by Karin Fossum
"Lusting after her? I thought that there had been no sexual assault."
"Maybe he was interrupted."
Sejer studied the map on the wall. The possibilities were piling up, but how could anyone have killed the girl but left her otherwise untouched? Not assaulted the dead body, looked for jewellery or money, or left any visible sign of despair, rage, or perversion. Simply arranged her body nicely, thoughtfully, considerately, with her clothes next to her. He picked up the last Annie magnet. Pressed it hard between his fingers and then, almost reluctantly, put it back on the map.
Later, Sejer walked slowly up towards the lake.
He listened, trying to picture them as they plodded along the path. Annie wearing jeans and a blue sweater, with a man at her side. A vague outline in Sejer's mind, a dark shadow, almost certainly older and bigger than Annie. Perhaps they carried on a muted conversation as they walked through the woods, maybe about something important. He let himself imagine how it was. The man gestured and explained, Annie shook her head, he continued, trying to be persuasive, the temperature rose. They approached the water, which glittered through the trees. He sat down on a rock, had not yet touched her, and she sat down reluctantly at his side. The man was good with words, amiable, friendly, or perhaps pleading; Sejer wasn't sure. Then the man stood up abruptly and threw himself at her, a powerful splash as she hit the water with him on top of her. Now he was using both hands and the full weight of his body, birds rose up in fright, screeching, and Annie pressed her lips tight so as not to fill her lungs with water. She fought back, clawing at the mud with her hands as dizzying red seconds passed and the life ebbed out of her in the shimmering water.
Sejer stared down at the small patch of shoreline.
An eternity passed. Annie had stopped kicking and flailing. The man stood up, turned around, and stared up at the path. No one had seen them. Annie lay on her stomach in the muddy water. Perhaps it seemed wrong to leave her lying that way, so he pulled her out of the water. Thoughts slowly began to circle through his mind. The police would find her, comb the scene, draw a number of conclusions. A young girl, dead in the woods. A rapist, of course, who had gone too far. So he undressed her, but carefully, struggling with the buttons and zipper and belt, and placed her clothes neatly at her side. Decided he didn't like the indecent way she was lying, on her back with her legs spread out, but it was the only way he'd been able to remove her jeans. He turned her on to her side, drew her legs up, arranged her arms. Because this picture, the last, would be with him for the rest of his life, and the only way for him to bear it was to make it as peaceful as possible.
How did he dare to take so much time?
Sejer went all the way down to the tarn and stood with the tips of his shoes a few centimetres from the water. He stood like that for a long time. The recollection of how they had found her appeared to him, and the immediate sense wasn't of evil. It seemed more like a desperate, heart-wrenching act. He was struck by the image of a despairing wretch, floundering around in a vast darkness. It was cold inside and airless, he was smashing his head against a barrier, could hardly breathe, could not escape. And then he broke through. The barrier was Annie.
Sejer turned and slowly made his way back. The killer's car, or motorcycle perhaps, was probably parked where he had left his own Peugeot. The killer opened the car door and caught sight of the school bag. Hesitated a moment, but didn't remove it, and drove off with the incriminating object. Passed Raymond's house, saw them walking along, the strange man and a little girl with a doll's pram. They saw his car. Some children are good at remembering details, he thought. Felt the first stab of fear in his chest. He kept on driving, passed three farms, finally reached the main road. Sejer could no longer see him.
He got into his car and drove off. In his mirror he saw the cloud of dust from his car. Raymond's house was quiet, seeming almost abandoned. White and brown rabbits darted back and forth in their cages as he passed. The van with its dead battery was parked in the yard. An old car, maybe with one cylinder out? The chicken wire and all the movement behind it reminded him of his own childhood, years before they moved from Denmark to Norway. They had brown bantam chickens in a cage down by the vegetable garden. He had collected eggs each morning, tiny little eggs, wondrously round, hardly bigger than his largest marbles – the ones they called "twelvers". Sejer thought he saw the curtains fluttering at a window in his rear-view mirror. Raymond's father's bedroom window.
He turned right and passed Horgen's Shop, where the motorcycle had stood. Now there was a blue Blazer parked in front of the store, and the yellow Inuit, a sure sign of spring. He rolled his window down and felt the warm breeze on his face. The motive could, of course, be sexual, even though she hadn't been assaulted. Maybe the act of undressing her had been enough, seeing her lie there like that, defenceless and naked and completely motionless, while he helped himself to a release he'd been waiting for, and imagined what he could have done to her if he wanted to. In the killer's imagination she might have endured almost anything. Of course that could be what happened. Again, Sejer felt uneasy at the range of possibilities. He continued along the main road and stopped at the turn-off to the church. Allowed a tractor pulling crates of cabbages to pass him and then turned in. The withered flowers on Annie's grave were gone now, and the wooden cross had been removed. A stone had been put in its place, an ordinary grey stone, round and shiny, as if washed and polished by the sea. Perhaps it came from the shores where she had windsurfed in the summer. He read the inscription.
