Karin Fossum - Bad Intentions

‘But he’s in the boot now and it’s not like he’s going to go away.’

‘We need to find another solution.’

‘It’s not our fault.’

‘Yes,’ Reilly said. ‘It is our fault. You and your seats.’

‘So it’s my fault now, is it? Is that what you’re saying? That he drank too much and decided to die in my car? Is that my fault?’

Axel’s strong, argumentative voice. Reilly’s weak protests.

‘It’ll only get worse,’ Reilly said.

‘It can’t get any worse,’ Axel said.

Twenty minutes later Axel parked the car by the shore of Glitter Lake.

‘Why are we stopping?’ Jon asked.

‘The petrol light has come on,’ Axel replied.

The headlights formed two pale blue cones across the ice. After some time they got out of the car and wandered up and down along the shore.

‘We can’t drive back,’ Axel said. ‘And we can’t take him home with us. This much I assume we do agree on.’

He looked across the ice. To the right of the beach lay a hill with some bushes growing around it.

‘There,’ Axel said. ‘Under the bushes. We’ll hide him there, and when the ice melts he’ll go through.’

‘You’re not serious?’ Reilly said.

Axel opened the boot.

Jon protested. ‘We don’t need to say that we put him in the boot,’ he wailed. ‘Can’t we just keep quiet about that bit?’

‘They’ll find out eventually,’ Axel said. ‘We’ll be convicted of manslaughter. We’ll go to prison for several years.’

Jon carried on crying.

‘You need to think of those closest to you now,’ Axel said. ‘Not strangers from a foreign country who decide to die on your doorstep. What do you think your mum will say if you go to jail?’

‘But we won’t go to jail, will we?’ Jon whispered.

‘Yes, we will, and I’m not going to let that happen to me. We need to agree a story.’

Jon was still sobbing. He started kicking the tyres of the car. ‘Reilly,’ he howled. ‘Say something!’

Reilly took a few steps through the snow, still keeping his back to him.

Axel pulled out his mobile from his pocket.

‘Here you are, Jon, go on, make the call. After all, you’re so much better than us. Do the right thing and ruin the rest of your life.’

Ingerid Moreno spotted the taxi from her window.

She pulled on her boots and had just got outside when Yoo Van Chau’s foot appeared below the door of the taxi. Yoo was carrying a big shoulder bag. It was heavy, and it upset her balance. The street had been gritted, but there were still icy patches on the flagstone path leading up to the house.

‘Let me help you,’ Ingerid said.

Yoo hooked her arm through Ingerid’s and together they staggered up the slippery flagstones like two old ladies. They could not help but laugh at themselves, and their laughter reminded them of the old life they had lost.

‘Please sit down,’ Ingerid said, once they got inside.

She had cleaned the house. She had bought flowers and lit candles. She had cooked dinner and set the table, and she had opened a bottle of wine.

Yoo sat on the sofa and Ingerid let herself fall into a chair. There were things that needed saying. They both summoned their courage.

‘I’m not making excuses for Jon,’ Ingerid began. ‘He should have held his ground even though Axel and Reilly were older and stronger than him. But I was young myself once. We went to parties every Saturday and we used to get quite drunk. Some mornings I would wake up unable to recall the night before. It would just be a blur.’

Yoo listened with the shoulder bag on her lap.

‘There’s so much we don’t know about ourselves,’ Ingerid said. ‘Perhaps we ought to thank fate for the trials we never have to face.’

‘Kim shouldn’t have drunk as much as he did,’ Yoo said. ‘He wasn’t used to it. I feel sorry for both of them. And I feel sorry for us.’

She looked at the flowers on the table. She recognised them as caramel roses. Ingerid had food in the oven too. She could hear hot fat spitting.

‘Every day I light a candle on his grave,’ she said. ‘I go there whatever the weather, come rain or come shine. Afterwards, I wait for the bus, in the freezing cold. I’m so tired of it. Then I make up my mind not to go the next day, but I think I can hear him calling out for me, so I have to go anyway even though it’s cold. I have to, otherwise I can’t sleep.’

‘He’s controlling you,’ Ingerid said. ‘Did he control you when he was alive as well?’

‘Of course not.’

‘So why do you allow him to do so now?’ She went to the window and looked outside. ‘The snow will come soon,’ she said. ‘Think about that.’

Yoo thought about the snow. It would cover the graves like a duvet.

Ingerid went to the bookcase, pulled out a photo album with a black cover and placed it on the table. ‘You first,’ she said.

Yoo opened her shoulder bag. Her photo album was pale blue and bore the following title: My little baby .

She opened the first page and pointed to the photo of a newborn baby swaddled in a blanket.

‘Kim,’ she whispered. ‘On the day he was born.’

Reilly’s cell measured eight square metres. It had a simple bed and a desk, and he had his own toilet. He also had a shelf with a handful of books, and on the wall above his bed he had fixed an old photo of himself, Axel and Jon when they were boys. Axel’s father had taken the picture. It was before the stroke destroyed him. Axel was wearing a white shirt and jeans; Jon was in shorts and on his head he wore the dark blue cap from Toten Transport. Reilly himself was wearing an old tracksuit with red and blue trim.

Reilly studied the picture every day. He was convinced that he would eventually spot signs of everything that had happened since then. A shadow, perhaps, or a certain light. But he found no such thing. They were just little kids with skinny legs and pointy knees.

The window of his cell faced the river, and a herd of cows was grazing on its bank. There were fifty, maybe sixty animals there, and he enjoyed watching them. The animals were sturdy and shaggy, some were as pale as cream, others black or red, and they always moved as one. Whenever it began to rain, they would huddle together under a cluster of trees in a compact slumbering mass.

‘Herefordshire,’ Hermansen said.

Hermansen was the prison guard whom Reilly liked the most. He was the oldest one on the section and would retire shortly. Sometimes you could sense that he was already winding down. He had lost some of his flexibility, and his dealings with the inmates was characterised by a brutal honesty.

‘Herefordshire,’ Reilly echoed. ‘You know about cows then?’

‘I know the farmer,’ Hermansen said. ‘It’s the best meat there is.’

Reilly remained by the window. He was filled with a sense of gravity, which pulled him towards the floor, but it was not unpleasant. It was the feeling of being in the right place. I’m atoning now, he thought. I atone while I sleep, and every second I repay part of a huge debt.

‘Are they outside in the winter?’ he asked, nodding towards the cows.

‘Oh, no,’ Hermansen said. ‘They go back in the cowshed at the first snowfall.’

‘But that could be any minute,’ Reilly said. ‘We’re halfway through November. What will I look at then?’

‘Then you’ll have to look at the sky,’ Hermansen said. ‘And the clouds. You’ll always find something to look at. You have to. You’re going to be here a long time.’

Reilly went to his bed. He sat down and picked up the Koran that was lying on the blanket.

The older man watched him kindly. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’