The Whisperer

by Karin Fossum

  A minute ticked by, two, then three minutes. No more sounds in the silent night. She lay there, still curled up in her shell, which hardened as time passed, hard as bone, hard as stone. She was unbreakable, nothing could get into her core. She needed nothing in there, not even food. How close would he come, what was his intent? It was a long time since he had sent the first threat. Well, not sent really. It had not gone through the post. He had been in her vicinity right from the very start. She waited for the next signal. Another ring would be the death knell, catastrophe a fact. No one would hear her. But it was as quiet as a grave now. That may of course mean that he was prowling around the house, peering in the window. Her breathing was short and shallow like someone in the throes of death. She reprimanded herself. Everything was locked. There was nowhere he could get in. She moved a hand very slowly, then a foot. She did not want to leave her shell.

  Her head was boiling, she could feel it, as she often did. Her cheeks were burning and feverish, her forehead and hands sweaty. She felt her neck and stomach getting hotter and hotter, the heat spreading like fire. She was sweating as though she were in a furnace. Perhaps the house was burning after all? She could not smell any smoke, could not hear the crackling of flames, nor the chirping of the smoke alarms installed in each room. She kicked off the duvet. Her whole body was cooking, her insides were bubbling and seething, something terrible was happening to her brain, it was melting, she could feel it. It melted and poured out, down the brainstem, down her backbone, all her memories disappeared. Her mother and father and Rikard Josef were all washed away by the searing brain mass, like a raging torrent. What would cause such a sensation, this intense heat, the trickling in her head and down her neck? A brain haemorrhage, she thought, a massive brain haemorrhage. The explanation was obvious, she had heard so many stories. It was of course the blood she was feeling, bursting out and destroying vast tracts for good. She was gripped by panic in the extreme. Was it this that was going to kill her? She had never even considered it.

  She wanted to get out of bed, but could not move. With enormous effort, she eventually managed to reach out her hand for her mobile phone that was lying on the bedside table, so she could ring for help. Yet she felt that she was numb in the mouth and realised that she would not be able to do anything other than gasp for breath. Her fingers would not do what she wanted either, she was not able to tap in the number of emergency services. She was burning all over. She moved the little that she could and suddenly realised that she was dressed, tightly swaddled in thick clothes. It was like lying in a cocoon. She could not remember the evening before. Something terrible had happened to her that she could not understand; no one would find her here, not for a long time. As she lay there in this red-hot grip, like an iron in the flames, held by something she could not free herself from, she suddenly remembered the Englishman on the street. As soon as she remembered him, he was standing there clear as day. He came to her like a saviour, full of care and concern, darling, he whispered, darling, is there anything I can do? She wanted to touch him but could not raise her arm, it was heavy and immobile. Why did she remember him and no one else? Perhaps because the others had poured out of her head. There was nothing left in her skull, it was as dark and echoingly empty as Irfan’s shop. She lay there, completely still, petrified and hot. She had no idea for how long.

  After an ocean of time, there was a change. The feeling that her brain had melted was replaced by something else. It congealed and rose up her backbone, found its way back to the brainstem and back to its original home inside the membrane. As it gradually regained its original form, she heard a crunching sound, something safe and familiar, like walking on snow. The thought of snow was cooling, the snow lay right outside her house in beautiful white banks. She regained some movement, she could formulate words again, she thought, and she was no longer so hot. She lay there quietly and breathed, slowly in and slowly out. When she was finally able to sit up again, she discovered to her surprise that she had not gone to bed with her clothes on after all. She was wearing only a vest. She put her hands to her head, it felt solid and fine. Perhaps it was a nightmare after all, one of the worst, and now it was over. Then she remembered the doorbell. The doorbell had been real, had started the whole thing. The alarm clock showed five past four, so an hour had passed.

