Lars Kepler - The Hypnotist

The boy who called himself Wailord was actually Birk Jansson, and his last known address was that of a foster family in Husby. At the Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital, where Kennet took him after dropping Simone off, he was found to be suffering from dehydration and malnutrition; infected sores were found on his body, and a small amount of frostbite on his toes and fingers. Social Services were called; the boy’s case worker was contacted.

As Kennet was about to leave, Birk started crying. “Please stay,” he whispered, his hand covering his mutilated nose.

Kennet could feel his pulse hammering much too fast, and his nose was still bleeding from all the running. He stopped in the doorway.

“I’ll wait here with you, Birk, on one condition.” He sat down on a green chair next to the boy. “You have to tell me everything you know about Benjamin’s disappearance.”

Kennet sat there for the two hours it took for the social worker to arrive, feeling increasingly dizzy and trying to get the boy to talk. All he really managed to establish was that somebody or something had frightened Birk so much that he’d stopped hassling Benjamin. He didn’t even seem to know that Benjamin had disappeared.

In the car, Kennet calls to check on Simone. She replies that she has slept for a while and is thinking of pouring herself a substantial brandy.

“Nice idea. I’m going to talk to Aida,” says Kennet.

“Ask her about that picture of the grass and the fence. She wasn’t telling me the truth, I’m sure of it.”

Kennet parks the car in Sundbyberg in the same place as before, not far from the hot-dog stand. It’s freezing now; a few sparse snowflakes drift onto the front seat when he opens the car door. He spots Aida and Nicky immediately. They sit on a park bench by an asphalt path leading down to Lake Ulvsunda. She looks on as Nicky shows her something. She has a certain air of patience that makes Kennet like her. He stands watching them for a little while. Something about the two of them strikes a chord with him; the way they seem to relate to and depend on each other. They seem so alone, so abandoned. It is almost six o’clock in the evening; bands of light from the city are reflected in the dark surface of the lake.

Kennet feels dizziness blur his vision for a moment. Carefully he crosses the icy road and walks down toward the lake across the frost-covered grass. “Hi, you two,” he says.

Nicky looks up. “It’s you!” he calls out, running over to hug Kennet. “Aida,” he says excitedly, “Aida, it’s him, the man who’s really old!”

Kennet hugs the boy back, hard. “Really old, am I?”

The girl wears a pale, uneasy smile. The tip of her nose is bright red with the cold. “Benjamin?” she asks. “Have you found him?”

“No, not yet,” Kennet replies, as Nicky laughs and continues to hug and jump around him.

“Aida,” shouts Nicky, “he’s so old they took his gun away!”

Kennet sits down on the bench next to Aida. They are surrounded by dense, dark groves of bare trees.

“I came to tell you that Wailord has been taken into care.”

Aida turns to look at him, her expression sceptical.

“The others have been identified,” he tells her. “There were five of them, right? Five Pokémon characters? Birk Jansson, the kid who was Wailord, has admitted everything, but he had nothing to do with Benjamin’s disappearance.”

Nicky has stopped dead on hearing Kennet’s words and is staring open-mouthed at him. “You’ve beaten Wailord?” he says.

“Yes,” says Kennet. “He’s finished.”

Nicky starts dancing around on the path again. His huge body steams with warmth in the cold air. Suddenly he stops and looks at Kennet. “You’re the strongest Pokémon, you’re Pikachu! You’re Pikachu!”

He hugs Kennet happily and Aida laughs, her face full of surprise.

“But where’s Benjamin?” she asks.

“We don’t know, Aida. They might have done a lot of stupid things, but they didn’t take Benjamin.”

“Who else could it be?”

“I don’t know.” Kennet gets out the photo Aida sent to Benjamin. “Aida, tell me the truth about this picture,” he says, in a kind but firm tone.

The colour leaves her face and she shakes her head. “I promised,” she says quietly.

“Promises don’t count when it’s a matter of life and death.”

But she clamps her lips together and turns away.

Nicky comes over and looks at the picture. “That’s the picture his mum gave him,” he says cheerfully.

“Nicky!” Aida snaps.

“Well, it is,” Nicky says indignantly.

“Why can’t you just keep quiet?” says Aida.

Kennet waves a hand. “Hush. Did Simone give Benjamin this photo? What do you mean, Nicky?”

But Nicky is looking anxiously at Aida, as if waiting for permission to answer. She shakes her head. Kennet’s skull is aching from the impact of the accident, a pulsing, persistent throbbing.

“Answer me, Aida,” he says, struggling to remain calm. “I promise you it’s wrong to keep quiet in this situation.”

“But the picture has nothing to do with anything,” she says unhappily. “I promised Benjamin not to tell a single soul, whatever hap pened.”

“Just tell me about this photograph!”

Kennet hears his own voice echo loudly between the buildings. Aida stubbornly compresses her lips even more tightly. Kennet studies her and forces himself to calm down. His voice sounds unsteady as he begins again.

“Aida, please listen carefully. Without his medicine, Benjamin is going to die if we don’t find him. He’s my only grandchild. I can’t let a single clue go without investigating it.”

There is total silence for a moment. Then Aida says resignedly, with tears in her voice, “Nicky’s already told you.” She swallows hard before going on. “His mother gave him that photo.”

“What do you mean?” Kennet looks at Nicky, who nods eagerly.

“Not Simone,” says Aida. “His real mother.”

Kennet feels a wave of nausea sweep over him. All of a sudden his whole chest is gripped by pain; he tries to take a few deep breaths and hears his own heart pounding heavily. Not now, he thinks. You can’t die just yet. He just has time to think he’s having a heart attack when the pain abruptly subsides.

“His real mother?”

“Yes.”

Aida gets a pack of cigarettes out of her rucksack, but before she has time to light up Kennet gently takes them from her.

“You’re not allowed to smoke,” he says.

“Why not?”

“You’re under eighteen.”

She shrugs. “Whatever.”

“Fine,” says Kennet, feeling as if his mind is working very slowly for some incomprehensible reason.

He fights his way into his memory, searching for facts relating to Benjamin’s birth. The images flicker through his mind: Simone’s face, swollen with weeping after the miscarriage, and then that midsummer when she was wearing a huge flowery tent of a dress, heavily pregnant, glowing. In the maternity ward, she showed him the baby: “Here’s our little man,” she said with a smile, her lips trembling. “We’re going to call him Benjamin, Son of the Right Hand.”

Kennet rubs his eyes hard and scratches his head beneath the bandage. “So what’s the name of his… his real mother?”

Aida gazes out across the lake. “I don’t know,” she replies in a monotone. “I don’t, honestly. But she told Benjamin his real name. She always called him Kasper. She was nice. She used to wait for him after school, she helped him with his homework, and I think she gave him money. I think she was really sad because she’d been forced to give him up.”