‘It’s difficult to establish the cause of death after such a long time,’ Sejer said. ‘And it’s especially difficult when the body is found in water. We found him in Glitter Lake.’
Reilly started talking again even though Axel had advised him not to. Just answer their questions, he had said, otherwise keep your mouth shut. Your head’s never straight, either, don’t get yourself into trouble.
‘We were only trying to help,’ he said. ‘No one else in Skjæret would take responsibility for him. Irene was dead set on getting rid of him. She was adamant that no one was allowed to stay the night, and that girl is a bit of a bitch. She had even locked the door to her bedroom. But if a poor little guy like him had slept in a corner, what harm would it have done? Not that I’m blaming Irene,’ he said quickly. ‘That’s not how I meant it.
‘It wasn’t easy to get him out of the flat either,’ he carried on. ‘It was like trying to get jelly to walk.’
‘What time was it when you got to Nattmål?’ Sejer asked.
‘It must have been close to three-thirty because we left the party at three,’ Reilly said, ‘and we drove straight there. But it was snowing, so we drove slowly. Axel takes no chances with his Mercedes, he’s terrified of denting it. It’s quite an expensive model,’ he added, ‘with leather seats and all sorts of gadgets.’
‘Now that he has been found dead,’ Sejer said, ‘what are your thoughts? Do you feel guilty?’
Reilly straightened up and glared down at them.
‘Do I feel guilty?’
Frustrated, he tossed his long hair. The kitten was startled by the sudden movement.
‘Of course I feel guilty. I feel guilty that we didn’t walk him to his front door. Perhaps we should have helped him unlock it, and perhaps we should have put him to bed too. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?’
He turned his back to them. Aimlessly, he rearranged some small pots on the windowsill.
‘Jon was also troubled by guilt,’ Sejer said. ‘It’s clear from his diary, which we’ve been studying in detail. But there’s something about his sense of guilt which disturbs us. We can understand that you’ve gone a few rounds with yourselves and from time to time felt a certain responsibility for what happened. But based on what you’ve just described, it’s hard to understand why Jon would choose to end his life. That decision is not in proportion with your story.’
Reilly resumed his pacing. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘It fits perfectly, but you didn’t know Jon. He believed everything rested with us. That we shouldn’t have left him in the street. But I think that’s excessive. No one else would take him. At least we brought him home. We dropped him off by the letterboxes at the bottom of the hill. When we left he was heading for the houses. A little unsteady on his feet, of course, but he was walking. The next day we learned that he had gone missing. We didn’t understand how that was possible.’
‘Was there any traffic in the area?’
‘The odd car.’
‘Did you talk to him when you dropped him off?’
Reilly nodded. ‘We told him to go to bed. We asked if he had a key, and he said yes, he had a key in his pocket. We were tired and we wanted to go home, so we turned the car around and drove off. That’s all I’ve got to say. I’ve told you this so many times, and I don’t know any more than you do. By the way, having this hang over your head month after month is actually very stressful,’ he said, ‘and I don’t mind admitting that I would like to put the whole mess behind me.’
‘I can understand that,’ Sejer said, ‘but it has only just started.’
CHAPTER 27
After interviewing Philip Reilly, Sejer and Skarre drove up to Glitter Lake. They passed the asylum seekers’ centre. In front of the low, barrack-like building a number of men were wandering about. A couple of them sat on a bench smoking. Others were tossing a basketball into a hoop.
‘Two brothers from Gambia drowned here last year,’ Skarre said. ‘Do you remember? They were eight and eleven. Their mother still lives at the detention centre. She never goes outside.’
‘I do remember,’ Sejer said. ‘It was last May. The water was cold.’
Shortly afterwards they turned right and immediately spotted the beach, which had a small hill beside it. Scrub grew around it like a dense wreath, and some of the vegetation overhung the water. Sejer started climbing and soon reached the highest point.
