"I'm going over to see Pappa," she said. "I need to make sure he has food in the fridge." There was that word again, that always made him feel embarrassed. Pappa. A familiar tiny pang.
"How is he taking it? That he's alone so much?"
"Do you have a guilty conscience?"
"Maybe he needs you more than I do."
"Don't you need me?" she said.
He looked at her in confusion. "Of course I do. I just meant because he's ill. I can take care of myself."
"Can you?"
He couldn't see what she was getting at. He looked at her face and then at the mound of spaghetti, searching for a clue. Of course he needed her. But he couldn't avoid thinking about her father, who had MS, sitting alone in his wheelchair. And the fact that he had taken Sara from him. Well, she wasn't always at his place, but increasingly often.
"I need you terribly," he said.
"More than my father," she said. "You need me more than my father does. Say it out loud!" But he didn't say a word. He was trying to imagine what his life would be like if she were suddenly to disappear. Deep inside he was preparing for that. Would he survive it? Was he really expecting her to leave soon? Was he reluctant to give himself to her wholeheartedly? How much did she need him? She was so independent. Seemed as if she could handle anything. But could he be mistaken? He wasn't the one she needed, not really. He didn't want to play. Sooner or later she would find someone else, a younger man. Someone like Jacob, it crossed his mind. God help me, what am I thinking? I'm actually jealous. Of everyone who's younger and freer than I am.
"You have to forgive me," he said. "I'm a little slow."
He sat there, feeling puzzled, and looking at her. And in her eyes he saw something that took his breath away. An overwhelming tenderness. He had to bow his head. It was too much for him. They finished their meal in silence. But now he was inside her head, he could feel it. When they had finished, he washed the dishes. The phone rang. It was Jacob's eager voice, mixed with some kind of atonal ruckus. Sejer had to shout into the receiver.
"I can't hear you! Could you turn down that noise? Are you calling from home?"
"Jazz from Hell!" Jacob shouted back. "Frank Zappa. Is that what you call noise?"
Sejer could hear the receiver being put down on a hard surface. The noise vanished.
"I've been out to visit Mrs Winther's friend," Jacob said, breathing hard. "Konrad, there's something about that old lady! Excuse the expression, but I wonder if she's off her trolley, plain and simple, nuts."
"I see," Sejer said, waiting for Jacob to continue.
"You have to go and talk to her!"
"What?"
"She knows something. I could tell that something odd has been going on. I can't explain it. But as your mother used to say: I just know!"
"It's late," Sejer began. "I've got other things . . . Robert's parents . . ."
"I know. But she went to the station, and she called. She says cryptic things: that she knows where he is, that he won't live long and God knows what else. You've got to check her out!"
"She says that she knows where he is?"
"Without mentioning his name. But she knows. You have to talk to her. I don't have any real theory, but I just think the set-up is weird. What's more, she knows him, he's her friend's son."
"But you were there yourself, weren't you? Did you find anything, or didn't you?"
"I found out that you have to talk to her. You have to experience it for yourself."
Sejer quite simply couldn't ignore Skarre's kind of eagerness, his strong intuition. His dog gazed after him, and he thought for a second or two before he made up his mind and called to him. Kollberg raced through the room like a woolly bolt of lightning. Sejer caressed Sara on the cheek as he said goodbye and then walked down all 13 floors. Kollberg stopped on every step. Sejer paused to look at the dog's bulky body, and it dawned on him that old age was about to catch up with his dog. That he might have spared him all those steps. You're getting old too, he muttered. They stepped into the light. He stopped again. "You're old," he said out loud as the dog fixed his dark eyes on him.
"Do you realise that?" Kollberg waited patiently as if expecting a treat. A piece of dried fish, for example.
"No," muttered Sejer. "Never mind."
C H A P T E R 2 1
I had a horrible dream. I dreamed that I woke up in the cellar. On the floor, stretched full length, icecold and bruised. My head hurt, as if a dull hammer was pounding and pounding. I managed to get up and stagger out of the room. I headed for the stairs and caught sight of something lying on the floor under a tarpaulin. Someone had dumped their rubbish in my cellar! What a nerve! I had to step over it. That's when I looked through the plastic and saw two dead eyes and a gaping mouth with no teeth. I wanted to scream, but no sound came out of my mouth. When I woke up in my bed, my head was still pounding terribly. I woke up because the doorbell was ringing. I thought: It's Runi. I'm not opening it! But I went to the door anyway, my legs wobbling under me. My head felt so heavy that I had to hold it with my hand. Through the peephole in the door I looked straight at a man. He was very tall, with greying hair. He didn't look like a salesman or anything. I stood there for a moment, listening to the doorbell, that rang and rang. All this coming and going was getting on my nerves.
No-one ever came to my house, so what was this all about?
The bell rang again, a long, determined peal. A voice in my head ordered me to open the door. Maybe he had peeked in the window and seen that I was home, as everyone kept on doing – I had again found a garden chair pulled over to the wall – and if I didn't open the door they would blast it open, and I couldn't let them do that. Everybody was after me, do you understand? And that hideous dream was still hanging on. If I opened the door it might go away. At the sound of a real voice. I opened the door a crack. Probably I had a fever. I could feel my cheeks burning.
"Irma Funder?"
The voice was very deep. Wrapped in that full, low voice, my name sounded beautiful. His eyes were dark and clear and unblinking. They held me fast. I didn't move, could only look at him. In the very back of my aching head something was buzzing, something important. Telling me that I had to get away! That I should fall down, surrender. It buzzed and buzzed. I strained to understand what I wanted. I wanted everything. To flee in panic, to collapse. To sleep for ever.
"Is everything all right?"
I didn't reply, just stared at him. Scrambled to get out of my dream. I wanted to get out to that man. I nodded, without opening the door any wider, just kept on nodding. I've always been a yes man, I thought. And the thought made me angry. Not at this grey man, but at Irma.
"I'm from the police," he said as he continued to look at me with that serious expression. I thought he might be able to help. That he would understand. I put my hand to my head. And then he smiled. That made him look different, it lit up his furrowed face. A handsome man, it occurred to me, and so tall that he almost had to bend down to go into the kitchen. It's an old house. Nowadays they're probably built differently, but Henry wasn't a tall man, and I'm quite short myself. I creep around; I've told you that already. And now I crept after the man into the kitchen. I liked that, padding after that tall man. He looked around. Pointed to a chair. I gestured my permission.
"What's been going on?" he asked calmly. It looked as if he knew a great deal. But how could he?
For a moment I considered telling him about my dream, but I changed my mind. It would just embarrass him. So I didn't answer. I was still standing there, holding my head with one hand. The other I put on my stomach. I was afraid the bag would get detached and fall to the floor under my dress. That was something this handsome man had to be spared at all costs.