The Water's Edge

by Karin Fossum

  'I've spoken to Elfrid Løwe,' he said. 'Jonas August suffered from asthma.'

  'Did he? Is that relevant?'

  'The assault triggered a severe attack. And that, as far as I can establish, was what killed him.'

  CHAPTER 10

  Reinhardt and Kristine Ris's house was attractive and well maintained. It was painted white and had green windowsills and glazed Dutch roof tiles. It was built in 1920 and Reinhardt was fond of referring to it as an architectural pearl. It sat on a hill above the town and from the first floor veranda they could see the river with its many bridges that resembled broad stitches across a cut. Behind the house was a small garden surrounded by a neatly trimmed hedge; in front of the house a double garage and a swing installed by the previous owners. Kristine would sometimes gaze out of the window, pretending that her little girl was playing on it. But there was no little girl. The urge for a child dragged her down like a dead weight in the water.

  She looked into the living room. Reinhardt was sitting in front of the computer playing EverQuest. He was completely absorbed by the game, all Kristine saw was his broad, unapproachable back. She tried to open herself to him, open up what was good in him; he had traits she valued highly. But it was an uphill struggle. A sneaking reluctance crept in with increasing frequency and her lack of enthusiasm made her feel guilty, because she had promised to keep herself only unto him until death did them part. She noticed that he seemed restless, visibly tense, he kept looking at his watch, and every now and again he would glance out at the road as if he was expecting someone. Kristine found an old newspaper, put it on the dining table and started polishing a silver candelabra. She rubbed it with a cloth, hard and with practised ease. When she had finished polishing the candelabra, she would light a candle for Jonas August. She was not going to tell Reinhardt, he would not understand anyway, nor did he care much about her innermost thoughts. 'It has to be out in the open,' he would say. 'I can't be doing with guessing what's on people's minds.'

  'Irmelin and Kjell are coming over,' he said out of the blue. He turned in the chair and looked at her, clearly anticipating protests.

  'They'll be here in half an hour,' he added.

  Kristine gave him a shocked look. 'In half an hour? And you're telling me that now?' Her eyes automatically scanned the room for anything that needed to be tidied away.

  Reinhardt switched off his computer. 'I invited them over for a drink,' he said.

  'But why didn't you tell me?'

  He went over to the sofa. He made himself comfortable with the newspaper, spreading it out demonstratively on the coffee table.

  'What's wrong with inviting a few friends over for a glass of wine?' he snapped.

  'Nothing,' she said, 'but couldn't you have told me earlier? I've got nothing in the house, Reinhardt, nothing at all.'

  He shook his head in exasperation. 'There's no need for food,' he said. 'We'll just offer them a glass of wine, that's enough. It's called having a nice time with your friends.'

  She did not want to sound petty, and they had invited Kjell and Irmelin over before, but it had always been for dinner. Then she realised what this was really about. Reinhardt was dying to tell them his news, he had something to treat them to, and it was more than likely that he would drone on the whole night about Jonas August. He would bask in the limelight and she would feel ashamed. There was something about the way he was dealing with this which she despised, though whether or not her own approach was superior or nobler she found difficult to tell.

  'You could have asked me,' she repeated, hurt. She resumed polishing the silver; she could see her face now in the base of the candelabra.

  He rustled his newspaper angrily. 'I don't need your permission to invite a friend round,' he said. 'I live here too, it's my house.'

  It's my house. As if he let her live there out of the goodness of his heart. She did not reply, her throat swelled up. She finished the candelabra and got a candle from a kitchen drawer, then she found a match and lit it, inhaling the comforting smell of burnt sulphur. She stood for a while gazing at the restless flame.

  'It's flickering,' she said. 'Look.'

  Reinhardt looked up. 'Must be a draught somewhere.'

  'There's no draught. Nothing is open.'

  'Turn on the radio, please,' Reinhardt asked her. 'The news will be on soon. We need to find out if there have been any developments.'

  She did as he had asked. A woman was reporting on the body found in Linde Forest.

  'He was an only child,' Kristine whispered.

  The thought saddened her. It meant that someone was left alone now, robbed of everything.

  'A man wearing a blue anorak,' Reinhardt said, 'who was seen leaving in a pale car.' But we gave them so much more information. I mean, about how he was dressed. He was limping too, why didn't she say anything about that?'

  Kristine shrugged. 'Well, he wasn't really limping,' she said. 'He just walked in an odd way. Perhaps we were mistaken, perhaps we can't rely on our memories. Besides,' she added, 'we disagreed about several things.'

  'No,' he said firmly. 'We did not disagree and we are not mistaken. Nothing wrong up here,' he added, tapping his temple with his finger. He returned to his newspaper; that, too, was crammed with stories about Jonas August. Kristine let her head sink back against the headrest of her armchair, folded her hands in her lap and tried to relax. It was quiet until the doorbell rang in the hall. Reinhardt shot up from the sofa, Kristine remained in the armchair watching the flickering candle.

