Certain Signs that You are Dead Page 13

  Knut Reinertsen’s face fell. A lopsided smile that came and went.

  – You have another son, he said. – How old is he?

  She looked at him. He’d been sitting there showing off all evening. But she’d promised to help Trym, had even lied that everything was arranged.

  – Twenty-five. Almost.

  Knut nodded, as though he already knew that. Jennifer glanced at Lydia, who also looked on expectantly, as if waiting to hear more. Jennifer felt a sense of relief. There were people who cared and wanted to help. Not just Zoran, but Lydia too. Even Knut Reinertsen, for all his insufferable pomposity, was leaning towards her, a friendly expression in his eyes.

  – If there’s anything you want to share with us …

  – He lives with his father. He began studying, was always good at school, but now he’s dropped out. Sits on the net all day every day, or rather all night.

  Rather than try to work out a solution for himself, Trym was the type to give up and call for help whenever the going got tough.

  – Mostly it’s gambling, she explained. – At first we thought it was the sort of thing that all people of his age do these days. But then we found out he was losing a lot of money, really quite large amounts.

  – How much?

  – Not sure. He’s had a few thousand kroner from me, and from his father. But a week ago we found out he owes a lot more. Maybe ten times more.

  – Do you think he’s addicted?

  They had been avoiding that word. Trym had repeatedly said he would get a job, pay back what he owed, give up gambling. He’d been saying it all spring, and now it emerged he’d been borrowing money from people they knew nothing about.

  – Do you think you … She looked straight at Knut. – Or do you know someone who might?

  – I’ll see what I can do. He met her gaze. – We think we know those closest to us. But the closer you get to someone, the more blind you are.

  Jennifer blinked a few times, not sure where he was going.

  – Of course I’ll help you, he added.

  13

  Darker now.

  Arash wriggled out, turned over on his side, still listening. How many hours had he been lying there? Two birds conversing, one on each side of the rushing stream. All the others fallen silent.

  It had clouded over, the tree trunks shrouded in a thick grey light. He stood up, the pain searing from his leg and down into his foot, but the one on the inside of his arm no more than a distant burning. He limped around the boulders he had been lying near, clambered up on to a little hill. It was lighter there, and he crawled on, to avoid being seen. It was a few hundred metres down to the main forest track. He didn’t take the chance of using it, kept to the trees. Couldn’t tell if he was heading towards the edge or deeper into the forest, the light moving away from him, sounds growing fainter.

  At some point in the grey night he came to the bank of a tarn. Outline of a cabin on the far side. The forest behind rising in a dense wall towards the brow of a hill, the sky above it now visible through gaps in the clouds.

  He listened out. No signs of life. Waited, listened again, limped slowly in the direction of the cabin. He walked round it twice, peered into the dark interior. Down by the water he found a stone, broke a window at the back of the cabin, the glass shattering the silence. At that moment a wind up from the water, as though warning him. He retreated into the trees, sat on his haunches and waited. Nothing. Still he waited. The grey light was turning to white by the time he risked returning to the cabin wall, put a hand through and released the window catch.

  Two rooms, one with a bunk bed, one with a sofa and three chairs. A kitchen surface in the corner. A washbasin, a mirror. A shelf with biscuits and tinned food. He found bedclothes in a cupboard in the bedroom. Pulled off a strip and wound it round his leg. The material was at once saturated with his blood. He tore off more, tied it tighter. Examined his other wounds in the mirror, avoiding looking into his own eyes. The bullet had grazed his arm, a little flap of skin dangling, just a flesh wound. A gash at the top of his forehead, deeper, but hardly bleeding. Someone had been looking out for him. The same someone who had let Marita die. Suddenly he began to shake. He crept into the lower bunk, pulled the blanket over him. Around him the whole room was shaking.

  Perhaps he was asleep. The ceiling was dotted with black patches, possibly knotholes. They were signs he would have been able to understand if only he could read the language. Someone was communicating with him through these signs. About his chances of getting away. If he could only learn how to interpret them. Can you do that, Arash?

  He drifted away again. Or it was the light that was changing, seeping in across the threshold. Sounds audible on the other side, a door being opened, steps across the floor. Someone standing there breathing, more slowly than him. He held his breath. Heard a dog sniffing right next to his ear. He mustn’t let anything out, close off his body, release neither sounds nor smells into the room. Someone coughed close by. Unless it was from the other side of the outside wall. A bird hopping around out there, a raven or a crow. He started. A chair being moved in an adjacent room. He was paralysed, couldn’t seem to open his eyes.

  Then later, everything was silent again. He was standing by the bed, it was light in the room. He was no longer bleeding from the cut in his leg, but the back of his wrist was still caked with her blood. He took a few steps towards the window. It was ajar. Deep birdsong from outside. Silence a moment, then there it was again. He tried to work out if it was warning him or luring him on.

  The ring.

  She’d taken it with her. Was that why she died?

  Marita, he mumbled. I can’t go back without the ring.

  Marita, if you’re here somewhere, talk to me.

  He opened the door into the tiny living room. The smell in there was different. Reminded him of the smell by the stream where she lay. Then he saw it. The mirror covered in spots.

