“Yes, I want to helpyou,” she said, sitting down on the chair opposite him. “But not with your investigation.”
“Oh?”
“Do you know, you’re showing all the classic signs of PTSD?”
Harry stared at her.
“Post-traumatic stress disorder,” Kaja said.
“I know what it is.”
“Great. But do you know what the symptoms are?”
Harry shrugged his shoulders. “Repeated experience of the trauma. Dreams, flashbacks. Limited emotional response. You become a zombie. Youfeellike a zombie, an outsider on happy pills, flat and with no desire to live any longer than necessary. The world feels unreal, your sensation of time changes. As a defense mechanism you fragment the trauma, only remember specific details, but keep them apart so the whole experience and context remain in the dark.”
Kaja nodded. “Don’t forget hyperactivity. Anxiety, depression. Irritability and aggressiveness. Problems sleeping. How come you know so much about it?”
“Our resident psychologist has talked me through it.”
“Ståle Aune? And he thought youdidn’thave PTSD?”
“Well, he didn’t rule it out. But on the other hand, I’ve had those symptoms since I was a teenager. And because I can’t remember it ever being different, he said it might just be my personality. Or that it started when I was a boy, when my mum died. Apparently grief can easily be confused with PTSD.”
Kaja shook her head firmly. “I’ve had my share, Harry, and I know what grief is. And you remind me far too much of the soldiers I’ve seen leave Afghanistan with full-blown PTSD. Some of them were invalided out, some of them took their own lives. But you know what? The worst were the ones who came back. Who managed to slip beneath the psychologists’ radar and were left as unexploded bombs, a danger to both themselves and their fellow soldiers.”
“I haven’t been to war, I’ve just lost someone.”
“Youhavebeen to war, Harry. And you’ve been there for far too long. You’re one of the few police officers who’ve had to kill several people in the course of their duty. And if there’s one thing we learned in Afghanistan, it’s what killing someone can do to a person.”
“And I’ve seen what itdoesn’tdo to a person. People who shake it off as if it was nothing. Or who just wait for the next opportunity.”
“Obviously you’re right, in that we react very differently to the experience of killing someone. But for vaguely normal people, the reason why they had to kill matters too. One study by RAND shows that at least 20, probably more like 30 percent of American soldiers who served in Afghanistan or Iraq had PTSD. The same goes for American soldiers in Vietnam. The equivalent figure for Allied soldiers in the Second World War seems to have been only half that. Psychologists believe that’s because the soldiers didn’tunderstandthe wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Whereas everyone understood why Hitler had to be fought. The soldiers who’d been in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan came home to a society that didn’t organise parades, and looked at them with suspicion. And the soldiers weren’t able to fit their actions into a comprehensive narrative that justified them. That’s why it’s easier to kill for Israel. The PTSD rate there is down at 8 percent. Not because the violence is any less grotesque, but because the soldiers can tell themselves that they’re defending a small country surrounded by enemies, and because they have broad support among their own population. That gives them a simple, ethically justifiable reason for killing. What they do is necessary, meaningful.”
“Mm. You’re saying I’m traumatised, but the people I’ve killed, I’ve killed out of necessity. Yes, they come to me at night, but I still pull the trigger without hesitation. Time after time.”
“You belong to the 8 percent who get PTSD even though they have every possibility of justifying their actions,” Kaja said. “The ones who don’t do that. Who are unconsciously but actively looking for a way to blame themselves. The way you’re now trying to take the blame for—”
“OK, let’s say that, then,” Harry interrupted.
“…Rakel’s death.”
Silence fell in the living room. Harry stared out into space. Blinked over and over again.
Kaja swallowed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. At least, I didn’t mean tosayit like that.”
“You’re right,” Harry said. “Apart from the business oflookingfor blame. It is my fault, that’s a fact. If I hadn’t killed Svein Finne’s son…”
“You were doing your job.”
“…Rakel would still be alive.”
“I know people who specialise in PTSD. You need help, Harry.”
“Yes. Help to catch Finne.”
“That’s not your biggest problem.”
“Yes, it is.”
