Authors: Karin Fossum
"It'll be a while before your brother-in-law gets here. We can wake you in an hour if you want us to. But you need some food at least."
He stared at the newly made-up bed.
"You won't help your sister by wearing yourself out," she said gently. The dark-haired nurse said nothing. She opened a
window and closed the catch with a bang. Her movements were hard and determined. He considered the option of sleeping in the bed and being woken by this dark-haired witch.
"You do what you like," Ragnhild said. "But we're here to help."
"Yes," Gunder said.
They left. He looked at the food. It was whole-grain bread. He fetched the tray and balanced it on his lap. Ate quietly. The food appealed to him and it surprised him. Afterward he felt sleepy. He drank two cups of coffee at high speed and felt the liquid scald his throat. It was good coffee. The respirator was working. Marie's hands were yellowish against the white sheet. He put the tray on a table by the window. Sat on the edge of the bed for a moment. Perhaps Poona had arrived. Perhaps she was at home at Blindveien waiting for him. He remembered that the door was unlocked. To leave the house without locking the door was so unlike him. He rubbed his eyes hard. Pushed off his shoes. Turned and saw the white duvet with the sharp folds. Just a short nap, he thought. His body was stiff and aching after the long time spent in the chair. He leaned back and closed his eyes. He was asleep in seconds.
***
He awoke with a start. Karsten was standing there, watching him. Gunder leaped up from the bed so quickly that he felt dizzy and collapsed back on the bed.
"I didn't mean to alarm you." His brother-in-law looked tired. "I've been sitting here awhile. They told me everything. You must be worn out."
Gunder got up for the second time, this time gingerly.
"No. I was at home last night. But I slept in a chair. I must have dozed off," he said, taken aback.
"You've been asleep a long time." Karsten fumbled with his
hands helplessly. "You can go home now, Gunder. I'll sit here. I'll stay tonight."
They looked at each other. Karsten seemed older than usual as he sat on the chair by the bed. "I can't imagine how this is going to end," he mumbled. "What if her brain's been damaged? What's going to become of us?"
"They don't know anything about that yet," Gunder said.
"But what if she stays like this forever?" He buried his face in his hands.
"They think she'll wake up," Gunder said.
"They said so?"
"Yes."
Karsten watched his wife's brother, but he did not say anything. His suitcase and a briefcase were against a wall.
"We were out sailing," he said. "I didn't take my cell phone."
"I understand," Gunder said. "Don't give yourself a hard time." Gunder felt better because his brother-in-law had arrived and because he had had a rest. The thought of Poona also returned along with the alertness. And the dead woman at Hvitemoen.
"So you've been to India?" Karsten said. "Found yourself a wife and everything. She's here now, I suppose?" He sounded embarrassed.
"Haven't you heard the news?" Gunder said, tense.
His brother-in-law shook his head.
"There's been a murder at Hvitemoen. A foreign woman. They don't know who she is."
Karsten was bemused by Gunder's strange changing of the subject. And at that moment Gunder collapsed and buried his head in his hands.
"Karsten. There's something I have to tell you."
"Yes?" Karsten said.
Just then the door opened and the sullen, dark-haired nurse swept into the room.
"It can wait." Gunder got up abruptly and buttoned his jacket.
"Go home now and get some rest," Karsten said.
***
He pulled up outside his driveway. Sat at the wheel and stared through the window. Then, without being clear about his reasons for doing so, he drove on toward Hvitemoen. He wanted to drive slowly past, to have a look at this place everyone was talking about. He knew it well. Opposite the meadow a cart track led down to a lake. They called the lake Norevann. When he was a boy he used to go swimming there with Marie. Or rather, she had swum; he had splashed about in the shallow water. He had never learned to swim. Poona doesn't know that, he thought, feeling embarrassed all of a sudden. As he approached, he started looking left, so that he would not miss it. Coming around the bend he noticed two police cars. He stopped the car and sat there, watching them. Two policemen were at the edge of the woods. He saw red and white striped tape everywhere and was so flustered that he reversed rapidly so that the car was hidden by the trees. He did not know that the red Volvo had already been spotted. He sat very still and tried to get a sense of what he was feeling. If what had happened out on the meadow involved Poona in any way, then he would have felt it, wouldn't he? He put his hand in his inside pocket and got out the marriage certificate, which he carried close to his heart. Read the few lines and the names on the paper over and over. Miss Poona Bai, born on June 1, 1962, and Mr. Gunder Jomann, born on October 10, 1949. It was a pretty piece of paper. Champagne-colored with a border. The seal of the courthouse at the top. Actual proof. Now he didn't think anyone would believe him. He sighed deeply and crumpled a little. He was startled by a sudden loud noise and he jerked to one side. A policeman was tapping on his window. He folded the document.
