by Lars Kepler
“I promise,” I whispered.
She opened a pale blue envelope and tipped out several photographs: I saw myself posing in Maja Swartling’s apartment, then a series of pictures of her dressed only in those pale green panties. Tresses of her dark hair curled over her broad white breasts. She looked happy, blushing high on her cheeks. A number of photographs were close-ups of one breast in varying degrees of fuzziness. In one of the pictures she was lying with her thighs wide apart.
“Sixan, let me try to—”
“I can’t cope with your lies,” she said, and hurled the photos at me, one by one.
The evening news was on. Suddenly there was a report on a scandal brewing at Karolinska University Hospital, involving a hypnotist. Annika Lorentzon did not wish to comment on the case during the ongoing investigation, but when the reporter brought up the significant funding recently allocated by the board to the hypnotist in question, Annika Lorentzon found herself on the defensive.
“That was a mistake,” she said.
“What was a mistake?”
“Erik Maria Bark has been suspended until further notice.”
“Only until further notice?”
“He will not be practising hypnosis at Karolinska Hospital in the future,” she said.
Then I saw my own face on the screen; I was sitting in the television studio looking frightened.
“Will you be continuing to practise hypnosis at other hospitals?” the interviewer asked me.
For a moment I looked confused, as if I didn’t understand the question, and then I shook my head almost imperceptibly.
“Erik Maria Bark, do you still believe that hypnosis is a good form of treatment?” she persisted.
“I don’t know,” I answered feebly.
“Will you continue to practise?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“I will never hypnotise anyone again,” I replied.
“Is that a promise?”
“Yes.”
75
wednesday, december 16: morning
Erik gives a start, and the hand holding the coffee cup jerks and spills the liquid all over his jacket and shirt cuffs.
Joona turns to him in surprise and without a word pulls a tissue from a box of Kleenex on the dashboard.
Erik looks out at the big yellow wooden house, the garden, the lawn, and the enormous Winnie-the-Pooh with the fangs drawn on it.
“Is she violent?” asks Joona.
“Who?”
“Eva Blau.”
“Maybe. I mean, she’s certainly capable of it.”
Joona switches off the engine and they get out of the car. “Just don’t expect too much,” he says in a melancholy tone. “Liselott Blau might have nothing to do with Eva.”
“No,” Erik replies absently.
They walk up a path made of flat, dark-grey slate. A heavy white veil of little snowflakes whirls in the air.
“We have to be careful,” says Joona. “Because this could actually be the haunted house.” His face lights up in a faint smile.
Erik stops in the middle of the path. The wet fabric around his wrist has grown cold. He smells of stale coffee. “I should explain. The haunted house is a house in the former Yugoslavia,” he says. “It’s also an apartment in Jakobsberg, a gym in Stocksund, a pale green house up in Dorotea, and so on.”
He can’t help smiling as he meets Joona’s questioning gaze.
“The haunted house isn’t a specific place, it’s a term my hypnosis group adopted,” he explains. “One member called the place where he had been traumatised the haunted house, and it became what we called anywhere that their abuse had taken place.”
“I think I understand,” says Joona. “Where was Eva Blau’s haunted house?”
“That’s the problem. She was the only one who didn’t find her way there. Unlike the rest of the group, she never described a central place.”
“Well, maybe this is it,” says Joona.
They stride up the path. Erik fumbles in his pocket for the box with the parrot and the native on it. He feels sick, as if his emotional responses to the events he’s recalled have been suspended in his nerve centre, as powerful and confusing as ever. He wants to take one of his pills, yearns for a pill, but he knows he must remain absolutely clear-headed. He has to find Benjamin, he has to stop taking the pills, he can’t go on like this, he can’t keep hiding.
He pushes the doorbell, hearing the deep chime through thick wood. He waits, although he wants to pull the door open, rush inside, and shout Benjamin’s name. Joona’s hand is tucked inside his jacket. After a little while the door is opened by a young woman with glasses, red hair, and a patch of tiny scars on each cheek. Erik studies her carefully.
