Fireraiser

by Torkil Damhaug

  Down in the kitchen, he took the trouble to get her a clean glass from the cupboard. Waited a few seconds after filling it, but still the only sound was the humming of the fridge. He made his way back up the stairs.

  – Drink this, and then you must sleep.

  This time too he stood listening as the little throat swallowed and swallowed. It took time, and he noticed that what had interested him last time was now beginning to irritate him.

  The girl held the glass out to him. – More thirsty.

  He thought about it for a moment, then took it. The bathroom was at the other end of the corridor. There was a smell of rotting in there. No surprise, because this journalist was the type who put things off, let his house fall to pieces around him, had probably never held a hammer in his hand since woodwork lessons at school. He filled the glass. As he was turning off the tap, he heard a door open, and the next moment the landing light was switched on. He didn’t move a muscle; every fibre of his body was tensed.

  – Are you still not sleeping, little rabbit?

  The voice came from the door to the child’s room. A woman’s voice.

  – Shall I get you some water?

  – No! The water man.

  As her footsteps approached, he slipped into the shower, drew the curtain halfway across. It was almost transparent. The door and the light switch were less than two metres away; he could already feel the movement in his body, the jump across as the light came on.

  She didn’t switch it on. He saw her in the light from the landing. She was wearing a white nightdress; he could make out the outline of her body in the doorway, and the shape of the long fair hair. She was small and as thin as a bird. The kind of neck that snapped when you bent it slightly.

  She lifted the toilet lid, pulled up her nightdress and sat down, no more than thirty centimetres away from him. He could smell the sleep on her, hear her breathing. Then the trickling down into the toilet. It grew stronger. Made him think of another woman he had been in a bathroom with. It was six days ago. She no longer existed. And the thought that the woman now sitting on the toilet and emptying herself might no longer exist put a charge through his chest, as if a horse were galloping inside it. If she sees me, she’ll never leave here, he thought. But if she doesn’t see me, she’ll live. She was the one who would decide it. Not him. Or it was a game of chance. Mercy, or the opposite of mercy. Because maybe it was all in God’s hands, the God they believed in and prayed to in this house. The God who had sent him to them that night, and no other night.

  The woman’s name was Sara. He liked it. She farted down into the bowl, almost inaudible. He liked that too, that what was inside of her came out, that he was made a party to certain things she liked to keep to herself. Then she dried herself, got up, stood a moment with her small bum exposed to him, and then the nightdress dropped down to her ankles, and for a moment he had to struggle against the temptation to break the deal he had made, to tear down the curtain so that she’d see him, because then he would have to pull her into the shower cabinet with him and hold that warm body tightly.

  He let her go.

  The house would stand for another night. For another brief stretch of time Erleveien would remain a sheltered corner of the world. The fire tonight would be somewhere else.

  He waited quarter of an hour before emerging. The child was asleep. He put the glass on the floor next to the bed.

  – I’ll be back, Rakel, he whispered. – I’ll be back tomorrow.

  He drove up along Sagdalen, towards the centre of Strømmen. The time was approaching quarter to three. When he got out of the car, an icy wind blew up at him from the river below. At Sæter’s they had agreed on a security plan for Karsten Clausen. For the next few days, and longer if necessary, a team would keep watch over him. He himself had suggested a pre-emptive strike against the attackers, something that would compel respect. – That’s what this is all about, he had said. – Pay a visit to the Chadar family, give them a message, talk to them in a language they understand.

  Sæter liked the plan and spent a long time analysing it. It was rational, and if it was put into practice, it would produce a definite result; it would make it clear that there was a battle going on, that the wars of the future were already being fought. We have started, he said, over and over again in that reedy voice of his. In the end, it was all talk. We have started, but are not yet ready to wage war. Not yet, but our time is coming, and when it does we shall be ready.

  As though the rest of the world was waiting. As though Old Man Saeter would ever be ready.

