She handed him a tissue.
«Tell me what else you remember from back then. You went to Oslo and...»
«Like I said, I was with some guys. They’re probably the ones I have to thank that I’m alive today. And that I got a taste for the bottle.»
He laughed, but the laughter did not last long.
«I remember looking in the newspapers at the train station to see if there was a search out for me. There never was. And it never said anything about whether he was dead. I thought maybe that he had been trapped under the ice and they wouldn’t find him until spring.»
«How long were you in Oslo? Where did you live?»
«Sometimes at a shelter, sometimes I slept in an entryway, a few times I went to the Salvation Army, got a cot and a little soup.»
«Didn’t anyone react to the fact that you were so young?»
«That I don’t know, but I always said I was eighteen. I went home after a few weeks. Mother absolutely refused to talk, and when I asked whether the school or anyone else had wondered what had become of me and my father, she answered with a shrug. You have to understand, policewoman, my mother was not all there. Everyone knew it. No one cared. Not about any of us.»
«My name is Bitte,» said Bitte. «You can call me that.»
«Okay, Policewoman Bitte.»
Agnar suddenly collapsed. Bitte wondered for a moment whether he had gotten sick or felt nauseated. She leaned forward across the table and touched him.
«Agnar?»
He stood up suddenly, turning his back to her.
«No,» Agnar said so loudly that she jumped. «I’m just messing with you.» He turned around abruptly. The little sneer was back. Bitte was worried, but forced herself to stay seated.
«What do you mean?» she asked. «Please sit down again.»
He obeyed, and Bitte breathed easier. Heiki is sitting out there in the other room following along, she thought. He’ll intervene if anything happens. If he hasn’t gone to get coffee or to the restroom.
Agnar sat quietly, but his gaze had recovered that unpleasant intensity again. His eyes were ice green and stared shamelessly at her.
«I’ve told that story so many times that I damn well believe it myself,» said Agnar. «But it’s not true. I’ll tell you what really happened.»
77
So, it has a name, Verner Jacobsen thought. Dyspnea. The nurse said that it felt like being suffocated. He sat down on the chair that the nurse had placed by his mother’s bed. His mother was lying propped up with eyes closed, supported with pillows and with a slight bend in her knees under the blanket. The nurse had closed the door so quietly that he didn’t register that she was gone until he turned around and discovered that the room was empty.
So, it’s called dyspnea, he thought while he considered whether he should take his mother’s pale hand, resting on top of the sheet. A memory popped up. He was ten, maybe twelve years old, and suddenly he became aware that he was breathing. But breathing was difficult, it was stuck inside him. He remembered the fear that he would forget to let it out again. Not strange that I got scared, he thought. That was probably why he always had an aversion to meditation. There was something strained about it. As if there was a strap around his chest. What if he forgot to breathe out? It was a long time since he had been aware of his own breathing, but after Victor died, the heavy pressure in his chest reappeared.
His mother suddenly opened her eyes. She looked at him without recognition. Verner took her hand. It was cold. She stared anxiously at him and moved her lips as if she was trying to say something, but no sound came out.
«It’s me, Mom,» he whispered. «Don’t be scared.»
The nurse had explained that patients often experience anxiety, and the doctor had given his mother a sedative. There could be a number of reasons for the breathing difficulty, he was told, but he didn’t have the energy to ask further. He sat there and stroked his mother’s hair.
«I want to go home,» his mother whispered.
«You are home,» said Verner.
«But Mama is sitting up, waiting. I have to catch the bus.»
«You’ll catch the bus,» Verner said while he continued to pat her on the head as if she was a small child. He heard how she was struggling to breathe. It’s strange how you always long for home, he thought. Home to mother. Regardless of what your childhood was like. Suddenly he felt a paralyzing fear of losing her.
