Before I Burn: A Novel (28 page)

IV.

THE DARKNESS LAY thick against the windows of the community centre, converting them into large, unclear mirrors. Everyone inside could look up at any moment and see a white indistinct face simultaneously peering up from another corner of the room, they could sit for a moment staring at this face that stared back with rapt attention before they realised: that’s me.

The interrogation had gone on for several hours. The petrol cap was produced and placed on the table before him. It was white, and
FB
had been painted along the side in black, somewhat wobbly letters. He didn’t bat an eyelid.
Do you know what this is?
he was asked. Yes, he replied.
And do you know where it was found?
No, he said. There was a silence. A car passed by on the road. He leaned forwards and had a sip from his cup.
Do you know who found it?
This time he didn’t answer, just gave a casual shrug. Something was beginning to happen to his face, it was stiffening and the features were hardening. It was as if it was going to crack, but it didn’t. It just got harder and harder.

And then.

Your father. It was your father who found it.

That was the moment everything came tumbling out.

It was 11.17 p.m.. The precise time was hammered in next to the confession.
Suspect confesses.
Interrogation provisionally terminated at 11.25 p.m.. Statement read and approved by the suspect. Police car requisitioned to transport prisoner to Kristiansand District Prison. There was a sudden atmosphere of departure in the council room. Officers went out for some fresh air. Dag joined them, but this time he was handcuffed and he wasn’t given a cigarette. NTB, the news agency, was contacted. NRK broke the news on its late-night programme with a brief item.
This evening the arsonist recently spreading fear and panic through the small community of Finsland in Vest-Agder has been arrested by the police.
Seconds later there was an avalanche of telephone calls from every newspaper. Knut Koland sat answering all the enquiries with equanimity. There was not a great deal he could say. It was still too early.
Who is he? Who is the pyromaniac?
It’s a young man from our region, he replied. Nothing else. The lad would be driven the thirty kilometres to Kristiansand, where he would be brought before the magistrates’ court on a charge of arson with intent to murder. He called him ‘the lad’ all the way through. There was nothing else he had to say. Four words, that was all.

He has been arrested.

Slightly after half past twelve the car arrived to take him to the prison in Kristiansand. Two officers entered the council room, one gave a brief nod, then Dag got up slowly and followed them into the night. It was chilly, as the nights had been of late, and he ambled down to the waiting vehicle. He could see Alfred and Else’s house at the end of the field, all the windows lit, the old shop beside the crossing dark and still, as was the chapel. The officers opened the rear door of the car; one officer placed his hand on Dag’s head and carefully but firmly pushed him inside. The last he saw was the mist which also this night had appeared from nowhere, and hung so strangely white and pure and unsullied a few metres above the fields.

V.

LENSMANN KNUT KOLAND is interviewed in the Wednesday edition of
Faedrelandsvennen
, on 7 June 1978, where he informs readers that the pyromaniac has been remanded in custody for twelve weeks. He says nothing about the identity of the suspect. Or the fact that he is the fire chief’s only son.

In the same newspaper, at the very bottom of the first page, a short article about the motorcycle accident:
Young Man Still Unconscious.

Koland says in the interview that he hasn’t slept for the last three days, and that he is glad it is all over. While emphasising the enormous human tragedy it masks. ‘It’s very sad, the whole business.’

In a way this is where everything begins.

