by Karin Fossum
The needle glinted between her fingers.
‘But if you do something with your hands, your thoughts are eased and they find new paths.’
I nodded.
‘We certainly weren’t meant to sit doing nothing, that’s for sure,’ she declared. ‘It’s not good for the mind. But maybe you haven’t got problems like that?’ she asked, looking up. ‘From what I can see, you’re a serene man.’
She worked on in silence for a while. When I made no reply, she continued: ‘I’ve crocheted bedspreads for years, and I never tire of it. I raffle them at Women’s Voluntary Association bazaars. They make excellent prizes. A handmade bedspread like this costs several thousand kroner in the shops, and I could have made a bit of money out of all this work. But then, I’m frightened some of the pleasure would disappear. If I did it for profit, I mean. What do you think?’ she enquired, raising her eyes again. ‘Would some of the pleasure disappear?’
‘Making money is an excellent motivator,’ I said. ‘And we human beings aren’t a noble race to begin with. Greed is everywhere, and permeates everything, that’s my opinion.’
Ebba lowered her crocheting and became pensive.
‘Oh, but there are so many exceptions,’ she exclaimed. ‘Look at that young mother who comes here, the one with the little girl in the wheelchair. She’ll have to push that wheelchair about all her life. Because it’s her duty. But she never complains. Isn’t there something noble in that?’
‘We really don’t know how much she complains,’ I put in. ‘She won’t do it when strangers are present. Anyway, I know a lot about this business of complaining. I work with the sick and elderly up at Løkka. They’ve all got something wrong with them and, I can assure you, they complain all right.’
She took hold of her crocheting again. I looked at the long, white length. There must have been millions of stitches in a bedspread like that when it was complete, millions.
‘Well, well. You’re a good Samaritan, it warms my old heart to hear it. People suffer a lot, you know. The elderly gentleman who comes here, the one who drinks, he probably doesn’t have an easy time of it. Actually, I haven’t seen him for a while, but he’s sure to turn up again.’
‘Of course he has an easy time,’ I objected. ‘His life just revolves around that bottle. When he isn’t drinking, he’s probably asleep. That’s a simple enough life.’
‘Hm, well,’ Ebba returned. ‘But take those two doves. I mean, the two youngsters who often sit on each other’s laps on the bench.’ She nodded to the place where Eddie and Janne usually sat groping. ‘They’re both so unsullied. They’re growing up in the finest country in the world, and they can do whatever they want in life, and they certainly don’t want each other for money’s sake. It can’t get much better than that, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Oh, just you wait,’ I answered. ‘They’ll both become bitter and fickle in a few years’ time. Once Janne meets a man with more money.’
‘You’re so hard on people,’ she said, crocheting away for all she was worth. ‘And you oughtn’t to be, you’re a real gentleman.’
‘I’ve got a protruding jaw,’ I said, ‘and my eyes are the colour of cod liver oil. My life’s not easy, I can tell you.’
She gave a hearty laugh. Her teeth were white and perfect, despite her age.
‘You’re hard on yourself, too,’ she said. ‘Don’t be. We’re only here for a short while. Tomorrow we’ll probably all be gone. I don’t mean literally, but we’re only a heartbeat away from eternity, and then we won’t be here any more, think of that. Yes, just think of it!’
She lowered her crocheting again.
‘We need to feel valued, that’s important. Think of that huge man from the Refugee Reception Centre who sits here sometimes, you must have seen him. He’s lost his sense of self-esteem because no one wants him. It’s all over then; I think about it often. Sometimes I’ve felt like saying a few friendly words to him, but he’s so big. If you know what I mean. It’s almost as if I don’t want him to notice me, I don’t dare arouse all that power. Did you know that he talks to himself?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘It might mean that he’s psychotic,’ Ebba said. ‘And you mustn’t take any chances with them. Or what do you think?’
Chapter 20
I WENT TO work.