From there he could see the small jetty from which the Gambian boys had gone swimming. He could also see the whirlpool where Kim Van Chau had been found. On the other side of the water lay two or three wooden cabins. There was a bright reflection from a window. Something black scurried past a wall, a dog presumably. He imagined being able to hear his way to the crime, that shouts and screams still lingered in the air – if there had been shouting and screaming – and that he would be able to detect them if he concentrated hard enough. The energy must still be here, he thought, and the fear. The rage. Or despair, that is what makes us kill, and they might have killed him, perhaps to conceal another crime. Or to cover up a mistake. But what kind of mistake? How much can go wrong in a warm Mercedes driving from Skjæret to Nattmål? He looked down at Skarre. He appeared to be listening too. From time to time he would squat and dig his fingers into the coarse sand. Sejer climbed down from the hill.
‘Copacabana,’ Skarre said. ‘What do you think happened?’
Sejer thought about Philip Reilly, who had expressed so many contradictory feelings. Bitterness, despair and guilt. His explanation was unlikely to be true, but it was characterised by a form of righteous indignation, as if something external had taken control of their lives and they could not be held to account for that. Then he thought, Jon Moreno is dead. Reilly is the weakest link now. And he knows it.
‘They drove here,’ he said.
‘But why?’ Skarre asked.
‘Because something went wrong and they had to cover it up.’
‘Perhaps something had already happened at the party,’ Skarre suggested. ‘And they’re protecting each other.’
‘In that case there would be an awful lot of people who would need to keep their mouths shut for a very long time,’ Sejer said. ‘Someone is directly responsible for the situation that arose. They didn’t contact the emergency services. They agreed a story and they’ve all stuck to it. Reilly, Frimann and Moreno were tasked with disposing of the body because they had access to a car. That could have been what happened.’
He started walking back to the car. Skarre followed him slowly. When they were both back inside, Sejer sat silently with his hands on the wheel. He stayed like that for a long time, pondering. Skarre noticed how grey he had become and how he had grown leaner and more lined over the years. On his right hand he wore his late wife’s wedding ring. He had had it melted down with his own. He might be thinking about her now or maybe about the older man in the mirror who stared back at him each morning. Or perhaps he was thinking about Yoo Van Chau and the promise he had made her.
‘You’re bloody brilliant, but you can’t crack them all,’ Skarre said.
There was no reply. Sejer was lost in his own thoughts.
‘What I’m saying is that you’re only human,’ Skarre went on. ‘If you have to break your promise to Yoo Van Chau, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you have failed or that you haven’t met your own high standards. Do you lie awake at night, Konrad?’
‘Axel Frimann’s Mercedes,’ Sejer said. ‘I want it sent to forensics right now.’
CHAPTER 28
Ingerid Moreno was an attractive woman, but grief had ravaged her. Her cheeks were sunken and her fingers were feeble when she buttoned her coat. It was late October. She tied a floral shawl around her neck. She had decided to take action. Passively grieving or waiting for something that might never happen was making her ill. But it was hard for her to move. Her body was weighed down by lethargy, and the things she had done automatically, such as getting dressed, locking the front door and going to her car, took much
longer than usual. She was used to her days being familiar, predictable entities, like a staircase she would walk up every morning and find her bed at the top. The staircase had collapsed now. It had been reduced to rubble and she did not know how to climb it.
The wind caught her shawl as she reached the flagstone path. It was a colourful shawl decorated with red poppies that she had bought in Naples. It was there she had met Tony Moreno. She got in her car and drove to Nattmål. She stopped at the foot of the hill and thought for a while. Then she got out to check the letterboxes to make sure she was in the right place. Do I dare, she wondered, have I really got the nerve? I have no right. Nevertheless she drove up the long hill until she reached the terraced houses. She stayed in her car listening to a piece of music on the radio. When it has finished, I’ll go in, she decided. A few minutes later she headed for Yoo Van Chau’s front door. Suddenly she was on the verge of tears. She had no idea what might happen to her. A furious woman might appear at the door, screaming, don’t come near me with your grief, I’ve got enough with my own. She heard a faint click from the lock. A tiny dark-haired woman gave her a quizzical look and Ingerid felt enormous and clumsy.
‘You don’t know me,’ she stuttered, ‘but I know who you are. I read about your son in the papers. About Kim.’
