When the Devil Holds the Candle (28 page)

"How did he do it?" she asked. Professional interest. She had experienced similar things in her own work.

"He tore a shirt into strips and hanged himself. From the handle of the wardrobe."

He went into the living room, pulled the CD out of his jacket pocket, put it in the player, and found the track he liked best: "Who Wants to Live Forever?" He now had 537 CDs, all with female vocalists. He sat down heavily, thinking about what kind of determination it took to hang yourself from a kneeling position. All that willpower Robert could have used to begin a new life. Kollberg trotted over and lay down at his feet. Sejer leaned down and took the dog's enormous head in his hands. He stared into the black eyes, touched the snout. It was as it was supposed to be, cool and moist. He lifted the silky ears and peered inside: they looked fine, didn't smell. He drew his fingers through the thick fur, which was longer and shinier than ever, reddish yellow with a few lighter patches. Only the dog's face was black, with hints of silver in places. His claws were long without being troublesome. In short, Kollberg was perfect. The only thing he lacked was proper training.

"You may be huge," Sejer told him, "but you're not especially smart." The dog wagged his tail expectantly, but seeing there were no dog biscuits, he let his head fall onto Sejer's feet with its full weight. Sara appeared in the doorway with a packet of spaghetti in her hand.

"So what do you do? In those situations?"

He sighed. "The usual things. The incident is investigated as what is called a suspicious death. Forensics takes pictures of the cell. The prison staff are interviewed. Was the cell locked? Did anyone visit him? Was he depressed? And if so, had he seen a doctor? Forensics handles the case after that."

"Do you feel responsible?" she asked softly.

He shrugged. Did he?

"He was very cooperative," he said. "Almost too much so. He was eager to get through everything. He had plans. He even managed to eat something, for the first time in days. I don't work at the prison, but I should have known."

"You're not a mind reader," she said.

He looked at her. "But you would have known, wouldn't you?"

She leaned against the door frame. "I've lost a number of patients."

"Yes?"

"But it's true that I would have been on the alert. They often seem to liven up at the same time they become suicidal. They've finally made a decision and can see an end to their despair. When patients come to us and want their medication decreased or ask to be allowed out, we're usually suspicious. But Robert was not a psychiatric patient. He was in prison."

"I've learned something, anyway."

"You're not a doctor," she said gently. "Have you told Anita's parents?"

"I talked to her father. He was very upset, said he hoped it wasn't because of them. They didn't feel any resentment toward him. I don't think they had enough strength left for that."

Sara disappeared into the kitchen, and he could hear water starting to boil in a pan. Ten minutes later she called him. He washed his hands and sat at the table. It was lovely to sit quietly with Sara. She was capable of leading her own life, even though
he was barely a few feet away, capable of thinking her own thoughts without including him. Her face took on many amusing expressions as she followed her train of thought. He cast a swift glance at her every time he reached for the salt or pepper. He sprinkled a generous portion of Parmesan over his spaghetti.

"Sara. Your job is to make people talk. About themselves, about difficult subjects. How do you get them to do it?"

She smiled in surprise. "But you've conducted hundreds of interviews and interrogations. Don't tell me that you don't know how to do your job."

"No, but sometimes I get stuck when I'm talking to someone. And I sit there and know that he knows! And I simply don't have the power to get anything out of him."

"That happens to me too."

"But still. What method do you use to get inside them?"

"Time."

"Ah. But I don't have time! An eighteen-year-old has disappeared without a trace and his one close friend is so frightened that he practically faints on my desk. But then he purses his lips the way Ingrid used to when we tried to get her to take cod-liver oil."

"There's a gate to every garden," she said cryptically.

He had to smile in spite of himself.

"And if an exception shows up, then you have to jump over the fence."

"I'm a police officer. There are rules that I have to follow."

"Imagination is a good thing."

"Don't I have any imagination?"

"Of course you do. But you don't use it. How many times have you asked him to come in?"

"Twice."

"And where do you meet?"

"In my office. We need a backdrop of authority. That way, the suspects understand it's serious."

She picked up the ketchup bottle and shook it vigorously over her plate.

"Invite him out for a beer. Go to the bar where he went with Andreas. Find the same table. Wear different clothes—jeans and a leather jacket. Couldn't you let your hair grow a little longer, Konrad? I have a feeling that it would curl around your ears if you only gave it a chance."

He opened his eyes wide. "What is it with girls and curly hair? Just leave the dishes. I'll do them."

"I'm going over to see Papa," she said. "I need to make sure he has food in the fridge."

There was that word again, the one that always made him feel embarrassed. Papa. 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 his mound of spaghetti, searching for a clue. Of course he needed her. But he couldn't avoid thinking about her father, who had multiple sclerosis, sitting alone in his wheelchair, and the fact that he, Konrad, had taken Sara from him. Well, she wasn't always at his place, but more and more often she was.

"I need you terribly," he said.

"More than my father does," 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, able to 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'll have to forgive me," he said. "I'm a little slow."

He sat there feeling puzzled, 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, and waited 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 think the setup 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. Kollberg gazed up at him, and he thought for a second or two, then he made up his mind and called to him. The dog raced across the room like a woolly bolt of lightning. Sejer caressed Sara on the cheek as he said goodbye, then walked downstairs, all thirteen 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. Kollberg stopped again. "You're old," Sejer said aloud as the dog fixed his dark eyes on him. "Do you realize that?" Kollberg waited patiently, as if expecting a treat. A piece of dried fish, for example.

"No," muttered Sejer. "Never mind."

I had a horrible dream. I dreamed that I woke up in the cellar. I was on the floor, stretched full length, ice-cold and bruised. My head hurt as if a dull hammer was pounding and pounding it. 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, and 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. When I woke up in my bed, my head was still pounding terribly. The doorbell was ringing, and 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 graying hair. He didn't look like a salesman or anything. I stood there for a moment, listening to the doorbell, which kept ringing and ringing. 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 else had been doing—I had again found a garden chair pulled over to the
wall—and if I didn't open the door they would all 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. So I opened it just 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, and 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. It told me that I had to get away! Then, that I should fall down, surrender. It buzzed and buzzed. I struggled to understand what I wanted, but I wanted everything—to flee in panic, to collapse. To sleep forever.

"Is everything all right?"

I didn't reply, just stared at him. I was trying to scramble to get out of my dream, to get out and go to that man. I nodded; without opening the door any wider, I just kept on nodding. I've always been a yes-man, I thought, and the thought made me angry. Not at this gray 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 and pointed to a chair. I gestured my permission.

"What's been going on?" he asked calmly. He looked as if he knew a great deal. But how could he? For a moment I considered
telling him about my dream, then changed my mind: it would only 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.

"What happened to your head?"

For a moment I looked at him, confused, thinking,
How can he know about that?
I held my hand in front of my eyes and saw that it was bloody. My fingers felt sticky. And then I realized that I was still dreaming, that the man at the table wasn't real, just a part of the dream. I had to play along; every dream comes to an end. So I told him what had happened, that a thief had broken in and hit me with something, down in the cellar. Then he left, and I went to bed and lay down. No, I hadn't had the strength to see if anything was missing from the house. And I didn't see his face. It was dark down there. The man listened patiently, then asked me whether I wanted to file a report.

Report? It hadn't even occurred to me. They wouldn't do anything about it, anyway. Then he stood up and walked around. Went to the window and looked out.