"Police," the officer said.
Well, obviously, Gunder thought in a flash of irritation. The man was wearing a uniform, after all.
"Everything all right?"
Gunder gave him a mystified look. Nothing was all right. However, it occurred to him that it was no wonder he was being asked the question. His face felt grimy. His clothes were creased after the many hours spent in the bed at the hospital. He was worn out and needed a shave. He had pulled over on the roadside and was sitting there like some lost soul.
"I just needed a rest. I live close by," he said hurriedly.
"May I see your driver's license and vehicle registration documents?" the officer said.
Gunder looked at him tentatively. Why? Perhaps he thought he had been driving while intoxicated? That's probably how it appeared. He could safely breathe into the device—he had not had a drink since he was in Mumbai. He found the vehicle registration documents in the glove compartment and pulled out his wallet. The officer kept watching him. Suddenly he was interrupted by the crackling of his walkie-talkie. The officer sniffed and muttered something, which Gunder did not hear. Then he made some notes, put the walkie-talkie back on his belt, and studied Gunder's driver's license.
"Gunder Jomann, born 1949?"
"Yes," Gunder said.
"You live close by?"
"Toward the village. Less than a mile from here."
"Where are you heading?"
"I'm on my way home."
"Then you're going the wrong way," the officer said, scrutinizing him.
"I know," Gunder stuttered. "I was curious, that's all ... about what has happened."
"What do you mean?" the officer said. Gunder felt like giving up. Why was he feigning ignorance?
"The foreign woman. I heard the news."
"The area has been cordoned off," the officer told him. "So I see. I'm going home now."
He got his documents back and was about to drive off. The officer stuck his head inside the car as if he wanted to snoop around. Gunder froze.
"I know I look tired," he said quickly. "But the thing is that my sister's in the hospital. She's in a coma. I've been watching over her. It was a car accident."
"I see," the policeman said. "You'd better get home and have a rest."
Gunder stayed for a while until the man had disappeared. Then he drove another ten yards, turned the Volvo on the dirt track, and headed home. The officer was watching him the whole time. Speaking into his walkie-talkie.
Behaved rather strangely. Seemed as if he was scared of something. I wrote down his details just in case.
***
No suitcase in the hall, no Poona in the living room. The house was empty. The rooms were dark. It had been daylight when he left and he had not left any lights on. He sat in his armchair for a long time, staring stiffly into space. The incident at Hvitemoen disturbed him. He had a feeling of having done something stupid. The policeman had behaved strangely. Surely it was no one's business if he went driving and no one's business where he stopped. Gunder felt dizzy. This business with Poona, everything that had happened in India, perhaps it was all a dream. Something he had made up sitting in Tandel's Tandoori. Who goes abroad and picks a wife, like others pick fruit at harvest time? It must be this book,
People of All Nations,
that had put ideas into my head. He could see the red spine on the shelf. Forced himself to switch on the light. Turn on the TV. There would be news in half an hour. At the same time he was petrified. He didn't want to know any more. But he had to know! They might come out with something that absolutely eliminated Poona. The victim might turn out to be from China. Or from North Africa. The victim, who is in her early twenties, the victim, who has yet to be identified, has a very unusual tattoo that covers her back. His imagination ran riot. Outside, all was quiet.
