Читать книгу Joona Linna Crime Series Books 1-3: The Hypnotist, The Nightmare, The Fire Witness - Ларс Кеплер, Lars Kepler - Страница 78

Erik begins to search through the papers he keeps in his office. Somewhere in here, there will be information about Eva Blau. Because whenever his patients act differently from what he expects, Erik keeps his notes handy until he can understand the reasons for these deviations.

It could be an observation or some forgotten object. He rummages through papers, files, scraps of paper, and receipts with notes written on them. Faded photographs in a plastic wallet, an external hard drive, some diaries from the time when he believed in complete openness between doctor and patient, a drawing that a traumatised child made one night. Several cassettes and videotapes from his lectures at Karolinska Institute. A book by Hermann Broch, full of annotations. Erik’s hands stop moving. Around a videotape is a piece of paper held in place by a brown rubber band. On the spine of the tape it simply says Erik Maria Bark, Tape 14. He removes the piece of paper, angles the lamp, and recognises his own handwriting: THE HAUNTED HOUSE.

Ice-cold shivers run up his back and out along his arms, and the hair on the back of his neck stands up. He can suddenly hear the ticking of his watch. His head is pounding and his heart is racing. He sits down, looks at the tape again, picks up the phone with trembling hands, and calls the porters’ office to ask that a videotape player be sent to his office. With feet as heavy as lead he walks over to the window again and peers out at the covering of snow in the inner courtyard. Heavy flakes drift slowly at an angle through the air, landing on the windowpane before losing their colour and melting from the warmth of the glass. He tells himself it’s probably just a coincidence, a strange coincidence, but at the same time he realises that some of the pieces of the puzzle may fit together.

The haunted house. Those few words written on a piece of paper have the power to transport him back to the past, to the time when he was still involved with hypnosis. He knows that against his will he must walk up to a dark mirror and try to see what is hiding there, behind the reflections created by all the time that has passed.

The porter taps gently on the door. Erik opens it, confirms his request, and wheels in the stand with the television and the oddly antiquated video player. He inserts the tape, turns off the overhead light, and sits down. “I’d almost forgotten this,” he says to himself, pointing the remote at the machine.

The picture flickers and the sound crackles and breaks up for a little while, and then he hears his own voice coming from the TV. He sounds as if he has a cold as he dutifully notes the place, date, time, and conclusion. “We have had a short break but are still in a post-hypnotic state.”

Erik is riveted by the shaky picture on the screen. It’s been ten years, he thinks, swallowing hard. The video steadies, revealing a half circle of chairs. Then Erik appears, and begins to tidy up. There is a lightness in his ten-years-younger body, a spring he no longer has. Here, his hair is not yet grey; the deep furrows in his forehead and cheeks do not yet exist.

Almost too well, Erik remembers the atmosphere in the room that day. The group was still affected by the first phase of hypnosis before the break, when they were disturbed by the arrival of the new member. They had got to know one another, had begun to identify with one another’s stories. The new addition was deeply unsettling. This, Erik realises, is what he’s about to see.

The patients come into view, moving listlessly; they sit down on the chairs. A few talk in subdued tones. One laughs. Others sit in silence. The tape is grainy, and their blurred faces are difficult to make out.

Leaning forward in his chair, Erik swallows hard and hears himself explaining in a tinny voice that it is time to continue the session. He sees himself standing by the wall, making notes on a pad. Suddenly there is a knock on the door, and Eva Blau walks in. Even on the tape, across the distance of years, Erik can tell that she is under stress. He can make out patches on her throat and cheeks as he watches himself take her coat, hang it up, and lead her over to the group; he introduces her briefly and welcomes her. The others nod warily or perhaps they whisper hello; a few take no notice of her, staring down at the floor instead.

The group was usually made up of eight people, including Erik. Therapy focused on investigating each person’s past under hypnosis, gradually approaching the most painful point. This hypnosis always took place in front of the group and together with the group. The idea was that this way they would all become more than witnesses to one another’s experiences; via hypnotic openness, they would be able to share the pain and grieve together, as in collective disasters.

Eva Blau sits down on the one empty chair and stares straight into the camera; her face is suddenly sharp and hostile.

This is the woman who broke into his home ten years ago, he thinks. But what did she steal, and what else did she do?

On the screen, Erik introduces the second part of the session by referring back to the first and follows up with playful free associations. This was his way of lightening the mood, helping the group feel that a certain spirit was possible despite the dark, bottomless undercurrents constantly swirling inside everything they said and did. A patient named Pierre is conjuring ‘a hippie on a chopper’ when Eva suddenly leaps to her feet with a crash, protesting the exercise.

“This is just childish nonsense,” she says.

“Why do you feel that way?” asks Erik.

Eva doesn’t reply but sits back down, crossing her arms tightly.

Getting no response, Erik turns to Pierre to see if he would like to carry on with his association, but Pierre shakes his head and forms a cross with his index fingers, pointing them at Eva. “They shot Dennis Hopper because he was a hippie,” he murmurs.

A young, stocky woman—Sibel, her name was Sibel—giggles and glances sideways at Erik. A patient named Jussi clears his throat and raises his hand in Eva’s direction. “In the haunted house you won’t have to listen to our childish non … sense,” he says, in his slow and heavy Norrland dialect.

Everyone falls silent. Eva whips around to face Jussi, but whatever she means to say, something makes her change her mind. Perhaps it’s the seriousness in his voice, maybe the cool expression in his eyes.