Don't Look Back

by Karin Fossum

  Sejer nodded to Skarre. The conversation was over. They walked to the door, Jensvoll following. A good deal of suppressed frustration was about to get the better of him.

  "Come on, be honest," he said, annoyed, as Sejer was opening the door. "Why are you pretending that you haven't looked at my record? Don't you think I have enough imagination to know that's the first thing you would do? That's why you're here, isn't it? I know what you're thinking."

  Sejer turned around and stared at him.

  "Do you have any idea what would happen to my team if that story got out around here? The girls would be locked in their rooms. The whole athletic programme would collapse like a house of cards, and years of work would come to nothing!" His voice grew louder as he talked. "And if there's one thing this place needs, it's a good sports programme. The ones who aren't involved sit in pubs and buy dope. That's the only alternative. Just so you're aware what you'll be starting if you publicise what you know. And besides, it was eleven years ago!"

  "I haven't said a word about it," Sejer said quietly. "And if you keep your voice down, maybe we can prevent it from getting out."

  Jensvoll shut up at once and blushed bright red. He retreated back to the hall, and Skarre shut the door behind them. "Jesus," he said. "A landmine with hair and a moustache."

  "If we had enough personnel," Sejer said, "I'd put a tail on him."

  Skarre gave him an astonished look. "Why's that?"

  "Probably just to be unpleasant."

  Fritzner lay on his back in the dinghy, sipping a Hansa Premium. After each sip he took a drag on his cigarette. His concentration was completely absorbed by the book on his lap, propped against his knees. A steady stream of beer and nicotine seeped into his bloodstream. After a while he put down the beer and went to the living-room window. From there he could look down into Annie's bedroom. The curtains were drawn, even though it was only early afternoon, as if it were no longer an ordinary room but almost a shrine into which no one must look. There was a faint glow from a single lamp, maybe the one on the desk.

  He looked down the road and saw a police car by the letterboxes. There was the young officer with the curly hair. Probably going to the Holland house to give them the latest news. He didn't look particularly sombre; he walked with a light step, his face turned up to the sky, a slender, trim figure with lots of curls, surely on the borderline of what departmental regulations allowed. Suddenly he turned left and entered his own front yard. Fritzner frowned. Automatically he looked across the street to see if the visit had been noticed by anyone in the other houses. It had been. Isaksen was in his yard, raking leaves.

  Skarre said hello and then went over to the window, just as Fritzner had done.

  "You're looking down at Annie's bedroom," he said.

  "Yes, I am."

  Fritzner continued. "Actually, I'm a dirty old man, so I stood here often, gaping and drooling, hoping to catch a little peek. But she wasn't exactly the exhibitionist type. She would draw the curtains before she took off her jumper. I could see her silhouette, at least if she turned on the overhead light and there weren't too many folds in the curtains. Not a bad sight."

  He had to smile when he saw Skarre's expression.

  "If you want me to be honest," he said, "and I'm sure you do, I've never had any desire to get married. But I still would have liked to have one or two children to leave behind. And preferably with Annie. She was the kind of woman you wanted to impregnate, if you know what I mean."

  Skarre still said nothing. He stood there, chewing on a sesame seed that had been stuck between two molars for a long while and had finally freed itself.

  "Tall and slender, broad shoulders, long legs. Quick-witted. Beautiful as a wood nymph from Finnskogen. In other words, plenty of premium genes."

  "She was only a teenager."

  "They get older, you know. Although Annie won't."

  "Frankly," he said, "I'm pushing 50 and I've got the same imagination as any other man. And I'm single. But as a bachelor I should have certain privileges, don't you think? There's no one out in the kitchen spluttering at me if I look at the ladies. If you lived here, right across the street from Annie, you would have cast an eye at her house now and then. That's not a crime, is it?"

  "No, I don't believe it is."

  Skarre studied the dinghy and the half-finished beer on the gunwale. He took his time, wondering whether it might be big enough to ...

  "Have you discovered anything?" Fritzner said.

  "Of course. We have the silent witnesses. You know, the thousands of little things all around. Everyone leaves something behind."

  Skarre watched Fritzner as he spoke. The man was standing with one hand in his pocket, and through the trouser material he could see the clenched fist.

  "I see. By the way, did you know we have a crazy man here in the village?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "A guy with brain damage who lives with his father up on Kolleveien. Apparently he's very interested in girls."

  "Raymond Låke. Yes, we know about him. But he doesn't have brain damage."

