The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund Page A

African language, and they spent a long time talking about life in Freetown, and about places and buildings they both knew. As the conversation progressed, Samuel began to trust her as he realised that she could understand something of what he had been through.
    After twenty minutes she began to hope that she might be able to contribute something positive.
    Samuel Bai’s problems with focus and concentration, his inability to sit still for more than thirty seconds, and his difficulty holding back sudden impulses and emotional outbursts were all reminiscent of ADHD, with a strong element of hyperactivity and lack of impulse control.
    But it wasn’t as simple as that.
    She noted that Samuel’s tone of voice, intonation and body language changed with the subject of conversation. Sometimes he would suddenly begin to speak English instead of Krio, and would occasionally break into a version of Krio she’d never heard before. His eyes also changed as he shifted language and posture. He would switch from sitting bolt upright, with an intense look in his eyes as he spoke loudly and clearly about wanting to open a restaurant some day, to sitting slumped, his eyes dull, muttering in that strange dialect.
    If Sofia had discerned dissociative tendencies in Victoria Bergman, they seemed to have reached full fruition in Samuel Bai. Sofia suspected that Samuel was suffering from post-traumatic stress as a result of the terrible things he had experienced as a child, and that this had provoked a personality disorder. He showed signs of having several different personalities, which he seemed to switch between unconsciously.
    The phenomenon was sometimes called multiple personality disorder, but Sofia preferred the term ‘dissociative identity disorder’.
    She also knew that people like that were very difficult to treat.
    To start with, treatment of that sort was very time-consuming, both in terms of each individual conversation and the total length of the treatment. Sofia realised that her usual forty-five-or sixty-minute sessions wouldn’t be enough. She’d have to try to increase each session with Samuel to ninety minutes, and suggest to social services that she see him at least three times a week.
    But the treatment was also difficult because the sessions demanded utter concentration from the therapist.
    During that first conversation with Samuel Bai she felt the same thing she had experienced during Victoria Bergman’s monologues. Samuel, like Victoria, was a talented self-hypnotist, and his sleep-like state began to affect Sofia.
    She knew she was going to have to be at the very top of her game if she was to stand any chance of helping Samuel.
    Unlike her work for the criminal justice system, which ultimately had nothing to do with care of the people she met, she actually felt that she could be of some help here.
    They talked for over an hour, and when Samuel left her office Sofia felt that the image of his wounded psyche had become slightly clearer.
    She was tired, but knew that her day’s work wasn’t over, because she still had to conclude her file on Tyra Mäkelä, and also needed to prepare for her fact-check of the child soldier’s book. The story of what happens when children are given the power to kill.
    She pulled out all the material she had and leafed through the English version. The publishers had sent her a list of questions that they were hoping she could answer during their meeting in Gothenburg, but she quickly realised that she couldn’t give them any straight answers.
    It was too complicated.
    The book had already been translated, and her contribution was mainly going to consist of technicalities.
    But Samuel Bai’s book wasn’t finished yet. It was right in front of her.
    Screw this, she thought.
    Sofia asked Ann-Britt to cancel the train tickets and hotel in Gothenburg. The publishers could think whatever they liked.
    Sometimes acting on impulse is the best decision.
    Before she left for the day she put