When the Devil Holds the Candle

by Karin Fossum

  "What is that supposed to mean?"

  "Just that he's different. He's probably come up with some wild idea."

  "You don't know anything about it!"

  His outburst surprised him. It surprised his mother too. She turned and went back to the kitchen. He grabbed the newspaper, ran downstairs and began reading through it. One article after another, page by page. It was a thick paper, so he was busy for quite a while. There was nothing about a woman and a pram. And nothing about the old lady, either. But then, that story had happened after the paper went to press.

  "This had better not become a habit," Sejer said. They were in the King's Arms, drinking beer. In the middle of the week.

  "No, that would be dreadful, Konrad," said Skarre, grinning.

  They had not talked about the hash. Sejer had been thinking of mentioning it, but he didn't. If Jacob had any questions, he should for God's sake just ask them. Anyway, time was passing. And it was never going to happen again.

  "Have you given it any thought?" Sejer said, halfway through his second pint. "If the new police station is built in the Grænland area, and no-one wants to come up with money to extend the road network, we might end up waiting for a train every time we're called out."

  "What fun," Skarre said. He pulled at a curl from the back of his neck and twisted it round his finger.

  "Your hair is getting awfully long," Sejer said.

  "I know. I'm thinking that if I hold out a few more weeks, it'll be long enough for a ponytail."

  "A ponytail?" Sejer frowned.

  "I'm telling you," said Skarre earnestly. "If I pull my hair back into a ponytail, it'll attract much less attention than it does now."

  "But a ponytail . . . What about the dress code?"

  "I've checked Regulations: 'Hair and beard must be well-groomed and kept at moderate lengths. The hairstyle must not prevent the proper wearing of headgear or other equipment. Long hair must be either pinned up or gathered in a ponytail or braid. Hair-bands and ribbons are forbidden.'"

  "Jesus, you've got it off by heart! We're talking about a neutral appearance, Jacob."

  "Everyone and his uncle has a ponytail," he insisted.

  "What's it going to be next? Dangling earrings?"

  "Studs, Konrad. I take them out before I come to work. But I don't strictly have to. 'Small ear studs that sit close to the ear may be worn.'"

  "I see. Well, you're not exactly a plain-clothes detective. But if we don't get the new police station soon, any kind of cooperation with the legal people is going to go up in smoke. It's just not working out right now, with them sitting 200 metres down the street. We need to be in the same building!"

  Skarre lifted the bottle of Irish Stout and filled his glass. "If I put on some gel, it will look shorter. I'll tell you one thing, though: Gøran has longer hair than I do, just that his is so thin."

  "But would that look good on you, Jacob? Having your hair plastered to your skull?"

  "Don't know. But nobody takes me seriously with these curls. Mrs Winther thought I must be some kind of trainee or something." He took a sip of the dark beer. "How's it going with Robert?"

  Sejer sighed. "Fine, given the circumstances. A cliché, I know but I have good reason to use it."

  "Those kids who were with him. Couldn't they have stopped him?"

  Sejer traced a stripe through the moisture on his glass. "Maybe they thought he was just trying to frighten her. Make the others lose face. If only he had settled for that."

  "But there must have been something they could have done! A chap who's dead drunk with a loaded shotgun in his hands, and they all stand there paralysed, looking on?"

  "There's not always an explanation for everything," Sejer said.

  Skarre didn't care for the idea that any human being could be prey, to such an extent, to their own primitive urges.

  "They must have been totally taken by surprise," Sejer said.

  "Too much so to coax him out of the rage that must have overwhelmed him. And they didn't have time enough, or the psychological insight."

  Sejer felt something tugging at the back of his mind. He felt like rolling a cigarette, but he smoked only one a day, and usually last thing before he went to bed. If he rolled one now, he would use up his quota. To smoke two would be unthinkable.

  "He had made up his mind to shoot. He needed some kind of release."

  I could smoke half of one, he thought. And then the other half tonight. But that would be fooling myself.

  "It's all so damned awful – forgive me," said Skarre, casting a glance at the ceiling, "the fact that they would just stand there and watch."

  "There's nothing so difficult as stepping forward to intervene. Hardly anyone ever does."

  "Maybe he'll drink a little less from now on," Skarre mused.

  "Maybe he'll drink even more," Sejer said.

