Inborn

by Thomas Enger

  ‘You could have fallen,’ she said when he was finished. ‘You could have hurt yourself badly.’

  ‘I could have, yes,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t.’

  ‘Yngve…’ She shook her head.

  Hanstveit was the first person Yngve had told about Åse’s illness. Not just because they had worked together for so long, but also because she was a breast cancer survivor. Every week, and after every test Åse underwent, Yngve had asked Hanstveit for her opinion, how she had felt at the same stages of her treatment. She always gave him an honest assessment. And, once she knew that all hope was gone, she was still honest with him. Honest but gentle. Hanstveit was probably the only person who had seen him at rock bottom, who – every day since he’d come back to work – had watched for signs of how he was coping, whether he was doing better or worse.

  ‘We’re getting help from four precincts,’ she said now. ‘Jessheim, Årnes, Eidsvoll and Lillestrøm are sending us a few detectives each.’

  ‘Good,’ Yngve said, trying to sound positive. ‘When they get here, I want to set up somewhere they can interview as many people as possible … and as quickly as possible. The handball court might be the best place.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  ‘We need to get Principal Brakstad to alert the parents,’ Yngve continued. ‘I’m sure he has a procedure for that. And we should have him tell the kids who were here last night to come to the handball court as soon as possible. We have to get a preliminary sense of who left when, who they were with, and what kind of relationship they had with the victims. More importantly, we need to find out if anyone saw anything.’

  ‘We also have to make sure they have the opportunity to bring an adult along – parent, teacher, priest, whatever,’ Hanstveit said. ‘T he last thing we need right now is someone screaming about their rights not being observed.’

  ‘Of course,’ Yngve said. ‘We also need to start exploring the victims’ friends and social networks.’

  ‘I talked to Weedon about that,’ Hanstveit said. ‘I knew you’d need it. He’s already on the job.’

  ‘Good.’

  They were silent for a moment.

  A woman in a protective forensics outfit entered the building with a small suitcase in her hand.

  ‘Did you know that Mari Lindgren was seeing Even Tollefsen up until a few days ago?’ Hanstveit said. Yngve looked at her. ‘The football player?’

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Yngve said.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I said as well. We need to talk to him. Fast.’

  6

  Fredheim High School was about three kilometres from our home on Granholtveien. No matter the weather, I always cycled. Fredheim was small – there were only about 7,500 of us living here. But the town was growing: the sawmill on the outskirts had attracted a lot of workers over the years, and we were only something like half an hour’s drive away from Oslo Gardermoen Airport.

  I’d always liked it here. It was where I was born and lived for the first seven years of my life. Then Dad had died, and Mum didn’t want to hang around – seeing things that reminded her of him and everybody feeling sorry for her – so we moved to Solstad, another small town about thirty kilometres away. Imo, my uncle, stayed where he was because of his pig farm, but he still came to see us almost every day in his old, green Mercedes.

  I liked it at Solstad, too, but Tobias got into some trouble at his school, so last year Mum decided it was time to move back. I don’t know if she had finally come to terms with what happened to Dad, or whether it was because she’d inherited my grandmother’s big house. Maybe it was because part of Mum had never really left Fredheim.

  At first I really didn’t like being back. I missed my friends. And it was so much easier to get to football training from Solstad. But Mum was intent on making this work, and it didn’t take me long to make new friends. Now, just a little over a year later, it felt like I knew every inch of the place. Fredheim has a small-town cosiness, I supposed you’d call it. No tall buildings. Small shops in the centre. Cobblestones that make the cars drive slowly. Nice cafés that are always full in the summer. Forest surrounds the town on all sides. If you flew over it, it would look as if someone had carved a big, round circle out of the woods. And the smell: the whole town smells of sawdust, especially when the wind is coming from the east.

