The Whisperer

by Karin Fossum

  ‘You’ll have to read it,’ she said to the officer. ‘The letter.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about that,’ he said kindly. ‘We don’t pore over every single word. Most letters say the same thing,’ he added.

  Ragna stared after him, dumbfounded, as he disappeared through the door. The same thing? Most letters? What kind of a statement was that? Every letter was a unique document that related to a unique person in a unique situation. No one else had experienced exactly the same, in the same way, and no one else felt the same love that she felt for her son, because there was only one of him. Idiot, she said to herself about the officer. You’ve obviously got no children.

  It was only a couple of minutes later that she really grasped the fact that they had spoken. He had been seventeen when she last heard his voice. He had come to the phone now, of his own free will, and spoken to her. She started to shake, her whole body was shaking. She wondered what the inspector had said when he rang to set up the call. He had said the right things, he knew how to touch people. But he had not mentioned their crimes, neither hers nor his. She felt another rush of joy through her body, her hands and feet were tingling, she had to stand up, pace back and forth across the cell. His voice, so mature and calm, evoked a very clear picture. He certainly did not have crutches. And he still had both his legs. ‘What about the boy?’ Walther had asked, in the dark outside the cafe. The boy, she thought with pride, as she stood in front of the window in her cell, her face to the light. The boy is wonderful, and I’ve just spoken to him.

  Chapter 20

  Lars tapped in the six-digit number 007007, which he had chosen, to turn off the alarm. The red light stopped flashing and he opened the doors to the shop.

  He liked being the first one in. It made him feel like the boss, which strictly speaking he was not, but the truth was that the others behaved as if he was their superior. He was strong and confident and well spoken, and a good head taller than the ladies, all obvious advantages of being a man. He turned on the lights, opened the till and then did the morning round, first through the shop, checking the well-stocked shelves, then out into the storeroom. They always set mousetraps at night, so he checked them next, but there were no dead animals. There were periods when he picked up dead mice like windfall, as there were plenty of biscuits and chocolate to be had. He started the coffee machine, looked over all the unopened boxes and crates that were piled from floor to ceiling. He checked the pricing machines, that there were enough labels, and if there was anything lying on the floor he picked it up and threw it away in one of the containers. Though, to be fair, there never was anything on the floor. Both Ragna and Gunnhild tidied up after themselves and kept things in order, the way women do. Audun was also learning the ropes. He stroked his thin beard as he walked around. Ragna came in without a sound. He noticed that she had not done her hair, the dry wisps of indeterminate colour were going every which way, and her shop coat was stained. Lars said nothing, but Gunnhild did, as soon as she came to work.

  ‘There’s a clean overall in the staffroom,’ she said, looking Ragna up and down. ‘I’ll get it for you.’ And then she added, eyes sharp: ‘Did you sleep in today?’

  ‘I’m on the till today anyway,’ Ragna mumbled, embarrassed. ‘No one will see the stains when I’m sitting down. I think it’s coffee.’

  She turned away and tried to do her hair with her hands, but only made it worse. She felt rested, but quite out of herself too, and a bit fuzzy, as though she had drunk a few glasses of wine. However, she put on the clean overall and went to the till. She had taken Apodorm for several nights in a row now, but they were not so strong after all. She had swallowed six tablets the previous night and still not managed to sleep, lying there feeling the cold draught from the window and listening for footsteps. And when she did manage to sleep through the night, it felt as though she had been on a long journey to a foreign country when she woke up. She almost did not recognise her own room and it was hard to get going.

  The person who was after her, who she called her stalker, remained silent. She did not know what he was thinking or planning. This made her angry and frustrated, and she started to walk around with clenched fists. She remembered that aggression was listed as a possible side effect of the pills, and that made her even angrier. She noticed that Gunnhild was watching her more closely, which she both liked and did not like. No one else cared, but it made her feel she was being watched, and work was where she had felt relaxed until now. She could breathe easy in the shop and she felt looked after. The fact that the large, brightly lit shop always had six security cameras on had never bothered her in the slightest. The lens was like a dead eye, it did not really see her, it only registered her movements without judgement. But Gunnhild made her own judgements.