I was on the late shift and was on duty until eight. It was a quiet day on the ward, only the occasional moan from behind closed doors, like a distant lament. All this lamentation. I paced the corridors and thought of that policeman, Randers, and my imagination ran riot. It was as if Arnfinn’s murder had a peculiar, unholy energy, and now it clung to my whole being, like a special smell. That was probably why I saw nothing of the others. They can smell it, I thought, and they flee. Eventually I found Sali Singh in the kitchen. To my amazement he was sitting at the table eating. Not the stuff he’d made himself, but some kind of ready meal he must have heated in the microwave.
‘I didn’t know you went in for this sort of thing,’ I said, sitting down next to him.
He went on slurping. It looked like soup with bits of fish in it.
‘I am celebrating,’ he said. ‘This is a fine day.’
I put my elbows on the table.
‘What are you celebrating? Is it your birthday?’
He shook his ponderous head.
‘I won at the Øvrevoll races,’ he said. ‘140,000 kroner. Just this Sunday.’
I was dumbfounded.
‘At Øvrevoll? You bet on the horses?’
He pushed the bowl of fish soup away, and nodded.
‘Suddenly they all came in. And I have been betting for years, so it was about time. My heart has never pounded so hard,’ he said, laying a golden-brown hand on his chest. ‘Not even when I proposed to my wife.’
‘What are you going to do with the money?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘For now, I will keep it. In an account. And it can stay there just for show. But I shall greet it every day, I will ring the bank and ask after it. I will watch over it as if it was a holy cow, you do not know of what we Indians are capable.’
‘Where is everyone?’ I wanted to know. ‘Sister Anna and Dr Fischer?’
‘They are in with Barbro. She has been screaming all day.’ He cupped a hand behind his ear and listened. ‘Yes, she is screaming still,’ he added. ‘It is impossible for a person to scream like that, I feel that I want to go home almost. But when I am at home, I still hear her, in my thoughts. And she will lie screaming until she dies. Dr Fischer is in despair. He cannot do her medication, nothing seems to work. So now he has consulted a doctor at the National Hospital in Oslo.’
Sali leant across the table. There was a peculiar intensity in his brown eyes.
‘But the bitter truth, Riktor, is that not everyone can be helped. And I hope the gods will put me in the right category. I mean, when my turn comes.’
I glanced across the table at Sali, that plump, likeable man, dressed in something that resembled a pair of blue pyjamas. So he had a secret passion for the turf, who would have believed it? To be honest, I didn’t like it, the fact that I’d overlooked this trait in him. Because I like to think that I understand people, that I know who they are. The way I know Dr Fischer and understand his am-bitions and his frustration when he can only help a bit, or not at all as in Barbro’s case. He could hardly know that the only things she was getting from me were Tic Tacs and vitamins.
After my conversation with Sali I went down to the mortuary. It was Løkka’s small chapel for the dead, with a bier, a little table and a candle. A lace tablecloth, a Bible and a cross high up on the wall, made of brass.
I was often drawn to this room in the basement. I liked being alone here in the dimly lit room, even when it was empty, as it was now. But often it was occupied, someone waiting to be collected by the undertaker, and I relished that special feeling of being in the company of the dead. To study the sunken eyes and the blue lips. The hands, w
hich were soon covered with black marks, the mouth which slid open. On a few occasions I had, just for amusement’s sake, bent over the departed making horrible faces. Thumbs in my ears, tongue sticking out, purely because I couldn’t stop myself. Now, an idea came to me, an impulse, that had to be instantly obeyed. I got up and lay flat on the vacant bier. My hands clasped over my stomach, eyes closed. I breathed quietly, felt my chest rise and fall, felt the joy of being alive, in my forties, still relatively young. That I could still play a practical joke or two. But what if someone came in right now, I mused, came across me playing dead? The thought of the possible consequences sent me into raptures. Anna would hide her face in her hands, Dr Fischer would slump against the wall. I jumped down and went back to the ward, where a strange stillness reigned. Barbro had been given fentanyl; at last she’d stopped screaming.
