The Caller

by Karin Fossum

  ‘Uh-huh,’ he said. ‘Rubbish. But entertaining rubbish.’

  She left. For good measure, she slammed the door extra hard. That was how she marked her presence: I’m still here. Don’t you forget it.

  Before long he recognised the smell of pizza, and it struck him that he was hungry, almost lethargic; sometimes he forgot to eat – especially if his head was filled, as now, with plans. While he waited, he darted into the living room and grabbed the newspaper, hurried back to his room and rifled through it. He studied the photographs and concocted elaborate yet incomplete schemes. He was patient, and his plans were clear. People lose their jobs, he thought. They get into car accidents, they drown, they fight and steal and cause trouble, and they kill each other. They marry and have children. They celebrate birthdays, fifty and sixty and seventy. It’s all in the newspaper because people have an incredible desire to communicate. He read carefully, and at length settled on an announcement. Read it many times, tore it out and put it in the drawer of his bedside table, next to the pink smock. For later. Then he crossed the room to the guinea pig’s cage under the window. He lifted out the small animal and lay on the bed. Bleeding Heart was the guinea pig’s name. It scurried over his chest and belly on tiny feet, and after a few rounds back and forth, grew calm in the hollow of his neck. The woman in the kitchen, he thought, wouldn’t it be nice to mess with her? What do you think about that? Should we go down to Lake Skarve and fish for pike? We’ll carry the fish home in a bucket of water, and shove it down her throat while it’s still flopping about. That will shut her mouth. Can you imagine that?

  He put the guinea pig against his cheek, and Bleeding Heart nipped him on the ear with its sharp teeth. A number of pleasant images filled his head: his mother with a fat pike sticking out of her mouth; his mother down on her knees, writhing about on the floor and gasping for air. With a finger he stroked the guinea pig’s head. He liked the smell of the furry little creature, and the eyes which shone like black pearls.

  His mother stuck her head in again. ‘Get that rat back in the cage,’ she said. ‘The pizza’s ready.’

  She was dressed and sober.

  He knew it wouldn’t last. For brief moments, she came up for air and behaved as if she wanted to show him she was in charge. When she was sober, it was as though she noticed him and wanted to make a point.

  He hated her drinking, hated that she slept on the sofa, snoring like a saw. When she was sober he lost control over her, and she went after him with overpowering force. But the pizza was good. He watched her snap her teeth into it; her pointed, grey tongue worked hard at the pepperoni. Even though she was sober, even though she sat straight in her chair, he could see how she longed for the poison she’d become addicted to – an addiction which tore at her, and made her hands restless and shaky.

  ‘You need to get a job,’ she said. ‘I can’t provide for you for ever, Johnny. Why do you loaf around? You’re young and able.’

  You get a job, he thought, but he didn’t say it. She was on disability, and had been for years. Four thousand and twenty kroner. Plus eighteen hundred for him. And some subsidised housing on top of that. They had to share this miserable welfare money. We are poor, Johnny thought gloomily as he chewed his pizza. But the prospect of getting a job hardly cheered him up; it would mean that other people could order him around. And he couldn’t stand that – he got goosebumps at the very idea. He wanted to be his own master, wanted to ride the Suzuki and be free. Besides, he was only seventeen. He couldn’t work behind a till, couldn’t drive a car. No one wants me, he reckoned, and was content.

  His mother helped herself to another slice. When she yanked at the threads of cheese with her long, white fingers, he noticed dirt beneath her nails.

  ‘When I gave birth to you,’ she said, looking at him across the table, ‘that’s when I lost my figure. I couldn’t sleep or talk to other people. When you have children they’re with you all the time, every hour of the day. God help me.’

  ‘I’ll be moving out soon,’ he said tentatively.

  ‘Ha!’ She opened her mouth wide and laughed. ‘And where would you move to? What would you eat? How would you pay for it?’

  Johnny had a slice of hot pizza in his hand. It burned his fingers but he didn’t care. He knew she was afraid of being alone. If he followed through on his threat, if he packed his things in a bag and left home, she would sit in her chair with a bottle in her hands and stare emptily at the wall. No one to wait for, no one to complain to, no one to yell at. No sounds in the house, just her own shrill thoughts.

