Joona Linna Crime Series Books 1 and 2: The Hypnotist, The Nightmare. Lars Kepler

you know I had had a miscarriage … it’s just that we were so happy when you were born, we forgot to take photographs. I know exactly what you looked like. You had wrinkled ears and—”

      “Stop it!” yells Benjamin, and storms off to his room.

      Erik comes into the kitchen and drops an analgesic into a glass of water. “What’s up with Benjamin?” he asks.

      “I have no idea.”

      Erik drinks from the glass over the sink.

      “He says we lie about everything,” says Simone.

      “All teenagers feel that way. Comes with the territory.” Erik burps silently.

      “I did mention to him that we were going to separate,” she tells him.

      “How the hell could you do something so stupid?”

      “I … I just said what I was feeling at the time.”

      “For fuck’s sake, you can’t just think about yourself!”

      “Me? I’m not the one who’s screwing students. I’m not the one taking a shitload of pills because—”

      “Shut the fuck up!” he yells. “You don’t know anything!”

      “I know you’re on serious painkillers.”

      “And what’s that got to do with you?”

      “Tell me, Erik: are you in pain?”

      “I’m a doctor. I think I’m in a slightly better position to evaluate—”

      “Oh, stop trying to fool me.”

      “What do you mean?” he says.

      “You’re an addict, Erik. We never have sex any more because you’re always zonked.”

      “Maybe I don’t want to have sex with you,” he breaks in. “Why would I, when you’re so god-damn miserable with me all the time?”

      The acrimony hangs in the air between them, nearly palpable. Is this really what saying the unsayable feels like? It should be more liberating, more profound; it should boil down to something more substantial.

      “Then it is best if we separate,” she says.

      “Fine.”

      She can’t look at him; she just walks slowly out of the kitchen, feeling the tension and the pain in her throat, the tears springing to her eyes.

      Benjamin has closed his bedroom door, and his music is so loud that the walls and doors are rattling. Simone locks herself in the bathroom, switches off the light, and weeps.

      “Fucking hell!” she hears Erik yell from the hallway before the front door opens and shuts again.

       30

       friday, december 11: morning

      It isn’t quite 7:00 a.m. when Joona Linna gets a call from Dr Daniella Richards. She explains that in her opinion Josef is now able to cope with a short interview.

      As Joona gets into his car to drive to the hospital, he feels a dull ache in his elbow. He thinks back to the previous evening, how the blue light from the radio cars had swept over the façade of Sorab Ramadani’s apartment block near Tantolunden. The man with the boyish hair had been spitting blood and muttering thickly about his tongue as he was guided into the backseat of the patrol car. Ronny Alfredsson and his partner had been discovered in the shelter down in the basement of the apartment block. They had been threatened with knives and locked in and then the men had driven their patrol car to another building and left it in the visitors’ car park.

      Joona had gone back inside, rung Sorab’s doorbell, and, speaking once again through the letter box, told him that his bodyguards had been arrested and that the door to his apartment would be broken down unless he opened it immediately.

      After a moment, Sorab had let him in. He was a pale man, wearing his hair in a ponytail. He was anxious, his eyes darting around the room, but he asked Joona to take a seat on the blue leather sofa, offered him a cup of camomile tea, and apologised for his friends.

      “I’m sorry about all this, really. I’ve been having some problems lately. Worried about my safety. That’s why I got myself some bodyguards.”

      “What makes you worry about your safety?” asked Joona, sipping at the hot tea.

      “Someone’s out to get me.” He stood up and peered out the window.

      “Who?” asked Joona.

      Sorab kept his back to Joona, and said tonelessly that he didn’t want to talk about it. “Do I have to?” he asked. “Don’t I have the right to remain silent?”

      “You have the right to remain silent,” admitted Joona.

      Sorab shrugged his shoulders. “There you go, then.”

      “I might be able to help you if you talk to me,” Joona had ventured. “Has that occurred to you?”

      “Thank you very much,” said Sorab, still facing the window.

      “Is it Evelyn’s brother who—”

      “No.”

      “Wasn’t it Josef Ek who came here?”

      “He’s not her brother.”

      “Not her brother? Who is he, then?”

      “How should I know? But he’s not her brother. He’s something else.”

      After that, Sorab became cagey and nervous again, giving only the most evasive answers to Joona’s questions. When he left, Joona wondered what Josef had said to Sorab. What had he done? How had he managed to frighten him into revealing where Evelyn was?

      Joona parks in front of the neurosurgical unit, walks through the main entrance, takes the lift to the fifth floor, continues through the corridor, greets the policeman on duty, and proceeds into Josef’s room. An attractive woman sits in the chair beside the bed. She looks at Joona with an expression he finds appealing as she rises to introduce herself:

      “Lisbet Carlén,” she says. “I’m a social worker. I’ll be Josef’s advocate during the interview.”

      “Excellent,” says Joona, shaking her hand.

      “Are you leading the interrogation?” she asks with interest.

      “Yes. Forgive me. My name is Joona Linna, and I’m from the National CID. We spoke on the telephone.”

      At regular intervals there is a loud bubbling noise from the Bülow drainage tube connected to Josef’s punctured pleura. The drain replaces the pressure that is no longer-naturally present, enabling his lung to function.

      Lisbet Carlén says quietly that the doctor has explained that Josef must lie absolutely still, because of the risk of new bleeds in the liver.

      “I have no intention of putting his health at risk,” says Joona, placing the tape recorder on the table next to Josef’s face.

      He gestures inquiringly at the recorder and Lisbet nods. He starts the machine and begins by describing the situation: It is Friday, 11^th December, at 8:15 in the morning, and Josef Ek is being questioned to try to elicit information. He then lists the people present in the room.

      “Hi,” says Joona.

      Josef looks at him with heavy eyes.

      “My name is Joona. I’m a detective.”

      Josef closes his eyes.

      “How are you feeling?”

      The social worker looks out the window.

      “Can