Suddenly Ibro Hakanovic’s voice changed, becoming louder and clearer. There was another voice there too, further off, but clear and even deeper. Put down that phone, it seemed to be saying. Then something else in a foreign language. Ibro answered in what sounded like the same language; he sounded angry, or afraid.
Take the phone, said a third voice, a woman’s voice, followed by a series of dull sounds, a loud bang, then Ibro, distantly: You don’t work here. Who the hell are you? What are you doing with that knife? Another bang, then a scream.
– Fuck, shouted Sigurd, pain shooting down his back and into the wound in his side. – Now they’re killing him.
Gurgling sounds from the phone, the last remnants of a human voice drowning. Katja clung to him, her whole body trembling. He put his arms around her shoulders to calm her. It didn’t help, and that only increased his own distress.
He stood by the window, watching the street below. Stood there and heard the shower running. Was still standing there half an hour later when it was turned off. Finally he knocked on the door. No answer. He didn’t give up, knocked again and again until she opened it.
She was bent over, sitting on the toilet seat, naked. Water from her hair formed a puddle on the floor. He put a finger under her chin and lifted it so he could see her face. Two wide red stripes running down each cheek. Blood dripping from them. More stripes on her throat, and on her chest.
– What the hell are you doing?
She looked at him, her pupils like pinheads.
– Please, she murmured. – Don’t hit me.
He let go of her. – What are you talking about?
– You’re angry. You hate me.
Perhaps he was angry, or perhaps it had passed. He didn’t know.
– Katja, he said in confusion, and placed a hand on her cheek.
– You mustn’t go, she whispered, rubbing her face against the flat of his hand.
She was trying to tell him something, or she was lying without knowing it herself. Abruptly he wanted her; it forced its way through the maze of thoughts. With one hand she pulled off his boxers, and when he pushed his way into her, she screamed and bit his neck.
Afterwards he sat on the floor, the cold from the tiles moving up through the soles of his feet and his backside. She still sat on the toilet seat, mumbling something or other, crying perhaps. He couldn’t bear to look at her.
– We need to think, he said. The bandage had been torn off and his wound was throbbing. – We’ve got to work something out. We have to talk to someone.
The sound of his phone out in the hotel room; he let it ring and ring.
It was after four when he returned to the room with a bag of food from Deli de Luca. Found her naked on the floor in the half-dark beneath the window, water trickling from her hair, as though she’d just taken another shower. He broke off a piece of bread, put a cheese slice on it, he’d bought a salad too, held it out to her. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her eat.
– We need to think, he said again. – Why would Mujo trick you?
She raised her head and leaned it against the wall, eyes still closed.
– Why did he fill the bags with old underwear?
– Do you think it was me who did that? she exclaimed, her voice suddenly clear.
– Stop it, Katja.
– You hate me, she shouted, and curled up into a ball again.
She isn’t well, he thought, she’s sick, and you haven’t understood a thing.
– You’re in trouble, he said as calmly as he could. – We are in trouble. And you’re going to have to tell me everything you know. I don’t want to end up like Mujo, in a fucking toilet with my head half sliced off. And you don’t either.
She shrugged. – You think you can stop them?
– I can.
– If you’d known they put that transmitter on your car, Mujo would still be alive.
– What?
– It was your car told them where we were, wasn’t it? That was how they found us.
He almost burst out laughing, but it stuck in his throat. His phone began vibrating again. Jenny. Calling for the fifth time. He put one finger on the accept call key, but changed his mind. Keep his mother out of this. Go to the police, tell them what he knew. He’d hit a guy with a golf club, but it was in a fight, and that wasn’t what killed him. He’d been nearby when two men were killed and he’d left the scene of the crime. He’d defended himself against a knife attack in a park in Malmö. Had tried to smuggle two bags of ragged underwear and socks across the border. He could sort it out, continue with his life. And Katja? She wasn’t part of that continuation. He still didn’t know how he was going to say it to her.
– I’m going down to the police station. Best if you come with me.
She shook her head.
– I’ll take your phone with me, he went on. – Listening to that message from Ibro, I understand why these people are after you. He’s almost asking them to do it.
Abruptly she sat upright. – Pull yourself together, she bellowed, so loud that it made him jump.
– Okay then, you stay here.
– How stupid can you be? It isn’t you they’re after, and you know it. You can walk out of here whenever you like. You’re a fucking tourist in my world, a fucking tourist on an ego trip.
Her eyes were consumed with anger, hate even. He didn’t know which it was, but it was contagious, and again he felt the insane desire to hit her.
A faint smile appeared on her lips. – Go on, do it.
He slumped down into a chair, took hold of his own arms as though to control them. I’m in her world, he thought, this is what it’s like to be her. Didn’t know where that thought came from, but at once it made him feel calm.
– You’re right, Katja. This is something I don’t understand.
Maybe it was the way he said it that changed her. The anger drained from her eyes, and they flooded over.
– Sorry, she said, burying her face in her hands.
