When the Devil Holds the Candle (25 page)

Ingrid Sejer was sitting in front of the television, watching the evening news. Matteus stood behind her chair, staring at the screen, barefoot and wearing thin pyjamas. His mother turned around and saw him.

"Matteus, it's late," she said.

He nodded, but he stayed where he was. His mother looked a little depressed. She put her hands on his thin shoulders.

"What are you eating?"

"A licorice Porsche."

She smiled sadly. "Papa says that I shouldn't pressure you, but I wish you would tell us who wrote that note. That awful note in your school bag."

"It doesn't bother me," he said.

"It doesn't frighten you?"

"No," he said. She gave him a searching look, surprised at his reaction, and realized that she believed him, though she wasn't sure why.

"I'm not going to run to the headmaster and tell him, or anything like that," she said. "Just tell me who wrote it. I won't call his mother—or hers, if it's a girl. I just need to know."

Matteus was fighting a silent battle. It was hard when his mother begged him like that.

"All right," he said at last. "It was Tommy."

His mother was struck dumb. She sat for a moment with her eyes wide, shaking her head. "Tommy?" she stammered in confusion. "But he's ... he's from Ethiopia. His skin is darker than yours!"

"I know," Matteus said, shrugging.

"But why would Tommy, of all..." She started to giggle. Matteus giggled too, and soon they were both laughing hysterically.
His mother hugged him, and Matteus didn't understand why she was so happy. But she was. She stood up and got him a glass of Coke. Then she sat down again to watch the news, from time to time shaking her head. Matteus sat on the sofa. Imitating the grown-ups, he opened the paper, and found himself looking at a photograph of a young man with dark curls who smiled up at Matteus with white teeth. In the picture he looked nice, much nicer than he had that day in the green car. It was him, Matteus was sure of it.

"Why is this boy in the newspaper?" he asked.

His mother glanced at the photograph and read the story underneath.

"Because he's missing," she told him.

"What do you mean, missing?" he wanted to know.

"Missing, gone, disappeared," she explained.

"Gone like Great-grandmother?"

"No. Or rather, they don't know. He left his home and never came back."

"He's driving around in a green car," Matteus told her.

"What are you talking about?" She gave him a doubtful look.

"Him and another boy. In a green car. They asked me how to get to the bowling alley."

"Is he one of the boys who were bothering you down the street the other day? When you came home from the party?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

She grabbed the newspaper and read the text again. Missing since September 1.

"I have to call your grandfather," she said.

"But I don't know where he is
now,
" Matteus said, sounding worried.

"That doesn't matter. I still have to call him. Go to bed now."

"I want to talk to Grandpa."

"You can have two minutes." She dialed her father's number and waited.

Skarre chewed on his pen. It was leaving a metallic taste in his mouth. How could someone just disappear off the face of the earth like that? He thought of what Sejer had said: There's always someone who knows something. Zipp knew. His thoughts were interrupted by the phone ringing.

"Criminal Division. Jacob Skarre."

There was a strange rushing sound on the line. He listened for a moment, waiting.

"Hello?...Hello?"

The silence continued. He heard only the faint rushing sound. He could have hung up—they had plenty of calls from people who never said a word—but he decided to wait.

"You'd better come soon. He probably won't live much longer!"

There was a click. The conversation was over. Skarre sat there bewildered, holding the phone.

A woman. She sounded hysterical, almost tearful. And at that instant something occurred to him. He stood up so fast that his chair fell and went clattering into the filing cabinet behind him. Those words—that despair! Where had he heard them before? He leaned against the cabinet, thinking. That hoarse voice had reminded him of something, if only he could remember. Something recent. He sat at his desk again and thought hard, but he couldn't pin it down. How could he make himself remember?

