– What have you got to tell me that’s so important? Did you win a football match? She was satisfied with her tone of voice. Just the right amount of sarcasm in it.
– Football? Don’t try to talk shop with me. You’ll find out what it is when we meet.
– Are we going to meet?
– Yes.
– Who said so?
– You did.
– Let’s stick to the truth.
Afterwards she scolded herself for being so agreeable. She paid for the three things she had come in for and then went back out into the street.
Liss sat at the coffee table, directly opposite him.
– Sorry, she said, forgetting to maintain the sarcastic tone. She didn’t really know what she was sorry about either. Maybe that she was twenty minutes late. Or that she’d run off with his jacket and not replied to any of his messages.
Jomar Vindheim gave her a teasing smile. – Quite okay. Doesn’t matter what you’re apologising for, Liss, it’s quite okay by me whatever.
– Your jacket, she said, putting the plastic bag down beside his chair. – I didn’t mean to nick it.
– I’ve reported you for theft, he said in a serious voice. – But I only had a very vague description, so it didn’t help much. Now I’ve got the chance to get a clearer look at you.
She wasn’t on his wavelength. He seemed to notice.
– Seriously, Liss, I’m the one who should be apologising. All this business with your sister…
– All this business? She’d found her way back to sarcasm again, but let it go. He was probably just trying to be considerate.
– I understand why you haven’t answered any of my messages.
– Do you, she said.
– You’ve got other things to think about besides an old jacket, Liss.
It sounded as if he enjoyed repeatedly saying her name. Did he imagine that using it like that would bring them closer together?
– I actually did wear it, she told him. – Almost every day.
He grinned. – You could have stuck a pole inside that jacket and used it as a tent.
She looked at him. The slanting eyes were a surprisingly light blue colour. He wasn’t handsome; there was something crude and disproportionate about his features, as though he was still passing through puberty and things hadn’t found their rightful shape. A row of pimples arced across his forehead. Clearly all this was something not only teenage girls found attractive, but for example Therese too. Not to mention Catrine, but then she was always on the lookout for sex.
– Maybe you’d like to keep it?
She turned up her nose. – If I had a place to live, I could have hung it up on the wall, with your autograph on it.
This time he laughed and didn’t bother with a comeback. He had an irritatingly white and regular set of teeth, and seemed sure of himself. He was a top-flight footballer and bound to be earning in excess of a million a year for playing around with a ball. And he certainly had other women besides Therese hanging around him. But from the moment he walked across to their table at the Café Mono, Liss was the one he had been concentrating on. And after she passed out at his place that night and then ran off with his jacket, he’d sent her four or five messages.
Just then she remembered something else from the evening they met.
– You know him, she exclaimed.
He looked at her in surprise.
– You know that guy who grabbed me by the throat. I saw you talking to him just before. When he was standing in the doorway dealing dope.
He took a swig of Coke.
– Why didn’t you say so before? she persisted.
The slanting eyes narrowed even more. – Did you ask me?
She hadn’t. He could have no way of knowing why she was looking for the guy.
– I don’t give a shit if he’s your dealer, or whatever else you do. I just want to know who he is.
– Dealer? You think I’m into stuff like that? I know him from the sports academy.
– Oh yeah, right.
– It’s true, Jomar assured her. – He was a student there a few years ago. Started at the same time as me.
– What’s his name?
– Jim Harris. He had a real talent as a middle-distance runner. Great at the four hundred, even better at the eight hundred. Could have been a top athlete if only his head wasn’t so screwed.
– Screwed what way?
– He can never finish anything. Makes a mess of everything. Ends up on the slide. To begin with he had people round him to help get him back on his feet, but they’ve all given up now.
– He was a patient of Mailin’s.
– Was he?
She described the encounter in Mailin’s office.
Jomar said: – If Jimbo found the office door open, then he probably went in there to see if there was any loose cash lying about in the drawers. He owes money to every dealer in town. That’s why he’s started dealing himself. I tried to help him for a while. Lent him money. Let him sleep it off at my place.
– I’m convinced he was after something else, said Liss.
– What makes you think that?
She told him what had happened the evening he came across her in the park.
– Ah, shit. Jomar’s face took on a strange expression.
– Did you know about that?
He shook his head. – Of course not. But Jimbo rang me a few days ago. He said he’d seen you at that party in Sinsen and wanted to know if I knew you. I was stupid enough to tell him you were the sister of that… I don’t think he had any intention of harming you. He’s not like that.
– Didn’t you realise it was him who grabbed me by the throat down in the stairwell?
Again Jomar swore. – I asked you to tell me what had happened.
She ignored him. – When he was holding me there in the park, something suddenly occurred to him. He ran off. Jim Harris, was that his name? Those were the initials in Mailin’s appointments book. He must have seen Mailin that afternoon. Perhaps someone was with her. You understand what this means? This guy saw what happened… Where can I get hold of him?
– You don’t want to be wandering about in the kinds of places where he hangs out, Jomar warned her.
She sat there looking down at the table. – I want you to help, she said suddenly.
In the days following the discovery of Mailin’s body, she could face almost nothing. Thought as little as possible. Now she was seized by a need to do something, anything. In a rush she began telling him everything she had found out. Showed him the times from Mailin’s call list. Told him about the videos.
– Mailin was filmed the morning after she went missing. Liss flipped through her notebook. – Those video clips were dated Friday the twelfth at 05.35.
It helped her to be speaking about all these details, as though for a brief moment they were no longer about Mailin but someone else altogether.
He listened without interrupting. She didn’t know him. But he was outside it all, had never met Mailin, and for that reason it was possible to share it with him. Even what had happened at the cabin, the footprints in the snow, the printout she’d found in the sofa cushion.
Afterwards she looked across at him. Reluctantly she began to understand why Therese had been so angry with her. She liked his looks, but even more she liked how relaxed and almost modest he seemed. She hadn’t intended to stay, just to hand the jacket back and offer some kind of apology. Now she’d been sitting there for almost an hour.
She stood up. – I must have a ciggy.
– I’ll come out with you, he said.
She blew smoke out in the direction of the light above the doorway and studied the way the lead-blue formations gathered and then at once dissolved.
– When can I see you again? Jomar wanted to know.
She felt his look like prickling on her skin. Didn’t mind at all that he never seemed to tire of looking at her. Just couldn’t face all the explanations she would have to give. Why she couldn’t meet him. Why she wasn’t interested. Why she was who she was. Why she could never again face the thought of being with someone. Felt a sudden longing to be at the cabin. Sitting by the window looking down towards Morr Water in the dusk. The darkness gathering around her, thicker and thicker. The silence.