– It’s all right. I’m the one who should apologise.
Impossible to mean this, of course, but he repeated it.
– You’re all I have, she murmured, holding on to him. – Do you realise that? No one else but you, Sigurd.
She took a few bites of the sandwich he offered her. A good sign, he thought. She ate more, ate from his hand; that was what she wanted, lying on the rug, still naked, eating the mouthfuls he held up to her, like a little animal he had tamed. Outside it had clouded over. A brown dusky light through the gap in the curtains that rubbed out the shapes of things until they seemed to dissolve into each other.
– We must do something, he said yet again. – We can’t stay in this room for the rest of our lives.
– The rest of our lives, she repeated, like an echo.
– We have to go to the police.
She shook her head. – The people who killed Ibro have to have that gun. The evidence. Maybe then they’ll leave me alone.
– But you don’t know what he did with it.
– I know where I ought to look.
– You mean that house in Nittedal?
– Ibro had other things hidden there, in a cupboard. And we need to deliver the bags, too.
– A few faded pairs of underpants? Please don’t joke with me.
– You don’t know them. That was a test. If they don’t get those bags, they’ll think I’ve tried to double-cross them.
His thoughts began to revolve again, as though they were in orbit around her. That was what he had been trying to do ever since that first evening at Togo, trying over and over again to circle her in. Each time he thought he had, he found she wasn’t inside the circle but somewhere else. Now he couldn’t bear the thought that he might have managed to find her.
– You were with him, he said, and it was a relief to say it straight out, as a way in to what he had to tell her. – You were with Ibro Hakanovic while you were living with me. He said it as though he were talking a
bout a rental agreement.
She shook her head for a long time. – It’s not like you think.
– I don’t think anything different from what you’ve told me.
– We weren’t together. Not like that. Ibro couldn’t do it.
Sigurd snorted, but all that emerged was a puff of air.
– He had an injury. Was almost beaten to death when he was fifteen. After that, he couldn’t.
– And you expect me to believe that?
– It’s the truth.
– Why did you say you were a couple?
A trace of a smile. – You were so jealous.
– And you wanted me to be?
– I wanted it to be us two, no one else. That’s all I want, Sigurd.
I have to get out, he thought, and stood up.
36
The ring!
Arash woke in the half-dark, felt with his left hand. There it was, on his longest finger.
He sat up. There was a strong smell of paint in the room. The curtains brown, yellowish walls. They had repeatedly said that it was safe to sleep here. Finally he had relented, climbed into the bed and vanished into something dreamless and grey as the evening sky outside.
He looked at his finger. Held it up in the strip of light, the gold winking, and when he turned his hand, this golden glow rose and fell, as though it was not a reflection but came from somewhere inside the ring itself. Around it his fingers were covered by a stain that stretched across most of the back of his hand. He scraped at it with his nail. Something sticky.
Abruptly he got up, opened the door to the bathroom, turned on the tap, rubbed at the stain, soaped it, rubbed again. It wouldn’t come off. In a few quick movements he tore off his clothes and examined his body in the sharp light of the lamp above the basin. Cuts and scratches on his thighs and stomach, but no more blood.
He removed the ring, washed it with soap, rubbed it dry, washed it again. It was Ina Sundal who had brought it to him as he sat waiting in the car, squashed between two policemen. She came running across the yard in front of the police station, handed it to him through the window, along with his ID and his hospital keycard.
There was a knock on the door to his room; he heard it open. They did it that way here, knocked on the door and walked right in, or walked right in and then knocked. He pulled on his underpants. Someone said his name. The bathroom door was flung open.
– Is that where you are, Arash?
– Yes, here is where I am.
The same nurse who had talked to him before he went to sleep, a man in his thirties, stocky and spotty, enormous fists.
– You’ve been sleeping.
– I have been sleeping. Have you been sleeping?
The nurse gave a quick grin. – That’s not what I’m paid for.
Arash looked down at the floor. Should have asked this man what he was paid for, who paid him, who really paid him. Watch how he reacted. Because he’d slept now, not for too long maybe, but his mind had started working again, and his thoughts were coherent in a way he was able to control.
– Your name is Raino.
– Wow, you picked that up, did you?
Arash had picked up everything that was happening. Hadn’t been in a state to say much, couldn’t answer all the questions they’d asked when he arrived here, but he had registered every word that was said to him, recorded every face, name, smell and sound.
Suddenly there was a loud noise from the corridor, repeated blasts, an alarm. The little box attached to Raino’s belt started blinking. He looked at it. – Be right back, he said quickly, turned and disappeared out.
Running footsteps outside. Arash peeked out the door. Seven or eight people had gathered at the end of the corridor. Loud voices from within a room down there. Someone started to howl wordlessly. Arash closed the door, slumped down on to the bed. Sat there staring at the floor, looking for a pattern in the linoleum, something to hold on to.
He jumped up as the door was opened again. This time Raino didn’t knock.
– Sorry about that.