  Don’t look in that direction, Arash.

  He couldn’t stop himself, held on to the bench and looked into it, unable to see his own face there. Only those red spots, thick and glistening, as though made of half-dried blood. If he looked closer, they turned into letters.

  Letters that became words as he stood there.

  He began to read them out loud, but the voice that sounded in the room was someone else’s, pronouncing the words in Farsi.

  Silence is the surest sign of your death.

  As he read, he heard children’s voices, thinner and sharper than the voice in the room. They came closer, were right outside, a darker voice there now too, and a dog howling. He opened the cabin door wide and stormed out.

  A woman stood there and stared at him, a key in her hand. Three children frozen on the ground behind her. One of them started to wail, and the dog began howling, as though to drown out the scream. He took a step towards them. The other children were crying now, and he realised how naked he was, that he was bleeding, that he held a kitchen knife in his hand. He turned and ran off in the other direction, across the lawn, into the trees.

  The surest sign. He shouted the words over and over as he ran, until they turned into a tune he could sing. He knew exactly where these words came from. And the thought of his father made him stop and press his cheek against the trunk of a pine tree. Stand there with eyes closed, listening to the racing of his own breath.

  When he came to again, he saw it in the bright sunlight. It lay coiled on a flat stone between the trees, its head rising from the centre of the coil. A black zigzag pattern running down its back. He hadn’t seen snakes since arriving in Norway, but knew that this one was poisonous. He took a few paces towards it. The snake stretched its head and showed its tongue, staring at him, its eyes two tiny coals framed by grey scales. A look that had followed him for longer than he could remember. Abruptly he was consumed with anger. As though some huge hand had ladled it down into him. He looked around, saw three stones lying on the slope, picked up the largest, carried it over to t
he rock. The snake made a deep, frothy sound, as though puffing into a moist bellows. The head was erect now, the neck a rod that moved in small, pendular circles. It continued to hiss, and the sound threw him into a frenzy. He took two running steps and hurled the stone at the snake’s head. He scored a direct hit. The head was crushed against the surface of the rock and split open with a popping sound.

  He bent over it. The body was still in motion, a spasm that passed from the squashed head and down through the abdomen. He grabbed hold of the tail, ran back towards the pine tree and whipped the snake’s body against it, over and over again.

  Not until he realised he was standing there with only sinewy shreds left in his hand was it possible for him to stop. He threw it away, fell to his knees and buried his face in the soft moss.

  How did you cope after your father died?

  I coped.

  Last time you mentioned someone your father worked for. Someone who protected you and helped you after you were left alone.

  My father didn’t work for him. He was bound to him by ties that could not be broken. That was why he did the killings. He had nothing personal against the victims.

  Can you tell me who that was? The person who protected you?

  He doesn’t have a name. Or he has a hundred names. He was my protector even though you won’t find it written down anywhere.

  He must be quite old?

  Yes.

  Where does he live?

  I don’t know.

  But you are able to get in touch with him when you need to?

  Not any more. Not now that I’ve told you all this.

  Are we talking about a physical person, someone who is of this world?

  You’re asking if I believe in God.

  Do you?

  I can believe in any god who offers protection, and who divides the world into good and bad. And I can take a step back and look at this god and smile to myself. When someone says to me that they can’t do this or that because God forbids it, I can agree with them. Or I can turn away and laugh at them.

  From the expert witness’s notes, 3 August 2014

  PART III

  15 June 2014

  14

  Sigurd Woods stood in front of a group of Newlife leaders. About fifteen of them. He knew what he needed to know about each one of them, he knew what he ought to say, how he ought to say it, had been through it so many times before it had become routine. Now he stood there and the words just wouldn’t come.

  Man died at hospital as a result of his injuries.

  It was almost twenty-four hours since he’d seen the report on VG’s net edition. Not much more than that, beyond the fact that the man had been found unconscious in a villa in Nittedal. On the local paper’s website, a picture of the house. At first he refused to believe his own eyes. And then he refused to relate to what he saw. And then he gave up, and it swept over him, forcing its way in everywhere. He could hardly stand upright, had to lie down on the floor with his eyes closed. An hour passed before he opened them again. A mere hour, of all the time that was left to him.

  He had killed a man.

  Now another twenty-two hours had passed, he thought as he stood there in front of the fifteen leaders and heard the sound of his own voice. The words were more or less the same as usual, but they sounded different, as though he were reading from a script somewhere inside himself. The downcast eyes and almost inaudible restlessness in the room confirmed that they were experiencing it the same way.

  He cut it to the minimum. Concluded with a few words about Donald Trump. The man who forges on past all obstacles. Donald Trump doesn’t play by the rules; he’s free to make his own.

  Subdued applause once he had finished.

  – Questions? he offered, hoping no one had any, because he had to get out of there. Or should he stand there and start talking about freedom? The freedom to choose whether to hand yourself in or not, a day and a half after you had beaten a man to death.

