Back home, he pulled on the gloves and started on the punchball, a few loose jabs, a series of quick feints, then moved on to the bag. Didn’t have to think while he was punching. He needed that thoughtlessness. Punch his way into it, his arms heavier and heavier, his head lighter and lighter.
When his hands couldn’t take any more, he stopped, opened the window wide and breathed the evening air with deep breaths. Stood looking down into the street. Someone standing by his car, a man in a short jacket bending to look at the bumper.
– Hey, you, he shouted, but the guy didn’t react, and he ran to the door and down the stairs. The thought of what MacCay had said, that he made enemies for himself. Someone planning to do something to his car, scratch the paint or whatever the hell guys like that did.
No one there when he reached the vehicle. He noticed a vague disappointment, because now he was ready, ready to draw a line and beat the shit out of anyone who crossed it. He took a walk around the car, checked the paintwork, checked the mirrors and the lights. Didn’t find any marks that weren’t there before.
In the shower, he could let his thoughts run. The other thoughts.
When he was with Katja, he turned into someone he didn’t recognise. A person who put up with everything she said and did. As though in the instant he had followed her down the basement stairs at Togo he had become another. But she had barely gone out the door before he felt he was finished with her. As though she had passed straight through him and left no imprint.
A couple of things remained to clear up. Report to the police station. Tell them what had happened that evening. That he had broken into a house. Been attacked and fought back. That he had called for help as the other man lay there.
He picked up his phone from the mirror shelf. For an instant, but no more, the thought that she might have rung after all, that such an abrupt break wasn’t necessary. He felt a twinge when he didn’t see her name on the call list, but then it went away. With her it was impossible to have a direction, he saw that now, the moment she was out of his life.
Trym had rung. He called him back.
– You out minding the cows?
Trym laughed. He had an infectious laugh. That was something they’d always shared, laughing at the same things: at their father’s frugality, that he never threw out a pair of underpants even when the seam in the crotch was torn; at the fact that he always made an effort to believe the best of people, never got angry. So easy to parody. And their mother’s restlessness and impatience, her preoccupation with make-up and clothes, and how everything was better back home where she came from. But why she had left the best country in the world to live in a mud hole on the other side of the planet was something they could never get out of her.
– I’ve hired four milkmaids to do the dirty work, Trym answered. – You should come and say hello to them.
– That’s what I was planning on doing. It’s tomorrow morning you’re going to see this psychologist, isn’t it?
Trym hesitated. – I’m not sure.
– Come on, you know perfectly well it is. You’re not thinking of backing out?
– Guess not.
– Get a grip.
Sigurd thought about it.
– I’ll come up to the farm early tomorrow. I’ll drive you there.
– You’re bloody keen. Don’t you have a shrink of your own? You can have my appointment if you want.
– Thanks, maybe he can take us both at once. Couple counselling.
He heard Trym grin.
– Did you transfer that money?
Sigurd emptied the used capsules from the espresso machine and poured in fresh water.
– I’ll do it now, just as soon as you hang up.
He did so, transferred the forty-nine thousand kroner. It felt good to get rid of it. At least he thought it felt good, but he needed another shower. Be there for Trym. It started there, everything that was going to be different.
He stood naked in the living room, fiddling with the sound system, the ice-cold water pooling on the parquet floor around him. Had just navigated to the Foo Fighters playlist when the phone rang again. It was still in the bathroom.
He ran to take it, knew it was her.
First to see the bridge lives. The loser dies.
Sigurd had passed Strömstad and was approaching Uddevalla bridge. It was after midnight. Hardly any other cars out on this summer night, and after crossing the border he pushed the speedometer needle up round a hundred and fifty.
Years since he’d driven south along the E6. Not since the time the family went to the big amusement park at Liseberg. He and Trym in the back seats, Ivar and Jenny sharing the driving. There are a lot of bridges along the way, but one in particular that outshines all the others. They talk about it long before they get there, as soon as they cross the border at Strömstad.
First to see the bridge lives. The loser dies.
What an awful wager. It’s Jenny who says that. Can’t you find a different prize?
Trym isn’t interested. Live or die, that’s all that matters.
A few kilometres before they reach it, they pass a mast. From that point Sigurd can follow the second hand, because he knows from the last time they drove this way precisely how long it takes before the bridge comes into view.
There it is! His shout of triumph comes moments before he can actually see it.
You cheated, Trym yells, and the accusation starts a quarrel that can easily last all the way to Gothenburg, because if there is one thing Sigurd can’t stand, it’s being called a cheat.
You’ll both get a helium balloon when we reach Liseberg, Ivar mediates. Trym protests. No point in betting if everybody wins.
Jenny always wants there to be one winner. Ivar wants everybody to win. But Sigurd gets first choice; there can’t be any arguing with that.
