Hell Fire

by Karin Fossum

  He went over to the map on the wall and pointed. “We are assuming that he got there via one of the three following routes. One: from the parking lot in Geirastadir, down over the fields, presumably along the edge of the woods. Jacob and I will walk that route. It takes fifteen minutes. Route two: he came from Haugane. Again, he might have parked a bit farther away—we’re assuming that he got there by car, even though we probably shouldn’t. It’s a shorter distance and perhaps more likely. The third alternative is, of course, that he walked through Skarven Farm, but that’s unlikely. What’s more, he was carrying a knife. He may have hidden this on his person, but the chances of being seen were greater, considering that eleven people live there.”

  He left the map and sat back down at the table. “One of the Polish farm workers said he saw an old red car some way down the road to the farm. On the fourth of July. He had never seen the car before, but it stopped there for a few minutes before it disappeared. He thought that perhaps they’d taken a wrong turn. But the car is clearly of interest. He may have been watching Bonnie and Simon for a few days before he killed them. At some point, he must have seen them disappear into the trailer. God only knows what he thought.”

  He looked at the people around him; there were ten of them, seven men and three women. They took notes, listening carefully and with great respect. They met in this room every morning at seven o’clock, when the day’s tasks were assigned. All of them had their own field.

  “He’s left no fingerprints,” Sejer said. “So we have to assume he was wearing gloves. Which is why it’s strange that he left the knife behind. That’s quite something to forget. So it’s chaotic. Planned but still a bit chaotic. This didn’t happen in the heat of the moment; this was intentional.”

  Sejer and Skarre sat in the break room at lunchtime. It was warm outside, and the long-term forecast said that the heat would continue. Sejer had only bought a mineral water, whereas Skarre was working his way through a prawn-and-egg sandwich. When they were finished, they went down to the parking garage under the station. Skarre reversed the patrol car out, and they set off toward Geirastadir, which was a popular area for walkers.

  “We’ll get him,” Skarre said. “But he’s psychotic and he won’t go to prison. He’ll end up in a psychiatric hospital and will be released after a couple of years, with the help of medication. He’ll say he can’t remember anything. I suggest we throw him into the cell headfirst. And throw the key away in deep water.”

  Sejer stared out of the car window. “I’m sure plenty would agree with you. But our system’s not like that. Yes, he’ll be out on the streets again in a few years, living among us. He’ll get a house, he’ll get a job, he’ll get a life.”

  “You can’t atone for something like this.”

  “Probably not. But you work for the police, so you just have to swallow it. Here, don’t forget to turn. We’re going to the right.”

  The road was full of stones and potholes, and Skarre piloted the car as carefully as possible along the final stretch to the parking lot. There were a number of other cars there, and a young couple was busy putting their toddler, a thin little body with a sun hat, into a blue child carrier. There was a wooden signpost at the far end. Saga 51/2 miles, Svarttjern 21/2 miles, Haugane 13/4 miles. The man had gotten the child in place and lifted the carrier up onto his back, while the woman put on a pair of sunglasses. But they stayed standing where they were when the two men approached.

  “Do you come here often?” Sejer asked.

  Yes, they told him that they did, but no, they had not been here on July 5. They hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. They chose the path up to Svarttjern, and Sejer and Skarre set off along the path over the fields to Skarven Farm. Skarre took his time. As they walked, they kept an eye out for the Polish workers. Even though Randen said he could vouch for them, there was no getting around the fact that they had been near the crime scene. They had seen the woman and child at close hand, followed them with their eyes. No one knew about their past in Poland, and the eldest, Woiciech, was in fact a butcher. But it was perhaps a bit unfair to hold that against him. They walked in silence for a while under the baking sun. Skarre was sweating in his uniform. He was firing on all cylinders.

  “At the very least, we’re talking about a behavioral disorder,” he said, “and there’re all kinds of them. Maybe he’s been deeply offended by something or maybe he was high.”

  They walked in silence again. Skarre checked the time. “Thirteen minutes,” he reported. “And there’s the trailer.”

