Authors: Karin Fossum
‘That taught me,’ he said, wiping his forehead.
‘He doesn’t like strangers. Does he like you?’
‘No,’ said Emil. He was staring at the floor. Perhaps he was hiding his laughter.
‘You just feed him, is that it?’
Emil wanted to get back to the kitchen. Skarre kept watching the bird. His finger was throbbing fiercely.
‘Hey.’ He followed Emil. ‘You wouldn’t happen to have a plaster in the house, would you?’ he said, waving his bleeding finger. Of course Emil did. He 258
had a whole box of them. He held out the box so that Skarre could help himself.
‘Never attach a plaster in a circle, and don’t ever tighten it,’ Skarre recited; he recalled this from his first aid training. ‘But I’ll just have to. Not many other options when it comes to fingers.’ He looked to Emil for a smile. It never came.
‘I need to ask you something,’ he said eventually. He observed Emil carefully. It was crunch time. Nevertheless, he kept thinking it had to be the wrong house. It could not be this one, not like this.
‘Do you know a girl called Ida?’ he asked. There was no reply from Emil. Only a downcast look.
Skarre struggled to move on. ‘Has she ever been to this house?’
Still no reply. How was he supposed to do this?
‘Emil,’ he pleaded. ‘Emil Johannes. Listen to me. Ida was in this house, I’m sure of it. Do you deny it?’
‘No,’ said Emil Johannes.
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Once Skarre had left, Emil was overcome by misgivings. He had believed that he would be able to handle it and put it right; but no, it was an impossible thought. Now he regretted it deeply. At the same time he experienced a pleasant feeling because this man had sat at his table. The smell of cigarette smoke still hung in the air. The box of plasters lay on the kitchen table. The telephone started ringing again. He did not want to answer it now. He rushed out of the house, started his threewheeler and drove off towards the waterfall. It felt good to be back on the three-wheeler; when he was driving it he was in control. It felt good to grip the handlebars and feel the wind on his face. It was a grey day, but the light was pleasant. His green driving jacket was unzipped. He pulled out into the right-hand lane as soon as he got to the church. Before long the church disappeared from view. When he reached the waterfall, he parked, turned off the engine, pushed his cap backwards and walked the last few steps to the edge. It had rained a lot during September; the waterfall was huge and 260
thundering. When he stood there he felt the roar of the water spread through his body. There was no one else around. Everyone was at work now. Emil had had a job once, in a sheltered
workshop. He sorted screws and nuts and put them into boxes. It was easy but boring, and the pay was lousy. However, the hardest part was the other people who worked there. He never got on with them. They were all like kids. And I’m an adult, Emil thought. But because he never spoke, no one ever noticed that, or he was simply ignored. He preferred being alone in his own home, all alone rather than with company. He deliberately started making mistakes with his boxes. He mixed up screws and nuts and put too many in. They asked him to stop. His mother was furious, he recalled. It was humiliating for her to have a son on benefits. It was one thing that he would never get married. Another that he could not talk. But she would have been so proud if she could have talked about his job. Emil, my son, he’s in full-time employment now, she would say when the sewing circle met, without mentioning precisely what he did. To be able to say this one important thing. That he got up in the morning like other people and went to work. Emil always got up early. He certainly did not stay in bed all day. He never had any problems passing the time.
He walked to the edge of the waterfall. Stood so near that he could feel the cool mist on his face. The waterfall did not have just one voice. After a while 261
he could detect several. There was the deep hum from the bottom and there were other, higher notes from the top. Even a tinkling from the shallow water that trickled over the stones on the bank far below. It’s a whole orchestra, Emil thought, playing a neverending, wondrous tune. The deep one said,
‘I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m unstoppable and strong’, while the high notes hurried after it crying
‘Wait for us, we’re coming too’ and the fainter ones near the bank busied themselves with other things, hiding away and dancing across the pebbles, mixing with the vortex, the yellow and white foam. All those colours, Emil thought. From the grey-black deep to the white foam. A steady and violent stream heading for the ocean. He thought of the moment when the water arrived. When it poured out and merged with the big blue sea. Sometimes he drove down to the sea just to watch it. If he got there early, the sea lay calm as a mirror. He thought that in itself was a miracle every time. That so much water could lie so still.
