The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

its fury.’
‘Mm. In other words, you haven’t a clue?’
Aune laughed. The laughter degenerated into a coughing fit.
‘I’m sorry, Harry,’ he growled. ‘Most cases are like this. In psychology we have set up a number of
corrals that our cattle refuse to be herded into. They’re nothing less than impudent, ungrateful,
muddle-headed creatures. Think of all the research we’ve done for them!’
‘There’s something else. When we stumbled on the body of Gert Rafto she was genuinely
frightened. I mean, she wasn’t acting. I could see the shock; her pupils were still enlarged and black
even though I was shining the torch straight into her face.’
‘Aha! This is interesting.’ Aune levered himself up higher. ‘Why did you shine the torch in her
face? Did you suspect something even then?’
Harry didn’t answer.
‘You may be right,’ Aune said. ‘She may have repressed the murders; that is by no means untypical.
You’ve told me that in fact she has been a great help in the investigation and hasn’t sabotaged it.
That may suggest she has a suspicion about herself and a genuine desire to uncover the truth. How
much do you know about noctambulism, to wit, sleepwalking?’
‘I know that people can walk in their sleep. Talk in their sleep. Eat, get dressed and even go out and
drive a car in their sleep.’
‘Correct. The conductor Harry Rosenthal conducted and sang the parts of instruments for entire
symphonies in his sleep. And there have been at least five murder cases in which the murderer has
been acquitted because the court determined that he or she was a parasomniac, that is, a sufferer of
sleep disorders. There was a man in Canada who, some years ago, got up, drove more than twenty
kilometres, parked, killed his mother-in-law with whom he generally had an excellent relationship,
almost strangled his father-in-law, drove home and went back to bed. He was acquitted.’
‘You mean she might have killed in her sleep? That she’s one of these parasomniacs?’
‘It’s a controversial diagnosis. But imagine a person who regularly goes into a hibernation-like state
and is subsequently unable to remember with any clarity what they have done. Someone who has a
blurred, fragmented image of events, like a dream.’
‘Mm.’
‘And suppose that this woman in the course of the investigation has begun to realise what she has
done.’
Harry nodded slowly. ‘And realises that to get away she needs a scapegoat.’
‘It’s conceivable.’ Ståle Aune pulled a face. ‘However, most things are conceivable as far as the
human psyche is concerned. The problem is that we cannot see the disorders we’re talking about;
we have to assume they exist based on the symptoms.’
‘Like mould.’