  They stopped and stared, and then ducked under the red-and-white police cordon and walked over to the small house on wheels surrounded by the dark trees. From a distance, it looked idyllic, but as they approached they both got a knot in their stomach. The narrow door was closed and they stopped at the step. Skarre sat down. He had a bag of jellybeans in his inner pocket; he picked out a green one and popped it in his mouth. It was still quite fresh. As he chewed, he looked up at the farm. They saw a man coming down across the field and recognized Robert Randen in his blue coveralls.

  “I saw you from the window,” he said when he reached them. “How’s it going?”

  Sejer stood with his back to the trailer.

  “I heard you found a footprint,” Randen continued. “Can you deduce anything from that? From just a shoe?” He dug his hands into his pockets.

  “How did you know that?”

  “I heard it when you were working down here, that there was a print on the floor.”

  “You must absolutely not mention that to anyone,” Sejer ordered. “If that information gets out to the press, he’ll have ample opportunity to get rid of the shoes.”

  Randen understood. “What I really wanted to know is when I can get rid of the trailer,” he said. “It’s the wife who’s asking. We can see it from the bedroom window, you know; it upsets her. She stands there in the evening looking down here and can’t find peace. I’ve forbidden the girls to go anywhere near the trailer—not that they want to anyway. But their classmates are clamoring for all the details. The local paper was at the door yesterday, asking to hear my version. Though I chose not to tell them.”

  “We support you on that one,” Skarre said from the step.

  “Will you be going to the funeral?” Randen asked.

  “Yes,” Sejer said, “it’s a matter of course. We’ll have a lot to do with the family, for quite some time possibly.”

  Randen started to leave but then turned around once more. “Yes, that was it; I was wondering if I can get rid of the trailer. Soonish.”

  “No,” Sejer confirmed. “I’m afraid it’s going to have to stay here for a while.”

  They then drove on to Haugane and stood for a while surveying the landscape. They could see down to the farm from here too, and once again, Skarre timed how long it took them to walk there. It was shorter but rougher underfoot, and it wasn’t easy to know which way he might have walked. But they still wanted to walk it themselves, and as they did so, they kept their eyes peeled. They found nothing and they saw nothing. On the way back to the station, they stopped at a gas station and Sejer went in to buy the local newspaper. Then he sat in the car and flicked through it. He eventually found the death notice. Bonnie’s mother, Henny Hayden, had written it with the help of the funeral directors.

  Our dearly beloved daughter Bonnie and dearest grandchild Simon were suddenly and brutally torn from us today. Haugane, July 5. Henny and Henrik Hayden.

  11

  December 2004

  BONNIE WAS DUE to go to Kristine that morning, but she went to the office first to talk to Ragnhild. She handed over the receipt for the bedding she had bought for Ingemar, and Ragnhild promised to have the money transferred. They sat for some time talking about the situation; Ragnhild had been in contact with the family and they seemed to understand how serious it was.

  “We’ll try to find a quick solution,” she promised, “because it can’t go on like this. Who’s first
on your list today?”

  “Kristine.”

  “Grit your teeth.”

  Kristine lived in Reistad with her husband and two children. The house was luxurious and well positioned, with a big double garage and pillars by the front door with decorative hop vines climbing up them. There was an iron horseshoe under the nameplate. Every time Bonnie went there, she was struck by all the wealth, which was so unlike her own world. She went up to the door—a carved oak door—and when she put her finger on the bell, she heard a quiet ding-dong inside. She opened the door and went in, standing for a moment in the hall. It was almost as big as her living room. The stone floors were covered with what Kristine had told her were Persian Hamadan rugs. Bonnie didn’t really know what that meant; she had a rug from IKEA with a deep pepper-colored shag that cost nine hundred kroner. No doubt knotted by children with tiny fingers.