There was something in the air.
It couldn’t be ignored. Something indefinable, an alien note, like the humming in a cable, a sudden vibration. And I thought of the people I worked with, and how their looks had assumed an evasive quality, lowering their eyes or turning them away, a special glint of suspicion. I’m highly sensitive to such things. I opened my hands and examined my palms, but I couldn’t see the murder, the evil intent, the fury I’d felt towards Arnfinn. I could see no guilt in the fine creases. My hands were quite clean, my heart beat softly, there was no remorse, only astonishment. At the way it had happened so quickly, at the way nothing could have stopped me from boiling over completely. With this new knowledge about myself, that I really was capable of murder, I trod the grey linoleum of the corridors. I was wearing shoes with soft soles, my footsteps were silent, only the slight swish of my white coat as I moved along. I walked with my hands in my pockets, playing with the keys, playing nervously, for everything that had happened had given me a new receptiveness. One of the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling was flickering, it was probably a sign. That I was headed for the darkness. A door hadn’t been properly closed; I noticed the small gap. On the floor, right in against the moulding, lay a pencil, as thin and sharp as a nail. I registered this as a lack of order that wasn’t normal on our ward, as if everything were about to fall apart. Anna came walking towards me, and I smiled agreeably. Once again, she put me in mind of a swan. She had the same proud carriage, the same cool purity as she sailed across the floor.
‘Barbro’s sleeping,’ she said.
I nodded. I was leaning against the wall with sagging shoulders. My posture has never been very good.
‘Can you sleep at night?’ she asked suddenly.
The question took me by surprise, and I gave a start.
‘Not always,’ I confessed. ‘I often think about something. Something that churns and runs all night long.’
She leant against the wall as well. Relaxed her shoulders, stole a little bit of rest, lifted a hand to her blonde hair.
‘What do you think about?’ she wanted to know.
‘About death,’ I replied. ‘I think about death the whole time. My own death and that of others, I can’t help it. People often say they’re not afraid of dying. They say it in a cheerful, confident manner, seeming to be so wise and far-sighted, taking it for granted that the event will be peaceful. They’re going to die quietly and serenely, and in bed. They’ll hardly even realise what’s happening. It never occurs to them that their death might be horrible and intolerably painful, a hellish, drawn-out torture. Other people die like that, they think. I won’t make a lot of fuss when it’s my turn. But we do. We make a fuss. I mean, look at Barbro. I often think about such things. When I can’t get to sleep.’
She picked at one of her nails. Glanced up at me, deadly earnest.
‘And what about you?’ I asked. ‘What’s preoccupying you?’
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘You’re not your usual sparkling self,’ I said.
‘Well then, I must have lost some of my sparkle,’ she said with a mournful smile. ‘I think about my brother all the time. About Oscar. That he’s lying at the bottom of the lake. I know it’s difficult to find him, that it’s dark and muddy down there. Rubbish and old tree trunks and whatnot. But I thought they gave up so quickly. And then he must have shouted,’ she said, ‘as loudly as he could. But nobody heard him. Think of it, Riktor. To be floundering in a hole in the ice and screaming at the top of your voice. And no one hears you.’
In my mind’s eye I saw the red ski-suit slipping under the water.
‘We don’t know for certain if anyone heard him or not,’ I said. ‘Perhaps someone did hear him but couldn’t do anything about it. I mean, there are people living in the area after all. There are several houses on the shores of Lake Mester, and others on the slopes above. Maybe most of us simply shrug our shoulders if we hear someone screaming and bellowing in the distance. And just get on with what we’re doing.’
‘What do you think went through his mind?’ she asked.
I smiled gently at her.
‘I imagine he thought of you. And he probably struggled as hard as he could. Don’t you think he did?’
She bit her lip.
‘I can’t bear to think about it.’ She began to walk away. Then she turned suddenly, and there was anger in the low voice. ‘I think death is completely intolerable!’
