by Lars Kepler
“To hell with that, I don’t care. You have to find Benjamin.”
“I will,” he says.
A nurse comes in, is given brief instructions to run blood tests, then hurries out.
Erik turns back to Simone. “Are you sure you saw someone dragging Benjamin down the hall?”
“Yes,” she answers, in despair.
“But you didn’t see who it was?”
“He dragged Benjamin by the legs through the hall and out the door. I was lying on the floor … I couldn’t move.”
The tears begin to flow once more. He wraps his arms around her, and she sobs against his chest, exhausted and desperate, her body shaking. When she has calmed down a little, she pushes him gently away.
“Erik,” she says. “You have to find Benjamin.”
“Yes,” he says, and stumbles from the room.
A nurse takes his place. Simone closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to watch as four small containers fill with her blood.
42
saturday, december 12: morning
Erik heads for his office in the hospital, thinking about the journey in the ambulance that morning, after he had found Simone on the floor with virtually no pulse. The rapid trip through the bright city, the rush-hour traffic giving way to the blaring siren of the ambulance. Simone’s stomach being pumped, the efficiency of the female doctor, her calm, speedy actions. The oxygen, the dark screen showing the irregular rhythm of the heart.
In the corridor, Erik checks his mobile phone and realises it is turned off. He stops and listens to all his messages. Yesterday a police officer named Roland Svensson called four times to offer police protection. There is no message from Benjamin or from anyone who had anything to do with his disappearance.
He calls Aida, and feels a chilling wave of panic as her high voice, suffused with fear, tells him she has absolutely no idea where Benjamin might be.
“Could he have gone to that place in Tensta?”
“No,” she replies.
Erik calls David, Benjamin’s oldest friend from childhood. David’s mother answers. When she says she hasn’t seen Benjamin for several days, he simply cuts off the conversation in the middle of her flow of words.
He calls the path lab to check on their analysis, but they can’t tell him anything yet; Simone’s blood samples have only just arrived.
“I’ll hang on,” he says.
He can hear them working, and after a while they report that Simone was injected with “something containing alfentanil.”
“Alfentanil? The anaesthetic?”
“Somebody must have got hold of it, either from a hospital or a veterinary surgery. We don’t use it here much, it’s so bloody addictive. But it looks as if your wife was incredibly lucky.”
“What do you mean?” asks Erik.
“She’s still alive.”
Erik returns to Simone’s room to go through everything one more time but sees that she has fallen asleep. Her lips are cracked and sore after having her stomach pumped.
His phone rings in his pocket, and he moves into the corridor before answering. “Yes?”
“It’s Linnea at reception, Dr Bark. You’ve got a visitor.”
It takes a few seconds for Erik to realise that the woman means reception here at the hospital, in the neurosurgical unit, and that she is the Linnea who has worked at the reception desk for four years.
“Dr Bark?” she asks tentatively.
“A visitor? Who is it?”
“Joona Linna,” she replies.
Erik stands in the corridor, waiting for Joona, his mind racing. He thinks about his voicemail messages; Roland Svensson called again and again to offer him police protection. Has somebody threatened me? Erik asks himself; a chill runs through him as he realises how unusual it is for a detective from the National CID to come and see him in person rather than contacting him by phone.
He wanders into the cafeteria, where a platter of cold cuts and bread has been left for the taking. A feeling of nausea twists and turns inside his body. His hands shake as he pours water into a scratched glass.
Joona has come to tell me they’ve found Benjamin’s body, he thinks. That’s why he’s here in person. He’s going to ask me to sit down; then he’s going to tell me Benjamin is dead.
Terrifying images flash through his mind with increasing speed: Benjamin’s body in a ditch beside the motorway, or in a black rubbish bag in some forest, washed up on a muddy shore.
“Coffee?”
“What?”
“Would you like some coffee?”
A young woman with shining blonde hair is standing next to the coffee machine, holding up a steaming pot. She looks inquiringly at him, and he realises he holds an empty cup in his hand. As he shakes his head, Joona Linna walks into the room.
“Let’s sit down,” says Joona. He wears a troubled expression.
Erik nods, and they sit down at a table by the wall. Joona fidgets with the salt shaker and whispers something.
“What?” asks Erik.
“We’ve been trying to reach you.”
“I didn’t answer my phone yesterday,” says Erik faintly.
“Erik, I’m sorry to inform you that Josef Ek has run away from the hospital.”
“What?”
“You’re entitled to police protection.”
Erik’s mouth begins to tremble, and his eyes fill with tears.
“Was that what you came to tell me? That Josef has run away?”
“Yes.”
Erik is so relieved that he would like to lie down on the floor and simply sleep. He quickly wipes the tears from his eyes. “When did this happen?”
“Last night. He killed a nurse, stole a car, and seriously injured its driver,” Joona says heavily.
Erik nods several times as his thoughts rapidly make new connections. Absolute terror overwhelms the relief of a moment ago. “He came to our house in the middle of the night and took our son,” he says.
“What are you saying?”
“Josef has taken my son, Benjamin.”
“You mean Benjamin was abducted? Did you see it happen?”
