Joona Linna Crime Series Books 1-3: The Hypnotist, The Nightmare, The Fire Witness. Lars Kepler
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office, settled down in the visitor’s chair, and took out a notepad and pen.
“What would you like to ask me?”
Maja blushed deeply and sat, then began to talk.
“I’ve read your reports,” she said, “and your hypnosis group is made up not only of victims, people who have been subjected to some kind of abuse, but also perpetrators, those who have done terrible things to others.”
“You have to understand that sometimes the level of coercion is so great that a person is forced to commit terrible acts. The victim becomes the perpetrator through the very process of victimisation. In any event, for patients like this, it works the same way in the subconscious, and in the context of group therapy this is in fact a resource.”
“Interesting,” she said, taking more notes. “I want to come back to that, but what I’d like to know now is how the perpetrator sees himself or herself during hypnosis—after all, you do put forward the idea that the victim often replaces the perpetrator with something else, like an animal.”
“I haven’t had time to investigate how perpetrators see themselves, and I don’t want to speculate.”
Maja leaned forward, lips pursed. “But you’ve got an idea?”
“I have a patient, for example, who—” I fell silent, thinking of Jussi Persson, the man from Norrland who carried his loneliness like a dreadful self-imposed weight.
“What were you going to say?”
“Under hypnosis this patient returns to a hunting tower. It’s as if the gun is in control of him; he shoots deer and simply leaves them lying there.”
We sat in silence, looking at each other.
“It’s getting late,” I said.
“I still have a lot of questions.”
I waved my hand. “We’ll have to meet again.”
She looked at me. My body suddenly felt strangely hot as I noticed a faint flush rising on her pale skin. There was something mischievous between us, a mixture of seriousness and the desire to laugh.
“Can I buy you a drink to say thank you? There’s a really nice Lebanese—”
She stopped abruptly as the telephone rang. I apologised and picked it up.
“Erik?” It was Simone, sounding stressed.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I … I’m out in back, on the bike path. It looks like someone’s broken into our home.”
An ice-cold shudder ran through me. I thought about the ferrule that had been left outside our door, the old instrument of punishment.
“What happened?”
I heard Simone swallow hard. Some children were playing in the background; they might have been up on the football pitch. I heard the sound of a whistle and screams.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Nothing, a class of schoolchildren,” she said firmly. “Erik, Benjamin’s veranda door is open and the window has been smashed.”
Maja Swartling stood and pointed at the door, asking if she should go. I nodded briefly, with an apologetic shrug. She bumped into the chair, which scraped along the floor.
“Are you alone?” asked Simone.
“Yes,” I said, without knowing why I was lying.
Maja waved and closed the door soundlessly behind her. I could still smell her perfume.
“It’s just as well you didn’t go inside,” I went on. “Have you called the police?”
“Erik, you sound funny. Has something happened?”
“You mean apart from the fact that there might be a burglar inside our house right now? Have you called the police?”
“Yes, I called Dad.”
“Good.”
“He said he was on his way.”
“Move further away from the house, Simone.”
“I’m standing on the bike path.”
“Can you still see the house?”
“Yes.”
“If you can see the house, anyone inside the house can see you.”
“Stop it!” she said.
“Please, Simone, go up to the football pitch. I’m on my way home.”
I stopped behind Kennet’s dirty Opel and got out of the car. Kennet came running toward me, his expression tense.
“Where the hell is Sixan?” he shouted.
“I told her to wait on the football pitch.”
“Good, I was afraid she’d—”
“She would have gone inside otherwise, I know her; she takes after you.”
He laughed and hugged me tightly. “Good to see you, kid.”
We set off around the block, to get to the back. Simone was standing not far from our garden. Presumably she had been keeping an eye on the broken veranda door the whole time; it led straight to our shady patio. She looked up, left her bike, came straight over and gave me a hug, and looked over my shoulder. “Hi, Dad.”
“I’m going in,” he said, his tone serious.
“I’m coming with you,” I said.
Simone sighed. “Women and children wait outside.”
All three of us stepped over the low potentilla hedge and walked across the grass to the patio, with its white plastic table and four plastic chairs.
Shards of glass covered the step and the doorsill. On the wall-to-wall carpet in Benjamin’s room, a large stone lay among fragments and shards. As we went in, I reminded myself to tell Kennet about the ferrule that we’d found outside our door.
Simone followed us and switched on the ceiling light. Her face was glowing, and her strawberry-blonde hair hung down in curls over her shoulders.
Kennet went into the hall, looked into the bedroom on the right, and into the bathroom. The reading lamp in the TV room was on. In the kitchen, a chair lay on its side on the floor. We went from room to room, but nothing seemed to be missing. In the downstairs bathroom, the toilet paper had been yanked violently off the roll and lay strewn across the floor.
Kennet looked at me with an odd expression. “Do you have any unfinished business with anyone?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Not as far as I know,” I said. “Obviously, I meet a lot of damaged people in my work. Just like you.”
He nodded.
“They haven’t taken anything,” I said.
“Is that normal, Dad?” asked Simone.
Kennet shook his head. “It isn’t normal, not if they break a window. Somebody wanted you to know they’d been here.”
Simone was standing in the doorway of Benjamin’s room. “It looks as if someone has been lying in his bed,” she said quietly. “What’s the name of that fable? Goldilocks, isn’t it?”
We hurried into our bedroom and saw that somebody had been lying in our bed too. The bedspread had been pulled down and the sheets were crumpled.
“This is pretty weird,” said Kennet.
There was silence for a little while.
“The ferrule!”