I nodded. Certainly death was intolerable, we were in total agreement about that. I was still leaning against the wall. Anna walked away. The hem of her coat flaring like a white sail in the grey corridor.
Chapter 21
RANDERS’ GREEN VOLVO came up the drive. I could see him from the window. I heard the engine stop and a door being slammed. But no doorbell chimed to break the silence, so I waited. And while I waited my mind worked feverishly. I didn’t feel guilty, I felt betrayed. I had practically acted in self-defence. Arnfinn had dealt me a cruel blow, and my reflexes had taken over, I could explain everything, if only someone would listen. Now he’ll go round to the back of the house, I thought suddenly, he’ll catch sight of the grave, the small mound of earth. There followed several spine-chilling seconds while I couldn’t make up my mind what to do, although I’d been expecting him. I’d known he would return, and I was prepared. But there was no sound of a doorbell. Finally, I went to the front door and yanked it open so abruptly that it made him jump. He was standing on the steps with one hand on the handrail. A broad wedding ring glinted.
‘You could ring the bell,’ I said irately.
He gave his fleeting smile.
‘You were standing at the window,’ he said, ‘you saw me coming. I didn’t think it was necessary. Thanks for your assistance last time.’
He looked around the driveway.
‘We need to talk. It’ll take about ten minutes.’
I pushed my chin forward as I do when I’ve been mistreated.
‘You haven’t asked me if it’s convenient,’ I said sullenly.
‘Is it convenient?’
‘Perfectly,’ I said. ‘It’s just that there are certain norms of politeness. I thought the police understood them.’
He let go of the handrail and took a step nearer, leaning on the wall by the door. I felt his hot breath, it was odourless.
‘Sometimes I forget about the rules,’ he said. ‘They’re so time-consuming.’
I led him into the hallway. Then into the living room and pointed at the corner of the sofa where he’d sat before.
‘You’d better sit down.’
He sat down. I took the initiative.
‘Is this still about a possible murder?’ I asked. ‘Or are you certain now?’
‘I’m certain,’ Randers said, nodding. ‘And we know where to look. What to look for, who to talk to. I enjoy this phase,’ he said, leaning forward slightly, as was his habit. ‘This information-gathering phase. Finding unexpected things. Having suspicions confirmed, forming a picture of what actually happened. And last but not least, why it happened. Because there’s an underlying reason for everything.’
‘Yes, I suppo
se people who kill do have something in common,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that right?’
Randers considered the question. When he smiled, his eyes narrowed, and his craggy face immediately took on a milder aspect.
‘Occasionally we come across unusual murderers,’ he declared. ‘Criminals who aren’t like the others. With quite special motives. They never cease to astonish us.’
‘In what way are they unusual?’ I wanted to know. ‘You’re a detective. Give me an example, I find this very interesting. How many pips have you got on your shoulder, by the way, when you’re in uniform? I mean, are you senior to the others? You must be senior. I can see things like that right away.’
Randers cocked his head.
‘Three pips,’ he said. ‘But we don’t bother about them much.’
‘Don’t make me laugh.’
‘We’re a team,’ Randers explained. ‘In which everyone has a special task. Young officers are important to us, because they’re receptive to everything. People who haven’t got much experience can often see things that others overlook. They aren’t blinkered, they see possibilities and unconventional solutions. Even if they do only have one pip.’
‘And you must be a very popular chief, Randers,’ I said. ‘A man the others look up to.’
‘Yes I am,’ Randers asserted with self-confidence. ‘A very good leader, even if I say so myself. I’ve never been modest. Modesty isn’t a virtue, it’s a disability in my opinion.’
I kept silent for a moment while I planned my next move.
‘Where did you find the deceased?’ I asked, fixing him with an unwavering expression. My heart was almost palpitating, my cheeks were getting hot again. It was like walking on a knife-edge.
Randers paused before replying. I couldn’t understand what sort of clues he’d unearthed, what stage he’d arrived at, I couldn’t believe that he was sitting in my living room, nor could I comprehend what facts had brought him to my humble red house.