He tried thinking of something else. Finally it came back to him, what she had actually said.
He probably won't live much longer.
Could it have something to do with Andreas Winther? Why did he think of Andreas? He fished in his shirt pocket for a cigarette. A folded piece of paper came out with it. He unfolded it. "A woman of about sixty arrives at the office at 4
P.M.
She seems confused." And then he remembered. The confused woman in the brown coat who had come to see him the previous day.
It has to do with a missing person. He probably won't live much longer.
She was that strange woman with the baby bottle too—that's why she had seemed familiar. What on earth was she up to? He lit his cigarette and went to the window. Opened it and blew the smoke out.

The phone rang again.

"This is Runi Winther. I just want to apologize for being such a pest."

Skarre cleared his throat. "That's quite all right, Mrs. Winther. We know this is difficult for you."

"Have you talked to my friend?"

"Not yet."

"But you promised!"

"I will see her. Tomorrow, Mrs. Winther."

"She'll vouch for him. She has to!"

"As far as Andreas's conduct is concerned, we have no reason to believe that it's anything but what it should be."

"But I want you to hear it from someone who knows him."

"All right, Mrs. Winther. No, call us by all means, that's why we're here. Fine."

Sejer put his head round the door. "I wonder what those two have been up to. Zipp is lying about the time. They were seen together at six-fifteen."

"And I wonder," Skarre said grimly, "whether we could be running out of time."

September 6.

Skarre drove along the river, turned left off a roundabout, and shifted down into second gear at the bottom of a steep hill. He didn't often come to this part of town, but he liked the neighborhood, the overgrown hedges and the craggy apple trees. Prins Oscars Gate.

Prins Oscars Gate?
He listened in amazement to his own thoughts. A thick hedge on the left-hand side. Number Seventeen. Damn, he had passed it, had to drive to the top and turn again. He parked next to a wrought-iron gate, glanced up at a white house. He frowned. This white house with the green trim, was this where he was to go? He got out and locked the car. The name on the mailbox was the right one: Irma Funder. He walked down the gravel path, rang the doorbell, and waited. Something was bothering him, a vague unease. He could hear nothing from inside, but he had no means of knowing whether someone might be looking at him through the spyhole in the door. He did his best to assume a trustworthy expression. A chain rattled. Then the lock clicked, and a pale face came into view as the door opened a crack.

"Irma Funder?"

She didn't nod, only stared at him. He could see no more than her nose and eyes.

"What is it?" she said. Her voice was hoarse. He must have come at an inconvenient time.

"I was given your name by Runi Winther. Andreas's mother. You know that he's missing?"

More rattling. He could hear feet shuffling on the mat inside.

"She told me about it."

The door opened a little wider. Skarre looked at the woman in disbelief. He studied the curly gray hair, the thin lips, and the strong jaw. A bell started jangling in his head. It was her! The woman who had turned up in his office. The woman who—he tried to compose himself—had left behind the baby bottle in the shop. It was a bizarre coincidence. For a moment he was thrown off balance. An eerie feeling started creeping down his spine and his brain whirled as he tried to remember exactly what it was that she had said when she stood in front of his desk. The very same thing the woman had said on the phone:
He probably won't live much longer.
The hairs stood up on the back of his neck, as they had when she had been in his office.

"Could I come in?"

He was so agitated that his voice shook and two bright red patches appeared on his face. She noticed, of course, grew frightened and wanted to withdraw. The door closed again, until only a narrow opening remained.

"I don't know anything!"

"Mrs. Winther would like me to talk to you. She's very worried."

"I know that. I'm sure he'll turn up."

"Do you think so?"

Skarre stuck a shiny regulation shoe in the door and smiled as warmly as he could.

"It's a routine matter. Your name is on my list," he told her. "And it's my job to come up with a few sentences to add to my report. That way we can cross you off the list and be done with it, and move on to more important things."

I'm talking too fast,
he thought.
Dear Jesus, help me so I don't scare this person off before I find out more!

"I know I'm not important," she snapped.

He looked at her. Beneath his curls, his mind was racing.

"This isn't a very good time."

She was about to shut the door on him altogether.

"It will only take a minute."

"But I don't know anything!"

