Page 51 of The Sleepwalker (Joona Linna #10)

It is almost four in the afternoon, and Agneta and Hugo are driving to the Sleep Science Lab in her quiet Lexus. The pale sun set more than an hour ago, and the sky is now dark again.

The traffic thins out once they pass the turnoff to the airport.

Agneta is in the right-hand lane, behind a white van on which someone has drawn a crude heart in the dirt.

That morning, Hugo called Lars Grind to say that he would like to come back to the lab and that he would be willing to undergo more hypnosis if the police were still interested.

Agneta took a beta blocker and offered to drive him to Uppsala, because Bernard was fired up and wanted to write about Hugo’s interview, the intruder and the security cameras.

Singing ‘ La donna è mobile ’, he headed up to his office in the attic with a handful of ginger biscuits and a whole pot of coffee.

Looking back now, it feels surreal that the three of them sat huddled together in the bedroom until the security firm got to the house. The two guards searched every room and then knocked on the door. Bernard got up to speak to them, and Hugo returned the poker to the stand by the stove.

When the police arrived ten minutes later, they took over from the guards and spoke to the family in the kitchen.

The officers checked the security footage and photographed the footprints around the house.

There were signs of attempted entry on Hugo’s window, and in the corner by the sunroom they discovered that the intruder had drawn a full-sized door on the wall in black spray paint.

It was two in the morning by the time they had the house to themselves again.

Bernard swept and mopped the hallway floor, cleaning up the mud and snow the guards and police officers had trampled in.

The three of them then slept together in the main bedroom with the door locked, Hugo on a mattress on the floor and Agneta and Bernard in their usual bed.

None of them said anything, but they were all thinking the same thing: that the intruder hadn’t been apprehended, and that none of the cameras had caught him leaving the property.

Until dawn, Hugo had been convinced that the axe murderer had somehow managed to break in, and was lying low somewhere in the house.

As she drives, Agneta glances over to the teenager. He has pushed the passenger seat back, and is sitting with his phone in his right hand.

‘Dad asked .?.?. and it’s OK with me if you want to stick around for the hypnosis this time,’ he says.

‘Thank you. But you know .?.?. this whole thing with the book, I .?.?. I know you said yes, but you can change your mind if it doesn’t feel right,’ she says. ‘I won’t be annoyed. We’ve barely started, so it’s still OK if you want to put a stop to this.’

‘No, I think it’s a good idea .?.?. and I’m happy because Dad’s happy. I know he’ll listen if I say I want to change anything.’

‘Of course. Of course he will.’

Agneta indicates, changes lanes and overtakes a transporter carrying seven cars. The turbulence from the heavy vehicle buffets her Lexus, making it shake.

‘You know, the police have been trying to get hold of Olga,’ she says. ‘But she doesn’t answer the phone, she’s never home and doesn’t show up when she’s called in for questioning.’

‘What do they want with her?’

‘I think Joona just wants to ask about the night when you sleepwalked there.’

‘Meaningful,’ he sighs.

‘Do you know where she is?’

‘No, we haven’t been talking much lately,’ he replies, running a hand through his hair.

‘OK. I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘It’ll work itself out,’ he says with a shrug.

Agneta pulls back into the right-hand lane, checks the satnav and sees that her exit is in a couple of kilometres.

‘Olga works a lot, at a club called Redrum in Hjorthagen,’ Hugo says a few minutes later, in a strange tone of voice.

She turns to him just as the headlights from a car travelling in the opposite direction sweep across his face. His eyes look weary, his jaw tense.

‘Hugo .?.?. There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,’ she says as she turns off towards Uppsala.

‘OK .?.?.’ he mumbles, lowering his phone to his lap.

‘I wanted to say sorry for New Year.’

‘What, why?’

‘I shouldn’t have said that I wanted to adopt you. It was .?.?. insensitive of me.’

‘I just couldn’t take it in,’ he replies, looking out of the side window.

‘Of course, I get that. Your reaction made perfect sense. You’ve already got a mum and a dad.’

‘Except .?.?.’

‘And I really would like to adopt you,’ she continues, eyes welling up. ‘It’s not that, but—’

‘Do we have to talk about this now?’

‘I just wanted to say sorry, because it was all down to my .?.?. pride, if I’m honest. I wanted to be a better mum than Claire.’

‘That’s not hard.’

‘Maybe not at first, when you were little. I mean, you had no option but to turn to me .?.?. and I looked after you, especially when Bernard needed to write. But I’ve been wondering whether, subconsciously, I also exploited the situation because I needed to be loved too. By you, as though I was your real mum.’

They pass a Maxi superstore and are approaching a roundabout.

‘I never thought of it that way, but .?.?. I don’t know, I’m super impressed by you right now,’ Hugo says, fixing his eyes on her. ‘I mean, it’s pretty brave to say what you just said.’

