In the Darkness (2 page)

‘Can I have a Happy Meal with a present? It’s thirty-seven kroner and I haven’t got Aladdin.’

‘Yes.’

‘What’ll you have, Mum? Chicken?’

‘Not sure yet.’ She stared at the black water again, the thought of food was nauseating. She didn’t bother with food much. Now she noticed how the surface rose and fell, under the dirty yellow scum.

‘Now we’ve got more money, we can eat whatever we want, can’t we, Mum?’

Eva kept quiet. All at once she stopped and strained her eyes. Something pale had floated up just beneath the surface of the water. It rocked sluggishly as it was pushed towards the bank by the powerful eddy. Her eyes were so taken up with watching that she’d forgotten the girl, who had also halted and who could see far better than her mother.

‘It’s a man!’ Emma gasped. She clamped herself hard on to Eva’s arm, her eyes popping out of her head. For a few moments they stood transfixed, staring at the sodden, decomposed body as it floated, head first, in amongst the stones. He was lying face down. The hair on the back of his head was thin and they could make out a bald patch. Eva was oblivious to the nails digging
in
through her sweater, she looked at the waxen-coloured corpse with its matted blond hair and couldn’t remember seeing him before. But his trainers – those blue and white striped high-top trainers.

‘It’s a man,’ Emma repeated, more quietly now.

Eva wanted to cry out. The cry came forcing its way up her throat but never emerged. ‘He’s drowned. Poor man, he’s drowned, Emma!’

‘Why does he look so horrible? Almost like jelly!’

‘Because,’ she stammered, ‘because it happened some time ago.’ She bit her lip so hard she pierced it. The taste of blood made her sway.

‘Have we got to lift him up?’

‘No, don’t be silly! The police do that.’

‘Are you going to phone them?’

Eva put her arm round the girl’s chubby shoulders and stumbled along the path. She looked back again quickly, as if waiting for some attack, yet uncertain from which direction it would come. There was a phone box on the approach to the bridge, so she hauled the child after her and searched in her skirt pockets for change. She found a five-kroner piece. The sight of the partially decomposed man flashed before her like an ill omen, an omen of all that was to come. She had managed to calm down at last, time had settled upon everything like dust and made the nightmare pale. Now her heart was hammering beneath her sweater, completely out of control. Emma was silent. She followed her mother with frightened grey eyes and halted.

‘Wait here. I’ll ring and tell them to come and fetch him. Don’t move!’

‘We’ll wait for them, won’t we?’

‘No, we certainly won’t!’

She pushed into the box trying to control her panic. An avalanche of thoughts and ideas rushed through her head, but she dismissed each of them in turn. Then she made a quick decision. Her hands were clammy, she inserted the five-kroner piece into the slot and dialled a number with swift fingers. Her father answered, groggy, as if he’d been asleep.

‘It’s only me, Eva,’ she whispered. ‘Did I wake you?’

‘Yes, but it was high time. Soon I’ll be sleeping all round the clock. Is something the matter?’ he growled. ‘You’re het up. I can hear that you’re het up, I know you.’

His voice was dry and hoarse, but there was still a keenness to it, a keenness which she’d always loved. A sharpness that rooted her fast to reality.

‘No, nothing’s wrong. Emma and I were going out to eat and we found this phone box.’

‘Well, put her on then!’

‘Er, well, she’s down by the water.’

She watched the numbers on the display counting down, threw a quick glance at Emma who was pressed against the glass of the door. Her nose was squashed flat like a lump of marzipan. Could she hear what they were saying?

‘I haven’t got a lot of change. We’ll come and visit you one day soon. If you’d like.’

‘Why are you whispering like that?’ he demanded suspiciously.

‘Am I?’ she said a little louder.

‘Give my girl a hug. I’ve got something for her when she comes.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A school bag. She needs a school bag for the autumn, eh? I thought I’d save you the expense, things aren’t all that easy for you.’

If only he’d known. She said: ‘That was kind of you, Dad, but she’s pretty sure about what she wants. Can we change it?’

‘Yes of course, but I bought the bag they said I should. A pink leather one.’

Eva forced her voice to sound normal. ‘I’ll have to go, Dad, the money’s run out. Look after yourself!’ There was a click, and he was gone. The numbers on the display had stopped.

