Page 68 of The Sleepwalker (Joona Linna #10)

The sky outside is still dark when Erik and Moa sit down at the kitchen table to eat breakfast. They have lit the third Advent candle, and the flames tilt in the draught from the window. It is much windier today, with sudden gusts shaking the trees and picking up old leaves from the ground.

Yesterday evening, Erik cooked Beef Rydberg, with fried pieces of fillet, cubes of potato baked in the oven, fried onions, Dijon mustard and egg yolks.

Moa was wearing a pair of glossy black trousers and a black sequin vest top when she arrived, and Erik realised that she made him nervous – in a good way, he told himself.

He had showered and shaved in anticipation of her coming over, but unfortunately, because he had also trimmed his nasal hair, he kept sneezing.

He put on a blue shirt, a pair of casual chinos and black socks – leaving his slippers in the wardrobe yet again.

During dinner, Moa told him that she didn’t think her ex was even trying to find a place of his own. Erik just had time to unfold his napkin and turn away before sneezing, his eyes watering.

‘Bless you.’

‘Sorry. I don’t have a cold, just so you know,’ he had reassured her before immediately sneezing again.

Moa coated her last piece of beef in sauce, popped it in her mouth, chewed with her eyes closed and then lowered her cutlery.

‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s not the end of the world,’ she said, fiddling with the gold heart she was wearing around her neck.

‘I know Bruno, and he sticks to the guesthouse, playing those games men like .?.?. Matilda goes down there for help with her homework sometimes, too. But it can’t go on like this forever. ’

‘Not if you don’t want it to.’

‘No. I really don’t want him there,’ she said, stifling a yawn.

Erik had just got up from the table to open another bottle of wine when a movement out of the corner of his eye made him turn to the window.

He attempted to look past his own reflection, towards the fence and the compost heap, and thought he could see a slim figure standing by the apple tree.

He told Moa he was going to take the rubbish out, then lifted the bag from the pail beneath the sink, went out into the hall, pushed his feet into his boots and headed outside.

Light snowflakes danced in the gusty wind.

The air was bitterly cold, and the lid to the bin had frozen shut. Erik had to yank it several times before it eventually opened.

Rather than go straight back inside, he walked around the house through the dark garden, gazing towards the bright kitchen where Moa had started to clear the table.

Erik turned to the fence. The dead leaves on the bushes behind the overgrown compost heap rustled softly.

He kept going and felt a shiver down his spine when he saw the footprints in the thin dusting of snow on the grass by the apple tree.

Someone really had been standing there, watching them.

Erik headed inside and locked the door, drawing the thin curtains as soon as he returned to the kitchen.

They took their wine through to the living room and sat facing each other on the sofa, leaning back against the armrests. Erik put on a Charlie Parker record, and the soft, subdued music made it feel as though they were in a jazz club in the 1940s.

Moa dozed off as Erik talked about the phenomenon of hypnotic resonance, where the hypnotist themselves enters a kind of trance. He tipped his head back and thought about pulling a blanket over her or getting up to load the dishwasher, but when he next opened his eyes it was seven in the morning.

They had both slept all night on the sofa.

‘We must’ve been tired last night,’ she says now, pouring herself another coffee.

‘I liked that we slept so well together.’

‘Just one thing .?.?. I need to know if you thought I was a bit too “forward” last time,’ she says, looking up at him. ‘When I basically threw myself at you and started massaging your shoulders .?.?.’

‘What? No. Stop.’

‘You yelped the minute I touched you,’ she continues, wiping down the table.

‘I didn’t yelp ,’ Erik protests with a smile.

‘Ay!’ she imitates him as she hangs up the cloth.

‘No, no, it’s just that I actually have a bit of nerve damage there, from an old knife wound.’

‘On your shoulder?’ she asks.

‘See?’ he says, unbuttoning his shirt to show her the scar.

‘Sorry, but that doesn’t look like a knife wound,’ she says with a broad smile.

He turns around and shows her the exit hole on his back.

‘OK, wow! What happened?’

‘It was a patient. Or rather, a client who wasn’t exactly happy with my therapy.’

‘What? Was she trying to kill you?’

‘It was a he, and I don’t know .?.?. I don’t think so. Not really.’