  She lay awake until the morning. Did not dare fall asleep, just felt immense gratitude that her brain was intact and that she could move, her fingers, her mouth, everything. I can, she whispered in the dark, I can! She put her feet gingerly down on the floor, slowly stood up, had to make sure that everything was all right and she would not fall over. But she was fine, absolutely fine, supple and mobile as a child. When she was dressed, she went somewhat reluctantly out to the hall, stood in front of the door for a long time, wanting to open it. Someone had been standing out there at three in the morning, someone who wished her ill. She was sure that he had left a message, a white envelope, most probably on the doormat. Her heart hammered as she opened the door, and looked wildly around for a sign. But she saw nothing, and all was quiet.

  She had the day off and so took her time with everything, had breakfast sitting by the kitchen window. She looked over at the Sois’ house, where the lights were on. It looked nice. The house was probably full of laughter and love, and so it should be, they had two children. She still had not spoken to them, only seen them from a distance. Soi had driven up in a van one day and stopped by their mailbox. She had studied him carefully, a small, compact man with short hair. How easily he picks up the post, she had thought, not a hint of anxiety. Well, that was certainly how it looked. No one was out for Mr Soi and his lovely family, no one had reminded them about death. Her brain still felt fine, everything seemed to be in working order. The memories of her mother’s busy hands, her father’s ravaged body and Rikard Josef’s round cheeks, it was all there. She could pull them up and put them away again whenever she wanted. She thought about the Englishman again, he had not left her. Perhaps he was still in town, perhaps he walked down the pedestrian precinct at the same time every evening, on his way to some event or meeting that required smart clothes. What if she took the bus into town and wandered down the same street at the same time as before, around seven o’clock? She could stand in front of Ladies Choice, and if he really did walk by in an elegant coat, she could do the same manoeuvre, turn suddenly and bump into him. She dreamt of being seen again, being held by those gentle hands, being spoken to with such care. He would call her darling, he would be concerned. Ask if there was anything he could do. She chewed slowly on the crispbread, the noise filled her head. Now that she had started to listen, the noise got louder, and she realised there was nothing for it but to put the food to one side. What was it her mother used to say when she had a stomach ache or toothache? You should not pay it so much attention. She picked up the plate, cup and knife from the table and carried them over to the sink, where they clattered and clinked when she put them in the washing-up bowl. The fridge was humming as well, and as she normally did not hear the sound, she wondered if it was about to give up the ghost. A heavy trailer drove past on the road and she felt the vibrations in the kitchen floor. This was what it must be like to live with poor hearing all your life, and then suddenly get it back. The noise of the world. She stood by the sink, felt anxious, put her hands over her ears. Then she heard her blood, rushing like a waterfall, behind her eardrums. She did not know whether she could bear to live with all this noise.

  It was half past six when she took up her post at the end of the pedestrian precinct. She had put lipstick on and she had done her hair and sprayed it, to keep it in place. Her ears were cold. Behind her was the square with all its lights and chestnut trees, in front of her the shops. She stood under some eaves and kept her eyes peeled for the Englishman. There was a chance that he would show up, that he had a fixed route, something that he always did at this time, it wasn’t an unreasonable thought. Tall, straight-backed and purposeful, he would come striding down the
street. From where she was standing, she had a good overview of all the streets, she could see the river and the promenade, the fire station and the church. She could also see Erotica, and all the strange things they had in the window. And Ladies Choice, of course. And slowly, it sank in. She had of course been deleted from the Englishman’s memory. What he had said were just phrases, something he said all the time, whenever he bumped into someone. He said darling and love and sweetheart to everyone, she knew that, that’s what Englishmen were like. She felt like an idiot, standing there in the cold, and yet, she kept an eye on the time, and watched out for him, minute by minute. At ten to seven, she walked the last steps to the dress shop, positioned herself and studied the window, all the expensive dresses, turning round every now and then to look up and down the street. She stood there for a long time, freezing, had never felt so alone, even though there were people milling around on the busy shopping street. Her feet got cold, her cheeks and fingers, and still she waited. When the clock showed a quarter past seven, she realised how ridiculous the whole project was. What was she thinking, how naive could you be, how pathetic? Wandering the streets in the November dark, chilled to the bone, in the hope of bumping into a complete stranger?

