Joona Linna Crime Series Books 1-3: The Hypnotist, The Nightmare, The Fire Witness. Lars Kepler
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lucia): morning
Two police officers are waiting outside the lift when they reach the third floor. Joona shakes hands with them and then unlocks an unmarked security door. Before he pushes the door open completely, he knocks.
“Is it all right if we come in?” he asks, through the gap.
“You haven’t found him, have you?”
The light is behind Evelyn, so it is impossible to make out her features clearly, only a dark oval surrounded by sunlit hair.
“No,” replies Joona.
She comes to the door to usher them in and locks it quickly behind them, checking the lock; when she turns around, Erik sees she is breathing heavily.
“This is a safe apartment; you’ve got a police guard,” says Joona reassuringly. “No one is allowed to give out information about you or search for information about you; the prosecutor has made that decision. You’re safe now, Evelyn.”
“As long as I stay in here, maybe,” she says. “But I’m going to have to come out sometime. And Josef is good at waiting.”
She goes over to the window, looks out, and sits down on the sofa.
“Where could Josef be hiding?” asks Joona.
“You think I know something.”
“Do you?” asks Erik.
“Are you going to hypnotise me?”
“No.” He smiles in surprise.
She is not wearing make-up, and her eyes look vulnerable and unprotected as she scrutinises him.
“You can if you want to,” she says, looking down quickly.
The apartment consists of nothing more than a bedroom with a wide bed, two armchairs, and a television set, a bathroom with a shower cubicle, and a kitchen with an eating area. The windows are made of bulletproof glass, and the walls are painted throughout in a calm yellow colour.
Erik looks around and follows her into the kitchen. “Nice little place,” he says.
Evelyn shrugs her shoulders. She is wearing a red sweater and a pair of faded jeans. Her hair is carelessly caught up in a ponytail. “They’re bringing a few of my things today,” she says.
“That’s good,” says Erik. “People usually feel better when—”
“Better? What do you know about what would make me feel better?”
“I’ve worked with—”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t give a shit about that, I don’t want to talk to psychologists and counsellors.”
“I’m not here in that capacity.”
“So why are you here?”
“To try to find Josef.”
She turns to him and says curtly, “He isn’t here.”
Without knowing why, Erik decides not to say anything about Benjamin. “Listen to me, Evelyn,” he says quietly. “I need your help to map out Josef’s circle of acquaintances.”
Her eyes are shiny, almost feverish. “All right,” she replies, with something resembling a small smile.
“Does he have a girlfriend?”
Her eyes darken and her mouth tenses. “Apart from me, you mean?”
“Yes.”
She shakes her head.
“Who does he hang out with?”
“He doesn’t hang out with anybody,” she says.
“Classmates?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “He’s never had any friends, as far as I know.”
“If he needed help with something, who would he turn to?”
“I don’t know … Sometimes he talks to the drunks behind the off licence.”
“Do you know their names, who they are?”
“One of them has a tattoo on his hand.”
“What does it look like?”
“I can’t remember … A fish, I think.” She stands up and goes over to the window again.
Erik looks at her. The daylight strikes her young face; he can see a blue vein beating in her slender throat. “Could he be staying with one of them?”
She shrugs her shoulders vaguely. “Maybe.”
“Do you think he is?”
“No.”
“So what do you think, then?”
“I think he’s going to find me before you find him.”
Erik looks at her, as she stands with her forehead resting against the window-pane, and wonders if he should press her any further. There is something about her toneless voice, her lack of trust, that tells him she has long had a unique insight into her brother and has abandoned any hope of finding someone to share it with.
“Evelyn? What does Josef want?”
“I can’t talk about that.”
“Does he want to kill me?”
“I don’t know.”
“But what do you think?”
She takes a deep breath, and her voice is hoarse and tired when she answers. “If he thinks you’ve come between him and me, if he’s jealous, then yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Kill you.”
“Try, you mean?”
Evelyn licks her lips, turns to face him, then looks down. Erik wants to repeat his question, but nothing comes out. Suddenly there is a knock on the door. Evelyn looks at Joona and Erik, a terrified expression on her face, and backs into the kitchen.
The knocking comes again. Joona walks over, looks through the peephole, and admits two police officers. One of them is carrying a cardboard box.
“I think we found everything on the list,” he says. “Where do you want this?”
“Anywhere,” says Evelyn faintly, emerging from the kitchen.
“Would you sign here?”
He holds out a delivery receipt, and Evelyn signs it. Joona locks the door behind them when they leave. Evelyn hurries over to the door, checks that he’s locked it properly, and turns to face them.
“I asked if I could have some things from home.”
“Yes, you told us.”
Evelyn crouches down, pulls off the brown sticky tape, and opens the box. She takes out a silver money box in the shape of a rabbit and a framed picture of a guardian angel, but suddenly stops.
“My photo album,” she says, and Erik sees that her mouth has begun to tremble.
“Evelyn?”
“I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t say anything about it.”
She opens the album to the first page, revealing a large school photo of herself at about fourteen. She is wearing braces on her teeth and smiling shyly. Her skin glows; her hair is cut very short.
Evelyn turns the page, and a folded piece of paper falls out and lands on the floor. She picks it up, turns it over, and her face flushes deep red. “He’s at home,” she whispers, passing it to Erik.
He smooths out the paper, and he and Joona read it together:
I own you, you belong only to me, I’m going to kill the others,