It was inconvenient that his mother had gotten sick, but at the same time it was nice, in a way, to simply sit here by the bed, with no demands for anything other than being present. He felt a sense of calm come over him. A calm that settled down alongside the anxiety. No one can expect anything from me now, he thought and closed his eyes. It was tiring, but in some strange way the regular breathing of his mother was sleep-inducing. When he opened his eyes again, his mother was sleeping peacefully with a stripe of dried saliva on the corner of her mouth. Verner Jacobsen stood up and went to the window. It was snowing outside, a few flakes in the air, nothing dramatic.
78
At the police station, Bitte Røed was sitting with all her senses on high alert. She honestly did not know what to believe about Agnar Eriksen. She had assumed that he had told her the truth. She had been lulled into forgetting to watch for signs that he was lying. But he seemed so sincere.
«You’re taking a chance, Agnar,» she said sharply. «I said that you mustn’t lie.»
«But I didn’t mean to lie, it’s just that I’ve rehearsed that particular version so long that I can’t remember what really happened.»
«Fine,» she said. «I’ll give you another chance. One.»
Agnar closed his eyes, squeezing them shut as if he was trying to force tears out. The true memories. He started talking without opening his eyes.
«Papa wasn’t trapped under the ice in the creek,» he said. «Mama didn’t find the way alone. I showed her the way. We went together to where Papa was lying.»
He swallowed. He was back where it happened now. The ravine. The abyss.
«I see him lying there. On his back. His fat stomach is sticking out, his jacket is open. And his fly, a patch of white cotton underwear is sticking out. His head is lying in the stream. Thick streams of blood have run out of his nose, across his chin, into his ear, down his neck. His hair is moving in the water as it trickles past below him. Mama doesn’t say anything. She is breathing through her mouth. I see steam pumping out of her. We stand there and look at the snow, which has turned red around his face, we see the white, hard crystals in the ice where the blood has run past without leaving visible traces, they glisten in the thin rays of light. I remember thinking that it was beautiful. Isn’t that strange?»
He looked up. Bitte nodded slightly. Then she shook her head.
«I could have stood there a long time, listening to the sound of the creek. But then it’s as if my mother wakes up. She orders me to take hold of one arm while she grasps the other one herself. Even if my dad was a little guy, he was damned heavy when he was dead. We struggled, but Mama was strong as hell and I was damned scared, so gradually we got his torso up on a sled. We dragged him up that whole long hill, through the woods, with his legs dragging behind. I can still see it—the parallel tracks of his boots in the snow. It was a wonder of God that no one saw us. But sometimes you get lucky.»
Bitte was starting to feel ill, but met his gaze. It’s the gaze of a brutal killer, she thought. Even so, she wasn’t scared. Agnar was a person, a perverse person, destroyed by drug and alcohol abuse, destroyed by his father’s sins and his mother’s misguided care. Don’t judge. Just listen. Don’t feel.
«At home, we got him inside the door,» Agnar continued. «We left Papa lying on the kitchen floor for hours while we thought about what we should do. I said I could go to the police and turn myself in. I was so young, they would surely be lenient, and I thought I could tell them what my old man had done to me. But I think maybe that was what Mama feared most. That it would come out. That she
let it happen.»
Agnar slowly shook his head. Maybe that was the greatest betrayal, Bitte thought, that his mother was ashamed of it. That she’d known it and didn’t want to know about it.
«That was when Mama told me to leave. I refused. She had to push me. ’Go to hell,’ she said, getting her purse, counting out a bundle of 10-kroner bills. As if she wanted to buy herself free. That was when I went to Finn’s, and I wasn’t lying about what I told you I did in Oslo.»
«What happened to your father’s body?»
Agnar shook his head and shrugged.
«Damned if I know. Maybe she fed him to the dog?»
He laughed. It was a low-pitched laugh and stopped almost before it started.
«In the cellar in your childhood home we found a freezer,» Bitte Røed said, starting to page back and forth in the papers she had in front of her.
«We’ve investigated the contents, and two packages were found marked «soup bones,» she said, studying Agnar’s reaction.