  Skarre clasped his hands and piously bowed his head. "What if, as he raised the shotgun and took aim, Anita had burst into song, that beautiful and magnificent hymn, 'Onward Christian Soldiers'?"

  Sejer burst into uncontrollable laughter. The sound carried through the whole bar. "What a splendid idea," he chuckled. "At least it would have been a surprise. It would have surely thrown him off balance for a moment."

  "We're talking about the power of God's word," said Skarre. "Don't you ever think about that?"

  "No."

  "Everybody's at sea these days, drifting. No-one has an anchor to hold them down," said Skarre theatrically.

  "Can I ask you something?" Sejer said. "Are you 100 per cent positive that you're going to go to heaven?"

  "I don't know about 100 per cent positive. There are divided opinions up there, about whether I'll have a tussle with the angel." He took a gulp of beer from the bottle. "Mrs Winther called twice this afternoon," he sighed. "I hope he turns up. She's going to wear us out."

  "Mrs Winther?"

  "The mother of Andreas, who has been missing since yesterday."

  "That's yours," said Sejer dryly.

  "Okay, okay. Roger that. It's my job, I know."

  Skarre gave a brisk salute. "Search, secure, collect clues that will make plausible the likely connections in the case, as well as the guilt of the accused."

  "Do they still teach that motto at Training College? Well, she has asked for our help, at any rate. People are strange," Sejer went on. "They witness the most unbelievable things. But there's no guarantee that they'll come rushing to file a report with us. Obviously someone knows where he is."

  "Why are you so sure about that?" Skarre wanted to know.

  "As my mother used to say, when she could still talk: 'I just know'. A person might witness a murder and never say a word about it. They have a reason for keeping quiet, though it may not be a particularly good reason."

  "I wonder what he's up to."

  "Why are you devoting so much time to this one? We have plenty of other cases."

  Skarre bent over his glass. "He's just so good-looking."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "I reckon there are plenty of people who'd like to get their claws into him."

  "Is this the sort of thing that occurs to you when you try to picture what might have happened?"

  "He looks quite like an angel. If he doesn't turn up soon, people are going to take notice. You look like a lizard, people don't give a damn. I mean, they couldn't care less. It's a law of nature. Beautiful people, on the other hand . . . take that woman over there for instance. Everyone is turning to look at her."

  Sara waved from the end of the room, ran her fingers through her hair and made her way to their table. She paid no heed to Sejer's shyness, bent down and kissed him on the forehead. Skarre beamed.

  "Kollberg is tied up to the bicycle rack outside, against the wall," she told him.

  She drank a glass of white wine with them. Afterwards, they walked across the bridge together. At the fountain on the square they watched Skarre disappear alone into the twilight of the streets.
r />   "Does Jacob have a girlfriend?" Sara wanted to know.

  Sejer shrugged. "Not that I know of."

  "Lots of women must be interested in him. Good-looking man. Funny too. Maybe he prefers men?"

  Sejer stopped in his tracks. "What are you saying?"

  "Why does that make you so upset?"

  He started walking again. "I'm not. I just don't think that's true."

  "You're acting as if I had said something offensive."

  "I think that's the way Jacob would have taken it."

  "I don't agree. He would simply have answered yes or no."

  "Don't ask him, Sara. For heaven's sake!"

  "You're not scolding me, are you? Is that what you're doing?"

  "No, no. But he might think that we've been wondering about it and gossiping. Don't take it up with him."

  "You're so sure that I'm wrong. Why does it upset you so much?"

  "It doesn't upset me. I'm just telling you that I know him. And you might put him in an awkward situation."

  "So you don't think it's out of the question."

  "Sara!"

  Then he thought about what Skarre had said. "He's so good-looking." Why did he say that? And the ponytail and the stud in his ear. No, everyone and his uncle has a ponytail. They walked for a while in silence.

  "How difficult it all is," said Sara, sounding surprised. "How fearful we are."

  "Yes," he said. "I feel so uneasy myself sometimes. I don't know where I stand with you."

  "Right here," she replied, squeezing his arm. "Let's have some fun. See that doorway?" she said, pointing. "The one over there next to the kiosk?"

  "Yes?" he said, wondering what she had in mind.

  "Why don't we go over there and make out?"

  "Make out?" The words seemed to stick in his throat. "In the doorway? You must be crazy!" Embarrassed he stared down at his shoes. "It's 30 years since I stood in a doorway to make out."

