He Who Fears the Wolf (6 page)

"How long has he been ill?" Skarre tapped the ash from his cigarette into the officer's coffee saucer.

"I don't know exactly, but it feels like for ever. He's always been different. Peculiar and afraid of people. Never had any friends. I don't think he wanted any. His mother died when he was eight, and that's when it probably all started. After her death Errki's father took him and his sister to the States, and they lived in New York for seven years. There are rumours that Errki became an apprentice over there, to a conjurer."

"A conjurer?" Skarre smiled. "You mean a magician?"

"I'm not sure. More like some kind of sorcerer. And when they came back to Norway the rumours began to fly that Errki could make things happen. You know, by using his willpower."

"Good God," said Skarre, shaking his head.

"Go ahead and laugh, but I know people who are much more level-headed than you or I who can tell you some strange things about Errki Johrma. For instance, Thorvald Horn told me once that his dog laid back his ears and growled when Errki came by, long before he made an appearance, as if the dog could smell him from far off. Errki generally doesn't smell very good; he's always so messy. But there are also stories about horses running away when he came walking down the road. Clocks stop ticking. Light bulbs go out. Doors slam. He's like a sudden gust of wind that makes the leaves on the ground swirl up. And he's got that look in his eyes. Sorry," Gurvin said abruptly. "I'm not saying very nice things about him, but it's hard to find anything positive to say. He's dirty and disgusting and unattractive in every respect."

"That doesn't make him a murderer, even if he's a clever illusionist or suffers from some illness," Skarre said. "We'll have to contact the hospital and talk to his doctor. I'm sure he can tell us a great deal. We're going to have to find Errki so we can see what he was doing up there. Did we get any good prints from the hoe?"

"Only two faint prints, in addition to Halldis's own. Which is strange. The hoe had a fibreglass handle, and her prints were very clear. He couldn't have wiped off the hoe without erasing her prints as well. We found lots of prints inside the house, several footprints in the blood on the front steps, and several in the hall and the kitchen. Might have been running shoes. The pattern on the sole is quite clear, and that ought to tell us what we need. The forensic technicians will make drawings of them. The murder took place in the hall. Halldis stood with her back to the front steps, and he came towards her from inside the house. Maybe she was the one originally holding the hoe, and he had to yank it out of her hands. He should have left behind some decent fingerprints. I don't really see why he had to kill her. If he had found her money, he could have just taken it and run away. She would never have caught up with him. I know Halldis, though. She was stubborn. I bet she stood in the doorway and refused to move. I can just picture it," he said softly. "A furious Halldis, full of righteous indignation."

"The fact that he killed her could mean that he was someone she knew, someone she could have identified to the police."

"Yes," Gurvin said thoughtfully. "And she definitely knew Errki. He had just escaped from the hospital, so he presumably didn't have any money."

Skarre nodded.

"But he wouldn't have found much there," the officer continued. "I doubt she kept large sums in the house. She lived alone, after all."

"Yes, but in an isolated spot. Being robbed couldn't have been much of a worry for her. Has she ever been robbed before?"

"No. And besides, she was tough. It wouldn't surprise me if she went after him with the hoe."

"In that case he might have suffered an injury."

"You've seen the photos of the body?"

"Yes, I've had a look at them."

"Not very pretty, is it?"

Skarre felt weak for a moment at the memory of what had been presented to him early that morning. "Where does Errki Johrma's father live?"

"He went back to the States."

"What about his sister?"

"She did too."

"Do they have any contact with him?"

"No. Not because they don't want to, but Errki refuses to see them."

"Do you know why?"

"He feels he's above them."

"Is that right?"

"He feels he's above everyone. He lives in his own world, and he has his own laws. In his universe he's the ruler. It's not easy to explain. You have to meet him to understand."

"But surely he must feel some despair, if he's so ill?"

"Despair?" Gurvin uttered the word as though the thought had never occurred to him. "If he does, he hides it well."

Skarre nodded towards the road. "We've put out an APB on him. Do you want to go up there with me? I'd like to have a look at the house."