  Her feet were leaden when she walked back to the bus stop. The bus came after twenty minutes, and when she had settled in her regular place, she tried to fold herself in so she would take up as little space as possible. She did not want to be near to anyone, did not want to see or hear them, and no one was to see her. That was her punishment for being so stupid. Good God, if only folk knew. But even then, as the bus pulled out, she looked down the street one last time – he might have been delayed. Once they had left the centre and the warmth had returned to her body, she felt more reconciled with herself. She was allowed to dream, to yearn, wish and hope. Everyone did, at one time or another, or constantly, if they were desperate. They dreamed of bumping into someone. She put her cheek to the window, as she often did, closed her eyes and slipped away. Where was he now? she wondered. Yes, he was good company. He was with friends, he was on top form and elegantly dressed, as he was when we bumped into each other by the shop. Where in England was he from? Oxford perhaps. No, London, of course, she was sure of that. Mayfair possibly, or Kensington, where he had an exquisite flat. She would love to know what he was called, George, or Michael or William. She decided he was William. It fitted with Walther. The two men in her life, two brief encounters. She stored William in her mind alongside Walther. Her brain was now firm and wrinkled as a truffle.

  Night after night she lay awake, despite the sleeping pills. Was her head not awfully hot, did her arms not feel heavy, like two clubs that she could not lift? She had no idea what Naper had given her, probably small sugar pills, she thought. She took four, six, eight, and still lay awake. On her right side, on her left side, on her back, curled up or stretched out. She was always more anxious around three in the morning, in case someone rang at the door, but all she heard was a rising and falling hum. She made another appointment with the doctor, sat in the waiting room and thought about what she would say. He nodded gallantly when she came into the room, but did not get up from his chair. He was extremely overweight which meant that not only did he find it hard to move, he was also very generous with patients who asked for relief, especially if it was something self-inflicted, as he could hardly point a finger himself. And Ragna liked him for this. He was on her side. She told him that she was still not able to sleep. And when she did sometimes fall asleep in the early hours, she had terrible nightmares. She told him that her brain had melted, that the content had spilled out of her skull and down her spine, that she had not been able to move and had lain there as though caught in a fox trap, and could not even reach for her mobile phone on the bedside table.

  Naper looked at her for a long time. Much longer than usual and with greater gravity.

  ‘Did you have a temperature, perhaps?’

  ‘No, definitely not.’

  ‘That was not a good dream.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ Ragna whispered. ‘And it all happened in my body, if you see what I mean. Not in flickering images, as dreams normally do.’

  ‘Well, there’s nothing to stop you taking two tablets,’ he said.

  ‘I take four,’ Ragna explained, ‘and still can’t sleep. Sometimes I take six or eight, and that doesn’t work either. What’s in those pills? They’re suspiciously small.’

  He winked at her, as though he had been caught out, and turned to the screen to scan through her notes.

  ‘Well, you’re certainly not an addict,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you something stronger. But remember, you’re getting older. And we lose a lot of things over the years. Like the ability to relax. Our beauty, our radiance, our mobility.’

  ‘Beauty?’ Ragna had to chuckle. ‘I’ve never had that to lose, so that doesn’t scare me.’

  She sat there patiently while he wrote out a prescription. She was only scared of her own fear when she lay awake hour after hour, and her thoughts spun through the dark to terrible places. And people rang on the doorbell at night and wanted to get in. Maybe Naper could not sleep either. She wondered if he had anywhere to go with his complaints, or if he spent the afternoons writing out prescriptions for himself.

  ‘I’ll give you some Apodorm,’ he said. ‘But you must go to bed as soon as you’ve taken a tablet. They’re very strong and can cause memory loss. It is possible you might forget anything you do after you’ve taken one.’

  Ragna smiled.

