by Samuel Bjork
At the top of the ridge. he had a better view of the landscape. He could make out Litjønna in the distance. Another hour or two, perhaps, and he would be there. Tobias realized he was looking forward to it, but he also had a lurching feeling in his stomach. Everyone was talking about the Christians, but nobody knew anything about them. What if they were dangerous? Or not dangerous, but perhaps didn’t like visitors? On the other hand, what if they were really nice? Perhaps they would welcome him with open arms and give him chicken and fizzy drinks and he would make a lot of new friends, and maybe they would want him to stay there and perhaps Torben could come, too, and everything would be all right; just snap your fingers and all their problems would be solved in an instant?
It was probably best not to approach them immediately. After all, you never could tell. Perhaps he should set up camp some distance away, a place with a view. Lie on the ground with his binoculars, perhaps camouflage his body, so he could spy on them. Pick his moment.
He smiled to himself. That was a good plan. Set up camp where he had a view. Do some spying. He should have brought his book, he should definitely have done that, but it was too late to turn around now. He would have to be the Indian instead. Chief Tobias Bromden on a secret mission.
It had grown a little warmer, the sun was peeping out from behind a cloud, almost lighting up the path in front of him: that was a good sign. Tobias took off his jacket, put it in his rucksack and continued his hike through the forest.
He did not see the fence until he was just a short distance away from it. He must have been lost in a world of his own. His mind had been filled with camouflage and camping. He had visited this farm before and knew of a good location for watching it. He had heard that the council had sold the old farm and the land that belonged to it. The council had used the farm as a facility for drug addicts, where they could do farming jobs and go for walks in the forest and so on, because it was supposed to do them good. But then the council had run out of money, or decided to spend it on something else or something Tobias did not really understand, but the upshot was that the place for drug addicts had been closed down. The farm had been empty for a while. And now some Christians had bought it. Tobias had been there twice before, once when the junkies were staying there, and once when it had been uninhabited. He had been there with Jon-Marius, his best friend, who sadly had moved to Sweden with his mother in the middle of Year Six; anyway, they had found the perfect place from which to do their spying, a mound not far from the farm with a good view of most things that were going on.
But he didn’t remember this fence, and now he had almost walked right into it. A mesh fence, the kind which ought to have barbed wire running along the top. Tobias quickly stepped back and hid behind the trees while he took a good look at this unexpected obstacle. There was no barbed wire on the top, but it was high. Much taller than him, more than twice his height. The fence looked brand-new. As if it had just been put up. Tobias looked up at the top of the fence and sized it up. He could probably scale it, but not without being spotted. He could see it now, the farm far behind it. Strange things had happened there: the farm had changed almost beyond recognition; they had put up new buildings. Extended outwards and upwards so it no longer looked like a farmhouse but more like a small church. It had a spire, and was that a greenhouse next to it? He shielded his eyes with his hand, but he couldn’t see that far. The area between the fence and the building was open and offered few places to hide. The mound from which he was going to do his spying lay on the other side. In order to reach it, he would have to follow the new fence all the way round. It would be much quicker to climb it but, having reviewed his options, he decided it was not worth the risk. Not that he thought the people behind the fence would not be nice, but even so. What would he say if he was caught? And, after all, he had found a small girl in a dress hanging from a tree with a sign around her neck not so far from here, so perhaps it was best to err on the side of caution.
