Lars Kepler - The Hypnotist

“The police. I’ve got a contact who- ”

“I’ll talk to Dad- it’ll be quicker.”

Erik briefly considers protesting but thinks better of it. She takes the phone and he sits on the low hall seat in the darkness, feeling his face growing hot in the warmth.

“Were you asleep?” Simone asks. “Dad, I have to… Erik’s here; he’s spoken to Benjamin; you have to trace the call… I don’t know… No, I haven’t… You’d better speak to him.”

Erik takes the phone and holds it to his ear. “Hi.”

“Tell me what happened, Erik,” says Kennet.

“I wanted to call the police, but Simone said you could trace the call more quickly.”

“She could well be right.”

“Benjamin called me half an hour ago. He had no idea where he was or who had taken him; all he really knew was that he was lying in the boot of a car. While we were talking the car stopped, Benjamin said he could hear someone coming, he started shouting, and then everything went quiet.”

Erik can hear the sound of suppressed sobs from Simone.

“Did he call from his own phone?” asks Kennet.

“Yes.”

“Because it’s been switched off. I tried to trace it the day before yesterday; mobile phones send signals to the nearest base station even when they’re not being used.”

Erik listens in silence as Kennet quickly explains that mobile phone operators are obliged to assist the police in accordance with paragraphs 25 to 27 of the law governing telecommunications, if the minimum punishment for the crime under investigation is at least two years’ imprisonment.

“What can they find out?” asks Erik.

“The precision varies- it depends on the station and the exchanges- but with a bit of luck we’ll soon have a location within a radius of a hundred yards.”

“Hurry up, please hurry.”

Erik ends the call, stands with the phone in his hand, and then passes it to Simone. “What happened to your cheek?” he asks.

“What? Oh, it’s nothing.” They look at each other, tired and fragile. “Do you want to come in, Erik?”

He nods, remains where he is for a moment, then kicks off his shoes and moves along the passageway; he sees that the computer is on in Benjamin’s room and goes in. “Found anything?”

Simone stops in the doorway. “Some messages between Benjamin and Aida,” she says. “It seems as if they felt threatened.”

“By whom?”

“We don’t know. Dad’s working on it.”

Erik sits down at the computer. “Benjamin’s alive,” he says quietly, giving her a long look.

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t look as if Josef Ek was involved.”

“You said that in your message; you said he doesn’t know where we live. But he did call here, didn’t he, so he could have- ”

“That’s a different matter.”

“Is it?”

“The switchboard put the call through,” he explains. “I’ve asked them to do that if something sounds important. He hasn’t got our telephone number or our address.”

“But someone’s taken Benjamin and put him in a car.” She falls silent.

Erik reads the message from Aida in which she says she feels sorry for him, living in a house of lies. Then he opens the picture she attached: a colour photo taken with a flash at night, showing an overgrown patch of grass, bleached yellow in the harsh xenon light of the flash, curving outward toward a low hedge. Behind the dry hedge it is just possible to make out a brown wooden fence. At the edge of the grass, there is a green plastic leaf basket and something that might be a potato patch.

Erik looks closely at the picture, trying to understand what the subject is, whether there might be a hedgehog or a shrew somewhere that he hasn’t spotted yet. He tries to peer into the darkness beyond the camera flash to see if there is a person there, a face, but he finds nothing.

“What a strange photo,” whispers Simone.

“Maybe Aida attached the wrong picture,” says Erik.

“That would explain why Benjamin deleted the message.”

“We need to talk to Aida about this as well.”

Simone suddenly whimpers. “Benjamin’s medication.”

“I know.”

“Did you give him the factor concentrate last Tuesday?”

Before he has time to reply, she leaves the room and heads for the kitchen. He follows her. By the time he gets there she is standing by the window, blowing her nose on a piece of paper towel. Erik reaches out to her, but she pulls away. Without the injection, the drug that helps Benjamin’s blood to coagulate and protects him from spontaneous bleeds, he can haemorrhage to death from something as simple as a rapid movement.

“I gave the injection to him last Tuesday morning, at twenty past eight. He was going to go skating, but he went to Tensta with Aida instead.”

She nods and calculates. “It’s Sunday today. He ought to have another injection soon,” she whispers.

“There’s no real danger for a few more days,” Erik says reassuringly.

He looks at her: tired face, lovely features, freckles. The low-cut jeans, her yellow briefs just visible at the waistband. He’d like to stay here; he would like them to sleep together; actually, he would like to make love to her, but he knows it’s too soon for all that, too soon even to start wanting her.

“I’d better go,” he mumbles. She nods. They look at each other. “Call me when Kennet’s traced the call.”

“Where are you going?” she asks.

“I have to work.”

“Are you sleeping in your office?”

“It’s a practical solution.”

“You can sleep here,” she says.

He’s surprised; suddenly he doesn’t know what to say. But the brief moment of silence is enough for her to misinterpret his reaction as hesitation.

“That wasn’t meant as an invitation,” she says quickly. “Don’t go getting any ideas.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Have you moved in with Daniella?”

“No.”

“We’ve already separated,” she says, raising her voice, “so you don’t need to lie to me.”

“OK.”

“What? OK what?”

“I’ve moved in with Daniella,” he lies.

“Good,” she whispers.

“Yes.”

“I’m not going to ask if she’s young and pretty and- ”

“She is.”

Erik puts on his shoes in the hallway, leaves the apartment, and closes the door. He waits until he hears her lock up and slide the security chain in place before he sets off down the stairs.

Simone is awakened by the ringing of the telephone. The curtains are open and the bedroom is filled with wintry sunlight. Could it be Erik? She wants to cry when she realizes he isn’t going to call. He’ll be waking up next to Daniella this morning. She is completely alone now.

She picks up the phone from the bedside table. “Simone? It’s Yiva. I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days.”

Yiva sounds stressed out. Simone glances at the clock. It’s already ten. “I’ve had other things on my mind,” she says tersely.

“They haven’t found him?”

“No.”

Silence. A few shadows drift past outside the window. Simone can see flakes of paint falling from the metal roof opposite; men in bright yellow overalls are scraping it.

“Sorry,” Yiva says. “I won’t disturb you.”

“What’s happened?”

“The auditor is coming tomorrow.”

Simone stands up and glances at the tinted mirror on the wardrobe. She looks thin and tired. It feels as if her face has been smashed into tiny pieces and then put back together again.

“What about Sim Shulman?” she asks. “How’s his exhibition coming along?”

Yiva sounds excited. “He says he needs to speak to you.”