She wanted to hurry up and explain herself. She did not know how long the other woman would be prepared to listen.
‘I’ve lost my son too,’ she said. ‘He drowned himself. Or at least we think he did, but it’s not certain. There’s something very strange going on which we don’t understand. It happened just a few weeks ago. He was on a trip with some friends, and when they woke up in the morning he was gone. That’s what they said. The police came to my house yesterday,’ she said. ‘They told me something new and I got really scared.’
She grew more animated because Yoo Van Chau did not look as if she was about to stop her.
‘He went to the same party, in December. Out at Skjæret, near Åkerøy. He was there with Kim.’
Total silence followed. Yoo made a move towards Ingerid and placed a hand on her arm. Her eyes were huge and shining.
‘Now they’re both dead,’ Ingerid said. ‘Do you understand what happened at that party?’
‘Please come in,’ Yoo said. She stepped aside; the hallway was narrow. The moment they entered the living room Ingerid spotted the photograph on the chest of drawers. For a while she studied the young Vietnamese man.
‘You’ve lost a handsome boy,’ she said.
Yoo placed a hand on her heart. She would keep all the beautiful words spoken about Kim in there and carry them with her.
‘Jon was very fair,’ Ingerid said. ‘But he was also slender, and he was the smallest. Of the three of them,’ she explained. ‘You know, Axel and Reilly. Have you met Axel and Reilly? His friends?’
‘No,’ Yoo said. ‘I haven’t met them. But they were the ones who gave Kim a lift home. They drove him as far as the letterboxes. That’s what they told the police. I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t know anything any more.’ Suddenly a thought occurred to her. ‘Was your son in that car?’
‘Yes,’ Ingerid said. ‘He was in the car.’ She felt utterly desolate. Now that they had arrived at the unpleasant part, the incident she was still unclear about, her strength deserted her. ‘Please may I sit down?’
Yoo gestured towards the sofa. She slipped into an armchair with an elegance which reminded Ingerid of a swan gliding on water.
‘I don’t know what happened,’ Ingerid said. ‘I don’t know what Jon was mixed up in, and I can barely look you in the eye, but I have to. It pains me to think that Jon might have done something illegal. He was a decent lad. He knew the difference between right and wrong, I’m absolutely convinced of that, but there were several of them in the car that night, and they had been drinking. Jon died in the middle of September,’ she said. ‘He was found at the bottom of the lake they call Dead Water.’
‘Dead Water?’ Yoo said.
‘Your son was found in a lake too,’ Ingerid said. ‘It all means something. I believe that now.’
She was starting to become distressed and had to compose herself.
‘Jon left behind a diary,’ she said. ‘He writes page after page about how guilty he feels. That he doesn’t deserve to live. I think it has to do with Kim. That’s why I wanted to meet you. We have to find out what happened that night.’
Yoo listened quietly. She had a serenity which made Ingerid relax her shoulders.
‘Jon was in hospital,’ she explained. ‘He had had a nervous breakdown. But he never mentioned that he was planning to kill himself, and I still find it hard to believe. When someone commits suicide, strong forces are involved. But did they really come from inside him? Or was it something external that killed him? This is what troubles me.’
‘Kim got into a car,’ Yoo said, ‘because he wanted to go to a party. There were two girls in it. I wonder who they were and what they were thinking when they saw him standing by the side of the road. I was sitting in this chair as they drove off. I should have taken better care of him.’
‘You can’t babysit a seventeen-year-old,’ Ingerid said. ‘They’re off on their own. They get mixed up in things. Surely that’s not our fault?’
‘That’s not our fault,’ Yoo agreed.
They looked each other in the eye.
‘But I’m still convinced that someone out there is guilty of something, and I want that guilt apportioned,’ Ingerid said.
‘What are we going to do?’ Yoo whispered.
Ingerid gave her a triumphant look. ‘Jon’s friends, Axel and Reilly. They’re hiding something. In Jon’s diary it’s clear that something happened, something got out of control. Do you follow? Something is going on behind our backs.’
Yoo leaned forward in her armchair, listening.
