by Karin Fossum
"Shit. I have no idea."
"But you must have some thoughts about it."
"Yes."
"Could you tell me?"
He thought hard. It occurred to him that what had started as "just a conversation" now felt very much like an interrogation.
"I've thought of everything!" he said with a sudden, fierce sincerity. "That he went off and hanged himself. Anything at all."
"Is that something he might do?"
"No. Or rather, I don't know." He thought about the cemetery. "I don't know," he repeated.
"Was there something bothering him?"
"He never said so."
"Did he talk much about himself?"
"Never."
Sejer went over to a green filing cabinet, took out some papers and leafed through them. Zipp craned his neck, but he was sitting too far away to see. Sejer took out something from a folder and pushed it across the desk towards Zipp.
"What do you say, Zipp?" he said solemnly. His eyes were piercing. "Is he still alive?"
Zipp stared at the photograph of Andreas. "I just don't know!" he stammered.
"Is there any reason to assume that he might be dead?"
"I don't know!" he stammered again. He had a horrible feeling that he had fallen into a trap. "Do you think he's dead?" he said flatly.
Sejer propped the picture up against the coffee pot.
"Zipp. Why are you lying?" he said.
There it was at last! He knew it would come sooner or later. He was fully prepared for it! The question hit him like a rubber ball and bounced back. There wasn't a mark on him.
"I don't know anything," he intoned.
"Those guys at the square. Can we drop them?"
"I don't know where they were going," Zipp said.
"Were they really there at all?"
"I only saw them from a distance."
"How many were there?"
What had he said before? Two? Or three?
"Two or three. I don't remember."
"Are you worried about your best friend?"
"Of course!" Zipp gave him a hurt look. At the same time he tried to work out what the man wanted.
"Then why won't you help me?"
"I am helping. But I don't remember!" He lost control. He was totally out of it. "I've told you everything I know. Can I go now?"
"No."
"I'm not under arrest, am I?"
"You can't go yet."
"Why not?"
"I haven't finished with you."
Zipp felt as if he were slowly falling. The truth began to look like an easier solution. He understood everything. Why people confessed to things they hadn't done, anything to escape interrogation. He swayed on his chair. Danger was threatening from every direction. It was blowing in through the window, crawling up his legs. A ghastly future that he didn't want. Prosecution and sentencing. The baby's mother in the front row, staring at him as he stood in the witness box. A judge, clad in black robes and with a huge gavel crashing against Zipp's chest. Knocking his heart off of its rhythm, making it falter, he couldn't breathe. Years alone in a space two metres by three metres, Zipp thought. He felt faint. A rushing and a sinking feeling in his head at the same time. He wanted to hide. He reached for the coffee cup, he saw his own hand come into view to pick up the cup, but he missed and it fell. Coffee splashed over the desk.
Dripped down his thighs and burned through his clothes.
I told Andreas that Zipp had called. I thought he would shout at me, but he didn't have the strength. He didn't look as if he cared. I didn't understand it. Perhaps he was using the time to reconcile himself with the worst possibility, that he might die down there in the cellar. Alone, among the potatoes and spiders and mice. We human beings are amazing. We can handle most situations, given time. He didn't want to talk. He shut me out. I didn't let it upset me, just stood there for a while and tormented him with my presence. Fiddled with the buttons on my jacket. Then I went back upstairs. Started rummaging in the drawers and cupboards. I was particular about what would be left behind. I'd collected a lot of papers and the majority of my clothes in sacks. I didn't have much time. Andreas was worn out. I liked him better when he whimpered and pleaded, but now he didn't want anything. He closed his eyes when I stood on the stairs. I slammed doors and stomped on the floor. I was the only one he had! He said he wasn't in any pain, but I didn't believe him. He didn't want to give me the satisfaction of knowing that he suffered. Maybe he didn't want to go on, in any case. Get out of this cellar and go to a hospital. Roll along in a wheelchair. With all those memories. Some lives are too difficult to endure. Maybe that's what he was thinking. I couldn't comfort him. He didn't deserve any comfort. He shouldn't have come here.
