Karin Fossum - He Who Fears The Wolf

"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.

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."