‘Did he bring the knife with him?’

‘No, it was a letter opener from my desk.’

‘OK, I need to see this!’

They get up, and she follows him through to his office. He uses the room to see patients, and it has its own separate entrance. Through the window, the rear of the house is visible, the winter grass glittering.

Erik turns on the Danish desk lamp. The soft glow illuminates the stacks of books and journals, his filing cabinet, armchair and brown leather daybed.

‘My dissatisfied client grabbed this,’ he says, handing her the Spanish knife from the pen pot beside the computer.

‘You’re kidding,’ she says, weighing the long, slim blade in her hand for a moment before passing it back.

‘It went straight through me,’ he says, dropping it back into the pot.

‘I knew you were a badass.’ She smiles, her pointed teeth peeping out from beneath her top lip.

‘I was pinned to the floor,’ he continues, nodding to the gash in the oak parquet.

‘Lie down where it happened.’

Erik gets down awkwardly on the floor and lies back. Moa stands with one foot on either side of his waist, then crouches down, straddles his hips and pretends to stab him in the shoulder.

‘You’re pinned down now,’ she says, kissing him. ‘You won’t get away this time .?.?.’

She kisses him again, pressing herself against his crotch and unbuttoning his shirt. She has just peeled off her black top when a bell rings.

‘There’s someone at the door,’ he says.

‘OK, I’ll let you go – but only if you promise we can pick up where we left off later,’ she says, pretending to yank the knife out of his shoulder.

They get up and straighten their clothes. The bell rings again, and Erik gives her a quick peck on the lips before hurrying through to the hallway.

He opens the door and finds Joona Linna standing outside. The detective superintendent’s coat is unbuttoned, the stiff breeze ruffling his hair.

‘Sorry to show up unannounced, but I need your help and you weren’t answering the phone,’ he says.

‘Come in. What is it?’

Joona steps forward into the house and closes the door behind him.

‘There’s been another murder, and Hugo Sand says he’s willing to give the hypnosis one last try,’ he says, lowering his voice when he hears Moa’s footsteps approaching.

‘Right now?’ asks Erik.

‘Afraid so.’

Moa comes over and says hello. Joona apologises for intruding and tells her that he needs to hire Erik for a few hours.

‘You don’t have to pay if you promise to take care of him,’ she says.

‘I’ll be back in three hours, tops, if you want to stay. I’d love it if you did. Run a bath, read a book,’ says Erik.

*?*?*

The old friends are in the car, heading north towards Uppsala, when a powerful gust of wind makes the vehicle shake.

‘How is Valeria getting on?’ asks Erik.

‘She thinks she should stay another week,’ Joona replies. ‘It’s been tough on her, but she seems OK.’

‘It’s good that she’s there.’

‘I’ve tried to storm-proof the house and greenhouses as best I can, at the very least.’

‘Ah, I’ve not bothered. It feels as though it’s been blown out of all proportion.’

‘Ha,’ Joona replies, swerving around a ripped cardboard box on the road.

As he drives, he tells Erik about his call with Agneta, and the hypnotist reassures him that he will do his best to prevent Hugo from suffering.

‘I spoke to his girlfriend, too .?.?. What she told me confirms that Hugo sees things in detail, despite his dreams.’

‘That’s logical, though we can never really be sure.’

‘I don’t know .?.?. It’s as though his brain shies away from it, as though it’s frightened of the fear in his dream world,’ says Joona.

Erik explains that research has shown that the interaction between different parts of the brain is markedly reduced following psychological trauma.

The right temporal lobe, responsible for non-verbal communication and intuition, is more active in traumatic memories than the left, which controls language and logical thought.

‘It’s a case of non-verbal fear,’ says Erik. ‘He’s not receptive to reason. He’s reliving the fear, nothing else. Like an animal.’

An ambulance races by, sirens blaring. Snowflakes begin to patter against the windscreen.

‘This is probably our last chance,’ says Joona.

‘I’ll do my best, but the fact that Hugo’s dreams are so intense makes him quite unpredictable. There’s always a risk they’ll drag him up out of the hypnosis.’

‘Focus on concrete things, ideally something we can use – a description, a tattoo, an unusual watch or a piece of jewellery .?.?. And the car’s registration number.’