  She went upstairs to the main floor and found Kristine and the children in the kitchen. The children, who were eight and nine, were eating sandwiches. They both suffered from allergies and were oversensitive in every way to food and pollen and dust—and animals, of course. So it was Bonnie’s job to keep the dust at bay. Kristine was only thirty-two, but she had still been given a home health aide for an indefinite period. Following a visit to a chiropractor, she had suffered temporary paralysis in her legs and she moved slowly and with great difficulty around the huge house. She couldn’t do housework, so she spent most of her time making food that Thomas and Tale could eat. She was a flight attendant for Scandinavian Airlines and her husband was a pilot.

  “Daddy’s in Bangkok,” Thomas told her.

  “How exciting,” Bonnie replied. “Maybe he’ll bring you back a present; I’m sure you’d like that.”

  “When you’ve eaten, you can go and tidy your rooms,” Kristine said.

  “The home health aide can do that,” Tale said, chewing her chocolate spread sandwich.

  Her mother didn’t correct her. Bonnie went into the little girl’s room and stood there, gathering her thoughts and her energy. Tale had hoards of cuddly toys on her bed. Bonnie had once counted them and there were nineteen in all, big and small. She thought about the one teddy bear she had given Simon. She got the vacuum cleaner out of the cupboard and set to work. When she had finished, she went into Thomas’s room. There were no cuddly toys here, but he had shelves and shelves of model planes, cars, and ships that his father had bought him on his long journeys. When she was finished there, she put the vacuum cleaner away and went back to the kitchen.

  “I’ve thought of something,” Kristine said. She was standing by the countertop, hands on her hips. “Maybe we could go through the bookshelves today; I’ve had an idea.”

  Bonnie accepted the order without saying anything.

  “All the books have got covers,” Kristine explained, “and as a rule they’re pretty awful. But underneath they’re faux leather—some are even real leather—and they’re mostly black or red. So if you take down all the books, take off the covers, and then put them back according to colors, that would be rather smart, wouldn’t it?”

  Bonnie nodded mechanically. As so often before, she thought that it wasn’t strictly speaking a job for the home health aide, but she always went that little bit further for her clients. And who knows, sorting the books might be nicer than cleaning the floor. Even though that was probably what she should be doing, given all their allergies. She went into the spacious living room and looked at the bookshelves. They were also made of oak, three of them along one wall, and they were relatively low. At least she wouldn’t need to stand on a chair. She took all the books out of the shelves. The Price of Love, she read, and Hunger of the Heart. Death of a Swallow and Rebecca’s Choice. Bonnie stacked the books in piles on the floor, not too high as she was scared they might topple over. It was better to have a good system, just in case. Her back got tired from bending over to reach the lowest shelves, and sometimes she got down on her knees. She could hear the children quarreling in the kitchen. She continued taking the books out, and when the shelves were empty, she went to get the polish for the shelves. Just like Kristine had said, most of the spines were either black or red. There were a few brown and green too, which she put back on the bottom shelves. Then the black ones and finally the red books on top. She worked slowly and systematically, putting the books back one by one. All the covers lay in a big heap on the floor. Kristine came in when she was almost done. She had a black garbage bag with her and asked if Bonnie could go down and throw it all away in the garbage can by the road. She stepped back and admired the shelves from a distance, pointing with a red-polished fingernail.

  “Super.”

  Afterward Bonnie drove to the By the Way Café, where she bought a cheese-and-ham roll and a cup of coffee. She sat at a table by the window and planned the evening in her mind. Britt, who had been such a good friend over the past few years—especially since she had been alone with Simon—was coming to visit and she was looking forward to it. Whenever she visited, they sat for hours chatting; and once Simon had gone to sleep, they would swap secrets. She watched the traffic outside as she ate her roll. There were a lot of trucks. Rows of tractor trailers were always parked outside By the Way, many of them foreign: from Germany and Poland, the Netherlands and Denmark. When she had finished, she got up from the table and drove over to Gjertrud’s.