He could always walk home again; that was another option. He had seen something now. They had built a new house and put up a fence. A kind of Christian campsite. That would be worth telling people about. Tobias briefly considered turning back, but his curiosity was greater than his fear. It would be exciting to have more to tell. He might catch a glimpse of the people living there. He wandered back into the forest. Far enough that the trees would hide him, but so he could still see the fence. It looked as if the shortest distance would be going round to the left – he could make out the edge of the fence there; to his right, it simply carried on, he couldn’t estimate how far the walk would be in that direction. Tobias pulled up the hood of his hoodie and contemplated his next move. Hiding inside the hoodie felt good. It also added to the excitement. He was a secret agent on a mission. With a knife and a torch in his rucksack and a riddle to solve. He crouched, made himself as small as he could and followed the fence through the wood. Tobias moved as quietly as he could, in short sprints. He would lean forwards, half run through the forest for a few hundred metres before throwing himself on the ground and checking out the terrain. No one in sight. Someone had dug a hole inside the fenced-off area. He could see a vehicle now: a tractor was parked further away. He repeated his manoeuvre. Crouched down, half ran, found a suitable spot and threw himself on the heather. This time, he got a slightly better view. He had been right, it was a greenhouse: two, in fact, both fairly big. Tobias knew that the children who lived there didn’t go to school. Perhaps they didn’t go to the shops either? Perhaps they grew all their own food, so they never had to go anywhere? He eased out his binoculars from the rucksack. He could see the greenhouses very clearly now. And the tractor. An old, green Massey Ferguson.
Tobias’s heart started to pound as a person appeared in the viewfinder. A man. No, a woman. Wearing a grey dress, and something white on her head. She went inside one of the greenhouses. Then she was gone. He scanned the area with the binoculars again, trying to spot more people, but everything had gone quiet. He dropped the binoculars, let them dangle from the strap around his neck and got to his feet. Risked running a longer distance. This time, he couldn’t wait to get to a higher vantage point – his fear had completely evaporated; his curiosity had got the better of him now. He threw himself on the heather again as the door to the greenhouse opened and someone appeared, two people this time. The same woman and …? He adjusted the binoculars in order to see better. A man. A woman and a man. The man was also wearing grey clothes, but had nothing on his head. Perhaps only the women had to wear something on their heads? That would make a good story, wouldn’t it? All the women wear white hats while the men have nothing on their heads. No, maybe not. After all, what did it mean? He had to get closer. This was nothing.
Tobias had just sat up again, ready to run the next stretch, when he suddenly noticed the girl behind the fence. He was so surprised that he completely forget to throw himself on the ground; he just stood there, right in front of her, without moving. She was around his age, perhaps a little younger. She was dressed just like the woman by the greenhouse, in a thick, grey, woollen dress and with a white bonnet on her head. She was kneeling in a vegetable patch. It looked as if she was pulling up weeds. Perhaps they grew carrots in the vegetable beds, or lettuce or something; it was hard to tell. Tobias squatted down on his haunches and made himself a little more invisible. The girl sat up and straightened her back. Brushed dust off her knees. She looked weary. She was not far away from him, perhaps only ten metres. Tobias held his breath while the girl knelt down on the ground again and continued weeding. The girl touched her neck and wiped her forehead. Tobias completely forgot that he was a spy and that he had to remain unseen. The girl looked so tired and thirsty. What would be the harm in offering her a drink? After all, he had a big bottle of water in his rucksack.
Tobias cleared his throat. The girl carried on weeding without noticing him. Tobias glanced around and spotted a couple of old pine cones on the ground. Carefully, he threw one of them in her direction, but it
didn’t get very far, didn’t even reach the fence. He half rose, threw the second cone harder, and this time he succeeded. He hit the middle section of the fence, which rang out – the sound was far too loud, and he regretted it immediately – threw himself on the heather and lay as still as he could.
