The Water's Edge

by Karin Fossum

  'We believe you,' Sejer said. 'And we won't take up any more of your time.'

  'But don't you want to know where I was on the fourth?' Åkeson asked innocently; he was trying to make the two men stay for as long as possible.

  'Certainly,' Sejer said benevolently. 'Where were you on the fourth, in the afternoon?'

  'I went to an antiques fair in the town hall,' Åkeson said eagerly. 'It's an annual event, first weekend of September. I normally go, you can find all sorts of hidden treasures and I'm usually lucky.'

  'Are you?' Sejer said patiently.

  'I bought teacups,' he said happily. 'I bought four and they are truly amazing. French Garden from Villeroy and Boch. They cost me eight hundred kroner. Let me add that if I had bought them in Glassmagasinet, they would have cost me fourteen hundred. And I haven't even had an opportunity to show them to you; that was the reason I wanted to make you tea. I've got the receipt somewhere, and the lady who sold them to me would remember me, I just know she would. I don't blend in. I know I'll get noticed, but I can't be bothered to be ashamed of it.' He brushed a few strands of hair aside. All the time smiling his gleaming smile and displaying his alert nature.

  Then he escorted them out. He patted Skarre on the shoulder and detained them with small talk for as long as he could.

  'Goodness gracious, how stimulating it is to have company,' he said.

  'If you hear any rumours,' Sejer said, 'you'll call us, won't you?'

  'That goes without saying; I'll run to the telephone. But there won't be any rumours. Your man won't surface for a long time.'

  CHAPTER 16

  He had been sleeping with the red shorts pressed against his face. Now he realised that their smell, this tantalising, acidic smell, a mixture of seawater and sweet apples, was slowly starting to fade. He pressed them hard against his nose, his eyelids closing once again. For a long time he lay like this feeling grief and loss, a weight that dragged him deep into the mattress. The sun crept in through a gap between the curtains, it warmed his skin. His eyes were beginning to sting. He thought about the boy he had carried through the forest. There was not an ounce of fat on his slender body, only flesh and bones, only blue veins and tiny, marbled nails. He fantasised about how appetising the little boy had been, his fingers, his earlobes, his toes. He forced his thoughts away, they terrified him, they were delicious, forbidden and secret.

  He got up and went into the kitchen and peered inside the fridge. There was hardly any food, he had not been shopping for ages. All he found was some ham with its edges curled up and a tub of rancid butter. The bread had gone stale and was covered by a layer of blue-green mould. But he had a litre of fresh milk and a jar of raspberry jam. He mixed some milk and jam in a old jam jar, and tightened the lid before shaking it. When it was well blended and the milk had turned pink, he drank it straight from the jar; it tasted good. For a while he leaned against the counter, feeling how the sweetened drink gave him strength.

  He knew that the red shorts had to go. He had disposed of the trainers by dumping them in a clothes collection point in the town centre. If the police arrived, they were bound to turn over the house, he knew he would have to be prepared for that, but he could not bear to part with the red shorts. Resolutely he went into his bedroom to fetch the shorts. He rolled them into a tight sausage and hid them at the bottom of a box of cornflakes which he placed at the far end of the cupboard. He felt he had been very clever. They'll never think to look there, he thought. At night, he would get out the shorts and take them with him to bed. Because they would never turn up at night, he was convinced of that, the nights were his own, the few free ones he had left.

  He went over to the window. He parted the curtains slightly and looked out at the farmhouse, at the red barn. A blue tractor was parked in the farmyard, where there was a maple tree with a large, lush crown. He had rented the cottage for years, it was over a hundred years old and in very bad condition. The bedroom walls were covered by slimy mould. He had heard that mould released a gas which could be toxic. Not that he cared about that, his life was not worth a great deal, he was certainly not clinging to it. The house did not have a bathroom either, just an old shower cubicle in a corner of the kitchen with a tatty, yellow shower curtain covered with mildew. Nevertheless the cottage had a certain appeal; it had a history and charm. Little, square windows with broad windowsills and thick beams in the ceiling. Hops grew around the entrance. The cottage was situated in a dip and the big, white-painted farmhouse towered at the top of the hill. The farmer lived there with his wife and four daughters. Every summer the girls would lie on the lawn in tiny bikinis, lined up like a row of golden fish fillets. He never even so much as looked at them. Adjacent to the farmhouse was another cottage where the farmer's mother lived; she was eighty-six.

  Four Polish men would turn up to work in the fields every May and they would stay on until November. They were nodding acquaintances, but he never stopped to talk to them. They slept in the storehouse. Sometimes, in the evenings, he would hear laughter and voices coming from in there, in a language he did not understand but found exotic. One of them was good at playing the mouth organ and another had a distinctive laugh, which would roll across the farmyard from time to time. They were polite, friendly and hard-working people.

