LITMIR.BIZ

       21

       tuesday, december 8: afternoon

      Although he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep in the car, Erik has made an attempt. But he remains wide awake as they drive toward the cottage where they hope to find Evelyn Ek, despite the fact that Detective Joona Linna has driven very smoothly toward Värmdö.

      Now, though, off the main road, loose gravel begins to rattle against the bottom of the chassis as they pass an old sawmill.

      Erik peers out the windscreen, waiting while Joona speaks quietly over the police radio with his colleagues, who are also on their way to Värmdö.

      “I was thinking,” says Erik, after Joona has replaced the transmitter.

      “Yes?”

      “I said Josef Ek couldn’t run away from the hospital, but if he could inflict all those knife wounds on himself, maybe we can’t be too sure.”

      “I was thinking the same thing,” Joona replies, “so I’ve got somebody outside the room.”

      “It’s probably completely unnecessary,” says Erik.

      “Yes.”

      They pull to the side of the road where three cars have stopped next to a telephone pole, one behind the other. Joona momentarily joins four police officers who stand talking in the white light, putting on their bullet-proof vests and pointing at a map. The sunlight flashes on the glass of an old greenhouse nearby.

      Joona gets back in the car, carrying the cold air on his clothes. He drums the fingers of one hand pensively on the steering wheel as he waits for the others to return to their cars.

      Suddenly a rapid sequence of notes comes from the police radio, then a loud crackling that stops abruptly. Joona switches to another channel and checks that everyone in the team is in contact, exchanging a few words with each one before turning the key in the ignition.

      The cars continue alongside a ploughed field, past a grove of birch trees and a large, rusty silo.

      “Stay in the car when we get there,” says Joona quietly.

      “Fine,” says Erik.

      A flock of crows struts across the surface of the road, suddenly taking flight and flapping away as the cars approach.

      “Are there any negative aspects to hypnosis?” Joona asks abruptly.

      “What do you mean?”

      “You were one of the best in the world, but you stopped.”

      “People sometimes have good reasons for keeping things hidden,” Erik says.

      “Of course, but—”

      “And those reasons are very difficult to judge when it comes to hypnosis.”

      Joona gives him a sceptical look. “Why do I think that’s not why you gave it up?”

      “I don’t want to talk about it,” says Erik.

      Tree trunks flash by at the side of the road. As they drive deeper into the forest, it grows darker. Gravel clatters against the undercarriage of the car. Turning off onto a narrow forest track, they pass a number of summer cottages and finally come to a stop. Far away among the fir trees, Joona can see a small brown wooden house in a shady glade.

      “I’m trusting you to stay put,” he tells Erik before he leaves the car.

      As Joona walks towards the house where the other police officers are already waiting, he thinks once again about Josef under hypnosis. The words that just poured out between his flaccid lips. A little boy describing bestial aggression with remote clarity. The memory must have been perfectly clear to him: his little sister’s feverish cramps, the surge of rage, the choice of knives, the euphoria at crossing the line. But towards the end of the session, Josef’s account had become confused, and it was more difficult to understand what he meant, what he was really perceiving, whether his older sister, Evelyn, had actually forced him to carry out the murders.

      Gathering the four officers around him, Joona outlines the gravity of the situation and provides guidelines for the use of firearms. Any shots that might be fired must be directed at the legs, whatever the circumstances.

      “I want all of you to proceed with caution so as not to frighten the girl,” he says. “She may be afraid, she may be injured, but at the same time don’t forget for one second that we may be dealing with a dangerous person.”

      They all study the house for a moment. Its chocolate brown façade is made up of overlapping shingles; the window and doorframes are white, the front door is black. The windows are covered with pink curtains. No smoke comes from the chimney. On the porch there is a broom and a yellow plastic bucket full of pine cones. Joona sends one patrol of three officers round the house and away from the garden so they can approach the back of the house from a safe distance.

      They set off along the forest track; one of them stops and inserts a plug of snuff under his top lip.