by Karin Fossum
"Do you remember Halvor's helmet? The one he had hanging up in his room?"
They were sitting in the car.
"A whole helmet, black with a red stripe," Sejer said. "I guess we can call it a night now. And I have to take the dog for a walk."
"What do you think, Konrad? Do you have as much passion for your job as Johnas does?"
Sejer looked at him. "Of course. But maybe you don't think it shows?"
He fastened his seatbelt and started the engine. "I find it annoying when people gag themselves, in a show of solidarity for someone they don't even know, because they're convinced that he's an honourable person."
He thought about Halvor and felt a little sad. "Up until the day someone kills for the first time, he's not a murderer. He's just an ordinary person. But afterwards, when the neighbours find out that he actually did commit murder, then he's a murderer for the rest of his life, and from then on he's going to kill people right and left, like some kind of killing machine. Then they hug their children close, and nothing feels safe any more."
Skarre gave him a searching look. "So now Halvor is in the spotlight?"
"Of course. He was her boyfriend. But I wonder why Johnas wanted so badly to protect a boy he has only seen from a distance."
CHAPTER 5
Ragnhild Album bent over the paper and started drawing. The notebook was new, and she had opened it reverently to the first untouched page. A car in a cloud of dust might not, in a sense, be worthy of the task that was going to rob the notebook of its chalk-white purity. The box held six different crayons. Sejer had been out shopping: one box for Ragnhild and one for Raymond. Today she had two pigtails on top of her head, pointing straight up like antennae.
"I like the way you've fixed your hair today," he said.
"With this one," said her mother, tugging on one pigtail, "she can get Operation White Wolf in Narvik, and with the other she gets her grandmother, who lives way up north on Svalbard."
He had to laugh.
"She says it was just a cloud of dust," she went on, anxiously.
"She says it was a car," said Sejer. "It's worth a try."
He put his hand on the child's shoulder. "Close your eyes," he said, "and try to picture it. Then draw it as best you can. And not just any old car. You should draw the car that you and Raymond saw."
"I know," she said impatiently.
He ushered Mrs Album out of the kitchen and into the living room so Ragnhild could draw in peace. Mrs Album went over to the window and looked at the blue mountains in the distance. It was a hazy day, and the landscape might have come straight out of an old romantic painting.
"Annie took care of Ragnhild for me lots of times," she said. "And whenever she baby-sat, she did a good job. That was a few years ago now. They would take the bus to town and stay out all day. Ride the train at the market, ride up and down on the escalator and in the lift at the department store, things that Ragnhild liked doing. She had a natural talent with children. She was different. Thoughtful."
Sejer could hear the little girl taking crayons out of the box in the kitchen. "Do you know her sister too? Sølvi?"
"I know who she is. But she's only her half-sister."
"Oh?"
"Didn't you know that?"
"No, I didn't."
"Everyone knows," she said. "It's not a secret or anything. They're very different. For a while they had difficulties with her father. Sølvi's father, I mean. He lost his visitation rights, and apparently he's never got over it."
"Why?"
"The usual trouble. Drunk and violent. That's the mother's version, of course, but Ada Holland is hard to take, so I'm not sure how much is true."
"But Sølvi is over 21 by now, isn't she? And can do what she wants?"
"It's probably too late. I dare say that things have probably gone sour between them. I've been thinking a lot about Ada," she said. "She didn't get her little girl back, the way I did."
"I'm done!" came a shout from the kitchen.
They got up and went in to have a look. Ragnhild was sitting with her head tilted, not looking especially pleased. A grey cloud filled most of the page, and out of the cloud stuck the front end of a car, with headlights and bumper. The bonnet was long, like on a big American car, the bumper was coloured black. It looked as if it had a big grin with no teeth. The headlights were slanted. Chinese eyes, Sejer thought.
"Did it make a lot of noise when it drove past?"
He leaned over the kitchen table and noticed the sweet smell of her chewing gum.
"It was really noisy."
