Page 34 of The Sleepwalker
‘Which one do you like best?’ she asks.
‘Seriously, though .?.?. just talking to Agneta makes me feel like I’m betraying my actual mum.’
‘It was your mum who betrayed you, not the other way around .?.?. She chose the drugs, and—’
‘It’s an illness.’
‘I know that, but still .?.?. You’re both going to feel this betrayal when you meet, at least at first.’
Their plan is to fly to Montréal, rent a car and drive to Claire’s family home in the small community of Le Grand-Village. If she no longer lives there, they figure they will probably be able to find someone who knows where she is. Olga has explained that they will have to approach Claire slowly, that it is important for Hugo to show he hasn’t come to ask anything of her, nor to accuse or blame her; simply that he wants to start over and get to know her again, reconnect as an adult.
‘You should demand compensation from the police for locking you up for no reason,’ she says, swirling the wine in her glass.
‘Nah, I don’t care.’
‘It could help pay for the trip, though.’
‘I saw that you’d added more money,’ Hugo says, putting down his cutlery.
‘Yeah, a bit.’
It bothers him that she no longer treats herself to anything, that she saves all the money she can spare for his sake.
‘We have to live in the now, too,’ he says.
‘We do. I think we do. It’s just .?.?. at this rate, we’re not going to have enough.’
‘I know, and I’ll sort it. I’ll get hold of my share.’
‘I have a few other things on the go, too. At the club. They might bring in a bit more.’
Hugo fiddles with the silver coin he wears around his neck and thinks about the fact that he hasn’t told his father about his plans. He knows that Bernard will probably be upset on Agneta’s behalf, but that he will also tell him he is doing the right thing. In truth, he would probably offer to help fund the trip, maybe even ask to tag along, but Hugo feels strongly that this is something he needs to do on his own, that it is all about him and his mum.
‘Tell me about the caravan again .?.?. it was kind of hard to keep up over the phone,’ Olga says, taking a sip of her wine.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘You woke up there and .?.?.?’
Hugo shakes his head.
‘It all happened so fucking fast. I was dreaming about the skeleton man again, and then there was this loud bang. The cop had shot the floor right in front of me, and then they dragged me out. Cuffed me, frisked me, all that crap. I didn’t really see everything, but there was so much blood, a chopped-off arm. Itwas crazy .?.?. And then they took me to jail and someone from forensics showed up for my clothes and a load of other stuff .?.?. You know, scraping under my nails, a pee sample, blood, hair.’
‘Because they thought you were the one who’d done it?’
‘Guess that’s not so weird, really. I mean, it was kind of hard to explain what I was doing there. I’d been sleepwalking, but whythere? I dunno. I used to hang out at the campsite all the time, but I don’t really know what they were thinking.’
‘Does this mean you’re having one of those episodes you told me about?’
‘Seems like it. I talked to my doctor.’
‘Dr Grind?’
‘He wants me to go to the lab for a few nights, as soon as I can, so he can check whether there’s anything new going on in this sweet brain of mine, but I don’t feel like I’ve got time right now.’
‘Imagine if he’s been programming a bunch of sleepwalkers to kill people,’ Olga says, topping up their glasses.
‘Crazy good plan.’
