The Caller (16 page)

But Evelyn had trouble breathing. She had never stared into the abysses within herself, and the sensation was so overwhelming it felt like a thrashing. She stood by the table, breathing heavily. It occurred to her that she had been in exactly this position once before, fifteen years earlier when Frances was born and the painful birth pangs were about to get the better of her.

‘I suppose we should think about what to eat for dinner,’ she said helplessly. She had nothing else to say.

Frances protested. She pulled at her mother’s arm. ‘No, let’s just sit on the sofa. We’ll watch television. We don’t need to do anything.’

They sat huddled together on the sofa, choosing silence. Finally, in a small voice, Evelyn said it was over, that she had to calm herself and just forget the whole episode. ‘But it’s as though everything has changed,’ she said, hurt. ‘I don’t quite know what will happen when you leave the house on your scooter. Do you understand that, Frances?’

Frances bowed her head, jutting out her lower lip. ‘Would you like me to sell it?’

‘You can drive a car in two years. You’ll be much safer in a car.’

Later, Sejer asked if there’d been anything about Frances in the local paper. What had been written? Any personal details given? Had there been, in addition to the article, a photograph of her?

Frances was wearing a pink tracksuit. Like a little kitten, she had coiled up in the corner of the sofa. ‘Why do you ask that?’

‘We believe it’s how he selects his victims,’ Sejer said. ‘At least some of them. He scans the local newspaper, finds a story and records the name and place of residence. Then he does some investigative work, perhaps through the operator service. It’s easy to find people in this country.’

Frances went to pick up the newspaper she’d saved. She pointed at the photograph. Then she glanced at her mother. ‘It’s been fourteen days. We were at a dealership to pick out my scooter, and a guy from the Council for Road Safety talked to us. He was writing about traffic safety, so I answered a few questions. At the end he took my photo. It’s a bad photo. I look so fat.’

Sejer read the short article. She had just turned fifteen, and the scooter was a gift from her father, who lived abroad. When he finished the article, he read the caption under the photo.

‘Frances Mold of Kirkeby looks forward to driving. But she is also concerned about safety, and buys the most expensive helmet. She won’t, she pledges, be a reckless driver.’

‘Look,’ Sejer said. ‘Your name and address are here, so it wasn’t difficult to find you. But he must have also kept this house under surveillance. He needed to be certain you were out on your scooter when he called. More than likely he called from a kiosk.’ He observed the two women sitting close to each other on the sofa. ‘When you were at the hospital reception,’ he said to Evelyn, ‘do you recall whether you felt as if you were being watched?’

Evelyn seemed perplexed. ‘There were a lot of people in the cafe,’ she said, ‘and a lot of coming and going through the main entrance. But whether any of them looked at me, I wasn’t in any state to notice. I was completely out of it. Do you know what? If a snowman had stood behind the information desk I wouldn’t have noticed. Why do you ask anyway?’

‘Because he typically shows up to watch his prank play out. Did anyone visit you today?’

‘No one. Just you.’

‘Then I’m guessing he was at the hospital,’ Sejer said. ‘He watched this house. He saw Frances start the scooter and ride through the gate. He called you and then went straight to the hospital. He knew you would show up.

It’s quite possible he observed the entire scene at close range.’

‘I’m speechless,’ Evelyn said.

‘He must have a screw loose,’ Frances said.

Henry was asleep when he entered the room.

In the frayed chair, with his legs on the footstool. He slept soundlessly and with an open mouth. A few worn teeth were visible in his pale gums. Johnny sat down. Proud of what he’d done, he sincerely believed he was remarkable. Not that he thought he was worth much – no more than a louse, or a centipede, or some other nasty creature that crawled around in the damp dark under a rock: he had no more goals or reasons to live, had no more answers, no greater right to life. He didn’t feel significant or vital, and there was nothing meaningful in his life. He felt disconnected, like when you pull up a weed that can never again take root. Indifferent to life and death, to what happened, to what people might think, he could do as he pleased. What it would lead to didn’t concern him, and it didn’t bother him to think of the consequences. But he felt a bond to the old man asleep in the chair.

Where will I go when you are gone? he thought. Who will I visit? Who will I help? This is the only place where I can think clearly. Here, in this hot, stuffy lounge, on the old footstool. I’ll make a sandwich for you, and then I’ll swat a fly. I’ll fetch the post, and then we’ll chat for a while.

‘Grandpa?’ he whispered.

Henry blinked. ‘I knew you were here,’ he mumbled. ‘You come as silently as a cat, but I notice at once.’

Johnny moved closer. ‘Has your carer been here?’ he wanted to know. ‘The woman from Thailand?’

