Don't Look Back

by Karin Fossum

  "I should have called her," she said.

  "You can't blame yourself for this, you couldn't have done anything to prevent it. Someone probably picked her up on the road."

  "Annie didn't like people to get upset. I was afraid she'd get mad if we tried to pressure her."

  "Did you know Annie well?"

  "Pretty well."

  "And you can't think of anyone she might have met along her route? Had she mentioned any new acquaintances?"

  "Oh, no. She had Halvor, you know."

  "I see. Well, please call if you think of anything. We'd be happy to come over again."

  They thanked them and went out, while shopkeeper Horgen disappeared into the back room. Sejer caught a glimpse of the stooped figure in the window next to the entrance.

  "When he's sitting in his office he can see the road."

  A motorcycle that stops and then takes off again, between 12.30 p.m. and 1 p.m. That's something we need to make note of, he thought. All right.

  He slammed the door of the car. "Thorbjørn thought they went past Serpent Tarn about 12.45 p.m. when they were searching for Ragnhild. At that time, the body wasn't there. Raymond and Ragnhild saw the body at approximately 1.30 p.m. That gives us a window of 45 minutes. That almost never happens. A car drove past them at high speed just before they left. An ordinary car, sort of in between. A dirty colour, not light, not dark, not old, not new."

  He slammed his hand against the dashboard.

  "Not everybody is a car expert," Skarre said with a smile.

  "We'll ask him to come forward. Whoever it was that drove past Raymond's house between 1 p.m. and 1.30 p.m. yesterday, at high speed. Possibly with a ski-box on the roof. We'll also put out an APB on the motorcycle. If no one comes forward, I'm going to have to put pressure on those kids about that car."

  "How are you going to do that?"

  "Don't know yet. Maybe they can draw. Kids are always drawing things."

  Afterwards they ate in the cafeteria at the courthouse.

  "This omelette is dry," Skarre said. "It was in the frying pan too long."

  "That right?"

  "The point is for the egg to solidify after it's on your plate. You have to take it out of the pan while it's still soft."

  Sejer wasn't going to dispute this; he couldn't cook at all.

  "And besides, they put milk in it. Which ruins the colour."

  "Did you go to cooking school?"

  "Just one course."

  "Jesus, the things we don't know."

  He mopped up the last scraps on his plate with a piece of bread, then carefully wiped his mouth with his napkin.

  "We'll start with Krystallen. We'll take one side each, ten houses apiece. But we'll wait until after five, when people are home from work."

  "What should I be looking for?" Skarre said, checking his watch. Smoking was permitted after 2 p.m.

  "Irregularities. Anything at all out of the ordinary. Ask about Annie in the past too, about whether they think she had changed. Turn on the charm, whatever you've got of it, and make them open up. In short: Get them to talk."

  "We'd better talk to Eddie Holland by himself."

  "I thought of that. I'll ask him to come out here after a few days. But you should remember that the mother is in shock. She'll calm down after a while."

  "They made very different observations about Annie, don't you think?"

  "That's how it goes. You don't have kids, Skarre?"

  "No."

  He lit a cigarette and blew the smoke away from his boss.

  "Her sister must be home by now, from Trondheim. We need to talk to her too."

  When they had finished, they went over to the forensics institute, but no one could tell them anything significant about the blue anorak that had covered the body.

  "Imported, from China. Sold by all the discount chains. The importer said they'd brought in two thousand jackets. A packet of butterscotch in the right pocket, a reflector and a few light-coloured hairs, possibly dog hairs. And don't ask me what breed. Otherwise nothing."

  "The size?"

  "Extra large. But the sleeves must have been too long, the cuffs were folded back."

  "In the old days people had name tags sewn into their jackets," Skarre said.

  "Oh sure, that must have been back in the Middle Ages."

  "What about the pill?"

  "Not very exciting, I'm afraid. It's nothing more than a menthol lozenge, the kind that are popular right now. Very tiny and incredibly strong."

  Sejer was disappointed. A menthol lozenge told them nothing. Everyone had that sort of thing in their pockets; even he always carried a packet of Fisherman's Friends.

  They drove back. There was more traffic on Krystallen now. It was teeming with children, on various vehicles: tricycles, tractors, some with doll's prams, and one homemade go-cart with a mangy flag flapping in the wind. When the police car pulled up next to the letterboxes, the colourful tableau froze like ice. Skarre couldn't resist checking the brakes on one of the toy vehicles, and he was positive that the owner of a blue and pink Massey Ferguson wet his pants from sheer fright when he told him that the rear light was out.