“We’re looking for Liselott Blau,” says Joona.
“That’s me,” she replies warily.
Joona looks at Erik, who shakes his head slightly. This is not Eva.
“We’re actually looking for Eva,” Joona says.
“Eva? I don’t know any Eva. What’s this about?” asks the woman.
Joona shows her his police ID and asks if they can come in for a while. She hesitates, looking back nervously into the house. “Or talk to us out here, if you prefer. You should put on a jacket, though, it’s chilly,” he says.
A few minutes later they are standing on the lawn, crunchy underfoot with frost, their breath forming white condensation in the air as they speak.
“I live alone,” she says, hugging herself.
“Big house,” Joona says, nodding at the large structure.
The woman smiles thinly. “I’m in a fortunate position.”
“Is Eva Blau a relative?”
“I told you, I don’t know anyone called Eva Blau.”
Joona shows her three pictures of Eva that he has taken from the video recording, but the red-haired woman simply shakes her head.
“Look closely,” says Joona firmly.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she snaps.
“I’m asking, for now.”
“I pay your salary,” she says. “My taxes pay your salary.”
“Please look at the pictures.”
“I’ve never seen her.”
“This is important,” Erik says.
“To you, maybe, but not to me.”
“She calls herself Eva Blau,” Joona goes on. “Blau is quite an unusual name in Sweden.”
Erik sees a curtain suddenly sway in an upstairs window. He bolts for the house as the others call after him.
76
wednesday, december 16: morning
Erik dashes through the door, spots the wide staircase and takes it two steps at a time.
“Benjamin!” he calls out, then freezes.
The hallway, lined with closed doors, stretches in both directions. Somewhere, a floorboard creaks. He tries to work out which window he was looking at when he saw the curtain move, and hurries to his right, to the last door of the corridor. He tries the handle, but it’s locked.
“Benjamin?” Erik calls softly.
He bends down and peers through the keyhole. The key’s in the lock, but Erik thinks he can sense movement within.
“Open the door,” he barks.
He hears someone rush into the house, and then the red-haired woman is on her way up the stairs.
“I don’t want you in here!” she shouts.
Ignoring her, Erik takes a step backwards, kicks the door open, and walks in. The room is empty: a large unmade bed with pink sheets, a pale pink carpet, a wardrobe with tinted mirrors on its doors. A camera on a tripod is pointing at the bed. He opens the wardrobe, but there is no one there; he turns around, studying the room. A narrow pair of men’s jeans is folded neatly and draped over the back of a chair. Erik bends down and sees someone curled up in the darkness under the bed: shy, terrified eyes, narrow thighs, and bare feet.
“Come out here,” he says sharply.
He reaches out, grabs hold of an ankle, and drags
out a naked boy, who cowers as he speaks rapidly to Erik in a language that sounds like Arabic. He grabs the jeans and pulls them on. Then another boy peeps out and says something in a harsh tone of voice to his friend, who immediately falls silent. The red-haired woman is standing in the doorway, insisting in a trembling voice that he is to leave her friends alone.
“Are they minors?” Erik asks.
“Get out of my house,” she says furiously.
The second boy has wrapped the duvet around him. He takes a cigarette from a pack on the bedside table and stares at Erik, smiling.
“Out!” screams Liselott Blau.
As Erik slowly descends the stairs, the woman follows, yelling, “Go to hell!” Erik leaves the house and walks down the slate path. Joona is waiting with his gun drawn and hidden close to his body. The woman stops in the doorway.
“You’re not allowed to do this kind of thing,” she shouts. “It’s not legal. The cops need a warrant to enter somebody’s house like that.”
“I’m not a cop,” Erik yells back.
“I’ll be making an official complaint about this!”
“Feel free,” says Joona. “You can make the complaint to me. As I said, I am a police officer.”
