Karin Fossum - Bad Intentions

‘In that case there would be an awful lot of people who would need to keep their mouths shut for a very long time,’ Sejer said. ‘Someone is directly responsible for the situation that arose. They didn’t contact the emergency services. They agreed a story and they’ve all stuck to it. Reilly, Frimann and Moreno were tasked with disposing of the body because they had access to a car. That could have been what happened.’

He started walking back to the car. Skarre followed him slowly. When they were both back inside, Sejer sat silently with his hands on the wheel. He stayed like that for a long time, pondering. Skarre noticed how grey he had become and how he had grown leaner and more lined over the years. On his right hand he wore his late wife’s wedding ring. He had had it melted down with his own. He might be thinking about her now or maybe about the older man in the mirror who stared back at him each morning. Or perhaps he was thinking about Yoo Van Chau and the promise he had made her.

‘You’re bloody brilliant, but you can’t crack them all,’ Skarre said.

There was no reply. Sejer was lost in his own thoughts.

‘What I’m saying is that you’re only human,’ Skarre went on. ‘If you have to break your promise to Yoo Van Chau, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you have failed or that you haven’t met your own high standards. Do you lie awake at night, Konrad?’

‘Axel Frimann’s Mercedes,’ Sejer said. ‘I want it sent to forensics right now.’

Ingerid Moreno was an attractive woman, but grief had ravaged her. Her cheeks were sunken and her fingers were feeble when she buttoned her coat. It was late October. She tied a floral shawl around her neck. She had decided to take action. Passively grieving or waiting for something that might never happen was making her ill. But it was hard for her to move. Her body was weighed down by lethargy, and the things she had done automatically, such as getting dressed, locking the front door and going to her car, took much longer than usual. She was used to her days being familiar, predictable entities, like a staircase she would walk up every morning and find her bed at the top. The staircase had collapsed now. It had been reduced to rubble and she did not know how to climb it.

The wind caught her shawl as she reached the flagstone path. It was a colourful shawl decorated with red poppies that she had bought in Naples. It was there she had met Tony Moreno. She got in her car and drove to Nattmål. She stopped at the foot of the hill and thought for a while. Then she got out to check the letterboxes to make sure she was in the right place. Do I dare, she wondered, have I really got the nerve? I have no right. Nevertheless she drove up the long hill until she reached the terraced houses. She stayed in her car listening to a piece of music on the radio. When it has finished, I’ll go in, she decided. A few minutes later she headed for Yoo Van Chau’s front door. Suddenly she was on the verge of tears. She had no idea what might happen to her. A furious woman might appear at the door, screaming, don’t come near me with your grief, I’ve got enough with my own. She heard a faint click from the lock. A tiny dark-haired woman gave her a quizzical look and Ingerid felt enormous and clumsy.

‘You don’t know me,’ she stuttered, ‘but I know who you are. I read about your son in the papers. About Kim.’

She wanted to hurry up and explain herself. She did not know how long the other woman would be prepared to listen.

‘I’ve lost my son too,’ she said. ‘He drowned himself. Or at least we think he did, but it’s not certain. There’s something very strange going on which we don’t understand. It happened just a few weeks ago. He was on a trip with some friends, and when they woke up in the morning he was gone. That’s what they said. The police came to my house yesterday,’ she said. ‘They told me something new and I got really scared.’

She grew more animated because Yoo Van Chau did not look as if she was about to stop her.

‘He went to the same party, in December. Out at Skjæret, near Åkerøy. He was there with Kim.’

Total silence followed. Yoo made a move towards Ingerid and placed a hand on her arm. Her eyes were huge and shining.

‘Now they’re both dead,’ Ingerid said. ‘Do you understand what happened at that party?’

‘Please come in,’ Yoo said. She stepped aside; the hallway was narrow. The moment they entered the living room Ingerid spotted the photograph on the chest of drawers. For a while she studied the young Vietnamese man.

‘You’ve lost a handsome boy,’ she said.

Yoo placed a hand on her heart. She would keep all the beautiful words spoken about Kim in there and carry them with her.

‘Jon was very fair,’ Ingerid said. ‘But he was also slender, and he was the smallest. Of the three of them,’ she explained. ‘You know, Axel and Reilly. Have you met Axel and Reilly? His friends?’

‘No,’ Yoo said. ‘I haven’t met them. But they were the ones who gave Kim a lift home. They drove him as far as the letterboxes. That’s what they told the police. I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t know anything any more.’ Suddenly a thought occurred to her. ‘Was your son in that car?’

‘Yes,’ Ingerid said. ‘He was in the car.’ She felt utterly desolate. Now that they had arrived at the unpleasant part, the incident she was still unclear about, her strength deserted her. ‘Please may I sit down?’

Yoo gestured towards the sofa. She slipped into an armchair with an elegance which reminded Ingerid of a swan gliding on water.

‘I don’t know what happened,’ Ingerid said. ‘I don’t know what Jon was mixed up in, and I can barely look you in the eye, but I have to. It pains me to think that Jon might have done something illegal. He was a decent lad. He knew the difference between right and wrong, I’m absolutely convinced of that, but there were several of them in the car that night, and they had been drinking. Jon died in the middle of September,’ she said. ‘He was found at the bottom of the lake they call Dead Water.’

‘Dead Water?’ Yoo said.

‘Your son was found in a lake too,’ Ingerid said. ‘It all means something. I believe that now.’

She was starting to become distressed and had to compose herself.

‘Jon left behind a diary,’ she said. ‘He writes page after page about how guilty he feels. That he doesn’t deserve to live. I think it has to do with Kim. That’s why I wanted to meet you. We have to find out what happened that night.’

Yoo listened quietly. She had a serenity which made Ingerid relax her shoulders.

‘Jon was in hospital,’ she explained. ‘He had had a nervous breakdown. But he never mentioned that he was planning to kill himself, and I still find it hard to believe. When someone commits suicide, strong forces are involved. But did they really come from inside him? Or was it something external that killed him? This is what troubles me.’

‘Kim got into a car,’ Yoo said, ‘because he wanted to go to a party. There were two girls in it. I wonder who they were and what they were thinking when they saw him standing by the side of the road. I was sitting in this chair as they drove off. I should have taken better care of him.’

‘You can’t babysit a seventeen-year-old,’ Ingerid said. ‘They’re off on their own. They get mixed up in things. Surely that’s not our fault?’

‘That’s not our fault,’ Yoo agreed.

They looked each other in the eye.

‘But I’m still convinced that someone out there is guilty of something, and I want that guilt apportioned,’ Ingerid said.

‘What are we going to do?’ Yoo whispered.