  "He doesn't?"

  "He has one too many chromosomes."

  "Seems more like he has too few of something, if you ask me."

  Skarre took another look at the Holland house, and at the window with the drawn curtains.

  "Why do you think a snake would crawl into a sleeping bag?"

  Fritzner opened his eyes wide. "Jesus, the things you know. I've asked myself the same thing. I'd actually forgotten about that; it was quite a little drama, I'll tell you. But it would make a perfect place to hibernate, wouldn't it? One of those bags from Ajungilak, with feather down and all that. I was sitting here in the dinghy with a whisky when that boyfriend of hers rang the bell. I guess they saw my light on. Annie was standing in a corner of her living room, white as a sheet. Normally she was pretty tough, but not that time. She was really frightened."

  "How did you catch it?" asked Skarre with curiosity.

  "My dear, it was nothing. I used my bucket. First I poked a hole in the bottom of it with an awl, about the size of a ten-ore coin. Then I crept inside the tent. It wasn't in the sleeping bag by then; it had crawled into a corner and coiled up. It was a big one. I slammed the bucket down over it and put my foot on the bottom. Then I sprayed Baygon into the hole."

  "What's that?"

  "Very powerful insect repellent. You can't buy it over the counter. The snake was knocked out at once."

  "How do you have access to that kind of stuff?"

  "I work at Anticimex. Pest control. Flies and cockroaches and all kinds of vermin."

  "I see. Then what happened?"

  "Then that skinny boyfriend of hers got a carving knife and I chopped the sucker in half, put it in a plastic bag, and tossed it into my rubbish bin. I really felt sorry for Annie. She hardly dared sleep in her own bed after that."

  He shook his head at the thought.

  "But you didn't come here to talk about my career as Superman, did you? In fact, why are you here?"

  "Well ..." Skarre pushed a curl back from his forehead. "The boss says we should always measure the pressure twice."

  "Is that right? Well ... my pressure is pretty stable. But I still can't comprehend that someone has taken Annie's life. A perfectly ordinary girl. Here, in this village, on this street. Her family can't understand it either. Now they'll leave her room untouched for years, exactly the way she had it. I've heard about this happening. Do you think it's because of a subconscious wish that she'll suddenly reappear?"

  "Perhaps. Are you going to the funeral?"

  "The whole village is going. That's what it's like when you live in a small place. No use having any secrets. People feel they have the right to know. It has its good and bad sides. Hard to keep anything secret."

  "That could be an advantage for us," Skarre said. "If the killer is from here."

  Fritzner went over to the dinghy, picked up the beer bottle, and emptied it. "Do you think he's from here?"<
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  "Let's say that we hope so."

  "I don't. But if he is, I hope you catch him fast, by God. I expect all 20 houses in the street have noted that you've come to see me. For the second time."

  "Does that bother you?"

  "Of course it does. I'd like to go on living here."

  "Surely there's no reason for you not to."

  "We'll see. As a bachelor, a man feels extra vulnerable."

  "Why is that?"

  "It's unnatural for a man not to have a woman. People expect a man to find a woman, at least by the time he turns 40. And if he doesn't, they think there must be some reason for it."

  "Now I think you sound a little paranoid."

  "You don't know what it's like, living so close to each other. There will be difficult times ahead for a lot of people."

  "Are you thinking of anyone in particular?"

  "As a matter of fact I am."

  "Jensvoll, for example?"

  Fritzner didn't reply, but stood there for a moment, thinking. Looked at Skarre out of the corner of his eye and then seemed to make up his mind. He pulled his hand out of his pocket and held out something. "I wanted to show you this."

  Skarre peered at it. It looked like a hair tie, covered with material, blue, with beads sewn on.

  "It's Annie's," Fritzner said, staring at him. "I found it in the car. On the floor in front, stuck between the seat and the door. It was just a week ago that I gave her a lift into town. She dropped it in the car."

  "Why are you giving this to me?"

  He took a deep breath. "I could have kept it. Burned it in the fireplace, not said a word. It's to show you that I'm playing with a clean deck."

  "I never thought otherwise," Skarre said.

  Fritzner smiled. "Do you think I'm stupid?"

  "Possibly," said Skarre, smiling back. "Maybe you're trying to trick me. Maybe you're such a conniving person that this whole sweet confession has been staged. I'll take the hair tie with me. And take you into consideration to a greater extent than before."

  Fritzner turned pale. Skarre couldn't resist laughing at him.

