Karin Fossum - Bad Intentions

Melis let go and rushed quick as lightning back into Molly’s arms. The men lifted up the coffin again. One corner of it was damaged: the jagged wood glowed bright, but no one said a word. Later Reilly remembered that Tony Moreno made the sign of the cross.

The wake was held in the church hall.

Tony Moreno appeared in the doorway. He stared at the buzzing crowd, then hesitated before he turned around and left. People looked after him as he hurried off, a small man in a crumpled suit. Axel told funny stories, Ingerid cried, but she had to laugh, too, because he was a brilliant storyteller, and even better at making things up, Reilly thought. After all, he had played a part in most of the incidents Axel described and he barely recognised them. In Axel’s embellished version everything was wilder and madder. It did Ingerid good to laugh, the colour returned to her cheeks. After they had been chatting for a while, she remembered something important. Her bag was on the floor, and now she dipped into it to show them something. Her hand brought out a book. Its cover was made from coarse red fabric.

‘Look what Hanna Wigert gave to me,’ she said. ‘It was in a drawer in Jon’s room. It’s a diary. He wrote a diary all the time he was at Ladegården.’

Axel gave her a baffled look. Reilly felt a blow to his stomach. A diary. Bloody hell.

‘Hanna wanted to give it to me personally,’ Ingerid said.

Axel nodded. He was gripping the edge of the table. Ingerid put the book back in her bag and clicked it shut.

‘I will copy Jon,’ she said. ‘I’ll put it in my desk drawer. One day, when I’m feeling very brave, I’ll read it. Jon may not have wanted me to – after all, a diary is a private thing – but I might find some answers.’

Axel finally leapt into action. You could see him preparing for an attack. He drew his chair closer, leaned forward over the table and placed a hand on her arm. It was golden against her white skin, a strong, tanned hand with clearly visible veins.

‘Think twice before you read it,’ he said. ‘Perhaps there were things he wanted to spare you.’

She looked surprised. Her eyebrows shot up.

‘What would they be?’

‘Well,’ Axel hesitated. ‘Those confessions may not be intended for our eyes. For yours, I mean.’

‘But he’s my son,’ she said, ‘and now I’ve got nothing left. Only his thoughts in that diary and I so want them.’

Axel tightened his grip on her arm.

‘But the things you write in a diary are the very things you want to keep secret,’ he said.

Ingerid Moreno started to waver.

‘I know that. But Jon took his own life. He left me all alone again. Who is going to bury me now, can you tell me that? Do you know what this means? I’ll have to die among strangers. I’ll forgive Jon, but only if he had good reason.’

‘Well,’ Axel nodded. ‘As long as you’re not disappointed. As long as it doesn’t make matters worse.’

Ingerid Moreno freed her arm from Axel’s grip.

‘Jon would never disappoint me,’ she said. ‘I’m sure of that.’

Axel was always the driving force in our little engine, Philip Reilly mused. He was in charge of operations and maintenance. He got us out of every scrape. Whenever it started rattling in one place, he would be there in a split second and tighten a bolt.

Whenever they needed forgiveness for some boyish prank, he would charm people into submission, men and women alike. They had been able to get away with anything. Axel Frimann had his own light, an overwhelming aura of warmth, and when he looked at people, their sense of self-worth would instantly soar. Now he had lost his usual composure. Axel was normally a man of action. He could turn every situation to his own advantage. He had no time for people who surrendered to their fate. But now it appeared that Jon’s innermost thoughts were to be found inside that diary, and he was no longer in control.

‘You know what this means, don’t you?’

‘You leave Ingerid alone,’ Reilly said.

Axel stopped pacing. What had Ingerid said? That she would do as Jon had done and put the diary in a drawer. And then, when she summoned up the courage one day, she would read it.

‘There’s a desk just inside the front door,’ he said. ‘I bet the diary is in one of the drawers.’

Reilly gave him a horrified look. The ideas taking shape in Axel’s head were more than he could tolerate.

‘We need that diary,’ Axel said.

‘And here I was thinking I was the crazy one,’ Reilly said. ‘It is completely out of the question and I sincerely hope that you understand that.’

‘The diary is evidence.’

‘That depends on what Jon wrote in it,’ Reilly said. ‘Don’t underestimate him.’

Axel crossed to the open window. He stared out of it, both hands planted firmly on the windowsill. His muscles bulged under his shirt and Reilly was reminded of an ox in front of a closed gate.

‘Deep down you’re really very naive,’ he said. ‘You think we’ve got a chance to get away with it all, but we don’t. And that might be just as well. I’ve always known that this day would come. But then again, I’m not the one worrying about a top job with Repeat.’

‘No, you live in a hovel,’ Axel said. ‘And you’ve got a crap job.’

‘I like my hovel. I like moving beds around.’

Over at the window Axel groaned loudly. His broad back was outlined by the light from outside.

‘Do you know what occurred to me in the church today?’ he asked. ‘Jon wouldn’t have made it anyway. Jon was constantly on edge, breathless, practically. You would have thought he had a heart defect.’

Reilly was pondering something else.

‘What do you think it looks like inside his coffin?’ he asked.

‘What are you on about now?’

‘It hit the ground. Jon must have skidded forwards. Perhaps he’s squashed up in a corner.’

‘There’s no room for movement inside a coffin,’ Axel said. ‘They’re made to measure. And even if he did bump his head against a corner, there’s no one to see it anyway.’

Reilly did not reply. But the thought that Jon was not lying as he should haunted him for a long time.

The remains of the summer’s floral splendour glowed against the red walls of Mrs Moreno’s house. Above the doorbell was a porcelain sign in the shape of a salmon. INGERID AND JON LIVE HERE. Sejer and Skarre waited. It took some time before Ingerid opened the door and when she finally emerged, she did not speak a word. She disappeared inside.

‘How are you?’ Sejer asked.

She collapsed into an armchair, picked up a cushion and held it in front of her like a shield.

‘How am I? I’ve lost Jon, and I’ve lost the rest of my life.’

Sejer protested. ‘Don’t think about the rest of your life,’ he said. ‘No one can look ahead when they’re down.’ He placed his hand on her arm.

‘Jon kept a diary,’ she said. ‘Hanna Wigert brought it to the funeral yesterday. She found it in his room, in a drawer. It’s on my bedside table.’ Abruptly she got up from the armchair and went to her bedroom to fetch it.

Sejer touched the cover. The red fabric was coarse and quite plain.

‘May I read it, please?’ he asked.

‘What good would that do?’

‘We need it.’

She looked baffled.

‘We’ll talk more about it later,’ he said. ‘But first tell us about the funeral, please. Did you give Jon a lovely service?’

She pondered this for a while.

‘I met Molly,’ she said. ‘She and Jon were very good friends. She brought along a terrier which caused something of a commotion. Have you heard about it?’

‘Yes,’ Sejer said. ‘We’ve heard. How do you feel about what happened?’