Black Seconds (6 page)

Skarre fell silent. Was it a rebuke? He kept blowing smoke out of the open window, but some of it still drifted back into the darkened office. Finally he held the glowing cigarette butt under the tap in the sink.

"Time to call it a day?"

Sejer nodded and grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair.

"What did you think about the press coverage?" Skarre asked him later. They were standing in the parking lot outside the police station. Both of them jingling their car keys.

"Journalists are all right," Sejer said. "When you read what they've actually written. What I really object to is the way some editors lay everything out. They use photos and drawings to speculate and insinuate."

Skarre remembered the pictures from the day's papers. The photos of Ida, the type of bicycle she had, a yellow Nakamura, the type of sweatsuit she had been wearing. And the wording: "This is where Ida was going." Dotted lines. A close-up of Laila's Kiosk.

"They treat it like it's a soap opera," Sejer said. "I hope it's a short one."

They nodded briefly to each other and went their separate ways. Once he got home, Sejer went into the kitchen and found a bag of dog food. His dog, Kollberg, who had been lying on the floor waiting for his master, stirred gingerly. However, the sound of the dry feed rattling in his metal bowl made him stand up. He trudged wearily into the kitchen. The dog, a Leonberger, was so old he defied all statistics. He looked up at Sejer with dark, impenetrable eyes. Sejer found it hard to look back at him. He knew the dog was suffering, that he ought to be spared further pain. Soon, he thought. But not today. I'll wait till Sara comes back home. He cut himself a slice of bread and put some salami on top. Then he found a tube of mayonnaise in the fridge. He stood for a while weighing up the pros and cons. He considered mayonnaise an extravagance. He unscrewed the cap and was struck by the absurdity of his situation. Here he was squeezing mayonnaise on his sandwich in the shape of an 8 before sitting down to eat it. While Helga Joner could barely breathe.

***

Sejer woke up at 6:00
A.M.
The dog was lying on the floor next to his bed. He registered his master's light movements on the mattress and raised his head. A second later the alarm gave off three short beeps. Sejer leaned over the edge of the bed and patted Kollberg on the head. The dog's skull was clearly outlined underneath his fur; he felt the bumps of it against his palm. Then he thought of Ida. She snapped into place in his mind. He stretched out his long body in the bed and tried to peer out from behind the curtains, searching for daylight. It was no good; he had to get up to have a look. He stared out at the damp morning mist, which lay like a lid across the town. For breakfast he ate two pieces of crispbread with cheese and red pepper. Coaxed Kollberg down the stairs and walked round the block once. Let him back into the living room. It was 7:15 when he opened the door to his office with fresh newspapers tucked under his arm.
IDA STILL MISSING
was the headline.

The first meeting of the day was about dividing up tasks. Not that there was much to divide up in the Ida Joner case. In the first stage it was a question of checking out anyone with a record. People who had finished serving their sentences, people who might have been out on leave during the relevant period, and those previously charged but never convicted. The blunt truth was that they were all waiting for someone to stumble across Ida's mutilated body so they could start the investigation properly. Her photo was pinned up on the board in the meeting room. Her smile sent a jolt of pain through them every time they passed it, and in the midst of it all a slender hope still existed that Ida would suddenly stroll casually into her mother's house with the most incredible story to tell.

When the telephone rang, and it did so frequently, everyone spun around and stared intently at whoever had answered it, feeling certain that they would be able to gauge from his reaction if it was news about Ida. The duty officer had the same hopes whenever he answered the telephone. They knew that it would happen eventually.

A new search was initiated. They were still trying to decide if they should drag the river. The problem was where to start.

Sejer drove out to Helga's house. He could see her face at the window; most likely she had heard the car. He got out slowly, very slowly on purpose so as not to raise her hopes.

"I've almost given up," she said weakly.

"I know that it's difficult," he said. "But we're still looking."

"I've always known that Ida was too good to be true."

"Too good to be true?" Sejer said carefully.

Helga's lower lip quivered. "She
was.
Now I don't know what she is anymore."

She went into the living room without saying another word. Then she walked over to the window. "Most of the time I stand here. Or I sit in her room. I don't do anything. I'm frightened that I'll forget about her," she said anxiously. "Frightened that she might slip away from my thoughts, frightened that I'll start to think or do something that doesn't include her."

"No one expects you to be able to do anything now," Sejer said.

