by Thomas Enger
I looked at him with big eyes.
‘Jimmy was fit as a flea – he’d never fainted in his life. Don’t you think that one of the gossipmongers around here might think it was just something your mum told the police so that they wouldn’t suspect her?’ He paused briefly. ‘Forget about evidence,’ he continued. ‘The real judgement lies with your neighbours, your local community. People will get ideas; they’ll think it was your mother who killed him, and you know as well as I do that your mum won’t be able to deal with that.’
I couldn’t get a word out. It was all too much at once.
‘I spoke to Susanne on the phone that day,’ Imo carried on. ‘Before the accident. She wanted me to pick Tobias up from nursery. She sounded like a madwoman, Even. It wouldn’t be hard to get people to believe that she went for your father in the car that day; she’d found out he was being unfaithful and no doubt tried to knock the truth out of him while he was driving. Maybe that was why the car veered off the road, because she was shouting at him, distracting him. Maybe she was hitting him. Maybe it was her fault, Even. Maybe it was your mother who killed him.’
Imo gripped my shoulders again. ‘That’s what people are going to think. You know it’s true.’
I felt like I was struggling to breathe. As if I was drowning.
I didn’t want to believe what he was saying, but deep down I knew he was right.
‘And one more thing,’ he said. ‘If I end up in jail, I’ll never get out of there alive. You know that. Prisoners don’t take kindly to someone who has killed children or teenagers.’
Another thing he wanted me to have on my conscience.
Yet another life.
My head ached.
‘There’s just one thing left,’ Imo said. ‘Just one more thing we have to do and then we can put this all behind us. And we’ll never talk about it again.’
I couldn’t stop weeping. No matter what I did, everything would turn to shit – with my mum, Imo, Tobias, me.
Could I carry on living after this?
Could I allow the murders of Mari and Johannes, Børre and Ole to remain one of those unsolved mysteries the newspapers would write about every now and then? Could anything ever be normal again?
I had to make a choice.
My family.
Or…
I thought long and hard before I dried my tears and looked at Imo. Then I nodded and said: ‘So where is he?’
79
NOW
‘So you decided to do what your uncle wanted you to?’
The prosecutor has come right up to the witness stand again. I look at Mum. I look at Cecilie, at Oskar and my friends who are sitting in the courtroom, closely paying attention to every word I say.
I clear my throat and say: ‘Yes.’
80
THEN
If Imo hadn’t gone first, I wouldn’t have been able to move. I just followed his footsteps, one by one, as though on autopilot. I felt like I would throw up any second.
‘Where is he?’ I asked again.
‘In here,’ Imo said, and pointed to the pig shed.
I looked at it. ‘Imo, what have you…?’
‘Just think about it,’ Imo said over his shoulder. ‘If we bury him or drop him in a lake somewhere, there’s always a risk that someone will find him or that some animal will dig him up. If we take him somewhere else, there’s a chance that someone might see us. We can’t take any risks at this stage. It’s too dangerous.’
My stomach felt like it was doing somersaults. I couldn’t feel the ground under my feet. I hoped that he would stop and come to his senses, that he would turn around and say, no, we’re not going to do this after all – it was just a terrible, awful dream. But there was nothing to indicate that Imo would change his mind. He kept moving towards the pig shed, his face set hard, determined.
Fucking bastard, I thought. How could he do this to me? He’d said we would never talk about it, but how did he think we could live normally after this? Did he imagine that we’d just have a shot or two of tequila whenever things got too hard to handle?
No fucking way.
I wasn’t going to have anything to do with him, ever again.
Inside the pig shed, Ole was lying on the floor, curled up. His eyes were open. He was blinking furiously, breathing in through his nose. His mouth was gagged and his hands were tied behind his back.
I sighed in relief. He wasn’t dead.
At least not yet.
The pigs started to grunt as soon as they saw Imo. His appearance meant food.
Today, that food was Ole Hoff. My best friend’s father.
I just stood there with my mouth open, trying to breathe. Ole was trying to say something, but the sounds coming out of his mouth were muffled.
‘He texted me before,’ I stammered. ‘He called me, too. What if he’s tried to contact someone else? What if he told someone he was coming here?’
‘That’s a risk we’ll just have to take,’ Imo said.
He started to walk towards the pen. I closed my eyes. And when I opened them again, Ole was looking at me. I could tell he was begging me not to go through with this.
The pigs were making a racket now. ‘Can you get him up?’ Imo yelled over the noise.
‘Me?’
‘I did my back in when I carried him in here,’ he said. ‘He’ll struggle now that he’s awake.’
I looked down at Ole again. ‘We can’t throw him in there alive!’ I said. ‘That’s just … sick.’
‘Pigs aren’t predators,’ Imo shouted through the racket. ‘We would have needed to starve them first, at least. No, we’ll have to chop him up.’
Chop him up.
Jesus.
The biggest thing I’d ever killed was a wasp. And even that made me feel queasy.
Everyone can be a killer. That’s what I had said to my mates. Now I had to become one myself.
And that’s when I knew.
I was never going to do it.