Annie Sofie Holland. May God have mercy on you.
He was taken aback, tried to decide if he liked what it said, and found that he didn't. It implied that she had done something for which she needed to be forgiven. On his way out he passed the grave of Eskil Johnas. Someone, maybe some children, had put a bouquet of dandelions on the grave.
CHAPTER 12
Kollberg needed to pee. Sejer walked the dog behind the apartment building, let him do his business in the barberry bushes, and then took the lift back upstairs. Padded out to the kitchen and peered inside the freezer. A packet of sausages, hard as cement, a pizza, and a little package marked "bacon". He squeezed it with a smile, remembering something. He decided on eggs instead, four fried eggs with salt and pepper, and a sliced sausage for the dog. Kollberg gulped down his food and then stretched out under the table. Sejer ate his eggs and drank some milk, his feet nestled under the dog's chest. The meal took him ten minutes. He had the newspaper spread out next to his plate. "Boyfriend Taken into Custody." He sighed, feeling annoyed. He didn't have much patience with the press and the way they covered life's miseries. He cleared off the table and plugged in the coffee maker. Maybe Halvor had killed his father. Pulled on a pair of gloves, stuck the shotgun inside the sleeping bag and pressed it into his hands, pulled the trigger, swept the ground in front of the shed door, and ran back to the bedroom to his brother. Who felt such an intractable loyalty to Halvor that he wouldn't have said so even if Halvor had been out of his bed when the shot was fired.
Sejer took his coffee to the living room. When he'd finished, he took a shower and then leafed through the catalogue of bathrooms and fixtures. They were having a sale on bathroom tiles, including some white ones adorned with blue dolphins. He lay down on the sofa, which wasn't very comfortable. It was too short for him, and he had to prop his feet up on the armrest. It kept him from falling asleep. He didn't want to ruin the chance of a good night's rest; sleeping was hard enough because of his eczema. He stared at the window and noticed that it needed cleaning. Being on the thirteenth floor meant that he could see nothing out the window but the blue sky, which was starting to deepen into twilight.
Suddenly he saw a fly crawling across the glass on the inside. A fat, black bluebottle. That too was a sign of spring, he thought, as one more appeared, crawling across the pane and circling near the first one. He didn't really have anything against flies, but there was something disgusting about the way they rubbed their legs. It
seemed such a private gesture, something equivalent to a person scratching his private parts in front of others. The flies seemed to be looking for something. Another one appeared. Now he was staring at them intently; and an uneasy feeling came over him. Three flies on his window at the same time. Strange that they didn't fly away. There was another one now, and another; soon the window was swarming with big black flies. Finally they flew away and disappeared behind the chair near the window. There were so many now that he could hear them buzzing. Reluctantly he raised himself up from the sofa with a feeling of dread. There must be something behind the chair, something they were feasting on. He stood up, walked across the room, approaching cautiously, his heart in his throat. He pulled the chair aside. The flies flew in all directions, a whole swarm of them. The rest had congregated on the floor, eating something. He poked at it with his toe. An apple core. Rotten and soft.
He sat up, feeling a little dizzy, still on the sofa. His shirt was soaked with sweat. Confused, he rubbed his eyes and looked at the window. Nothing. He'd been dreaming. His head felt heavy and dazed; his neck was stiff, and so were his calves. He stood up and couldn't resist the impulse to look behind the chair. Nothing. He went to the kitchen to fetch his bottle of whisky and packet of tobacco. Kollberg stared at him expectantly. "OK," he said, changing his mind. "Let's go for a walk."
It took them an hour to walk from the block of flats to the church in the middle of town and back. He thought about his mother. He ought to visit her; it had been a long time since he'd seen her last. Someday, he thought dejectedly, his daughter Ingrid would glance at her calendar and think the same thing: I suppose I should pay the old man a visit. It's been a long time. With no delight; only a sense of duty. Perhaps Skarre was right after all, perhaps it was unreasonable to live to be as ancient as a spruce tree and then just lie in bed, nothing but a burden. He picked up the pace, a little overwhelmed by these thoughts. Kollberg leaped and bounded beside him. But it wasn't good just to let yourself go. He would fix up the bathroom. Elise would have liked those tiles, he was sure of it. If she knew that he still hadn't got around to it... no, he didn't even want to think about that. Eight years with imitation marble was shameful.
At last he poured himself a well-earned whisky. It was late enough now; he might be able to fall asleep. The doorbell rang as he was putting the top back on the bottle.