  In all the years that Ragna had worked at Europris, she had never stolen so much as a paper clip. She was not the sort to horde things she did not need, she was not greedy, and she got by with very little. But the others stole things, she was sure of that. And they covered for each other. She didn’t think Audun did, though – the fact that he never spoke meant that she felt a connection, and so she thought the best of him. She wondered if Rikard Josef was an introvert, if he had inherited that from her, if that was why he never got in touch. But it was finally December! She could expect a Christmas card from him any time now. With his new address. She fantasised about a Christmas card from Johannesburg with a picture of the hotel on front, maybe a swimming pool in the foreground and lots of lush plants around the entrance. Only once had the card not come until after Christmas, but instead of being upset about it being late, she was over the moon because the card had been particularly nice that year. An angel with glittering wings.

  She had not been sitting at the till long when the first customer came through the door. It was the Agent in the dark suit. Today he really was in a rush. He looked neither left nor right and hurried down the aisles with a big shopping trolley, pushing it in front of him, in his good shoes. He had obviously planned his visit as there was no hesitation, no hanging around. He picked up washing powder and a sack of sand in quick succession. Ragna imagined that the sand was for his old mother, who he looked after. No one clears the snow for me, she thought, I just have to make sure I keep upright. She felt so tired and heavy. She was aching everywhere and her eyes were dry. Her mouth was dry as well, and the skin on her cheeks and hands. When she had a moment, she got herself a glass of water and drank from it whenever she could, otherwise she would not be able to say anything in the few situations where she needed to. It was the tablets that gave her a dry mouth. One of the side effects. More customers came in, December was always busy. They bought little Santa Clauses and angels and lights, and all the other Christmassy things. The Agent was out of sight for quite a while. In the brief moments when no one was standing in front of her waiting to pay, her mind wandered, but it met resistance. It was like walking down a long corridor and constantly being stopped by closed doors, then having to find another way round, with more closed doors. She barely saw the others all day, and when she did, she only saw their backs as they filled the shelves as fast as they could, pricing and stacking. Gunnhild had this suffering expression on her face, which she always got in the run-up to Christmas, when they were all busy, underpaid and tired. And still at the bottom of the social ladder without even the right to strike. Her pricing machine fired like a machine gun.

  The Agent came into view again. His dark suit made him stand out among all the down jackets. He stopped by the stand of Casio watches, which was only a few metres from the till. He turned it round slowly, studied the watches one by one. The whole time, goods were passing her on the conveyor belt. The customers were all a bit fuzzy today because she was so tired, but the Agent held her attention. He stood trying on the watches without realising he was being studied. She could see that his trolley was full, and he only had practical things. No angels or Santa Claus, not even candles. Perhaps he did not celebrate Christmas, not everyone did.
Suddenly, Gunnhild was in front of her with a cup of coffee.

  ‘Just want water,’ Ragna whispered.

  Gunnhild gave her a stern look.

  ‘You look tired,’ she said. ‘You need something to perk you up. I’ll get Audun to buy you a bottle of mineral water, as the tap water here is horrible. In the meantime, drink some coffee.’

  She disappeared again, and Ragna saw that the Agent had made his choice. He walked towards the till with the watch in his hand, pushing the full trolley in front of him, and got in the queue. He stared at the Casio watch, admiring its impressive range of functions. The face was big and full of various displays, and the strap was smart. When it was his turn to put his purchases on the conveyor belt, he held on to the watch, and only when she had scanned everything else, did he hold it out for her to take. He had very dark eyes, she noticed, and they were deep-set. There was a twinkle in the darkness, a reflection of the shop lights. Ragna bent down and took a white box with a lid from the shelf below the till. The box was lined with blue velvet and contained a small Casio brochure. She put the watch in the box, closed the lid and scanned it. He paid by card and she gave him the receipt.

  ‘The guarantee,’ she whispered, and pointed to the receipt. ‘Don’t throw it away.’