‘I’m just sorry things went so wrong,’ she says as she turns off onto Dag Hammarskjolds v?g.

Tall, straight pines flicker by on both sides of the road.

‘I’ve decided to try to find my mum,’ he says.

‘Good.’

‘I used to be so mad with her for leaving me and Dad, for dropping everything and running away to Québec so she could get high,’ he continues. ‘But now, I feel like I want to see her anyway. I mean, she is my mum, even if she has all these problems.’

‘Of course.’

‘She used to write to me about getting clean, but nothing ever happened. I don’t know .?.?. I just feel so fucking powerless, because she’s going to wind up dead if she doesn’t get any help.’

Agneta gives him a quick sideways glance.

‘When did you last hear from her?’

Hugo sighs and slumps back in his seat. ‘It’s been almost three years since she replied to any of my letters.’

‘Did you have an argument?’

‘No .?.?. Or maybe, a bit,’ he admits, swallowing hard. ‘She promised she’d come home for my birthday, but it was just lies like always.’

‘What does Bernard say?’

‘Dad doesn’t want to talk about her. He thinks she’s made her choice, and he’s learned not to trust her, can’t stand it when she gets my hopes up .?.?. But surely hope is better than just giving up?’

‘He’s probably just trying to protect you.’

‘I know.’

*?*?*

They leave the car in the small parking area and head inside. Agneta signs in at reception, and is handed a visitor pass on a black lanyard. Hugo then leads her down the corridors to Lars Grind’s office.

He presses a finger to the buzzer by the doctor’s door, the lock clicks, and the little pink WILLKOMMEN sign lights up.

Lars Grind is sitting at his desk in the cold glow of the computer screen. He is wearing a pale-grey corduroy suit and a white polo shirt.

‘Sorry again that I just bailed,’ Hugo says, pausing in the middle of the room. ‘There was something I needed to sort out.’

‘It’s OK, you know that. What we have here, it’s symbiotic – and voluntary. I try to help you, and we do our research.’

‘How did you get on with your jacket?’ Agneta asks.

‘It’s with the dry cleaner. I think it must have been oil, because I’d been watching a tutorial and trying to service my bike before I came over.’

Grind had stopped off at the house with a hamper of food on the first Sunday of Advent. He hadn’t been able to stay for long, but had agreed to a quick coffee in the kitchen, and Bernard had noticed that he had a number of dark stains on the sleeves of his jacket.

Lars gets up and gestures to the chairs by his bookcase.

‘Coffee? Tea? Hot chocolate?’

‘Nothing for me, thank you,’ Agneta replies.

‘I’ll take a hot chocolate,’ Hugo says with a smile.

The doctor leaves the room, and they sit down by the coffee table, which is cluttered with scientific journals and annuals.

‘What was that about his jacket?’ Hugo asks.

‘Hmm? Oh, nothing, he just had a few stains on it.’

‘Man, that’s so stereotypical of a genius, isn’t it?’ Hugo laughs. ‘Not noticing they’ve got sauce on their shirt, or chalk on their face .?.?.’

Lars comes back into the room, holding two mugs of hot chocolate with whipped cream. He takes a seat and asks Agneta whether she regrets her choice, but she just laughs.

‘We spend about a third of our lives in a kind of trance we know next to nothing about,’ he says.

‘It’s nuts,’ Hugo mumbles.

‘A quarter of people have trouble sleeping – not like you, of course, but in other ways. They don’t get enough sleep, or they sleep badly. They have nightmares, grind their teeth, snore .?.?. Someone has to start thinking outside of the box.’

Lars takes a sip of his hot chocolate and ends up with a cream moustache.

‘Can Agneta stay for the hypnosis session?’ asks Hugo.

‘As far as I’m concerned.’

‘Thank you,’ she says.

Lars Grind’s eyes narrow as he studies Hugo. ‘But I do have to say I was a little surprised when you said you wanted to do it again. You were so upset last time.’

‘Do you think it’s bad for me, though?’

‘Not really. It’s more a question of how much anxiety you can handle.’

‘I’ll give it one more go.’

‘Erik Maria Bark is incredibly good – a legend within the field of psychological trauma. Though he’s also been in real trouble a few times.’

‘Why?’ asks Hugo.

The doctor waves a hand. ‘Forget I said anything .?.?. You do whatever you want to do. For me, personally, it was extremely interesting to be able to get a glimpse of your nightmares from the inside for once.’

Agneta decides that she should look into Bark’s background, possibly even request to interview him for the book.

‘So what do you think I should do?’ asks Hugo.

‘I don’t want you to feel any pressure. We can still cancel the hypnosis session. I’ll call Erik if you want me to.’

‘But what if I can help stop a killer?’

‘That’s the police’s job, not yours .?.?. But if they can’t move forward without you, perhaps you should give them another chance.’

‘Or else I just do it now, like we agreed.’

‘Or else you just do it now.’