77
wednesday, december 16: afternoon
Back at the wheel, Joona pulls to the side of the road and takes a piece of paper out of his pocket. A flatbed truck carrying a load of dusty crushed stone passes by.
“There are five more people named Blau in the Stockholm area, three in Västerås, two in Eskilstuna, and one in Umeå.” He folds up the paper and smiles encouragingly at Erik.
“Charlotte,” Erik says quietly.
“There was no Charlotte on the list,” replies Joona, wiping a mark off the rearview mirror.
“Charlotte Ceder. She was kind to Eva. I think Eva had a room at her place in those days.”
“Where do you think we might find Charlotte?”
“She lived in Stocksund ten years ago.”
Joona dials Anja.
“I need a phone number and address for one Charlotte Ceder. I mean like right now. She lives in Stocksund, or at least she used to.” He abruptly pulls the phone from his ear and stares at it, a wry expression on his face. Erik can hear a woman’s agitated voice on the other end. “Same to you. Yes. Yes, please.” There’s a pause. “Sure, hang on,” he says, taking out a pen and making a note. “Thanks a lot.”
He flicks on the left-turn signal and pulls out into the traffic.
“Is she still living there?” asks Erik.
“No, but we’re in luck. She lives near Rimbo.”
Erik feels a stab of anxiety in his stomach. He doesn’t know why he finds it frightening that Charlotte has moved from Stocksund; perhaps he ought to interpret it as a positive development.
“The Husby estate,” says Joona, inserting a disk into the CD player. Turning up the volume, he turns to Erik and says apologetically, “This is my mother’s music. Saija Varjus.” He shakes his head sadly and joins in. “Dam dam da da di dum.”
The mournful music fills the whole car.
When the song is over they sit in silence for a short while. Then Joona says in a voice that sounds almost surprised, “I don’t like Finnish music any more.” He clears his throat a couple of times.
“I thought it was lovely,” says Erik.
Joona smiles, giving him a quick sideways glance. “My mother was there when she became the tango queen of Seinäjoki.”
Heavy sleet is falling when they turn off onto the 77 at Sätuna. The sky to the east is growing dark, and the farms they pass are difficult to make out in the gathering dusk.
Joona taps on the dashboard. The heat comes pouring out of the vents with a low hum. Erik can feel his feet getting damp from the peculiar warmth in the car.
“All right, let’s see what we’ve got here,” says Joona to himself as he drives through the small community and turns onto a straight but narrow road between dark fields. In the distance they can see a large white house behind a high fence. They park outside the open gates and walk the last few yards to the house. A young woman in a leather jacket is raking the gravel path. She looks scared as they approach. A golden retriever is jumping around her legs.
“Charlotte,” the woman calls out. “Charlotte!”
A woman appears around the side of the enormous house, dragging a big black rubbish bag behind her. She is wearing a pink down vest, a thick grey sweater, scruffy jeans, and wellingtons.
Charlotte, thinks Erik. It really is Charlotte.
Gone is the slender, cool woman with her elegant clothes and her well-cared-for short bob. The person coming toward them looks completely different. Her hair is long and grey, woven into a thick braid. Her face is full of laughter lines, and she isn’t wearing a scrap of make-up. She’s more beautiful than ever, thinks Erik. When she catches sight of him a deep flush spreads over her face. At first she looks totally amazed; then she begins to smile broadly.
“Erik!” she says, and her voice is just the same: deep, articulate, and warm. She lets go of the rubbish bag and grabs his hands. “Is it really you? It’s wonderful to see you again.”
She says hello to Joona and then stands for a little while, just looking at them. A powerfully built woman opens the front door. She has a tattoo on her neck and is wearing a black hooded jacket.
“Need any help?” she calls.
“Friends of mine,” Charlotte shouts back, waving her away.
