The Hypnotist (30 page)

Joona moves on to the next name on the list: Jarl Hammar, on the floor below Erik and Simone. A pensioner who wasn’t at home when the police called.

Jarl Hammar is a thin man who is clearly suffering from Parkinson’s disease. He is neatly dressed in a cardigan, with a handkerchief knotted around his neck.

“Police?” he repeats in a hoarse, almost inaudible voice as his eyes, cloudy with cataracts, look Joona up and down. “What do the police want with me?”

“I just want to ask a question,” says Joona. “Did you by any chance see or hear anything unusual in this building or on the street in the early morning of December the twelfth?”

Jarl Hammar tilts his head to one side and closes his eyes. After a brief moment he opens them again and shakes his head. “I’m on medication,” he says. “It makes me sleep very heavily.”

Joona catches sight of a woman farther inside the apartment.

“And your wife?” he asks. “Could I have a word with her?”

Jarl Hammar gives a wry smile. “My wife was a wonderful woman. But unfortunately she is no longer with us; she died almost thirty years ago.” He turns and waves a shaky arm at the dark figure behind him. “This is Anabella. She helps me out with the cleaning and so on. Unfortunately she doesn’t speak Swedish, but apart from that she’s beyond reproach.”

The shadowy figure moves into the light when she hears her name. Anabella looks as if she’s from South America; she is in her twenties, with noticeable pockmarks on her face. Her hair is caught up in a loose black braid, and she is very short.

“Anabella,” Joona says softly. “
Soy comisario de policía,
Joona Linna.”

“
Buenos días,
” she replies in a lisping voice, looking at him with black eyes.

“
¿Tu limpias más departamentos aquí, en este edificio?
”

She nods, yes, she does clean other apartments in this building.

“
¿Qué otros?
” asks Joona.

“
Espera un momento
,” says Anabella, thinking for a moment before beginning to count on her fingertips: “
Los pisos de Lagerberg, Franzén, Gerdman, y Rosenlund, y el piso de Johansson también
.”

“Rosenlund,” says Joona. “
¿Rosenlund es la familia con un gato, no es verdad?
”

Anabella smiles and nods. She cleans the apartment where the cat lives. “
Y muchas flores
,” she adds.

“Lots of flowers,” says Joona, and she nods.

Joona asks in a serious tone whether she noticed anything unusual four nights earlier, when Benjamin disappeared. “
¿Notabas alguna cosa especial hace cuatros días? Por la mañana temprano
.”

Anabella’s face stiffens. “
No
,” she says quickly, trying to retreat into Jarl Hammar’s apartment.

“
De verdad
,” Joona says quickly. “
Espero que digas la verdad, Ana-bella
. I expect you to tell me the truth.” He repeats that this is very important, it’s about a child who has disappeared.

Jarl Hammar, who has been listening the whole time, holds up his violently trembling hands and says, in his hoarse, shaky voice, “Be nice to Anabella, she’s a very good girl.”

“She has to tell me what she saw,” Joona explains firmly, turning back to Anabella. “
La verdad, por favor
.”

Jarl Hammar looks helpless as fat tears begin to fall from Anabella’s dark, shining eyes.

“
Perdón
,” she whispers. “
Perdón, señor
.”

“Don’t get upset, Anabella,” says Jarl Hammar. He waves at Joona. “Come in. I can’t have her standing here on the doorstep crying.”

They go inside and sit down at a spotless dining room table; Hammar gets out a tin of Christmas biscuits as Anabella quietly explains that she has nowhere to live, she has been homeless for three months but has managed to hide in storage rooms belonging to the people she cleans for. When the Rosenlunds gave her a key to their apartment so she could look after the plants and feed the cat, she was finally able to sleep safely and take care of her personal hygiene. She repeats over and over again that she isn’t a thief, she hasn’t taken any food, she hasn’t touched anything, she doesn’t sleep in the beds, she sleeps on a rug in the kitchen.

Then Anabella looks at Joona, her expression serious, and tells him that she’s been a very light sleeper ever since she was a little girl responsible for her younger siblings. Early Saturday morning she woke up when she heard a noise from the landing. It was strange enough to frighten her, so she gathered her things together, crept to the front door, and looked out through the peephole.

