The Hypnotist

Chapter 97

Joakim is sitting in a white Mercedes directly opposite the entrance to National Police Headquarters. The interior light is on, and his face looks tired and lonely in its dim glow. He gives a start when Joona taps on the windscreen; he is deeply lost in thought.

“Hi,” he says, opening the door. “Get in.”

Joona climbs in and waits. The car smells vaguely of dog. The back-seat is covered with a hairy blanket.

“When I think about myself,” says Joakim, “when I think about the way I was before Johan was born, it’s like thinking about a total stranger. I had a pretty tough time when I was growing up; I ended up in an institution for young offenders. I had been fostered out, but that doesn’t really mean anything; they just want you out of the system. But when I met Isabella, I pulled myself together and started studying properly. I qualified as an engineer the year Johan was born. I remember once we took a holiday. I’d never been on holiday before. We went to Greece. Johan had just learned to walk.” Joakim Samuelsson shuts his eyes, shakes his head. “So long ago. He was so much like me… the same…”

He falls silent. A rat, damp and grey, scuttles along the dark pavement by bushes littered with rubbish.

“What did you want to tell me?” asks Joona after a while.

Joakim rubs his eyes. “Are you sure it was Lydia Everson who did this?” he asks, his voice weak.

Joona nods. “I’m absolutely sure.”

“Right,” whispers Joakim Samuelsson. He turns his exhausted, furrowed face toward Joona. “I do know her,” he says simply. “I know her very well. We were in the youth offenders’ institution together. When Lydia was only fourteen they found out she was pregnant. They were shit-scared at first: then they forced her to have an abortion. It was supposed to be kept quiet, but they botched the job. There were all sorts of complications, infections. But after a while she recovered.”

Joakim’s hands are shaking as he places them on the steering wheel.

“We moved in together when we left the institution. We lived in her house in Rotebro and tried to have a baby. She was completely obsessed with the idea. But nothing happened. So she went to see a gynaecologist. I’ll never forget that day, when she came back from the doctor’s.” He runs his shaking hands through his hair. “They said there was too much scarring from the abortion and the aftermath. The doctor told her she could never get pregnant.”

“And the one time she was pregnant,” says Joona, “was it yours?”

“Yes.”

“So you owed her a child,” Joona says, almost to himself.