“I didn’t, but Simone—”
“What happened?”
“Simone was injected with a powerful drug,” Erik says slowly. “I just got the results of her blood test; it’s an anaesthetic called alfentanil, used in major surgery.”
“But she’s all right?”
“She will be.”
Joona nods and writes down the name of the drug. “And Simone said she saw Josef take Benjamin?”
“She didn’t see the person’s face.”
“OK.”
“Are you going to find Josef?” asks Erik.
“Trust me, we’ll find him. There’s a national alert out for him. He’s badly injured. He’s going nowhere.”
“But you haven’t got any leads?”
Joona gives him a hard stare. “I don’t think it will be long before we find him.”
“Good.”
“Where were you when he came to your apartment?”
“I was sleeping in the spare room,” explains Erik. “I’d taken a pill, and I didn’t hear a thing.”
“So when he came into the bedroom, he only found Simone.”
“Yes.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” says Joona.
“It’s easy to miss the spare room. It looks more like a closet, hidden when the bathroom door is open. He probably thought I wasn’t home.”
“I don’t mean that,” says Joona. “I mean this doesn’t sound like Josef. He doesn’t give people injections; his behaviour is far more aggressive.”
“Perhaps it just looks aggressive to us,” says Erik.
“What do you mean?”
“Perhaps he knows what he’s doing all the time. I mean, you didn’t find any of his father’s blood on him back at home. That suggests he works systematically, coldly. What if he decided to get his revenge on me by taking Benjamin?”
&n
bsp; There is silence. From the corner of his eye, Erik can see the blonde woman by the coffee machine sipping from her cup as she gazes out over the hospital complex.
Joona looks down at the table; then he meets Erik’s eyes and says gently, “I am really very sorry, Erik.”
43
saturday, december 12: morning
After parting with Joona outside the cafeteria, Erik returns to his office. The notion that Benjamin has been kidnapped hasn’t yet sunk in. It’s simply too incredible to believe that a stranger could break into their apartment and drag his son away.
And yet that’s what Simone saw.
It can’t be Josef Ek who has taken his son. Yes, he just made the case for it, but it’s impossible.
With a feeling that everything around him is becoming completely unmanageable, he sits down at his battered desk and calls the same people over and over and over again, as if he can tell from some nuance in their voices whether they might have overlooked some detail, whether they are lying or keeping information from him. He calls Aida three times in succession, asking first if she knows if Benjamin had any particular plans for the weekend, then if she has the phone numbers of his friends, the third time if she and Benjamin have had a fight. Her voice quavers on the other end of the phone when she answers, and Erik suddenly realises she’s just a kid, overwhelmed by the fierceness of his questioning and, in her own way, by Benjamin’s absence. Protectively, he gives her all the numbers where he can be reached and establishes that she hasn’t seen Benjamin since school yesterday. Then he begins calling the police. He asks what’s happening, whether they’re making any progress. He calls every hospital in the Stockholm area. He hears himself saying, in his most authoritative doctorly voice, “He has von Willebrand’s disease, but he may not be carrying his alert card from the emergency blood service. I’d recommend screening all unidentified adolescent male admittees for the disease.” He calls Benjamin’s mobile, which is switched off, for the tenth time. He calls Joona’s phone, demanding loudly that the police intensify the search. Joona must insist on more resources. Finally, he begs him to do his utmost.
Erik returns to Simone’s room but stops outside. He places a hand on the wall to steady himself; things have begun to spin, and he can feel something tightening around him. His brain is struggling to comprehend what is happening. Within, he can hear a constant refrain: I’m going to find Benjamin, I’m going to find Benjamin.
When he feels steadier, Erik looks at his wife through the pane of glass in the door. She is awake, but her face is tired and confused, her lips are pale, and the dark circles around her eyes have deepened. Her strawberry-blonde hair is messy with sweat. She is turning her wedding ring around, twisting it and pressing it against the knuckle. Erik runs a hand over his face and feels the rough stubble. Simone looks back at him, but her expression doesn’t change.
Erik goes in and sits heavily by her side. She glances at him, then lowers her eyes. He sees her lips draw back in a painful grimace. A few fat tears well up in her eyes, and her nose reddens with weeping.
“Benjamin tried to grab hold of me; he reached out for my hand,” she whispers. “But I just lay there. I couldn’t move.”
“I’ve just found out that Josef Ek ran away last night.” Erik’s voice is weak.
“I’m so cold,” she whispers, but she knocks his hand away when he tries to tuck the pale blue hospital blanket around her. “Don’t,” she says. “It’s your fault. You were so fucking desperate to hypnotise him—”
“Simone, I was trying to save someone’s life. This is not my fault. It’s my job.”
“But what about your son? Doesn’t he count?” Erik reaches for her, but she pushes him away. “I’m going to call my father,” she says, her voice unsteady. “He’ll help me find Benjamin.”
“I really don’t want you to do that,” says Erik.
“To be honest, I don’t give a shit about what you want. I want my son back.”
