The interior light came on.
‘Do you think René knew he was going to die?’
Anton Mittet didn’t answer. He had just caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. At least he thought it was him. His face was covered with glistening blood. His nose was swollen on one side, probably broken.
‘How does it feel, Mittet? Knowing? Can you tell me that?’
‘Wh. . why?’ Anton’s question was almost an automatic response. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to know why. Just knew he was freezing cold. And that he wanted to get away. He wanted to go to Laura. To hold her. To be held by her. Smell her fragrance. Feel her warmth.
‘Haven’t you worked it out, Mittet? It’s because you didn’t solve the case, of course. I’m giving you all another chance. An opportunity to learn from earlier mistakes.’
‘L. . learn?’
‘Did you know that psychological research has shown that slightly negative feedback enhances your performance? Not very negative and not positive, but just a bit negative. Punishing all of you, killing just one detective from the group at a time, is like a series of slightly negative reports, don’t you think?’
The wheels creaked, and Anton stamped on the pedal again. Staring at the edge. It felt as though he would have to press even harder.
‘It’s the brake fluid,’ the voice said. ‘I punctured the pipe. It’s running out. Soon it won’t help however hard you press. Do you think you’ll be able to think while you’re falling? Or regret what you’ve done?’
‘Regret wha. .?’ Anton wanted to go on, but no more words came, his mouth seemed to be filled with flour. Fall. He didn’t want to fall.
‘Regret taking the baton,’ the voice said. ‘Regret not helping to find the murderer. It could have saved you from this, you know.’
Anton had a feeling he was squeezing the fluid out via the pedal, that the harder he pressed, the quicker the fluid was being drained from the system. He eased the pressure with his foot. The gravel under the tyres crunched, and in his panic he pushed his back against the seat and straightened his legs against the floor and the brake pedal. The car had two separate hydraulic brake systems; maybe just one of them had been punctured.
‘If you repent perhaps your sins will be forgiven, Mittet. Jesus is magnanimous.’
‘I. . I repent. Get me out.’
Low laughter. ‘But, Mittet, I’m talking about heaven. I’m not Jesus. You won’t get any forgiveness from me.’ Little pause. ‘And the answer is yes, I punctured both systems.’
For a moment Anton thought he could hear the brake fluid dripping from under the car until he noticed that it was his own blood dripping from the tip of his chin into his lap. He was going to die. It was suddenly such an inalienable fact that a chill washed through his body and it became more difficult to move, as though rigor mortis had already set in. But why was the murderer still sitting beside him?
‘You’re frightened of dying,’ the voice said. ‘It’s your body; it’s secreting a scent. Can you smell it? Adrenalin. It smells of medicine and urine. It’s the same odour you smell in old people’s homes and slaughterhouses. The smell of mortal fear.’
Anton gasped for air; there didn’t seem to be enough for both of them.
‘As for me, I’m not at all afraid of dying,’ the voice said. ‘Isn’t it strange? That you can lose something so fundamentally human as the fear of dying. Of course, it’s partly to do with the desire to live, but only partly. Many people spend their whole lives somewhere they don’t want to be out of fear that the alternative is worse. Isn’t that sad?’
Anton had a sense he was being suffocated. He had never had asthma himself, but he had seen Laura when she had an attack, seen the desperate, imploring expression on her face, felt the despair at not being able to help, at being no more than a spectator of her panic-stricken struggle to breathe. But a part of him had also been curious, wanting to know, to feel what it was like to be there, to feel you were on the verge of dying, to feel there was nothing you could do, it was something that was being done to you.
Now he knew.
‘I believe death is a better place,’ the voice intoned. ‘But I can’t join you now, Anton. You see, I have a job to do.’
Anton could hear the crunching of gravel again, like a hoarse voice slowly introducing a sentence with this sound that would soon go faster. And it was no longer possible to press the pedal any further, it was on the floor.
‘Goodbye.’
He felt the cold air from the passenger’s side as the door was opened.
‘The patient,’ Anton groaned.
He stared ahead at the edge, where everything disappeared, but felt the person in the passenger seat turn towards him.
‘Which patient?’
Anton stuck out his tongue, ran it along his top lip, sensing something moist that tasted sweet and metallic. Licked the inside of his mouth. Found his voice. ‘The patient at the Rikshospital. I was drugged before he was killed. Was that you?’
There was a couple of seconds’ silence as he listened to the rain. The rain out there in the darkness, was there a more beautiful sound? If he could have chosen he would have sat there listening to the sound day after day. Year after year. Listening and listening, enjoying every second he was given.
Then the body beside him moved, he felt the car rise as it was relieved of the man’s weight. The door closed softly. He was alone. The car was moving. The sound of tyres rolling slowly on gravel was like a husky whisper. The handbrake. It was fifty centimetres away from his right hand. Anton tried to pull his hands away. Didn’t even feel the pain as the skin burst. The husky whisper was louder and quicker now. He knew he was too tall and too stiff to get a foot under the handbrake, so he leaned down. Opened his mouth. Held the tip of the handbrake, felt it pressing against the inside of his upper teeth, pulled, but it slipped out. Tried again, knowing it was too late, but he preferred to die like this, fighting, desperate, alive. He twisted, held the brake lever in his mouth again.
Now it was totally still. The voice had gone quiet and the rain had come to a sudden stop. No, it hadn’t stopped. It was him. He was falling. Weightless, as he swirled round in a slow waltz, like the one he had danced that time with Laura while everyone they knew stood around watching. Rotated on his own axis, slowly, swaying, step-two-three, only now he was all alone. Falling in this strange silence. Falling with the rain.
14
Laura Mittet looked at them. She had come down to the front of the block in Elveparken when they rang, and now she was standing with her arms crossed, freezing in her dressing gown. The first rays of sun glittering on the River Drammen. Something had flickered in her mind; for a couple of seconds she wasn’t there, she didn’t hear them, didn’t see anything, except for the river behind them. For a few seconds she was alone thinking that Anton had never been the right one. She had never met Mr Right, or at least had never got him. And the one she had got, Anton, had cheated on her the same year they got married. He had never found out that she knew. She’d had too much to lose for that. And he’d probably been having another affair now. He’d had the same expression on his face of exaggerated normality when he delivered the same rotten excuses. Overtime shifts imposed from above. Traffic jam on the way home. Mobile off because the battery was dead.
There were two of them. A man and a woman, both in uniforms without a wrinkle or a stain. As though they had just taken them out of the wardrobe and put them on. Serious, almost frightened eyes. Called her ‘fru Mittet’. No one else did. And she wouldn’t have appreciated it, either. It was his name and she had regretted taking it many times.