The lift door was open, she says, but she didn’t see anything. Suddenly she heard noises and slow footsteps; it was as if an old, heavy person were moving along.

“But no voices?”

She shakes her head. “
Sombras
.”

When Anabella tries to describe the shadows she saw moving across the floor, Joona nods and asks, “What did you see in the mirror?
¿Qué viste en el espejo?
”

“In the mirror?”

“You could see into the lift, Anabella.”

She thinks, then says slowly that she saw a yellow hand. “And then,” she adds, “after a little while I saw her face.”

“Her face? It was a woman?”

“
Sí, una mujer
.” Anabella explains that the woman was wearing a hood that obscured much of her face, but for a brief moment she saw the cheek and the mouth. “
Sin duda era una mujer
,” she repeats. It was definitely a woman.

“How old?”

She shakes her head. She doesn’t know.

“As young as you?”

“
Tal vez
.” Perhaps. “A little bit older?”

She nods, but then says she doesn’t know; she saw the woman only for a second, and most of her face was hidden.

“
¿Y la boca de la señora?
” Joona demonstrates. What did the woman’s mouth look like?

“Happy.”

“She looked happy?”

“
Sí. Contenta
.”

When Joona can’t get any other description out of her, he asks about details, turns his questions around, and makes suggestions, but it’s obvious that Anabella has told him everything she saw. He thanks her and Jarl Hammar for their help.

On his way back upstairs, Joona calls Anja. She answers immediately. “Anja, have you found out anything about Eva Blau yet?”

“I might have, but you keep calling me up and disturbing me.”

“Sorry, but it
is
urgent.”

“I know, I know. But I haven’t got anything yet.”

“Fine, call me when you do.”

“Quit nagging,” she says, and hangs up.

Erik is sitting in the car next to Joona, blowing on a paper cup of coffee. They drive past the university, past the Natural History Museum. On the other side of the road, down toward Brunnsviken, the greenhouse shines out in the falling darkness.

“You’re sure of the name, Eva Blau?” asks Joona.

“Yes.”

“There’s nothing in any telephone directory, nothing in the criminal records database, nothing in the database of suspects, or in the register of those licensed to carry a weapon, nothing in the tax office records, the electoral register, or with the vehicle licensing authority. I’ve had every local record checked: the county councils, the church records, the National Insurance Office, the immigration authorities. There is no Eva Blau in Sweden, and there never has been.”

“She was my patient,” Erik persists.

“Then she must have another name.”

“Look, I damn well know what my— ”

He stops as something flutters by, the faintest awareness that she might indeed have had another name, but then it simply disappears.

“What were you going to say?”

“I’ll go through my papers. Perhaps she just called herself Eva Blau.”

The white winter sky is dense and low; it looks as if it might start snowing at any moment.

Erik takes a sip of his coffee, sweetness followed by a lingering bitterness. Joona turns off into a residential area. They drive slowly past houses, past gardens dusted with snow, with bare fruit trees and small ponds covered for the winter, conservatories equipped with cane furniture, snow-covered trampolines, strands of coloured lights looping through cypress trees, red sledges, and parked cars.

“Where are we actually going?” asks Erik.

Small round snowflakes whirl through the air, gathering on the hood and along the windscreen wipers.

“We’re almost there.”

“Almost where?”

“I found some other people with the surname Blau,” says Joona.

He pulls up in front of a detached garage but leaves the engine idling. In the middle of the lawn stands a plastic Winnie-the-Pooh, six feet high, with the colour flaking off its red sweater. Other toys are scattered throughout the garden. A path made up of irregular pieces of slate leads up to a large yellow wooden house.

“This is where Liselott Blau lives,” says Joona.

“Who’s she?”

“I’ve no idea, but she might know something about Eva.” Joona notices Erik’s dubious expression. “It’s all we have to go on at the mo ment.”

Erik shakes his head. “It’s been a long time. I never think about those days now.”

“Before you gave up hypnosis.”

“Yes.” Erik meets Joona’s ice-grey eyes. “Perhaps this has nothing to do with Eva Blau.”

“Have you tried to remember?”

“I think so,” Erik replies hesitantly, looking at his coffee cup. “Really tried?”

“Maybe not really.”