  As he stood there staring out into the farmyard it suddenly occurred to him that pulling the curtain had been a stupid thing to do. He was not in the habit of doing that and it might arouse suspicion. He flung the fabric aside and the light flooded in. Whether he wanted to or not, he would have to start his car and go food shopping. His white car. The car they were looking for. And he would buy a newspaper, obviously, if he could muster the courage. How much did they know, what had they found, were they about to catch him, was it only a matter of days before they would break down his door? He remembered his anorak, he could never wear it again, he had to get rid of it. He hurried out into the hall to see what else was hanging on the coat stand. A coat with big pockets and an old leather jacket, its lining had practically been worn away and the leather had cracked on the elbows. In the pocket he found an ancient cinema ticket and the stick from an ice-cream.

  He went back into the kitchen to have a shower, pulled aside the shower curtain, stepped inside and turned on the taps. While he showered he made more plans. Don't change your habits, he thought, keep doing the things you always did, say hello to people and be friendly, or better still, fling out your arms and laugh heartily. Go outside and wash the car, perhaps, give the Poles a friendly nod, talk about the weather. If anyone heard a rumour about him, they would dismiss it instantly. Not him, they would say, he's behaving completely normally.

  CHAPTER 17

  Isn't it odd, Kristine mused, that I can be absolutely certain that Reinhardt has come home, when I haven't even seen him yet. Everyone has their own individual sound, their particular way of going through the rooms. Reinhardt was a big man; he was not in the habit of tiptoeing around the place. A hanger clattered on to the floor, she heard the thud as he kicked off his shoes, first one then the other.

  'Hello, sweetheart!'

  He had a thick bundle of newspapers tucked under his arm. Kristine appeared from the kitchen.

  'How long are you going to keep buying all those papers?'

  'As long as there's something about Jonas Løwe,' he said. 'Look, plenty of coverage.'

  He held up Dagbladet to show her.

  'There's a photo of Jonas on the front page again today, it's a unique case in Norwegian crime history, do you realise that? I want to know all about it, every detail.'

  He gestured towards the growing pile of old newspapers. 'You're always telling me to get a hobby, that I should be doing something other than playing computer games. I've come to a decision. I will follow this case every day until it has been solved and when they get him, I'll follow his trial.'

  Kristine snatched Dagbladet from his hands. She leafed through it, scanning it quickly.

  'But there's nothing new,
' she said. 'They just repeat the same old stories.'

  'Don't throw them away,' he said. 'I need to cut out the articles.'

  'What do you mean, cut them out?'She gave him a puzzled look.

  'As a matter of fact,' he said solemnly, 'it's terribly interesting, for once, to follow a case right from the start, follow it week by week as it develops. It's like a discipline of some sort.' He ran his fingers through his hair. 'Perhaps I should quit my job at Hafslund and become a crime reporter. I think I've got the bug.'

  Kristine shook her head in disbelief.

  'When I think about it,' he reasoned, 'I realise that I have never read the news in this way before. I've been superficial. None of the world's misery has ever gripped me. But this has, it's a totally new sensation.'

  He let himself flop into a chair and grabbed hold of VG magazine.

  'But why?' she asked.

  'Because we found him, Kristine. It's that simple.'

  'But we didn't know him.'

  'I feel I know him now. I've been reading about Jonas for days. The whole sequence of events rolls before my eyes like a film.'

  'But we don't know the sequence of events,' she reminded him. 'Look here.'

  She pointed and read aloud: '"The police have released very little information about Jonas August and his tragic death".'

  'Well,' Reinhardt said, 'if you ask me I would say that means they've no idea what happened, but they're afraid to admit it, they don't want to lose face.'

  Kristine continued to look at him sceptically.

  'We saw him, Kristine,' Reinhardt went on. 'We saw him quite clearly. You and I are the only two people in the world to have seen him in person. In fact, I see him more clearly now than I did then. I'd recognise the bastard anywhere.'

  'But we don't know if he really was the killer,' she said. 'You just can't say things like that. All he did was walk past us, and he was startled, but that's normal.'

  Reinhardt thumbed through the newspaper. 'Take a look here, then, if you don't believe me. Listen to this: "After several days the mystery man from Linde Forest has yet to come forward." There. Now he's finally become the mystery man. But you and I knew that instantly.'

  'Perhaps he's shy and introverted,' she said. 'Perhaps he's gone abroad.'

  'The latter I can believe,' Reinhardt said. 'In which case he must be guilty. My theory is that this is a straightforward case: the man we met killed Jonas August. He walked right into us and he panicked. He has probably bought all the newspapers today as well, and right now he's going though them with his heart pounding.'

  Kristine went back out into the kitchen. It disturbed her that he was so obsessed by the murder. Then she wondered if he would start looking for something else once the case had been solved or whether he would become his old self again. She did not want that either, she liked neither the new nor the old version of Reinhardt. And again she felt ashamed, as she always did. She felt the days had become so unreal, she felt the harvest sunlight was too harsh, the night air too raw, the wind too sharp. She thought Reinhardt was behaving strangely. She took out a packet of ox liver from the fridge and started trimming the dark pieces with a knife. Reinhardt came over to stand next to her and he patted her cheek affectionately.