  Gjertrud was the highlight of the week. The kind-hearted old lady made Bonnie’s job worthwhile, despite all the other hard work. She was by no means her oldest client: Jørgen was one hundred and one, whereas Gjertrud had just turned eighty-five. She was bright and lively for her age but suffered terribly from arthritis; her fingers were bent like claws and she was in a lot of pain. But she never complained. When she stood in the doorway and greeted Bonnie, her face lit up. Her white hair looked unkempt and Bonnie decided to do it for her today. They sat for a while in the comfortable armchairs in her living room, and Gjertrud raised a glass of eau de vie and took a sip.

  “I have a little glass every day,” she said. “Do you think that matters?”

  “No,” Bonnie replied firmly. “I’m sure it’s good for you.”

  The old woman smiled gratefully. She only just managed to hold the glass with her arthritic fingers. Bonnie leaned back in the chair. All she wanted to do was close her eyes, but she knew that she couldn’t because then she would fall asleep. Still she allowed herself a few moments of peace and quiet.

  “Well, I better get started,” she said and pushed herself up.

  “No, sit awhile longer,” Gjertrud protested. “It’s so nice to have some company, and you’re not much company when you’re busy washing—all I can see is your behind.”

  Bonnie burst out laughing. They both laughed, and outside the old house the snow fell silently. Gjertrud’s cat was lying in front of the stove.

  “What are you doing for Christmas?” Bonnie asked. “Have you got people coming?”

  “I’m going to Edith’s next door. She helps me with everything, with shopping and the mail.”

  Gjertrud didn’t have any children and Bonnie had never asked why; it was none of her business. She knew the old woman had been widowed early and had lived alone for many years. She only had the white cat and worried whenever he went out for a prowl because there was a lot of traffic on the road. Eventually Bonnie got up and went to look for the bucket. But Gjertrud wasn’t concerned about the dust; she was simply glad that Bonnie came once a week. When she had finished cleaning, Bonnie helped the old woman into the bathroom, sat her down in a chair, and washed her soft white hair in the sink. Gjertrud had to sit with her back to the sink and tilt her head over the edge, which was not a good position for an old body. So Bonnie worked as quickly as she could. She rinsed her hair well and dried it with a towel, and then they went into the kitchen for the rollers. Gjertrud’s lovely white hair was very thin, so Bonnie tried not to roll it too tight. When it was done, she put a thin scarf over the rollers and tied it at the neck.

 
“My messy little friend,” Bonnie said affectionately. “You’ll be beautiful now.”

  When she finally got ready to leave, they stood out in the hall and Gjertrud put a trembling hand on her shoulder.

  “You are coming back, aren’t you?” she said hopefully. Her eyes were watery.

  “Of course I am,” Bonnie said. “I’ll be back next week.”

  She opened the door and the cold blasted in. The cat ran past them, wanting to get out.

  12

  July 2005

  “DO YOU THINK he said anything?” Jacob Skarre asked.

  They were on their way to the home care services office. They had called to say they were coming. Someone named Ragnhild Strøm was there, waiting for them.

  “When he came into the trailer, you mean?” Sejer prompted.

  “Yes. Did they beg for their lives? Did he give them some kind of explanation?”

  “For all we know, they may have been expecting him,” Sejer said. “He may be someone they knew as is often the case. Or maybe they fled the house at Blåkollen to go into hiding. In which case, the trailer was a good choice. But he found them all the same.”

  As they drove, Sejer’s thoughts raced. The case required that they talk to a lot of people, and he ran through the questions he was going to ask in his mind. Now he wanted to hear about Bonnie’s time as a home health aide. He wanted to get an insight into what she did and how she did it. His own mother had had a home health aide for a while, before she went into the nursing home. She was dead now, and he had no siblings.

  Ragnhild Strøm’s office was on the first floor, third door to the left. As they came in, she stood up and welcomed them. She had already put out two chairs in front of the desk, which she had borrowed from the office next door.

  “I’m not sure I can really help you,” she said. “The truth is that I don’t know much about Bonnie; she never gave much away. So I can only tell you about her work. On the other hand, I know a lot about that. She was exceptional.”