  The guests entered the living room, smiling. Irmelin held a potted plant in her hands, a small begonia. Reinhardt disappeared into the basement and returned with a three-litre box of Chablis.

  'Get the glasses, Kristine, would you?' he called out. Their guests sat down at the table, Irmelin, dark and slender, Kjell, sturdy with thinning hair. He started talking about his job; he was a chiropractor and the others listened. A teenage girl had thrown up all over his coat because she could not bear the sound of bones cracking. A colleague was involved in some awful case where a woman had been paralysed from the waist down following treatment.

  'And what about you?' he said eventually. 'Any news?'

  He might as well have shone a spotlight on Reinhardt.

  'Well,' Reinhardt said, 'something very dramatic has happened since we last saw you. You've probably heard it on the news.'

  'Dramatic?' Kjell was baffled.

  'Jonas August Løwe,' Reinhardt explained. 'The boy whose body was found up in Linde Forest.'

  Once the case was mentioned all four turned serious and it was a long time before anyone said anything.

  'He was found by a couple out walking,' Reinhardt explained. 'A couple who go walking to Lake Linde every Sunday.'

  Kjell shook his head in disbelief. 'You don't mean that you were the ones who found him?'

  Reinhardt planted his elbows on the table. 'Yes, indeed we were,' he said. 'And we've been questioned.'

  'Why did they want to question you?' Kjell asked.

  'Because we saw a man up there and he was acting suspiciously, I'm certain of it. We passed him just by the barrier and now the police are looking for him. They say he is a witness, obviously, but that's what they always say. Personally, I thought he looked guilty as sin.'

  'Perhaps he was just out for a walk, like you were,' Kjell suggested.

  'But hardly anyone ever goes there,' Reinhardt objected. 'Besides, he looked very agitated.'

  'So tell us more,' Irmelin begged.

  'We had reached the lake,' he said, 'and were on our way back to the car. We were walking through the forest and there he was, lying on his stomach, face down. It wasn't difficult to see what had happened to him, if you know what I mean.'

  He paused to let his words sink in and take effect.

  'We couldn't believe our eyes,' he said. 'I called 112 and it took them twenty minutes to get up there. Kristine was shaking like a leaf.'

  'But the man by the barrier,' Irmelin asked. '
Have you seen him before?'

  'Never,' Reinhardt said.

  'He was walking in a funny way,' Kristine said. 'I mean, he wasn't limping, but he was dragging one leg. When he walked he had to swing it in front of the other.'

  'My guess is he has a false leg,' Reinhardt said. 'If he ends up in court, we'll probably have to give evidence.'

  Kjell shook his head in disbelief. 'Well, that's what you'll be hoping for, I know you. For Christ's sake, Reinhardt, all you did was see a man in the forest. Get over yourself.'

  'Perhaps we just startled him,' Kristine said. 'We did appear out of nowhere.'

  Reinhardt gave a surly grunt. 'You would like to think so, wifey, but the truth will out one day.'

  'But had he been strangled or what?' Irmelin asked.

  'We don't know,' Kristine whispered.

  'Did you try to find a pulse?'

  'No,' Reinhardt said. 'There was no need for all that. His skin was turning blue, you know, marbled. I could tell instantly that he was dead.'

  'Please can we change the subject?' Kristine pleaded.

  Reinhardt looked at her across the table. 'It's actually very important to get these things out into the open,' he said. 'It's important to talk about them to get them out of your system.'

  'But you don't want them out of your system.'

  Reinhardt tossed his head. 'Listen,' he said sternly, 'I can talk about whatever I like. Do you have a problem with that?'

  Irmelin and Kjell exchanged glances and Kristine fell silent. Then she got up and went out into the kitchen to make coffee. Irmelin followed her.

  'I can't bear to hear him go on about it any longer, I'm trying to forget,' she whispered. She was making filter coffee, but had forgotten to count the measures of ground coffee. Irmelin looked at her with compassion; she, too, was appalled at the murder. This was not merely something they had read about in the paper, this was real to them.

  'Do you know what he did?' Kristine whispered. 'He took pictures up there with his mobile.'

  'What?' Irmelin's jaw dropped.

  'He squatted down and took a load of pictures.'

  'Not of the boy, surely?'

  'Yes. And I bet he's showing them to Kjell.'

  They listened towards the living room. The men had lowered their voices, but they could hear Kjell's deep bass and Reinhardt's tenor.

  'I'm really scared he'll show them at work, too, that he'll sit in the canteen with his mobile showing them to all and sundry. You know what he's like.'

  Irmelin fixed her with a stare.

  'You never draw the line. You have to start putting your foot down, Kristine, he has far too much power over you.'

  'I know.'

  The coffee gurgled into the pot. Outside it was clouding over and the light in the kitchen grew dim.

  'Everything's hopeless,' Kristine whispered. She shrugged forlornly. 'Some days I just want to pack my bags and leave. But I don't know where to go.'

  'How long has this been going on?' Irmelin whispered back. 'It's been a long time since I last saw you looking really happy.'