As always, Konrad Sejer's lined face displayed the appropriate formal expression. Not many people had ever heard him laugh out loud. Even fewer had seen him angry. But his expression betrayed tension; there was an alertness in the gray eyes that bore witness to solemnity, curiosity, and passion. He kept his colleagues at a distance. Jacob Skarre was the exception. Sejer was twenty years his senior; nevertheless, the pair was often spotted deep in conversation. Skarre was munching yet another jelly baby. Sejer was sucking a Fisherman's Friend. In addition Skarre was the only one in the department who had achieved the feat of persuading the inspector to go out for a beer after work. And on a weekday, too. Some people thought Sejer was weird and arrogant. Skarre knew that he was shy. Sejer addressed him as Skarre when they were in company. He only ever called him Jacob when they were alone.
Sejer had paused at one of the drinking fountains. He bent down over the jet and slurped up the cool water. He felt a certain dread. The man he was looking for might be a pleasant man. With the same hopes and dreams in life as he himself had had. He had been a child once; someone had loved him very much. He had ties, obligations and responsibilities, and a place in society he was about to lose. Sejer walked on. He never wasted much time thinking about his own affairs. However,
deep inside this formal character was a huge appetite for people. Who they were, why they behaved as they did. Whenever he caught a guilty person and obtained a genuine confession, he could close the case and file it. This time he was not so sure. Not only had the woman been killed, she had been beaten to a pulp. To kill was in itself extreme. To destroy a body afterward was bestial. He held many and frequently contradicting views about the concept of crime; primarily he was concerned with all the things they had yet to discover.
There was a woman in his life. Sara Struel, a psychiatrist. She had her own key to his house and came and went as she pleased. There was always a slight excitement in his body when he climbed the thirteen steps to his apartment and reached the top. He could see from the narrow, dark crack between the door and the doorstep whether she was there or not. He also had a dog, Kollberg. It was his one personal extravagance. Sometimes at night the heavy animal sneaked up onto his bed. Then he would pretend to be asleep and not notice. But Kollberg weighed a hundred and fifty pounds and the mattress sagged mightily when he settled at the foot of the bed.
Sejer came into the duty office and nodded briefly to Skarre and Soot, who were manning the hotline.
"Do we know who she is?"
"No."
He looked at his watch. "Who are the calls coming from?"
"Attention seekers, mostly."
"That's inevitable. Anything interesting at all?"
"Car observations. Two callers have reported seeing a red car drive toward Hvitemoen. One has seen a black taxi going at a hell of a speed toward town. There's hardly any traffic along that stretch, apart from between 4
P.M.
and 6
P.M.
Plus a number of complaints about journalists. Any other news?"
"The reports from the door-to-door interviews are being typed up now. All forensic samples have been sent off," Sejer
said. "They promised to make it top priority. We've got forty people working on this case. He won't get away."
He studied the list of incoming telephone numbers. The numbers were preceded by the same four digits, which identified the callers as mostly people from Elvestad or the vicinity. As he was standing there, the phone went again. Skarre pressed the speaker button. A voice could be heard in the room.
"Hello, I'm calling from Elvestad. My name is Kalle Moe. Is this the police?"
"It is."
"It's about the business at Hvitemoen."
"I'm listening."
"It's actually about a friend of mine. Or rather, an acquaintance. He's a really decent guy, so I'm a bit worried that I might be causing problems for him."
"But you're calling all the same. Can you help us?"
Sejer took note of the man's voice: middle-aged and very nervous.
"Perhaps. You see, it so happens that this acquaintance of mine, he lives alone and has for years. A little while back he went on holiday. To India."
The mention of India made Sejer pay attention.
"Yes?"
"And then he came back."
Skarre waited. A silence followed. Soot shook his head dismissively.
"Well, then, on the afternoon of August 20th, he called because he needed help."
"He needed help?" Skarre said to nudge the long-winded story to a useful point.
"His sister had ended up in the hospital after a car crash. Seriously injured."
Another silence. Skarre rolled his eyes. Sejer put a finger to his mouth.
"He had to go to the hospital immediately, of course, to be with her. It's a terrible business. But he called me because he was in fact supposed to have been at Gardermoen."