  He looked up in surprise, had not understood her. Automatically leaned in towards her, as there was so much background noise in the shop.

  ‘The guarantee,’ she repeated. ‘One year.’ She pointed at the receipt that he had in his hand, and then at the white box that slowly slid towards the end of the counter. When she had made sure that he finally understood, she looked away. She could not bear his astonishment, wonder and curiosity, she had seen it all before, for years. She clammed up. She glanced quickly at all that he had bought and pulled out three big bags, and he moved down to make room for the next person in the queue.

  Then he was gone. The doors slid shut and she forgot him. She listened to ‘White Christmas’ and ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ as they droned out of the loudspeakers. A short while later, one of the customers – an older man – discovered the white Casio box that had been left behind at the end of the counter. The Agent had packed his things in a hurry, and had missed it. Ragna opened the box and stared at the watch he had chosen and paid for. Perhaps he had not noticed yet, he had other things he needed to do, and was carrying three bags. Only when he got home and emptied all the bags would he notice that the watch was missing. And panic for a moment. But then he would realise it was still in the Europris shop and they would of course have put it to one side. Ragna put the box down on the shelf below the till and told the others about it. She described the Agent in detail, it was easy.

  ‘Suit? Surely he doesn’t wear that all the time?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ragna said. ‘He really does. He’s been here before, and he’ll come back again, in a black suit. Believe me. I told him to keep the receipt.’

  For the rest of her shift, she sat there, looking out for him. Her eyes were constantly drawn to the entrance, which opened and closed all the time. But he did not come back. She was afraid that he had not understood his oversight, that he had looked in the car, if he had come in a car. Or that he had phoned the bus company, if he had taken the bus. But if he needed a watch, he would come back again for a new one. Only Europris sold them that cheap. Before walking to the bus after her shift, she checked to make sure that the watch was still lying on the shelf.

  No threatening letters in the mailbox. No card from Rikard Josef. Still dark in Irfan’s shop. The mean, succinct sign was still there on the door. But the Christmas card would come. It was advent, and no doubt busy in the hotel, she would give him time. She could just imagine him hurrying along carpeted corridors in expensive black shoes, dealing with the constant questions from the guests and staff. She took the paper and carried on up to the house. Then it struck her. She had not walked forty-eight steps as she usually did, but had done it in thirty something.

  She looked around, bewildered, and stared down at her feet to see if they looked different. How was it possible? She looked back at the mailbox, which seemed to be closer than usual. She saw her tracks in the snow, a narrow trampled path. The problem, her uncertainty, could of course be resolved. She could go back down to the road and count again. But she dismissed the idea. I’ve just taken slightly bigger steps than normal, she thought, because I’m tired. How silly! Resolute, she turned and went inside, and banged the door shut. Thirty-something steps, well, well. Tomorrow it might be fifty-something, and so what? She was tired and could not walk any other way, sometimes she was slow, other times fast, and that affected her stride. Again, she cursed Irfan Baris. She often could not face going to the supermarket in town after work, so she had to use what there was in the fridge. She found some out-of-date eggs, but eggs lasted for months. She whipped them up and poured them into the frying pan, added some bits of hard cheese, salt and pepper. She had the omelette with a piece of bread and an espresso, to keep her awake. She must not fall asleep in the chair, the nights were bad enough already.

  There was no one by the lamp post staring up at the house. As there was nothing interesting on television, she read the newspaper, but only the headlines. She sat in the armchair staring at the dark windows, trying to order the day’s events, thoughts, conversations and observations. To see if she had missed any signs. The Agent stepped into the spotlight, he had to be important in some way or other. He must have discovered by now that the Casio watch was missing. He was annoyed. He had gone through the day in his head, had looked in all his pockets and the car. He had planned the following day so he could pop in to the shop and ask if they still had it. And she would give him a friendly smile and hand him the white box from the shelf below the till, and make him happy. It would be a perfect moment. And she did not have many of them.