  "Well then, it's about time," she said, laughing as she tugged at his arm.

  But he pulled her past the doorway, thinking all of a sudden that he felt so old when he was with her. Young too but occasionally old, because she was so playful. Because he couldn't let go of his proper demeanour and loosen up. Take chances. Kollberg's head came up to Sara's hips. She looked like a little girl walking a lion on a lead. They continued on in silence. Passed the Town Hall. THE COUNTRY SHALL BE BUILT ON LAWS. Sara admired the floodlit church.

  "Could we at least walk through the cemetery and knock down a few headstones?"

  Her voice was shrill and pleading. He coughed in dismay. "Knock down headstones?"

  "Just one?" she begged. "A small one, that no-one takes care of any more?"

  He gasped, astonished at his own raw feelings. No-one had ever managed to touch his ideas about death. Did it affect Elise, the fact that they talked this way? Did it affect how he felt? Should he raise his voice and tell this woman off, make her aware that this part of his life was, in fact, sacred?

  "You're out of your mind," he mumbled.

  "Don't you ever do anything illegal?" she said.

  "No," he chuckled. "Why should I?"

  "It's necessary and important. What if you die and you've never broken a single rule?"

  "That won't happen. Of course I've done stupid things."

  "Tell me!" she pleaded.

  "No, no." He laughed in embarrassment. "That's all part of my past."

  "I won't believe you unless you tell me some of it."

  He thought for a moment and then reluctantly began to speak. "A long time ago . . ." he stopped and looked at her. "A very long time ago, in fact, when I was just a kid, just so you know. Youthful shenanigans, the usual things, that's all part of growing up. I assume that everyone .. ."

  "Why don't you get to the point?"

  "All right." He licked his lips. "A long time ago I had a friend named Philip. I also had an old Ford, and we were always driving around together. And every time I drove over to pick him up, I passed a tollgate where I had to pay. Five kroner," he said. "That was a lot of money for a young kid. It made me angry every time I came to that tollgate. There was a woman in the booth who collected the money. She sat there year after year, sticking out her hand through the hatch. I would hand her the five kroner, she would raise the barrier and I would drive through. Every single time I went to get Philip. I would always stare with fascination at her hand. She had what I'll call 'kitty hands'."

  "Kitty hands?" Sara giggled.

  "Soft white hands. And one day it occurred to me to put something else in her hand. Just for a change. Because she took it so much for granted that she was getting the money. Just to see what she would do if she one day got something else."

  "What did you give her?" she asked.

  "I had picked up Philip. We arrived at the tollgate and drove up to the booth. She looked at us and stuck out her hand."

  "And you handed her a . . ."

  "Dead mouse."

  "A dead mouse!" she squealed.

  "It had been caught in the trap in Philip's room. And its tail was missing. But boy, did she scream! Piercing is the only word for it. The mouse landed in her lap and she stood up so fast that she hit her head on the ceiling. And then she screamed again, and she didn't stop. Philip screamed too, while I stared at her with growing concern. 'Raise the barrier! Raise the barrier!' I shouted. And the barrier jerked up, and we raced out of there with the tyres of my old Ford screeching."

  Sara smiled with satisfaction.

  "But do you know what?" he said. "After that she was gone. She wasn't in the booth any more. Maybe she gave up because of the mouse. Maybe she was afraid that next time it might be a spider. Or a worm. Or heaven knows what. So actually," he mumbled, "we ended up chasing someone away from her job."

  "Don't you think you're exaggerating?" she said with a laugh.

  "Why else would she vanish like that?" he said, sounding worried.

  "There could be all kinds of other reasons."

  "I'm not so sure."

  They walked on, keeping in step. Sejer took shorter strides than was natural for him.

  "But honestly," she looked up at him, "is that really the only thing you can think of to put on your list of transgressions?"

  "That one not enough for you?"

  "Quite a sweet story," she admitted. "But pathetic too."

  "Yours are, of course, better?"

  "I'll tell you all about them one day. Late at night. Though it might be too much for you."

  "You are already," he said. "You're too much for me."

  "It's so hard," said Sara all of a sudden, "to live in the present. Right this minute. We spend most of our time in the past. Or in the future, about half in each. But to live in the present! Hardly anybody can do it. Except for children. Or idiots. Or sick people who have some kind of chronic pain that's always with them. And most of the time we're worrying about something."