  ‘I’ll move to Grandpa’s.’

  She put her slice down and looked at him. Clearly, the thought troubled her.

  ‘Grandpa has an empty room,’ he said.

  ‘Why would you move to his place? He can’t do anything. He’s got people coming over morning, noon and night, and all he does is sit there with his feet up letting others take care of him. You’d just be in the way.’

  ‘Mai’s there for an hour each morning. An evening nurse gives him his medicine, and that only takes five minutes. That’s all the care he gets.’

  She planted her elbows on the table, and looked grim. ‘Well, it’s considerably more than what I get.’

  ‘But you don’t have arthritis. You are healthy.’

  He didn’t dare look at her when he said it, because he knew it would make her angry.

  ‘Healthy?’ she snapped. ‘What do you know about that? You think I’m healthy? You think I lie on the sofa because I like to?’

  It was best, he’d discovered, to keep his trap shut. But he clenched a fist under the table and let his contempt fill him: it made him furious, made his eyes gleam.

  ‘All the same, when he dies we’ll get our inheritance,’ she said suddenly. ‘He has some money.’ She munched on her food. The thought of money brought a little colour to her cheeks. ‘I don’t know exactly how much, but he saves quite a bit. Doesn’t shop, you know. We’ll benefit. Just you wait and see.’

  Johnny looked at her, aghast. He liked the old, listless man with crooked fingers. He couldn’t imagine life without his refuge in Rolandsgata, the small house which was always so hot, or the conversations with his grandfather: about life and current affairs.

  His mother leaned over the table as if confidentially. Greed lit up her bleary eyes. ‘You go there all the time,’ she said. ‘Can’t you can find out how much we’re talking about? How much money he’s got in that savings account?’

  She had lowered both her voice and her heavy eyelids.

  Johnny shook his head. Her talk of inheritance disturbed him. His stomach was also full; he rose and went to his room. Hanging on his door was a metal sign which he’d bought in a second-hand shop for 250 kroner. It was a white, enamelled square with blue type: Silence is Security.

  ‘Well, thanks for the pizza!’ his mother shouted after him.

  He closed the door and sat on his bed. Opened the bedside-table drawer and found the small notice he’d torn from the newspaper.

  Erik and Ellinor Mørk from Kirkeby send a warm greeting to their mother, Gunilla Mørk, on her seventieth birthday. We look forward to celebrating the day with you. Thanks for all the many happy years, and all the best to you in the years ahead.

  He scanned the front page of the newspaper and checked the date. Then he read the notice once more. Later, when he peeked into the living room, he saw that his mother was watching television with a pack of beer; and later in the evening, when she was back on the sofa, he sneaked out to his Suzuki and grabbed the box of rat poison from under the seat.

  Chapter 9

  Chief Holthemann had years of police experience, and he was astute and analytical. Since he administered the budget, he oversaw the distribution of the department’s modest funds.

  ‘The person who did this to the Sundelins,’ he said. ‘Do you think he’s dangerous? Will he act again? Should we make him a priority?’

  ‘It’s clear he’s damaged goods,’ Sejer said. �
�He threatens all hell, and likes to play with fire. If he gets anywhere near explosives he might be dangerous.’

  ‘Why are you talking about explosives?’

  ‘Karsten Sundelin. He’s about to blow up.’

  Holthemann removed his glasses and put them on the table. An austere and unsentimental man, he lacked Sejer’s warmth. As an administrator he was unmatched. But around people, whether criminal or victim, he came up short. ‘Where will you start?’ he said. ‘We’ve got to nail this joker, quickly.’

  Then he recounted a story from his childhood. He told Sejer about a crime that had occurred when he was eight and living up north.

  ‘A man went around people’s gardens at night, with hefty shears, cutting up ladies’ underwear hanging on clothes lines. A modest crime, but he managed to create a great deal of fear with those shears, you see. The women in the neighbourhood were beside themselves.’

  ‘Was he ever caught?’

  ‘Oh yes. He was caught. And it turned out he was just a harmless nitwit who could explain neither his actions nor his motivations. What about this Bjerketun case? Do you believe we’re dealing with the same kind of nitwit?’