  Then she fell asleep in the chair, despite her efforts to stay awake, with her chin on her chest and her pale, freckled hands on the armrests, still wearing her green overall. A lonely, conscientious soul with hopelessly dry, undernourished hair. Not even a sparrow would live in such a terrible nest, she often thought, whenever she caught sight of herself in a mirror. And time slipped by, and no one woke her. No one rang on the bell or knocked on the door, as she no longer had a doorbell, only a terrifying Rottweiler, ready to attack.

  When she woke up, her mouth was dry, and she was so angry she could have wept. She discovered it was late in the evening, about the time she normally went to bed. She was stiff after spending a couple of hours in a crooked, uncomfortable position on the chair, and her neck ached. She turned on more lights, struggled to clear her head and looked to see if there was anything worth watching on the television. She was hungry again. She went into the bathroom and started to run a bath. The water gushed out of the taps. She got undressed. Got it into her head that she had forgotten to lock the front door, that anyone could walk straight in, open the bathroom door and find her here, naked, and utterly devoid of beauty. She shrugged and was blasé again – of course she had locked the door. The small movement, turning the key to the right every time she crossed the threshold, was automatic. She filled the bath nearly to the brim, and sank into the hot water, letting her hands float up. They were small, like those of a child. It was a very quiet night on Kirkelina. All she could hear was a drip from the tap. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. It was as if she was weightless. If only she had been a fish or a sea anemone, or a jellyfish with long tentacles, how delightful life would have been. She floated around with the fish for a long time. But then suddenly came to when something broke the silence.

  She heard several hard blows echo through the house, as though someone was trying to get in. She flailed around in the slippery tub, managed to sit up, but then slid down again. As she panicked she swallowed the soapy water and it went down the wrong way, and she remembered that she had put two handfuls of bath salts in when she was running the water, and that American teenagers had been using it for years to get high
, and now it would enter her blood system and go to her head, and terrible things would happen. She would lose her grip on reality and maybe hallucinate; she might even start to gnaw at her own flesh, she had heard stories about that. She held on to the edge of the bath and listened. She heard knocking and hammering somewhere in the house, at a door, not a window. Someone was using a lot of force, a person with a special strength. This was no knuckle rapping on the window. She had lived in the house all her life, and she had never heard anything like it, not even on those rare occasions when her father was well and decided to sort things out. To hang up pictures, do some repairs, move the furniture, as instructed by her mother. The warm bathwater was now on its way down to her bronchial tubes and left a disgusting taste in her mouth. She wanted to cough it up, but it was too far down. She heard the knocking again, with the same force. She stared at the bathroom door, petrified – she had not turned the key, had never done that, not even when she was a pregnant teenager. Her mother and father had never invaded private moments, like when she sat on the edge of the bath, naked, with her growing belly. She coughed violently and spat the vile taste out of her mouth, sitting bent forward in the warm water like an old man about to die.

  There was more knocking, but it was less intense this time. When it finally stopped, she gave herself a stern talking-to, with the voice of reason. The person knocking on the door was presumably some sort of salesperson who had tried without success to ring the doorbell. It might be the fishmonger, who came by every fourth week and parked his white van outside. Maybe he had come to sell her some Greenland prawns, or halibut or cod or fishcakes. But they always came in such big bags, and she lived on her own. She had once tried to explain to the fishmonger that she did not have a freezer, just a small icebox at the top of the fridge, with enough room for a loaf of bread. And she would never be able to eat five kilos of prawns, even if she took a year, but it would be nice if he could do what van Gogh once did when he needed money for absinthe. He had painted some tempting pink prawns and had a potential buyer who desperately wanted the delightful crustaceans, but he was not rich and could not pay. So van Gogh said he could sell him half the picture, and he cut two of the prawns out of the canvas with a sharp knife; he got his coins and absinthe, and the buyer got as many prawns as he could afford. Might that be a solution? But the fishmonger had never heard of van Gogh’s prawns, and he was not willing to open a packet and sell her half a kilo. But he had given her a smile before he had returned crestfallen to his van and driven on to Olaf’s house.