  I had pulled my hood so tight around my face, the sounds around me were muffled. And in the rain, I could hardly see anything; only the sharpest colours stood out. That was probably why I stopped a few hundred metres away from the school. From a distance it looked as if someone had painted the clouds above it in deep, dark blue. Beyond the trees that separated the car park from the school, lights were flashing. Behind me I heard an urgent wailing – it was coming closer and closer.

  I cycled up the hill that led to the school, but when I reached the forecourt in front of the main entrance, I had to get off my bike – the whole area was filled with people. Pupils crying, teachers with grimlooking faces. Uniformed police, ambulance men and women. The entrance itself was cordoned off with red-and-white tape. Something heavy pressed down on my chest, and I could feel the queasiness I’d felt when I first woke up return with full force. Everyone was staring at me. At least, that’s how it felt.

  Rain was pattering noisily onto my hood. I pulled it off so I could hear what people around me were saying.

  ‘…there was blood everywhere…’

  ‘…Tic-Tac called the police…’

  A police officer lifted the cordon to allow two men and a woman, all dressed from head to toe in white plastic overalls, to come inside. One of them was carrying a small black case. They looked like something from a movie.

  A voice cut through the chatter.

  ‘…they found her in the music room.’

  I looked around. People were still staring at me, I was sure of it. Then I saw Ida Hammer, Mari’s best friend, as she threw her head back and let out a wail. Everyone’s attention suddenly turned to her. She threw herself on the ground and howled, and for a moment that was all I could hear. Some of her friends stood around her, trying to stop her falling face down on the cold, wet asphalt.

  I didn’t notice when I let go of my bike. I only heard it topple to the ground.

  7

  NOW

  ‘So you knew then that Mari had been murdered?’

  Prosecutor Håkonsen looks at me like she doesn’t really believe me.

  ‘I didn’t know, but seeing Mari’s best friend cry her eyes out like that – I kind of guessed what had happened. But I didn’t want to believe it. I kept saying to myself: It’s not her. It’s not Mari. Someone else must have been murdered.’

  I sneak a look at the people in the public seats, trying to get a feel for what they think of my story. Hard to tell. Everyone is looking at me, waiting for me to continue.

  ‘Right then and there, I wanted to forgive her for breaking up with me,’ I say. ‘It wasn’t important anymore.’

  ‘You wanted to forgive her?’ Ms Håkonsen’s voice is full of disbelief. I immediately regret what I’ve just said. I don’t know what to say next. But I have to say something. I speak without thinking. ‘I’m … I’m not going to lie to you, I was very angry with Mari. I wanted to … I don’t know. Force the truth out of her or something.’

  ‘You were going to demand an explanation.’

  ‘Yes. But then, after seeing Ida, I didn’t care anymore. I just wanted Mari to still be alive.’

  I can feel a lump in my throat again. I try to swallow it away. Ms Håkonsen looks at me quizzically.

  ‘OK,’ she says. ‘What happened next?’

  ‘I threw up. Well. Almost. I leaned forwards, as if I was about to puke, but nothing happened.’

  I try to get up, so I could show the court, but there’s not enough space in the booth I’m sitting in. Ms Håkonsen gestures to me to sit down. I do as I’m told.

  ‘Then Oskar came over,’ I say.

  �
��Oskar who?’

  I think about how to answer for a few seconds. ‘Oskar is one of my best friends,’ I say. ‘Has been ever since we were little. I asked him if he knew what had happened. He said he didn’t, so I went and asked Tic-Tac.’

  ‘Tic-Tac, the janitor?’

  ‘Yes. He was sitting by the police car, smoking. He … he told me that Mari and Johannes were dead.’

  ‘How did Tic-Tac seem to you – when he told you this?’

  ‘You mean what was he like?’

  ‘That’s what I mean, yes.’

  ‘Shocked, I think, more than anything. Like he didn’t know where he was or what he was doing. I guess we were all like that. He smoked kind of nervously. Like all the time.’

  The prosecutor nods sceptically. ‘Then what did you do?’ she continues.