He stared at the drawing. "Could you make me another drawing? If I ask you to draw the headlights on the car? Just the headlights?"
"But they looked just like this!" She pointed to the drawing. "They were slanted."
He nodded, as if to himself. "What about the colour, Ragnhild?"
"Well, it wasn't really grey. But there wasn't much to choose from here," she said precociously, shaking the box of crayons. "It was a colour that doesn't exist."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I mean a colour that doesn't have a name."
A string of colours swirled through his mind: sienna, petrol, sepia, anthracite.
"Ragnhild," he said, "can you remember if the car had anything on the roof?"
"Antennae?"
"No, something bigger. Raymond thought there was something big on top of the car."
She stared at him, thinking hard. "Yes!" she exclaimed. "A little boat."
"A boat?"
"A little black one."
"I don't know what I would have done without you," Sejer said, smiling, as he flicked his fingers at her antennae.
"Elise," he said, "you have a nice name."
"No one wants to call me that. Everyone calls me Ragnhild."
"But I can call you Elise."
She blushed shyly, put the lid on the box, closed up the notebook, and slid them over to him.
"No, they're yours to keep."
She opened the box at once and went back to drawing.
"One of the rabbits is lying on its side!"
Raymond was standing in the doorway to his father's room, rocking back and forth uneasily.
"Which one?"
"Caesar. The giant Belgian."
"Then you'll have to kill it."
Raymond got so scared that he farted. But the little release didn't make any difference in the stale air of the room.
"But it's breathing so hard!"
"We're not about to feed rabbits that are dying, Raymond. Put it on the chopping block. The axe is behind the door in the garage. Watch your hands!"
Raymond went outdoors and plodded dejectedly across the courtyard towards the rabbit cages. He stared at Caesar for a moment through the netting. It's lying there just like a baby, he thought, rolled up like a soft little ball. Its eyes were closed. It didn't move when he opened the cage and stuck his hand cautiously inside. It was just as warm as always. He took a firm grip of the skin on the scruff of its neck and lifted it out. It kicked half-heartedly, seeming to have little strength.
Afterwards he slumped in his chair at the kitchen table. In front of him lay an album with pictures of the national soccer team and birds and animals. He was looking very depressed when Sejer arrived. He was wearing nothing but tracksuit bottoms and slippers. His hair stood up from his head, his belly was soft and white. His round eyes looked sulky, and his lips were pursed, as if he were sucking hard on something.
"Hello, Raymond." Sejer gave a deep bow to appease him a bit. "Have I come at a bad time?"
"Yes, because I was just working on my collection, and now you're interrupting me."
"That can be awfully annoying. I can't imagine anything worse. But I wouldn't have come if I didn't have to, I hope you realise that."
"Yes, of course, yes."
He relaxed a little and went back to the kitchen. Sejer followed him and put the drawing materials on the table.
"I'd like you
to draw something for me," he said.
"Oh no! Not on your life!"
He looked so worried that Sejer put his hand on Raymond's shoulder.
"I can't draw."
"Everybody can draw," Sejer said.
"Well, I can't draw people."
"You don't have to draw any people. Just a car."
"A car?"
Now he looked suspicious. His eyes narrowed and looked like ordinary eyes.
"The car that you and Ragnhild saw. The one that was driving so fast."
"You keep on talking about that car."
"That's true, but it's important. We've put out a bulletin, but no one has contacted us. Maybe he's a bad person, Raymond, and if he is, we have to catch him."
"But I told you it was driving too fast."
"You must have seen something," Sejer said, lowering his voice. "You noticed that it was a car, didn't you? Not a boat or a bike. Or a caravan of camels, for instance."
"Camels?" He laughed heartily, making his white belly quiver. "That would have been funny, seeing a bunch of camels going down the road! There weren't any camels. It was a car. With a ski-box on the roof."
"Draw it," Sejer commanded.
Raymond gave in. He sank on to a chair at the table and stuck his tongue out, like a rudder. It only took a few minutes to realise that he had been right. His drawing looked like a piece of crispbread on wheels.
