Lars Kepler - The Hypnotist

“The police? It was the police who let that lunatic get away,” she says angrily. “They’re not going to do anything to find Benjamin.”

“Josef is a serial killer. The police want to find him, and they will. But I’m not stupid. I know Benjamin isn’t important, they don’t care about him, not really, not like us, not like- ”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Joona Linna explained- ”

“But it’s his fault! He’s the one who got you to carry out the hypnosis.”

Erik shakes his head, then swallows hard. “It was my decision.”

“My father will do everything he can,” she says quietly.

“I understand that you’re angry with me. But right now we need to put that aside. I want us to go through every little detail together. We need to think carefully, and we need to be calm.”

“What the fuck can you and I do?” she cries.

Silence. Erik hears someone switch on the television in the room next door. “We need to think,” he says cautiously. “I’m not sure it was Josef Ek who actually- ”

“You’re not right in the head,” Simone snaps. She tries to get out of bed but hasn’t the strength.

“Can I just say one thing?”

“I’m going to get myself a gun, and I’m going to find him,” she says.

“The front door was open two nights in a row, but- ”

“That’s what I said!” she screams. “I said that someone was in the apartment, but you didn’t believe me, you never do! If only you had believed me then- ”

Erik cuts her off. “Listen to me,” he says. “The front door may have been open two nights in a row, but Josef Ek was in his hospital bed the first night, so he can’t have been in our apartment then.”

Simone is not listening; she is still trying to get up. Groaning angrily, she manages to make it as far as the narrow closet containing her clothes. Erik stands there without helping her, watches her tremble as she gets dressed, hears her swear quietly to herself.

It is evening by the time Erik finally manages to get Simone discharged from the hospital. When they return home, the apartment is a complete mess. Bedclothes lie in the hallway, the lights are on, the bathroom tap is running, shoes are heaped on the hall rug, and the telephone has been thrown on the parquet floor, its batteries beside it.

Erik and Simone look around with the horrible feeling that something in their home is lost to them forever. These objects have become alien, meaningless.

Simone picks up an overturned chair, sits down, and begins to pull off her boots. Erik turns off the bathroom tap, goes into Benjamin’s room, and looks at the red-painted surface of the desk. Textbooks lie next to the computer, covered in grey paper to protect them. On the bulletin board is a photograph of Erik from his time in Uganda, smiling and sunburned, his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. Erik brushes his hand over Benjamin’s jeans, hanging on the back of a chair with his black sweater.

In the living room he finds Simone standing with the telephone in her hand. She pushes the batteries back in and begins to dial a number.

“Who are you calling?”

“Dad,” she replies.

“Can you please leave it for now?”

She allows him to take the telephone from her. “What is it you want to say?” she asks wearily.

“I can’t cope with seeing Kennet, not now.” He places the telephone on the table, and runs his hands over his face before he begins again. “Can’t you respect the fact that I don’t want to leave everything I have in your father’s hands?”

“Can’t you respect the fact that- ”

“Stop it.”

She glares angrily at him.

“Sixan, I’m finding it difficult to think clearly right now. Please let’s not play the game where we match each other, grievance for grievance. I don’t have the energy. I only want to say that I can’t cope with having your father around.”

“Are you finished?” she says, holding out her hand for the phone.

“This is about our child,” he says.

She nods.

“Can’t it be that way? Can’t it be about him?” he goes on. “I want you and me to look for Benjamin- along with the police- the way it should be.”

“I need my father,” she says.

“I need you.”

“I don’t really believe that,” she replies.

“Why not?”

“Because you just want to tell me what to do,” she says.

Erik stops pacing the room and carefully composes his features into a reasonable expression. “Sixan, your father’s retired. There’s nothing he can do.”

“He has contacts,” she says.

“He thinks he has contacts, he thinks he’s still a detective, but he’s only an ordinary pensioner.”

“You don’t know anything about it.”

“Benjamin isn’t some kind of hobby for old men with too much time on their hands.”

“That’s it. I’m not interested in what you have to say.” She looks at the phone.

“I can’t stay here if he’s coming. You just want him to tell you I’ve done the wrong thing again, like he did when we found out about Benjamin’s illness; it’s all Erik’s fault, always Erik. I know that lets you off the hook- it’s always been very comfortable whenever you’ve needed someone to blame in a crisis- but for me it’s- ”

“Bullshit.”

“If he comes here, I’m leaving.”

“That’s your choice,” she says quietly.

His shoulders droop.

She is half turned away from him as she punches in the number.

“Don’t do this,” Erik begs. It’s impossible for him to be here when Kennet arrives. He looks around. There’s nothing he wants to take with him. He hears the phone ringing at the other end of the line and sees the shadow of Simone’s eyelashes trembling on her cheeks.

“Fuck you,” he says, and goes out into the hallway.

He hears Simone talking to her father. With her voice full of tears she begs him to come as quickly as he can. Erik takes his jacket from the hanger, leaves the apartment, closes the door, and locks it behind him. Halfway down the stairs, he stops. Maybe he ought to go back and say something. It isn’t fair. This is his home, his son, his life.

“Fuck it,” he says quietly, and continues down to the door and out into the dark street.

Simone stands at the window, perceiving her face as a transparent shadow in the evening darkness. When she sees her father’s old Nissan Primera double-parked outside the door, she has to force back the tears. She is already standing in the hallway when he knocks on the door; she opens it with the security chain on, closes it again, unhooks the chain, and tries to smile.

“Dad,” she says, as the tears begin to flow.

Kennet puts his arms around her, and when she smells the familiar aroma of leather and tobacco from his jacket she is transported back to her childhood for a few seconds.

“I’m here now, darling,” says Kennet. He sits down on the chair in the hallway and perches Simone on his knee. “Isn’t Erik home?”

“We’ve separated.”

“Oh, my,” says Kennet.

He fishes out a handkerchief, and she slides off his knee and blows her nose several times. Then he hangs up his jacket, noticing that Benjamin’s outdoor clothes are untouched, his shoes are in the shoe rack, and his backpack is leaning against the wall by the front door.

He puts his arm around his daughter’s shoulders, wipes the tears from beneath her eyes with his thumb, and leads her into the kitchen. He sits her down on a chair, gets out a filter and the tin of coffee, and switches on the machine.