Gurvin took his jacket from the back of his chair.

"Let's take the Subaru," he said in a low voice. "The road up to Halldis's place is as steep as hell."

The woods surrounding the farm appeared denser than usual, as if the trees had drawn together out of respect for the woman, now gone, who had taken such good care of everything. And even though she had never allowed anything to clutter her garden, not tools or a wheelbarrow or clothes forgotten on the bench against the sunny wall, the place seemed already abandoned. It no longer breathed. The flowers under the kitchen window were already drooping; in less than one day their lives had become threatened by the blazing sun. The front steps had been rinsed, but a dark patch remained.

Skarre turned to look at the woods. "What was the boy doing up here?"

"Shooting crows with a bow and arrow."

"Does he have permission to do that?"

"Of course not. He does what he likes. He lives at Guttebakken."

This last comment was intended to explain everything, and Skarre understood.

"And he definitely knows who Errki is?"

"Yes, he does. Errki's easy enough to recognise. I sympathise with the boy. First he finds Halldis dead. Then he catches sight of Errki in the woods. His lungs were practically bursting by the time he reached my office. He must have thought he would be the next victim."

"Did Errki know that the boy had spotted him?"

"He thought so, yes."

"But Errki didn't try to stop him?"

"Evidently not. He disappeared into the woods."

"Let's go inside."

Gurvin led the way, unlocking the door and heading down the little hall and into the kitchen. Halldis Horn was beginning to take shape for Jacob Skarre as he stepped on to the linoleum and looked at the tidy kitchen. Copper pots, shiny and clean. An old-fashioned sink with green rubber around the edge. An old refrigerator from Evalet. And an old newspaper, folded up on the windowsill. Skarre lifted the lid of the bread tin.

"Where did you find the fingerprints?"

"On the kitchen doorknob and door frame. No prints on the bread tin except for Halldis's. If the fingerprints belong to the killer, why were they so indistinct on the hoe? And why were there none on the bread tin? How could he take out the wallet without leaving any prints, even though he left prints elsewhere in the house? I don't understand it."

Skarre narrowed his eyes. "But surely other people came here once in a while?"

"Almost never, but we did find a letter," Gurvin said. "Posted this week in Oslo. It says, 'I'll come to visit. Greetings, Kristoffer'."

"One of her relatives?"

"We don't know, but I think she was killed by someone she knew. Statistics will support the theory. He obviously panicked."

"Human beings are strange that way."

Skarre went into the living room. There was her rocking chair, with a shaggy blanket. He picked it up and sniffed cautiously, recognising the smell of soap and camphor. A strand of hair tickled his nose. He plucked it up between two fingers. It was almost half a metre long and silver in colour.

"Did she have long hair?" he asked in amazement.

Gurvin nodded. "She was a beauty when she was young. As kids we didn't know that; we just thought she was fat and friendly. Her wedding picture is on the wall over there."

Skarre went to look at it. The image of Halldis Horn as a bride was breathtaking.

"Her dress was made from parachute silk," Gurvin said. "And the veil is an old English lace curtain. She told us all about it. And we listened politely, the way children do, because we had to repay her in some way for the raspberries and rhubarb."

He turned abruptly and went back to the kitchen.

"Where is the bedroom?" Skarre called.

"Behind the green curtains."

He pulled them aside and opened the door. The room was small and narrow. From the bedroom window Skarre looked out at the woods and one side of the shed. Thorvald's side of the high-posted bed was neatly made. A framed verse hung over the bed.

You have seen him among the falcons.
He comes from the south, all ablaze.
Carries everything out, leaves nothing behind.
For the gnat you forget in a crack,
he will call you to account.

Underneath someone, possibly Halldis, had written in blue ink:
How horrid!

Skarre gave a little smile. He noticed that Gurvin had gone outside, and followed him out. They began combing through the grass, hoping to find a clue, something the others might have overlooked. A cigarette end, a match, anything at all. He glanced back at the house. Just below the kitchen window there was a gash in the timber, repaired, but still visible.

