Anne Holt - 1222

Suddenly he got to his feet so abruptly that the chair fell over. I couldn’t hear what he said, but there was no misunderstanding the gesture with his finger.

I smiled. Kari Thue picked up a book with lightning speed and immediately appeared to be so absorbed in its contents that I almost began to doubt what I had seen. But I was still smiling.

Mikkel really was on the way to making important decisions in life.

‘Adrian! Adrian!’

The boy didn’t even bother looking in my direction. He was sitting on the floor between the kitchen door and the dresser with Veronica. I didn’t recognize the game they were playing. They had a lot of cards spread out on the floor in a strange pattern, face up. It looked as if Veronica had considerably more cards in her hand than Adrian, which struck me as an appropriate metaphor for their relationship. I no longer believed she was as young as she seemed at first glance, and I found it odd, to put it mildly, that she got any pleasure from hanging out with a kid of fifteen.

It didn’t have to be about pleasure, of course. It could be a question of usefulness, or necessity, for that matter; the way Veronica behaved towards her fellow human beings made me look like an open and sociable person. Adrian was the only one of all the passengers from the train who hadn’t given the skinny figure dressed in black a wide berth right from the start.

‘Adrian,’ I said again when I reached them. ‘I need to talk to you.’

‘Forget it,’ he snapped.

Adrian and I had certainly had our differences, but the boy must be somewhat oversensitive if he thought our arguments justified such behaviour. I could only imagine that Veronica had persuaded him to go against me.

‘Come on,’ I said calmly. ‘I really do have to talk to you.’

‘But I don’t have to talk to you.’

The young woman was examining her cards. She placed the queen of hearts on the floor before picking up two of the cards that were lying face up.

Two aces.

The boy swore vehemently and threw the jack of clubs on top of the queen, then picked up a king.

‘What are you playing?’ I asked.

Neither of them answered. I sat there for a few minutes following the game, which seemed increasingly absurd.

‘Isn’t there somewhere else you need to be?’

He didn’t look at me.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m going to sit right here until you’re ready to talk to me.’

‘ There! ’ he hissed, banging the ace of spades down on top of the nine of diamonds, which Veronica had just put down. ‘Ha!’

When he was about to pick up a card, Veronica placed her hand on his.

‘Hang on,’ she said in that deep voice that contrasted so sharply with her thin body. ‘Look.’

She placed four twos on the floor one after the other, gave a little smile and gathered up all the other cards on the floor.

‘ Paris ,’ she said.

‘Shit,’ said Adrian.

I’ve played a lot of cards in my life, but this was the most ridiculous, incomprehensible game I’d ever seen.

‘What do you want?’ mumbled Adrian, getting stiffly to his feet.

‘I just want to talk to you. In private.’

The boy had already smelled less than sweet on the train. By now the smell around his skinny body was so unpleasant that I wrinkled my nose and moved back.

‘Look, I haven’t got a room of my own, OK! Which means I haven’t got a bathroom!’

‘That’s the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard. You were the one that chose to sleep in the window. And even if you don’t want a room, there’s nothing to stop you from using a shower. Any time.’

‘Haven’t got any clean clothes,’ he muttered. ‘No point in having a shower.’

‘Come with me,’ I said, taking advantage of the fact that he was too embarrassed to refuse.

The smell was so strong that I had no desire to take him into the little office. Instead I went ahead of him towards the wicker chairs that were still unoccupied. Kari Thue was no longer sitting at the wooden table. I nodded towards one of the chairs. Adrian sat down, sullen and reluctant.

‘How’s it going?’ I asked, moving my wheelchair so close to his knees that he couldn’t get up without pushing me away.

His mouth took on a sulky expression that presumably meant that I should mind my own business.

‘Adrian. I don’t really understand what I’ve done to upset you. You make your own decisions about who you want to be with while we’re up here, but it won’t be long until they come for us. When that happens, I don’t think Veronica will be in as strong a position to help you as I will. I am after all -’

‘So you’re using blackmail now?’

He looked me briefly in the eye. He was close to tears. His lips were trembling and he suddenly lashed out with his right hand. I don’t think he meant to hit anything, but he caught my thigh with a hard blow.

‘Sorry,’ he said, pulling back his hand. ‘I didn’t mean… I’m sorry, OK!’

‘It’s fine. I didn’t feel a thing. It’s OK.’

I wondered what his hair looked like underneath that bloody hat. As if he had read my mind, he pulled the hat off and placed it on his knee before scratching his scalp frantically with both hands, his fingers stiff.

‘What do you want?’ he mumbled eventually, putting his hat back on.

‘What was it about Roar Hanson that made you so angry, Adrian?’

‘He was fucking disgusting.’

‘What was it that was so disgusting about him?’

‘Didn’t you see him? That greasy hair with a comb-over, and that horrible white stuff at the corners of his mouth. And he stank.’

He stopped and lowered his eyes.

‘He was coming on to Veronica.’

‘Yes, so you said. How old is Veronica, actually?’

‘Twenty-four. That fucking priest was a pig, running after little girls.’

‘I don’t think twenty-four counts as a little girl, Adrian. If he was into that kind of thing, there’s a whole load of fourteen-year-old handball players here.’

‘They haven’t even got tits! Hardly, anyway.’

‘Unfortunately, that’s part of the appeal,’ I said drily. ‘If Roar Hanson really did prefer girls who were a little bit too young, then he would have preferred them without tits. But he wasn’t like that, Adrian. There’s absolutely no evidence to suggest it. And you are far too intelligent to go along with crap like that.’

‘But he was after Veronica! It’s true! I saw it with my own eyes! And she wasn’t the only one who thought the old bastard was vile. There were two old women in the hobby room who told him to fuck off as well.’

‘I’m sure they didn’t.’

‘Well, maybe they didn’t say that exactly, but he was all over them and they moved several times. What a fucking…’

He couldn’t find the right swear word.

‘What was it he said to you?’ I interjected while he was thinking.

‘Said? I don’t talk to wankers like him!’

‘You did talk to him. Yesterday morning. After you’d been to the kiosk to get me some crisps and cola. He said something to you about washing your hands, I think. I didn’t hear properly because I was distracted by the fact that you’d brought me paprika-flavoured crisps, and I don’t like them.’

Adrian sat motionless, staring into space. It was as if thinking back made him confused. Or perhaps he wasn’t entirely sober; I thought I could smell alcohol on his breath. That first morning I had suspected that Veronica had alcohol with her. I must have been wrong. As far as I could see, she didn’t drink alcohol at all. She always carried a bottle of mineral water with her, during the evenings too.

‘I don’t remember,’ he said, pulling at his hat. ‘It wasn’t anything to do with washing my hands, anyway.’