  He pulled up his hood, rounded the corner by a bar called the Ram, walked on up the deserted street. The sweet shop was one of a little group of shops further up, next to a large old timber building that housed a store selling lamps. Posters in the window gave the prices of beer and soft drinks in fluorescent orange. He walked around the building; it was made of stone, so he had to get inside to make it happen.

  He’d been there twice before. The first time was just over fourteen years ago. The man behind the counter was a Pakistani and looked to be in his forties. Khalid Chadar? he was on the point of asking. But it wasn’t necessary. Even though he had never met Khalid Chadar, had never even seen a picture of him, he recognised him.

  Can I help you? Khalid Chadar’s gaze had flitted about. His hair was greying at the temples and he had bags under his eyes.

  Elsa says hello, he could have replied, and then beaten the Paki shit out of the overweight body on the other side of the counter. Instead he just stared him straight in the eyes, then turned and walked out, without buying anything, without saying a word.

  A month ago, just before the prince was due back, Elsa became distracted and worked up. Suddenly she had no time for him any more, and he went back to the sweet shop again. Khalid Chadar wasn’t there; this time it was a boy of about twenty. A vain, spoiled Paki with a gold chain above his open-necked shirt and his hair full of gel. Someone who ran the world and talked down to him. I know you, Shahzad Chadar, he could have said. I know you and all of your scrounging family.

  According to the company records up at Brønnøysund, Khalid Chadar owned a couple of other soft drink outlets and had an annual income of a few hundred thousand kroner. Afterwards, he told Elsa what he had found out.

  They live as though they have made millions from a couple of sweet shops. Khalid Chadar drives round in a Merc and acts the big shot. Do we have to put up with that? Should people like that be allowed to come here and take everything over and force us to live by some fucking tribal laws?

  But Elsa forbade him from going back there. Just wanted to let sleeping dogs lie. That was how she had managed, by focusing on the goodness and brightness in the world.

  He found a window round the back, took off his jacket, wrapped it around the hammer and then struck at the side with the catches. One blow was enough. He was filled with a calmness. Erleveien is for me, he thought, but this one I’m doing for you, Elsa.

  The cellar was the obvious choice, a kind of rest room. In a corner below a sink was a rubbish bin filled with trash. The wall was chipboard. He was going to treat himself to three separate ignition sites, because now he was doing a job for someone else, claiming what was still owed to Elsa, even though she would never know it.

  He pulled one bottle out of his pocket, squirted liberally across both walls, placed the ignition devices. From the point at which they started to burn, he had between one and a half and two minutes. By that time, he’d be back in the car.

  27

  Dan-Levi had neither his father’s cheerful openness nor his talent as a speaker, and there had never been any question of his taking over after Pastor Jakobsen. His father had accepted it from the start and never criticised his son’s choice of journalism as a career, however unspiritual it was. He had been pastor at Bethany for several decades, but was in demand across the whole country. These meetings in packed assembly halls were among Dan-Levi’s earliest memories. The whole family went along
on trips to Tønsberg, Molde, Mosjøen. His mother noticed how anxious Dan-Levi became at the change in his father’s voice whenever he stood at the podium. She used to reassure him by saying that his father had been raised up into a greater world, into the presence of the Spirit. His way there led via a joyous whispering that rose to a great hallelujah, and then someone would stand and raise their arms towards the ceiling, the tongue forming words in a foreign language that everyone else in the hall seemed to understand.

  This was what Dan-Levi was thinking of as he lay waiting for the alarm to ring. It had grown suspiciously light outside and still the phone on his bedside table hadn’t made a sound. He picked it up. The battery was flat. He leapt out of bed, plugged in the charger. Message from Stranger; he had probably called several times already. Dan-Levi groaned. He was on desk duty and obviously something must have happened during the night. He was on the point of calling back, changed his mind. It was Maundy Thursday, after all.

