Karin Fossum - Bad Intentions

‘Tell me about the night he went missing,’ Sejer asked.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I will tell you. It was 19 December last year, in the early evening. He wanted to go into town. He wasn’t meeting anyone in particular, he just wanted to watch the world go by, he said, and I told him to dress up warm because it was freezing cold that day. And a seventeen-year-old boy should have some independence, I do know that, so I was happy that he wanted to go out and meet people even though I didn’t know who they were. He called out to me from the hall. That was the last time I heard his voice, I can still hear his very last words. I went to bed at midnight, but I didn’t go to sleep. I lay waiting for his key in the lock because it makes quite a loud noise, you can’t mistake it. I listened out for his voice and his footsteps, and I waited for the pipes in the bathroom to gurgle. The night has never been so full of sounds. I kept hearing things, and every time I sat up with a start. Kim’s coming, that’s definitely Kim. Wasn’t that the sound of a car starting in the road? They must have given him a lift home, after all he’s gone out with nice people. Because he’s a nice boy. That’s what I thought as I lay in my bed. After several hours dawn broke and then I was sure that something must have happened. I stood in the doorway and looked at his empty bed. I could hardly believe it. Then there was the business of trying to find out what had happened. When he was reported missing in the newspaper, the police received some calls. It turned out he had met some young people and gone to a party with them, and they’d all been questioned, but none of them had any idea what might have happened to him. Kim had done what they had done. He had been drinking and he wasn’t used to that. They made no bones about it. Kim was drunk. And I don’t know what happened, but he shouldn’t have been drinking because he can’t handle it.’

‘What do you think might have happened?’ Sejer asked.

‘For a long time I thought he might have fallen asleep in a ditch on his way home and frozen to death, but then I heard that he had been given a lift as far as the letterboxes and that’s when I started to have doubts. But the days passed and no one found him, and I knew that this was something completely different, something incomprehensible. I don’t understand why they found him in the water, perhaps he fell through the ice. But it was so cold last winter. The ice must have been thick, and what would he have been doing up at Glitter Lake?’

She wiped tears from her cheek. ‘Are you sure you don’t want some tea?’ she asked again.

‘Please don’t trouble yourself,’ Sejer said.

He regretted saying it immediately. Perhaps she would like to go to the kitchen and do something, boil water, fetch cups from the cupboard, do the things she normally did when she had visitors. And he had rejected her hospitality. For a while he wondered if he should ask for a cup anyway, but he was too slow.

‘Can you discover anything after such a long time?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want to blame anyone, but if someone is responsible for what happened, then they must be punished for it. The police thought he might have killed himself because they soon found out that he was lonely, obviously. But Kim would never have done anything like that.’

‘The case will be reopened,’ Sejer said. ‘Now that we’ve found him, it will be easier to investigate. He didn’t drown, that much we do know, but the cause of his death is unknown. Was he in good health?’

She nodded. ‘He was. He wasn’t on medication, or anything. He didn’t take drugs, I’m certain of it, and he didn’t smoke, either.’

Again she started to weep softly. She straightened out an embroidered tablecloth and smiled apologetically for becoming emotional.

‘If you discover the truth, I’ll be happy,’ she said. ‘As it is now, I lie awake at night and imagine the very worst. What if they killed him? All the drunk young people at the party. What if they killed him?’

‘They didn’t,’ Sejer said. ‘The forensic examiner would have discovered that.’

‘Is it possible to drink so much that it kills you?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ Sejer said, ‘it is. And the forensic examiner has taken samples which will reveal whether he died from alcohol poisoning, but we don’t think that’s what happened.’

‘Can you tell when people lie?’ she asked.

He contemplated this for couple of seconds. ‘Often, but not always.’

‘Will you be speaking to the people who were with him that night?’

‘I’ll be speaking to every single one of them.’

Yoo Van Chau looked at him with piercing eyes.

‘You must study everyone you talk to very closely,’ she said. ‘You must listen to their voices and look into their eyes to see if they speak the truth.’

‘I’ll listen very carefully to everything they’ve got to say,’ Sejer said.

‘And you must watch their hands,’ she said. ‘Observe what they do with their hands, if they flap.’

‘I’ll watch their hands,’ he promised.

‘Can you find out what happened?’ she said, and now her voice was urgent. ‘Will you know if anyone killed or tortured him? Can you find out why his heart stopped beating, his young, strong heart? There has to be a reason,’ she pressed on. ‘Nothing happens without a reason.’

‘You’re right about that,’ he said, ‘but you know, often several circumstances coincide.’

‘Then I want to know all about those circumstances,’ she said.

‘Can you find them out? Please,’ she added while she waited desperately for his reply. She looked small and lost in the big chair. Sejer did not want to promise her anything or give her any guarantees. He never did, he knew better than to do that. But suddenly he felt weak, and the forbidden words slipped out of him.

‘I’ll find out what happened,’ he said. ‘I promise.’

The party had been held in Skjæret on 19 December. Skjæret was a town on the coast, near Åkerøy, and Irene Selmer was listed as the owner of a small flat with a terrace that overlooked the water.

They were walking to the car. Sejer confessed his brief moment of weakness when he was with Yoo Van Chau.

‘I promised her I would find out,’ he said.

‘What do you mean promised?’ Skarre said.

‘That I would make sure she gets an explanation for it all. It was impossible to turn her down. She wears slippers embroidered with dragons,’ he explained.

‘But we can’t promise her anything,’ Skarre said, aghast. ‘You need to use a stock phrase. We’ll do everything in our power. That one is quite good. It makes an impression, don’t you think?’

‘If you had seen Yoo Van Chau, you would have made promises too,’ Sejer said.

They drove out to Åkerøy.

Half an hour later they saw the fjord sparkle blue between the houses. Small islands dotted with red and white cottages lay beyond. Skarre spoke at length about his childhood. He had grown up in a vicarage on the south coast, and he could feel the pull of it now.

‘I want a flat out here,’ he said. ‘How much do you think they cost?’

‘Far too much for us,’ Sejer replied.

Skarre stared dreamily across the mouth of the fjord.

‘I suppose it gets cold here in the autumn and winter,’ he added. ‘After all, it’s right on the coast. What do you think?’

He looked to the inspector for support.

‘You can’t live out here,’ Sejer said. ‘It’s freezing cold.’

Irene Selmer was wearing a T-shirt which came down to her thighs and read: PRINCESS ON A BINGE. She acted curt. She seemed to think they might be selling something, and she wanted shot of them.