It was always horrible to wake up in the middle of a dream. With a jolt. The feeling you were falling God knows where, without any control. Unsure whether someone was out there in the dark and would attack you.
He was unable to move right away. Scared to make a noise. Scared someone would hear. Idiotic. But it had ever been thus. From when he was a small boy and he thought there was a man waiting with a black hat and a raised sword in the wardrobe. That was how it had always been. Too scared to move, rigid, staring into the darkness, skin tingling. Until he either went back to sleep or forced himself to fight through the barrier and plucked up the courage to switch on the bedside lamp.
Living alone now, he knew very well it was the nightmares of his childhood that tormented him. Nevertheless, the clammy stiffness had succeeded in locking his arms. As indeed it always had.
At last he moved. Heard the soft rustle of the duvet. Managed to stick out his hand and switch on the lamp. A dim light. Barely enough to illuminate the corners of the bedroom. But enough for him to dare to sit up and grab the cigarette packet on the bedside table. No taste. He immediately regretted having taken the first drag. Not because of the taste, but because he had to open the window. For some reason he didn’t want to open the window.
He smoked with jumpy, darting movements. Thought of the crazy old man from the day before. The dark eyes. Must have been gay. The town was full of crazy gays. And he was always bumping into them. The old man’s mug had reminded him of a face from many years ago. Once he had been sitting and waiting for the tram to leave. Then this man bounded in through the door, and sat on the bench opposite. He said: ‘Come to my place and jerk off, and you’ll get a thousand kroner.’ That was what he had experienced again with the old codger. The dank fear of what sort of nutter he had to deal with. People like that are bloody unpredictable; you can’t know what they are capable of doing. Like yesterday. When he turned and stopped. The old man’s moist, staring eyes.
The telephone rang.
He wasn’t surprised. It was as if he had been expecting it to ring. It was all tied up with the old queer. As if that was why he had woken up, for something like this to happen. He put the cigarette in his mouth and watched the jangling telephone. Answered it. ‘Yes,’ he said, hardly using his larynx. Cleared his throat. ‘Yes,’ he repeated.
Not a sound at the other end. He twisted round and wrenched his arm in such a way as to see his watch. Half past three. As he had guessed.
But then he went cold. There was the sound. He had heard it before. Someone smacking down the receiver. A clatter. And then the silence.
A kilo of lead in the pit of his stomach. Legs rigid and numb under the duvet. Mind on the blink.
The image of her. That resigned smile when no one announced their presence. The receiver being banged down. That morning.
Slowly he cradled the phone, too. Even more slowly he lay back and slid down the bed. Remembered the photograph the short, vicious cop had thrown at him. Her mutilated upper body and the transfixed expression on her face. As though she had hurled herself backwards to avoid the lunges with the knife, but had been impeded by the floor, nowhere else to go.
The bedside lamp lit up almost the whole room. Almost. The bedroom door was closed. Now he could hear the silence. It was much too silent.
Was someone there?
His legs ached. The bedroom door shone out at him.
He struggled to restrain the rising panic. He was at home. All alone. The front door was locked. He tried to calm himself.
Someone had called a wrong number. The front door was locked. But the chain? Had he attached the chain? Of course not.
He never did. Security chains are for old dears. He closed his eyes. The door. His legs went heavy again. There’s no one here! Someone dialled the wrong number! There’s no one here! Get up, go into the hall and put on the chain.
This bloody anxiety. Had he locked the door?
He watched his hands lift the duvet. Watched himself get up.
At that moment there was a ring at the door. The lead in his stomach lurched upwards. He felt the cold in his neck, under his chin. His mind froze. His hands seemed to wither, lose strength, go cold and wax-like; they no longer belonged to him.
He didn’t feel the clothes as he dressed. He had no contact with his body. A repugnant numb sensation. He sat down on the bed. Didn’t move.
Was he imagining things?
The familiar ding-dong. Had he heard it or not?
First the telephone ringing and now this, one ring on the doorbell. At this hour. Half past three in the morning. He remembered the knife on the policeman’s desk. The flash of metal.
He found himself standing in front of the bedroom door. Grasped the handle. Slowly, ever so slowly, he opened the door without making a sound. The sitting room and the kitchen lay before him, silent. The grey night outside allowed him to make out individual contours in the gloom. A yellow strip through the thin crack between the door and the frame told him he had forgotten to turn off the light.
Perfectly still, he stood listening by the front door.
So unbelievably quiet. The doorbell. Had he heard it ring or not? Why didn’t he have a peephole in the door? Everyone had a peephole in the door. Imagine being able to see out!
There.
Another ring. The sound echoed in the quiet hall. The sound seemed to boom. His knees gave way.
Someone was there. Waiting.
His mouth went dry. Should he say something, ask who was there?
His mind wouldn’t work. His voice wouldn’t work. He was just breathing, through an open mouth. But he had to change position. His knee cracked. The sound exploded in his ears. It sounded like a twig cracking. Could it be heard through the door?
Not a sound from outside. His body ached. His posture was unbearable. How long had he been standing like this? It felt like an eternity.
Then. The sound of footsteps. Someone walking. No question about it. He closed his eyes, breathed out. Shoulders slumped. Knees gave way. Whole body had been tense. All the muscles that had been straining found peace. He looked at his watch, measured the time and listened. He stood there for ten minutes. Ten minutes. Couldn’t be anyone there now. Not any more.
His hand went a strange bright white as he unlocked and opened the door.
22
Gunnarstranda had dropped off his car in Kampen, and thus, when, an hour and a half later, he left the bus and strode down to the Grand Hotel, his brow bore a frown of irritation. It had not been easy leaving his car. The garage was not what he had expected. At first, he had not seen a garage at all. The backyard was an empty gravel area containing nothing more than a shed, a clothes line and a bike stand. The shed was a dilapidated garage with cracked grey boards, probably hadn’t been painted since the Second World War. A thin metal tube with a cowl on protruded from the crooked roof, a cartoon chimney.
One door at the corner of the yard. He had read the name plates very carefully, without identifying a Gunder Auto there, either. Eventually, he had sneaked out of the yard, looked at the house numbers one more time, double-checked the address. Had cursed, turned towards a short, slight figure in oil-stained overalls padding up the street. ‘Gunder Auto? That’s me,’ the dipstick had said, walked right past him, with a gentle smile. Then he beckoned him into the garage.