  'Now what's that serious face all about, wifey?' he joked.

  She continued cutting without answering. The liver oozed blood, the chopping board grew wet and slippery.

  'You're gripped by this too,' he claimed, 'but for some reason you won't admit it. You have your reasons, I suppose.'

  She continued to stay silent.

  'Everyone's talking about it,' he pressed on. 'People are interested in these things, of course they are.'

  'But talking isn't enough for you,' she said. 'You wallow in it.'

  'I cut interesting articles out of newspapers,' he said. 'Now don't exaggerate.'

  Again she refused to reply.

  Suddenly he changed the subject. 'Shall I tell you a secret?' he said. 'I've always hated liver.'

  At this she looked up quickly. 'But you eat it. You always have.'

  'Yes,' he said, placing his hands on her shoulders. 'Because you put it in a casserole. With onion, mushrooms and bacon. That makes even liver appetising.'

  She kept working, her fingers moving swiftly. She hated him being so close to her, and it confused her when his moods changed so rapidly.

  'Where do you think he lives, Kristine?' Reinhardt asked as he buried his face in her neck. 'I think he lives somewhere isolated. I can't imagine him right in the middle of some huge residential estate. Or perhaps he's got an old, ramshackle house his mother left him, something in the forest. Or an old, crumbling cottage.'

  'We don't know the first thing about where he lives,' she said in an exasperated voice.

  'No, I'm just speculating. That's what the police are doing when they have nothing else to go on. They know a lot about people who eat small children.'

  'Eat them?' she shuddered.

  'It's just an expression,' he smiled. 'Now, don't go getting all serious. But one thing's certain: Jonas August is becoming a celebrity. There's been plenty of interest from foreign papers, and he is unique in Norwegian crime history. They always take girls, you know. Women and girlfriends. Or ex-girlfriends. This is different. You don't understand,' he said abruptly. 'You don't understand how exceptional this is.'

  Kristine cut the liver into thin strips.

  'Yes,' she sighed, 'this is exceptional. It makes me dizzy,' she admitted.

  'And we're a part of it,' he said.

  'We're not.'

  'You don't want to be,' he corrected her. 'That's a different matter. You just want to move on, you want to forget about it. You're a true woman, you shy away from confrontation.'

  'Yes,' she said. 'I want to move on. You're utterly wrong. There is nothing we can do, Reinhardt, let the police deal with it, please!'

  'Like I thought,' he said. 'You don't appreciate how serious this is. But you and I can identify him, we can place him at the crime scene, or a few metres away from it at any rate. Don't you understand how important we are? The police need us. Think about it: we can put him away for twenty-one years!'

  He was becoming melodramatic, the pitch of his voice was rising. She turned on the cooker and put butter in the frying pan.

  'I can barely recall what he looked like,' she said.

  Reinhardt's jaw dropped. 'How can you say that? You were so sure back then. About his clothes and everything? Hans Christian Andersen, that's what you said, wasn't it? Hans Christian Andersen, of all things.'

  'Yes,' she said reluctantly, 'but I'm not so sure any more, about any of it.'

  Reinhardt folded his arms across his chest. 'But I am. I'm sure. And there's nothing wrong with my eyesight.'

  The butter was browning, she added the liver; the smell spread through the kitchen.

  'There must have been something wrong with his parents,' Reinhardt said distantly.

  She glanced at him across her shoulder.

  'Why?'

  'Since he turned into a pervert.'

  'We can't be sure of that, can we?' she said. 'We don't know if it had anything to do with his parents.'

  'People don't get damaged for no reason,' he said.

  She added seasoning, inhaled the good smell.

  'It's a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time,' Reinhardt went on. He was leaning against the worktop and he shook his head sadly. 'I mean, poor little Jonas August, who came walking along the road on the very day, the very moment the killer drove past. What are the chances of that?'

  Kristine turned over the liver in the frying pan. The strips were browning nicely.

  'I really don't think this was premeditated,' she said. 'Perhaps he hadn't even planned it, perhaps he just passed him in his car and acted on impulse.'

  'That's precisely what we're talking about,' Reinhardt said. 'An inability to control impulses.'

  'Have you deleted all those pictures?' she asked.
r />   He tossed his head. 'Why do you keep going on about them?'

  'Have you shown them to people at work?'

  She moved the frying pan away from the heat.

  'What if I have? I don't understand why you're getting so worked up about them, people are naturally curious.'

  She turned away again before replying. 'They were never meant for public consumption,' she said.

  'And who decided that?'

  Suddenly she felt exhausted. She leaned against the cooker and felt the heat from the brown butter waft against her face.

  'Common decency,' she whispered. 'Have you never heard of that?'