  ‘No,’ Sejer said. ‘This person is probably smarter than that. At least, I think so. As my grandmother would have said, after a few Tuborg beers and a dram, he’s probably a clever little devil.’

  He riffled through his file and pulled out a sheet of paper covered with handwriting, Lily Sundelin’s exhaustively detailed description of the fateful day. He waved the sheet.

  ‘The girl’s smock was taken,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that lovely? Talk about a trophy.’

  ‘Show me the postcard again,’ Holthemann said.

  Sejer found the wolverine in his desk drawer, and Holthemann studied the image and the terse message.

  ‘This is so bloody well planned,’ he said. ‘Also rather brash, putting this on your doormat the way he did. You saw him out the window, I heard. How much did you see?’

  ‘That he was young and fast. He lives in Bjerkås, I think, and probably bought the card at the Spar near Lake Skarve. I mean, it’s a possibility.’

  ‘Don’t let the news of the wolverine card slip out to the press,’ Holthemann ordered. ‘Don’t give him that satisfaction. They’ll start calling him “The Beast from Bjerkås” or something worse, and that’s the last thing we want. Have you scrutinised the Sundelins? Have they made enemies?’

  ‘No,’ Sejer said matter-of-factly. ‘There’s no reason to think so.’

  Holthemann thanked him and left his office. The door closed behind him, and his cane thumped monotonously down the corridor. Sejer settled in to read Lily Sundelin’s report again. She had accounted for the entire day, and he jotted notes as he read. He noted, among other things, that her husband Karsten had heard the sound of something that could have been a moped. The sound had come from the grove of trees behind their house, where there was a trail to Askeland. Sejer decided to drive there alone.

  The Beast from Bjerkås, he thought.

  You’d like that name.

  He drove straight to Askeland.

  But the trail that led to Bjerketun wasn’t easy to find. After he’d searched for some time, he walked on to a small pitch where some boys were playing football.

  ‘I’m from the police,’ he said. ‘I’m investigating the incident with the baby in Bjerketun. You’ve heard about that, right?’

  The boys rushed to his side. A few of them were dark-skinned, like Matteus, the rest were fair-haired, and they were all around eight or nine years old. They led him behind an old, barracks-like building, which served as a clubhouse, to a narrow path into the forest.

  ‘You’ll reach the logging road in a few minutes,’ they told him. ‘And if you’re going to Bjerketun, you’ve got to keep left. It’s about a half-hour walk.’

  ‘Is the trail good enough that you can drive a moped on it?’

  ‘Easily,’ they said. ‘But it’s even better to ride motocross. It’s great for that. People come all the way from Kirkeby to do it. But it’s actually not allowed.’

  ‘Because of the noise?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s pretty noisy. And they tear up the track.’

  He thanked them and began walking. There were deciduous trees at the beginning of the path. But as he moved on to the logging road, the deciduous trees were replaced with massive spruce; for as far as he could see, the spruce stood in straight rows. The path was dry and pleasant, and smelled of needles. After a few minutes he noticed a rickety tree house that was apparently no longer used. At one time it’d been a secret meeting place, and it awakened some old memories from when he was a little boy.

  He, the perpetrator, may have walked this trail, Sejer thought, on his way to Bjerketun and to Karsten and Lily’s house. With his nefarious plan he had come quietly, his heart probably racing and hot with excitement. He’d listened, he’d observed, and maybe he’d thought highly of himself and his position, as criminals often do. They are unique, they think, and the usual rules don’t apply to them. They are the brightest, who can do as they please and who, in the end, survive.

  Half an hour later he saw rooftops shining red between the trunks of trees. He considered a moment then turned left, and soon found himself looking directly at the Sundelins’ house, the garden and the big maple with its massive canopy where the pram had stood. He imagined the rush it must have been to catch sight of the pram. Maybe he’d seen movement under the blanket, the tiny baby feet kicking.

  Sejer observed the house for a few minutes.

  Sundelin’s red SUV was parked in the driveway.

  The air was hot and drowsy and silent.

  As if the small wounded family had huddled together inside, in a corner.

