Don't Look Back

by Karin Fossum

  His father's alcohol problem and his mother's delicate nerves had marked the family from the outset. Halvor and his brother bumbled around in the house, getting their own food, when there was any. Their father was usually in town, first drinking up his salary cheque and later his welfare payments. A few kind neighbours helped out as best they could, in secrecy behind their father's back. As the years passed, he became more and more violent. The boys would retreat to their room and lock the door. They grew thinner and quieter.

  Annie probably hadn't used a number password, he thought. She was a girl and would have come up with something more imaginative. A combination of words was most likely – two or three words, possibly words with a symbolic meaning. Or a name, of course, but he'd already tried so many, even her mother's name, although he knew that was one she would never have chosen. He had also typed in the name of Sølvi's father, Axel Bjørk, and his dog Achilles. "Access denied".

  He had slender hands with thin fingers. Not meant for slamming into the chin of a raging, uncontrollable drunk on the verge of collapse. It must have been a tough job to fight with his father. The two brothers showed up regularly at the emergency room with bruises and abrasions, and the tell-tale doe-eyed look that said: I'll be good. You mustn't hit me. They said they'd been fighting with boys on the street, tumbled down the stairs, or fallen off their bikes, but they were protecting their father. Home was a rough place, but it was a known quantity. The alternative was a children's home or foster parents, and the possibility of being separated from each other. Halvor fainted frequently in school, due to undernourishment and lack of sleep. He was the elder one; his younger brother got most of the food.

  Halvor switched to books she'd read and talked about. Titles, characters in the books, things they had said. He had plenty of time. He felt so close to Annie as he worked. Finding the password would be like finding his way back to her. He imagined that she was following his search, that maybe she would give him a sign, if only he stuck at it long enough. The message would come in the form of a memory. Something she had said, something stored away in his mind that would reveal itself if only he dug far enough. He remembered more and more things. It felt as if he were wiping away layer upon layer of delicate cobwebs, and behind each layer he found another one: a camping trip, a bike ride, an evening at the movies, as they'd done so often. And Annie's laugh. A deep, almost masculine laugh. Her strong fist when she pounded him on the back and said: "Give up, Halvor!" in her own special way. Loving and admonishing at the same time. Any other caress was rare.

  Every time the child welfare authorities announced a visit, their father would gulp down some Antabuse, wash himself, clean the house, and take the younger boy on his lap. He was very strong and could muster a thoroughly stubborn expression, which made the terrified social workers retreat immediately. Their mother would smile faintly from under the covers. Poor Torkel had so many responsibilities when she was sick, she'd say, surely they could understand that, and the children were at a difficult age. The social workers would leave without proving their case. Everyone deserved a second chance. Halvor spent most of his time with his mother and his younger brother. He never did his homework, but he still got good grades, so he was definitely bright. Gradually their father lost his grip on reality. One night he came bursting into the room where the two boys slept. On that night, as so often, the younger brother was asleep in Halvor's bed. Their father had a knife. Halvor saw it gleaming in his hand. They could hear their mother whimpering, terrified, downstairs. Suddenly he felt the sharp pain of the knife as it struck his temple; he flung himself away and the knife sliced through his cheek, splitting it in half, then down towards his mouth, where it stuck in his molars. His father's eyes could suddenly see what was real again: the blood on the pillow and the younger brother screaming. He raced down the stairs and into the yard. Hid in the woodshed. The door slammed behind him.

  Halvor scratched the corner of his mouth with a sharp fingernail and suddenly remembered Annie's enthusiasm for the book Sophie's World. And since her name was Annie Sofie, he typed in the title. He thought it would be a clever password, but she evidently hadn't felt the same way, because nothing happened. He kept on trying. His stomach growled, and a throbbing in his temples signalled a headache.

  Sejer and Skarre locked up the office and walked down the hall. The boys had done well at Bjerkeli. Halvor developed an attachment to a Catholic priest who visited the home now and then. This was at the time that he graduated from the ninth grade. The younger brother was put into a foster home, and then Halvor was all alone. After a while he chose to move in with his grandmother. He was used to taking care of someone. When he wasn't doing that, he felt useless.

  "Strange that they could turn out all right in spite of everything," said Skarre, shaking his head.

  "Maybe we don't really know how Halvor has turned out," said Sejer bluntly. "It remains to be seen."

  Skarre nodded with embarrassment, fiddling with his car keys.