In Liseberg, the balloon seller only has three balloons left, two pink rabbits and a yellow lion with a silver mane around his head. Sigurd stands studying them in the sunlight, watching their slight movement in the wind. Thinks he should take one of the rabbits, let Trym have the lion.
And all these years later, it was that lion balloon he thought of as the masts of the Uddevalla bridge came into view above the treetops, towering up into the light night sky. The bridge still made him think of a ship with enormous masts and cables stretched out like sails.
Jenny agreed with him, it was like a ship, while Ivar thought it resembled a cathedral.
He said it as though cathedrals were holy places, he who always claimed to believe in people and not gods.
What do you think, Trym? Ivar wanted to know.
It’s a bridge, said Trym, and it looks like a bridge. To say anything else was nonsense, because he’d read about it, he knew how long it was, how wide and how high, how much steel and concrete was used in building it, how many metres of cable.
The windsock hung limp, and Sigurd accelerated up the curve of the bridge. As though the masts gathered the light in the air around them, bundled it and sent it off in all directions. Jenny was afraid of heights, the only thing he knew she was afraid of, apart from spiders, and Trym would always try to get her to look down into the fjord that seemed to be several hundred metres below them. She sat there in the front, her gaze fixed on the road ahead, letting her breath out in an exaggerated sigh of relief once they’d reached the other side. Sigurd didn’t like her doing that, because it reminded him that one day, even she would be gone. He could remember a fantasy he’d had at that time. Jenny alone in a car out of control, smashing through the railings on the bridge and out into the blinding evening light. The vision was so clear to him that he could literally feel the drop down towards the fjord.
As he was driving down off the bridge, he remembered.
– Shit, he said aloud, and took out his mobile, called Trym, couldn’t reach him, tried Jenny instead.
Her voice sounded sleepy.
– I woke you, he said, realising that it was past midnight. – Sorr
y.
– I hope this is important, she muttered.
He apologised again; he’d called without thinking. – It’s about Trym.
– Anything wrong?
The voice was awake now. He knew she had trouble sleeping, and now he was causing her unnecessary worry.
– Just this psychologist he’s going to see.
– Psychiatrist, she yawned.
– I promised to drive him there tomorrow.
– That was kind of you, Sigurd.
– But it turns out I can’t after all.
– That’s a shame. Then Trym will just have to make sure he gets there on his own. He should be able to manage that at least.
It was naïve of her to think like that. Left to himself, Trym would never go.
– Or else Ivar can help him. Are you in the car?
That must be easy to hear. It occurred to him that there might be another reason why he had called her.
– I’m in Sweden.
– All right?
– Just crossed the Uddevalla bridge. The one that looks like a ship. I’ll hang up, you need to sleep.
– I’m well aware of that, Sigurd. Very considerate of you to wake me up to remind me of the fact.
He heard her closing a door.
– You’re not going to Malmö, are you?
– Not exactly.
– This is something to do with Katja, isn’t it? You don’t have any other business in Sweden?
– Not unless it’s a trip to Liseberg.
– Are you trying to be funny?
He thought quickly, working out what he could say and what he had better keep quiet about.
– Katja’s in some trouble. She called me earlier.
– And so you just drop everything and leave?
– I have to help her.
She had not exactly begged him to come, but after everything that had happened, he felt he owed it to her.
– What kind of trouble?
– Not quite sure.
That was almost true. Katja’s voice had sounded afraid, but she wouldn’t say what the matter was. He gathered it had something to do with Ibro Hakanovic. She wouldn’t even tell him where she was. Not until he was close.
– This is not something you need to worry about, he reassured Jenny. – I’m going to talk to her.
– I thought it was over between you two?
That was what she had been waiting for.
– Yes, he said, and didn’t know whether that was true, didn’t know anything about what was going to happen. – It probably is.
He could hear Jenny’s sigh of relief, and it annoyed him. He hung up before she could notice.
Once he’d passed Malmö, he received a text from Katja, an address and a few lines that were probably supposed to be directions. They weren’t much help. Instead he used GPS to locate the house, in a forest just east of a little harbour town on the Baltic coast.
It was after four in the morning when he arrived. He passed several cabins as he drove through the forest; they looked like summer places, their windows dark. He turned into a field, cut the engine, opened the car door. A slight wind in the fir trees, and the pounding of the sea somewhere close by. A bird on a bare branch, its harsh, guttural screech; judging by its silhouette, an owl.
He left the car, walked a few metres along a grassy track. The house was behind a hedge. At least he thought that must be it. Two storeys, painted white, she’d written in her text; in the pale dawn light it looked dark grey. As he crossed the lawn, he saw that the paint on the walls was coming away in large flakes. A Swedish flag hung limply on a pole by the front door.
He walked around the house. The curtains were drawn tightly in most of the windows, but next to the veranda he found one with a gap he could look through.
Someone curled up in a chair.
The veranda door wasn’t locked. It was her sitting in there. She jumped once he was inside. – It’s you.