"That's from the day Thorvald died," Gurvin said, pointing. "Halldis was standing in the kitchen, about to call him in for dinner. She thought he was driving unusually fast, as if he had turned reckless in his old age and wanted to show off. The tractor came rolling up the road with a terrific roar. The next second it crashed right into the wall. Halldis stood at the window and looked straight into the cab. She saw that Thorvald had collapsed over the wheel. He was dead before the tractor came to a stop there."

Skarre glanced up towards the woods again. "Where do you think we should look for Errki?"

Gurvin squinted at the sun. "He's almost certainly roaming around, sleeping rough. He hasn't been back to his flat, at least not yet. Maybe he's still in the woods."

"And above here it's all wilderness?"

"Yes, it's mostly wilderness. An area of 430 square kilometres. There are a few cottages on the other side of the river, and the sites of some old Finnish dwellings. A few people have summer cabins there. Hunters often use them in the autumn, or berry pickers sometimes slip inside to rest. Errki is a good hiker. Going into the woods and searching at random would be hopeless. He could be hiding in the basement of the hospital, or maybe someone has given him a lift and he's on his way to Sweden. Or home to Finland. He's the type that is always on the move."

"If he's as odd as you say, he should be easy to spot."

"I don't know about easy. He sneaks around. All of a sudden he's standing there and nobody has heard him coming."

"We have an excellent dog patrol," Skarre said. "Do you know whether he's on any medication?"

"Ask the hospital. Why do you want to know?"

"I'm just wondering what would happen if he ever stopped taking his drugs."

"Maybe his inner voices take over."

"We all have inner voices of one kind or another," Skarre said.

"Good heavens, yes," Gurvin said. "But not all of them order us around."

*

Gurvin coaxed his vehicle through the trees. A cloud of dust swirled up behind them.

"Whenever Errki turns up, something nasty happens," he said, his voice tense. "His mother died when he was eight, did I tell you that?"

"You did, but how did she die?"

"She fell down the stairs and died. Errki took the blame for it."

"Took the blame?"

"He frightened the other children by saying that he did it. They were terrified and stayed away from him. I think that's what he wanted. Several years later the body of an old farmer was found up by the church. He had fallen off a ladder, but Errki was seen running away from the scene. So maybe you can understand that even if he had nothing to do with Halldis's death people around here will have made up their minds by now. And if you ask me, I'd very likely be of the same opinion. Take a look around. This is a remote area. People don't come poking around here unless they're familiar with the place. Errki is familiar with the place; he grew up here."

"But it's a fact," said Skarre slowly, trying not to sound pedantic, "that the violent tendencies of psychiatric patients are enormously exaggerated. Because of prejudices, or fear and ignorance. You need to remain objective, since you're right in the thick of things, and because you know him, and you knew Halldis too. When the newspapers get wind of this, he's going to be made to seem like a monster."

Gurvin looked at him. "That's what's so difficult. Because he always keeps to himself and avoids other people. He almost never talks to anyone, so we really don't know who he is. What he is."

"He's ill," Skarre said.

"That's what they say. But I don't really understand it." He shook his head. "I don't understand how voices could invade a man's mind and make him do things that he can't remember afterwards."

"We don't know what he has done."

"We have fingerprints and several footprints. He can be as crazy as he likes and forget things from one second to the next, but he can't run away from the forensic evidence. This time we have forensic evidence."

"It sounds as if you'd like to nail him for this."

Skarre's voice had an innocent ring. Gurvin couldn't read him. "It would be good. It would be better for all of us if they put him away for good, in accordance with Paragraph five. Right now he's wandering around out there somewhere, talking to himself. God help me, but my children "are going to have to come home early at night as long as he's on the loose."

"Errki may be more frightened than your children are," said Skarre.

Gurvin pursed his lips and accelerated. "You're not from around here. You don't know him."

"No," Skarre said ruefully. "But I have to admit that you've aroused my curiosity."