  Halvor's headache was getting worse. It was finally night-time. His grandmother had been sitting alone for a long time, and his eyes were sore from staring at the flickering screen. He kept at it for a while longer, realising he had no idea what chance he had of ever finding Annie's password, or what he might find if he did. Maybe she had a secret. He had to find it, and he had plenty of time, at any rate. Eventually he got up, almost reluctantly, to get something to eat. He left the monitor on and went out to the kitchen. His grandmother was watching a programme about the American Civil War on TV. She was cheering for the ones in blue uniforms because she thought they were more handsome. And besides, she thought the ones wearing grey uniforms spoke with such a disgusting accent.

  Skarre drove nice and slowly; he had learned that his boss had an aversion to high speeds, and the road was unbelievably bad – buckled by frost, narrow and meandering across the landscape. It was still chilly, as if someone had waylaid summer, detained it elsewhere with idle conversation. Birds huddled under shrubbery, regretting their return home. People had stopped planting seeds. The ground was completely bare, after all. A dry, hard crust on which no tracks were left.

  Halvor poured cornflakes into a bowl and sprinkled them liberally with sugar. He carried the cereal into the dining room and rolled up a woven tablecloth so as not to spill on it. The spoon shook in his hand. His blood sugar was extremely low, and there was a ringing in his ears.

  "A black man has started working at the Co-op grocery," his grandmother said out of the blue. "Have you seen him, Halvor?"

  "It's called the Kiwi now. The Co-op is gone. Yes, his name is Philip."

  "He talks with a Bergen accent," she said. "I don't like it when a fellow looks like that and talks with a Bergen accent."

  "But he is from Bergen," said Halvor, slurping milk and sugar from his spoon. "He was born and raised there. His parents are from Tanzania."

  "It would have been much better if he spoke his own language."

  "The Bergen dialect is his own language. Besides, you wouldn't understand a word if he spoke Swahili."

  "But I get such a fright every time he opens his mouth."

  "You'll get used to it."

  That's the way they talked to each other. Usually they agreed about things. His grandmother would toss out her latest worry, and Halvor would pick it up, swiftly and easily, as if it were a faulty paper aeroplane that needed to be refolded.

  The car approached the driveway. From a distance the house didn't look particularly inviting. An aerial view would have revealed just how isolated it was, as if it wanted to hide from the rest of the neighbourhood, set back from the road, partially concealed by shrubs and trees. Little windows high up on the wall. Faded grey clapboard weatherproofing. The courtyard half-overgrown with weeds.

  Through the dining-room window Halvor saw a faint light. He heard the car and some of his milk dribbled down his chin. The headlights flickered through the dim light of the room. Moments later, they were standing in the doorway, looki
ng at him.

  "We need to have a little talk," said Sejer. "You'll have to come with us, but you can finish eating first."

  He wasn't hungry any more, but then he hadn't thought he was going to get off easily. He went calmly out to the kitchen and carefully rinsed the bowl under the tap. He slipped into his room and turned off the monitor, muttered something into his grandmother's ear, and followed them out. He had to sit by himself in the back seat of the car, and he didn't like that. It reminded him of something else.

  *

  "I'm trying to put together a picture of Annie," Sejer said. "Who she was and how she lived. I want you to tell me everything about what kind of girl she was. What she did and said when the two of you were together, all the thoughts and fantasies you must have had about why she'd withdrawn from everyone she knew, and about what happened up there at Serpent Tarn. Everything, Halvor."

  "I have no idea."

  "You must have had some thoughts about it."

  "I've thought about a lot of things, but nothing makes any sense."

  Silence. Halvor studied Sejer's blotting pad, which was a map of the world, and found the approximate location of where he lived.

  "You were an important part of Annie's landscape," Sejer said. "That's actually what I'm getting at. I'm trying to map out the area that was hers."

  "So that's what you're doing?" said Halvor dryly. "You're drawing a map?"

  "Perhaps you have a better idea?"

  "No," he said.

  "Your father is dead," Sejer said abruptly. He searched the young face in front of him, and Halvor felt Sejer's looming presence like a tension in the room. It sapped his strength, especially when they had eye contact. So he sat with his head bowed.

  "He took his own life. But you said that your parents were separated. Is it hard for you to talk about that?"

  "I suppose so."

  "Is that why you concealed the truth from me?"

  "It's not exactly something to boast about."

