Don't Look Back

by Karin Fossum

  "It's hard to talk about it. I've tried to put it behind me. Why are you so interested in an old tragedy? Don't you have more pressing matters to occupy your time?"

  "I realise that it's hard. But try anyway. I know that you were having a difficult time and that you really should have had professional help. Tell me about him."

  "But why do you want to talk about Eskil!"

  "The boy was an important part of Annie's life. And everything about Annie needs to be brought to light."

  "I realise that, I realise that. I'm just confused. For a moment I thought you might have suspected me of ... you know. Of having something to do with Annie's death."

  Sejer smiled, a rare open smile. Then he gave Johnas a look of surprise and shook his head.

  "Would you have a motive for killing Annie?"

  "Of course not," he said. "But to be honest, it took a lot for me to call you and say that she had been in my car. I knew I was sticking my neck out."

  "We would have found out anyway. Someone saw you."

  "That's what I thought. That's why I called."

  "Tell me about Eskil," Sejer said, unperturbed.

  Johnas slumped forward and took a drag on his cigarette. He looked confused. His lips were moving, but not a sound came out.

  In his mind everything was clear, but now the room was closing in around him, and all he could hear was the breathing of the man on the other side of the table. He glanced at the clock on the wall in order to organise his thoughts. It was early evening, 6 p.m.

  Eskil woke up with a gleeful shout at 6 a.m. Tumbled around in our bed, hurling himself this way and that. Wanted to get up at once. Astrid needed to sleep some more, she hadn't slept well, and so I had to get up. He followed me out of the room and into the bathroom, hanging on to my pyjama legs. His arms and legs were everywhere, and he talked non-stop, an endless stream of sounds and shouts. He wriggled around like an eel when I tried desperately to put his clothes on him. He didn't want to wear nappies. Didn't want to wear the outfit I found for him, kept on reaching for anything that wasn't nailed down, and finally climbed up on the toilet lid and began pulling things down from the shelf under the mirror. Astrid's jars and bottles crashed to the floor. I lifted him down and was immediately swept up in the same old patterns. I scolded him, kindly at first, and shoved a Ritalin pill in his mouth, which he promptly spat out as he grabbed the shower curtain and managed to pull it down. I tried to get dressed, tried to make sure he didn't damage anything, didn't break anything. Finally we were both dressed. I lifted him up and carried him into the kitchen to put him in his chair. On the way across the room he suddenly threw his head back and hit me in the mouth. My lip split open and began to bleed. I strapped him in and buttered a piece of bread, but he didn't want the food I fixed for him; he shook his head and threw the plate across the table while he screamed that he wanted sausage instead.

  "Johnas?" Sejer said. "Tell me about Eskil."

  Johnas shook himself and looked at the inspector. At last he made a decision.

  "All right, if that's what you want. November 7th. A day like any other day, which means an indescribable day. He was a torpedo, he was destroying the whole family in his wake. Magne was getting worse and worse grades in school and couldn't stand to be home any more. He would go off with his friends every afternoon and evening. Astrid never got enough sleep; I couldn't keep regular hours at the shop. Every meal was a trial. Annie," he said all of a sudden, smiling sadly, "Annie was the only bright spot. She would come and get him whenever she had time. Then silence would descend on the house like a hurricane. We would collapse wherever we were sitting or lying and completely pass out. We were exhausted and desperate, and no one gave us any help. We were told quite clearly that he would never grow out of it. He would always have trouble concentrating, and he would be hyperactive the rest of his life. The whole family would have to put up with him for years to come. For years. Can you even imagine that?"

  "And that day, you had a fight with him?"

  Johnas laughed wildly. "We were always fighting. It was a neurosis in our family. No doubt we did our part to make things worse for him; we had no idea how to tackle him. We screamed and shouted, and his whole life consisted of swear words and unpleasantness."

  "Tell me what happened."

