minutes later, Joona places a Styrofoam cup of English breakfast tea and a sandwich on a paper plate in front of Evelyn and sits down on his chair. “I thought you might be hungry,” he says.
“Thanks,” she says, and a more cheerful expression momentarily sweeps across her features. Joona watches her carefully. Her hand shakes as she eats the sandwich and lifts the cup from the table to her lips.
“Evelyn, in your aunt’s cottage there’s a photograph in a frame that looks like a toadstool.”
Evelyn nods. “Aunt Sonja bought it up in Mora; she thought it would look nice in the cottage …” She stops and blows on her tea.
“Did she buy any more like that? For gifts, say?”
“Not that I know of.” She smiles. “I’ve never seen another like it.”
“And has the photograph always been in the cottage?”
“What do you mean?” she asks faintly.
“Well, I’m not sure. Maybe nothing. But Josef talked about this picture, so he must have seen it sometime. I thought perhaps you’d forgotten something.”
“No.”
“Well, that clears that up,” says Joona, getting up.
“Are you going?”
“Yes, I think we’re done here,” says Joona. He looks at her face, filled with anxiety, and acts on a hunch.
“Chances are you’ll be out of here—oh, in an hour or two.”
“Out of here?”
“Well, I don’t think we can hold you for anything.” He smiles.
She wraps her arms around herself. “You never answered my question.”
“Question?”
“Is Josef locked up?”
Joona looks her square in the eye. “No, Evelyn. Josef is in the hospital. We haven’t arrested him. I don’t know that we can.”
She begins to tremble, and her eyes fill with tears.
“What is it, Evelyn?”
She wipes the tears from her cheeks with the heel of her hand. “Josef did come to the cottage once. He took a taxi and he brought a cake,” she says, her voice breaking.
“On your birthday?”
“He … it was his birthday.”
“When was that?”
“On 1st November.”
“Just over a month ago,” says Joona. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” she says. “It was a surprise.”
“He hadn’t told you he was coming?”
“We weren’t in touch.”
“Why not?”
“I need to be on my own.”
“Who knew you were staying there?”
“Nobody, apart from Sorab, my boyfriend … well, actually, he broke up with me, and we’re just friends, but he helps me, tells everybody I’m staying with him, answers when Mum calls.”
“Why?”
“I need to be left in peace.”
“So you’ve said. Did Josef go out there again?”
“No.”
“This is important, Evelyn.”
“He didn’t come again,” she replies.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you lie about this?”
“I don’t know,” she whispers.
“What else have you lied about?”
25
wednesday, december 9: afternoon
Erik is walking between the brightly lit display cases in the NK department store’s jewellery department. A sleek saleswoman dressed in black murmurs persuasively to a customer. She slides open a drawer and places a few pieces on a velvet-covered tray. Erik pauses to study a Georg Jensen necklace: heavy, softly polished triangles, linked together like petals to form a closed circle. The sterling silver has the rich lustre of platinum. Erik thinks how beautifully it would lie around Simone’s slender neck and decides to buy it for her for Christmas.
As the assistant is wrapping his purchase in dark-red shiny paper, the cell phone in Erik’s pocket begins to vibrate, resonating against the little wooden box with the parrot and the native. He answers without checking the number on the display.
“Erik Maria Bark.”
There’s a strange crackling noise, and he can hear the distant sound of Christmas carols. “Hello?” he says.
A very faint voice can be heard. “Is that Erik?”
“Yes,” he replies.
“I was wondering …”
Suddenly Erik thinks it sounds as if someone is giggling in the background. “Who is this?” he asks sharply.
“Hang on, doctor. I need your expert advice,” says the voice, dripping with contempt. Erik is about to end the call when the voice on the phone suddenly bellows, “Hypnotise me! I want to be—”
Erik snatches the phone away from his ear. He presses the button to end the conversation and tries to see who called, but it’s a withheld number. A beep tells him he has received a text message, also from a withheld number. He opens it and reads: CAN YOU HYPNOTISE A CORPSE?
Bewildered, Erik takes his purchase in its red and gold bag and leaves the jewellery department. In the lobby he catches the eye of a woman in a bulky, black coat. She is standing underneath a suspended Christmas tree, three storeys high, and she is staring at him with a hostile expression. He has never seen her before.
With one hand he flips open the lid of the wooden box in his coat pocket, tips a codeine capsule into his hand, puts it in his mouth, and swallows it.
He goes outside into the cold air. People are crowded before a shop window where Christmas elves are dancing around in a landscape made of sweets. A toffee with a big mouth sings a Christmas song. Nursery school children dressed in yellow vests over thick snowsuits gaze in open-mouthed silence at the scene.
The