  "I understand. Can you tell me what you wanted from Annie?" he said. "Since you were waiting for her at Horgen's Shop on the day she was murdered."

  His surprise seemed genuine.

  "I'm sorry, but you're really on the wrong track!"

  "A motorcyclist was observed in the vicinity at a crucial moment. You were out riding around. It could have been you."

  "You better check that man's eyesight as soon as possible."

  "Is that all you have to say?"

  "Yes."

  "Then I will. Do you want something to drink?"

  "No."

  More silence. Halvor listened. Someone was laughing nearby; it all seemed so unreal. Annie was dead, and people were making noise and behaving as if nothing had happened.

  "Did you get the impression that Annie wasn't well?"

  "What?"

  "Did you ever hear her complain of pain, for example?"

  "Nobody was as healthy as Annie. Are you saying she was sick?"

  "Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to divulge certain information to you, even though the two of you were close. She never mentioned anything of the kind?"

  "No."

  Sejer's voice was not unkind, but he spoke with deliberate slowness, enunciating carefully, and it lent the grey-haired figure a good deal of authority.

  "Tell me about your job. What you do at the factory."

  "We move around. One week we do the packing, one week we take care of the machines, and one week we do deliveries."

  "Do you like it?"

  "You don't have to think," he said.

  "You don't have to think?"

  "About the job. You can do it on automatic, and think about other things."

  "Like what, for instance?"

  "Anything at all," he said. His tone was defensive. Maybe he didn't realise it, maybe it was a habit from his childhood, years of reprimands and beatings having forced him to weigh every word.

  "How are you spending your time these days? The time you normally would have spent with Annie?"

  "Trying to find out what happened," he blurted out.

  "Do you have any leads for us?"

  "I'm searching my memory."

  "I'm not sure that you're telling me everything you know."

  "I didn't do anything to Annie. You think I did it, don't you?"

  "To be honest, I don't know. You're going to have to help me, Halvor. It sounds as if Annie had undergone some sort of change in personality. Do you agree?"

  "Yes."

  "The reason for such an occurrence is partially understood. Several factors can be responsible. For example, people might change drastically if they lose someone close to them; or if they experience serious trauma, or suffer a serious illness. Young people who are known as decent, hard-working, and diligent can become completely indifferent to the world even though they might recover from a physical trauma. Another thing that can lead to a change in personality is drug abuse. Or a brutal assault, such as rape."

  "Was Annie raped?"

  Sejer chose not to answer this question. "Does any of this sound familiar?"

  "I think she had a secret," he said at last.

  "You think she had a secret? Go on."

  "Something that had upset her whole life. Something she couldn't ignore."

  "Are you going to tell me that you don't know what it was?"

  "Yes. I have no idea."

  "Who, aside from you, knew Annie best?"

  "Her father."

  "But they didn't really communicate?"

  "It's still possible to know someone well."

  "I see. So if anyone might understand her silence, it would be Eddie?"

  "It's a question of whether you can get him to say anything. It'd be better if you got him to come here without Ada. Then he'll talk more."

  Sejer nodded. "Did you ever meet Axel Bjørk?"

  "Sølvi's father? Once. I went with the girls to visit him."

  "What did you think of him?"

  "He was OK. Said we should come back. Looked unhappy when we left. But Ada went totally berserk when she found out, and so Sølvi had to go there in secret. After a while she didn't feel like it any more, so I guess Ada had her way."

  "What kind of a girl is Sølvi?"

  "There's not much to say about her. You must have seen all there is to see; it doesn't take long."

  Sejer hid his face by leaning his head on his hands. "Why don't we have a Coke? The air is so dry in here. Nothing but synthetic materials and fibreglass and misery."

  Halvor nodded and relaxed a bit. But then he grew tense again. Maybe this was some kind of tactic, this first small glimpse of sympathy from the grey-haired inspector. He probably had some reason for being friendly. He must have taken courses, studied interrogation techniques and psychology. Knew how to find a crack and then drive in a wedge. The door closed behind him, and Halvor took the opportunity to stretch his legs. He went over to the window and looked out. On the desk stood a PC, an American Compaq model. Maybe that's where they had discovered his background. Maybe they had passwords, just like Annie; information was a sensitive matter, after all. He wondered what kind of passwords they used, and who had thought them up.

  Sejer came back and, seeing Halvor looking at the PC, said, "That thing is just a toy. I don't like it much."

  "Why not?"