He did not look surprised.
«You can bet your ass those are the last remnants of my dad,» Agnar said, without seeming either shocked or sorry. «Mama never wanted to say what happened to him. She just said that he was taken care of. I didn’t care, I actually hoped she’d given him to the dogs, and maybe she did. We had two mongrels at that time, hungry and strong, but good with kids.»
Bitte Røed shook her head and felt herself shudder.
«Free dog food for a long time and no trace of the old man. She always said that the padlock she put on the freezer was in case of burglars. At least they wouldn’t get to steal her moose steaks. She was starting to get confused in her old age. She probably forgot what the packages originally were.»
«How many times did you visit your mother after you left home that time?»
«You can count them on one hand. When I stopped by on Wednesday, it had been almost seven years since the last time. Right before I was arrested for, well, I’m sure you’ve checked this out, that I was sent away because I beat up my mother.»
«Of course I know about your previous convictions,» Bitte Røed said. «It doesn’t make your case any better. You are aware that we’ll have to continue to hold you on remand?»
«Yes,» said Agnar.
«When did you leave the house?»
«The next morning. I just remember the dog, Lilly, was whimpering. I felt like a snot-nosed kid again. Always did when I was at home. I went into the kitchen and found her. Then I set the fire with the lighter I had in my pocket, thought that no matter what had happened, I would come out of it very badly. It would be much harder to dig the truth out of a pile of ashes, am I right?»
Bitte nodded.
«So, I left, down the road, over on the hard-packed path through the woods. I wondered for a moment if I should head to Oslo again, just like back then. But then I caught sight of a car inside the carwash at Statoil. I was desperate to get away.»
«You did what?» Bitte Røed exclaimed, and her whole face broke into a big smile.
«Well, listen, you don’t need to sit there and sneer. I stole the damned car. I didn’t mean to disturb anyone, that was never the idea. No one saw me then, either. Luck again,» he said flatly.
Bitte Røed looked at the clock. It was past dinnertime. Her stomach was growling audibly. Agnar was never seen, she thought, and ended the interview with a mournful insight that what Agnar perceived as luck was actually quite tragic. Someone ought to have seen him. And someone surely did, she thought. Someone always sees children who suffer, but very few do anything.
79
Verner Jacobsen parked, but remained in the car watching the snowflakes that were visible in the headlights. They whirled around and seemed completely disorganized. Like me, Verner thought, turning off the ignition. He felt whirled into a chaos, surrounded by illness and death in all directions. Sons. Daughters. And mothers. Before he left the nursing home, a nurse told him that dyspnea is a common problem with advanced lung cancer. Since this was not the case with his mother, the cause could be something as simple as a foreign body in the air passages, or in the worst case, heart problems. He put two fingers on his neck and felt his own heart stubbornly beat on. Death is in the body all the time, he thought. It lies in wait in your genes, and can tie a knot around an artery at any time, or creep unnoticed up the spine, sneak into your head, smooth out the contents so that the brain was longer curled up and was now unable to do its job.
A knock on the side window made him jump. Ingrid’s face was suddenly there, right by the window.
«Are you frozen?»
Ingrid opened the car door and a cloud of snow whirled in. How long had he been sitting here? He didn’t know, but it must have been a while, since Ingrid came out to check.
«They’ve caught the car thief, they just said that on the news.»
She reached her hand out to him as if he was a little child who must be helped out of the seat belt and car seat.
«Is that why you’re late? Is that why you’re sitting here?»
Verner Jacobsen shook his head, took her hand, and let himself be led out of the car and into the house. The heat enveloped him, and Lorca came running and jumped up. The dog reached just to his knees.
«Don’t you want to know who stole the car with Victor?» Ingrid asked when she had helped him take his jacket off, but answered before he had time to respond. «It was that Eriksen, the son in the house that burned. They just said that on the TV2 news.»