I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
Which is why I shook my head and said no. Imo turned and looked at me. ‘What did you say?’ The pigs were still grunting.
‘I can’t do this, Imo.’
He just stood there staring at me.
‘I can’t kill Ole. And I’m not going to chop him to pieces so the pigs can eat him. No fucking way.’
Imo said nothing to begin with, just stared at me. ‘Even, we have no choice.’
‘Yes, we do,’ I said. ‘This is wrong, and you know it. You’re not crazy.’
‘No, but can you tell me any other way out of this?’
I thought.
Hard.
And I couldn’t.
‘You have to help me,’ Imo begged. I could see the plea in his eyes.
I wished there was something I could do to make this all go away. Tears welled up in my eyes again.
Imo walked quickly towards me. For a brief moment I was afraid that he was going to hit me or drag Ole into the pen himself. Instead he walked straight past me and out of the pig shed.
Where the hell was he going?
I stared at Ole, uncertain of what to do – scared of what might happen in the next few minutes if I didn’t do something. I bent down and removed the gag from his mouth. Immediately he gasped for air.
‘You have to call the police, Even,’ he wheezed, ‘Quickly, before he comes back.’
I needed a few seconds to pull myself together. I thought about what might happen today – or perhaps next month or next year – if we went ahead and got rid of Ole. How could Imo trust me to keep my mouth shut?
He couldn’t. So maybe he’d kill me too. To remove any doubt. To protect him, to protect Mum, the love of his life.
I fumbled for my phone in my pocket. My hands were shaking violently as I tried to tap in the three numbers for the police. I could barely hold the phone.
Ole gasped, just as I noticed a movement in the doorway.
Imo was standing there, looking
at us. He had a gun in his hand. And he was pointing it at me.
81
‘Put it down, Even,’ Imo said, nodding at the phone. His hand was trembling again. ‘Right now.’
I looked at Ole. His eyes were shut tight. Sweat was forming along his hairline.
Imo came towards me, still holding the gun. I put the phone back in my pocket.
‘So you were really going to turn me in?’ Imo licked his lips and shook his head.
‘Please,’ I said, ‘I’m sure we can find another way out of this.’
Imo came closer, his hand still shaking. Was he just nervous? I’d seen his hand tremble like this before, so maybe not.
‘We can,’ he said. ‘We can call the police and I can tell them that it was you who asked me to kill Mari. That you were mad because she’d split up with you, and you were jealous of Johannes.’
I was dumbfounded.
‘And you can deny it all you like, but it will be your word against mine.’ Imo ran a hand over his sweating brow.
‘You wouldn’t do that to me,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t do that to Mum. Not if what you say is true – that you’ve done all this to protect her.’
He lowered the gun for a few moments, apparently thinking about what I’d just said. His hand was still shaking, as though the gun was too heavy to hold.
‘Last chance, Even. Get him to his feet.’
I said no.
‘Come on!’ he said again. ‘We don’t have much time.’
I stood stock-still on the concrete floor and stared at him in silence.
‘Fine,’ he said with a sigh as he tucked the gun into the back of his trousers. ‘I’ll just do it by myself then.’
He grabbed Ole by the arms, but he tried to fight Imo’s every move. My uncle was as strong as a bull, though. I had seen him toss pigs and fodder bags around as if they weighed nothing. No matter how hard Ole kicked or struggled, Imo kept a firm grip under his armpits and dragged him across the floor.
It was as if I was glued to the floor. Everything was happening so fast. As soon as Imo opened the pen gate, the pigs’ grunting became deafening. It was then that I realised why Imo hadn’t simply shot Ole already – there was no floor cover out here so it would be hard to wash the blood off the concrete. In the pen, the pigs scuffled about on hard, wrinkly plastic.
Imo suddenly jerked up straight and yelled out in pain. It must have been his back.
‘Even, do something!’ Ole shouted, then managed to twist himself free.
He started to crawl towards me, but Imo was over him in a shot. This time he hunkered down, then picked Ole up in a fireman’s lift, screaming with the effort. But the seventy-something kilos he had over his shoulder wouldn’t lie still. He staggered a bit, but he kept moving towards the pen, puffing and panting. He kicked the gate wide open with his foot. Then he threw Ole down on the floor.
Ole hit his head as he landed, but he didn’t lose consciousness. Some of the pigs retreated to the back of the pen. Ole’s eyes were full of tears.
Imo was holding a hand to his back.
Then he pulled out his gun.
This was it. He was going to shoot Oskar’s dad. He was going to do it now. Then later he’d chop him up. He took a step towards Ole and lifted the gun. Again the pain in his lower back made him grimace. His knees seemed to give a bit.
In a split second, I knew what I had to do.
At the beginning of August, Imo had had surgery on his back. Every morning and evening for three weeks I had looked after the pigs for him.
Now, he leaned over in an effort to relieve the pain, and his open shirt revealed the five-centimetre scar at the bottom of his back. I grabbed a spade and went into the pen behind him. Raised it and aimed it at the point I knew would hurt the most.
And then I whacked him as hard as I could.
