Early October to the Nobis Hotel in Stockholm. “One of the City’s hippest”, it is in Norrmalmstorg Square which is the most exclusive square on the Swedish version of Monopoly. But it wasn’t that which drew me; although comfort on a 20 per cent discount and clean Scandinavian design were attractive. It was the fact that Nobis has a significant place in criminal history. On 23 August 1973 this Nineteenth Century elegant six-storey was a branch of Kreditbanken when career criminal Jan-Erik Olsson forced his way in and took four workers hostage in the vault. Police snipers took up position on adjoining roofs as negotiators tried to coax Olsson out. Six days later when the stand-off ended it became obvious that the victims had formed a positive relationship with their captor despite fearing for their lives. This feeling of hostage-captor empathy was soon given a name by criminologists and psychiatrists: Stockholm Syndrome. I checked in and went in search of clues, hoping they had not been airbrushed by muted colours and modernist furnishings. I found them on the marble floor of the fitness centre: circular marks show where police drilled into the bank vaults.
Hostage to comfort
