When the Devil Holds the Candle (14 page)

"It's all so damned awful—forgive me—" Skarre said, casting a glance at the ceiling, "the fact that they would just stand there and watch."

"There's nothing so difficult as stepping forward to intervene. Hardly anyone ever does."

"Maybe he'll drink a little less from now on," Skarre mused.

"Maybe he'll drink even more," Sejer said.

Skarre clasped his hands and piously bowed his head. "What if, as he raised the shotgun and took aim, Anita had burst into song, that beautiful and magnificent hymn, 'Onward, Christian Soldiers'?"

Sejer burst into uncontrollable laughter. The sound carried through the whole bar. "What a splendid idea," he chuckled. "At least it would have been a surprise. It would have surely thrown him off balance for a moment."

"We're talking about the power of God's word," Skarre said. "Don't you ever think about that?"

"No."

"Everybody's at sea these days, drifting. People have no anchor to hold them down," Skarre said theatrically.

"May I ask you something?" Sejer said. "Are you one hundred percent positive that you're going to go to heaven?"

"I don't know about one hundred percent. There are divided opinions up there about whether I'll have a tussle with the angel." He took a gulp of beer from the bottle. "Mrs. Winther called twice this afternoon," he sighed. "I hope he turns up. She's going to wear us out."

"Mrs. Winther?"

"The mother of Andreas, the boy who has been missing since yesterday."

"That's yours," Sejer said dryly.

"Okay, okay. Roger that. It's my job, I know."

Skarre gave a brisk salute. "Search, secure, collect clues that will make plausible the likely connections in the case as well as the guilt of the accused."

"Do they still teach that motto at training college? Well, she has asked for our help, at any rate. People are strange," Sejer went on. "They witness the most unbelievable things. But there's no guarantee that they'll come rushing to file a report with us. Obviously someone knows where he is."

"Why are you so sure about that?" Skarre wanted to know.

"As my mother used to say, when she could still talk: 'I just know.' A person might witness a murder and never say a word about it. That person has a reason for keeping quiet, though it may not be a particularly good reason."

"I wonder what he's up to."

"Why are you devoting so much time to this case? We have plenty of others."

Skarre bent over his glass. "He's just so good-looking."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I reckon there are plenty of people who'd like to get their claws into him."

"Is this the sort of thing that occurs to you when you try to picture what might have happened?"

"He looks exactly like an angel. If he doesn't turn up soon, people are going to take notice. You look like a lizard, people don't give a damn. I mean, they couldn't care less. It's a law of nature. Beautiful people, on the other hand ... take that woman over there, for instance. Everyone is turning to look at her."

Sara waved from the end of the room, ran her fingers through her hair, and made her way to their table. Paying no heed to Sejer's shyness, she bent down and kissed him on the forehead. Skarre beamed.

"Kollberg is tied up to the bicycle rack outside, against the wall," she told him.

She drank a glass of white wine with them. Afterward, they walked across the bridge together. At the fountain on the square they watched Skarre disappear alone into the twilight of the streets.

"Does Jacob have a girlfriend?" Sara wanted to know.

Sejer shrugged. "Not that I know of."

"Lots of women must be interested in him. Good-looking man. Funny, too. Maybe he prefers men?"

Sejer stopped in his tracks. "What are you saying?"

"Why does that make you so upset?"

He started walking again. "I'm not. I just don't think that's true."

"You're acting as if I've said something offensive."

"I think that's the way Jacob would have taken it."

"I don't agree. He would simply have answered yes or no."

"Don't ask him, Sara, for heaven's sake!"

"You're not scolding me, are you? Is that what you're doing?"

"No, no. But he might think that we've been wondering about it and gossiping. Don't take it up with him."

"You're so sure that I'm wrong. Why does it upset you so much?"

"It doesn't upset me. I'm just telling you that I know him. And you might put him in an awkward position."

"So you don't think it's out of the question."

"Sara!"

