Lars Kepler - The Hypnotist

“Do you know what I dreamed, Sixan?” he asks. “No.”

“I dreamed about my father.”

“About Granddad?”

He laughs quietly. “Can you imagine? He was standing in his workshop with a big grin, sweating. My boy. That was all he said. I can still smell the diesel.” Kennet shakes his head cautiously.

Simone swallows. There’s a hard, painful lump in her throat. “Dad,” she whispers. “Do you remember what you were telling me just before the car hit you?”

He looks at her, his expression serious, and suddenly it’s as if a light has come on behind his sharp, intelligent eyes.

“Do you remember, Dad?”

“I remember everything.” He tries to get up, but moves too quickly and falls back onto the bed. “Help me, Simone,” he says impatiently. “We need to hurry, I can’t stay here.”

He runs his hand over his eyes, clears his throat, and extends his arms. “Grab hold of me,” he orders, and this time, with Simone’s help, he manages to sit up in bed and swing his legs over the side. He rests for a moment, breathing heavily.

“I need my clothes.”

Simone quickly pulls his clothes from the wardrobe. She is helping him on with his socks when the door is opened by a young doctor.

“I’m getting out of here,” Kennet says belligerently, before the man is even fully inside the room.

Simone gets to her feet. “Good afternoon,” she says, shaking hands with the young doctor. “Simone Bark.”

“Ola Tuvefjäll,” he says, looking slightly confused as he turns to Kennet, who is busy fastening his trousers.

“Listen,” says Kennet, tucking his shirt into his waistband. “I’m sorry we won’t be staying, but this is an emergency.”

“I can’t force you to stay here,” the doctor says calmly, “but I would advise against leaving. You’ve suffered a very severe blow to your head, and we haven’t yet determined the extent and severity of your other injuries. You might feel fine at the moment, but serious complications could arise at any time.”

Kennet goes over to the sink and splashes cold water over his face. “They won’t be any less complicated here than out there,” he says.

“It’s your decision,” the doctor says.

“As I said, I’m sorry,” Kennet says, straightening up. “But I have to go to the sea.”

The doctor looks puzzled as he watches them go down the corridor, Kennet leaning on the wall for support.

“Where are we going?” Simone asks, and for once Kennet doesn’t protest as she climbs into the driver’s seat. He simply gets in beside her and fastens his seatbelt. “Dad, you have to tell me where we’re going,” she repeats. “How do we get there?”

He gives her a strange look. “To the sea… I need to think.” He leans back in his seat, closes his eyes, and remains silent for a while.

Mistake, she thinks, he’s in no shape for this. I have to get him back upstairs. But all at once he opens his eyes and speaks clearly.

“Take Sankt Eriksgatan across the bridge and right into Odengatan. Go straight down to Östra Station, follow Valhallavägen east all the way to the Swedish Film Institute, and turn off onto Lindarängsvägen. That goes right down to the harbour.”

“Who needs GPS?” says Simone with a smile as she pulls out into the heavy traffic.

As she manoeuvres her way through it, Simone tells him about her visit to see Aida.

“I wonder…” Kennet says thoughtfully, but then stops.

“What?”

“I wonder if the parents have any idea what their kids are up to.” Simone gives him a quick sideways glance. They are passing Gustav Adolfs Church. She catches a glimpse of a long procession of children dressed in robes. They are carrying candles and slowly making their way in through the door of the church.

“Extortion, abuse, violence, and threats,” Simone replies wearily. “Mummy and Daddy’s little darlings.”

She thinks back to the day she went to Tensta, to the tattoo parlour. The boys holding the little girl over the railing. They hadn’t been afraid at all; they had been threatening, dangerous. She remembers Benjamin trying to keep her from confronting the boy in the underground station. He must have been one of them. He was one of the ones who use Pokémon names.

“What’s wrong with people?” she asks rhetorically.

“I didn’t have an accident, Sixan. I was pushed in front of a car,” Kennet says suddenly, a sharp edge to his voice. “And I saw who did it.”

“Pushed? Who did it?”

“It was one of them. It was a child, a little girl.”

Christmas decorations glow from the dark windows of the Film Institute. The temperature has risen slightly, and the surface of the road is covered in wet slush. Swollen, heavy clouds hang over the park; it looks as if a real shower of thawing rain will soon be falling on the dog owners and their happy animals.

Loudden is a promontory just to the east of Stockholm’s harbour. At the end of the 1920s an oil dock with almost one hundred tanks was built here. The area is composed of low industrial buildings, a water purification plant, a container port, underground storage areas, and docks.

Kennet takes out the crumpled card he found in the child’s wallet.

“Louddsvägen eighteen,” he says, gesturing to Simone to stop the car. She pulls over onto a patch of asphalt surrounded by high metal fences.

“We’ll walk the last bit,” says Kennet, undoing his seatbelt.

They go between enormous tanks, with narrow flights of steps twisting like serpents around the cylindrical structures. Every surface is acned with rust: the hand-rails, between the curved, welded metal plates, along the fittings.

A thin, cold rain falls. Very soon it will be dusk, and then they won’t be able to see a thing. There are no streetlamps anywhere. Narrow passageways have been left between the vast shipping containers, piled high: yellow, red, blue, arranged so that a series of narrow passageways runs between them. They pass among the tanks, loading docks, and low offices. Closer to the water the main building looms with its cranes, ramps, barges, and dry docks.

A low shed with a dirty Ford pick-up parked outside sits at an angle to a large warehouse made of corrugated aluminium. Self-adhesive letters, half peeling away now, have been stuck on the dark window of the shed: the sea. The smaller letters below have been scraped off, but it is still possible to read the words in the dust: diving club. The heavy bar is hanging down beside the door.

Kennet waits for a second, listening, then cautiously pulls open the door. It is dark inside the little office, which contains nothing but a desk, a few folding chairs with plastic seats, and a couple of rusty oxygen tanks. On the wall is a crumpled poster showing exotic fish in emerald-green water. It’s obvious that the diving club is no longer here; maybe it moved or went bust and ceased to exist altogether.

A fan begins to whirr and an inner door clicks. Kennet puts a finger to his lips. They can hear the distinct sound of footsteps. Moving forward, Kennet pushes open the door to reveal an expansive storage area. Someone is running away in the darkness. Kennet takes up the pursuit but suddenly cries out.

“Dad?” shouts Simone.

She can’t see him, but she can hear his voice. He swears and calls to her to be careful. “They’ve put up barbed wire.”

There’s a metallic rattling sound across the concrete floor. Kennet has started to run again. Simone follows him, carefully climbing over the barbed wire and moving on into the large space. The air is cold and damp. It’s dark, and she halts for a moment to get her bearings. She can hear rapid footsteps farther away.