Verner Jacobsen smiled weakly and thought that Bitte Røed had done a good job.
«Nice,» he said, walking into the living room and sinking down onto the couch.
«Do you know what happiness is, Ingrid?» Verner asked, as an old story he had once heard suddenly showed up in his thoughts.
Ingrid shrugged, but stood there in front of him with a worried expression.
«Father dies... Son dies... Grandson dies...»
«Now I think that Detective Inspector Verner Jacobsen should go to bed,» said Ingrid. «And maybe seriously consider taking bereavement leave.» She sat down beside him and put her hand on his arm. «What in the world does that have to do with happiness?»
Verner Jacobsen took her hand, but answered without turning toward her.
«They died in that order.»
Ingrid leaned her head against his back while she stroked it, up and down. They sat like that for a long time in silence.
«You’ve just lost your son,» said Ingrid. «You have permission to give yourself time to grieve.»
«I’ve just been with my mother,» he said.
«Has something happened?»
«She’s sick.»
Verner felt something inside him tear and he decided to call in sick tomorrow. He hoped for the first time in his career that the investigation would go into a quiet twenty-four hours that did not require his presence.
80
Evil diary
I see her all the time. All through the night. In my dreams nothing has happened. Everything is the way it was, but even so nothing is like before. I am caught. Imprisoned. Trapped inside the devil’s own clenched fist.
I see her all day long. She’s in all the newspapers. On TV. She has become a celebrity. Haha. So one of her dreams did come true. She fulfilled another one too, because I’m sure that she wanted me to feel terrible. And in the middle of all this... I miss her. The funeral is tomorrow. School is canceled. I might as well go. Dread sitting there so close to everyone and at the same time being alone. And maybe someone will notice that. I’ve made two new stripes on my left arm. It stings nicely. I only want to feel that pain, just that.
Friday, December 5
81
The church was high up on the slope. The parking lot was already full, and a few people were getting out of their cars along the road up past the parish hall. Marte walked alone on the ice-covered path between the graves. At the top, by the chapel, she saw that a big mound of earth had been shoveled up. She shivered. Her thi
n ankle boots were ice-cold. Ahead of and behind her, some of her classmates were walking in groups, tightly entwined with their arms laced. Linnea was only twenty meters ahead. She turned around. Their eyes were about to meet, but then shifted to the side. Marte stuck her hands in her pockets, fixing her gaze on her feet, which in some mysterious way were moving her forward.
The organ music met her in the vestibule. All the pews were taken. She stood there in the aisle on the red carpet and felt people crowding around her. She was pushed forward. It felt like being at a concert. Standing in the middle of the arena, part of a pulsating mass, and at the same time completely alone. She fixed her eyes on the altarpiece. Jesus was standing with his feet in a pool of water while John the Baptist poured water from a clamshell. Jesus looked really sad, standing there with his head bowed and arms crossed over his chest, not so strange, half-naked as he was, with only a red sheet wrapped around his waist. The low-pitched whispering around her became a continuous murmur that was like the sea. Summer vacation. A cold day on the beach with wind that made goose bumps under thin summer dresses. She did not see Idunn’s parents, but assumed they were sitting in the front. She felt relieved not having to see them and squeezed into a pew to keep from being jostled further ahead.
Then suddenly he was there. Right behind her. She didn’t need to turn around to know it. He was standing so close behind her that it was hard to breathe. Fredrik. She turned around quickly, met his gaze. The fragile membrane between them quivered. The organ music grew louder and was followed by a deep male voice that sang a familiar song by Bjørn Eidsvåg. She knew that it would be impossible to listen to the words without crying.
I see you’re feeling bad.
She concentrated on sensing what it was like to have Fredrik so close, felt how the heat from his body passed right through her clothes and made her spine turn to jelly. I’m a piece of shit, she thought. Standing here, enjoying it. At a funeral, even.
I see you’re giving up.
The Girl With No Heart Page 24