When he looked up again, the girl was standing near the fence. She had heard the sound. She was looking at him. He could see her eyes. She was looking straight at him. Tobias placed his finger in front of his lips. Shhh. The girl was very surprised but, even so, she obeyed his instruction and said nothing. She looked around. First to one side, then to the other. Then she nodded cautiously. Tobias looked around, too, and moved closer to the fence. He opened his rucksack, took out the water bottle, slipped it under the fence and quickly retreated to his hiding place. The girl in the grey dress glanced around again. There was no one about. She quickly got up, ran to the water bottle, snatched it, hid it in the folds of her dress and raced back to the patch she had been weeding. Tobias saw her unscrew the cap and drink practically the whole bottle. She must be very thirsty. The girl with the white bonnet kept looking around. She seemed nervous. Frightened that someone might come. Tobias’s courage grew and he walked all the way up to the fence. The girl also came closer, quietly, but she kept looking over her shoulder. He could see her face more clearly now. She had blue eyes and many freckles. Her strange bonnet and heavy dress almost made her look like an old lady, but she wasn’t. If she had been wearing ordinary clothes, she would have looked just like the other girls in his class. The girl held up the bottle to him as if to ask him if he wanted it back. Tobias shook his head. The girl knelt down and took out something from the pocket of her dress. It was a notepad and a small pencil. She wrote something on a piece of paper and folded it carefully. Then she got up, half ran to the fence and stuck the paper through it. She glanced around nervously and ran just as quickly back to her original position and carried on pulling up weeds. Tobias elbowed his way to the fence to take the paper. He crawled back and opened it. ‘Thank you,’ it said. He looked at the girl and smiled. He tried to work out how to signal ‘You’re welcome’ without speaking, but it was far from easy. The girl glanced over her shoulder and wrote something else. She ran to the fence again but, this time, she didn’t fold the piece of paper, she left the whole notepad and the pencil by the fence. Tobias quickly crouched down and made his way back to the fence, took the notepad and the pencil and returned to his hiding place. My name is Rakel, it said on the notepad. ‘I am not allowed to talk. What is your name?’ Tobias looked towards the girl. Not allowed to talk? What kind of rules were those? And why had she been so thirsty? And why was she out here all alone? Tobias thought about it and wrote a reply: ‘My name is Tobias. Do you live here? Why can’t you talk?’ He crept back to the fence with the notepad and resumed his position. Writing ‘Do you live here?’ might have been a bit stupid because she obviously did, it was plain to see, but he hadn’t known what else to write. The girl smiled slightly when she saw the notepad and wrote a quick reply. She was still very wary. She glanced over her shoulder several times before she risked passing the new message through the fence. ‘I live here. Lux Domus. Can’t tell you why (not talking).’ She tried to signal something with her hands when he had read the note, as if she wanted to add something, but did not know how. Tobias smiled at her and wrote a reply back. ‘I live at the edge of this forest. We are neighbours.’ He added a smiley. Then he wrote, ‘What does Lux Domus mean?’ The girl got the notepad back. Again, she smiled faintly. After a fresh check to make sure that no one was watching her, she wrote her reply, and raced to the fence to leave the notepad there before running back to the vegetable bed. ‘Lux Domus = house of light. It’s very kind of you to help me. Thank you.’ Tobias frowned at the second half of her message. He didn’t think he had done that much to help her. All he had done was give her some water. He wondered what to write back. Words seemed really important now that he wasn’t allowed to say them out loud. He had to think very carefully. He chewed the pencil for a while before he realized what he wanted to write. ‘Do you need any more help?’ he wrote, and slipped the notepad through the fence.
Suddenly, something happened up by the main house. The girl glanced nervously over her shoulder and wrote a quick reply. She tore off the paper this time and folded it like she had done with her first message. People were coming now; several were emerging from the house, quite a few. It looked as if they had just finished something inside the church. The girl got up quickly and pushed the note through the fence. Now Tobias could hear voices as well. They were calling her name.
‘Rakel!’
The girl slowly got up, dusting down her dress. He could no longer see her eyes; she had bowed her head now. She picked up the hoe and walked quietly towards the voices calling her. Tobias lay completely still, too scared to move before the crowd had dispersed. The girl had now joined them, and everyone went inside one of the greenhouses. Once more, the farm was silent. Tobias emerged from his hiding place to pick up the final note. He stuffed it in his pocket, and he didn’t take it out until he had found a better hiding place, deeper inside the forest. His fingers were trembling as he unfolded the paper. He had a shock when he saw what she had written.