Imo screamed in pain and immediately fell to his knees. But he was still holding the gun. I tried to knock it out of his hands, but I missed and hit his wrist instead. That made him scream even more. And he let go of the weapon.
I stood over him, panting, ready to bring the spade down on him again, right in his face this time. I kicked the gun away from his reach. It disappeared in among the pigs.
Imo was lying on his side now, writhing with pain. He tried to push himself up with his good hand.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he roared.
Keeping an eye on Imo, I went to help Ole up. He staggered to his feet, and I only just managed to keep him upright on the slippery, wet, filthy floor.
We lurched and slid towards the gate of the pen. I kept a grip of the spade, in case Imo came after us. As we struggled out of the pen, I looked around to see Imo still lying in the mud, his breathing laboured as he tried to get up onto all fours. Now he was feeling around for the gun, and when he couldn’t find it, he began to crawl slowly towards the pigs. He would soon have his hand on the weapon.
‘Your keys,’ I said to Ole, as we hurried out of the pig shed. Ole stopped and held up his arms for me to search his pockets.
I found nothing.
‘Imo must have taken them,’ Ole said, frightened. I turned towards the pig shed, half expecting to see Imo’s muddied face and shaking hand, the gun pointing at us.
Instead there was a bang.
From inside the pig shed.
The sound was so loud that I jumped, but it wasn’t hard to guess what it was.
Ole and I looked at each other for a moment that seemed to last a lifetime.
It took forever for my mind to start working again. I just stood there, paralysed, staring straight ahead.
Imo.
My substitute father.
My friend.
I felt numb. I couldn’t even cry.
Then I started to walk back towards the pig shed.
I heard Ole talking to me, but I didn’t hear what he said – all I could think about was Imo and his pigs. They were probably not hungry enough yet, but if there was even the tiniest chance, I wanted to stop them before they got a chance to … I didn’t let myself imagine it.
Luckily it was so muddy around him that the blood and brains I knew must have been blown out of his head were not easily visible. I focused on his legs and used them to pull him behind me, out of the pen. Then I secured the gate.
I left him there and went back out to find Ole.
He had sat down on the wet grass, his back leaning against the car. He had a distant look on his face, like he was still in shock.
I think I was, too. I just couldn’t believe what Imo had done – to Mari, Johannes and Børre, and what he wanted me to take part in. What I had prevented with maybe only a second or two to spare.
It took me a while to call the police. When I did, Yngve Mork told me they were already on their way. I didn’t understand how, but it wasn’t important. All I knew was that it was over.
Ole and I just sat there, listening to the sounds of the forest. The birds, the trees, the branches moving in the wind. Cones falling to the ground. Aeroplanes circling the skies above us, waiting to land at Oslo Gardermoen Airport.
Before there had been a storm inside me.
Now everything was quiet.
82
NOW
‘Would you like to take a break?’
Ms Håkonsen’s hand is on the box in front of me. It feels like my shirt is stuck to my body. My tie is too tight. I think about loosening it a little.
‘No … I don’t think so.’
I just want it to be over. I can tell that this is getting to my mother as well. Her eyes are glazed, and she’s staring straight ahead. My brother is not doing so well either. His eyes look vacant, as they have done throughout my testimony.
We haven’t talked about Imo in our house since he killed himself. Not a single time – not on that terrible day, or on any of the days after. Mum started to cry when she heard, but then she controlled herself – it was like she’d flicked a switch. After that it was all about taking care of Tobias,
doing everything so that he wouldn’t get upset. The path of least resistance.
I, on the other hand, thought a lot about my uncle in the days that followed his death. Bang, and it was over. Bang, and he was gone. He didn’t have to go to prison. He didn’t have to look my mother or anyone else in the eye. Didn’t have to live with what he’d done and what he’d tried to get me to do.
Ms Håkonsen waits until I turn my head towards her before asking her next question.
‘Understandably, the police weren’t able to get a confession directly from your uncle, but they had the microphone case and they had your uncle’s leather gloves, which matched the piece they’d found under Fredheim Bridge after Børre Halvorsen’s murder. And they had witness statements from both yourself and from Ole Hoff. So it was then possible for the inhabitants of Fredheim, and the people in the rest of Norway, to draw a line and put the murders behind them.’
She takes a small pause in the build up to her question. ‘At what point did you realise something wasn’t right?’
I seek out Ole Hoff in the audience. I spot him two rows behind Yngve Mork. I hunch my shoulders then let them drop again.
Then I say: ‘It was after the funeral.’
83
THEN
Mari was buried on a Thursday.
It was a cold, damp day. Light snow had fallen over night. It looked like someone had sprinkled the dark hole in the ground and the fresh sand beside it with icing sugar.
By the time we had got to her funeral, both Børre and Johannes had already been laid to rest. I was glad, because the services for them had numbed me a little. I had heard the sad songs. I had listened to the priest’s voice and what he’d had to say about God and worship and what we needed to do in times of despair. So as we all stood there grieving for my ex-girlfriend, my half-sister, I tuned out a little bit. Maybe it was a way for me to deal with the finality of her death and everything that had happened since.
