– The ring, he muttered.
She took a quick look at his hands, couldn’t see it on any of the fingers.
– I have to have it back, he said in a loud voice.
She took a step back from him. – I can’t help you with that.
He answered something or other.
– I didn’t get that. Can you repeat it?
His lips moved; she stepped closer again.
The surest sign …
She was certain he had said that, but the rest was incomprehensible, as though he were speaking in a different language.
– If you want to talk to the police in Iranian, we can get you an interpreter.
– Do you have a pen? he said, so suddenly that it made her jump. – Pen and paper.
She thought for a moment, opened the door.
– Do you have a pen and a sheet of paper?
The guard looked at her quizzically.
– It might be important, she urged him.
He pulled a pen from his pocket, and an envelope, looked at it, tore off the back.
– Everything all right in there?
She nodded firmly, pulled the door to again, turned towards Arash. He grabbed the pen and paper she held out to him.
– As I was fleeing through the forest … I came to a cabin. Had to hide there. It was light everywhere. I had no clothes.
He held the paper up against the wall, wrote a few lines.
– Someone came in the night, he said. He gave the paper back to her. – In the morning, I found this message.
She studied the letters for a few moments, presumed they were Iranian.
– Rumi wrote this. Have you heard of Rumi?
She thought for a moment. – Isn’t he a poet?
– This was written on a mirror in that cabin. I think it was written in blood, but I can’t be sure about that. I’ve read it many times before. How is that possible?
She looked at the piece of paper again. – What does it mean?
Arash took it from her, studied it for a few moments before writing on the other side.
– Read, he said. – Read aloud to me.
He pushed the note into her hand. She had the feeling he was testing her.
– Read, he repeated.
– Walk out like someone suddenly born into colour. She fumbled for her spectacles in her jacket pocket, put them on.
Silence is the surest sign of your death. As she read, he never took his eyes from her.
– How is it possible? he asked again when she had finished reading. – That is what I want you to help me with, Jennifer Plåterud. – Find the explanation for why this particular poem was written on that mirror.
She put the note into her pocket. – I’ll have to think about it.
– I want Zoran to have that, he said.
She pushed her hair behind her ears. – I have to give this to the police. I’m not allowed to take anything out of here.
Suddenly she remembered why she had come. – You said that you’d been shot at.
He said nothing.
– Can I see the wound?
Now he moved his lips as though forming soundless words. Then he unbuttoned his shirt, slowly removed it. He gave off a tangy smell; it made her think of the forest he’d run around in, bogs and rotting trees.
He was broad shouldered, but his biceps were not pumped up like those of so many other young men. They were criss-crossed with scratches, some of them running on to his back. – Turn round, please, she said, careful to keep her voice friendly.
His entire back was covered with bulging scars, the remnants of deep wounds. She thought of what Zoran had told her, what this man had been through before coming to Norway. Felt a sudden urge to stroke his ruined skin.
She composed herself. – Old injuries.
He didn’t answer.
– Where did the bullet hit you?
He seemed to hesitate briefly before raising his arm.
Again she put her glasses on, examined the zigzag pattern that might have been caused by a branch. She had seen the marks of a bullet across skin many times; they ran in a straight line. This didn’t look anything like one.
– So you were shot at? Are you sure you were hit?
He pointed to the marks below his arm.
– That’s from a branch or something like that, said Jennifer, fearing for a moment that her observation might enrage him. But he dropped his arm, slumped slightly.
– On the other side of the stream. I turned just as the figure in black shot.
She didn’t contradict him. – Did you hear the shot?
– Didn’t hear any shot. Just a crack.
She didn’t know much about weapons, but had tried shooting with a silencer.
– I heard something fall into the water.
She looked at him. A shell casing, she thought. If he was lying about this, would he have said that?
– How far away was the man standing when he shot? She realised she was asking questions that weren’t part of the brief she had been given. – I mean, how far away was this from the woman who was killed?
Arash closed his eyes, shook his head, as though seeing something he didn’t want to see.
– Some distance, he muttered finally. – I ran up alongside the stream.
He waited for a few moments before continuing.
– The figure in black was standing on the other side, by a fallen tree. I felt a burning in my arm. I ran as fast as I could.
The guard peered in. – You okay in there?
– Everything’s fine.
To Arash she said: – You can put your shirt back on.
He didn’t react, and she picked it up for him.
– That patient, he said suddenly.
– Which patient?
– Ibro Hakanovic was trying to tell me something.
– Then you must inform the police.
– He had head injuries and they gave him morphine. Arash gestured with his hand as though administering an injection. – Tiny pupils.
She nodded. The observation was probably reliable. Zoran still believed that, one day, this man would go on to study medicine at university.
– Ibro Hakanovic was talking about someone he called Cat. He said there was a car accident but Cat wasn’t dead after all.
