Ю Несбё - The Jealousy Man and Other Stories

I lay completely still, not daring to move for fear of breaking the spell. Or of waking from the dream. Because that was what it felt like. Like being in a dream that was partly sweet and partly nightmarish. The blood, the rug, the corpse in the mortuary. And there was another thing.

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Did you know that Peter got himself a tattoo that day he met you at the hospital?’

‘No. What kind of tattoo was it?’

‘He didn’t mention it?’

‘No. Why do you ask?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘This business about my name being Christopher, was that something he told you?’

‘No. Is it?’

‘It’s my middle name.’

‘Is it?’ she laughed. ‘But that’s fantastic.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Fantastic.’

I didn’t know if it was just my imagination, but it felt as though she had wriggled a little closer to me. And neither of us was cold any more. But I didn’t move. Nor did she. Outside, the rain had changed from a hammering to a steady drizzle. The hoarse, suffering voice of the Scotsman was still audible — he must have been the only person out there. His song must have been one with many verses.

‘I’ve heard that song before,’ I said. ‘I just can’t remember where.’

‘He told us it was an old Irish song,’ said Miriam. ‘About the merrow with the red cap.’

‘Merrow?’

‘It’s Irish for mermaid.’

The mermaid in the red cap. I thought of my dream. Of rising up through the cold dark water to the surface and the light. Something else rose to the surface too.

‘When you say he told us, do you mean you and your mother?’

‘Me and Peter. We walked past him as he was playing not far from the restaurant we’d eaten at. Peter gave him fifty euros and asked him to sing “The Red Capped Merrow” again.’

I closed my eyes and cursed inwardly.

Even though Peter wasn’t especially musical he must have heard that the guy who was singing ‘La Bamba’ was the same person he and Miriam had been listening to. OK, but if he had noticed then I could perhaps convince him that the Scot had moved on to the little village and started busking there. Anyway, if the jig was up then the jig was up. Oddly enough the thought made me calmer.

‘Of course, fifty euros was far too much,’ said Miriam. ‘But I don’t think Peter did it to impress me. I think he did it out of... how shall I describe it? A sense of duty?’

I nodded and folded my hands behind my head. ‘I think you’re right. Peter understands that money can help, that it’s practical to have money, but not that it can impress, or make others feel small. In fact, he can be embarrassed about the fact that he’s so privileged. And I know he sometimes experiences it as a burden and an obligation. He told me once he envied me.’

‘Envied?’

‘He didn’t explain it, but I think he sees in me something he can’t have, the naive innocence of the ordinary person, the freedom of not having enough money and power to feel obliged to take responsibility. Just the same way I see in him the naive innocence in the fact that he actually believes he has a moral responsibility for the rest of the world, that he’s one of the chosen ones, that his inherited wealth is proof that a guiding hand is at work in this world.’

‘But you don’t believe that?’

‘I believe in chaos. And in our ability to see connections where none exist, because we find chaos intolerable.’

‘You don’t believe in fate?’

‘Should I?’

‘You predicted that you and I would lie in the same bed together.’

‘You heard the prediction, maybe subconsciously that was what made you invite me into your bed. Anyway, I said that we’d be clothed.’

‘We’re wearing towels. And we’re not kissing.’

I was about to turn towards her, but then noticed the slight resistance in her body and desisted. Stared instead up at the ceiling.

‘Maybe we always do that,’ I said. ‘Try to make sure that some prediction or other we believe in will actually come true. Maybe that’s what our lives are about.’

We fell silent and listened as the sound of the falling rain grew even lighter. Soon people would be back on the streets again. The taxis would be driving round. Miriam would go to her mother. I glanced at the clock. In a couple of hours’ time I would have to get up for my bus, but that was fine, I wouldn’t be getting any sleep tonight anyway.

Now the rain had stopped completely. The Scot was no longer singing, but other voices were raised here and there across the square. Miriam changed position. I thought she was going to get up, but then she lay still. It was so quiet we could hear the drops of rain from the gutter as they hit the cobblestones beneath the open window with a sound like a deep, heavy sigh. I made up my mind.

‘What I’m going to tell you now isn’t to frighten you off Peter,’ I said. ‘It’s just something I think you ought to know.’

‘And what is that?’ she said, as though she’d been expecting this.

‘I think,’ I said, and swallowed, ‘that Peter has murdered someone.’

‘All right,’ she said. ‘But that doesn’t necessarily make him a bad person.’

‘It doesn’t?’ I said, astonished.

‘I hope not. I’ve murdered someone too.’

The people had all gone home and the birds were not yet awake, so all was still outside by the time Miriam had finished her story. She told me she had been telling the truth when she said she didn’t lie to friends. ‘But you weren’t a friend then, Martin. You are now.’

It wasn’t true that the man she had married hadn’t managed to consummate the marriage. Once he threatened to call for assistance she had allowed him to take her. Rape without violence, that was what she called it. She’d blocked the details from her memory and recalled only the vodka stink of his breath. And when they got into bed he had fallen asleep at once. What really happened next was that she had held a pillow over his face. And didn’t take it away again. She’d sat on top of the puny boy, trapped his arms beneath her knees and kept on pressing until she felt his resistance stop, and then carried on pressing.

‘Until all the tension was gone from his body and I was certain I was a widow,’ she said.

The rest of her story was true enough.

‘I was convinced the police would stop us at the airport the following day. But I guess the Kolyev family never goes to the police. But if we’d taken a later plane, I’m certain they would have caught us.’

Miriam and her mother had then lived with friends in Istanbul.

‘Until the day there was a knock on the door and someone was asking about us. Mamma’s friends knew it must Kolyev’s people and said they didn’t dare to hide us any longer. Since then we’ve travelled back and forth all across Europe. It’s expensive, but the advantage is that as long as we’re within Schengen we don’t have to show our passports. We never take planes or other forms of transport that keep passenger lists. But twice they’ve turned up at the hotels we were living at, and we’ve only just managed to get away. Now we stay in cheap hotels where they don’t keep a digital record of the guests. But it’s impossible not to leave any traces at all, so it’s just a matter of time before they catch up with us. The one thing that could stop them looking is if they realise there’s nothing to look for any more. That I’m dead. So that’s why...’ She swallowed. ‘That’s why I told Mamma we should go to the beach at Zurriola.’

I swallowed hard. ‘You wanted to drown yourself.’

She nodded slowly.

‘So that your mother would be free,’ I said. My voice was thick.

Miriam looked at me, and from the expression on her face I realised that I had misunderstood.