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

for an unusually long time; he just kept on and on. They were long dead by the time he was done with them. He must have been getting more and more tired. That kind of violence would take a lot out of you. But he couldn’t get enough; his rage showed no sign of subsiding.”

      Silence falls between them. Joona continues along Strandvägen. He starts to think about his most recent interview with Evelyn again.

      “Anyway, I just wanted to confirm this business with the C-section,” says The Needle, after a while. “The fact that the cut was made some two hours after death.”

      “Thanks, Nils,” says Joona.

      “You’ll have my full report in the morning.”

      Joona tries to remember what Evelyn had said about her mother’s C-section while slumped on the floor against the wall in the interview room, talking about Josef’s pathological jealousy of his little sister.

      “There’s something wrong inside Josef’s head,” she had whispered. “There always has been. I remember when he was born, Mum was really sick. I don’t know what it was, but they had to do an emergency C-section.” Evelyn shook her head and sucked in her lips before continuing. “Do you know what an emergency C-section is?”

      “More or less,” Joona replied.

      “Sometimes … sometimes there can be complications when you give birth that way.” Evelyn looked at him shyly.

      “You mean the baby can be starved of oxygen, that kind of thing?” Joona asked.

      She shook her head and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I mean, not with the baby. The mother can have psychological problems. I read about it. A woman who’s gone through a difficult labour and is then suddenly anaesthetised for a C-section sometimes has problems later.”

      “Post-natal depression?”

      “Not exactly,” said Evelyn, her voice thick and heavy. “My mother developed a psychosis after she gave birth to Josef. They didn’t realise on the maternity ward; they just let her take him home. I was only eight, but I noticed right away. Everything was wrong. She didn’t pay any attention to him at all, she didn’t touch him, she just lay in bed and cried and cried and cried. I was the one who took care of him.”

      Evelyn looked at Joona and whispered the rest.

      “Mum would say he wasn’t hers. She’d say her real child was dead. In the end, she had to be hospitalised.”

      Evelyn smiled wryly when she mentioned the vast psychiatric unit.

      “Mum came home after about a year. She pretended everything was back to normal, but in reality she continued to deny his existence.”

      “So you don’t think your mother had really recovered?” Joona asked tentatively.

      “She was fine, because when she had Lisa, everything was different. She was so happy about Lisa; she did everything for her.”

      “And you did everything for Josef.”

      “I took care of him—someone had to—but he started saying that Mum should have given birth to him properly. For him, what explained the unfairness of it all was that Lisa had been born through her cunt and he hadn’t. That’s what he said all the time: Mum should have given birth to him through her cunt …”

      Evelyn’s voice died away. She turned her face to the wall, and Joona looked at her tense, hunched shoulders without daring to touch her.

       35

       friday, december 11: evening

      For once it is not totally silent in the intensive care unit at Karolinska University Hospital when Joona arrives. Someone has switched the television on in the common room, and Joona can hear the clink of tableware on dinner plates. The aroma of institutional food permeates the ward.

      He thinks about Josef cutting open the old C-section scar on his mother’s stomach: his passage into life, one that had condemned him to a motherless existence.

      The boy must have realised from an early age that he was not like the other children. Joona considers the endless loneliness of a boy rejected by his mother. A person who has been the indisputable favourite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of the conqueror, but the opposite results not only in an absence of this feeling but also the presence of an active darkness. The only one who gave Josef love and care was Evelyn, and he couldn’t cope with being rejected by her; the slightest indication that she was distancing herself from him plunged him into despair and rage, his fury directed increasingly at the beloved younger sister.

      Joona nods at Sunesson, the officer on guard, who is standing outside the door of Josef Ek’s room, then glances in at the boy. A heavy drip stand right next to the bed is supplying him with both fluid and blood plasma. The boy’s feet protrude from beneath the pale blue blanket; the soles are dirty, hairs and bits of grit and rubbish are stuck to the surgical tape covering the stitches. The television is on, but he doesn’t appear to be watching it.

      The social worker, Lisbet Carlén, is already in the room. She hasn’t noticed Joona yet; she is standing by the window adjusting a barrette in her hair.

      Josef is bleeding anew from one of his cuts; the blood runs along his arm and drips to the floor. An older nurse leans over the boy, tending to his dressings. She loosens the compress, tapes the edges of the wound together once again, wipes the blood away, and leaves the room.

      “Excuse me,” says Joona, catching up with her in the hallway.

      “Yes?”

      “How is he? How is Josef getting on?”

      “You’ll have to speak to the doctor in charge,” the nurse replies, setting off once again.

      “I will,” says Joona with a smile, hurrying after her. “But there’s something I’d like to show him. Would it be possible for me to take him there—in a wheelchair, I mean?”

      The nurse stops dead and shakes her head. “Under no circumstances is the patient to be moved,” she says sternly. “What a ridiculous idea. He’s in a great deal of pain, he can’t move, there could be new bleeds, and he could begin to haemorrhage if he were to sit up.”

      Joona returns to Josef’s room, walking in without knocking, and turns off the TV. He switches on the tape recorder, mutters the date and time and those present, and sits down. Josef opens his heavy eyes and looks at him with a mild lack of interest. The chest drain emits a pleasant, low-pitched, bubbling noise.

      “You’ll be discharged soon,” says Joona.

      “Good,” says Josef faintly.

      “Although you’ll immediately be transferred to police custody.”

      “What do you mean? Lisbet said the prosecutor isn’t prepared to take any action,” says Josef, glancing over at the social worker.

      “That was before we had a witness.”

      Josef closes his eyes gently. “Who?”

      “We’ve talked quite a bit, you and I,” says Joona. “But you might want to change something you’ve already said or add something you haven’t said.”

      “Evelyn,” he whispers.

      “You’re going to be inside for a very long time.”

      “You’re lying.”

      “No, Josef, I’m telling the truth. Trust me. You’ll be arrested, and you now have the right to legal representation.”

      Josef attempts to raise his hand but doesn’t have the strength. “You hypnotised her,” he says with a smile.

      Joona shakes his head.

      “It’s her word against mine,” he says.

      “Not