He pursed his lips and tried a word. He wanted to say ‘impossible’. He forced air from his diaphragm out through his mouth. He remem bered that sound was formed by the tongue and the lips. Faintly he heard something resembling a grunt. He tried again, opened his mouth wide and listened intently through the roar of the waterfall. A long, coarse sound emerged from his throat. He became annoyed and tried once more. His voice was so gruff; he did not understand why. ‘No’ was easy. ‘No’ lay at the roof 262
of his mouth, ready to be spat out like a cherry stone. How about ‘yes’? Could he say that? However, he did not like that word as much, it felt like surrendering to something and he did not want to do that. How would he ever manage to form long words? Such as the difficult word ‘misunderstanding’? It was quite impossible. He gave up and felt sad. His face was wet. Then he remembered ‘s’. This was a sound he could form at the front of his mouth; no tone, just a hiss, like that of a snake. He could manage that! This cheered him up. Quit while you’re ahead, Emil Johannes thought. He padded back to his three-wheeler. Pulled his cap back down. Started the engine and swung out on to the road. He did not realise that two kids had been lying behind a rock watching him the whole time. They were laughing so much it hurt. Later he was back in his living room. He could not stay by the waterfall till night-time. He could not escape either; he had nowhere to hide. It was a question of waiting. Thirty minutes later he heard a car door slam out on the drive. Emil planted his palms on the window sill and rested his whole body weight on them. It was consider able. The window sill groaned and squeaked like the floor boards. It was not his mother’s car. He looked at the bird. Stuck his finger into the cage. Instantly it started nibbling him and licking his finger with a warm black tongue. It was coarse, like sandpaper. Then came the knocking he was anticipating, three sharp knocks. Emil took his time. Checked that the bird 263
had food in both its cups, water and cubes of apple. Softly he walked to the door. At first he was puzzled. The police officer was a woman, he had not expected that. He made no sound, just stood still watching her. She actually looked friendly. Another officer stepped out of the car, the same one with the curly hair who had visited him earlier. Emil saw the plaster on his finger. What an idiot, he thought. But his expression was kind. At the same time they appeared serious. Emil sensed this seriousness, but he could not tell them that.
‘Emil Johannes Mork?’ the female officer said. He did not nod, just waited.
‘You need to come with us, please.’
He stood for a while considering this. She was asking him nicely. Emil went back inside the house. There was something he had to take care of first. He put a towel over the birdcage and checked the radiator below the window. Opened up the curtains and made sure that they did not overhang it. There was all this talk of fire precautions; his mother went on about it all the time, so he was aware of such things.
Then he went back out into the hall and found his green driving jacket. They waited by the car while he locked the front door. He thought about his mother, wondered if they had picked her up too. He thought so.
Jacob Skarre held out his hand. He asked for the key to the house. Emil hesitated. His mother had cleaned it. Thrown away the rubbish and tidied 264
everywhere. He handed over his key. They held open the car door for him and helped him get seated in the back. He rarely went in a car. He felt enclosed; it was airless. The female officer took the wheel. She had a long blonde plait down her back. It was fastened tightly and shone like a nylon rope. Emil kept looking at it. It was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen, but it would have looked nicer if she had tied a bow at the end of it. Elsa Mork was arrested simultaneously. She wanted to see Emil and became quite difficult when they refused. As if denying her access to her own son was completely unheard of and thoroughly repre hensible. Is it legal to treat people in this way? she asked. And they answered, yes, it’s legal. She said that Emil Johannes could not be questioned at all, because he simply could not speak, and they said, yes, we know. They asked her if her son could write. Her reply was evasive. The ground beneath her feet, which had been solid for more than seventy years, crumbled away. She reached out to the wall for support.
‘His name,’ she said. ‘I’ve taught him that. But as for anything else – I don’t really know what he can or cannot do.’
And her ignorance made her feel terribly
ashamed.