It was Skarre, not quite as shy as he'd been the previous time. He had come on foot, but frowned when Sejer offered him a whisky.
"Do you have any beer?"
"I don't, but I can ask Kollberg. He sometimes has a small supply at the back of the fridge," Sejer said. He went out and then returned with a beer.
"Do you know how to put up bathroom tiles?" he asked.
"I certainly do. I took a course in it. The key is not to skimp with the preparation. Do you need help?"
"What do you think about these?" Sejer pointed to the blue dolphins in the brochure.
"Those are great. What do you have now?"
"Imitation marble."
Skarre nodded sympathetically and raised his beer. "Halvor's fingerprints don't match the ones on Annie's belt buckle," he said. "Holthemann has agreed to release him for the time being."
Sejer didn't reply. He felt a sense of relief, mixed with irritation. He was glad that it wasn't Halvor, but frustrated because they didn't have a suspect.
"I had a nasty dream," he said, a little surprised by his own candour. "I dreamed that there was a rotten apple behind that chair over there. Completely covered with big, black flies."
"Did you check?" Skarre said with a grin.
Sejer took a sip of his whisky. "Just some dust. Do you think the dream means anything?"
"Maybe there's a piece of furniture that we've forgotten to look behind. Something that's been standing there the whole time, and we've forgotten all about it. It's definitely a warning. Now it's just a matter of identifying the chair."
"So we should go into the furniture business?" Sejer chuckled at his joke, a rare phenomenon.
"I was hoping you still had a few cards up your sleeve," Skarre said. "I can't believe that we haven't made any progress. The weeks keep passing. Annie's file is getting older. And you're the one who's supposed to be giving advice."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Your name," Skarre said. "Konrad means: 'The one who gives advice'."
Sejer raised one eyebrow in an impressive arc without moving the other. "How do you know that?"
"I have a book at home. I look up a name whenever I meet someone new."
"What does Annie mean?" Sejer asked at once.
"Beautiful."
"Good God. Well, at the moment I'm not living up to my name. But don't let that discourage you, Jacob. What does Halvor mean, by the way?" he asked with curiosity.
"Halvor means 'the guard'."
He called me "Jacob", Skarre thought with astonishment. For the very first time he used my Christian name.
*
The sun was low in the sky, slanting across the pleasant balcony and making a warm corner so they could take off their jackets. They were waiting for the grill to heat up. It smelled of charcoal and lighter fluid, along with lemon balm from Ingrid's planter-box which she had just watered.
Sejer was sitting with his grandson on his lap, bouncing him up and down until his thigh muscles began to ache. Something inside him would disappear with the boy's youth. In a few years he would be taller than his grandfather and his voice would change. Sejer always felt a sort of wistfulness when he held Matteus on his lap, but at the same time he felt a shiver run down his back from sheer physical well-being.
Ingrid picked up her clogs from the floor of the balcony and banged them together three times. Then she stuck her feet into them.
"Why do you do that?"
"An old habit," she said, smiling. "From Somalia."
"But we don't have snakes or scorpions here."
"I can't help myself. And we do have wasps and garter snakes."
"Do you think a garter snake would crawl into your shoe?"
"I have no idea."
He hugged his grandson and snuggled his nose in the hollow of his neck.
"Bounce more," Matteus said.
"My legs are tired. Why don't you find a book and I'll read to you instead?"
The boy hopped down and raced into the apartment.
"So how are things going otherwise, Papa?" Ingrid said, her voice as light as a child's.
Otherwise ... he thought. What she means is in reality; how are things going in reality? How was he feeling deep inside, in the depths of his soul? Or it could be a camouflaged way of asking whether anything had happened? Whether, for instance, he had found a girlfriend, or was having a longdistance romance with someone. Which he wasn't. He couldn't imagine anything like that.
"Fine, but what do you mean?" he said, trying to sound sufficiently guileless.
"I was wondering if perhaps the days don't seem so long any more."
She was being terribly circumspect. It occurred to him that she had something on her mind.
"I've been very busy at work," he said. "And besides, I have all of you."
This last comment prompted her to start fidgeting with the salad servers. She tossed the tomatoes and cucumbers energetically. "Yes, but you see, we're thinking of going south again. For another term. The last one," she said quickly, giving him a glance and looking more and more guilty.
"South?" He hung on to the word. "To Somalia?"
"Erik has an offer. We haven't given them our answer yet," she said quickly. "But we're giving it serious consideration. Partly because of Matteus. We'd like him to see some of the country and learn the language. If we leave in August, we'll be there in time for the start of the school year."
Three years, he thought. Three years without Ingrid and Matteus. In Norway only at Christmas. Letters and postcards, and his grandson taller each visit, and a year older, such abrupt changes.
