Ю Несбё - The Jealousy Man and Other Stories

‘No?’

‘She’d probably deleted them. The one I found was only a day old.’

‘And her reply?’

‘Nothing. Or else she’d deleted that.’

‘If she was afraid of someone seeing the reply she would probably have deleted his message too.’

‘Maybe she didn’t have time to reply.’

‘In a day? Hm. Or maybe she had no reason to feel guilty, maybe that was why she didn’t delete anything. Maybe he came on to her, but she wasn’t interested and didn’t answer his message either.’

‘That’s exactly what she said, the fucking—’ I took a breath. Slag. That’s the kind of word, once it’s out the bag, you can’t get it back in again.

‘You’re afraid,’ said Pijus.

‘Afraid?’

‘Maybe you should tell me what happened last night.’

‘Duh, now you sound more like a cop than a psychologist.’

Pijus smiled. ‘So then don’t tell me.’

‘Even if I wanted to I can’t remember. Booze.’

‘Or repression. Try.’

I looked at my watch. We were still well ahead of schedule, and as I say: we no longer had any reason to hurry on and get finished before one thirty.

So I tried. Because actually he was right, I was afraid. Was it because Lisa was lying on her side? Damned if I know, but there was something wrong, I just knew it. Something that had to come out, just like when the pressure rose in my head. I started to tell the story, but soon came to a halt.

‘Take it easy and start from the beginning,’ said Pijus. ‘Include all the details. Memory is like winding up a ball of yarn, one association leads to the next.’

I did as he suggested, and damned if he wasn’t right.

As I say, we were having a couple of drinks and Lisa suddenly said she was going out at the weekend. And I blew up and confronted her about the text message. I actually intended to let it go and just see what happened, but instead I lost it and began shouting that I knew her and Ludvigsen had something going on. She denied it, but she’s had so little practice at lying it was almost pathetic. I put a bit of pressure on and she cracked, sobbing and admitting that on the firm’s outing to Helsinki in the spring there was a lot of drinking and things happened. She claimed that was the reason she’d decided to give up drinking completely, so nothing like it would ever happen again. And I asked her if this wasn’t a MeToo thing. If it wasn’t Ludvigsen — who was her boss after all — who should take all the blame and not just half of it. And Lisa said well, yeah, maybe he was a little bit more to blame, because according to one of her colleagues he’d been plying her with drinks all evening. By this time I was really pissed off. I mean, you don’t spit in your glass when the boss offers to buy you a drink, do you? Getting it down is more or less part of the job.

‘And after that?’

‘He’s invited me to his house.’

‘And where’s that?’

‘Kjelsåsveien 612.’

‘So you’ve been there!’

‘No!’

‘Then how d’you know the address?’

‘Because he told me of course.’

‘But remembering it was 612, I mean, that’s really... it’s very suspicious.’

She started laughing, and that was when I called her a slag, grabbed the car keys and stormed out before I could do anything worse.

‘You mean worse than driving while intoxicated?’ asked Pijus.

‘Yes, worse than that,’ I said.

‘Please continue.’

‘I drove around and yes, I did think about driving back home and killing her.’

‘But you didn’t do that?’

‘That’s what...’ I raised my hand to my chin, squeezed my cheek between thumb and forefinger. My voice was thick and trembling. ‘That’s exactly what I do not know, Pijus.’

I don’t know if I’d ever called him by his name before. I’d thought of his name several times, must’ve done, but said it out loud? No, I’m pretty damn sure I never did.

‘But you feel you might have done?’

The stomach pains came so suddenly and so violently that I instinctively bent forward.

I remained doubled over for a while before I felt his hand on my back.

‘Come on now, Ivar, it’ll be all right.’

‘Will it?’ I gasped. Completely fucking out of control.

‘I could tell when you came to work today that something had happened. But I don’t believe you’ve killed your little wife.’

‘What the hell would you know about it?’ I bellowed from between my legs.

‘You walked away from your wife because you didn’t want to do anything rash,’ he said. ‘And that was after you’d received confirmation of something you’d suspected for some time. You left to give your frontal lobe a chance to process something you knew your amygdala couldn’t handle in the appropriate manner. That was a mature act, Ivar. It shows that you are beginning to understand how to deal with your anger. I think maybe you should call home and check your wife’s OK, OK?’

I lifted my head and looked at him. ‘Why do you care?’

‘Because you cared?’

‘Eh?’

‘When I had just started and was the driver’s mate on your truck. You helped me, told me in English what to do. Even though I could tell you hated speaking English.’

‘I don’t hate English, I’m just not good at it.’

Pijus smiled. ‘Exactly, Ivar. You were willing to seem a little stupid in order to help me be a little less stupid.’

‘Steady now, all I wanted was a driver’s mate who knew what to do, or it would have meant long days and hard work for me, understand?’

‘I understand. More than you know, maybe. You can tell when people are willing to help you. Don’t you notice it now? Or do you think I only want to help because I don’t want my driver’s mate to screw everything up for me?’

I shook my head. Sure, I knew Pijus was helping me. The way he always did. Today with that crazy old baggage on the balcony wasn’t the first time he’d covered for me. It’s just that it’s so fucking annoying when a foreigner comes and doesn’t just take your job but ends up your boss. It just doesn’t seem right. A guy can’t just come along and take over something he has no right to. Something I have a right to. That means war. Someone has to die. OK, OK, you’re not supposed to think like that, that’s the kind of thinking that gets me in trouble, I know, I know. But what the fuck.

‘I’ve got too much testerone,’ I said.

‘Testosterone,’ said Pijus. OK, so he said it with that irritating grin of his.

‘It makes you aggressive,’ I said.

‘Not necessarily,’ said Pijus.

‘More aggressive than horny, anyway. Maybe not surprising Lisa went looking somewhere else.’

‘Wrong, wrong and wrong again,’ said Pijus, and oh yeah, I could hear he was imitating me. ‘When tests done on animals seem to show that testosterone exclusively promotes aggression, that’s because the animals that have been given the testosterone are the ones that resort to aggression when a crisis occurs. But that’s because the animal brain doesn’t necessarily see any alternative solution. More up-to-date research actually shows that testosterone’s function is more general than that. It prepares you to do whatever is necessary in critical situations. Whether than means aggression and anger or the opposite.’

‘The opposite?’

‘Suppose there’s a diplomatic crisis that threatens world peace. What’s needed then is not aggression but a rapid changeover to self-negating generosity and empathy directed towards someone you actually hate. Or say your job is to control a rocket landing on the moon. The computer fails and you have to work out the speed, the angle of approach and the distance in your head. Anger isn’t the thing. And yet it’s testosterone that comes to our aid in such situations.’