  "Magne stuck his head in the kitchen and shouted goodbye. He went off to catch his bus with his bag over his shoulder. It was still dark outside. I buttered a new piece of bread and put some sausage on it. Then I cut it up in little pieces, even though he could easily have eaten the crust. The whole time he was banging his cup on the oilcloth-covered table, shouting and screaming, not with laughter or anger, just an endless stream of sounds. Suddenly he caught sight of the dessert waffles on the counter from the day before, and started nagging me for them, and even though I knew he would win, I said no. That word was like a red flag for him, so he refused to give up, banging his cup and rocking back and forth in his chair, which threatened to fall over. I stood at the counter with my back turned, shaking. Finally I stepped over and grabbed the plate, pulled off the plastic, and lifted up a ring of waffles. Threw the sausage bits in the trash and put the waffles in front of him. Tore off a couple of the hearts. I knew he wasn't going to eat them quietly. There was a lot more in store for me; I knew how he was. Eskil wanted jam on them. Furious, my hands shaking, I spread raspberry jam on two of the hearts. That's when he smiled. I remember it so well, that last smile. He was pleased with himself. I couldn't stand the fact that he was so happy, while I was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. He picked up his plate and started slamming it against the table. He didn't want the waffles after all, he didn't really like them, the only thing he wanted in all the world was to have his own way. The waffles slid off the plate and on to the floor, so I had to find a cloth. I looked everywhere, but couldn't find one, so I picked up the waffles and spread them out. He watched me with interest as I made a big lump. His little face didn't have a trace of fear for what was to come. I was boiling inside, and some of the steam had to be let out, I didn't know how. Suddenly I bent over the table and stuffed the waffles in his mouth, pushing them in as far as they would go. I still remember his surprised look and the tears that sprang to his eyes.

  '"Right now!' I shrieked at him in fury. 'Right now you're going to eat your goddamn waffles!'"

  Johnas collapsed like a broken stick.

  "I didn't mean to do it!"

  His cigarette was smouldering in the ashtray. Sejer swallowed and let his eyes slide towards the window, but he found nothing that could erase the image from his retina: the little boy with his mouth full of dessert waffles and his big, terrified eyes.

  He looked at Johnas. "We have to accept the children we're given, don't you agree?"

  "That's what they all said. Everyone who didn't know any better, and nobody knew. And now I'm going to be charged with abuse, resulting in death. I've charged and condemned myself long ago, and you can't make things any worse."

  Sejer looked at him. "What exactly was the charge?"

  "Eskil's death was entirely my fault. I was responsible for him. Nothing can be excused or explained away. The only thing is that I didn't mean for him to die. It was an accident."

  "It must have been terrible for you," Sejer said. "You didn't have anyone to go to with your despair. At the same time you probably feel that you've never been properly punished for what happened. Is that how it is?"

  Johnas was silent. His eyes flitted around the room.

  "First you lost your youngest son, and then your wife left you, taking your older son with her. You were left all alone, with no one."

  Now Johnas began to cry. It sounded as if he had porridge in his throat that he was trying to regurgitate.

  "And yet you've carried on. You have your dog to keep you company. You expanded your business, which is thriving. It takes a lot of energy to start afresh the way you have."

  Johnas nodded. The words felt like warm water.

  Sejer ha
d taken aim; now he fired his shot.

  "And then, after you had finally got a grip on things and your life was getting back to normal – then Annie popped up, didn't she?"

  Johnas gave a start.

  "Maybe she looked at you with accusing eyes when you met on the street. You must have wondered about that, about why she seemed so unfriendly. So when you caught sight of her running along with her schoolbag on her back, you had to find out what it was all about, once and for all, didn't you?"

  A girl came running down the hill. She recognised me at once and pulled up short. Her face froze and she gave me a cold look. Her whole posture rebuffed me, a stubborn, almost aggressive attitude that was alarming.

  She started walking again, taking swift strides, without looking back. Then I called out to her. I refused to give up, I had to find out what it was about! Finally she relented and got in, sitting with her arms wrapped around the bag that she held on her lap. I drove slowly, wanting to speak but not knowing exactly how to begin or whether I was about to do something that could be dangerous for both of us. So I kept on driving, and out of the corner of my eye I was aware of her tense figure, like one big trembling accusation.

  "I need someone to talk to," I started off, hesitantly, clutching the steering wheel hard in my hands. "Things haven't been easy for me."

  "I know that," she replied, staring out of the window, but suddenly she turned and looked at me for a brief moment. It felt like a small opening and I tried to relax. There was still time to retreat and leave it alone, but now she was sitting there, listening to me. Maybe she was grown-up enough to understand everything, and maybe that's all she wanted, some sort of confession or plea for forgiveness. Annie and all her talk about justice.

  "Can we drive somewhere and talk a little, Annie? It's hard to do in the car. If you have some time, just a few minutes, and then I'll drive you to wherever you're going afterwards."

  My voice was thin and pleading; I saw that it touched her. She nodded slowly and seemed to relax a bit, settling back in the seat and staring out the window again. After a while we passed Horgen's Shop, and I saw a motorcycle parked next to it. The driver was bending over the handlebars, studying something, maybe a map. I drove slowly and carefully up the bad road to Kollen and parked at the turning place. Annie suddenly looked worried. She left her bag on the floor of my car. I try to remember what I was thinking at that moment, but I can't. I remember only that we trudged up the overgrown path. Annie was tall and straight-backed, walking beside me, young and steadfast, yet not unimpressionable. She went with me down to the water and sat hesitantly on a rock. Plucked at her fingers for a while. I remember her short fingernails and the little ring on her left hand.