  Kristine thought about this.

  'To tell you the truth, it's been going on for years. I can barely get through the days or the nights. Him lying next to me, breathing.'

  She looked furtively at her friend, unsure how honest she should be. 'I don't even like the smell of him any more, I don't like his voice. He takes up so much space. I want him to sleep somewhere else. What I really want is to be on my own.'

  'You're not frightened of him, are you?' Irmelin said. 'That's not what we're talking about, is it?'

  'No, I'm not scared of him. But when he goes on and on about something, it just wears me down.'

  'You don't assert yourself.'

  'I'm afraid to,' she said, ashamed. 'Because I don't know what's going to happen if I contradict him.'

  Irmelin squeezed her hand.

  'Try it once,' she said. 'Try it once and see what happens. He's not going to hit you, is he?'

  'Oh, no, he would never hit me. But he breaks me in other ways. I'm such a coward.'

  'You've got to stand up to him once and for all and tell him what you think,' Irmelin stated. 'He'll be able to handle it, you keep telling me how strong he is.'

  'I'm scared that something will break,' she said, 'if I tell it like it is. If I start being completely honest with him, then nothing will be like it was before.'

  'But you don't want it to be. Try something different, stand up for yourself and tell him what you think. Perhaps it'll turn out better than you imagine.'

  Kristine fetched mugs from a cupboard and poured coffee.

  'Most of all I want to leave,' she said, 'but I can't leave without taking something with me. If I don't have something to take with me, then all these years will have been for nothing.'

  'Take something with you? What do you mean?'

  'A child,' she said.

  'But do you want a child with him? When you can't stand him?'

  'Well, who else is there?' She shrugged despondently. 'I'm thirty-seven years old.'

  Then she pulled herself together and started to defend him.

  'Perhaps he's just clueless,' she said. 'Perhaps he's as shocked as I am, and he can't think of any other way to express it. I mean, he's a man, after all. They're hopeless when it comes to showing their feelings.'

  Irmelin shook her head. 'You always try to defend him,' she said. She got up and went over to the door to the living room; she hid behind it and spied on the men through the crack between the door and the frame.

  'You were right,' she whispered. 'They're looking at the pictures now.'

  CHAPTER 11

  'Why are we so drawn to the death of others?' Skarre asked.

  Sejer shook his head, he had never considered this question before. He was not drawn to death, he had never been seduced by sensation. Not even when he was a young officer.

  'I'm not drawn to death,' he said. 'Are you?'

  'But we chose this profession,' Skarre said. 'The murder of Jonas is a dreadful event. Others could have dealt with it, and we could be doing a much nicer job.'

  Sejer started rolling a cigarette. He allowed himself one only every evening, as befits an exceedingly temperate man.

  'A nicer job?' he asked suspiciously. 'Like what?'

  'Well, you could have been a pastry chef,' Skarre suggested. 'You could have spent your whole day decorating cream cakes. And making tiny marzipan roses.'

  'I could never have been a pastry chef,' Sejer declared. 'Cream cakes are pretty to look at, but they have no stories to tell. What would you have been doing?'

  'I would have been a taxidermist.'

  'Someone who stuffs dead animals, you mean?'

  'Yes. Squirrels, minks and foxes.'

  Sejer instinctively picked up his dog and put him on his lap. 'So tell me this,' he said. 'Why are you interested in criminals?'

  'It's possible that somewhere deep inside I might be just a tad jealous of them,' Skarre said.

  'Jealous? Of criminals?'

  'They do what they want. They have no respect for authority: if they want something they just take it and they have nothing but contempt for us. It's a kind of protest, a deep and profound disdain. Personally, I am extremely law-abiding, to the point where it becomes scary, if you know what I mean. Why do you think people are so fascinated by crime?' he went on. 'Nothing sells better than murder and the worse it is, the more interested people are. What does that say about us?'

  'I'm sure there are many answers to that,' Sejer said, 'and you're just as well placed to provide them as I am.'

  'But you must have thought about it?'

  'I think it has to do with the image we have of our enemy,' he said. 'All nations have an image of their enemy, you know, something that unites people. During the war we were united against the Germans. It gave us a sense of identity and camaraderie, it made us take action and behave heroically. People were forced to choose sides, and in that way we could tell the g
ood from the bad. But in our wealthy western world where peace and democracy reign, criminals have taken over this role. Their misdeeds unite us, we enjoy plenty of peace and quiet, but we also need excitement and stimulation to make us feel alive. But it's more than that. Every time someone's killed, we experience a kind of fortuitous assurance.'

  'Why?' Skarre asked.

  'It's the satisfaction of knowing that it wasn't you who committed this awful deed, because you're a good person; and you weren't the victim, either, because you're lucky, too. And then there's a third, uncomfortable, factor: some criminals acquire a heroic status. It might have to do with what you just said. Their lack of respect for the law and the authorities. We're terribly law-abiding individuals, but this slavish obedience in every aspect of our lives can lead to self-loathing.'