Then he thought about what Skarre had said. "He's so good-looking." Why had he said that? And the ponytail and the stud in his ear. No, everyone and his uncle has a ponytail. They walked for a while in silence.

"How difficult it all is," Sara said, sounding surprised. "How fearful we are."

"Yes," he said. "I feel so uneasy myself sometimes. I don't know where I stand with you."

"Right here," she replied, squeezing his arm. "Let's have some fun. See that doorway?" she said, pointing. "The one over there next to the kiosk?"

"Yes?" he said, wondering what she had in mind.

"Why don't we go over there and make out?"

"Make out?" The words seemed to stick in his throat. "In the doorway? You must be crazy!" Embarrassed, he stared down at his shoes. "It's thirty years since I stood in a doorway to make out."

"Well then, it's about time," she said, laughing as she tugged at his arm.

But he pulled her past the doorway, thinking all of a sudden that he felt so old when he was with her. Young, too, but also occasionally old, because she was so playful. Because he couldn't let go of his proper demeanor and loosen up. He couldn't take chances. Kollberg's head came up to Sara's hips: she looked like a little girl walking a lion on a lead. They continued on in silence. They passed the town hall:
THE COUNTRY SHALL BE BUILT ON LAWS.
Sara admired the floodlit church.

"Could we at least walk through the cemetery and knock down a few headstones?"

Her voice was shrill and pleading. He coughed in dismay. "Knock down
headstones?
"

"Just one?" she begged. "A small one that no one takes care of anymore?"

He gasped, astonished at his own raw feelings. Nobody had ever managed to touch his ideas about death. Did it affect Elise, the fact that they talked this way? Did it affect how he felt? Should he raise his voice and tell this woman off, make her aware that this part of his life was, in fact, sacred?

"You're out of your mind," he mumbled.

"Don't you ever do anything illegal?" she said.

"No," he chuckled. "Why should I?"

"It's necessary and important. What if you die and you've never broken a single rule?"

"That won't happen. Of course I've done stupid things."

"Tell me!" she pleaded.

"No, no." He laughed awkwardly. "That's all part of my past."

"I won't believe you unless you tell me some of it."

He thought for a moment and then reluctantly began to speak. "A long time ago..." He stopped and looked at her. "A
very
long time ago, in fact, when I was just a kid—just so you know. Youthful shenanigans, the usual things, all part of growing up. I assume that everyone..."

"Why don't you get to the point?"

"All right." He licked his lips. "A long time ago I had a friend named Philip. I also had an old Ford, and Philip and I were always driving around together. And every time I drove over to pick him up, I passed a tollgate, where I had to pay five kroner," he said. "That was a lot of money for a young kid. It made me angry every time I came to that tollgate. There was a woman in the booth who collected the money: she sat there year after year, sticking out her hand through the hatch. I would give her the
five kroner, she would raise the barrier, and I would drive through. Every single time I went to get Philip. And I would always stare with fascination at her hand. She had what I'll call 'kitty hands.'"

"Kitty hands?" Sara giggled.

"Soft, white hands. And one day it occurred to me to put something else in them. Just for a change, because she took it so much for granted that she was getting the money. Just to see what she would do if she one day got something else."

"What did you give her?" she asked.

"I had picked up Philip. We arrived at the tollgate and drove up to the booth. She looked at us and stuck out her hand."

"And you handed her a..."

"Dead mouse."

"A dead mouse!" she squealed.

"It had been caught in the trap in Philip's room. And its tail was missing. But boy, did she scream!
Piercing
is the only word for it. The mouse landed in her lap and she stood up so fast that she hit her head on the ceiling. And then she screamed again, and she didn't stop. Philip screamed too, while I stared at her with growing concern. 'Raise the barrier! Raise the barrier!' I shouted. And the barrier jerked up, and we raced out of there with the tires of my old Ford screeching."

Sara smiled with satisfaction.

"But do you know what?" he said. "After that she was gone. She wasn't in the booth anymore. Maybe she gave up because of the mouse. Maybe she was afraid that next time it might be a spider. Or a worm. Or heaven knows what. So actually," he mumbled, "we ending up chasing someone away from her job."