Emma looked at her expectantly. ‘Are they coming now?’

‘Yes, they’re sending a police car. Come on, we’ll go and eat. They’ll ring if they want to speak to us, but I don’t think they’ll need to, at least not yet, perhaps later, but then they’ll get in touch. This has nothing to do with us at all, you see, not really.’ She was almost breathless, talking frantically.

‘Can’t we just wait and see them arrive, please can we?’

Eva shook her head. She crossed the street with the girl in tow, while the red man was still showing. They were an oddly matched pair as they walked into town, Eva tall and thin with slender shoulders and long, dark hair, Emma plump and broad and knock-kneed, with a slightly waddling gait. Both of them felt cold. And the town was cold, in the miasma from the chill river. It’s an inharmonious town, Eva thought, as if it could never really be happy because it was split in two. Now the two halves were struggling to gain the upper hand. The north side with the church, the cinema and the most expensive stores, the south side with the railway, the cheap shopping centres, the pubs and the state off-licence. This last was important and ensured a steady stream of cars and people across the bridge.

‘Mum, why did he drown?’ Emma fixed on her mother’s face and waited for an answer.

‘I don’t know. Perhaps he was drunk and fell into the river.’

‘Perhaps he was fishing and fell out of his boat. He should have been wearing a life jacket. Was he old, Mum?’

‘Not particularly. About Dad’s age perhaps.’

‘At least Dad can swim,’ she said with relief.

They had arrived at the green door of McDonald’s. Emma put her weight against it and pushed it open. The smells within, of hamburgers and French fries, drew her and her unfailing appetite further into the place. Gone was the dead man in the river, gone all life’s problems. Emma’s tummy was rumbling and Aladdin was within reach.

‘Find a table,’ Eva said, ‘and I’ll order.’

She made for the corner as usual and seated herself under the flowering almond tree, which was plastic, while Eva joined the queue. She tried to banish the image that lapped at her inner eye, but it forced itself on her again. Would Emma forget it, or would she tell everyone? Perhaps she’d have nightmares. They must stifle it with silence, never mention it again. In the end she’d think it had never happened.

The queue inched forward. She stared distractedly at the youngsters behind the counter; with their red caps and red short-sleeved shirts they worked at an incredible pace. The fatty haze from the cooking hung like a curtain behind the counter, the smells of fat and frying meat, melted cheese and seasonings of all kinds forced their way into her nostrils. But they seemed oblivious to the thickness of the atmosphere, running back and forth like industrious red ants, smiling optimistically at each and every order. She watched the quick fingers and the light feet that sped across the floor. This was nothing like her own day’s work. She stood in the middle of her studio most of the time,
arms
folded, fixing a stretched canvas with a hostile stare, or possibly an imploring one. On good days she stared aggressively and went on the attack, full of audacity and aplomb. Once in a blue moon she sold a painting.

‘Happy Meal, please,’ she said quickly, ‘and chicken nuggets and two Cokes. Would you be very kind and put an Aladdin in? She hasn’t got that one.’

The girl went to work. Her hands packed and folded at lightning speed. Over in the corner, Emma raised her head and followed her mother with her eyes as she finally came weaving across with the tray. Suddenly Eva’s knees began to tremble. She sank down at the table and looked in wonderment at the girl who was eagerly struggling to open the little cardboard box. She searched for the toy. The eruption was deafening.

‘I got Aladdin, Mum!’ She raised the figure above her head and showed it to the entire restaurant. They all stared at her. Eva buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

‘Are you ill?’ Emma turned deadly serious and hid Aladdin under the table.

‘No, well – just not a hundred per cent. It’ll soon pass.’

‘Are you upset about the dead man?’

She started. ‘Yes,’ she said simply. ‘I’m upset about the dead man. But we won’t talk about him any more. Never, d’you hear, Emma! Not to anyone! It’ll only make us sad.’

‘But do you think he’s got children?’

Eva wiped her face with her hands. She wasn’t certain of the future any more. She stared at the chicken, at the doughy brown lumps fried in fat, and knew that she couldn’t eat them. The images flashed past again. She saw them through the branches of the almond tree.

‘Yes,’ she said at length, ‘he’s probably got children.’

