‘Piss off,’ I riposte, coughing.
‘The same to you.’ Gunnar Ore drags a chair across to the side of the bed I am facing. ‘So, how’s the boy doing?’ he asks, leaning in towards me.
‘As you see.’ I pull back the bedclothes and show him the compress and electrodes on my chest. ‘Never been better. To cap it all, I’ve been summoned to a job interview for a thrilling opportunity as a temporary customer-service adviser in the telecoms industry. Rumour has it that they also engage people in permanent posts, if you just roll up your sleeves and work like a slave.’
Gunnar Ore shakes his head. ‘You’re bloody unbelievable,’ he says. ‘Who would have known you had it in you, eh? I always thought you were the sort who couldn’t stand red tape and liked to talk people to death.’ He shakes his head again. ‘What a world.’ He jumps up again and drags the chair back to where it had been. ‘Well, my friend, I just popped in one last time before I head off to the next military camp. You know there are people waiting to talk to you, don’t you?’
I nod.
‘I just want to say that I’ve cleared the way a bit for you down there at Police Headquarters. I’ve spoken to Sverdrup and the boy from Kripos, and told them some things about who you are, or rather, who you once were, so that they’re sure to treat you the way you deserve, now that the hullabaloo is on its way.’
‘Thanks.’
‘No, no, no. It doesn’t change anything. But nobody else is going to say that you did any good while you were up here, nobody, and if your name crops up in the newspapers beside mine, well, you know yourself what you can expect.’ He puts his coffee cup down on the bedside table, and raps his knuckles on the metal rail that runs along the side of the bed. ‘Get well, go away and stay away. OK?’
‘We’ll talk later, Gunnar.’
‘No,’ Gunnar Ore says once again. ‘No, Thorkild. Let me repeat what I just said for the benefit of the guys in the back row.’ He leans all the way into my face and hisses through his teeth: ‘Get well, go away and stay away. OK? You’re no longer a police officer.’ He pulls back again and, standing in front of the bed, spreads out his arms. ‘You’re a … a bloody pensioner.’
‘Potential customer service adviser with prospects for permanent employment,’ I shout after him.
‘Oh, go to hell.’ Gunnar Ore disappears out through the door and marches along the corridor to the lifts, whistling all the way.
‘You too,’ I mutter under my breath, grabbing the paper cup of piping hot coffee. ‘You too …’
CHAPTER 68
Anniken Moritzen sounds on edge when she picks up the phone. Glasses and cutlery clink in the background, and I can hear Swedish folk music playing.
‘I’ve been trying to call you all day. I’m leaving soon and—’
‘I’m sorry. I’ve been … busy.’
‘Are you still up there?’
‘Anniken, I know what happened to Rasmus,’ I tell her.
‘What?’ A door slams at the other end, and the music is turned down. ‘What did you say?’
‘You were right, of course,’ I continue. ‘Rasmus was not involved in any mischief. He went out diving, as you said, and found something he wasn’t meant to find. It cost him his life.’
‘Who did it?’
‘That doesn’t matter. He’s dead.’
Another pause ensues – it is almost as if I can hear the Stavanger rain through the handset. ‘Why?’ Anniken finally asks. ‘Why … did he have to be murdered?’
‘We can talk about it more when you come up. I’m afraid I can’t meet you at the airport, but tomorrow—’
‘I can’t go there alone,’ she says. ‘I have to go out to the lighthouse to collect Rasmus’s belongings, and we must—’
‘Can’t Arne come with you?’
‘No, he’s in Houston and won’t be back till late tomorrow evening.’
‘Phone Ulf. No matter what, he’ll jump on the first plane and come up here the minute he finds out I’m in hospital. Again. I’ll meet you both tomorrow, or as soon as I can get out of here.’
I don’t want to tell her anything more over the phone. I just want her to know that all the rest of it is over, that I have sorted things out for her so that she can begin to mourn. That she no longer needs to lie awake wishing and hoping for something that is in the past, but she should take time to come to terms with her loss. It is important not to fear that sense of loss, but instead to let it in. Let yourself approach it, rather than run away from it. I could have told her that, said that I know how it feels, but that would not have helped. You have to find it out for yourself. When you’re ready.