Despair would seize hold of me now and then. Unpredictable attacks of panic. I didn't recognise myself. None of us deserved this, none of us wanted this. Andreas was a bolt from the blue. I was the one he had struck. Then I started laughing. These past few days, and everything that had happened, it was all incomprehensible. Unreal. A young boy on the cellar floor in the house of an old woman? What a story! I pulled myself away and went to the window. Sometime I would have to eat something. I hadn't eaten in ages. I saw an end to my despair, a sudden clarity. I let go of everything I was holding. It couldn't get any worse than this. It was important to put an end to this ridiculous performance once and for all. He had suffered enough. He had learned his lesson. I stood up and opened the trap door. Yelled down the stairs to him: "I'm going to the police station. They're going to come and get you soon!"
He probably didn't believe me. I was very tired. The police could do what they liked with me, I didn't care. Andreas could explain. He was the one who had started it all.
"Do you feel sick, Zipp? You look pale."
Sejer wiped up the coffee on the desk, using some paper towels from the holder by the sink. Zipp was busy holding on to the edge of the desk, so he didn't answer. His body had betrayed him. But it didn't matter. The policeman was now a genuine enemy, no longer pretending to be friendly. Now he would use other methods, strike harder, maybe even threaten him. It was a relief, in a way. He knew where he stood, could no longer be seduced or duped. He ground his teeth. Sejer recognised all the signs from hundreds of other conversations. It was a relief for him too. They had reached a new phase. He knew the pattern, the gestures, the body language. The tension in the room was still rising, with a hint of anger, but underneath there was fear. What could those two have done on that fateful night? He looked at Zipp, genuinely curious.
"I hope, both for God's and Andreas' sake, that you have good reasons for keeping quiet," he said sharply.
Zipp didn't let himself be provoked. He was a solid wall with no openings, not so much as a crack. The truth felt heavy, but secure inside him. He was impregnable.
"Is Andreas alive?"
Zipp took his time. He was not in a hurry.
"I don't know."
That was true. It was too easy. He almost had to hold back a smile.
"What did you fight about?"
"We didn't fight."
Sejer folded his arms. "This isn't just about you. He has a mother who's scared and a father who's worried. You know something that might help us. If he ends up as something that we have to carry home in a bag, you're going to blame yourself for the rest of your life."
That was harsh, but Zipp had to admit that it was true.
"None of this is my fault," he said.
"What do you mean by 'this'?"
"I don't know."
He put on the brakes again. It surprised him how difficult it actually was not to say anything at all. The grey eyes were so intense, demanding something from him, drawing him out.
"Have you ever seen a dead man?"
He hadn't. He hadn't wanted to see his father, back then, a long time ago. He didn't answer.
"The first time is always overwhelming. It takes your breath away. The reminder that we're all going to die."
Zipp
was listening. The seriousness scared him. It was because of all he didn't know. He felt a fool. He pushed the feeling aside. He wasn't a fool, just very unlucky.
"If the dead person is someone you knew well, the feeling is doubly strong. He's lying there, but he's not lying there. A wall falls away."
Sejer paused. His mother's dead face appeared in his mind's eye. "The two of you shared so much, the way best friends do. How are you getting along without him?"
Zipp pursed his lips. His throat felt tight, his eyes stung, but he didn't blink. He just hoped that the water filling his eyes wouldn't spill over the edge and become tears. Although that might look good. He was in despair, God damn it. But the inspector had more up his sleeve, he could hear it in his voice. This was only the beginning.
"How would you feel if you were indirectly the cause of someone's death?"
The question almost made him choke with laughter, but he controlled himself. They might never find out who had been responsible for the business with that baby. Maybe it would be best if Andreas were dead. The thought crossed his mind, sudden and unasked, yet pragmatic. That scared him. Did he wish Andreas dead? No, that's not what he wished, but if he did turn up, wouldn't everything come out? Who they were, what they had done? He'd rather be alone for the rest of his life than have to take the blame for that baby. He had to fix his eyes on something. Study every little detail, describe it accurately and exactly in his mind. The way prisoners did when they sat in their cells. The man's tie. Grey-blue with a tiny embroidered cherry motif.
"Zipp. There's something I have to tell you."
Now it was coming! He knew it! His hairline, straight and even, and his thick hair the colour of steel.
"You've wrapped yourself up in a great feeling of calm. That's no art. Anyone can do that. I can't reach you. But what you're doing demands deep concentration."
Some speech! He must have learned it on a course. His hands were big, the fingers long, the nails clean and white. Fucking meticulous, this man. In his lapel there was a pin that looked like an umbrella.