  ‘That’s absolutely fine,’ she said. ‘I don’t do much in the evenings anyway. Certainly nothing that’s worth remembering.’

  ‘You will definitely sleep now,’ he promised. ‘But you’ll probably be very heavy-headed when you wake up.’

  ‘I’m heavy-headed anyway, from lack of sleep,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

  Again, he looked at her long and hard.

  ‘And was there anything else?’ he asked.

  She shrugged. What did ‘anything else’ mean? Was he after her secrets? She knew that ‘anything else’ was an important sign, an open door, but she did not dare go in.

  ‘There must be a reason why you’re having these unpleasant dreams,’ he prompted, giving her a friendly nod.

  ‘I spend too much time on my own,’ she admitted. ‘In my head. My thoughts go wild.’

  ‘You need someone to distract you,’ he said.

  ‘And would that be a man, perhaps?’ she whispered, and raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Perhaps.’

  She thought about the letters. About the dark figure that had stood under the street light. About the doorbell that had frightened the life out of her at three in the morning. She had a chance to say it out loud, that someone was after her, things might be easier if she confided in him, they could maybe laugh about it together. But something stopped her, the fear of what might happen if she admitted she was scared. She did not want it recorded in her medical history, there was too much there already.

  ‘Don’t drink alcohol when you’re taking Apodorm,’ he instructed.

  ‘Why not? What happens then?’

  ‘It will wipe you out completely.’

  ‘That’s what I want,’ she said. ‘That’s why I’m sitting here.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘You’re trying to escape from something,’ he said.

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ Ragna retorted.

  ‘No,’ he replied firmly.

  Then he said no more. She stood up to demonstrate she had nothing on her mind.

  ‘Just call me, if there’s anything,’ he said.

  He stood up as well, albeit with great difficulty. Put his hands on the armrests and pushed himself up. This simple movement left him breathless. The look he gave her as she left reminded her of the look in William’s eyes.

  She went to the chemist to get the pills, then took the bus home. Opened the mailbox, but it was empty. Suddenly she was furious that there was nothing
there. She panicked when there was a letter there, and felt very uncertain when there was not. As soon as she got through the door, she looked up at the electric wire that was connected to the doorbell. It came out of a hole in the wall, ran along the coving and then disappeared into the wall again. But so did the wire for the outside light, so she had to get it right. She wanted to keep the outside light at all costs, so the Rottweiler was as visible as possible next to the door. Full of purpose, she marched into the kitchen and found a sharp knife, before going down into the cellar and switching off the main fuse. She pushed a stool in to the wall, climbed up, hesitated, got down and opened the door, studied the bell. And the outside light. Went in again and stepped up onto the stool. One wire was thinner than the other, and as far she could work out, she had to cut the thinner one. She cut through the wire, with her teeth clenched and her heart in her throat. She went down into the cellar to turn on the main fuse and then looked out the front door. She had light. But no sound. She was glad when she knew for certain that the connection had been cut forever. For the fun of it, she put her finger on the bell again and again, and was childishly delighted when there was no shrill ring. He would have to knock instead now. Until his knuckles were bleeding. No one else came to see her anyway, so if someone knocked, it was him. Her stalker. After locking the door and fastening the security chain, she returned to the kitchen and opened the packet of Apodorm. She read the instructions several times. Naper had given her a hypnotic drug. She liked the sound of that. The list of possible side effects made her smile; they were almost endless. Dizziness. Headaches. Nightmares. Memory loss. Aggression and confusion. Breathlessness. And then, of all things, drowsiness. Fancy that, she had been given sleeping pills that might make her drowsy! She would have howled with laughter if she could.

  Whenever she moved around in the house, she glancedthrough the window down to the road, in case anyone was standing there staring. There was a constant battle going on inside her: it’s over now, she thought; then, of course he’s not going to stop. No doubt he was planning the next move. What did he want from her? Did he want her to run out of the house and attract attention with her confused behaviour? She had tried. She had called the police. No one had come.