“I’ll find him, Sixan.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“The police are doing what they can, and your father—”
“The police? It was the police who let that lunatic get away,” she says angrily. “They’re not going to do anything to find Benjamin.”
“Josef is a serial killer. The police want to find him, and they will. But I’m not stupid. I know Benjamin isn’t important, they don’t care about him, not really, not like us, not like—”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Joona Linna explained—”
“But it’s his fault! He’s the one who got you to carry out the hypnosis.”
Erik shakes his head, then swallows hard. “It was my decision.”
“My father will do everything he can,” she says quietly.
“I understand that you’re angry with me. But right now we need to put that aside. I want us to go through every little detail together. We need to think carefully, and we need to be calm.”
“What the fuck can you and I do?” she cries.
Silence. Erik hears someone switch on the television in the room next door. “We need to think,” he says cautiously. “I’m not sure it was Josef Ek who actually—”
“You’re not right in the head,” Simone snaps. She tries to get out of bed but hasn’t the strength.
“Can I just say one thing?”
“I’m going to get myself a gun, and I’m going to find him,” she says.
“The front door was open two nights in a row, but—”
“That’s what I said!” she screams. “I said that someone was in the apartment, but you didn’t believe me, you never do! If only you had believed me then—”
Erik cuts her off. “Listen to me,” he says. “The front door may have been open two nights in a row, but Josef Ek was in his hospital bed the first night, so he can’t have been in our apartment then.”
Simone is not listening; she is still trying to get up. Groaning angrily, she manages to make it as far as the narrow closet containing her clothes. Erik stands there without helping her, watches her tremble as she gets dressed, hears her swear quietly to herself.
44
saturday, december 12: evening
It is evening by the time Erik finally manages to get Simone discharged from the hospital. When they return home, the apartment is a complete mess. Bedclothes lie in the hallway, the lights are on, the bathroom tap is running, shoes are heaped on the hall rug, and the telephone has been thrown on the parquet floor, its batteries beside it.
Erik and Simone look around with the horrible feeling that something in their home is lost to them forever. These objects have become alien, meaningless.
Simone picks up an overturned chair, sits down, and begins to pull off her boots. Erik turns off the bathroom tap, goes into Benjamin’s room, and looks at the red-painted surface of the desk. Textbooks lie next to the computer, covered in grey paper to protect them. On the bulletin board is a photograph of Erik from his time in Uganda, smiling and sunburned, his hands in the pockets of his lab coat. Erik brushes his hand over Benjamin’s jeans, hanging on the back of a chair with his black sweater.
In the living room he finds Simone standing with the telephone in her hand. She pushes the batteries back in and begins to dial a number.
“Who are you calling?”
“Dad,” she replies.
“Can you please leave it for now?”
She allows him to take the telephone from her. “What is it you want to say?” she asks wearily.
“I can’t cope with seeing Kennet, not now.” He places the telephone on the table, and runs his hands over his face before he begins again. “Can’t you respect the fact that I don’t want to leave everything I have in your father’s hands?”
“Can’t you respect the fact that—”
“Stop it.”
She glares angrily at him.
“Sixan, I’m finding it difficult to think clearly right now. Please let’s not play the
game where we match each other, grievance for grievance. I don’t have the energy. I only want to say that I can’t cope with having your father around.”
“Are you finished?” she says, holding out her hand for the phone.
“This is about our child,” he says.
She nods.
“Can’t it be that way? Can’t it be about him?” he goes on. “I want you and me to look for Benjamin—along with the police—the way it should be.”
“I need my father,” she says.
“I need you.”
“I don’t really believe that,” she replies.
“Why not?”
“Because you just want to tell me what to do,” she says.
Erik stops pacing the room and carefully composes his features into a reasonable expression. “Sixan, your father’s retired. There’s nothing he can do.”
“He has contacts,” she says.
“He thinks he has contacts, he thinks he’s still a detective, but he’s only an ordinary pensioner.”
“You don’t know anything about it.”
“Benjamin isn’t some kind of hobby for old men with too much time on their hands.”
“That’s it. I’m not interested in what you have to say.” She looks at the phone.
“I can’t stay here if he’s coming. You just want him to tell you I’ve done the wrong thing again, like he did when we found out about Benjamin’s illness; it’s all Erik’s fault, always Erik. I know that lets you off the hook—it’s always been very comfortable whenever you’ve needed someone to blame in a crisis—but for me it’s—”
“Bullshit.”
“If he comes here, I’m leaving.”
“That’s your choice,” she says quietly.
His shoulders droop. She is half turned away from him as she punches in the number.
“Don’t do this,” Erik begs. It’s impossible for him to be here when Kennet arrives. He looks around. There’s nothing he wants to take with him. He hears the phone ringing at the other end of the line and sees the shadow of Simone’s eyelashes trembling on her cheeks.
“Fuck you,” he says, and goes out into the hallway.
He hears Simone talking to her father. With her voice full of tears she begs him to come as quickly as he can. Erik takes his jacket from the hanger, leaves the apartment, closes the door, and locks it behind him. Halfway down the stairs, he stops. Maybe he ought to go back and say something. It isn’t fair. This is his home, his son, his life.