He sat down on the sofa without being asked. He saw that her hair was unwashed and that she was wearing the same clothes as when he had first met her. Or perhaps she had changed back into them.

"I'd like to speak with your sister," Sejer said.

"Ruth? She lives a few minutes away from here, at Madseberget. She'll be here later."

"You get on well?" he asked.

"Yes," she smiled. "We always have."

"And Ida's father. Anders. He has two brothers who also live close by. Ida's uncles?"

She nodded. "Tore and Kristian Joner. They're both married, with children of their own. They live by the racetrack."

"Do you see them often?" he wanted to know.

She shook her head. "No, I don't. Funny really. But I know that they were out looking yesterday. Both of them."

"Has either of them been in touch with you?"

"They don't dare," she said quietly. "They're afraid, I suppose. I don't know what they're thinking. Don't want to, either. The pictures in my own head are bad enough." She shuddered as if some awful image had appeared at that very moment.

"But Ida knows her cousins?"

"Of course. She knows Marion and Tomme best of all. Ruth and Sverre's kids. She goes to see them often. She is fond of her aunt Ruth. She's the only aunt she's close to."

"And your brother-in-law?" he asked. "What does he do?"

"Sverre works in the oil industry and travels a lot. He's hardly ever home. Anders travels a lot too. They moan about all those nights they have to spend in hotels and how boring it is. Though I think that's actually the way they want it. Gets them off the hook when it comes to doing the day-to-day stuff."

Sejer had no comment to make. "Is Ida fond of her uncle Sverre?" he said quietly.

Helga was silent for a while, and slowly the significance of the question dawned on her. Then she nodded firmly. "Yes, Sverre and Ruth are Ida's closest family, apart from Anders and me. She's been going there her whole life and she feels at home there. They're decent people."

This was said with authority. Sejer looked around the room. There were several photos of Ida on the walls, taken a few years apart. In one of the photos she was holding a cat.

"She's very interested in animals," he said. "Her room is full of them. That cat there, you don't have it any more?"

An eerie calm fell upon the room. Sejer was completely unprepared for the reaction provoked by his question. Helga buckled by the window and buried her face in her hands. Then she howled out into the room in a voice that cut right through him.

"The cat belonged to Marion! It was run over and killed. But Ida has never had a pet of her own. Not even a mouse! I told her no. Always no! Because I didn't want one, and now I can't begin to understand how I could have been so selfish. So she's never had a kitten or a puppy or any of those other pets she wanted so desperately, none of the animals she begged me and begged me to get her, but I didn't want the hassle with pets, hairs and shit everywhere and so on! But if only she'll come home again, she can have all the animals she wants! I promise you, I promise!"

Total silence. Helga's face was red. She started to sob loudly. "I'm at my wits' end," she cried. "I'm so desperate I decided I would go buy a puppy. Because then Ida would be sure to come home again. She'd hear the puppy whimper wherever she was and rush straight home. That was my logic. What an idiot."

"Well," Sejer said. "You're allowed to buy a puppy."

She shook her head. "I think so many strange thoughts," she admitted. "Utterly impossible thoughts." She wiped her wet cheeks with the sleeve of her sweater.

"I understand," Sejer said softly. "You're in a place you've never been before."

Her eyes widened. "Oh no! I've been here many times. This is what I've always feared. I've been preparing for this. This is what having children is like!"

"Okay," he said, "so you're in a place you visited in your mind. Is it different from what you imagined?"

"It's much, much worse," she sobbed.

***

Ruth Rix had walked her daughter Marion to the school bus. Now she was watching her son Tomme as he raised the milk carton to his mouth. Then she let him have it.

"Tom Erik! I don't like you doing that and you know it."

He put the carton down and tried to leave the kitchen.

"You need to eat something," she ordered him.

"Not hungry," he mumbled. She heard him out in the hallway. He was tying the laces on his sneakers. "Don't you have study leave today?" she called out. She followed him, he was not going to get away that easily.

"Yeah?" he said, looking up at her.

"Then I'll expect you to study," she said, thinking that this was his last, crucial year at sixth-form college.

"Just going over to Willy's first. We're fixing the car."

She digested this and looked at him. His face was still turned away from her. "You're making a big deal out of this dent," she said hesitantly. "It's only a car, for God's sake."

He did not answer; instead, he tightened his laces. Hard, she noticed.

"Bjørn called, he was asking about you," she remembered. "He's a nice boy, I think. You're still friends with him, aren't you?"

