The Hypnotist

Chapter 85

thursday, december 17: evening

The few hours of daylight are already over, and darkness has settled upon the city. Advent stars glow in almost every window. A heavy aroma of grapes rises from the brandy glass on the low table in the living room. Simone is sitting in the middle of the floor, looking at some sketches. After she’d got home, she’d peeled off her wet clothes, wrapped herself in a blanket, and had instantly fallen asleep on the couch, waking up only when Kennet phoned. Then Sim Shulman had arrived.

Now, in her underwear, she places the sketches in a row: four lined sheets outlining an installation he is planning for the art gallery in Tensta.

Shulman is talking to the director of the gallery on his mobile. He paces the room as he talks. The parquet flooring that creaks beneath his feet is suddenly silent. Simone notices he has positioned himself so that he can see between her thighs. She can feel it. She gathers up the sketches, picks up her glass, and takes a sip, ignoring Shulman. She opens her thighs slightly and imagines his burning gaze boring its way in. He is shutting down the conversation now, anxious to end it. Simone lies on her back and closes her eyes. She waits, feeling the heat below, the surge of blood, the slow wetness. She needs to feel something, anything, to muffle the thoughts in her head, to mute the panic. Shulman has stopped speaking; he moves closer. She keeps her eyes shut, opens her legs a little more. She hears the sound of him unzipping his trousers. Suddenly she feels his hands on her hips. He rolls her onto her stomach, pulls her roughly to her knees, yanks her panties down around her thighs, and pushes into her from behind. She isn’t really ready. She can see her fingers splayed on the oak floor. The nails, the veins on the back of her hand. She has to brace herself to avoid falling forwards as he thrusts into her, hard and alone. The heavy smell of the grappa is making her feel ill. She wants to ask Shulman to stop, to do it a different way, to start again in the bedroom, properly. He sighs heavily and ejaculates into her, pulls out, and goes into the bathroom. She hitches up her underwear and remains lying on the floor.

She doesn’t get up until Shulman has had his shower and emerges from the bathroom with a towel wound around his hips. Her knees ache. She forces a smile as she walks past him, locking the bathroom door behind her. Her vagina feels raw and sore as she gets into the shower. A strange feeling of powerlessness threatens to overwhelm her, extinguishing her thoughts, her hopes, her happiness, even as the hot water soaks her hair, pouring down over her neck, her shoulders, and her back. She soaps herself and washes her body meticulously, then spends a long time with her face upturned beneath the gentle flow of the water.

Through the rushing sound in her ears she hears a series of thuds, and realizes Shulman is pounding on the bathroom door.

“Simone,” he shouts. “Your phone’s ringing.”

“What?”

“Your phone.”

“So answer it,” she says, turning off the water.

“There’s someone at the door too,” he calls.

“God. I’m coming.”

She steps out of the shower, catching her obscured image in the steamy mirror, a grey ghost without features. She takes a fresh towel from the shelf and dries herself, kicking her abandoned underclothes aside on the wet floor. All she can hear is a strange humming noise coming from the bathroom extractor fan.

“Sim? Who was it?”

No answer. Simone is about to yell at him, then suddenly can’t. She doesn’t know why, but her senses have gone on alert, have tensed up, which is why she so carefully, almost soundlessly, unlocks the bathroom door and peers out. A terrifying silence emanates from the apartment. She knows now something is wrong. She wonders if Shulman has gone home, but she dares not call out.

Chapter 86

thursday, december 17: night

Simone hears a whispered conversation. From the kitchen, maybe. But who would Sim be talking to? She tries to brush aside her fear, but the floor creaks, and through the narrow opening Simone sees someone walk past the bathroom- and it isn’t Shulman. It’s a much smaller person, a woman in a bulky tracksuit. The woman comes back from the hall, and Simone doesn’t have time to move away from the door. Their eyes meet in the tiny gap; the woman stiffens, and her eyes widen in fear. She quickly shakes her head at Simone and continues along the hallway, into the kitchen.

For a moment Simone stands there, processing this new information, then her gaze falls upon the bloody footprints the intruder’s trainers have left on the floor. Abruptly her confusion is overridden by panic-stricken terror. She has to get out of the apartment, just get out. She opens the bathroom door and sneaks out into the passage, heading for the hall. She tries to move silently, but she can hear the sound of her own breathing and the floor creaking beneath her weight. Someone is muttering and rummaging around in the cutlery drawers in the kitchen, and something is crumpled on the floor ahead of her.

It takes a few more moments for her to understand what she is looking at. It’s Shulman, on his back in front of the door. Blood is pumping from a wound in his throat, spurting wearily with the rhythm of his fading pulse. A dark red pool is spreading across the entire floor. Sim stares up at the ceiling, his eyelids trembling. His mouth is open and slack. Beside his hand, among the shoes on the doormat, lies her phone. She needs to grab it, run out of the apartment, and call the police and an ambulance. Suddenly she hears footsteps behind her in the hall. The young woman is returning. Her whole body is shaking and she raises a finger to her lips.

“We can’t get out that way, the door is locked with a key,” she whispers to Simone.

“Who- ”

“My little brother.”

“But why- ”

“He thinks he killed the hypnotist. He didn’t see, he thinks- ”

Something crashes to the floor in the kitchen.

“Evelyn? What are you doing?” shouts Josef Ek. “Get back in here!”

“Hide,” whispers the woman.

“Where are the keys?”

“He’s got them in the kitchen,” she says, hurrying back to her brother.

Simone creeps along the hall and into Benjamin’s room. She is panting. She tries to close her mouth but can’t get enough air. The floor creaks, but Josef Ek is talking loudly in the kitchen the whole time and doesn’t appear to hear. She spies Benjamin’s computer and hurries to turn it on, and just as she slips back into the bathroom she hears the welcome melody from the operating system.

Footsteps move rapidly up the hall. With her heart pounding, she waits a few seconds and then eases out of the bathroom and into the kitchen. The floor is covered with cutlery and bloody footprints. She can hear the two siblings moving around in Benjamin’s room. Josef Ek swears and hurls things onto the floor.

“Look under the bed!” shouts Evelyn in a frightened voice.

There is a thud, the box containing Benjamin’s Manga books is dragged out, and Josef hisses that there is no one there. “Help me,” he says. He kicks the box as hard as he can.

“Try the closet,” Evelyn suggests quickly.

He throws open the door and begins yanking clothes off hangers, throwing them behind him.

“What the fuck is this?” Josef screams.

“Hang on, Josef. He might be in the other closet.” A glass shatters and heavy footsteps thump along the corridor.