"The problem is that deep concentration takes so much energy. You can hold on to it for a while, but then it slips away from you. Tell me what you know. What you are doing is just a delay. And a delay wastes time. Time we could be using to find Andreas. We could call his mother and say: 'We've found him, Mrs Winther. And he's all right'." He leaned across the desk. "'Thanks to Zipp, who came to his senses.'"
I'm not coming to my senses, it's as simple as that. I don't care, I just don't give a damn.
"It's impossible for anyone to hold on to anger for a prolonged period of time. It's driven by hormones, and that's not something you can control. It can shoot up like a geyser. You're at that age. In time you'll stop feeling what you feel now and slip into something else . . ."
"Shut up!" Zipp was shaking violently. "You can't touch me!"
Sejer smiled sadly. "Are you so sure of that? Don't you read the newspapers?" He lowered his voice. "If you only knew how angry I can get." He stood up and pushed back his chair. Straightened his jacket. Looked at Zipp. His smile was almost jovial. Zipp tried to steel himself.
"You can go home now."
He stayed where he was, gaping. There must be some mistake. If he got up and walked across the room, maybe he would stick out his foot to trip him.
"G-go home?"
"Lie down in your warm bed. Send Andreas a kind thought."
Zipp tried to be happy that he'd managed to keep his mouth shut, but he didn't feel happy, just empty. What about the baby? he thought. They didn't know anything about that. That was something, at least. The minutes passed. He was still whole. He slipped past the man. He reached only as high as his lapels. But he saw the pin. It was actually a little gold sky diver.
CHAPTER 17
Anna Fehn opened the door and looked at Sejer. She liked what she saw, but at the same time she felt anxious. The painting of Andreas stood on the easel, half finished. And now a policeman had come here to ask questions. How much should she tell him? What would he think? He didn't sit down when she pointed to the sofa.
"Why are you here? How did you find me?"
He smiled briefly. "This is a small town. I'm just curious. Would it be possible to see the painting of Andreas that you've been working on?"
She led the way into another, bigger and brighter, space. The easel stood to the right of the window so that the light fell on it from the left. Sejer didn't recognise Andreas because the boy stood with his face tilted down, his eyes fixed on a spot on the floor. But the hair, maybe, the wild curls. Otherwise it was his body that she had wanted to portray. Sejer was struck by just how naked he was, more naked than he would have looked in a photograph. The body was in violent motion, more defined than his age would indicate. He was painted in blues and greens, only his hair was red.
"Does he like it? Posing?"
She nodded. "He seems to. He's good-looking, and he knows it." She laughed softly. "The first time he saw it, he said: 'Shit, that's fucking awesome!'"
Sejer stuck his face close to the canvas. "It must take a certain kind of person. To pose like that."
"Why so?"
He shrugged. "I'm trying to imagine myself in the same situation. How uncomfortable I would feel."
"Maybe you take yourself too seriously."
She noticed his eyes, which weren't brown, as she at first thought, but deep grey. His hair must have been raven black at one time. She guessed that he was a practical type; his hair was cut very short and he carried himself with controlled grace, without being ostentatious. Mature, she thought.
"Do the two of you do anything else besides pose and paint?"
She had been afraid of the question, but was unprepared for the speed with which it came. Was he being impudent or just unusually acute?
"Sometimes," she said evasively.
"Have a bite to eat together, or sometimes a beer?"
She coughed. "Er, yes. Sometimes."
"Sometimes what?"
He stared her down. A tiny smile took the sting out of his dark gaze. She started fidgeting with a brush sticking out of a jar. Stroked her chin with the soft bristles.
"We sleep together."
"Who took the initiative?"
"I did. What did you expect?" The reply was followed by dry laughter.
Sejer looked at the painting again, saw the enthusiasm in every stroke. The young body in which everything was tautly in place. And the force in it, the youth. Anna Fehn was in her early forties and Andreas was 18. Well, it was a familiar story.
She looked at the floor. "To be honest, he never really seems to like it. But he does it anyway. As if he thinks it's expected of him, or that it's required, I'm not really sure which. I often wonder. Why he puts himself at my disposal like that."
Sejer could understand perfectly why a young man like Andreas would grab such a chance if it was offered to him. Anna Fehn was not a dazzling beauty, but she was very attractive. Blonde and voluptuous.
"Do you know his friend? Zipp?"
"Andreas has mentioned him. In a patronising kind of way. As if he's impossibly hopeless."