The old man raised a claw-like hand and wiped a droplet of snot from his nose. The hand, with its crooked fingers, resembled those primitive weapons Johnny had seen in films, a wooden club with spikes hammered into it.

‘Mai Sinok. Her name is Mai Sinok, and she was here at eight this morning. She brought a pot of cabbage soup, and four nectarines. I’ve eaten it all up, Johnny, there’s nothing left for you.’ He opened his pale, watery eyes.

‘Grandpa, how are you feeling today? You’re not getting worse, are you?’

The old man considered this question. He regarded his frail body from head to toe. ‘I’m not getting worse,’ he said. ‘But I’m not getting better, either. I have water in my lungs, you know, and arthritis in every body part and a failing heart. What do you know, it rhymes. Did you catch that, Johnny?’

Johnny put a hand on his grandfather’s arm. ‘You’ll live until you’re ninety,’ he assured him. ‘In twenty years I’ll be sitting here, and you’ll be like a gnarled tree that I can hang my helmet on.’

The old man grunted, apparently a laugh.

‘Tell me what it’s like,’ Johnny said. ‘To be old. I mean, when the body is as worn out as yours. You hardly ever eat. Just sit here sleeping. Hardly ever talk to anyone, just me and Mai Sinok.’

‘You mean I’m near the edge of my grave.’ He stroked his hair away from his forehead. The room’s heat made him sluggish and drowsy. ‘You too are on the edge of the grave. Perhaps we’re all on the edge of the grave.’

‘I’m just seventeen,’ Johnny said. ‘I’ve got a full life ahead of me.’

‘That’s what we like to believe. Otherwise life would be impossible.’

‘Tell me what it’s like,’ Johnny repeated. ‘Can you feel death getting closer? Can you feel your heart and everything else work more slowly? What’s it like to live in slow motion?’

‘Oh, it’s all right. It’s like bobbing in the surf, against the shore and out, against the shore and out. From morning to evening. You’ve just got to let yourself go.’

‘You’re lying,’ Johnny said. ‘Bobbing in the surf, you say.’

Again the old man grunted a laugh. With his spiked club-hands he made a slight wave, gave Johnny a clumsy caress. ‘I’m feeling quite well, lad.’

‘But I want to know what it feels like,’ Johnny insisted. ‘Is the light different? Or the sound?’

Henry sighed. ‘I see the same things as you. Every person lives his life on the edge. The view is the same. To say anything else would be a lie.’ Then he added: ‘Where have you been today? What have you been up to?’

Johnny made himself comfortable on the footstool. In spite of his modest weight, the plastic cover and the nails holding it together cracked.

‘Not much. I went to a cafe. I ate a vanilla pastry and perused the newspaper.’

Clearly they’ll get me, he thought.

Sooner or later. That’s all right. While I wait for them to get me, I’ll have fun. I like this game, I always win. But if I were to meet my match, then that would be all right. I won’t sulk and complain. It was fun while it lasted, and I’ve made my presence known.

He stayed with Henry for several hours. They read the newspaper and discussed this and that, but for long stretches of time they just sat in comfortable silence. Close to each other in the hot room. When he finally got up to leave, he caught sight of Else Meiner through the window, and when he was in the garden, she also caught sight of him. She straddled her blue Nakamura bicycle, and it appeared to be fixed. The tyres were brand new. He started the moped and put on his helmet, then slipped on to the road. She waited. Her face was one big grin. He thought about something his grandfather had once said. That a person who teases you was often a person who, deep down, was attracted to you, possibly even in love. So he studied Else Meiner extra carefully. The little girl’s pointy face with the large front teeth. Was she in love with him? Deep down? He continued on the road slowly. This time he didn’t look away, down at the handlebars or up at the sky. He stared directly at her. She didn’t flinch. He had never really looked at that smile, he realised, and it was actually a bright and cheery smile. She knows I was the one who slashed her tyres, he thought, that’s what she’s trying to say. That’s why she’s not shouting at me like she normally does, because we’re even now. We’re finally even! He gunned the throttle and raced ahead, across the road. As he passed her, she raised her middle finger.

‘Frogface,’ she called out.

Her laughter crackled like ice cubes rolling across a table.

He was so furious that the heat rose in his cheeks.

‘Stupid little girl,’ he shouted. ‘You’ll get it! Tonight!’

He remembered it was Thursday. That meant the band would practise at the Hauger School gymnasium, and Else Meiner would blow her trumpet until her cheeks puffed out. I’ll use the army knife, he thought.

I’ll puncture both your lungs.

Then there will be no more sounds from your trumpet.

