Karin Fossum - Don't Look Back

"It must have been terrible for you," Sejer said. "You didn't have anyone to go to with your despair. At the same time you probably feel that you've never been properly punished for what happened. Is that how it is?"

Johnas was silent. His eyes flitted around the room.

"First you lost your youngest son, and then your wife left you, taking your older son with her. You were left all alone, with no one."

Now Johnas began to cry. It sounded as if he had porridge in his throat that he was trying to regurgitate.

"And yet you've carried on. You have your dog to keep you company. You expanded your business, which is thriving. It takes a lot of energy to start afresh the way you have."

Johnas nodded. The words felt like warm water.

Sejer had taken aim; now he fired his shot.

"And then, after you had finally got a grip on things and your life was getting back to normal – then Annie popped up, didn't she?"

Johnas gave a start.

"Maybe she looked at you with accusing eyes when you met on the street. You must have wondered about that, about why she seemed so unfriendly. So when you caught sight of her running along with her schoolbag on her back, you had to find out what it was all about, once and for all, didn't you?"

A girl came running down the hill. She recognised me at once and pulled up short. Her face froze and she gave me a cold look. Her whole posture rebuffed me, a stubborn, almost aggressive attitude that was alarming.

She started walking again, taking swift strides, without looking back. Then I called out to her. I refused to give up, I had to find out what it was about! Finally she relented and got in, sitting with her arms wrapped around the bag that she held on her lap. I drove slowly, wanting to speak but not knowing exactly how to begin or whether I was about to do something that could be dangerous for both of us. So I kept on driving, and out of the corner of my eye I was aware of her tense figure, like one big trembling accusation.

"I need someone to talk to," I started off, hesitantly, clutching the steering wheel hard in my hands. "Things haven't been easy for me."

"I know that," she replied, staring out of the window, but suddenly she turned and looked at me for a brief moment. It felt like a small opening and I tried to relax. There was still time to retreat and leave it alone, but now she was sitting there, listening to me. Maybe she was grown-up enough to understand everything, and maybe that's all she wanted, some sort of confession or plea for forgiveness. Annie and all her talk about justice.

"Can we drive somewhere and talk a little, Annie? It's hard to do in the car. If you have some time, just a few minutes, and then I'll drive you to wherever you're going afterwards."

My voice was thin and pleading; I saw that it touched her. She nodded slowly and seemed to relax a bit, settling back in the seat and staring out the window again. After a while we passed Horgen's Shop, and I saw a motorcycle parked next to it. The driver was bending over the handlebars, studying something, maybe a map. I drove slowly and carefully up the bad road to Kollen and parked at the turning place. Annie suddenly looked worried. She left her bag on the floor of my car. I try to remember what I was thinking at that moment, but I can't. I remember only that we trudged up the overgrown path. Annie was tall and straight-backed, walking beside me, young and steadfast, yet not unimpressionable. She went with me down to the water and sat hesitantly on a rock. Plucked at her fingers for a while. I remember her short fingernails and the little ring on her left hand.

"I saw you," she said quietly. "7 saw you through the window. Right when you bent over the table. I ran away. Later Papa told me that Eskil was dead."

"I knew you were accusing me," I told her sombrely, "because of the way you've been acting. Every day when we met on the street or at the letterboxes or by the garage. You were accusing me."

I started to cry. I leaned forward and sobbed into my lap while Annie sat motionless at my side. She didn't say anything, but when I was done, I glanced up and saw that she had been crying too. I felt better than I had for a long time, I really did. A warm breeze was stroking my back, and there was still hope.

"What should I do?" I whispered then. "What should I do in order to put this behind me?"

She looked at me with her grey eyes, almost in surprise. "Turn yourself in to the police, of course. And tell them the truth. Otherwise you'll never find peace!"

At that moment she looked at me. My heart turned to stone in my chest. I put my hands in my pockets, tried hard to keep them there. "Have you told this to anyone?" I asked her.

"No," she said. "Not yet"

"You should mind your own business, Annie!" I shrieked in desperation. Suddenly I felt as if I were rising up from the bottom, out of the darkness and into the light. A single paralysing thought occurred to me. That Annie was the only person in the whole world who knew about this. It was as if the wind had turned and was now roaring in my ears. Everything was lost. Her face wore the same astonished expression Eskil's face had. Afterwards I walked swiftly through the woods. I didn't turn around even once to look back at her.

Johnas studied the curtains and the fluorescent light on the ceiling as he kept on shaping his lips to form words that wouldn't come. Sejer looked at him. "We've searched your house and secured the forensic evidence. You will be charged with the negligent homicide of your own son, Eskil Johnas, and the premeditated murder of Annie Sofie Holland. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"You're wrong!"

His voice was a fragile peep. Several burst blood vessels had given his eyes a reddish sheen.

"I'm not the one who will assess your guilt."

Johnas stuck his fingers in his shirt pocket, searching for something. He was shaking so violently that he looked like an old man. Finally he pulled out a flat little metal box.

"My mouth is so dry," he said.

Sejer stared at the box. "But you didn't have to kill her, you know."

"What are you talking about?" he said faintly.

"You didn't have to kill Annie. She would have died on her own if you'd just waited a little longer."

"Are you joking?"

"No," Sejer said. "I would never joke about cancer of the liver."

"You must be mistaken. Nobody was healthier than Annie. She was standing by the water when I stood up and left, and the last thing I heard was the sound of a stone that she threw into the water. I didn't dare tell you the first time, that she actually went all the way up to the lake with me. But that's what happened! She didn't want to drive back with me; she wanted to walk instead. Don't you see that someone must have turned up while she was standing there at the lake? A young girl, alone in the woods. It's crawling with tourists up at Kollen. Does it ever occur to you that you might be mistaken?"

"It does occur to me on rare occasions. But you have to understand that you've lost the battle. We found Halvor."

Johnas grimaced, as if someone had stuck a needle in his ear.

"Sad, isn't it?"

Sejer sat motionless, his hands in his lap. He caught himself rubbing the spot above his wedding ring a few times. There wasn't much else to do. Besides, it was so quiet and practically dark in the small room. Once in a while he glanced up and looked at Halvor's ruined face, which had been washed and tended to, but was still almost beyond recognition. His lips were slightly parted. Several of his teeth had been smashed, and the old scar at the corner of his mouth was no longer visible. His face had split open like an overripe fruit. But his forehead was still whole, and someone had combed back his hair so that the smooth flesh was visible, a small indication of how handsome he had been. Sejer bowed his head and placed his hands carefully on the sheet. They could be clearly seen in the circle of light from the lamp standing on a table. He heard only his own breathing and in the distance a lift creaking faintly. A sudden movement under his hands made him start. Halvor opened one eye and looked at him. The other was covered with a big liquid lump of bandages, rather like a jellyfish. He wanted to speak. Sejer put a finger to his lips and shook his head. "It's nice to see that smile of yours, but you mustn't say anything. The stitches will burst out."