‘Shut up, Zeke,’ and by now even Sven is laughing, until Zeke clears his throat and seriousness settles across the room once more.
‘Evidently her mother accused her step-father of abusing her, but the case never got anywhere. She must have been twelve at the time, if these dates are right.’
‘Not surprising,’ Malin says. ‘Just think, this sort of crap always comes up.’ Then Malin thinks about what Viveka Crafoord said: that the perpetrator could well have been the victim of abuse. Isn’t that always the case? One way or another. That one act of abuse leads to another. The trail goes as far back through history as human life itself.
‘OK, but we can’t question her again because of that,’ Sven says. ‘We’ve leaned on her enough as it is, and there are almost as many sordid backgrounds and family histories as there are people.’
Karim looks focused, and Malin can see the thoughts racing through his head. The image of his own father must be in there, committing suicide in his despair at his failure to find a place in Swedish society, the father who died bitter in a way that you, Karim, would never allow yourself to be, and Malin thinks of the cliché her mother always used to trot out at the slightest failure or disappointment: ‘It’s not what happens that matters, it’s how you deal with it.’
Then the words of the philosopher Emile Cioran come to mind: ‘Nothing reveals the vulgar man better than his refusal to be disappointed.’
Are you the most disappointed person in the world, Mum?
Tenerife.
But back to the present.
‘Hypnosis,’ Malin says. ‘I’d like to question Josefin Davidsson under hypnosis,’ and now it’s Zeke’s turn to look angry, questioning: What’s this? I knew you were thinking about it, but we could have discussed it first.
‘We all know that it’s possible to remember things under hypnosis that you don’t otherwise remember. I’m friends with Viveka Crafoord, the psychoanalyst, and she’s offered to conduct an interview with Josefin under hypnosis, free of charge.’
Waldemar Ekenberg laughs.
‘Well,’ he goes on to say, ‘sounds like a good idea.’
‘This mustn’t get out to the press. They’ll say that we’re desperate,’ Karim says. ‘And we don’t want that.’
‘Discretion is assured,’ Malin says. ‘Viveka works under an oath of confidentiality.’
Zeke has got over his sudden annoyance.
‘Will her parents agree?’
‘We don’t know until we ask.’
‘And Josefin?’
‘Ditto.’
‘If it happens, and if it works, it could help us move forward,’ Sven says.
‘It could be the breakthrough we need,’ Karim adds.
‘So what are we waiting for?’ Waldemar asks. ‘Get the girl to the fortune-teller!’
And Malin doesn’t know what to say, can’t decide if the hard-case from Mjölby is joking or means what he says. A joke to smooth things over: ‘Hocus-pocus,’ Malin says, getting up from her chair. ‘OK, I’m going to go and stick some pins in a voodoo doll, Waldemar, so watch out.’
Ekenberg comes over to her desk after the meeting.
What does he want? Malin wonders.
‘Fors,’ he says, ‘you look happy.’
‘Happy?’
‘Yes, you know, like you’ve just been fucked. Where do you go if you want to get a fuck in this town?’
And once again Malin doesn’t know what to say, or do, hasn’t felt so surprised since she was three years old and took a drink from a cup of hot water, thinking it was juice.
Shall I punch him on the chin?
Then she pulls herself together.
‘You sack of shit. There isn’t a woman in this city who’d touch you even with gloves on. Get it?’
Ekenberg was already on his way out.
Grinning to himself, Malin thinks.
Don’t let yourself be provoked, we’ve got more important things to deal with.
But he was right.
She could still feel Daniel Högfeldt inside her.
Would like to suppress the smile spreading over her lips.
42
‘That’s absolutely out of the question.’
Josefin Davidsson’s father, Ulf, is sitting on the burgundy sofa in the living room of the row-house in Lambohov, moving his toes anxiously back and forth over the mainly pink rug. His suntanned face is round, his hair starting to thin and his wide nose is peeling.
‘Hypnosis,’ he goes on. ‘You read about people getting stuck like that. And Josefin needs to rest.’
His wife Birgitta, sitting beside him on the sofa, is more hesitant, Malin thinks. She’s evidently trying to read the situation, trying to follow her husband so as not to annoy him. Their roles are clearer now than the first time she met them at the hospital. They declined the offer of protection for Josefin, saying she needed peace and quiet more than anything else. Birgitta Davidsson is a neat little woman in a blue floral dress. So neat that she dissolves in your khaki-clad presence, Ulf. Doesn’t she?
Zeke from his seat beside Malin: ‘The psychoanalyst who would conduct the hypnosis, Viveka Crafoord, is very experienced.’
‘But do we really want Josefin to remember?’
Ulf Davidsson’s words less adamant now.
Malin pauses, answers no in her mind, it would be just as well for your daughter if she didn’t remember, she’ll be fine without any conscious memory of what happened. But she says: ‘It’s vitally important for the investigation. Two girls have been murdered, and we have no witnesses. We need all the help we can get.’
‘And you’re sure it’s the same man?’
‘Absolutely certain,’ Zeke replies.
‘It doesn’t feel right,’ Ulf Davidsson says. ‘Too risky.’
‘You’re right, darling,’ Birgitta Davidsson says. ‘Who knows how she might feel if she could remember?’
‘We have no idea when the murderer is going to strike again,’ Zeke says. ‘But sooner or later it will happen. So asking these questions under hypnosis is absolutely . . .’
Zeke is interrupted by a thin but clear voice from upstairs.
‘Isn’t anyone going to ask me? Ask me what I want?’
A look of irritation crosses Ulf Davidsson’s face.
‘We’re your parents. We’ll decide what’s best for you.’
‘So you’d like to be questioned under hypnosis?’
Josefin Davidsson comes downstairs and sits in an armchair, the white bandages covering her wounds a sharp contrast to her bright red summer dress.
‘I would.’
‘You . . .’
‘It’s not going to happen.’
‘But Dad, I . . .’
‘Be quiet.’
And the room falls still, the only sound the vibration of a bumblebee’s wings as it tries to get out through an open window, but keeps missing, again and again, flying into the glass instead with a short bumping sound each time.
‘We’re trying to find . . .’
‘I know what you’re trying to find. The devil himself could be out there for all I care, because you’ll have to find him without upsetting my daughter more than is absolutely necessary.’
‘You’re such a damn hypocrite, Dad,’ Josefin says. ‘When I told you that you could probably get compassionate leave to be here with me, you both took it. And went straight off to the golf course.’
‘Josefin!’ her mother cries. ‘That’s enough!’
‘I’m begging you,’ Malin says.
‘Me too, Dad. I’m going to do it, no matter what you want.’
In the space of a second Ulf Davidsson suddenly looks fifteen years older, as if he’s staked out any number of principles and opinions over the years, but has always had to back down in the end.
‘It’s the right thing to do, Dad. And if I remember something that helps them catch the killer, you’ll be a big hero.’