  Almost everyone realised that something had happened, but they didn't know what. No one had dared to call the Hollands to enquire.

  They presented their questions at every house, one on each side of the street. Time after time they had to watch disbelief and shock flood the frightened faces. Many of the women started to cry, the men turned pale and fell silent. They would wait a proper amount of time and then ask their questions. Everyone knew Annie well. Some of the women had seen her leave. The Hollands lived at the end of the cul-de-sac; she had to pass all the houses on her way out. For years she had baby-sat their children, up until last year, when she started getting too old for it. Almost everyone mentioned her handball career and their surprise when she had left the team. Annie had been such a good player that her name was often in the local paper. One elderly couple remembered that she had been livelier and much more outgoing in the past, but they ascribed the change to her getting older. She had changed tremendously, they said. She'd been quite short and thin; then all of a sudden she'd shot up so tall.

  Skarre didn't take the houses in order; he went first to the orange one. It belonged to a bachelor named Fritzner, who was in his late 40s. In the middle of the living room was a little boat with full sails. In the bottom of the boat lay a mattress and lots of cushions, and a bottle holder was fastened to the gunwale. Skarre stared at it, intrigued. The boat was bright red, its sails were white. An image of his own apartment and its lack of any unorthodox furnishings flitted through his mind.

  Fritzner didn't know Annie well, but occasionally he had offered her a lift into town. If the weather was bad she accepted, but if it was fine, she would wave him on. He liked Annie. A damn good handball goalie, he said.

  Sejer moved on down the street, coming to a Turkish family at number 6. The Irmak family were just about to eat when he rang the bell. They were sitting at the table, and steam was rising from a large pot in the middle of it. The man of the house, a stately figure wearing an embroidered shirt, stretched out a brown hand. Sejer told them that Annie Holland was dead, and that it seemed that someone had murdered her.

  "No!" they said, horrified. "It can't be true. Not that pretty girl in number 20, not Eddie's daughter!" The Hollands were the only family that had welcomed them warmly when they moved in. They had lived other places, and they hadn't been equally welcome everywhere. It couldn't be true! The man grabbed Sejer's arm and pulled him towards the sofa.

  Sejer sat down. Irmak did not have the meek, submissive air that he had so often seen in immigrants; instead, he was bursting with dignity and self-confidence. It was refreshing.

  His wife had seen Annie leave. She thought it must have been around 12.30 p.m. She was walking calmly past the houses with a backpack on. They hadn't known Annie when she was younger, they had lived there only four months.

&nb
sp; "Nice girl," she said, straightening the shawl draped over her head. "Big! Lots of muscles." She lowered her eyes.

  "Did she ever baby-sit for your daughter?"

  Sejer nodded towards the table where a young girl was waiting patiently. A silent, unusually pretty girl with thick lashes. Her gaze was as deep and penetrating as a mine-shaft.

  "We were going to ask her," the husband said swiftly, "but the neighbours said she was too old for that now. So we didn't want to bother her. And my wife is at home all day, so we get by. I'm only gone in the morning. We have a Lada. The neighbours say it's not a proper car, but it's fine for us. Every day, without fail, it takes me to Poppels Gaten, where I have a spice shop. You could get rid of that rash you have on your forehead with spices. Not spices from the Rimi shop. Real spices, from Irmak's."

  "Really? Is that possible?"

  "They cleanse the system. Drive the sweat out faster."

  Sejer nodded. "So you've never had anything to do with Annie?"

  "Not really. A few times, when she ran past, I stopped her and shook my finger. I told her: You're running away from your own soul. That made her laugh. I told her: I will teach you to meditate instead. Running along the streets is a clumsy way to find peace. That made her laugh even more, and then she'd set off round the corner."

  "Has she ever been to your house?"

  "Yes. She came from Eddie on the day we moved in, with a flower in a pot. As a welcome from them. Nihmet cried," he said, and glanced at his wife. That's what she was doing now too. She pulled her shawl over her face and turned her back to them.

  When Sejer left, they thanked him for his visit and said he was welcome to come again. They stood in the little hall and watched him. The girl clung to her mother's dress; she reminded him of Matteus, with her dark eyes and black curls. On the street he paused for a moment and stared straight across at Skarre, who was just coming out of number 9. They nodded to each other and went on their separate ways.

  "Did you find many locked doors?" Skarre asked.

  "Only two. Johnas in number 4 and Rud in number 8."

  "I got notes from all of mine."