Charlotte smiles as the big woman closes the door. “I’ve … I’ve turned this place into a women’s shelter. There’s plenty of room, so I take in women who need to get away, or however you want to put it. I let them live here—we cook together, look after the stables—until they feel ready to go back, ready to do things on their own terms. The whole thing is very straightforward.”
“Charlotte, it all sounds wonderful!” Erik says.
She nods and gestures toward the door, inviting them in.
“Charlotte, we need to get hold of Eva Blau,” says Erik. “Do you remember her?”
“Of course I remember her. She was my first guest here. I had the rooms in the wing and—”
She breaks off but begins again. “It’s strange that you should mention Eva. She called me only a week or so ago.”
“What did she want?”
“She was angry.”
“Yes,” says Erik, with a sigh.
“Why was she angry?” asks Joona.
Charlotte takes a deep breath. Erik can hear the wind in the bare branches of the trees. Someone has tried to build a snowman with the small amount of snow that has fallen, a forlorn and crumpled-looking figure.
“She was angry with Erik.”
He feels his flesh crawl as he thinks of Eva Blau’s sharp face, her aggressive voice, her flashing eyes, and her nose with its cruelly severed tip.
“I think it upset a lot of people when it came out that you’d been practising hypnosis again, Erik.”
“It was a special case.”
She takes his hand in hers. “I never thought, never believed—” She stops. “You helped me,” she whispers. “That time when I saw … do you remember?”
“I do remember,” Erik says quietly.
Charlotte smiles at him. “It was enough. I went inside the haunted house. I looked up and saw the person who had hurt me.”
“I know.”
“It would never have happened without you, Erik.”
“Yes, but—”
“Something inside me became whole again,” she says, gesturing towards her heart.
“Where is Eva now?” asks Joona.
Charlotte frowns. “When she was discharged she moved into an apartment in the centre of Åkersberga and became a Jehovah’s Witness. At first we kept in contact—I helped her out financially—but then we lost touch. She thought she was being persecuted. She kept talking about finding protection, saying that evil was after her.”
Charlotte looks at Erik. �
��You look sad,” she says.
“My son is missing. Eva is our only clue.”
Charlotte’s expression is troubled. “I’m sorry, Erik. I hope you find him.”
“Do you know what her name is?” asks Joona.
“Her real name, you mean? She doesn’t tell anyone that; perhaps she doesn’t even know it herself.”
“OK.”
“But she called herself Veronica when she rang me.”
“Veronica?”
“It comes from the story of the veil of Veronica.”
They hug each other briefly, then Erik and Joona hurry back to the car. As they drive south, heading for Stockholm, Joona calls Anja to ask her to look for someone called Veronica in the centre of Åkersberga, and he requests an address for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, either their office or the Kingdom Hall. Erik half listens, his mind thick with exhaustion. He feels his eyes slowly begin to close.
“Yes, Anja, I’m writing it down,” he hears Joona say. “Västra Banvägen … hang on, Stationsvägen 5, all right, thanks.”
78
wednesday, december 16: afternoon
Erik wakes up as they are driving down a long hill beside a golf course.
“Nearly there,” says Joona.
“I fell asleep,” says Erik, mainly to himself.
“Eva Blau rang Charlotte on the same day you were featured in all the newspapers,” Joona muses.
“And the following day Benjamin was kidnapped,” says Erik.
“Because someone spotted you.”
“Or because I broke my promise never to hypnotise anyone again.”
“In which case it’s my fault,” says Joona.
Erik doesn’t really know what to say.
“I’m sorry,” says Joona, his eyes fixed on the road.
They pass a discount shop with smashed windows. Joona glances in the rear-view mirror. A woman wrapped in a shawl sweeps up broken glass on the pavement.
“I don’t know what happened with Eva,” says Erik. “Every now and then a patient completely eludes you. It was as if my treatment aggravated her condition. She blamed me and my hypnosis for everything, she became delusional, she harmed herself, and in the end … I should never have accepted her into the group. I should never have hypnotised anyone.”
