by Karin Fossum
The kitchen was small and cosy, but now it was messy after his efforts with the food. He had a slice of bread prepared for his father too, white bread with the crust cut off, spread with bacon fat from the frying pan. After they had eaten he would wash the dishes, and then sweep the kitchen floor. He had already emptied his father's urine bottle and filled his water mug. Today there was no sun to be seen; it was overcast grey, and the landscape outside was dreary and flat. The coffee had boiled three times, the way it was supposed to. He placed a fifth piece of flatbread on top and felt quite pleased with himself. He was about to pour coffee into his father's mug when he heard a car pull up by the front door. To his terror he saw it was a police car. He stiffened, backed away from the window, and ran into a corner of the living room. Maybe they were coming to put him in prison. Then who would take care of Papa?
Car doors slammed in the courtyard, and he heard voices, mumbling. He wasn't sure whether he had done something wrong. It wasn't always that easy to know. For safety's sake he didn't budge when they knocked on the door, but it was clear that they weren't intending to give up; they knocked and knocked and called his name. Maybe his father would hear them. He started coughing loudly to drown out the sound. After a while it grew quiet. He was still in the corner of the living room, beside the fireplace, when he caught sight of a face at the window. A tall, grey-haired man was waving at him. It was probably just to lure him out, Raymond thought, and shook his head vigorously. He held on to the fireguard and nestled further into the corner. The man outside looked friendly enough, but that was no guarantee of his being nice. Raymond had found out these things long ago, and he wasn't stupid either. After a while he couldn't bear standing there any longer, so he ran to the kitchen instead, but there was a face there too. Fair, curly hair and a dark uniform. Raymond felt like a kitten in a sack, with cold water pouring over him. He hadn't been out with the van today; it still wouldn't start, so it couldn't have anything to do with that. It must be about the matter up by the tarn, he thought desperately. He stood there, rocking a little. After a while he went out to the hall and looked anxiously at the key in the lock.
"Raymond!" one of them called. "We just want to talk. We won't hurt you."
"I wasn't mean to Ragnhild!" he shouted.
"We know that. That's not why we're here. We just need a little help from you."
Still he hesitated, before finally opening the door.
"May we come in?" the taller one said. "We have to ask you a few questions."
"All right. I wasn't sure what you wanted. I can't open the door to just anyone."
"No, you certainly can't," Sejer said, looking around him. "But it's good if you open the door when it's the police."
"We'll sit in the living room then."
Raymond walked ahead of them and pointed to the sofa, which looked oddly handmade. An old tartan blanket lay on the seat. They sat down and studied the room, rather small and square with the sofa, table and two chairs. On the walls were paintings of animals and a photograph of an elderly woman with a boy on her lap. Perhaps his mother. The child had the features Sejer associated with Down's syndrome, and the woman's age might have been the reason for Raymond's fate. From where they were sitting, no television set was visible, nor a telephone. Sejer couldn't remember having seen a living room without a TV in years.
"Is your father home?" he began, looking at Raymond's T-shirt. It was white and bore the words: I'M THE ONE WHO DECIDES.
"He's in bed. He doesn't get up any more, he can't walk."
"So you take care of him?"
"I make the food and clean the house, just so you know!"
"Your father's pretty lucky to have you."
Raymond gave a big smile, in that uncommonly charming manner characteristic of people with Down's syndrome. An uncorrupted child in a robust body. He had powerful, broad hands with unusually short fingers and big bulky shoulders.
"You were so nice to Ragnhild yesterday, and you took her home," Sejer said, "so she didn't have to walk alone. That was a kind thing to do."
"She's not so big, you know!" he said, trying to sound grown-up.
"No, she isn't. So it was good she had you with her. And you helped her with her doll's pram. But when she came home, she had a story to tell, and we thought we'd ask you about it, Raymond. I'm talking about what the two of you saw at Serpent Tarn."
Raymond stared at him anxiously and stuck out his lower lip.
"You saw a girl, didn't you?"