“Do you know if she was dangerous?”

Erik looks out the window and sees that someone has taken a felt pen and drawn fangs and ugly eyebrows on Winnie-the-Pooh. He sips his coffee and suddenly remembers the day he heard the name Eva Blau for the first time.

It was half past eight in the morning. The sun was pouring in through the dusty windows. I’d been on call overnight, and I’d slept in my office
, he thinks.

It was half past eight in the morning. The sun was pouring in through the dusty windows. I’d slept in my office after night duty, I felt tired, but I was packing my gym bag anyway. Lars Ohlson had been postponing our badminton matches for several weeks. He’d been too busy travelling between the hospital in Oslo and Karolinska and lecturing in London; he was due to take a seat on the board. But he’d called unexpectedly yesterday.

“Erik, are you ready?”

“Damn right I’m ready,” I’d said.

“Ready to get beaten,” he’d said, but without the usual vigour in his voice.

I poured the last of the coffee down the sink, left the cup in the pantry, ran downstairs, and biked over to the gym. Lars Ohlson was already in the chilly locker room when I got there. He looked up at me, then turned away and pulled on his shorts. Something in his expression was strange, almost afraid.

“You won’t be able to hold your head up for a week when I’m done with you today,” he said, looking at me. But his hand was shaking as he turned the key in his locker.

“You’ve been working too hard,” I said.

“What? Well, yes, it’s been— ” He stopped and slumped down on the bench.

“Are you OK?” I asked.

“Absolutely. What about you?”

I shrugged. “I’m seeing the board on Friday.”

“Of course. It’s the end of your funding. Same song and dance every time, isn’t it?”

“I’m not particularly worried,” I said. “I think it’ll be fine. My research is making good progress, after all. I’ve had some excellent results.”

“I know Frank Paulsson,” he said, getting to his feet. Paulsson was a member of the board.

“Oh? How do you know him?”

“We did our military service together; he’s very much on the ball and quite open.”

“Good,” I said quietly.

We left the locker room and Lars took my arm. “Should I give him a call and tell him they just have to invest in you?”

“Can you do that sort of thing?”

“Well, it’s not exactly accepted practice. But what the hell.”

“In that case, it’s probably best if you don’t.” I smiled.

“But you have to carry on with your research.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Nobody would know.”

I looked at him and said hesitantly, “Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.”

“I’ll give Paulsson a call tonight.”

I nodded, and he smiled and gave me a slap on the back.

When we got into the big hall, with its echoes and squeaking shoes, Lars suddenly asked, “Would you take over a patient of mine?”

“Why?”

“I haven’t really got time for her,” he replied. “I don’t know that I could do much better by her. My list is pretty full at the moment.”

I started stretching as we waited for a court to become free. Lars jogged on the spot but seemed distracted. He ran a hand through his hair and cleared his throat. “Actually, I think you could.”

“Could what?”

“Could do better by her. I think Eva Blau would benefit from being in your group,” he said. “She’s completely locked around some trauma. At least, that’s what I think, because I just can’t penetrate her shell. I haven’t got through to her once.”

“I’d be happy to offer my advice, if you— ”

“Advice?” He lowered his voice. “To be honest, I’m through with her.” Even speaking quietly, he said this with some vehemence.

“Has something happened?”

“No, no, it’s just . . . I thought she was really ill. Physically, I mean.”

“But she wasn’t?”

He smiled, which seemed only to etch the stress on his face more deeply, and looked at me. “Can you just do me this favour?” he asked.

“I’ll think about it.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” he said quickly.

He fell silent and looked over at the court, where two young women who looked like medical students had a couple of minutes left of their session. When one of them stumbled and missed a simple drop shot, he snorted. “What a klutz.”

I rolled my shoulders and pretended to be looking at the clock, but I was actually studying Lars. He stood there biting his nails. Although it was chilly and he hadn’t begun to exert himself, he was sweating. And his face had definitely aged, grown thinner. Somebody yelled outside the hall, and he jumped and wheeled towards the door.

The women gathered up their things and left the court, chatting away.

“Let’s play,” I said, starting to move.

“Erik, wait a second.” He put a hand on my shoulder to stop me. “I’ve never asked you to take on a patient before.”