"It's a fine thing that you're blessed with an unwavering faith in human beings," Gurvin said. "But don't forget that Halldis is dead. Somebody killed her. Somebody came here and lifted that hoe and hurled it right at her eye. Whether it was Errki or someone else, it makes me shudder to think that the murderer has the right to be defended for an act that can't be justified in any way."

"The act can't be defended. Just the person who committed it," Skarre corrected him. "And we don't know why she died. Can I smoke in your car?"

Gurvin nodded and fumbled for his own cigarettes. "What's your boss like? Tell me about him."

Skarre smiled. This was a common reaction when someone came across Konrad Sejer.

"Stern and grey. Slightly authoritarian. Reserved. Smart. Sharp as a scythe. Thorough, patient, dependable and persistent. With a soft spot for little children and old ladies."

"Not anyone in between?"

"He's a widower." Skarre gazed out the window. "He has forgotten that the only promise he made was to remain true to her until death separated them. He thinks that means his own death."

*

Sejer stared intently at the grey screen.

The bank interior. The teller windows. The windows facing the square, with light slanting in, making the picture blurry. He had the whole thing, from beginning to end, but it wasn't a clear tape. It was hard to identify any of them.

The car was long gone. They had blocked off all the escape routes, but the small white car hadn't been found. Maybe it had long ago been abandoned, maybe the robber had driven across one of the bridges and continued along the south bank, hiding in the centre of town. Sejer suspected that the hostage had been let go, but he had no way to be certain. He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his long legs. He had loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves. His shirt was wrinkled. The teller and bank manager and a number of witnesses had been interviewed, one after the other. He had made his own notes of what he had seen, had turned his memory inside out to try to remember all the details he could. The police artist had listened and nodded and produced an excellent sketch. And he himself had acknowledged the likeness, at least initially, although afterwards he began having doubts. Now he straightened up in his chair as someone knocked on the door. Skarre came in with Gurvin.

The community officer stared at Sejer with interest. "I hear you have a hostage situation."

He fumbled a little with his sunglasses and sat down. The roles were reversed now. He was here with the big boys who had every conceivable type of equipment available to them.

"I'm sitting here staring at this wretched video," Sejer said gloomily. "The quality is so poor."

"Can we see it?" Skarre asked eagerly.

"Of course. Put your glasses on, if you need them."

He started up the tape again, waiting for their surprise. There were the teller windows. The young girl appeared first from the entrance leading to the square. She looked around a bit uncertainly and went over to the brochure rack. No more than 15 seconds later the bank robber came in. He stopped short at the sight of the customer who had arrived before him. Hurriedly he reached for a form and began filling it out. Then the door opened for a third time, and that's when the exclamation came.

"What on earth!" Skarre cried. "Isn't that you, Konrad?"

He gave his boss a bewildered look. Sejer had decided to take the whole thing in his stride. He started laughing. Gurvin stared at the two of them astonished.

"Damn right it's me. I was walking down the street on my way to work and out of the blue I had the feeling that a person I passed looked like a bank robber. So I turned around to see where he was going, saw him go into the bank, and decided to follow."

"And? What happened?"

"As you can see on the video, I peeked inside, noticed the young girl, saw that everything was nice and calm. And I left." He looked at them both, and gave an eloquent shrug. "I just left."

Skarre started laughing. Gurvin felt an immense regret that he himself had no colleagues.

"As soon as I was out of the bank, the robber struck. Take a look now."

There he was, striding across the bank, there he took his hostage. A moment later the shot was fired. Gurvin gasped, blinked several times and stared in disbelief.

"We have to find that girl," Sejer said. "If we don't get her out of this situation in one piece, we run the risk that hostage-taking will become fashionable, which is just about the worst thing that could happen. And because of this awful video, it's more or less impossible to identify her, even if someone reports her missing today. And yet . . ." He rewound the tape and played it over again. "There's something that doesn't seem right."

"What's that?" Skarre said.

"Something about the way she reacts. Or rather, her lack of reaction. She doesn't scream or wave her arms around. It almost looks as if she's in a trance. Or, to put it another way, as if she's not surprised. As if the attack is something she was expecting. Maybe it was a set-up."