‘He has a newspaper delivered,’ she remembered.
‘But I don’t know what he does with it. Perhaps he has fun taking it out of the letterbox every morning 265
like other people. Perhaps he likes the pictures. Perhaps he can manage the headlines. I really don’t know.’ She ventured a bitter suggestion. ‘You’ll just have to find out for yourselves.’
Everything seemed unreal to her. They took her coat and her handbag, which she was clinging to tightly. A female officer reached out for it; Elsa held on to it. At the same time she could see how ridiculous the situation was. But she felt naked without the bag. She watched as they emptied the contents on to the table. Mirror, comb and handkerchief. And a mock-crocodile purse. She stood still, her hands unoccupied for once, taking in the strange surroundings. People came into the room and left again. She felt they were staring at her. It was just as well that Emil was the way he was, she thought. All he had to do was what he had always done. Keep quiet.
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She was waiting in the interrogation room. Sejer walked slowly along with a folder tucked under his arm. Oh, she’s good at cleaning, he thought. But not that good. If Ida was in her son’s house, we’ll know about it.
What was going on inside her head? He thought she was mainly concerned about Emil. Even though he did not know her, he did not underestimate how strong and determined she might be. She had lived her whole life with a son who was different. A son she had cleaned up after, washed for and taken care of for more than fifty years. How well did she know him? How disabled was he? Had it been his own choice to withdraw from all contact? People did, sometimes for good reasons. What kind of life had they lived? Perhaps she had no life of her own because she had never wanted or been able to have one? She got involved with the lives of others instead and cleaned up after them. He thought of her with humility as he walked down the corridor. She was a person who had never previously broken the law. At the same time he was thinking of Ida. 267
She was sitting with both hands in her lap. It would be wrong to describe Elsa Mork as a beautiful woman. But everybody has got something, Sejer thought. Now he noticed her posture. Her back was effortlessly straight. There was fighting spirit in her strong face. Her hands, hidden under the table, were red and dry from cleaning. He remembered this from their first meeting. She was wearing a thin jumper with a round neck and a straight skirt with no pleats. It reached halfway down her calves. She wore low-heeled, sensible shoes with laces. No perm in her hair, which was short and the colour of steel, not unlike Sejer’s own. He greeted her kindly and pulled out a chair. She nodded briefly, but did not smile. Her face was expectant. Beneath that calm exterior she had to be under great stress, Sejer thought, but she was hiding it well. This might mean that she was used to hiding things, used to keeping up appearances, like the one he was observing now. But this is about a dead child, he thought. An adorable child with brown eyes, who looked like Mary Pickford. Elsa Mork had a child of her own. It had to be possible to reach her. He poured himself a glass of Farris mineral water. The fizz from the water was the only sound in the quiet room. It seemed very loud. Elsa waited. Sejer drank from his glass.
‘The air in here is dry,’ he stated. ‘I’m just telling you. It helps having something to drink, should you begin to feel tired.’ He indicated the bottle next to her seat.
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She did not reply. He was friendly, but she was on her guard. She was used to it, she was always on her guard.
‘Do you understand why you’re here?’ he began. Elsa had to think about that. Of course she did. However, it was important to articulate this in the best possible way.
‘I think so,’ she said stiffly. ‘Emil and I have both been brought here in connection with that case. The girl you found by the road.’
‘Correct,’ he said, watching her. Her gaze was steady for the time being.
‘Do you recall her name from the papers?’ he said.
She was reluctant to say the name out loud, but it came anyway. ‘Ida Joner,’ she said in a subdued voice.
‘Have you ever met Ida Joner?’ Sejer asked.
‘No.’ The answer came quickly. It might also be partly true. Perhaps she had only seen her once she was dead.
‘Do you know if your son ever met Ida Joner?’
Again this no, again the same firmness.
‘He owns his own house?’ Sejer said.
‘No, it’s a council house,’ she interjected.
‘I see.’ Sejer nodded. ‘But he lives on his own. You often go there to help him, but most of the time he is on his own. Is it totally impos sible that Ida might have been in his house without you knowing?’