The voice was toneless. He hadn’t expected her to throw her arms around his neck. Wasn’t sure what he’d expected.
– How did you get in?
– The door, he said.
– But it was locked.
He crossed the floor, stopped by the sofa where she was sitting. There was a faint smell of rot inside the place. She didn’t move when he kissed her on her cold cheek, sat there staring straight ahead, muttered something he didn’t catch.
But he understood.
Someone was dead. Someone she had known well, someone she’d always known. He could have told her now, given her the details she didn’t know. Instead he began asking careful questions, got fractured answers in response.
He sat down beside her, managed to get an arm around the narrow back, and straight away began stroking her neck and hair. She didn’t move, and he sat there holding her and looking out through the window, towards the brightening sky above the fir trees.
At some point she rested her head on his shoulder. – Why? he heard her murmur. – I don’t understand. They couldn’t have known anything. I’m the only one who knew.
– Do you want to talk about it? he said.
She didn’t reply. Just as well, because he was struggling to control his own words. Something in him might just start to talk by itself. Reveal what he was sitting there thinking. She had lied. Had used him. Had been with another. A stream of dark joy at the thought, or the opposite, a bright sorrow. For would it not after all be possible to carry on as before? Not as before. Ibro Hakanovic was no longer there. His shadow was. Shadows disappeared. Hold on to her, he thought. That was what she wanted. Someone to hold her so tight she couldn’t get away.
But she pulled herself free, struggled up, bare legged and wearing that clinging red dress, not even a G-string underneath as far as he could tell. She let herself into what was probably the bathroom. Running water, at first into an empty sink, and then a more powerful and deeper sound as it filled.
Afterwards, she disappeared into one of the other rooms. He heard the creaking of a bed base. Then silence. He waited half an hour, then he went in. She was lying on a double bed, curled up. He stood watching as her outline became clearer in the morning light that fell through the thin curtains. Still she didn’t move. He crossed over to her, bent, his ear next to her face. Felt the tiny puff of breath that came from her, mingled with an almost inaudible moaning, like the echo of a cry from far away.
23
Jennifer finished the autopsy well before lunch. She’d found things that would interest the police and decided to call Roar Horvath, but had something else to do first. Maybe she’d even have time for a bite to eat.
She knocked on the door of Lydia’s office. Heard voices from inside, opened it anyway. Lydia was on the phone. She held it away from her ear. – Won’t be a sec.
Jennifer was on the point of withdrawing, but Lydia signalled no and pointed to a chair.
The conversation was in Russian, as far as Jennifer could tell, and when Lydia ended the call a minute or so later, she said with a smile: – The good thing about Russian is that you can say what you like. No one here understands a word.
– Well you never know, said Jennifer, and Lydia glanced at her, apparently trying to look worried.
– So next time I’m talking to my lover in St Petersburg, I’ll have to ask you to wait outside?
Jennifer laughed, hadn’t expected that from Lydia. Even when she was joking she seemed reserved and correct.
– Did you get my notes?
Lydia nodded. – I’ve just been looking at them. If you’re right, this might be the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for.
– If so, it’s no credit to me.
– You’re much too modest, Jenny. I’m very happy with your work. I’m going to spend the rest of the day checking your findings against the DNA profiles.
She sounded like a girl who’d been given a present of something she’d always wanted.
– I was a little late in letting you have those notes,
Jennifer apologised. – As you know, my past has caught up with me.
Lydia looked at her, wrinkles gathering above the rim of her spectacles. – The forensic institute not letting you go? That I can well understand.
– I’m a little rusty, Jennifer answered. – But I’m probably still usable.
Lydia got up from her office chair. She was wearing trainers and an outsize T-shirt under her doctor’s coat.
– I hear a hospital employee has been arrested, she said.
– I heard that too.
– Is it Zoran’s friend?
Jennifer didn’t want to say anything about the severed thumb.
– That’s what they’re saying.
Lydia took off her glasses and put them on the table; her gaze changed, the eyes getting smaller, one pointing outward even more noticeably. – D’you think it’s that porter who killed the patient? If that’s the case, then he must be terribly disturbed. I mentioned it to Knut. He knows several cases of people very badly damaged by torture who do the most dreadful things in a panic. He says hello, by the way. Apparently your son had an appointment this morning but he never turned up.
Jennifer groaned. Of course Trym hadn’t gone. She should have called Ivar and asked him to take care of it, had forgotten.
– Sigurd, my other son … yes, of course, you met him. She pushed her hair up behind her ears; it fell forward again. – Sigurd was supposed to be taking him, but something came up.
She told Lydia about the telephone call the previous night. Sigurd who had broken up with his awful girlfriend but still jumped into his car the moment she called and drove to Malmö or wherever it was. It was a kind of relief to talk about it. Lydia was a listener; she was interested in what she heard, asked questions that showed she cared.
Certain Signs that You are Dead Page 18