Karin Fossum - He Who Fears The Wolf

She shrugged. "I refuse to give up."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm going to have to search for an explanation. Find out how it happened."

"Where will you search?"

"In my papers. In my memory. For what he said, and all the things that he didn't say. I simply have to understand."

"Will you let me know what you find?"

At last she looked up and smiled. "Could you see me in?" she asked.

He was puzzled by her request but obediently he escorted her to the door, and watched as she put her key in the lock after first giving a brief tap on the doorbell. Maybe it was a signal to Gerhard that she was home. Sejer didn't want to meet her husband. If he saw him, his fantasies about their relationship would become all too real. Her home was a single-storey terrace bungalow with extra-wide doors, equipped for a disabled person. They were standing in the door of the living room. Sejer thought of a book he had read when he was young. The main character, who was deeply in love, escorted a woman home. He had lost his heart to her and thought that she lived alone. On the way, she told him that Johnny was waiting for her. At that instant, his heart broke. And then as they were standing in the living room, he understood that Johnny was a hamster.

Gerhard Struel was sitting at a desk, reading, wearing a knitted jacket in spite of the heat. The man was actually older than Sejer. He was bald, and his dark eyes were framed by glasses. On the floor next to him lay an Alsatian. The dog raised his head and stared.

"Papa," Sara said. "This is Chief Inspector Konrad Sejer."

Gerhard Struel was not a hamster. He was a father!

Sejer tried to pull himself together as he clasped the outstretched hand. Why did she want him to see this? The house. The father who needed care. Perhaps she was saying, "Take me away from all this!"

"I must get home to my dog," he said.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, fumbling with her jacket. "I didn't mean to take up your time."

Gerhard Struel gave Sejer a long look. "So it's over, then?"

Yes, he thought, it's over. Even before it started. I can't make a move now. It's not right. He had landed himself in that awkward situation where he would be forced to pick up the phone and call her if he wanted to see her again. She had made the first move. Now it was his turn.

Sara held out her hand. "We made an excellent team, don't you think?"

She had planted a seed. Maybe it would grow. An excellent team.

He found her name in his name book. Sara. It meant "princess".

Later he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, carrying on an imaginary conversation with her.

I knew you would turn up. I've been waiting for you.

Tell me something about yourself, she said with a smile.

What do you want to know?

A childhood memory. Something beautiful.

Here's something beautiful: the summer I turned five, my father took me to the cathedral in Roskilde. I had no idea what was inside. I left the warm sunlight outside and stood on the stone floor. The church was filled with coffins. Father explained that people lay inside them, all of the ministers who had worked at that church. They lay there in full view, for everyone to see, row after row, on either side of the pews. The coffins were made of marble and they were unbelievably beautiful. It was cold in the church, and I was freezing. I started tugging at my father's hand to make him take me out again. Eventually he took pity on me. "They're sleeping the eternal sleep," he said with a smile. "While the two of us have to go home and work in the garden, even though it's so hot! I have to mow the grass, and you have some weeding to do."

I couldn't stop thinking about the sight of all those coffins, until my mother came out to the garden and brought us strawberry pudding. It was chilled from being in the cellar, but the cream was warm. I ate the pudding and thought that it simply couldn't be true. There wasn't anything inside those coffins, just cobwebs and dust. And the pudding tasted so wonderful it seemed impossible that life wouldn't last for ever. I looked at the blue sky and there above us what do I see but a flock of angels with white wings hovering overhead. I thought they had come to get us, but we hadn't even finished our pudding! Father saw them too. He smiled happily. "Look, Konrad! Look how fine they are!"

There were 15 parachute jumpers from the national guard, and they landed on the football field nearby. I will never forget how beautiful they were, how silently they drifted down.

Sejer lay awake for a long time. He was beyond tired now, but his eyes seemed to be lit from within. They were wide open, staring into the dark. He tossed and turned, and every time he moved, Kollberg's ears pricked up. It was much too hot to sleep. He started scratching. Resigned, he climbed out of bed, got dressed, and went into the living room. Kollberg padded after him. Did he really want someone so close? Beside him in bed in the morning, every morning, year after year? What would Kollberg say? And two male dogs, that wasn't going to work.

"Want to go out?" he whispered. The dog barked and trotted to the door. It was 2 a.m. The block of flats was like a lonely pillar in the starless sky.

At first he thought of going into town, to the cemetery, but he changed his mind. He couldn't believe that he felt guilty. He'd read about this happening, and he didn't know how he was going to deal with it. Maybe I should move, he thought. Get a new car. Draw a line: before Elise and after Elise. I can't cope otherwise. It seems that there is an obstacle in my path.

He was in his shirtsleeves. The night air against his bare arms soothed the itching. He walked and walked, just as Errki had walked and walked.

If you're going to remain in this world, you have to live life, he decided. He turned around and looked back at his block of flats. There was something about the structure, the heavy pillar of grey cement with its muted lighting, that seemed to evoke human anxiety. I have to get away from here, he thought, I want to be on the ground. Stand in grass and have trees around me.

"Shall we move, Kollberg? Out to the country?"

The dog's eyes gazed up at him.

"You don't know what I'm saying, do you? You live in another world. And yet we get along so well. Even though you're a dunce."

Kollberg sniffed happily at his hand. He put his hand in the pocket of his khaki trousers and took out a long-forgotten dog biscuit. Kollberg didn't know why he was getting a reward, but he gobbled it up and wagged his tail enthusiastically.

"The worst thing is that I'll never know why," he murmured. "What really happened between them? What did Halldis say or do to frighten him? Both of them are dead now, and we'll never know. But we don't know anything about most things in the world. How strange that we accept that fact. As if we were waiting, all our lives, for something further in the future, something totally different that will be comprehensible. But you, you dunce," he looked down at the dog, "you're just waiting for your next meal."

He turned and walked home.

He turned his back on the cemetery. He felt an ache deep inside.

Skarre looked cheerful. Showered and tanned.

"What's going on?" Sejer stared at him.

"Nothing. Just feeling good, that's all."

"I see," he said. "Have you heard from the laboratory? Did they get a match on the fingerprints?"

"Errki's prints were everywhere inside the house. He even touched the mirror. The prints on the hoe are more problematic, but they're working on them."

"Did you write up the interrogation last night?"

"Here you go, boss." He handed Sejer some documents in a plastic folder and bit his lip. "What's going to happen to the boy?"

"Not much. Morgan confirmed that it was an accident. Most likely he'll get to stay at Guttebakken, and by all accounts that seems the best solution. God knows, he's been through enough lately. What he needs is some peace, not to be moved again. I'm going out to see him now. He's probably not in very good shape, but I have this tiny hope that he might have found out something about Errki that Morgan missed. Maybe he can offer some explanation."