Karin Fossum - Don't Look Back

"No."

"You aren't very curious, are you, Låke?"

"That's right, I'm not. We keep our eyes to ourselves, not on others."

"What if I told you that there's a tiny chance that the man in the courtyard is mixed up in the murder of the Holland girl – would you then realise how serious this is?"

"Even then. I didn't look outside, I was busy with the newspaper."

Sejer looked around the small room and shuddered. It didn't smell good, his kidneys probably didn't function properly. The room needed to be cleaned, the window should have been opened, and the old man should have a piping hot bath. He went out to get some fresh air, drawing in several deep breaths. Raymond trotted after him and stood with his arms crossed as Sejer got into his car.

"Have you got your car fixed, Raymond?"

"Papa says I need a new battery. But I can't afford it right now. Costs over 400 kroner. I don't drive on the roads," he said quickly. "At least almost never."

"That's good. Go on back inside, you'll catch cold."

"Yes," he said, and shivered. "And I gave my jacket away."

"That wasn't so smart, was it?" Sejer said.

"I felt like I had to," he said sadly. "She was lying there with nothing on."

"What did you say?"

Sejer looked at him in astonishment. The jacket on the body belonged to Raymond!

"Did you spread it over her?"

"She wasn't wearing any clothes at all," he said, kicking at the ground with his slipper.

He had imagined that she was cold and that someone should cover her up. The light-coloured hairs might be rabbit hair. He ate sweets. Sejer stared into his eyes, the eyes of a child, as pure as spring water. But he had muscles, as heavy as Christmas hams. Involuntarily he shook his head.

"That was a kind thought," Sejer said. "Did you talk to each other?"

Raymond looked at him in surprise, and the angelic eyes shifted away a bit, as if he might have caught the scent of a trap.

"You said she was dead!"

Afterwards, when Sejer was gone, Raymond slipped out and peeked into the garage. Caesar was lying in a far corner under an old jumper, and he was still breathing.

Skarre finished going over the reports with a No. 5 Microball pen sticking out of the shoulder-strap on his shirt. He smiled with satisfaction, humming a few verses of "Jesus on the Line". Life was good, and a murder case was more exhilarating than armed robbery. It would soon be summer. And there stood his boss, waving a Krone ice cream bar at him. He put the papers quickly aside and took it.

"The anorak that was spread over the body belongs to Raymond," Sejer said.

Skarre was so startled that his ice cream slid sideways.

"But I believe him when he says that he put it there on his way back, after he took Ragnhild home. He spread it over her nicely because she was naked. I rang up Irene Album, and Ragnhild insists that it wasn't there when they went past the tarn. But… it's his jacket. We'll have to keep an eye on him. I told him that unfortunately he couldn't have it back right away, and he was so disappointed that I promised to give him an old one, one that I never wear. Find anything exciting?" he asked.

Skarre tore the rest of the paper wrapper off his ice cream bar. "I've run checks on all of the landlord's neighbours. They seem decent people for the most part, but a lot of speeding tickets have been given on that street."

Sejer licked strawberry ice cream from his upper lip.

"Out of 21 households, eight people have had one or more speeding tickets. That's way above the average."

"They have a long commute to work," Sejer said. "They work in the city, or at Fornebu Airport. There aren't any jobs in Lundeby."

"Precisely. But still. A respectable bunch with lots of speeders on the roads, all the same. But I found something else. Have a look at this." He leafed through the statements and pointed.

"Knut Jensvoll, 8 Gneisveien. Annie's handball coach. He served time for rape. Did 18 months, at Ullersmo."

Sejer bent down to look. "He may have managed to keep that quiet. Better watch what you say when we're out there."

Skarre nodded and licked his ice cream. "Maybe we should bring in the whole team. Perhaps he's tried something on some of the girls. How did you get on? Did you bring back all the details of the suspicious car?"

Sejer sighed and pulled the drawings from his inside pocket.

"Ragnhild says the ski-box was blue. And Raymond's drawing is pretty funny. But what's more interesting is a hiker who was in Raymond's courtyard yesterday evening and seems to have tried to convince Raymond that the car was red."

He placed the drawing in front of him on the table.

Skarre's eyes grew big. "What? Could he describe…"

"Something in between," Sejer said laconically. "Wearing a cap. I didn't dare push him too hard, he gets so upset."

"I call that fast work."

"I call it bold, more than anything else," Sejer said. "But now we're talking about someone who knows who Raymond is. He was seen. He wanted to find out what Raymond saw. So we have to focus on the car. He must be very close to us, for God's sake."

"But to go to Raymond's house, that's pretty reckless. Do you think anyone else might have seen him?"

"I went to every house nearby. No one saw him. But if he came by way of Kollen, then the Låke house is the first one, and there's not much of a view of the courtyard from the farm below."

"What about the old man?"

"He says he heard them outside, and wasn't tempted to look out of his window."

They ate their ice creams in silence.

"Shall we forget about Halvor? And the motorcycle?"

"Absolutely not."

"When do we bring him in?"

"Tonight."

"Why wait?"

"It's quieter at night. You know, I talked to Ragnhild's mother while the girl was scribbling her crystal-clear evidence on the paper. Sølvi isn't Holland's daughter. And the biological father lost his visitation rights, apparently because of drunkenness and violence."

"Sølvi is 21, isn't she?"

"She is now. But evidently there have been years of painful conflicts."

"What are you getting at?"

"In a sense he lost his child. Now his ex-wife, with whom he has a strained relationship, is going through the same thing. Maybe he wanted revenge. It's just a thought."

Skarre gave a low whistle. "Who is he?"

"That's what you're going to find out as soon as you're done with your ice cream. Then come over to my office. We'll leave the moment you locate him."

He left. Skarre punched in the Hollands' phone number and licked his ice cream as he waited.

"I don't want to talk about Axel," Mrs Holland said. "He just about destroyed us, and after all these years we're finally rid of him. If I hadn't taken him to court, he would have destroyed Sølvi."

"I'm only asking you for his name and address. This is just routine, Mrs Holland, there are thousands of things we have to check up on."

"He's never had anything to do with Annie. Thank God!"

"Please give me his name, Mrs Holland."

Finally she gave in. "Axel Bjørk."

"Do you have any other information?"

"I have it all. I have his social security number and his address. Provided he hasn't moved. I wish he would move. He lives too close, only an hour away by car."

She was getting more and more agitated.

Skarre took notes, and thanked her. Then he switched on his computer and did a search for "Bjørk, Axel", thinking how paper-thin personal privacy had become, nothing but a transparent cloth that it was impossible to hide behind. He found the man with no trouble and began reading.

"God damn it all!" he exclaimed with a swift, apologetic glance up at the ceiling. He clicked on "Please Print" and leaned back in his chair. He picked up the page, read it again, and crossed the corridor to Sejer's office. The chief inspector was standing in front of the mirror with one of his shirt sleeves rolled up. He scratched his elbow and grimaced.