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 mobile phone rings again, but this time he checks the number before answering. It’s a Stockholm number.
“Erik Maria Bark,” he says cautiously.
“Hi, there. My name is Britt Sundström. I work for Amnesty International.”
“Hi,” Erik says, puzzled.
“I’d like to know whether your patient had the opportunity to say no to the hypnosis.”
“What did you say?” asks Erik, as a huge snail drags a sledge full of Christmas presents across the window display. His heart begins to pound, and a burning acidity surges up through his gut.
“The CIA handbook for torture that leaves no trace does actually mention hypnosis as one of the—”
“The doctor responsible for the patient made the judgment.”
“So you’re saying you bear no responsibility?”
“I have no comment,” he says.
“You’ve already been reported to the police,” she says curtly.
“I see,” he says feebly, and ends the call.
He begins to walk slowly toward Sergels Torg, with its shining glass tower and Culture House, sees the Christmas market, and hears a trumpeter playing ‘Silent Night.’ He turns onto Sveavägen. Outside the 7-Eleven he stops and reads the display boards showing the headlines from the evening papers:
‘I KILLED MUM AND DAD’
Hypnotist Dupes Boy into Confession
IN YOUR HEAD
Doctor Risks Boy’s Life to Coerce Admission
BARK WORSE THAN BITE
New Hypnosis Scandal for Tarnished Doc
OUTRAGE!
Stumped Cops Enlist Hypnodoc, Scapegoat Victim
Erik can feel his pulse begin to pound in his temples and hurries on, avoiding looking directly at those around him. He passes the spot where Prime Minister Olof Palme was assassinated back in 1986, walking home with his wife from the movies. Three red roses are lying on the grubby memorial plaque. Erik hears someone calling after him and slips into an exclusive electronics shop. Although only a few minutes ago he’d been so tired he felt almost drunk, that feeling has been replaced by a feverish mixture of nervousness and despair. His hands shake as he takes yet another strong painkiller. He feels a stabbing pain in his stomach as the capsule dissolves and the powder goes into the mucous membranes.
The radio in the shop is broadcasting a debate about the extent to which hypnosis should be banned as a form of treatment. A caller is telling the story of how he was once hypnotised into thinking he was Bob Dylan.
“I mean, like, I knew it wasn’t true,” he drawls, “but it was like I was kind of forced to say what I said, you know? I knew I was, like, being hypnotised. I could see my buddy was, like, sitting right there, like, waiting for me? But I still thought, like, I’m Dylan! I was even speaking English. Like, I couldn’t help it; I would’ve admitted to just about anything.”
The Minister for Justice says in his Småland accent, “There is absolutely no doubt that using hypnosis as a method of interrogation is a violation of the rights of the individual.”
“So Erik Maria Bark has broken the law?” the journalist asks sharply.
“We expect the Prosecutor’s Office to conduct a thorough investigation of the legality of his actions.”