‘What scares me the most,’ Ingerid said, ‘is that the police won’t be able to arrest them. Because it gets harder after such a long period of time and because they haven’t found any evidence, you know, as Kim was in the water for so long. But I can’t bear doing nothing, I have to do something. We can’t beat them up, but we can scare the living daylights out of them.’
Yoo Van Chau was thrilled to have found someone who felt the same way.
‘I’m thinking of inventing a lie,’ Ingerid said. ‘Give them a taste of their own medicine. I want to give them a wake-up call.’
‘A wake-up call?’
‘An anonymous letter,’ Ingerid said, ‘which will make them think that someone is on to them. That’s what they’re scared of, isn’t it, that someone suspects them? You do and I do, and I want them to know that.’
Yoo clenched her fists in her lap; her cheeks were flushed. ‘We’ll write a letter,’ she said, ‘but you need to write it. I make so many mistakes. Speaking Norwegian is no problem but writing it is difficult. I’ll get some paper.’
Yoo leapt up from her chair and went over to the chest of drawers where Kim’s photograph stood. Suddenly she waved her fist in the air. ‘We’ll get them,’ she said.
She opened one of the drawers and rummaged around. Then she returned with pen and paper. Ingerid took them.
‘It must be short,’ she said, ‘and to the point. It must be menacing.’
Yoo felt vengeance fill her heart, and it was true what they said: revenge was sweet. Ingerid started scribbling. She crossed her scrawl out and wrote something else. Yoo looked like a child expecting an exciting present. She perched on the edge of her armchair and craned her neck. Ingerid crossed her words out again, frowned and tore off the sheet. Eventually she frowned with determination and wrote without hesitation. Then she pushed the pad across the coffee table.
WE KNOW WHAT YOU DID.
WE ARE WATCHING YOU.
‘Where do we send it?’ Yoo asked.
‘To Reilly,’ Ingerid said. ‘Reilly is weaker.’
Afterwards Yoo retrieved an atlas from the bookcase.
Sh
e pointed as she explained to Ingerid, ‘Look, that’s China, Laos and Cambodia. Here’s the South China Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. And this’, she said, ‘is Vietnam.’
The small country was reproduced in purple. North-west of Hanoi lay the town of Yen Bai. She drew a long line with the tip of her finger up to Norway.
‘We had to leave it all behind,’ she said, ‘when my husband got sick and died, and we were all alone.’
Then Ingerid pointed to Italy, which was reproduced in pink. She placed her finger on Naples.
‘Jon’s father lives here,’ she explained. ‘He left when Jon was a little boy. One day he just packed his bags and vanished. Then there was only Jon and me.’
Yoo put the atlas away.
‘Our sons are dead,’ Ingerid said, ‘but we’re not. I want to go outside in the wind. Do you have some stale bread so we can feed the ducks? Put on a warm coat.’
Yoo quickly went to the kitchen to fetch some bread. When they got outside they were hit by an icy blast.
‘As if grief weren’t bad enough,’ Ingerid said, ‘the gods have sent us a storm.’
They clung to each other as they walked. No one else had ventured out in the cold weather. It took them half an hour to walk to the pond. They found a bench by the water’s edge and Yoo took the bag of bread from her handbag. The ducks heard the rustling and zoomed in on them like small ships in a dense feather-clad fan formation. Their orange feet paddled energetically in the water.
‘It doesn’t matter if we get a bit chilly,’ Ingerid said. ‘We can warm up afterwards. How are you doing? Are your hands freezing?’
Yoo started tossing pieces of bread at the ducks. She found it amusing the way they all made a beeline for her. It seemed like devotion.
‘I’m going to come here every day,’ she vowed. ‘With stale bread.’
‘I would like to come with you,’ Ingerid said. ‘If you don’t mind.’ She gave the small woman a kind look.
‘Do you know what I often think?’ Ingerid said. ‘When something terrible happens, we talk about people getting over it. Is she over it? we say, as if the tragedy is an obstacle in someone’s path and we have to scale it. It’s not that straightforward. Grieving is something we have to live with,’ she said, ‘it’s a constant battle. And the enemy is the rest of our lives. All those nights. All those hours.’