She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. – His cat wasn’t dead?
Arash nodded. – That’s the reason he was murdered.
Jennifer glanced at the guard. No reaction there.
She turned back to Arash. – Because of a car accident?
– If he’s dead. Can you tell me, Jennifer Plåterud, is Ibro Hakanovic dead?
– He’s dead.
– And Marita?
– Her too.
She looked into his eyes. Different mental states swirling around each other in the darkness there. She saw fear, confusion. Grief.
– I’ll manage, he said, as though he knew what she was thinking.
26
Katja returned late in the afternoon. For the last hour Sigurd had been sitting at the kitchen table in the alcove, his iPhone in front of him, scrolling the latest updates on Facebook without seeing what was written there, clicking on Like to every piece of news.
Without looking at him, she disappeared into the bathroom. He heard the swish of water from the shower. She came out again, her hair wet, no make-up and wearing the same dress as before.
– What’s happening?
She didn’t answer, slumped down on the sofa, sat turned away, looking out through the window. He got up, put his phone in his pocket. – I’m going home.
He wasn’t expecting any reaction, but she looked at him.
– You must help me.
He felt he needed more air, crossed to the door, opened it wide.
– You can either help me or not help me.
She needs you, he thought out into the light wind. Katja needs you for something. The way she had done all along. The reason they were tog
ether.
– If you don’t help me, something very serious will happen. But it isn’t your fault, Sigurd.
The way she said his name, as though none of this had happened. As though there had never been any Ibro Hakanovic.
He turned to her, waiting to hear more. It took a while before it came.
– The people who killed Ibro are after something.
She ran both hands through her dripping hair.
– Ibro had something they will do anything at all to get their hands on. When they don’t find it, they’ll come after me.
– Who are they? he asked, and knew that was something he shouldn’t have done. Don’t ask any more, just withdraw.
– I’ll tell you everything. Once I know what you’ve decided.
He had decided. He would leave and not see her again. Not yet quite sure how.
She looked directly at him, her eyes in the afternoon light almost black, yet translucent.
– Tell me, he said, his voice sounding much harder than it felt. – Everything that’s happened. He closed the door. – Exactly what has happened. Afterwards you’ll get my answer. Whether I’ll help you or not.
He stood in the middle of the room listening to what she had to say. Things he had previously tried to find out, parts of her story he had filled with his own imaginings because he had to know. He no longer knew whether he still needed to know them, but he let her speak anyway. About growing up in Malmö, dropping out of school and hanging out in dangerous places, a mother she obviously couldn’t talk to, younger brothers and sisters. Nothing about a father, he noticed, but didn’t ask. Maybe it was all the things he didn’t know about her that had turned him on. Maybe this woman who sat there telling him about herself would grow more and more like others he had met and broken up with.
– Where we grew up, you were either with someone or against them. Ibro was friends with someone who joined the R-Falange.
– What’s that?
– A gang of Bosnians and Albanians. They were at war with the V-Falange, Serbs and Macedonians, and with the MC gangs. That’s what it’s about, you get respect or you’re dead.
– So Ibro Hakanovic was in one of the criminal gangs?
Did you call me a little bit fucking racist? he added silently.
– He didn’t much like it. He wasn’t the type. He got promoted through the ranks, but all the time he wanted out.
– He had no choice?
She ignored him.
– Kreshnik, brother of the leader of the R-Falange, got stabbed in a bar in the centre of Malmö. He shot back. It was self-defence.
– And Ibro was involved?
She shook her head firmly.
– Ibro wasn’t like that. But he was nearby when the guy was shot.
Sigurd resisted the temptation to ask what being nearby might mean.
– Kreshnik ran off and gave the gun to Ibro. Ibro was supposed to make sure it disappeared for good.
– Not such a hard job.
– Ibro owed him a favour. But he didn’t do it.
– Didn’t do what?
– He sat there with the murder weapon. The police would have no doubt about who had used it; the butt was covered with blood from Kreshnik’s wound. It was the chance Ibro had been waiting for, you see?
Sigurd didn’t respond.
– He was going to take this chance to get away from all that shit. I suggested he come to Oslo. Plenty of jobs there. That was what I was doing those days when I was away. Helping him with all these fucking forms. But the most important thing was to secure the evidence he was in possession of.
– And he needed you for that?
She glanced up at him.
– He was in danger. He knew everything about everyone. You don’t live long on the outside like that. Understand?
– He needed you, said Sigurd. – And you needed me.
He had reached the place he had been looking for. Hearing what was most painful to hear, what would make it possible for him just to turn around and leave.
– I got him a place outside town where he could stay for the time being, a house belonging to someone I knew who was away. Yes, well, you know about that house.
He looked away.