  "Where did you get the name for your boat?" he asked. "It's a strange name for a boat, isn't it? Narco Traficante?"

  "It was just a whim."

  He was trying to pull himself together after the incident. "But it sounds good, don't you think?"

  He gave the young officer a worried look.

  "Have you ever taken it out on the water?"

  "Never," he said. "I get terribly seasick."

  The district prosecutor had given his verdict. Annie Holland could be buried, and now Eddie saw by his watch that more than 24 hours had passed since the first shovelful of dry earth struck the top of the coffin. Earth on top of Annie. Full of twigs and stones and worms. In his pocket he had a crumpled piece of paper, a few words he had intended to read as they stood near the casket after the sermon. The fact that he merely stood there, gasping, without managing to utter a single word, would haunt him for the rest of his life.

  "I wonder if Sølvi might have a little problem," he said, putting a plump finger to his forehead, then changing his mind and moving it to his temple. "Not something that would show up in a scan or anything, she's learned what she needs to learn here in the world, she's just a little slow. A little one-sided, perhaps. You mustn't talk to Ada about this," he said.

  "Would she deny that Sølvi has a problem?" Sejer asked.

  "She says that if they can't find anything, then it must not be there. People are just different, she says."

  Sejer had called him to his office. Holland still seemed lost in a vast darkness.

  "I have to ask you about a few things," Sejer said. "If Annie had met Axel Bjørk on the road, would she have got into his car?"

  The question made Holland gape in surprise. "That's the most monstrous thing I've ever heard," he said.

  "A monstrous crime has been committed here. Just answer my question. I don't know these people as well as you do, and I actually regard that as an advantage."

  "Sølvi's father," he said. "Yes, I suppose so. They went to his place two or three times, so she knew him. She would probably have got into his car if he asked her to. Why wouldn't she?"

  "What kind of relationship do you have with him?"

  "We don't have a relationship."

  "But you've talked to him?"

  "Barely. Ada has always stopped him at the door. Claimed that he was trying to force his way in."

  "What do you think about that?"

  He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, as if his own weakness were obvious. "I thought it was pretty stupid. He didn't want to ruin things for us, he just wanted to see Sølvi once in a while. Now he's lost everything. Even his job."

  "What about Sølvi? Did she want to see him?"

  "I'm afraid Ada wrecked any desire she might have had. She can be very harsh. I think Bjørk has given up. But he was at the funeral, and at least then he had a chance to see her. You see, it's not easy to go against Ada," he said. "Not that I'm afraid of her, or anything," he gave a brief, ironic laugh. "But she gets so upset. It's not easy to explain. She gets very upset, and I can't deal with it."

  He fell silent again, and Sejer sat, waiting, as he tried to imagine the interaction between these people. How thousands of threads became tangled up in each other over the years, forming a tough, finely woven net in which a person felt trapped. It fascinated him. And an individual's intense resistance to pulling out a knife and cutting himself loose, even though he was sick with longing for freedom. Holland would probably like to get out of Ada's net, but thousands of little ties held him back. He had made a choice; he would sit in those sticky threads for the rest of his life, and the decision had pushed him down a notch so that his whole, heavy body slumped and sagged.

  "So you haven't got anything?" Holland asked after a while.

  "Unfortunately, no," Sejer said. "All we have is a great many people who speak warmly and lovingly of Annie. There are very few forensic clues, and they haven't given us any leads, and there seems to be no apparent motive. Annie was not sexually assaulted or abused in any way. No one observed anything that might be of use to us in the vicinity of Kollen on that particular day, and everyone who travelled that stretch of road by car has been identified and checked out. There is one exception, but that car has been described in such vague terms that it hasn't led anywhere. The motorcyclist seen at Horgen's Shop seems to have vanished into thin air. Perhaps he was a tourist who was just passing through. No one saw his number plates. We've sent divers down to search for her bag, so far without success, so we have to assume that it's still in the killer's possession. We have no basis for an arrest, and so we can't search anyone. We don't even have a concrete theory to work with. We have so little to go on, in fact, that we're practically reduced to speculation. For instance, Annie might have come across some kind of sensitive information, perhaps quite by accident, and was murdered to ensure her silence. The information would have to have been extremely compromising, since it led to her death. She was naked but untouched, which might mean that the murderer wanted to steer us towards a sexual theory, possibly to divert attention from the real motive. That's why," he concluded, "we're interested in Annie's past."