Later that morning a car started at Skinnsnes. It was a dark red Ford Granada. The bumper was a bit compressed, there were remnants of earth and bark in the chipped paintwork by the Ford badge and one headlamp was slightly off-kilter. Ingemann was driving, with Alma beside him. They were both silent. She sat quite still with a bag in her lap and her hands folded over the clasp as if afraid someone would take it from her. The car turned right, passed the disused co-op building where the balcony was empty and the flagpole bare, as it had been for as long as anyone could remember. They drove downhill past the chapel, past the community centre, which was now completely deserted and quiet, continued gently down round the bends to Fjeldsgårdsletta, and there he accelerated and they raced past the old garage at the end of the plain. Soon they saw Lake Livannet, which lay there as it always had, glittering jauntily in the sun, but inshore the water was black and still. They parked in the shade outside Kaddeberg’s shop, got out and mounted the five steps of the staircase you could access from both sides. They entered the chilly shop where Kaddeberg himself was behind the counter with a pencil stump behind one ear. He sent them a measured though friendly nod, and Ingemann nodded back. There was no one else inside, and Kaddeberg left them in peace. All they wanted was a card, with a picture of some flowers perhaps. Alma found a suitable one on the small stand by the till. It was plain, with a picture of a closed rose on the front and without any writing. She gave it to Ingemann and wandered back to the car while he paid. Before they set off she wrote:
In our thoughts.
Then the two names. Alma. Ingemann. That was all. Then they drove on. The car crawled up the hills past the post office. Alma gazed down at Lake Livannet glittering and quivering in the morning breeze. It was another radiant summer’s day. It was going to be hot. The sun was already high in the sky, and she could feel perspiration on her back. They passed Konrad’s light green house, continued past the road to Vatneli, and reaching the brow of the hill they turned right and into the yard of the little house with the splendid view of the lake and the dark blue hills to the west. The house belonged to Knut and Aslaug Karlsen. Alma felt dizzy. She put the card into her bag, then retrieved it and got out of the car. They stood for a moment in the hot sun, casting long, slender shadows. Ingemann took a comb from his rear pocket and swept it through his hair a couple of times, from the front to the back. She affected to adjust her hair, flicked some dust off her coat, checked her bag to make sure the card was there, but it wasn’t, it was in her hand. Then they walked to the door together. Ingemann leaned forwards and knocked three times. They waited; neither of them had said a word since they left home. Now Alma said: ‘I can’t do this. I can’t.’

They heard footsteps inside, a blurred figure came into sight behind the frosted glass, the door opened. It was Johanna. She had washed her face; her eyebrows were still marked by the fierce heat. She had no teeth in. She looked at Ingemann, then Alma. Her face lit up strangely when she realised who they were, as if age and sorrow were erased for an instant, as easy as anything. There was almost a kind of smile. She said: ‘It’s good you’ve both come.’

Then she opened the door wide. Inside, Olav was on his feet and waiting. They went in. Alma first, followed by Ingemann. He closed the door gently after him. Silence, apart from the birds.

No one knows what the four of them talked about.

I.

IT EMERGED THAT THERE WERE three of him. It came out in all the letters he wrote to people in Finsland. He referred to himself in three ways.

There was Dag.

Then there was
the lad.

And lastly I

The lad
, that was what Ingemann used to call him.

Perhaps it was
the lad
who lit the fires, and then Dag came along and put them out? I don’t know. Perhaps it was the other way around:
the lad
put them out? But who in that case was
I
?

Letters streamed out of prison in the initial months. First and foremost he wrote to those people whose houses he had set alight. He wrote to Olav and Johanna Vatneli. He wrote to Kasper Kristiansen. He wrote to Bjarne Sløgedal. He wrote to Anders and Agnes Fjeldsgård.

But also to others. To Teresa. To Alfred. And to more. It has not been possible to obtain a clear overview. Most binned the letter after quickly skimming it. It was as if it were dirty, an infection they didn’t want in the house. It was disposed of. Often the letters were extremely incoherent. Incoherent, yet somehow well written. When I asked Kasper what was in his letter, he had to give the question some thought.

Mm, what did he actually write?

Occasional reflections about God, about true believers and the godless. The godless, among whose number he counted himself. The days passed, and he sat writing on the top floor of the courthouse in the heart of Kristiansand. On 9 June the boy involved in the motorcycle accident in Kilen woke up in the intensive ward at the hospital. It was night. Suddenly he opened his eyes. He had survived, but some cerebral matter had of course leaked through his ears and he was a different person.