  ‘I went home. Well, I ran.’

  ‘You ran all the way home? In the rain?’

  ‘It’s really not that far.’

  ‘You weren’t nervous that people might think you were running away from the crime scene? Why didn’t you take your bike? You’d arrived on it, hadn’t you?’

  ‘I didn’t know what I was thinking at that moment.’

  ‘Is that something that happens to you a lot?’

  I frown. I don’t know what she means.

  ‘It sounds as if you almost blacked out…’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ I reply. ‘I don’t think I did. But I was upset. I just had to get out of there.’

  ‘To be by yourself.’

  ‘Yes … something like that.’

  ‘So you didn’t think that everybody was looking at you the way they did because they thought you might have killed Johannes and Mari?’

  ‘No. Not then.’

  ‘But you thought so later?’

  ‘Yeah, it … it sort of crept into my mind quite quickly after.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  I sigh heavily. ‘Fredheim is a small town,’ I say. ‘News travels fast.’

  8

  THEN

  When my uncle knocked on the door, I was lying on my bed, staring at the wall. I could tell it was him – he always rapped on the door three times, short pauses between each knock. The final one always harder than the first two.

  He opened the door before I’d had a chance to say ‘come in’. I just kept staring at the wall.

  ‘Hey champ,’ Imo said. Then sighed.

  I took a deep breath and released it slowly through my nose. My uncle didn’t close the door behind him. He just stood there in the middle of the room. I could feel his eyes on me.

  ‘I went down to the school as soon as I heard,’ he said. ‘But I couldn’t find you. I guessed you’d come back here.’

  I rolled over and looked at him, trying to stop myself from crying. He was wearing an open navy-blue jacket. Under the jacket, an unironed white t-shirt stretched over his stomach. He wore shorts, as usual with dark-grey woolly socks. Imo was one of those people who claimed they were never cold. As long as the temperature was above zero, my uncle always walked around in shorts.

  He sat down on the bed. Put a hand on my shoulder, gave it a gentle squeeze. A few raindrops fell from his thick, dark hair and landed on the duvet cover.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  I didn’t answer, because I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ he said. ‘A Coke, or … whatever?’

  I shook my head. Imo let go of my shoulder, stood up and went to open the window. Cool air filled the room in an instant. It made me shiver.

  ‘Where’s your brother?’ Imo asked. ‘I didn’t hear him upstairs.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  My uncle closed the window again, sat down on the armchair in the corner and picked up the guitar that was standing beside it. His thumb hit the E-string. It made a thick sound that spread around the room. Then his fingers began to dance over the strings. He didn’t even look at the frets. Even though I knew he was improvising, it sounded like a proper song.

  Imo stopped abruptly and put his hand over the strings to silence them. ‘The police want to talk to you,’ he said. ‘I spoke to Yngve Mork at the school just a few minutes ago.’

  ‘Of course they do,’ I said.

  ‘He’s on his way here, I think. He’s already called your mum. They need parental consent before they can question you. She’s just called me. Asked me to tell you what’s happening and be here when they question you. If you want me to, that is.’

  I sat up. ‘She called you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She hadn’t called me.

  ‘Everyone’s going to think that I did it,’ I said.

  ‘Why would they do that?’

  I looked at him for moment, hesitating.

  I picked up my mobile phone, which was lying on the bed. The display was full of messages I hadn’t opened yet.

  ‘Because of this,’ I said, and showed Imo the text I had sent Mari the night before:

  I’m going to find you sooner or later, Mari. And when I do, you’re going to answer my questions, whether you like it or not.

  Imo didn’t say anything.

  I couldn’t help glancing at some of the messages I had received. My stomach felt like someone was squeezing it. ‘God,’ I murmured.

  ‘What is it?’

  Notifications were pouring in. I showed Imo the phone again. ‘They all want to know if I did it. They don’t say it, but I know that’s what they’re really asking.’