“I know. It’s just that I’m pretty full right now, Lars.”

“What if I cover your on-call hours?” he said, searching my face for a reaction.

“That’s quite a commitment,” I said, surprised. “I know, but you’ve got a family and you ought to be at home.”

“Is she dangerous?”

“What do you mean?” he asked with an uncertain smile, fiddling with his racquet.

“Eva Blau. Is that your assessment?”

He glanced over at the door again. “I don’t know how to answer that,” he said quietly.

“Has she threatened you?”

He considered his response for a moment. “Every patient of this kind can be dangerous. It’s difficult to judge . . . But I’m sure you’ll be able to cope with her.”

“I expect I will.”

“You’ll take her? You will take her, won’t you, Erik? Please?”

“Yes,” I said.

His cheeks flushed, he turned away and moved toward the baseline. Suddenly a trickle of blood ran down the inside of his thigh; he wiped it away with his hand and looked at me. When he realized I had seen the blood, he mumbled that he was having a problem with his groin; he apologized and limped off the court.

I had just got back to my consulting room two days later when there was a knock at the door. Lars was standing in the corridor. Several feet away, a woman in a white raincoat waited. She had a sharp and narrow face and a troubled expression in her eyes, which were heavily made up with blue and pink eyeshadow.

“This is Erik Maria Bark,” said Lars. “He’s a very good doctor, better than I’ll ever be.”

“You’re early,” I said.

#x201C;Is that all right?” he asked anxiously.

I nodded and invited them in.

“Erik, I can’t,” he said quietly. “I think it would be helpful if you were here.”

“I know, but I have to run,” he said, raising his voice again and clapping me on the shoulder. “Call me any time. I’ll pick up, in the middle of the night, any time at all.”

He hurried off and Eva Blau came into my room, closing the door behind her. “Is this yours?” she asked suddenly, holding out a porcelain elephant on the palm of her hand, which was shaking.

“No, that’s not mine.”

“But I saw the way you were looking at it,” she said, in a sneering tone of voice. “You want it, don’t you?”

I took a deep breath. “Why do you think I want it?”

“Don’t you want it?”

“No.”

“Do you want this, then?” she asked.

She yanked open the raincoat. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath, and her pubic hair had been shaved off.

“Eva, don’t do that,” I said.

“All right,” she said, her lips trembling with nerves.

She was standing far too close to me. She smelled strongly of vanilla.

“Shall we sit down?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral.

“On top of each other?”

“Why don’t you sit on the couch?”

“The couch,” she said.

“Yes.”

“That would be a real treat, wouldn’t it?” she said. She went over to the desk and sat down in my chair.

“Would you like to tell me something about yourself?” I asked.

“What are you interested in?”

I wondered whether she was a person who would be easy to hypnotize, despite the intense effort she was making to appear hard, or whether she would resist, trying to remain reserved and observant.

“I’m not your enemy,” I explained calmly.

“No?” She pulled open one of the desk drawers. “Please don’t do that.”

She ignored me and scrabbled carelessly among the papers. I went over, removed her hand, closed the drawer, and said firmly, “You are not to do that. I asked you not to.”

She looked at me defiantly and opened the drawer again. Without taking her eyes off me, she took out a bundle of papers and hurled them on the floor.

“Stop that,” I said harshly.

Her lips began to quiver. Her eyes filled with tears. “You hate me,” she whispered. “I knew it. I knew you’d hate me. Everybody hates me.” She suddenly sounded afraid.

“Eva,” I said carefully, “I just want to talk to you for a bit. You can use my chair if you want or you can sit on the couch.”

She nodded and got up to move. Then she suddenly turned and asked quietly, “Can I touch your tongue?”

“No. Sit down, please.”

She eventually sat down but immediately started fidgeting restlessly. She seemed to be holding something in her hand.

“What have you got there?” I asked.

She quickly hid her hand behind her back. “Come and look if you dare,” she challenged, her tone one of frightened hostility.

I felt a wave of impatience rush through me but forced myself to sound calm as I asked her, “Would you like to tell me why you’re here?”

She shook her head.

“Why do you think you’re here?”

Her face twitched. “Because I said I had cancer,” she whispered.

“Were you afraid you had cancer?”