"Could you colour it too?"
Raymond opened the box, carefully examined all the crayons, and finally selected the red one. Then he concentrated hard, trying not to colour outside the lines.
"Red, Raymond?"
"Yes," he said brusquely, and kept on colouring.
"So the car was red? Are you sure? I thought you said it was grey."
"I said it was red."
Sejer pulled a stool out from under the table, and thought carefully before he spoke. "You said you couldn't remember the colour. But that it might have been grey, like Ragnhild said."
Raymond scratched his stomach, looking offended. "I remember things better after a while, you know. I told him that yesterday, the man who was here, I told him it was red."
"Who was that?"
"Just a man who was out walking and stopped in the courtyard. He wanted to see the rabbits. I talked to him."
Sejer felt a faint prickling on the back of his neck.
"Was it someone you know?"
"No."
"Can you tell me what he looked like?"
Raymond put down the red crayon and stuck out his lower lip. "No," he said.
"Don't you want to tell me?"
"It was just a man. And you won't like what I say, anyway."
"Please tell me. I'll help you. Fat or thin?"
"In between."
"Dark or light hair?"
"Don't know. He was wearing a cap."
"Is that right? A young man?"
"Don't know."
"Older than me?"
Raymond glanced up.
"Oh no, not as old as you. Your hair is all grey."
Thanks a lot, thought Sejer.
"I don't want to draw him."
"You don't have to. Did he come by car?"
"No, he was walking."
"When he left, did he head down the road or up towards Kollen?"
"Don't know. I went in to see to Papa. He was really nice," he said.
"I'm sure he was. What did he say to you, Raymond?"
"That I had great rabbits. And did I want to sell one if they ever had babies."
"Go on, go on."
"Then we talked about the weather. And how dry it's been. He asked me if I'd heard about the girl at the tarn and if I knew her."
"What did you tell him?"
"That I was the one who found her. He thought it was too bad the girl was dead. And I told him about you, that you had been here and asked me about the car. 'The car,' he said, 'that noisy one that's always driving too fast on the roads around here?' Yes, I told him. That's the one I saw. He knew which one it was. Said it was a red Mercedes. I must have been mistaken when you asked me before, because now I remember. The car was red."
"Did he threaten you?"
"No, no, I don't let anyone threaten me. A grown man doesn't let people threaten him. I told him that."
"What about his clothes, Raymond. What was he wearing?"
"Just ordinary clothes."
"Brown clothes? Or blue? Can you remember?"
Raymond gave him a confused look and hid his face in his hands. "Stop bothering me so much!"
Sejer let Raymond sit for a moment and calm down. Then he said, in a very soft voice, "But the car was really grey or green, wasn't it?"
"No, it was red. I told the truth, and there's no use threatening me. Because the car was red, and that pleased him."
He bent over the paper and scribbled a little over the drawing. His lips were set in a stubborn line.
"Don't wreck it. I'd like to have it."
Sejer picked up the drawing. "How's your father?" he asked.
"He can't walk."
"I know. Let's go and see him."
He stood up and followed Raymond down the hall. They opened the door without knocking. The room was in semi-darkness, but there was more than enough light for Sejer to notice at once the old man standing next to the night table, wearing an old undershirt and underwear that were much too big. His knees were shaking perilously. He was just as gaunt as his son was round and stout.
"Papa!" cried Raymond. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing, nothing."
He fumbled for his false teeth.
"Sit down. You'll break a leg."
He was wearing support stockings, and at the top edge his knees were swollen like two pale bread puddings, with liver spots that resembled raisins.
Raymond helped him get back in bed and handed him his teeth. He avoided Sejer's gaze and stared up at the ceiling. His eyes were colourless, with tiny little pupils framed by long bushy eyebrows. He put his teeth in his mouth. Sejer went over and stood in front of him, looking up at the window, which faced the courtyard and road. The curtains were drawn, letting in only a minimum of light.