The weeks passed. On 25 June, after extra time, Argentina became the World Cup football champions at an over-crowded Mar del Plata stadium. He didn’t notice. He was elsewhere. From his window he could see the sea, and the planes that flew in at a low altitude over the town. He could see above the spire and the luminous clock face on the cathedral tower, he could see down into the market square and the entrance to the Mølle pub. On Saturday evenings he knew there were people from Finsland inside, and when he saw that some were smoking outside the entrance and laughing, he opened the window a fraction and shouted down to them.

As the months went by the stream of letters slowly dwindled. In the end there were no more letters. In the end there was nothing. In the end you could wake at night and imagine it had all been a dream.

Autumn came. The sites of the fires lay like blackened wounds, but in the course of the summer, bit by bit, the grass had begun to grow through the ash. In September Kasper demolished the massive chimney at Dynestøl; at Vatneli the foundation walls were broken up and carted off; at the bottom of the Leipsland ridge there were the four corner-stones forming a perfect square. Winter came. In January Johanna died. She was a model of composure during her last days. Exactly like her son. A few days later it began to snow, at night when everyone was asleep. Large, jagged snowflakes fell over the forest, over the houses, still and white, the snow swirled right down into your dreams, and when you awoke the next day the world was new.

II.

THE COURT CASE CAME UP on Monday, 19 February 1979. The judge, Chief Justice Thor Oug, arrived in the courtrooms a few minutes before nine o’clock. Everyone was already in position: the counsel for the prosecution, detective inspector Håkon Skaugvoll, the counsel for the defence Bjørn Moldenes, as well as two psychiatric experts, Tor Sand Bekken from Eg Hospital and Karsten Nordahl from the Neurological Clinic. Dag was sitting beside the defence counsel. He seemed self-possessed, almost cheerful. Several times he leaned over to his counsel, whispered something in his ear, leaned back in his chair, stretched out his arms and smiled with contentment. Before the court sat, the door opened. In came a woman of around sixty, wearing a dark coat glittering with tiny raindrops, followed by a somewhat older man with smoothly combed hair. He was also dressed in black and was holding a lowered umbrella in one hand. They had made it. Alma stopped as she entered the room. As though her eyes had to get accustomed to the light. She adjusted her hair and brushed the raindrops off her coat. Her gaze was firm, but distant, as though she was actually somewhere else. She seemed to be looking through the seven people sitting there; she both saw them and she didn’t. And perhaps that amounted to the same thing. Ingemann shook the umbrella, splashing the water all around, sent the judge a brief nod, and the prosecution counsel and the experts, without having a clue who was who. Then he sent Dag a wan smile. The usher led them past the prosecution bench, and they found seats at the very back where chairs had been set out for the public, and where only the
Faedrelandsvennen
reporter had been sitting.

Then the court was in session.

The prosecution counsel began by reading out the charges. There were ten in all. It took almost half an hour to complete this part. Dag sat intently watching the barrister. He listened with visible interest and some curiosity, as though he would discover at last what had really happened. When the prosecution counsel was finished, turning to Dag directly for the first time, he said: ‘As the accused is suffering from a serious mental disorder and is therefore in terms of criminal law not responsible for his actions, I am asking you not to plead guilty or innocent but to say if it was you who performed the actions described in the list of charges.’

The response was a succinct, ‘Yes’.

Dag was able, subject to minor alterations, to concur with the detective inspector’s account of events.

It was him.

Thereafter followed a comprehensive description of all the fires. He was asked to state if there was any doubt regarding issues of detail. And he did that without any reluctance. He kept adding corrections and factual information, as though this were about another person, as though he had only been a witness, and in this way slowly the whole picture emerged. By the end of the morning, as the rain was replaced by sleet and finally wet, heavy snow, all the fires had been described as exhaustively as was feasible, from the striking of a match to the razing of the house. Or right from the moment he fetched the petrol can from Skinnsnes fire station until he sounded the alarm and got into the tender with sirens wailing and blue lights flashing. It was as if everything was brought back to life. All the questions and the answers that filled the gaps seemed to rekindle the flames. He was there again, he was alone in the darkness again, watching the flames grow. They crackled and wailed and soared into the sky, the sea of blaze surged, and deep inside could be heard a high-pitched note, a kind of song.