  "Any immediate thoughts?"

  "Nothing except that she knew everybody and had been in and out of their houses for years. And that she was well-liked by everyone."

  They rang the Hollands' bell. A girl opened the door. She was obviously Annie's sister; they were alike, and yet they were different. Her hair was just as blonde as Annie's, but it was darker at the roots. Her eyes were outlined with mascara. Her eyes were trapped inside, very pale blue and uncertain. She wasn't big and tall like Annie, or sporty and muscular. She was wearing lavender stretch pants with stitched seams and a white blouse that was unbuttoned halfway down.

  "Sølvi?" Sejer said.

  She nodded and offered him a limp hand, then led the way inside and at once sought refuge next to her mother. Mrs Holland was sitting in the same corner of the sofa as before. Her face had changed somewhat over the course of a few hours; her expression was no longer so painfully desperate, but she looked sombre and strained and a good deal older. The father was not in evidence. Sejer tried to study Sølvi without staring. Her features and figure differed from her sister's; she didn't have Annie's wide cheekbones or firm chin or big grey eyes. Weaker and a little plump, he thought.

  After half an hour of conversation it became clear that the two sisters hadn't been especially close. Each had led her own life. Sølvi had a cleaning job at a beauty parlour, had never been interested in other people's children, and had never played sports. Sejer thought that in all likelihood she had been preoccupied with herself, and with her appearance. Even now, as she sat on the sofa with her mother, in the aftermath of her sister's death, she had arranged her body in an attractive pose, out of habit. One knee was drawn up, her head was tilted slightly, her hands were clasped around her leg. Several gaudy rings glittered on her fingers. Her nails were long and red. A soft body without edges, without definition, as if she lacked a skeleton or muscles and was merely skin stretched over a lump of modelling clay, pink in colour. Sølvi was a good deal older than Annie, but her face had a naive look to it. Her mother had assumed a protective posture and patted Sølvi's arm steadily, as if she had to be comforted, or maybe admonished, Sejer couldn't decide which. The sisters were in fact very different. Annie's face in the photo was more mature. She peered at the camera with a wary expression, as if she didn't like being photographed but had nevertheless conceded to authority, perhaps simply out of good manners. Sølvi was posing more or less all of the time. She looks more like her mother, he thought, while Annie takes after her father.

  "Do you know whether Annie had made any new friends recently? Met any new people? Did she talk about anything like that?"

  "She wasn't interested in meeting people." Sølvi smoothed out her blouse.

  "Do you know whether she kept a diary?"

  "Oh no, not Annie. She wasn't like that. She was different from other girls, more like a boy. Didn't even use any make-up. Hated getting dressed up. She wore Halvor's medallion, but only because he pestered her about it. In fact, it got in the way when she went running."

  Her voice was bright and sweet, as if she were a little girl and not six years older than Annie. Please be nice to me, her voice pleaded gently, you can see how small and fragile I am.

  "Do you know her friends?"

  "They're younger than me, but I know who they are."

  She played with her rings and hesitated for a moment, as if she was trying to make sense of this new situation she had found herself in.

  "Who do you think knew her best?"

  "She spent time with Anette, but only when they had something specific to do. Not just to talk, I don't think."

  "You live a little out of the way here," he said. "Do you think she would ever hitchhike?"

  "Never. Neither would I," she said. "But we often can catch a ride when we walk along the road. We know just about everybody."

  Just about, he thought.

  "Do you think she seemed unhappy about anything?"

  "Not unhappy. But she wasn't exactly jumping with joy either. She wasn't interested in much. I mean, girls' things. Just school and running."

  "And Halvor, perhaps?"

  "I'm not really sure. She seemed a little indifferent about Halvor too. Couldn't ever make up her mind."

  Sejer saw an image in his mind's eye of a girl turned slightly away with a sceptical look on her face, a girl who did as she pleased, who went her own way, and who had kept all of them at a distance. Why?

  "Your mother says she used to be livelier," he said. "Do you agree?"

  "Oh yes, she used to be more talkative."

  Sejer cleared his throat. "This change," he said, "did it happen suddenly, do you think? Or did it happen gradually, over a long period of time?"

  "No," the two of them glanced at each other. "We're not quite sure. She just became different."

  "Can you say anything about when it happened, Sølvi?"

  She shrugged. "Last year sometime. She broke up with Halvor and right after that she stopped playing handball. Plus she was growing so tall. She grew out of all her clothes and got so quiet."

  "Do you mean angry or sullen?"