  He treated himself to a shower as he prepared to face the wrath of his boss; it would hardly be any greater for being postponed for five minutes. Standing there under the warm stream, he again thought of the day when he might at last be allowed to transfer to the culture section. An end to desk duties, an end to racing off to cover accidents in the middle of the night. He would write about music, and amateur theatricals, interview authors and painters.

  Still dripping wet, he sat on the toilet seat. The bathroom needed doing up too. There were patches of damp on the walls, and the door of the shower cabinet was missing. He had hung up a curtain, but the rod was always falling down. As soon as Sara felt better, he would make a start, he decided. Start with the room he was currently using as an office. Rakel could have that. Sara had already chosen a pink wallpaper with dogs on it. She was determined that they should have a puppy too, but right now she was too nauseous to discuss it any further.

  As Dan-Levi emerged from the bathroom, he heard a noise from Rakel’s room. Suddenly overcome with dread, he saw an image of the little girl dead in the bed. Thoughts like that could assail him at any time. He’d asked the doctor about it last time he was there. The chances of sudden and unexpected cot death were much reduced by the time a child reached eighteen months. But then there were all the others things that could happen. New possibilities that would arise as the child grew older.

  In his head, Dan-Levi had a catalogue of every kind of accident Rakel might encounter. The common ones, like drowning, being knocked over by a car, meningitis, were hardly worth the trouble of listing; they were there all the time. It was the more unusual ones that he had to look out for. Choking on a playground ride, hanging from the strap of a cycle helmet, the thing that was meant to protect the head. And a few years back, he had read about two kids playing hide-and-seek who had climbed up into a disused freezer. The lid had closed over them, the vacuum pressure made it impossible for the little hands to push it open, and no one knew where they were.

  Beneath the crushing weight of these thoughts – they could be images, sometimes whole scenes from a film – he would often drop to his knees and with hands together offer up a frail prayer. So far it had worked. But what about all the other children? What right did he have to pray that God hold a sheltering hand over his own daughter while millions of others suffered the most appalling fates every minute of the day?

  He opened the door slightly. Rakel wasn’t sleeping, she was sitting in bed chattering to herself. Dan-Levi lifted her up and held the little body close, drawing in the smell of freshly woken child. With his lips pressed into her hair, he said a little prayer of thanksgiving for every second of intense happiness that he was granted. He offered up thanks too for the worry that never let go of him, a trivial price to pay for everything he had been given.

  He danced around the room with his daughter in his arms, and then raised the blind and let in the morning light. There was a half-empty glass of water on the floor. He hadn’t heard her calling out. Again and again he had told Sara she was to wake him if Rakel needed anything in the night, so she wouldn’t have to get up. But she’d got up anyway and given the little girl some water. The thought of Sara lying in their bed, the sight of her, the feeling of having her by his side, all that she said to him as they lay together, and the child that was on the way, the thought of all this made him close his eyes and offer up another prayer. His worries he could handle by himself, but this joy that consumed him so and at times threatened to make him burst into pieces was almost more than he could contain.

  Rakel bent and reached for the glass.

  – Thirsty.

  It was one of the first words she had learnt. Of necessity, for she was always thirsty. His last job at night, his first job in the morning, and often in the middle of the night too, was to slake that thirst. It was a good sign, thought Dan-Levi. Because the search for God was also a thirst.

  – Did Mummy bring you the water?

  Rakel shook her head. – Water man.

  Dan-Levi laughed and held the little body close again. He had been toying with the idea of writing a story for her. It was going to be about a good fairy, maybe a guardian angel, who went round in the night visiting children who lay awake, a messenger from God. And he was going to call him the water man.

  At seven thirty, he called Stranger.

  – Fire, his boss announced. – In Strømmen. Once you’ve got yourself out of bed, you can get up there and relieve Gunders. He’s had a rough bloody night of it.

  Stranger was clearly too stressed to give him a ticking-off, and Dan-Levi took his time over his coffee, wrapped a sandwich in a serviette. As he pulled out of the residential area, he passed a silver-grey Toyota with two young men inside. He didn’t recognise them. He made a note of that kind of thing. Even in a peaceful backwater like this, you never knew what could happen.