Later he got to thinking about the Hauger School Band. That Else Meiner would leave on her bicycle, her instrument stowed in a little case over the back wheel. With others she would sit in the gymnasium for two hours, blowing her trumpet. Or an hour and a half. He didn’t know how long band practice would last, but he planned to watch through the window. Before he left, he scavenged in his chest of drawers – looking for a little surprise for Else Meiner. He didn’t want to be unprepared. Then he slipped his hand into Butch’s cage and patted him gently on the back.

‘No country for old men,’ he whispered.

He went outside.

It was late summer, and all the vegetation had begun to dry up. There was no colour or freshness, none of nature’s optimism, none of its strength. It was as if someone, a spirit or a giant, had swept through the entire Askeland housing estate and left its considerable mark. Don’t you rise again. It’s getting cold now, and dark. Johnny Beskow looked at each house as he passed, as was his routine. You could buy heroin at Askeland; twice he’d been stopped and offered some. No thanks, he’d said with a superior smile. He put enormous stock in being clear-headed, and he was agile and fast and sharp. The addicts who hung around Askeland reminded him of sleepwalkers.

He stopped when he neared Hauger School, hitting the brakes and quickly surveying the area. The bike shed was crammed with bicycles. A few cars sat in the car park. A rope slapped against the flagpole like a whip. He heard a drum, drumsticks pounding steadily against the tight skin, in an even, definite rhythm. He knew that it was the bass drum, the heartbeat of the march. The band had already started, with percussion and horns. A piccolo whined shrilly above all else. Because he didn’t want Else Meiner to hear him, he pushed the moped the final stretch towards the bike shed; you never knew with her, she was awfully sharp. When the moped was parked, he plodded about in the playground, glancing around. Hopscotch patterns, both flyer and niner variations, were painted directly on the black asphalt. Though he didn’t have a marker, he couldn’t resist the urge to hop through the patterns. I don’t weigh much, he thought, as he hopped, and I’m limber. I’m one hell of a jumping troll. His light gymnastics made his heart race; blood raced through his thin body.

He sized up the playground. Straight ahead, behind a red-and-white metal barrier, he saw a bike path; he’d walked that way many times before he’d got his moped. Narrow and paved, it was called the Love Trail. Else Meiner had also come that way, he was quite certain, for she lived at Bjørnstad. And when she went home to Rolandsgata, after band practice, she would again ride that trail. On the blue Nakamura bicycle. At any rate, this is what he was counting on to carry out his vengeance, which he’d plotted so carefully over the past few hateful hours of the afternoon. Energised by these thoughts, he began walking with urgent steps towards the barrier. It would be easy to push the moped past it. He could wait for her there on the trail, hidden behind some bushes – because he noticed they were thick, good hiding places. Now his heart was beating even faster. He was filled with this honey-sweet thing called revenge. For a while he stood near the barrier and considered, glanced right to left, studied the dry, dense vegetation. Then he walked back to the school building. Sneaked down to the basement window and peeked into the gymnasium. The conductor was standing in the middle of the room energetically waving the white baton, his entire body pushing the band forward in the march: pointed elbows, a bend in the knees, eager jerks with his bearded chin. On the left side of the gym were the woodwind players. One of the clarinets had a squeak to it. The percussionists were in the back. And there, in the front right, sat the brass players, Else Meiner and her trumpet among them. Her cheeks were puffed out, exactly as he’d imagined. But she could really play; she was the only one who played pure notes, the only one who kept the rhythm.

Johnny sank to the asphalt, his back against the brick wall by the window, while the band worked its way through a number of marches. Mostly it was the bass drum that interested him. The drumsticks beat with precision and tenacity, keeping the others in rhythm, getting them back on track, so to speak, because it was undeniable they were playing too fast. With regular intervals they stopped, and there followed a sharp rapping sound – the conductor smacking his baton against his music stand. It meant that he wanted to make a change. When the band had played for an hour, it suddenly grew quiet in the gym. Johnny peered cautiously through the window, and he realised it was break time. They had put their instruments aside, and they were on the way up. The boys would probably smoke on the sly, and the girls would probably hop through the flyer and niner, maybe chew some gum while they had the chance. He scrambled from the asphalt and rushed behind the corner of the school building, where he watched them pile out. Else Meiner was wearing jeans and a light blue jacket, and she was wearing it backwards – the buttons, he noticed, were on her back. Miss Contrary, then. But he already knew that – that she was bold and different. She ganged up with two other girls; it looked as though they shared some sweets. The girls’ voices rose through the air, clear as a bell. He squeezed against the wall and kept them under surveillance, made a note of their gestures, the interaction between them. The Meiner girl was the leader, the one the others listened to.