"I didn't do it!" he blurted out.
"We don't think you did. That's not why we're here. Let me ask you about something else instead. I see you have a watch."
"Yes, I have a watch." He showed it to them. "It's Papa's old one."
"Do you look at it often?"
"Oh no, almost never."
"Why not?"
"When I'm at work the boss keeps track of the time. And here at home Papa keeps track."
"Why aren't you at work today?"
"I have a week off and then I work a week."
"I see. Can you tell me what time it is now?"
Raymond looked at his watch. "It's just after 11.10 a.m."
"That's right. But you don't look at your watch very often, you said?"
"Only when I have to."
Sejer nodded and glanced over at Skarre, who was assiduously taking notes.
"Did you look at it when you took Ragnhild home? Or, for instance, when you were standing by Serpent Tarn?"
"No."
"Can you guess what time it might have been?"
"Now you're asking me hard questions," he said, already tired from thinking so much.
"It's not easy to remember everything, you're right about that. I'm almost finished. Did you see anything else up by the lake – I mean, did you see any people up there? Besides the girl?"
"No. Is she sick?" he said suspiciously.
"She's dead, Raymond."
"Too soon, I think."
"That's what we think. Did you see a car or anything driving by the house here in the daytime? Going up or down? Or people walking past? While Ragnhild was here, for example?"
"A lot of tourists come this way. But not yesterday. Only the ones who live here. The road ends at Kollen."
"So you saw no one?"
He thought for a long time. "Well, yes, one car. Just as we were leaving. It zoomed past, like a regular racing car."
"As you were leaving?"
"Yes."
"Going up or down?"
"Down."
Zoomed past here, Sejer thought. But what does that mean to someone who never drives above second gear?
"Did you recognise the car? Was it someone who lives up here?"
"No, they don't drive that fast."
Sejer did some mental calculations.
"Ragnhild was home a little before two, so it might have been around 1.30 p.m., right? It didn't take you very long to go up to the lake, did it?"
"No."
"The car was going fast, you said?"
"It kicked up a cloud of dust. But it's been quite dry lately."
"What kind of car was it?"
Then he held his breath. A car sighting would be something to go on. A car in the vicinity of the crime scene, driving at high speed at a specific time.
"Just an ordinary car," Raymond said, pleased.
"An ordinary car?" Sejer said. "What do you mean, exactly?"
"Not a truck, or a van or anything. A normal car."
"I see. A normal passenger car. Are you good at recognising makes?"
"Not really."
"What kind of car does your father have?"
"A Hiace," he said proudly.
"Do you see the police car outside? Can you see what kind it is?"
"That one? You just told me. It's a police car."
Raymond squirmed in his chair and suddenly looked uncomfortable.
"What about the colour, Raymond? Did you notice the colour?"
He tried hard to remembe
r but gave up, shaking his head.
"It was so dusty. Impossible to see the colour," he muttered.
"But could you tell us whether it was dark or light?"
Sejer refused to give in. Skarre kept on writing. He was impressed by the mild tone of voice his boss was using. Normally he was more brusque.
"In between. Maybe brown or grey or green. A dirty colour. It was so dusty. You could ask Ragnhild, she saw it too."
"We've already asked her. She also says the car was grey, or maybe green. But she couldn't tell us whether it was old or new."
"Not old and junky," he said firmly. "In between."
"Fine. I understand."
"There was something on the roof," he said suddenly.
"Is that right? What was it?"
"A long box. Flat and black."
"A ski-box maybe?" Skarre suggested.
Raymond hesitated. "Yes, maybe a ski-box."
Skarre smiled and made a note of it, delighted at Raymond's eagerness.
"Good observation, Raymond. Did you get that, Skarre? So your father is in bed?"
"He's waiting for his food now, I think."
"We didn't mean to hold you up. Could we peek in and say hello before we go?"
"Sure, I'll show you the way."
He walked through the living room, and the two men followed. At the end of the hall he stopped and opened a door very gently, almost with reverence. In the bed lay an old man, snoring. His teeth were in a glass on the bedside table.