‘Yes. Help me. Please.’
Slowly, he crept back towards the fence. There was still total silence on the other side. Tobias did not know exactly what to do. He had planned to go on a secret mission, but that had just been a silly idea in his head.
This was different.
This was real.
The girl in the grey dress existed. The girl who was thirsty, but not allowed to talk. And, now, she had asked him for help.
Tobias put on his rucksack and walked calmly to the mound, from where he would have a clearer view.
Chapter 28
Mia Krüger woke up with a feeling that there was someone in her hotel room. She was unable to open her eyes properly; she was enveloped in a fog, half asleep, half awake. She forced open her eyelids enough to establish that she was alone. There was no one there, just her. A depressing thought. Her life was reduced to this? A hotel room and a murder case. Not that it really mattered. This was only temporary.
Come to me, Mia, come.
She would be gone soon. Why fret about it? Why think? Why this? Why that?
For some inexplicable reason, Mia had a headache. After her consumption of various drugs in the last six months, she thought she had become immune to low-level pain like this. Her evening with Susanne had gone on longer than planned – well, planned was an exaggeration, it had been a chance meeting – but the bottom line was that she had had too much to drink. She closed her eyes and tried to get back to her dream. She had been dreaming about Roger Bakken. He had been standing naked on the roof of the hostel. The eagle tattoo was no longer confined to his neck; it covered almost all of him now. He was trying to tell her something, shouting it down to her, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying; the traffic was too noisy and someone insisted on talking right into her ear. She had turned to see who it was whispering strange sentences she didn’t understand, but there was no one there. Roger Bakken kept waving his arms about, wanting her to understand, but she couldn’t hear him. ‘Come here,’ she had called out. ‘Come down.’ And then Roger Bakken had jumped. Fallen slowly through the air towards her. His tattoo had kept on spreading; it covered all of his body and the air around him now. His arms had turned into wings. His legs into talons. His head had grown a beak. Right before he was about to hit her, Roger Bakken had spread his wings and flown away. She didn’t hear what he said. An image from the cemetery. Sigrid’s gravestone. Someone whispered in her ear again, an invisible voice. Church bells rang out in the distance. On an island. The church bells were tolling on Hitra. Metallic sounds from eternity metamorphosed into the mobile in the pocket of her trousers which lay next to her bed. Sleepily, she reached out in the direction of the sound, pressed the screen and started to talk, before she was fully consci
ous.
‘Yes? Mia speaking.’
‘Sorry, did I wake you?’
It was Gabriel Mørk. The new guy. The cute one who blushed. The hacker.
‘No,’ Mia said, sitting up in her bed. ‘What time is it?’
‘Nine.’
‘Good God, you’ve started work early.’
Mia was awake now. Her dream had gone. The hotel room was suddenly present.
‘I never went home.’
‘So are you living at the office now?’
Gabriel laughed a little.
‘Eh, no, or, that is to say, well, a bit. Much to learn. I feel a certain responsibility.’
‘I know,’ Mia said.
She got out of bed and opened the blinds.
A new spring day in the centre of Oslo. Children in Spikersuppa Park. Pensioners walking up and down Karl-Johan. The king in his castle. Politicians in Parliament. Everyone going about their everyday business, and it was her responsibility to make sure they could carry on doing that. She understood only too well what drove the young, newly hired hacker.
‘You’ve got to sleep sometimes.’
‘It’s all good,’ Gabriel continued. ‘I’m used to working at night. I thought you might want to know what I found.’
‘Of course,’ Mia said, and closed the blinds again.
She was not quite ready for daylight. She desperately wanted to go back to sleep. What was it Roger Bakken had been shouting at her?
‘Now, I know I’m not a proper police officer,’ Gabriel said, sounding apologetic, ‘so I’m not sure if this is important or not.’
