Karin Fossum - Eva's Eye

“I’m beginning to wonder,” Eva whispered, “if you don’t think I’m the one who did it.”

“Obviously that’s a possibility we’ve considered,” he said quietly, “and here I’m not thinking so much about any motive you may have had, or whether you’re capable of killing someone and all that. We go into that later on. In the first instance we look at who was in the vicinity, who, in purely physical terms, had the opportunity to commit this murder. Then we look at alibi. And lastly,” he said, nodding, “we consider motive. And in this case the fact is that you were there just a short time before she died. But let me make it quite clear at once — we’re certain that Ms. Durban’s murderer was a man.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I mean, wasn’t it one of her clients?”

“Is that what you believe?”

“Well, I — wasn’t it though? That was what the papers said!”

He nodded and leaned forward. He smells nice, she thought, like Dad when he was younger.

“Tell me what happened.”

She sat down again, made a terrific effort, and approached the truth in tiny increments. She ought to tell him now, what had happened, that evening on the footstool. And he’d ask why on earth she hadn’t confessed all this at once. It was because, she thought, she was a fickle person, someone lacking discipline and character, undependable, cowardly, with questionable morals, who didn’t stand up for an old friend who’d meant so much, but who’d then taken her money instead, she could hardly believe it was true, it was unbearable.

“We haven’t got much money, me and Emma,” she mumbled. “It’s always been like that, ever since Jostein went away. I told Maja about it. She wanted me to solve the problem her way. I was to borrow the spare room. We were at Hannah’s and we were drunk. I began to consider her proposition, I was so tired and I couldn’t take any more sleepless nights, threats in the mail, and disconnected phones. So we arranged that I’d return — and try it. She would help. Show me the ropes.”

“Yes?”

“I was slightly pissed when I arrived, I couldn’t face being sober, because then the decision would sort of become concrete, I came as arranged, and I’d decided...”

She stopped, because just then it had actually dawned on her, in all its horror. She was a potential prostitute. And now he knew it too.

“But then I couldn’t go through with it. Maja gave me a Coke and I sobered up as I was sitting there, and my courage evaporated. I thought they might take Emma away if it got out. It made me ill, I ran away from the whole thing. But before that she explained certain things to me.”

“Explained what?”

“Well, how things worked.”

“Did she show you the knife?”

Eva held back for a moment. “She did show me the knife. She said it was to engender fear and respect. I was lying on the bed. That was when I got frightened,” Eva said quickly. “That was when I decided to pull out. I don’t know how you managed to find all this out, I don’t understand anything.”

“The knife obviously wasn’t much help?” he said doubtfully.

“No, she...” Eva stopped dead.

“What were you about to say?”

“She probably wasn’t tough enough.”

“Your fingerprints were all over the apartment,” he went on. “Even,” he said slowly, “on the phone. Who did you phone?”

“Fingerprints?” Her fingers curled at the thought of it. Perhaps they’d been in her house while she was up in the mountains, perhaps they’d picked the lock and tiptoed about with those small brushes they used.

“Who did you phone, Eva?”

“No one! But I did consider — phoning Jostein,” she lied.

“Jostein Magnus?”

“Yes, my ex. Emma’s father.”

“And why didn’t you?”

“Well, I simply changed my mind. He walked out on me, I didn’t want to ask him for anything. I got dressed and left. I told Maja that what she was doing could be dangerous, but she only smiled. Maja never listened to anyone.”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this the first time I came?”

“I was embarrassed. I really did consider becoming a prostitute, and I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone knowing it.”

“I’ve never, ever, in all my life looked down on women who are prostitutes,” he said simply.

He rose from the sofa as if he were satisfied. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

He stood for a short while out on the steps, gazing at the drive, looking at the car and at Emma’s bike, which was propped against the house. Then his stare moved further out, down the street to the other houses, as if trying to form an opinion about the area she lived in, what sort of person she was to live just here, in this neighborhood, in this house.

“Did you get the impression that Ms. Durban had a lot of money?”

The question came suddenly.

“Oh yes. All her things were expensive. She ate in restaurants and that sort of thing.”

“We’re wondering if she might have had a tidy sum stashed away somewhere,” he said, “and that someone might have known about it.” His gaze struck her like a laser beam right between the eyes and she blinked in terror. “Her husband arrived by plane from France yesterday, we’re hoping he can tell us something when we get him in for questioning.”

“What?” She steadied herself on the door frame.

“Ms. Durban’s husband,” Sejer repeated. “You look frightened.”

“I didn’t know she had one,” she said lamely.

“No? Didn’t she say?” He frowned. “That’s a bit strange, her not saying anything, if you were old friends?”

If, she thought. If we really were old friends. If I’m telling the truth. She could go on talking till the cows came home, he obviously wouldn’t believe her.

“Nothing more to add, Mrs. Magnus?”

Eva shook her head. She was petrified. The man who’d arrived at the cabin could have been Maja’s husband. Searching for his inheritance. Perhaps, perhaps one day he’d turn up on her doorstep. Maybe during the night when she was asleep. Maja could have told him that they’d met. If she’d had time. She might have phoned. International call to France. Sejer went down the four wrought-iron steps and halted on the gravel.

“You should put an ankle like that in hot water. Make sure you wrap a bandage around it.”

Then he left.

The money had to be moved out of the house. As the big Peugeot slowly disappeared, she pushed the door shut with a bang and rushed down to the cellar. Her foot was feeling numb again. She prized the lid off the tin with a knife and emptied the packets onto the concrete floor; then she sat and began tearing the foil off them. They were bound with rubber bands. She realized quite quickly that there was a system to the bundles. All the thousand-kroner notes were together, and the hundreds, it was easy to count them. The floor was very cold and she lost sensation in her bottom. On and on she counted, keeping a mental tally of each, laying it aside, and counting the next. Her heart thumped ever louder. Where could she hide such a huge sum? A safe-deposit box was too risky, she had the feeling that they’d be watching her now, watching her every move, Sejer and his people. And Maja’s husband.

Maja was married. Why hadn’t she said so? Had she felt that a husband, a companion for life, was an impediment? Or was he more a kind of business partner to share the running of the hotel? Or just a bloke she didn’t want to acknowledge? The last seemed the most likely.

The paint tin was a wonderful hiding place really, but she had to keep it somewhere else, somewhere no one would think of looking and where she could easily help herself to more when she needed it. At her father’s, of course, in his cellar, along with all the old junk he’d accumulated over the years. Eva’s childhood bed. The apples which lay rotting in the old potato bin. The defective washing machine. She lost count and had to begin again. Her hands were sweating and this made it easy to separate the crisp notes from one another, soon she had half a million in one big heap and there was masses more. Maja’s husband. Maybe he was a really shady character — if Maja had been a prostitute, what might he be? A drug dealer or something similar. Perhaps neither of them had any moral sense. Have I got any? she thought suddenly, she was getting close to a million now and she was making inroads into the money. This, she thought, probably represents a good deal of the housekeeping money of hundreds of housewives in this town, money that should have been used for nappies and tins of food. It was an odd thought.