– Sorry about what?
– The alarm. We have to assemble whenever it goes off. Did it frighten you?
– Maybe.
– Everything’s okay now. Under control.
Arash scratched his head with both hands. – Can I leave now?
Raino pulled the curtain wide open. It was evening, but grey light flooded the room, filling every corner. A wall on the far side became visible, another wing of the building. Down below, a lawn, some chairs arranged on it, but no one in sight.
– You’ll probably have to stay here a while, Arash.
– How long is a while?
– That isn’t up to me. But you were in pretty bad shape when you came here.
– Bad shape?
Raino played with his keys; they dangled from a chain of glinting silvery links.
– Think you’ve been having trouble keeping your thoughts in order. No wonder really. You’ve been through a lot.
Arash tried to look him in the eye.
– Am I in bad shape?
– A doctor will be round to see you later.
– Which doctor?
– Don’t know. But he’ll be here.
– So I have to sit here and wait for a doctor?
– I guess you do.
– I have to go out.
The nurse stood there, his face expressionless.
– I need to take a walk, Raino, that’s what I’m trying to say.
– Go out for a walk?
As though the nurse didn’t know what that meant. – I think that’ll be a little difficult.
– Why is that difficult, Raino?
Raino drummed three fingers against the wall.
– I’d have to check with the staff nurse. She’ll be here early tomorrow morning. The police think you ought to stay here, for the time being.
– Am I a prisoner here?
– No, you’re not. It’s a question of your own safety. They have guards sitting outside.
– Policemen?
– A couple of them out in the corridor, keeping a lookout.
– Keeping a lookout on what?
– On you. To make sure nothing happens to you.
He fell silent. Arash waited for him to go on.
– I’ll find out if it’s okay for you to get a bit of fresh air this evening, Arash. The policemen might as well take a stroll with you. They aren’t really being paid just to sit there staring at the wall.
Arash studied him, disguising his interest. The nurse was like a carved granite block, but there was an uncertainty in his eyes.
– I’m off duty soon. I’ll have a word with the woman who’ll be taking care of you after me.
The woman who’ll be taking care of you after me. Arash tried to stop his thoughts moving further down that road. – Things mean what they mean, he muttered.
Raino turned on his way out the door. – Did you say something?
– The police know it wasn’t me. What happened to Marita.
Immediately he saw Marita’s eyes. He turned, but they were staring at him from the other wall too, blood gushing from the gaping neck, down over the shoulder, over his hand, into the stream.
– Have they caught him? Have they caught the person who killed Marita?
– I don’t know, Arash. But that’s not something you should be worrying too much about right now.
– Can I talk to Ina Sundal?
Raino’s hand was on the doorknob. – I’m going to get your medication.
The chain with its three keys was still on the table. Two seconds later the nurse was back, looked around the room, saw them. – Best not forget these, he grinned, looking relieved. – Don’t you agree?
The man who visited him later with Raino had curly grey hair at the sides of his head and was bald on top. He was shorter than Arash, with a roundish face. His square glasses had green frames and made his eyes shrink.
– Knut Reinertsen
. I’m a doctor and a psychiatrist.
He held out his hand. Arash took it, knew that was the right thing to do. – Hello, Knut Reinertsen. And what do they pay you to do?
Probably not the right thing to say. He tried to smile it off.
Knut Reinertsen smiled back at him. – You might well ask. I don’t even work here. He pointed to the chair by the window. – Would you like to take a seat?
Arash didn’t want to. – Who do you work for?
The man who called himself Knut Reinertsen sat on the edge of the bed. – I do a bit here and a bit there. Work mostly for myself. And do research.
– Are you going to do research on me?
Raino laughed, as though the question surprised him, but Knut Reinertsen didn’t look the least bit surprised.
– Is he your man? Arash pointed at Raino.
– No, said Knut Reinertsen. – He works here. I don’t, but I was asked to come along and have a chat with you.
– Have a chat.
– Meaning a conversation. I’ve met a number of people who’ve had some very difficult experiences. Been involved in wars, tortured. I want to find out the best way we can help you.
Arash liked what he said. Mostly for the way he said it. As though it wasn’t something that was all that important. Not something that had to be proved or disproved. A chat, and that would be it. Maybe something would come of it, maybe not.
– Do you know what I have experienced?
– Only some of it. I’ve read your admission papers. We also have a mutual friend.
– Which friend?
– Zoran Vasic.
It was as though Arash already knew this.
– Did he send you?
– He doesn’t have the authority to do that. But he did want me to talk to you.
– How long have you known Zoran?
– More than ten years.
Something happened in the room. A shadow glided across the opposite wall, but the light outside was still the same grey.
– Can we talk alone?
Knut Reinertsen nodded to Raino, who was standing at the precise point where the shadow had stopped.
– Please, wait outside for a few moments, he said, and the nurse immediately did as he was told. When he stepped out, he took the shadow with him. He left the door ajar.
Certain Signs that You are Dead Page 27