  ‘Why the hell would they think that?’ Imo demanded.

  ‘They know that I was looking for Mari yesterday. At school and in Fredheim, later. I looked everywhere.’

  ‘Mari wasn’t at school during the day?’

  ‘No, she wasn’t. She was hiding from me, I think.’

  Imo seemed to think about that for a moment. ‘So what are your friends saying, exactly?’

  I scrolled through the notifications. My finger was shaking a bit.

  ‘They want to know how I am, why I ran away from school earlier and when I talked to Mari last. I bet they’re already creating groups, talking about me.’

  ‘You were here last night, though, weren’t you?’ Before I could answer, Imo added: ‘So you couldn’t have done it.’

  I sighed heavily and swung my feet onto the floor. I covered my face with my hands for a few seconds. Had the police already seen the message I sent Mari? Had they started interviewing the others yet? If they had, I must already look guilty. Everyone knew that Johannes was popular with the girls. Everyone would be saying that Mari had fallen in love with him, and that I had killed them both because I was angry and jealous.

  And then I realised: Johannes might be the reason Mari had split up with me.

  ‘Just stick to the truth,’ Imo said, ‘and everything will be fine.’

  Yeah, I said to myself. The truth. Somehow that didn’t reassure me.

  9

  NOW

  ‘So then the police came to see you?’ Prosecutor Håkonsen looks up at me. ‘Yngve Mork came to your house in Granholtveien 4?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘But you didn’t want Imo – your uncle – to be there with you?’

  ‘No, I thought I could handle it myself. Besides, I hadn’t done anything wrong.’

  I glance at the public seats again. Still no sign whether they believe me or not. Just faces looking at me hard. Ms Håkonsen nods, as though she needs a moment or two to consider what I’ve just said.

  ‘Just so we’re clear, we’re still talking about the morning of October 18th.’

  ‘Yes. Well, it wasn’t morning anymore when Yngve came around. At least, I don’t think so. That day’s all a bit of a fog.’

  ‘I’d say you’re remembering quite well, Even,’ she says with a smile. ‘According to police records the interview took place at eleven-thirty a.m.’

  I nod. Why is that important?

  ‘Did you already know Yngve Mork?’

 
‘Everybody knew Yngve. He’s lived and worked in Fredheim for years.’

  ‘Did you like him?’

  ‘Yes. Still do.’

  I search for his eyes in the room. He gives me a blank look back. My mind drifts for a moment. His wife died four or five months ago. I wonder how he’s dealing with it now. If he is dealing with it. He definitely looked a bit lost when he knocked on our door that day. Like he was still sad, but trying hard not to show it.

  ‘According to the records, Chief Inspector Mork wanted to know if anyone could confirm whether or not you were alone the night before. The night of the murders. Could you tell the court what you replied?’

  I take a quick breath in. ‘I think I said that my brother might have been home. But his bedroom is on the second floor, and mine is in the basement, so I couldn’t really tell for sure.’

  ‘Your mother wasn’t at home with you that evening?’

  ‘No, she was at her boyfriend’s. She usually was.’

  ‘So on the whole, she wasn’t there to take care of you and your brother?’

  ‘Well, depends on how you look at it,’ I say.

  ‘Right now I’m asking you.’

  I think about what to say for a second. ‘Like I said before, my uncle was the one who brought us up really, and if he wasn’t around, my brother and I knew how to take care of ourselves. Mum usually left some money on the kitchen sink for us to get groceries and stuff.’

  ‘You don’t find that strange?’

  I shake my head and say no.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We were used to it. I suppose it stopped being strange a long time ago.’

  ‘OK. We’ll come back to that later. Would you say PCI Mork treated you as a suspect during that first interview?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. He was very polite. Gave me time to think about my answers. If he already thought I was a suspect, he didn’t show it.’

  ‘He asked you about your relationship with Johannes Eklund, didn’t he?’