  A grainy layer of smoke floated in the air around Strømmen centre, and the stench of burned plastic made Dan-Levi put aside his sandwich half eaten. The area around the site of the fire was cordoned off and the street closed. On the pavement, some distance away from what had once been the sweet shop, he saw Roar Horvath standing with a couple of other policemen he recognised. When Roar saw his friend, he gave a sign to the constable standing guard at the tape and the journalist was able to slip by.

  – We meet rather too often at places that smell of burning, Roar greeted him. He was obviously trying to appear fairly nonchalant.

  Dan-Levi had called him a couple of times after their evening in town together, concerned about how his friend was dealing with what had happened to Monica, but hadn’t been able to get through.

  – Any connection to the other fires? he asked now, notebook in hand.

  – You’ll need to give us more than five minutes to answer that.

  – You must have some idea.

  Roar shrugged. – We need to go through a whole list of possibilities. Electrical fault, carelessness, insurance scam. And then we’ll get around to the sort of question you’re asking.

  – Who’s the owner?

  Roar pointed to the large timber building. – The whole shopping block has just been sold to Thon.

  It was no surprise that the old property magnate had been busy even out here.

  – The sweet shop was rented by Pakistanis.

  – Name?

  Roar pulled his own notebook out of his pocket. – Chadar. Lives in Lørenskog.

  – So your first thought is probably insurance.

  Roar gestured with the notebook. – You keep your prejudices to yourself, Dan-Levi. Tell me instead why I haven’t heard any more from you about that cigarette device. He sounded a touch brusque.

  – Tried to call you, Dan-Levi said in his own defence.

  Roar wrinkled his forehead, and three deep furrows appeared above his eyebrows. They looked like birds in flight.

  – As you can see for yourself, the other building here is made of wood, he growled. – It was built nearly a hundred years ago. A family lives up on the second flo
or, some youngsters on the first. If the wind had been from the north, you can just imagine what might have happened. So what the hell’s the matter with you? Am I going to have to drag you in for an interview?

  Dan-Levi was shaking. His friend was angry now, and with good reason.

  – Give me a few hours, he said weakly. – I’ll call you after lunch.

  28

  Karsten awoke suddenly. Behind the curtains the day was grey. He turned over and picked up his mobile from the floor. It was past eleven. There was a message from Jasmeen. Something’s happened. Must talk to you.

  There were a few spiky drops in the air as he went out to fetch the newspapers, rain or perhaps hard snowflakes. The postbox was empty, and he remembered it was Maundy Thursday.

  No one in sight on the road. Adrian had said that Shahzad and his gang would wait until he was somewhere there were no witnesses. He was to maintain caution, not take a step without having his phone ready. Be on the run inside his own home. He put his hand inside his vest, let it run over the cut that crossed his stomach. At some point he would have to sit down and take stock of the situation. Isolate exactly what it was that had changed everything. Find out how it had happened. Find a way to make sure it had as little effect on his future life as possible.

  He took his cereal bowl out into the living room, sat in front of the computer, clicked on to VG’s web edition. Let his eyes scan the page until he came to a story about a fire. How many sweet shops were there in Strømmen? Abruptly he couldn’t sit still any more, stood up, clicked on the link, recognised the old timber building in the picture.

  He tried to establish a chain of thought. a) Jasmeen’s family owned the sweet shop. b) Jasmeen had tried to get in touch with him. That was as far as he got. There was a piece missing. Lots of pieces. Maybe they didn’t even exist. He pushed the bowl of muesli to one side, picked up his phone, called her. No answer. Her message had been sent from a hidden number. He pulled on his running gear, fumbled with the laces of his trainers. Just then the doorbell rang. He ran up to his room, peered down from behind the curtains. Dan-Levi was standing on the steps outside.