– Ibro was careful. No one was to know what he was planning to do before he had secured himself. The murder weapon was to be deposited in a bank box. Someone he could trust was to make sure the police got a key if anything ever happened to him. But somehow or other it got out. They found him before he got that far.
Sigurd nodded reluctantly. It fitted with what Ibro Hakanovic had said that evening at the house. That he didn’t have what they were looking for.
– And how am I supposed to help with all this?
She sat for a while, breathing deeply; he saw how her nostrils widened and then narrowed.
– They’re bound to think that I’m the one with the gun now. I have to go to Malmö and give someone a message. I have to go there before they find me.
She pulled her hair back so hard her hairline whitened.
– If I don’t, then they’ll do the same thing to me as they did to Ibro.
He didn’t know which parts of her story were true and which she had made up. But her fear at least was real. He sat down beside her on the sofa. She rested her head on his shoulder.
– We’ll manage this, Sigurd, no matter what.
Don’t say that, he thought. It’s too late to say something like that.
She listed the names of streets and squares as though she expected Sigurd to know exactly where they were.
– Right here, she shouted as they were in the middle of a busy crossroads.
– Get a grip, he growled and swung into a bus bay. He had never been in Malmö before.
– What is it now? You want me to drive?
She had become more and more agitated and ill tempered the closer they came to the city, snapping at him or else refusing to answer.
He turned on the GPS. – Give me a name.
She rolled her eyes. – I did that ages ago. Möllevångstorget. Do I have to spell it?
He got it up on the screen, ran the windscreen wipers a few times before pulling out and turning down the next street.
– Wait. Drive back.
– Aren’t we going to Möllevångstorget?
– I want to show you a few places first, so maybe you’ll understand.
Another round of pointing and last-minute directions. Sigurd received confirmation of something he had long suspected, that she wasn’t good at telling left from right.
– Slow down here, she said, and directed him down a narrow road with red-brick high-rises on both sides. They cruised down to the end. – That’s where it began, she said, nodding towards a gate. – A few years ago. Someone we knew very well was shot. Shot twice.
She demonstrated on herself where the bullets had hit, one in the chest, one in the neck. – Everybody knew who was behind it.
– So you went to the police?
She snorted.
– What would they have done? Everyone knows. No witnesses. Why should they? The police don’t give a shit anyway. In the papers it says gang related, and that means there’s nothing more to say, it’s not something that affects most people. Do you know how many people have been shot here over the last few years?
He didn’t know.
– Nineteen. Murdered in broad daylight. Only a couple of the cases ever came to court. So maybe now you understand why people have to take care of themselves to survive.
They drove out on to a main road again, and she told him to take a right.
– So you don’t mean left?
– Pack it in.
She pointed again, this time at a building a little further up the street. – The reason we’re sitting here now is what happened right there a few months ago.
He peered out at the frontage they were passing. A sign read Chess Club. Another said something about health foods.
– Someone in the V-F
alange shot Hasan, Ibro’s best friend. They were like brothers.
Sigurd thought about it.
– And so it was avenged in the bar you were talking about. That’s why Ibro Hakanovic was nearby.
She ignored the sarcastic tone. – Ibro didn’t want there to be any killing. He knew people on both sides. They all grew up together. He tried to mediate. Prevent a full-scale war breaking out. After Hasan got shot, he decided he had to get out of here.
– And run to Norway.
– Back then, he couldn’t. Not until he had that gun.
– The murder weapon from that bar?
– Ibro could prove that it was Kreshnik who shot. It didn’t help him much. They killed him anyway.
She sat silent for a while, looking out of the side window, the wet stone walls gliding by in the afternoon light.
– Do you begin to get some idea of what this is all about?
He didn’t reply. Then she placed a hand on his knee and squeezed hard. He put his on hers to remove it. It stayed there.
27
TV2 news devoted the first eight minutes to the murders, and returned with more towards the end of the broadcast. Twenty-four-year-old man charged. Originally from Iran. Photo of Marita Dahl, footage of the forest where she was found, the police tape, car tracks. The item continued at the hospital: patient murdered in the basement, almost three days before the newspapers were informed. A short interview with Roar Horvath, who had reason to believe the two cases were connected. He held up surprisingly well, thought Jennifer, looked to be enjoying himself in front of the camera.
The reporter had managed to get an interview with the chief physician himself down in the lobby. In a statement that was thereafter repeated in various ways, viewers were told that it was the police who had made the decision to keep the matter secret. Along with party leaders and government ministers the chief physician had obviously attended one of those courses designed to teach people how to avoid difficult questions without appearing to be evasive. It was amazing what you could get away with once you mastered that technique, thought Jennifer as she switched off the TV.
It had clouded over. She stepped out on to the balcony, glanced hopefully up at the sky above the blocks on the opposite side of the lawn. But no matter how dark the clouds were, they would never block out this light that forced its way in everywhere.
Certain Signs that You are Dead Page 20