. Anja has placed a bowl of Christmas sweets on his desk, and he eats more than his fill as he writes up his notes on the interview with Evelyn.

On the basis of her having lied about Josef visiting the cottage, the prosecutor made the decision to arrest her. Joona knows perfectly well that Evelyn’s lie does not mean she is guilty of any crime, but it gives him three days to investigate what she is hiding and why.

He writes up the report, addresses it to the prosecutor, places it in the outgoing mail, checks that his pistol is safely locked away, and leaves the police headquarters in his car.

When he reaches Fridhemsplan, Joona hears his cell phone ringing, but it’s slipped through a hole in the lining of his pocket and he has to pull over in front of the Hare Krishna restaurant to shake it loose.

“Joona Linna.”

“Oh, good,” says police officer Ronny Alfredsson. “We have a problem. We don’t really know what to do.”

“Did you speak to Evelyn’s boyfriend?”

“Sorab Ramadani. That’s the problem.”

“Did you check where he works?”

“It’s not that,” says Ronny. “We located him easy. He’s right here in his apartment, but he won’t open the door. He doesn’t want to talk to us. He keeps shouting at us to clear off, that we’re disturbing the neighbours, and we’re harassing him because he’s a Muslim.”

“What have you said to him?”

“Fuck all, just that we needed his help on a particular matter. We did exactly what you told us to do.”

“Good,” says Joona. “Is it all right if we force the door?”

“Just leave him alone for the time being. I’ll come over.”

“Should we wait?”

“Yes, please. Outside in the car.”

Joona signals, swings the car around in a U-turn, and makes his way onto Västerbron. All the windows and lights of the city are shining in the night, the sky a grey, misty dome up above.

He thinks once again about the crime scene investigation. There’s something odd about the pattern that is emerging. Certain elements are simply irreconcilable. While waiting for a light to change, Joona opens the folder on the passenger seat and flips through the photographs from the soccer field. Three showers, with no partitions between them. The reflection of the flash from the camera shines on the white tiles; in one picture he can see the shower scraper and the large pool of blood, water, and dirt, strands of hair, plasters, and a bottle of shower gel.

Next to the drain in the floor is the father’s arm; the white ball joint is surrounded by ligaments and severed muscle tissue. The hunting knife with its broken point lies on the floor.