"Don't you think you're exaggerating?" she said with a laugh.

"Why else would she have vanished like that?" he said, sounding worried.

"There could be all kinds of other reasons."

"I'm not so sure."

They walked on, keeping in step. Sejer took shorter strides than was natural for him.

"But honestly," she looked up at him, "is that really the only thing you can think of to put on your list of transgressions?"

"That one's not enough for you?"

"Quite a sweet story," she admitted. "But pathetic, too."

"Yours are, of course, better?"

"I'll tell you all about them one day. Late at night. Though it might be too much for you."

"You are already," he said. "You're too much for me."

"It's so hard," Sara said all of a sudden, "to live in the present. Right this minute. We spend most of our time in the past. Or in the future—about half in each. But to live in the present! Hardly anybody can do it. Except for children. Or idiots. Or sick people who have some kind of chronic pain that's always with them. And most of the time we're worrying about something."

"But not you, surely not you?" he said.

He wrapped his arm tighter around her waist, surprised at how different they were. They didn't really suit each other, or at any rate it wouldn't last forever.
It won't last.
She dreamed up things, and he didn't know if he was equal to all her whims. There was something unpredictable about Sara. He'd never known anyone like her. Was it even possible for him to get to know her properly? To follow the strange leaps she was always taking, to get used to them? Enjoy them? He liked them, of course. She made him laugh. But sometimes she'd turn very serious. Her mood changes were abrupt, but at the same time she always had total control, as if she had decided that all impulses ought to be followed—rather than evaluated and then suppressed, which was what he did with them. Think first and then act. Wasn't that important?

When they finally reached his flat, he went straight into the kitchen. Sara appeared in the doorway, looking at him. Her expression took him aback.

"I'm just going to make some coffee," he muttered, turning on the tap.

"It's not coffee that I want." She walked across the room, turned off the water and pressed herself against him. As he hesitated, she drew him into a fierce embrace. He could feel how determined she was; she was not going to back down.

"Carry me to the bed," she commanded. He shook his head, but he didn't let her go.

"Well, all right. The kitchen is good. On the table. I saw it in an American film."

"What do you mean?"

"It looked so exciting," she whispered.

He was in a fog. He didn't know if he'd even be able to do it. But he was still holding her and could feel something rising inside him. He could hold everything else down, but not this! At the same time his brain was buzzing, telling him to take it easy and not throw himself into this without inhibitions, like a teenager. But he didn't want her to take him to task, not on this account. Other things, like the fact that he couldn't cook or that he couldn't control his dog, fine.

"Could you just stop thinking for a second?"

"You're not making it easy for me," he said. "I'm just a man."

"Yes," she said with a smile. "Poor man. How vulnerable he was when he stood up on his legs and walked for the first time."

She gave a husky laugh against his chest. "You men think everything is so hard for you, that your urges are so fierce, so much stronger than ours, but that's not true."

"It's not?" He cleared his throat. He was out of breath. God help him!

"Right now," she said, pressing against him, "right now when I want you so badly, do you know what that feels like? Has any woman ever told you?"

He tried, but it was impossible to think of any other woman at a moment like this, because he could feel her desire through his own body, and it amazed him that he could prompt such emotion in another human being.

"It's like having a fish between your legs," she whispered. "A soft fish with a blunt snout that's gently butting and wants to get through, and I'll go crazy if it doesn't get through!"

"A fish!" he said.

The phone rang. He reacted on reflex. He also looked at his watch: it was almost midnight. It would be either Ingrid or someone from work. He had to take the call. He picked up the phone and stood there for a few seconds, listening. Sara came over to him and watched him with her arms folded. He put down the receiver.

"You have to leave, don't you? Somebody's dead."

He nodded.

"That's what happens when you're in love with a police officer," she said nervously.

Trying to stay on his feet, he leaned against the old chest of drawers and felt one of his keys poking him in the back.