I am a long way off, inside a dream, in Harvey’s company again at the bottom of the sea, when the phone rings.
I rub my eyes in an attempt to erase the fear in Harvey’s eyes as he turns towards Elena’s corpse and it rises through the water behind him. His desperate screams still echo in my ears when I pick up the phone.
‘Hello, Aske here,’ I answer.
‘You found him,’ Arne Villmyr says.
‘One more grave.’ I sit up in the bed. ‘Just as you requested.’
‘What I requested,’ Arne Villmyr chuckles to himself. ‘As if anyone would wish for such a thing?’
‘I’m sorry, Arne. I wish—’
‘There’s nothing to apologise for. You did what I wanted you to do. Don’t think I’m reproaching you, not even for what happened to Frei. You were merely the element that came in and changed our lives at that point. The same element that has now given us Rasmus back. The one does not make up for the other, but I’m grateful that he’ll soon be coming home again. And that Anniken and I have somewhere to go to. That’s all; it’s nothing. That’s just the way things are now.’
‘Do you think she …’ I begin to say, but break off mid-sentence.
‘What?’ Arne asks. ‘Loved you?’
‘Yes.’
Arne Villmyr gives a brief burst of joyless laughter. ‘Frei found it easy to fall in love. Too easy,’ he adds. ‘But I think you know the answer to that better than the rest of us, don’t you? Only the two of you know what took place on that car journey, and where you were going. I wish I could say something more, but I can’t. It’s over now. Farewell, Aske.’
CHAPTER 69
The room is in darkness, the only illumination a small light above the sink behind me. I can hear the door of my room creak open before it slides shut again with a quiet click. Immediately afterwards, a stooped figure glides in.
Rolling soundlessly all the way across to the bedside table, she reaches out and takes my hand, drawing it out from beneath the quilt to put it between her two hands and squeeze mine. As soon as I look into her eyes, I relax. I know that gaze all too well: the same expression greets me in the mirror every morning.
Merethe looks at me for a while before picking up her writing pad and pen.
How can anyone live a whole different life parallel to the one shared with someone? is what is written on the pad she holds up to me.
I screw up my eyes, as if to wring out the last image I have of Harvey and Elena, closely intertwined at the bottom of that tank. When I open them again, I see that Merethe is writing something else. ‘Harvey thought he had to take that route,’ I tell her as she writes. ‘For you and your son, but—’
Merethe holds up the notepad again: I see him in the background whenever I close my eyes. It is as if he doesn’t dare to come forward to meet me.
‘And Frei?’ I whisper in a rasping voice. ‘Do you still see her?’
Merethe glances at me before starting to write once more.
I nod at the word on the pad and my gaze goes upwards, across Merethe’s face and on towards the curtains that are almost completely closed. I can just make out the contours of a rounded hilltop beneath rain-filled clouds scudding past in the night sky outside. For a moment I think I perceive something in the midst of those flitting clouds, a faint silvery shimmer hidden behind the chaos of grey and black, followed at
once by new clouds rolling past, superimposed on the old ones.
Soon the entire sky is black.
NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
Heine Bakkeid grew up in the rugged landscape of northern Norway. I Will Miss You Tomorrow is the first instalment in a new crime series, highly acclaimed by critics in his home country, and has earned him a reputation as a virtuoso of darkly atmospheric suspense.
NOTE ON THE TRANSLATOR
Anne Bruce graduated from Glasgow University with degrees in Norwegian and English. She lives in Scotland.
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First published in 2016 in Norway as Jeg skal savne deg i morgen by Aschehoug
First published in Great Britain 2019
Copyright © Heine Bakkeid, 2016
English translation copyright © Anne Bruce, 2019
Heine Bakkeid has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work Published by agreement with Salomonsson Agency Quote from Herbjørg Wassmo’s Hudløs himmel translated by Anne Bruce, 2019
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ISBN: HB: 978-1-5266-1077-5; TPB: 978-1-5266-1076-8; EBOOK: 978-1-5266-1075-1
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