Читать книгу Joona Linna Crime Series Books 1-3: The Hypnotist, The Nightmare, The Fire Witness - Ларс Кеплер, Lars Kepler - Страница 85

Erik is sitting in the car next to Joona, blowing on a paper cup of coffee. They drive past the university, past the Natural History Museum. On the other side of the road, down towards Brunnsviken, the greenhouse shines out in the falling darkness.

“You’re sure of the name, Eva Blau?” asks Joona.

“Yes.”

“There’s nothing in any telephone directory, nothing in the criminal records database, nothing in the database of suspects, or in the register of those licensed to carry a weapon, nothing in the tax office records, the electoral register, or with the vehicle licensing authority. I’ve had every local record checked: the county councils, the church records, the National Insurance Office, the immigration authorities. There is no Eva Blau in Sweden, and there never has been.”

“She was my patient,” Erik persists.

“Then she must have another name.”

“Look, I damn well know what my—”

He stops as something flutters by, the faintest awareness that she might indeed have had another name, but then it simply disappears.

“What were you going to say?”

“I’ll go through my papers. Perhaps she just called herself Eva Blau.”

The white winter sky is dense and low; it looks as if it might start snowing at any moment.

Erik takes a sip of his coffee, sweetness followed by a lingering bitterness. Joona turns off into a residential area. They drive slowly past houses, past gardens dusted with snow, with bare fruit trees and small ponds covered for the winter, conservatories equipped with cane furniture, snow-covered trampolines, strands of coloured lights looping through cypress trees, red sledges, and parked cars.

“Where are we actually going?” asks Erik.

Small round snowflakes whirl through the air, gathering on the hood and along the windscreen wipers.

“We’re almost there.”

“Almost where?”

“I found some other people with the surname Blau,” says Joona.

He pulls up in front of a detached garage but leaves the engine idling. In the middle of the lawn stands a plastic Winnie-the-Pooh, six feet high, with the colour flaking off its red sweater. Other toys are scattered throughout the garden. A path made up of irregular pieces of slate leads up to a large yellow wooden house.

“This is where Liselott Blau lives,” says Joona.

“Who’s she?”

“I’ve no idea, but she might know something about Eva.” Joona notices Erik’s dubious expression. “It’s all we have to go on at the moment.”

Erik shakes his head. “It’s been a long time. I never think about those days now.”

“Before you gave up hypnosis.”

“Yes.” Erik meets Joona’s ice-grey eyes. “Perhaps this has nothing to do with Eva Blau.”

“Have you tried to remember?”

“I think so,” Erik replies hesitantly, looking at his coffee cup.

“Really tried?”

“Maybe not really.”

“Do you know if she was dangerous?”

Erik looks out the window and sees that someone has taken a felt pen and drawn fangs and ugly eyebrows on Winnie-the-Pooh. He sips his coffee and suddenly remembers the day he heard the name Eva Blau for the first time.

It was half past eight in the morning. The sun was pouring in through the dusty windows. I’d been on call overnight, and I’d slept in my office, he thinks.