Karin Fossum - Calling Out For You aka The Indian Bride

"What actually happened?" he said. "The accident. What did she hit? Another car?"

"Yes," the nurse said.

"What happened to the other driver?"

"He's not doing so well," the nurse said.

"I do need to know what happened," he pleaded. "She may wake up and ask me. I need to know what to say!"

She looked at him gravely. "He's here. But we couldn't save him." She bent over Marie and pulled up her eyelids. He saw the dead expression in them and gulped. A man had died and perhaps it was Marie's fault.

Then another nurse arrived. She held a cordless phone in her hand. His heart leapt in anticipation. It was Kalle.

"I couldn't find her," he said, out of breath. "She must have gotten another cab."

Gunder panicked. "You didn't see her at all?"

"I looked everywhere, and they paged her, but she must have got her luggage and cleared customs really quickly. I asked at the information desk if anyone of that name had been there looking for help and they paged her while I was waiting, but no-one came."

"What time did you get there?" Gunder stammered.

"I'm not quite sure. I drove as fast as I could," he said unhappily.

Gunder felt sorry for Kalle, who now had a bad conscience for no reason at all.

"She's probably gone to your house," Kalle suggested. "Perhaps she's sitting on your doorstep. I'll drive up there now."

"Thank you," Gunder said.

He handed the phone back. The nurses looked at him enquiringly, but he said nothing. He could not face talking any more. Marie could not hear him anyway. An eternity passed and a message was passed to him that Poona had not been waiting at the house. Perhaps she had not been on the plane at all, Gunder thought, bewildered. Perhaps it would be all right to contact Lufthansa? They could confirm whether she had been on the flight. Once more he went out to the payphone and called the airport. Eventually they confirmed it. Poona Bai had travelled with Lufthansa from Frankfurt. The plane had landed on time at 6 p.m. Gunder went back up in the lift. Looked at his sister in the bed. His body felt heavy and infinitely tired. Reluctantly he got up again and left the room. Stopped in the doorway of the duty sister's office. Explained that he had to go because something had happened, but he promised to return. Please would they call if there were any developments?

They looked at him in surprise. But of course they would call. So he went home. Sat behind the steering wheel lost in his own thoughts and was nearly home when a car swept towards him at great speed. It was way over on his side of the road. He threw his wheel sharply to the right and gasped. His heart skipped a beat. Things could happen so quickly! Why don't you get started sooner if it's that important! he snapped at the mirror. The rear of a white Saab disappeared round a corner.

It was 9.30 p.m. when he let himself in. He sat at his desk and looked at the photograph of him and Poona. The evening came and then the night. Everything inside him was in turmoil. Had she misunderstood? Should he call the police? Surely they couldn't just start a manhunt? Where would they look? He sat up the whole night. Every time he heard the sound of a car he leapt out of his chair and pulled the curtain aside. There is an explanation for everything, he thought. Any minute now a taxi would draw up in front of the house. She would be with him at last. He glanced at the telephone. It did not ring. That meant that Marie was still unconscious and had no awareness of her own condition, or of the man in the other car who had died. Of Poona who had not arrived.

He sat all the time with the photograph in his hand. Looked at the odd yellow bag she always wore around her waist. He had never seen anything like it. He remembered how she kissed him on the nose and caressed his face with her warm hands. How she lifted up his shirt and hid her face in there. She would sit like that and listen to his heart. He lifted up the photograph close to his eyes. Her face was so tiny. It disappeared altogether behind his fingertip.

The next day, August 21st, a police car drove slowly along the highway towards Elvestad. The white bonnet gleamed in the sunlight. Two men stared through the windscreen. They could make out a crowd of people in the distance.

"There," Skarre said.

They saw a clearing to the left. A meadow, surrounded by dense wood. Inspector Konrad Sejer looked towards the edge of the wood where a police team was working. The whole meadow was cordoned off. There had been created a passageway, through which they would apparently have to pass. People got out of their cars quickly and headed out into the tall grass. It was already flattened in places. This furrow, Sejer thought, will stand out like an open wound for a long, long time. A number of bystanders had also gathered on the road. Youngsters on bikes, a few cars. And the press, of course, denied any closer access for now. Their camera lenses glinted aggressively. Sejer was easy to recognise by the way he walked. The long body moved steadily across the meadow. There was never anything hasty or rash about him. Similarly he always thought before he spoke. Young people who did not know him made the mistake of thinking he was dim. Others saw the calm personality and sensed a man who rarely did things he regretted and even more rarely made a mistake. The greying hair was cut very short. He was wearing a black roll-neck sweater and a brown leather jacket which was unbuttoned. The group made way for him so he could reach the front unhindered. Jacob Skarre followed two metres behind, Sejer blocking his view. But suddenly there she lay at their feet. Skarre swallowed down a huge quantity of air. What was it Holthemann had said on the phone? A truly horrific crime.

Sejer thought he had prepared himself. He stood still, his legs slightly apart, and stared at the woman in the grass. The sight confused him. He saw a plait coiling like a black snake in the yellow grass. The rest of her face was smashed to the bone. Her mouth was a gaping red and black hole. Her nose had been struck flat against her cheek and he could not find her eyes in this pulp of red flesh. He had to avert his gaze and saw a clenched fist. A gold sandal. A lot of blood. It had been absorbed by her clothes and run off her down into the dry grass. He touched the pretty, silk fabric of the turquoise dress, where it still was clean. Glimpsed her glittering jewellery. As he raised his head he noticed blood smeared all over the grass further away from the woman as though someone had dragged her further afield. Automatically all his senses began working. He recognised the smell, heard the sound of voices, felt the soft ground give under his feet. He stared up at the blue sky for a moment and slowly lowered his head.

She was very slender. He saw a slim foot. Thin brown ankles. Her feet were naked in the sandals. Tiny feet, smooth and neat. Her age was impossible to determine. Anywhere between twenty and forty, he thought. Her clothing was undisturbed. There were no cuts on her hands.

"Snorrason?" he said eventually.

"Snorrason is on his way," Karlsen said.

Sejer looked at Skarre. He was standing in a strangely rigid position, only his curls moved in the wind.

"What have we got so far?"

Karlsen took a step forward. His moustache that always had an elegant turn was messy. He had clasped his hand over his mouth in shock.

"The body was discovered by a woman. She called us from that house over there." He pointed towards the woods where Sejer could make out a small house. He saw the windows shining brightly through the leaves.

"She's been hit by something very heavy and probably blunt, we don't know what. Nothing has been found. There are extensive traces of blood, in fact all the way to that corner over there," he pointed to the wood on the other side, "and almost all the way down to the road. As though he's dragged her around. There's a lot of blood down there to your left as well. Perhaps he attacked her there. Then she got away for a moment before he caught up with her again and carried on. But we think that she finally died here, right where she's lying now."