"The foreign woman. I heard the news."
"The area has been cordoned off," the officer told him.
"So I see. I'm going home now."
He got his documents back and was about to drive off. The officer stuck his head inside the car as if he wanted to snoop around. Gunder froze.
"I know I look tired," he said quickly. "But the thing is that my sister's in hospital. She's in a coma. I've been watching over her. It was a car accident."
"I see," the policeman said. "You'd better get home and have a rest."
Gunder stayed for a while until the man had disappeared. Then he drove another ten metres, turned the Volvo on the dirt track and headed home. The officer was all the time watching him. Speaking into his walkie-talkie.
Behaved rather strangely. Seemed as if he was scared of something. I wrote down his details just in case.
No suitcase in the hall, no Poona in the living room. The house was empty. The rooms were dark, it had been daylight when he left and he had not left any lights on. He sat in his armchair for a long time, staring stiffly into space. The incident at Hvitemoen disturbed him. He had a feeling of having done something stupid. The policeman had behaved strangely. Surely it was no-one's business if he went driving and no-one's business where he stopped. Gunder felt dizzy. This business with Poona, everything that had happened in India, perhaps it was all a dream. Something he had made up sitting in Tandel's Tandoori. Who goes abroad and practically picks a wife, like others pick fruit in harvest time? It must be this book, People of All Nations, which had put ideas into my head. He could see the red spine on the shelf. Forced himself to switch on the light. Turn on the TV. There would be news in half an hour. At the same time he was petrified, he didn't want to know any more. But he had to know! They might come out with something which absolutely eliminated Poona. The victim might turn out to be from China. Or from North Africa. The victim, who is in her early twenties, the victim, who has yet to be identified, has a very unusual tattoo which covers her back. His imagination ran riot. Outside, all was quiet.
Chapter 8
As always, Konrad Sejer's lined face displayed the appropriate formal expression. Not many people had ever heard him laugh out loud, even fewer had seen him angry. But his expression betrayed tension; there was an alertness in the grey eyes which bore witness to solemnity, curiosity and passion. He kept his colleagues at a distance. Jacob Skarre was the exception. Sejer was twenty years his senior, nevertheless the pair was often spotted deep in conversation. Skarre was munching yet another jelly baby. Sejer was sucking a Fisherman's Friend. In addition Skarre was the only one in the department who had achieved the feat of persuading the inspector to go out for a beer after work. And on a weekday too. Some people thought Sejer was weird and arrogant. Skarre knew that he was shy. Sejer addressed him as Skarre when they were in company. He only ever called him Jacob when they were alone. Sejer had paused at one of the drinking fountains. He bent down over the jet and slurped up the cool water. He felt a certain dread. The man he was looking for might be a pleasant man. With the same hopes and dreams in life as he himself had had. He had been a child once; someone had loved him very much. He had ties, obligations and responsibilities, and a place in society he was about to lose. Sejer walked on. He never wasted much time thinking about his own affairs. However, deep inside this formal character was a huge appetite for people. Who they were, why they behaved as they did. Whenever he caught a guilty person and obtained a genuine confession he could close the case and file it. This time he was not so sure. Not only had the woman been killed, she had been beaten to a pulp. To kill was in itself extreme. To destroy a body afterwards was bestial. He held many and frequently contradicting views about the concept of crime; primarily he was concerned with all the things they had yet to discover.
There was a woman in his life. Sara Struel, a psychiatrist. She had her own key to his house and came and went as she pleased. There was always a slight excitement in his body when he climbed the thirteen floors to his flat and reached the top. He could see from the narrow, dark crack between the door and the doorstep whether she was there or not. He also had a dog, Kollberg. It was his one personal extravagance. Sometimes at night the heavy animal sneaked up on to his bed. Then he would pretend to be asleep and not notice. But Kollberg weighed 70 kilos and the mattress sagged mightily when he settled at the foot of the bed.
He came into the duty office and nodded briefly to Skarre and Soot, who were manning the hotline.
"Do we know who she is?"
"No."
He looked at his watch. "Who are the calls coming from?"
"Attention-seekers, mostly."
"That's inevitable. Anything interesting at all?"
"Car observations. Two callers have reported seeing a red car drive towards Hvitemoen. One has seen a black taxi going at a hell of a speed towards town. There's hardly any traffic along that stretch, apart from between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. Plus a number of complaints about journalists. Any other news?"
"The reports from the door-to-door interviews are being typed up now. All forensic samples have been sent off," Sejer said. "They promised to make it top priority. We've got forty people working on this case. He won't get away."
He studied the list of incoming telephone numbers. The numbers were preceded by the same four digits, which identified them as mostly people from Elvestad or the vicinity who were calling. As he was standing there, the phone went again. Skarre pressed the speaker button. A voice could be heard in the room.
"Hello, I'm calling from Elvestad. My name is Kalle Moe. Is this the police?"
"It is."
"It's about the business at Hvitemoen."
"I'm listening."
"It's actually about a friend of mine. Or rather, an acquaintance. He's a really decent bloke, so I'm a bit worried that I might be causing problems for him."
"But you're calling all the same. Can you help us?"
Sejer took note of the man's voice: middle-aged and very nervous.
"Perhaps. You see, it so happens that this acquaintance of mine, he lives alone and has done for years. A little while back he went on holiday. To India."
The mention of India made Sejer pay attention.
"Yes?"
"And then he came back."
Skarre waited. A silence followed. Soot shook his head dismissively.
"Well, then, on the afternoon of August 20th, he called because he needed help."
"He needed help?" Skarre said to nudge the long-winded story to a useful point.
"His sister had fetched up in hospital following a car crash. Seriously injured."
Another silence. Skarre rolled his eyes. Sejer put a finger to his mouth.
"He had to go to the hospital immediately, of course, to be with her. It's a terrible business. But he called me because he was in fact supposed to have been at Gardermoen."
"Gardermoen airport?" Skarre said.
"He was expecting a visitor from abroad. And – would you believe it? – he told me that during his fortnight in India he had managed to get himself married!"
Skarre smiled. The man's reaction to something so bizarre was expressed in an excited crescendo.
"So this woman I was asked to collect, she was, in other words, his wife. His Indian wife."
Sejer and Skarre exchanged glances.
"Ah!" Skarre smiled, affected by the man's excitement.
"But as it turned out, I never found her."
The caller struggled with his complicated story. The three men listened intently. They recognised that this was important, the very first step on the way to a result.
"She was supposed to land at six o'clock," the narrative continued. "But she never turned up."
"Why hasn't he called himself?" Skarre said.