  He stared at the house until he began to feel like a peeping Tom, then turned and headed back. As he walked, he examined the trail, studying it closely, and found nothing but spruce cones. When he reached the clubhouse, he stopped. The boys were still playing football, and he suddenly wanted to join the game. He was in good shape, and it wouldn’t be difficult. Besides, he was almost two metres tall, and his legs were long. Almost immediately, to the boys’ jubilation, he scored a goal. Now they guarded him like a swarm of buzzing bees. After they finished, the players sat on the grass and chatted, clustered in a horseshoe around Sejer.

  ‘All the criminals on the loose,’ one of the boys said, ‘the bad guys you don’t manage to catch. Does it make you really cross?’

  Sejer had to admit it often made him cross. The man who’d been in the Sundelins’ garden, they would have to catch him.

  ‘Do you have any leads?’ they wanted to know.

  ‘Nothing good,’ he admitted. ‘Not yet. But sooner or later, criminals make mistakes, especially when they’ve been at it for a while. They usually get careless.’

  ‘But the case with the baby, that was just a prank,’ said a little black child. ‘Does he have to go to jail for that?’

  ‘It’s not a prank,’ Sejer corrected. ‘Let me tell you something.’ He looked hard at each of them. ‘It’s a form of theft. The parents’ security has been stolen from them, and that’s very serious. Without security, life is terribly difficult.’

  The boys thought carefully about what he’d said. When he left, they followed him to the car, flocking around him and waving.

  ‘Keep to the straight and narrow, boys,’ Sejer ordered and drove away.

  Chapter 10

  One night, a few weeks after the attack against Margrete, Karsten Sundelin woke at three thirty in the morning. He lay in bed listening. A dark blue curtain kept the light out, but instantly he could tell that Lily wasn’t beside him. He switched on the bedside lamp. Margrete’s cot, which they’d brought into the bedroom, was also empty. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. He knew that Lily was having difficulty sleeping. When he thought about everything that had happened, and about how much they’d lost, he clenched his hands into fists. Something had entered the house, something unfamiliar.
At times he could sense it like a tension between them, almost as if someone else were listening to them and meddling in their lives – but without words, just something shadow-like and vague. He crawled from the bed and went to the lounge, where he found them on the sofa. Lily sat with Margrete in her lap. At first he thought she was asleep, but then she sensed him and opened her eyes. He sat heavily in an armchair. Lily hadn’t turned on any lights. There was only a thin, grey glow in the room. Margrete was asleep. For a long time he observed them on the sofa. Some sort of fear had been planted in Lily, he knew, and it had grown and stolen her peace of mind. Everything they once had taken for granted. He gripped the armrests of the chair.

  ‘We can’t live like this,’ he said.

  He heard a heavy sigh from the sofa. Margrete moved a hand, but otherwise slept peacefully.

  ‘Well, how should we live?’ Lily said wearily. She rocked Margrete softly on her lap.

  ‘Like we did before.’

  ‘We can’t do that. You must realise that.’

  He held back a protest. He switched on the steel lamp beside his chair.

  Lily had pulled on a dressing gown, and draped a blanket across her knees. Right now you can protect Margrete, he thought, but you can’t sit like this for ever. We’ve got to sleep. We’ve got to work. Margrete will grow up. He didn’t say any of this out loud, but instead rose and walked into the kitchen, calling out that he was making tea and would she like a cup?

  ‘No, I don’t want anything.’

  She sounded like a bitter old woman. Karsten leaned against the worktop. He made a fist, and cursed under his breath. Then he filled the kettle.

  While he waited for the water to boil, he went back to the lounge. He wanted to say something encouraging, something to make her feel better.

  ‘Sooner or later they’ll get him,’ he said. ‘And justice will be served. Everything will be back to normal. Don’t you think?’

  Her response was to give him a hurt look which instantly turned to one of reluctance, as if the corner she’d located, on the sofa, with a blanket over her knees and Margrete on her lap, was a place she would never again leave. There was something unsettling about it all. She was somewhere he couldn’t reach any more. It didn’t matter what he said or did, because there was no longer any energy between them, she had pushed him away.