By the time Erik reaches Luntmakargatan 73, sweat is pouring down his back. He punches in the code to open the door. With fumbling hands he finds his keys as the lift hums its way upwards. Once inside the apartment, he staggers into the living room and tries to take off his coat, but the pills have made him dizzy. He topples onto the couch and switches on the television.

There is the Chairman of the Swedish Society for Clinical Hypnosis sitting in a TV studio. Erik knows him very well; he has seen many colleagues affected by his arrogance and his ruthless ambition.

“We expelled Bark ten years ago and we won’t be welcoming him back,” the chairman says, with a tight smile.

“Does an incident like this affect the reputation of serious hypnosis?”

“All our members adhere to strict ethical rules,” he says superciliously. “Moreover, Sweden has laws against charlatans.”

Erik finally takes his outdoor clothes off with clumsy movements, piling them on the sofa beside him. He closes his eyes for a moment to rest but opens them immediately when he hears a familiar voice coming from the television. Benjamin is standing in a sunlit school playground. His brow is furrowed, the tip of his nose and his ears are red, his shoulders are hunched, and he looks very cold.

“So,” asks the reporter. “What’s it like living with the hypnodoc?”

“I don’t know,” says Benjamin.

“Has your dad ever hypnotized you?”

“What? No way.”

“How do you know?” the reporter persists. “If he had hypnotized you, there’s no guarantee that you’d be aware of it, is there?”

“I guess not,” replies Benjamin with a grin, surprised by the reporter’s pushy approach.

“How would you feel if it turned out he had hypnotized you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Pretty mad, I bet,” suggests the reporter.

“Yeah,” agrees Benjamin. His cheeks are flushed.

Erik turns off the television and goes into the bedroom, where he takes off his trousers and sits on the bed, placing the wooden box with the parrot on it in the drawer of the bedside table. He doesn’t want to think about the longing that was aroused in him when he hypnotized Josef Ek and followed him down into that deep blue sea. He lies down, reaches out for the glass of water by the bed, but falls asleep before he has time to drink.

Still half asleep, Erik thinks dreamily about his father when he used to appear at children’s parties, wearing his specially prepared suit, the sweat pouring down his cheeks. He would twist balloons into the shapes of animals and pull brightly coloured feather flowers out of a hollow walking cane. When he had moved from the house in Sollentuna to a nursing home, he would talk of putting an act together with Erik. He would be the gentleman thief and Erik would be the stage hypnotist, making people sing like Elvis and Zarah Leander.

Suddenly Erik is wide awake. He sees Benjamin in his mind’s eye, shivering under the scrutiny of the TV camera and the reporter, there in the school playground in front of his classmates and teachers. He sits up, feeling the searing pain in his stomach, reaches for the telephone, and calls Simone.

“Simone Bark’s gallery,” she replies.

“Hi, it’s me.”

“Just a minute.”

He hears her walk across the wooden floor and close the office door behind her.

“What the hell’s going on?” she asks. “Benjamin called and— ”

“The media circus is in full swing.”

“The media circus? What are we, rock stars? Erik, what have you done? Why are reporters grilling our kid on television?”

“I haven’t done anything. I was asked to hypnotize the patient by the doctor who was responsible for his care.”

“I know that part. The whole world knows; it’s all over the news. You hypnotized some poor victimized kid and coerced a confession— ”

“Can you listen to me for a second?” he broke in. “Can you do that?”

“All right. Talk.”

“It wasn’t an interrogation,” Erik begins. “It doesn’t matter what you call it.” She falls silent. He can hear her breathing. “Sorry,” she says quietly. “Please finish.”

“It wasn’t an interrogation. We thought he was a victim. And the police needed a description, anything they could go on, because they thought a girl’s life depended on it.”

“But— ”

“The doctor who was responsible for the patient at the time judged that the risk was low. I wouldn’t’ve done it otherwise.” He pauses. “We were just trying to save his sister.” He stops speaking and listens to Simone breathing.

“What have you done?” she says shakily. “You . . . you promised me you wouldn’t practise hypnosis any more.”

“It’ll sort itself out. No harm done, Simone.”

“No harm done?” she snaps. “You broke your promise, but you don’t think any harm has been done? Erik, all you do is lie and lie and lie.”

Simone stops herself, and falls silent.

Erik stands rock-still for a moment, hangs up the phone, then turns and enters the kitchen, where he mixes a soluble analgesic with antacid and swills the sweet liquid down.