Stalker

‘I will, but I can’t tell you how long that’s going to take,’ he replies. ‘I’ve worked in Uganda with people who’ve suffered the trauma of war … people whose lives have been completely shattered. You have to move slowly, using security, sleep, conversation, exercise, medication—’

‘Not hypnosis?’ she asks, with an involuntary smile.

‘Sure, as long as no one has exaggerated expectations about the result … Sometimes gentle hypnosis can help a patient to restructure their memories so that they can actually be accessed.’

‘Right now I’d give the go-ahead for a horse to kick him in the head if that would help.’

‘OK, but that’s a different department,’ Erik says drily.

‘Sorry, I get a bit impatient when I’m pregnant,’ she says, and he can hear how hard she’s trying to sound reasonable. ‘But I have to identify any parallels with the first murder, I need a pattern if I’m going to be able to track down this murderer, and right now I haven’t got a thing.’

They’ve reached the patient’s room. Two uniformed police officers are standing outside the door.

‘This is important to you,’ Erik says. ‘But bear in mind that he’s just found his wife murdered.’

8 (#ulink_33387ad3-21aa-5f22-9cef-ea4f779e7be0)

Erik follows Margot into the room. It has been furnished with two armchairs and a sofa, a low white table, two chairs, a water dispenser with plastic cups, and a wastepaper bin.

On the floor under the windowsill is a broken pot, the linoleum floor strewn with soil.

The air is thick with stress and sweat. The man is standing in the far corner, as if he were trying to get as far away as possible.

When he sees Erik and Margot he slides towards the sofa with his back against the wall. He’s extremely pale, with a hunted look in his bloodshot eyes. His pale blue shirt has sweat rings under the arms, and is hanging outside his trousers.

‘Hello, Björn,’ Margot says. ‘This is Erik, he’s a doctor here.’

The man looks anxiously at Erik, then moves back into the corner.

‘Hello,’ Erik says.

‘I’m not ill.’

‘No, but what you’ve been through means that you have the right to treatment,’ Erik replies matter-of-factly.

‘You don’t know what I’ve been through,’ the man says, then whispers something to himself.

‘I know you haven’t been given any tranquillisers,’ Erik says calmly. ‘But I’d like you to know that the option is there, if—’

‘What the fuck do I want a load of pills for?’ he butts in. ‘Will pills help? Will they make everything all right?’

‘No, but—’

‘Will they let me see Sanna again?’ he shouts. ‘That’s not going to happen – is it?’

‘Nothing can change what’s happened,’ Erik says seriously. ‘But your relationship to what has happened will change, regardless of whether you—’

‘I don’t even understand what you’re saying.’

‘I’m just trying to find a good way to explain that the way you’re feeling is part of a process, and that you can accept my help with that process if you want to.’

Björn glances at him briefly, then slips further away along the wall.

Margot puts her little recording device on the table, babbles the date and time, and the names of those present in the room.

‘This is the fifth interview with Björn Kern,’ she concludes, then turns towards him as he stands picking at the back-rest of the sofa. ‘Björn, can you tell me in your own words—’

‘About what?’ he asks quickly. ‘About what?’

‘About when you got home,’ Margot replies.

‘What for?’ he whispers.

‘Because I want to know what happened, and what you saw,’ she says curtly.

‘What do you mean? I just got home, isn’t that allowed?’

He puts his hands over his ears and stands there panting. Erik notes that the knuckles of both his hands are bleeding.

‘What did you see?’ Margot asks wearily.

‘Why are you asking me that? I don’t know why you’re asking me. Fucking hell …’

Björn shakes his head and rubs his mouth and eyes hard.

‘I want you to feel safe here, in this room,’ Erik says. ‘You don’t think you’re allowed to relax, you might not think it’s possible, but it is.’

The man picks at the edge of a piece of wallpaper with his fingernails, then tears off a little strip.

‘This is what I’m thinking,’ he says, without looking at them. ‘I’m thinking I’ve got to do it all again, but do it right this time … I’ve got to go home and go in through the door, and then it will be right.’

‘How do you mean, right?’ Erik asks, managing to catch his eye.

‘I know how it sounds, but what if it’s true, you can’t know,’ he says, making a despairing gesture to keep them quiet. ‘I can go in, through the door, and call Sanna’s name … She knows I’ve got something for her, I always have, something from duty-free … and I take my shoes off and go inside …’

He looks utterly distraught.

‘There’s soil on the floor,’ he whispers.

‘Was there soil on the floor?’ Margot asks.

‘Shut up!’ Björn yells, his voice cracking.

He walks over the soil-strewn floor, picks up the other pot-plant and throws it at the wall. The plastic pot shatters and soil rains down behind the sofa.

‘Fucking HELL!’ he gasps.

He leans both hands against the wall, his head hanging, and a string of saliva drops to the floor.