The Hypnotist

Chapter 91

Sitting beside Erik in the car, Simone glances at him from time to time. The road, a channel of brown and grey slush down the middle, rushes by, the cars ahead moving in endless flashing lines of traffic. The streetlamps flicker past monotonously. She sighs softly and looks around the car. Rubbish is strewn across the back seat and underfoot: empty water bottles, soft drink cans, a pizza box, newspapers, paper cups, empty crisp packets, discarded sweet wrappers.

Erik is driving smoothly toward Danderyd Hospital, where Sim Shulman lies in a coma, and he knows exactly what he’s going to do when he gets there. He glances at Simone. She’s lost weight and the corners of her mouth are turned down, her expression is anxious and unhappy.

Personally, Erik feels almost terrifyingly focused. After days of confusion, the events of the recent past are illuminated by a clear, cold light. He thinks he finally understands what has happened to him and his family.

“When we realized it couldn’t be Josef who had taken Benjamin, Joona asked me to think back,” he explains, and looks at her to make sure she’s listening. “And I started searching the past for someone who wanted to take their revenge on me.”

“And what did you find?” asks Simone.

From the corner of his eye he can see that she has turned to face him.

“I found the hypnosis group I left behind ten years ago. I hadn’t thought of them in a long time. That part of my life, my career, seemed to be over. But now, as I try to remember, it’s as if the group never disappeared. They were just standing slightly to one side, waiting.”

Simone nods. Erik keeps talking, trying to explain his theories regarding the hypnosis group, the tensions between individuals, his own balancing act, and the trust that had been shattered. “When I failed in everything, I promised never to hypnotize anyone again.”

“I know, Erik.”

“But then I broke my promise, because Joona persuaded me it was the only way to save Evelyn Ek.”

“Do you think it’s because of that, because you hypnotized Josef, that all this has happened to us?”

“I don’t know, Simone. It’s possible that it aroused a deeply buried and dormant hatred of me, one held in check only by my promise never to practise again. Do you remember Eva Blau?” he goes on. “She swung in and out of a psychotic state. You know she threatened me, swore she would destroy my life.”

“I never understood why,” Simone says quietly.

“She was afraid of someone. I thought it was paranoia, but now I’m almost certain she was being threatened by Lydia.”

“Just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you,” says Simone. She smiles briefly.

Erik pulls into the blue, sprawling complex of Danderyd Hospital. “It might even have been Lydia who cut Eva’s face,” he says, almost to himself.

Simone gives a start. “Cut her face?”

“I thought she’d done it herself. Classic self-mutilation,” Erik says. “I thought she’d cut off the tip of her own nose in a desperate attempt to feel something else, to stop feeling whatever was really causing her pain- ”

“Wait a minute.” Simone bursts in. “Are you saying her nose had been cut off?”

“The tip of her nose.”

“Erik, Dad and I found a boy with the tip of his nose cut off. Did Dad tell you? Someone had threatened the boy, frightened him and hurt him because he’d been hassling Benjamin.”

“It’s Lydia.”

“Is she the one who’s kidnapped Benjamin?”

“Yes.”

“What does she want?”

Erik looks at her, his expression serious. “You already know some of this,” he says. “Lydia admitted under hypnosis that she kept her son Kasper locked in a cage in the cellar and forced him to eat rotten food.”

“Kasper?”

“When Kennet told me what Aida said, that this woman had told Benjamin his real name was Kasper, I knew it was Lydia.”

“But she didn’t really have any children.”

“I’m getting to that. I went to her house in Rotebro and broke in, but the place was deserted.”

He speeds along past the rows of parked cars but there are no spaces, so he heads back towards the entrance.

“There had been a fire in the basement,” Erik goes on. “I assumed someone had started it deliberately, but the remains of a large cage were still there.”

“But there was no cage,” Simone says. “They said she had no children.”

“Joona brought a dog in. He found the remains of a child buried in the garden. Ten years ago.”

“Oh my God,” Simone whispers.

“Yes.”

“That was when- ”

“I think she killed the child in the basement when she realized she’d been found out.”

“So you were right all along.”

“So it seems.”

“Does she want to kill Benjamin?”

“I don’t know. Presumably she thinks the whole thing was my fault. If I hadn’t hypnotized her, she would have been able to keep the child.”

Erik falls silent, thinking about Benjamin’s voice when he called. How he had tried not to sound afraid, and how he had talked about the haunted house. He must have meant Lydia’s haunted house. After all, that was where she had grown up, where she had carried out the abuse, and that was probably where she herself had been subjected to abuse. If she hadn’t taken Benjamin to the haunted house, she could have taken him absolutely anywhere.