The Hypnotist

Chapter 88

Erik runs downstairs to the hospital lobby, pushes through a group of teenagers bearing flowers and Mylar balloons, dashes across the dirty floor past an old man in a wheelchair, and out through the main exit. Dodging traffic, he runs across the street and vaults the low shrubbery planted along the perimeter of the visitors’ car park. The keys are already in his hand as he races along the line of grubby vehicles toward s his car. He starts the engine and reverses out so violently that the side of his car scrapes the bumper of the car next to him.

His breathing is still uneven as he turns west. He drives as fast as he can, but as he approaches Edsberg School, a line of children appears, crossing the street. While he waits he takes out his mobile and calls Joona.

“It’s Lydia Everson,” he almost screams.

“Who?”

“Lydia has taken Benjamin!” he continues. “I told you about her. She’s the one who made the complaint against me.”

“We’ll check her out,” says Joona.

“I’m on my way.”

“Give me an address.”

“It’s a house on Tennisvägen in Rotebro. I can’t remember the number, but it’s a red house, quite big.”

“Wait for me somewhere in- ”

“I’m going straight there.”

“Don’t rush in.”

“Benjamin will die if he doesn’t get his medication.”

“Wait for me.”

Erik ends the call, speeding up as he follows the railway line beside the long narrow lake. Recklessly, he overtakes another car by the yeast factory, passing on the right with inches to spare. As he turns off by the Co-op Forum supermarket, he feels his pulse pounding in his temples.

Not much has changed here. The pizzeria has been replaced by a sushi bar, and all the back gardens sport trampolines (they’re all the rage). He parks next to the same fir hedge as ten years ago, when he and the social worker were about to visit Lydia.

As he looks at the house from inside the car, he can almost feel his presence there ten years earlier. He remembers there were no signs of a child, no toys in the garden, nothing to indicate that Lydia was a mother. On the other hand, they hadn’t really looked around the house. They had only gone down the steps to the cellar and back up again, and then Lydia had rushed after him with the knife in her hand. He remembers how she looked when she drew the blade across her throat without taking her eyes off him.

Leaving the key in the ignition, he abandons the car without even closing the door behind him and rushes up the slope. He opens the gate and goes into the garden. Patches of damp snow lie amid the tall yellow grass. Icicles sparkle beneath the broken guttering. The same hanging baskets full of dead plants swing by the door.

He tries the door, but it is locked. He looks under the doormat; a few wood-lice scuttle away from the wet rectangle on the concrete steps. No key. He gropes under the wooden hand-rail: no key there, either. He walks around to the back of the house, picks up an edging stone from the flower bed, and hurls it at the patio door. The outer pane shatters, and the stone thuds back onto the grass. He picks it up and throws it again, harder this time, knocking out the entire window. He unlocks the door and walks into a bedroom where the walls are covered with pictures of angels and the Indian guru Sai Baba.

“Benjamin,” he yells. “Benjamin!”