He looks up, but it is not his mother’s face he is looking into; it is the witch’s.
As far back as Arne Pedersen can remember, he has suffered from nightmares. Always the same, and always with the same result, namely that he wakes up bathed in sweat from head to toe, with a fear inside that it takes the rest of the night to overcome. In his childhood this happened often, once or twice a week when it was at its worst. As an adult he experiences it much less often. Six months might pass in between episodes; plenty of time to repress the memory, until one night there it is again. Like the flu, only over more quickly. For this reason his recurring nightmare has no further effect on his life, and so far he’s paid no particular attention to it. It is a congenital nuisance, there is nothing more to say about it. His mother called it the bad dream. His wife refers to it simply as it . . . “My God, did you have it again?” . . . and always sweetly gets up with him and makes him a cup of chamomile tea, before she goes back to bed again. He wishes she wouldn’t.
Now for the third night in a row he’d been awakened by the nightmare, and he could not remember that ever happening before. Either as a child or as an adult. His wife was worried. She set down the mug of chamomile tea on the table beside him and asked cautiously, “Is there something wrong, Arne? Is something bothering you?”
He shook his head, nothing was wrong.
“If this keeps up, you’ll have to see a doctor.”
She was right. He had basically not slept and that could not go on, as she matter-of-factly pointed out a few times. As if she needed to tell him. He shrugged it off, and shortly afterwards she went to bed. He chucked the chamomile tea down the sink and poured himself a cognac, moderate, not too big—it wouldn’t help anyway. With the palms of his hands he massaged his temples briefly, while he hissed to himself, “I want to kill him.”
And shortly afterwards, “I swear, I fucking want to kill him.”
Then he turned on the television, turned down the sound and prepared himself for a long, sleepless night.
It was ironic. When he was a child, he couldn’t tell his mother about his nightmare. Not all of it anyway. Now the same thing applied to his wife.
Because the dream had taken a new development and in the green light he now saw other things, worse than the witch’s face.
CHAPTER 20
Under normal circumstances Arne Pedersen was one of the few men on the Danish police force who could mentally multi-task, which he regularly resorted to during boring meetings. But today’s at Police Headquarters did not follow the norm. It was beyond difficult for him even to single-task. He was dead tired; small flashes of light were constantly exploding in his peripheral vision, while it seemed to him that in an unpleasant and uncontrolled manner his brain was working faster than normal. Poul Troulsen was having his third cup of coffee and was equally bleary-eyed. Pauline Berg on the other hand looked like she had just stepped out of a sports catalogue. Konrad Simonsen also appeared vigorous, even though this was already his second meeting of the day. The Countess had chosen to get an update later in favour of keeping a dental appointment already postponed several times.
The psychologist, or profiler as he called himself, was new and obviously needed a solid bolster of self-promotion before he dared start in on his business. He sat at the end of the table flanked by sizeable bunkers of papers to either side and reviewed his scientific career, putting particular emphasis on what articles he had published where and together with whom. This was not boasting, but simply a desire to establish that he was prepared for the task. His introduction was therefore met with accommodating nods and more or less effective attempts to conceal growing impatience. At last it became a little too exhaustive for Simonsen, who cut him off.
“No one around this table is in any doubt about your expertise, and besides we haven’t come here to assess your qualifications but to listen to what you can tell us about Andreas Falkenborg.”
The man blushed a little and feverishly flipped through his papers, which made Simonsen elaborate on his words.
“I can see and hear that you’re nervous. There is no reason to be. In no way do we expect a flawless lecture and definitely not for you to have an answer to everything. Besides I'm well aware of your expertise. That’s why you’re here.”
It helped. The psychologist smiled shyly and said, “Yes, I admit I’m a bit excited to be invited here. But I think I’ve prepared myself well, and would like to start by briefly sketching Andreas Falkenborg’s psychological profile in relation to a so-called standard profile for serial killers. There are some interesting correspondences, but also some essential points where he does not match the profile, which are at least as relevant.”
“We would really like to hear about those.”