"We won't disturb him," Sejer said, withdrawing from the room. They thanked Raymond and went out to the courtyard. He trotted after them.
"We might come back again. You've got nice rabbits," Skarre said.
"That's what Ragnhild said. You can hold one if you want."
"Another time."
They waved and then jolted off along the bumpy road. Sejer drummed on the steering wheel in annoyance.
"That car is important. And the only thing we've got to go on is something 'in between'. But a ski-box on the roof, Skarre! Ragnhild didn't say anything about that."
"Everyone under the sun has a ski-box on their car.
"I don't. Stop at that farm."
They drove up to the house and parked next to a red Mazda. A woman wearing a cap and gumboots caught sight of them from the barn and came walking across the yard.
"Police," Sejer said politely, nodding towards the red car. "Do you have any other cars on the farm?"
"Two others," she said, surprised. "My husband has a station-wagon, and my son has a Golf. Why?"
"What colour are they?" he asked.
She stared at him in astonishment. "The Mercedes is white and the Golf is red."
"What about the farm next door, what kind of vehicles do they have?"
"A Blazer," she said. "A dark-blue Blazer. Has something happened?"
"Yes, it has. We'll come back to that. Were you home yesterday in the middle of the day?"
"I was in the fields."
"Did you see a car coming down the hill at high speed? A grey or green car with a ski-box on the roof?"
She shrugged. "Not that I recall. But I don't hear much when I'm driving the tractor."
"Did you see anyone around that time of day?"
"Hikers. A group of boys with a dog," she said. "No one else."
Thorbjørn and his group, he thought.
"Thanks for your help. Are your neighbours home?"
He nodded towards the farm further down the road as he looked at her. Her face was one of someone who worked outdoors often, healthy-looking and attractive.
"The owner of the farm is away, there's only a caretaker there. He left this morning and I haven't seen him come back."
She shaded her face with her hand and stared in that direction. "The car's not there."
"Do you know him?"
"No. He's not the talkative sort."
Sejer thanked her, and they got back into the car.
"He had to drive up there first," Skarre said.
"He wasn't a murderer then. He might been driving very slowly, and that's why no one noticed him."
They drove in second gear down to the highway. Shortly afterwards they saw a small country shop on the left-hand side of the road. They parked and went in. A tiny bell rang above their heads, and a man wearing a blue-green nylon smock appeared from the back room. For several seconds he simply stood and stared at them with a look of horror. "Is it about Annie?"
Sejer nodded.
"Anette feels so terrible," he said, sounding shocked. "She rang up Annie today. All she heard was a scream on the other end of the line."
A teenage girl appeared and stood motionless in the doorway. Her father put his arm around her shoulders.
"We're letting her stay home today."
"Do you live next to the store?"
Sejer went over and shook hands.
"Five hundred metres from here, down by the shore. We can't believe it."
"Did you see anyone unusual in the area yesterday?"
He thought for a moment. "A group of boys came in and each bought a coke. Otherwise only Raymond. He came in around midday and bought milk and flatbread. Raymond Låke. He lives with his father up near Kollen. We don't have many customers, we're going to have to shut down soon."
He kept on patting his daughter on the back as he talked.
"How long did it take for Låke to buy his bread and milk?"
"I don't know, a few minutes. A motorcycle stopped here too, by the way. Must have been between 12.30 and 1 p.m. Stopped for a minute and then left. A big bike with large saddlebags. Might have been a tourist. No one else."
"A motorcycle? Can you describe it?"
"Oh, what can I say? Dark, I think. Shiny and impressive. He was sitting with his back to me, wearing a helmet. Sat and read something that he held in front of him on his bike."
"Did you see the number plates?"
"No, sorry."
"Do you remember seeing a grey or green car with a ski-box on the roof?"
"No."
"What about you, Anette?" Sejer said, turning to the daughter. "Is there anything you can think of that might be important?"