Chapter 3

AN ELDERLY WOMAN
out walking her dog suddenly caught a glimpse of the blue and white shoe amongst the stones. She phoned from the telephone box near the bridge, just as Eva had done. When the police arrived, she was standing somewhat self-consciously by the bank with her back to the corpse. One of the officers, whose name was Karlsen, was first out of the car. He smiled politely when he caught sight of the woman and glanced inquisitively at her dog.

‘He’s a Chinese Crested,’ she said.

It really was an intriguing creature, tiny, wrinkled and very pink. It had a thick tuft of dirty yellow hair on the crown of its head, but was otherwise entirely bald.

‘What’s his name?’ he asked amicably.

‘Adam,’ she replied. He nodded and smiled, diving into the car’s boot for the case of equipment. The policemen struggled with the dead man for a while, but eventually got him up on the bank where they placed him on a tarpaulin. He wasn’t a big man, he just looked that way after his sojourn in the water. The woman with the dog retreated a little. The team worked quietly and precisely, the photographer took pictures, a forensic pathologist
knelt
by the tarpaulin and made notes. Most deaths had trivial causes and they weren’t expecting anything unusual. Perhaps a drunk who’d toppled into the water, there were gangs of them under the bridge and along the footpaths in the evenings. This one was somewhere between twenty and forty, slim, but with a beer belly, blond, not particularly tall. Karlsen pulled a rubber glove on to his right hand and carefully raised the dead man’s clothing.

‘Stab wounds,’ he said tersely. ‘Several of them. Let’s turn him over.’ They fell silent. The only sound was that of rubber gloves being put on and pulled off, the quiet click of the camera, the breath of one or other of them, and the crackling of the plastic sheeting which they spread out by the side of the body.

‘I wonder,’ Karlsen muttered, ‘if we haven’t found Einarsson at long last.’

The man’s wallet had gone, if he’d ever had one. But his wristwatch was there, a gaudy affair with a lot of extras, like the time in New York and Tokyo and London. Its black strap had dug into his swollen wrist. The corpse had been in the water a long time and had presumably been carried by the current from further upstream, and so the location of the find wasn’t of special interest. Even so, they inspected it a bit, searching the bank for possible footprints, but found only a plastic can which had once contained antifreeze and an empty cigarette packet. A number of people had gathered up on the path, mostly youngsters; now they were craning their necks to steal a glance at the body on the tarpaulin. Decomposition was well under way. The skin had loosened from the body, especially on the hands, as if he were wearing oversized gloves. It was very discoloured. His eyes, which had once been green, were transparent and pale, his hair was falling
out
in great tufts, his face had puffed up and made his features indistinct. The fauna of the river, crayfish, insects and fish, had all tucked in greedily. The stab wounds in his side were great gaping gashes in the ashen white flesh.

‘I used to fish here,’ said one of the boys on the path, he’d never seen a dead body in all his seventeen years. He didn’t really believe in death, just as he didn’t believe in God, because he’d never seen either of them. He hunched his chin into the collar of his jacket and shivered. From now on anything was possible.

The post-mortem report arrived a fortnight later. Inspector Konrad Sejer had called five people to a conference room situated in one of the Portakabins behind the courthouse. They’d been erected there in more recent times owing to lack of space, a row of offices hidden from the public and which most people had never seen, apart from the unhappy souls who came into more intimate contact with the police. Some things had already been established. They knew the man’s identity, they’d got that right away because the name Jorun was engraved on his wedding ring. A file from the previous October contained all the information about the missing Egil Einarsson, aged thirty-eight, address: Rosenkrantzgate 16, last seen on 4 October at nine in the evening. He left a wife and a six-year-old son. The file was thin, but would soon get thicker. The new photographs fattened it up well, and they weren’t pretty. A number of people had been interviewed when he’d disappeared. His wife, workmates and relations, friends and neighbours. None of them had much to say. He wasn’t exactly whiter than white, but he had no enemies, at least, none that they knew of. He had a regular job at the
brewery
, went home to his dinner every day and spent most of his spare time in his garage, tinkering with his beloved car, or with his mates at a pub on the south side. The pub was called the King’s Arms. Einarsson was either a poor sod who’d been the victim of some desperado wanting money – heroin had taken a firm grip, seeing the potential in this cold, windswept town – or he had a secret. Perhaps he was in debt.