"Now listen..." Skarre got a grip on himself. He had to get into this house and find out who this woman was, even though he couldn't see any connection between her and Andreas's disappearance, except that she knew his mother. She was a woman who lived alone, cut off from the rest of society. Why would she know anything? Yet one sentence kept echoing through his memory:
I know where he is.

"If you won't speak to me, my boss will come here himself," Skarre said. "You know the type, a chief inspector of the old school."

It was a threat: he could see that she was weighing it. Finally, she opened the door, and he stepped into the hall. It was a tidy house. The kitchen was blue, with a striped rug lying at an angle on the floor.

"May I sit down?" He indicated a chair.

"I suppose so, if you can't stand for as long as a minute," she said curtly. Skarre shook his head. What kind of person was this? Was she a bit crazed? Mrs. Winther hadn't suggested anything like that. Mrs. Winther herself was perfectly normal. Why would this woman be her friend?
May the Lord forgive my arrogance,
he thought. And he sat down. He didn't take out a notebook or pen, he just sat there, looking at her. She was busy with something on her kitchen counter. He looked about him and saw the baby bottle. It was standing next to the coffeemaker. What was she using it for?

"Your name is Irma Funder. That's what it says on the mailbox," he began.

"That's my name," she said, dismissively.

"It's not usual. Generally the man's name is on the mailbox, or the names of both husband and wife. Or simply a surname."

"My husband is gone," she said.

Skarre thought for a moment. "He's gone? You said he was sick."

She spun around. "When?" she snapped.

"The last time we talked."

"I don't know you!" Her face was contorted with anxiety.

"No," he said. "But we've met before. Quite recently. Have you forgotten already?"

He gave her a searching look. "Tell me what you know about Andreas."

She turned her back and shrugged. "That's quickly done. I don't know anything. He was never at home when I used to visit Runi."

"Used to? Don't you visit Mrs. Winther still?"

"I'm not feeling very well," she said.

"I understand," he said, but he didn't understand a thing. Only that something was amiss.

"Tell me about your husband," he went on. And then she did turn to face him. Her thin lips were colorless.

"He left me," she said.

"How long ago was that?"

"Eleven years."

"And now you think he's dead?"

"I never hear from him anymore."

"But you manage on your own?"

"As long as I'm left in peace," she said. "But all this coming and going makes me nervous."

"All what coming and going? What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing. But there are so many strange people out at night. I don't usually open the door. I keep it locked. But since you're in uniform, I took a chance. It's not easy to see what people are made of."

"What is Andreas made of?" he asked.

"Oh, Andreas," she said. "He's a funny one. Almost synthetic."

"What?" Skarre was startled by her reply. "Do you have any children of your own?"

"I had a son. Ingemar."

"Had? Is he dead?"

"I don't know. I haven't heard from him in a long time. For all I know, he could be dead." She turned away again. "Time's up. You said one minute."

"So you haven't seen Andreas?" Skarre asked.

"Many times," she said. "He doesn't interest me."

She's not all there, Skarre decided.

"Do you think he's got mixed up in something?" he asked.

"I think that's highly likely. I know that Runi wouldn't agree; she begged me to put in a good word for him. But I'm sure you want to hear the truth."

"Of course." He looked around the blue kitchen, at its two doors, leading to a bathroom and bedroom, perhaps. The voice on the phone: the same voice. He was positive. Why had she come to the station? What had she been trying to tell him?

"I would like to know the truth," he said.

"I'm sure he's capable of a little of everything. He and that friend of his, the one he's always with."

"Do you know him?"

"He calls himself Zipp."

"We've talked to him, but he says he knows nothing."

Irma Funder smiled at him. "That's what they always say. Time's up."

Reluctantly, Skarre stood. There was something about this house, something not right. During those few minutes he had taken note of most of the details: a notepad and pen lying on the kitchen table, three bottles of bleach on the counter, two black garbage bags against the wall. As if she had been cleaning up. As if she might be getting ready to leave.