  He’d get a few years. Three. Maybe less. He’d googled verdicts in cases of assaults leading to death. Because they must surely believe him. That he’d gone to that house in Nittedal with no thought of killing anyone. He hadn’t been armed. Had gone there on completely different business, wanted to clear things up, get her to tell him what was going on, so he knew where he stood. The text message he’d sent her from outside the house should be proof enough of that. He’d ended up in a fight with another man, had hit him a few times with a golf club. Maybe he’d get away with self-defence. A good lawyer should be able to manage that, even if he had broken into the house where it happened. That he’d called the emergency services and requested an ambulance before getting out of there would tell in his favour. Why had he carried on hitting the man after he was down? they might object. Why had he run off if it was a simple case of self-defence? Why had he waited several days before giving himself up to the police? The penalty for murder was eight to fifteen years. For premeditated murder up to twenty-one.

  One of the women approached him. One of the most loyal. She wasn’t much older than him.

  – Not feeling too good today?

  He shook his head. – Coming down with something.

  If he was going to lie, then lying that he was ill was about as contemptible as it got.

  – I noticed.

  Sigurd glanced at the empty chairs. Might as well go the whole way with it now, the being ill. – Should probably have stayed in bed.

  He had done that. The whole of yesterday he had lain there looking out through the closed window. The baking hot summer’s day outside that hardly moved. At some point or other a message from Katja. As though nothing had happened. Hearts and smileys. That told him one thing: she had not been in that house, hadn’t been there with Ibro Hakanovic. Had gone to Malmö just like she said she would. There was a moment’s comfort in the thought. But no more than that. He had killed a man. On account of her. Bullshit. It was on his own account. There it was in all its banality: he had beaten a man to death because he couldn’t endure the thought that she wanted someone else and was going to leave him. Maybe it had never been part of her plan to stay. Not once she didn’t need him any more.

  The girl was still standing right in front of him. He looked down into her face. She was pretty in a way that was meaningless to him. But there was that adoring look in her eyes. The kind of look that usually gave him strength. Now he found it repellent.

  – Do you need someone to talk to?

  He forced a smile. Should he go home with her, lie on her bed and tell her what he’d done? The thought made him blank out, but only for a moment. He would never be able to free himself from this thought: he had not swung out with that golf club to protect himself, because he could have run off as soon as the guy went down. He’d carried on hitting him. Many times. Harder and harder. Ibro Hakanovic was dead.

  He stopped outside the street door, couldn’t face going up to the flat. The phone rang: caller not recognised. Sooner or later it would be the police. It was Sunday, early afternoon; they’d had more than a day and a half to find him. If they didn’t have fingerprints and DNA, which would take longer, they probably already had witnesses. Someone who had seen his car at the petrol station and made a note of the number.

  It would still be possible to get away. That was the other thought he had been playing with over the preceding hours: get on board a plane. Australia, maybe, Jenny’s country, the one she’d always talked about but never taken them to. How long would he be able to wander about down there before they caught up with him?

  – Is Katja there? said the female voice on the phone, and he didn’t know whether what he felt was relief or disappointment. It was a postponement. Indefinite. This time did not belong to him. It was borrowed. Sooner or later he would have to pay it back.

  – She isn’t here, he said. – Who is this?

  – A friend, said the female voice. He could hear the very slight accent. – Do you know where she is?

  Did he know
that? Did he actually know anything at all about her?

  – In Malmö, he offered.

  – When will she be back?

  – Not quite sure.

  He had begun to get used to the thought that she would never come back.

  – Maybe this evening. Can’t you call her?

  – She’s not answering her phone.

  He almost burst out laughing. Of course she wasn’t answering; her phone was still up in the apartment, hidden between the mattress and the base of the bed.

  On the steps he stopped, turned, went back to the car and set off driving. Anywhere. Realised he was heading out towards Gjelleråsen. Had no business out there but kept going anyway, through the tunnel towards Nittedal. Turned off at the petrol station, up the gravelled track, through the farm. Stopped at the barrier into the forest, wound down his window, sat there looking out in the thick morning light, down towards the house he had broken into. Security tape had been placed around the property, but he didn’t see any signs of life. He could go down there, into the kitchen, into the room where it had happened. Sit in a chair, or on the floor, and wait until someone arrived and asked what he was doing there. It would be a release, and his confession would happen by itself.

  His phone rang again. Jenny. Hearing her voice, he knew that it was his mother he had to tell. That he had killed a man. Put it in her hands. Let her do what needed to be done. She knew the system, she knew the police, she could go along with him. This is my son, he’s here to confess to a murder.

  – Have you talked to Trym? she asked.

  – Trym? he said, as though he couldn’t quite work out who that was.

  At the same time, a flash of anger because it was Trym Jenny wanted to talk about, Trym who never got anything right, who gave up the moment he encountered resistance, lay there whimpering and calling out for someone to help him get up, help him put on his clothes, help him hit back when someone bullied him. But then this image too: Trym sitting in front of the door of the barn loft, blocking it with his huge body, refusing to let Sigurd out, preventing him from racing down into the driveway and slashing the tyres of the Renault standing there, scratching the metallic blue paintwork, smashing the windows and wing mirrors with a hammer.