  "I saw you," she said quietly. "7 saw you through the window. Right when you bent over the table. I ran away. Later Papa told me that Eskil was dead."

  "I knew you were accusing me," I told her sombrely, "because of the way you've been acting. Every day when we met on the street or at the letterboxes or by the garage. You were accusing me."

  I started to cry. I leaned forward and sobbed into my lap while Annie sat motionless at my side. She didn't say anything, but when I was done, I glanced up and saw that she had been crying too. I felt better than I had for a long time, I really did. A warm breeze was stroking my back, and there was still hope.

  "What should I do?" I whispered then. "What should I do in order to put this behind me?"

  She looked at me with her grey eyes, almost in surprise. "Turn yourself in to the police, of course. And tell them the truth. Otherwise you'll never find peace!"

  At that moment she looked at me. My heart turned to stone in my chest. I put my hands in my pockets, tried hard to keep them there. "Have you told this to anyone?" I asked her.

  "No," she said. "Not yet"

  "You should mind your own business, Annie!" I shrieked in desperation. Suddenly I felt as if I were rising up from the bottom, out of the darkness and into the light. A single paralysing thought occurred to me. That Annie was the only person in the whole world who knew about this. It was as if the wind had turned and was now roaring in my ears. Everything was lost. Her face wore the same astonished expression Eskil's face had. Afterwards I walked swiftly through the woods. I didn't turn around even once to look back at her.

  Johnas studied the curtains and the fluorescent light on the ceiling as he kept on shaping his lips to form words that wouldn't come. Sejer looked at him. "We've searched your house and secured the forensic evidence. You will be charged with the negligent homicide of your own son, Eskil Johnas, and the premeditated murder of Annie Sofie Holland. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

  "You're wrong!"

  His voice was a fragile peep. Several burst blood vessels had given his eyes a reddish sheen.

  "I'm not the one who will assess your guilt."

  Johnas stuck his fingers in his shirt pocket, searching for something. He was shaking so violently that he looked like an old man. Finally he pulled out a flat little metal box.

  "My mouth is so dry," he said.

  Sejer stared at the box. "But you didn't have to kill her, you know."

  "What are you talking about?" he said faintly.

  "You didn't have to kill Annie. She would have died on her own if you'd just waited a little longer."

  "Are you joking?"

  "No," Sejer said. "I would never joke about cancer of the liver."

  "You must be mistaken. Nobody was healthier than Annie. She was standing by the water when I stood up and left, and the last thing I heard was the sound of a stone that she threw into the water. I didn't dare tell you the first time, that she actually went all the way up to the lake with me. But that's what happened! She didn't want to drive back with me; she wanted to walk instead. Don't you see that someone must have turned up while she was standing there at the lake? A young girl, alone in the woods. It's crawling with tourists up at Kollen. Does it ever occur to you that you might be mistaken?"

  "It does occur to me on rare occasions. But you have to understand that you've lost the battle. We found Halvor."

  Johnas grimaced, as if someone had stuck a needle in his ear.

  "Sad, isn't it?"

  Sejer sat motionless, his hands in his lap. He caught himself rubbing the spot above his wedding ring a few times. There wasn't much else to do. Besides, it was so quiet and practically dark in the small room. Once in a while he glanced up and looked at Halvor's ruined face, which had been washed and tended to, but was still almost beyond recognition. His lips were slightly parted. Several of his teeth had been smashed, and the old scar at the corner of his mouth was no longer visible. His face had split open like an overripe fruit. But his forehead was still whole, and someone had combed back his hair so that the smooth flesh was visible, a small indication of how handsome he had been. Sejer bowed his head and placed his hands carefully on the sheet. They could be clearly seen in the circle of light from the lamp standing on a table. He heard only his own breathing and in the distance a lift creaking faintly. A sudden movement under his hands made him start. Halvor opened one eye and looked at him. The other was covered with a big liquid lump of bandages, rather like a jellyfish. He wanted to speak. Sejer put a finger to his lips and shook his head. "It's nice to see that smile of yours, but you mustn't say anything. The stitches will burst out."

  "Tanks," Halvor said indistinctly.

  They looked at each other for a long time. Sejer nodded a few times, Halvor kept on blinking his green eye.

  "The disk that we found at Johnas's place," Sejer said. "Is it an exact copy of Annie's diary?"

  "Mm."

  "Nothing was erased?"

  He shook his head.

  "Nothing was changed or corrected?"