"Yes, of course," Tomme said. "But he doesn't know about cars. And neither does Helge."

"No, no. But Willy is so much older than you. Surely it would be better for you to be with friends of your own age?"

"I am," he argued. "But I need help with the car. Willy has a garage. And tools." He said this without getting up. He even tied his laces into a double knot. His fingers were trembling. Ruth noticed this and felt troubled. A sudden sensation that this tender eighteen-year-old boy was someone she hardly knew. It was distressing. When he finally got up he continued to face away from her. He was fumbling among the hangers, looking for his coat.

"Tomme," she said, this time more affectionately. "I know it's a pain about the car. But Ida's gone missing. She might even be dead. I can't bear it that you get so upset about a dent in the car. It upsets me because it's wrong!"

Her outburst made him feel ill at ease. He wanted to get out of the door, but she grabbed his arm and forced him to turn around. She was astonished to see a tear in his eye.

"Tomme," she said, frightened. "What is it?"

He wiped his cheek quickly. "Oh, lots of things," he said. "This business with Ida. It's not that I'm not thinking about it. They're out looking for her today, but I don't know if I can handle going with them."

"You thought it was that awful?" Ruth whispered.

Tomme nodded. "Every time you lift a branch, your heart skips a beat," he said.

Then he was gone. She stood in the hallway listening to him leave. His footsteps were rapid, as if he was running. Ruth slumped against the wall. Everything is horrible, she thought. We won't survive this.

Emil Johannes was on the road on his three-wheeler as usual. The weather was milder and the green paintwork gleamed in the September sun. People he passed turned to stare at his vehicle. It was very unusual and odd-looking. On his back he carried an old gray backpack. The expression on his face was closed and distant, and he was unable to relax. He had a lot on his mind. He kept a steady speed, just below forty. The flaps on his leather cap were down and the strings knotted underneath his chin. The truck body was empty and the black tarpaulin was rolled up like a sausage and tied with string. Emil was going shopping. He always shopped at the Joker, because it was a small local shop and he knew where everything was kept. Not that he was incapable of looking until he found what he wanted. But this was easier. It was always the same girl at the checkout. She had got used to the fact that he never spoke, and she never embarrassed him. He liked that everything was the same. And it meant that he avoided the traffic in town.

Emil lived at the end of Brenneriveien. Past the racetrack and up toward the ridge, in a bungalow with a kitchen, a living room, and one bedroom. The house had a basement. He did not have a bathroom, but a nice toilet with a sink and a mirror. The house was clean and fairly tidy. Not because Emil was tidy, but because his seventy-three-year-old mother turned up every week to clean it. Emil's appearance was a little disturbing and depended on the mood he was in. What people saw was a heavy, broad, and slow man who could not speak. A man who would turn away if anyone stared at him, who would walk off immediately if anyone spoke to him. Still, he took an interest in people, especially when he could watch them from a safe distance.

There was a lot of gossip about Emil's speech. Some thought that he was quite simply mute. Others that he had stopped speaking in protest at some dreadful trauma he had been subjected to in his childhood. From time to time the rumors flared up. There was talk of a fire in which his father and a multitude of siblings had perished while Emil and his mother, barefoot in the snow, listened to their terrified screams. The truth was that Emil was an only child. Others claimed that he could talk the hind legs off a donkey if only he wanted to. But he did not want to. He just wanted to be left in peace. No one ever wondered what thoughts and dreams might exist inside his enormous head. Most people assumed that not much went on in there. They could not have been more wrong. Emil thought of many strange things, and every thought was an image. Sometimes they were still; at other times they would roll slowly like a film in his mind, or flash rapidly like lightning. Every time he parked outside the Joker he saw a row of cards spread out in a fan with the joker at the top. Sometimes the joker might wink at him or laugh scornfully. That would startle Emil and make him angry. When he entered the shop and smelled the bread, he visualized his mother's hands kneading dough. No one could knead dough like Emil's mother. It was bashed and thumped, but ultimately her sweaty, plump hands handled it lovingly. When he thought of his mother he recalled her smell and remembered something she had once said or a phrase she was fond of using. Her voice, sharp like a carving knife, the plastic smell of new playing cards, the dough: all this took up so much space. There was so much happening in his brain that there was no room for contact with others. He perceived any approach as an intrusion. He preferred the images. He could handle those.