“I thought he wanted me to have it.”

“Lars Ohlson?”

“They operated on my brain. They operated a couple of times. They knocked me out. They raped me while I was unconscious.” Her eyes met mine, and a fleeting smile crossed her lips. “So now I’m both pregnant and lobotomized.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s good, because I long to have a child, a son, a boy to suck at my breast.”

“Eva,” I said, “why do you think you’re here?”

She brought her hand from behind her back and slowly opened her clenched fist. Despite myself, I was leaning forward with curiosity.

The hand was empty; she turned it over several times. “Do you want to examine my cunt?” she whispered. She grasped the lapels of her raincoat with both hands, as if to part them again.

I felt I had to leave the room or call someone in. But Eva Blau stood up quickly.

“Sorry,” she said. “Sorry. I’m just scared you’re going to hate me. Please don’t hate me. I want to stay. I need help.”

“Eva, I’m just trying to have a conversation with you. As you know, the plan is for you to join my hypnosis group. Dr. Ohlson said you were positive about the idea, that you wanted to give it a try.”

She nodded soberly, then reached out and knocked my coffee cup to the floor. “Sorry,” she said again.

When Eva Blau had gone, I gathered up my papers from the floor and sat down at the desk. A light rain was falling outside the window, and it occurred to me that Benjamin was on an outing with his nursery school today, and both Simone and I had forgotten to send his rain gear with him.

I wondered if I ought to call the school and ask them to let Benjamin stay indoors. Every outing terrified me. I didn’t even like the fact that he had to go down two flights of stairs to get to the dining room. In my mind’s eye, I saw other children bumping into him, someone letting a heavy door swing back in his face. I saw him tripping over the shoes stacked in grubby heaps. I give him his injections, I thought. The medication means he won’t bleed to death from a little cut. But he’s still far more vulnerable than the other children.

I remember the sunlight the following morning, penetrating the dark grey curtains. Simone was sleeping naked next to me. Her mouth was half open, her hair a jumbled mess. I admired her shoulders and breasts, covered with small pale freckles. Goose pimples suddenly appeared on her arm, and I pulled the duvet over her.

Benjamin coughed faintly. He sometimes crept in at night and lay down on the mattress on the floor if he was having nightmares, and I would lie uncomfortably beside him, holding his hand until he went back to sleep. I hadn’t noticed him come in last night, though. I saw that it was six o’clock, rolled over, closed my eyes, and thought how nice it would be to have just a few more hours of sleep.

“Daddy?” Benjamin whispered all of a sudden.

“Go back to sleep for a little while,” I said quietly.

He sat up, looked at me, and said in his high, clear voice, “Daddy, you were lying on top of Mummy last night.”

“Was I?” I said, and felt Simone wake up beside me.

“Yes, you were lying under the duvet rocking on top of her.”

“That sounds a bit silly,” I said, trying to sound casual.

“Mm.”

Simone giggled and hid her head under the pillow.

“Maybe I was having a dream,” I said evasively.

Simone was now shaking with laughter underneath the pillow.

“Did you dream you were rocking?”

“Well— ”

Simone looked up with a big grin. “Go on, answer the question,” she said, her voice perfectly controlled. “Did you dream you were rocking?”

“Daddy?”

“I must have.”

“But,” Simone went on with a laugh, “why were you lying on top of me when you— ”

“Time for breakfast,” I said.

I saw Benjamin grimace as he got up. The mornings were always the worst. His joints had been immobile for several hours, which often led to spontaneous bleeds.

“How are you feeling?”

He held on to the wall for support as he stood.

“Just a minute, little man, I’ll give you a massage.”

Benjamin sighed as he lay down and let me gently bend and stretch his joints. “I don’t want a shot,” he said dejectedly.

“Not today, Benjamin, the day after tomorrow.”

“Don’t want it, Daddy.”

“Just think about Kalle,” I said. “He’s diabetic. He has to have injections every day.”

“David doesn’t have to,” he complained.

“But maybe there’s something else he finds difficult,” I said.

There was a silence. “His daddy’s dead,” Benjamin whispered.

“See?” I finished massaging his arms and hands.

“Thanks, Daddy,” Benjamin said, getting up slowly.