Karin Fossum - The Caller

After a while he put the guinea pig back in the cage. The cage was filled with woodchips and cotton rags, some colourful plastic toys. He’d got the money to buy it from his grandfather, same as the moped — it had been a gift for his confirmation, which hadn’t amounted to anything. His mother couldn’t stay sober long enough to plan a party, and anyway there was no one to invite.

Hungry, he went to the kitchen. There was nothing on the hob, so he looked for milk in the fridge. Sat at the kitchen table and ate cereal while staring out the window. Because she was drunk, his mother wouldn’t stir until evening. Then she’d scuttle to the bathroom, drag a brush through her hair, wobble back to the lounge and suddenly see him sitting in front of the television. From that point until he went to bed, she would play her role as parent. She’d ask where he had been and what he had done. What he had eaten. Whether he was going to get a job, something to bring more money to the household. Then she would complain about her headache, say it had been a little worse today so she had needed to lie down. It’s actually a little better now, she would say. To justify that she’d been in a drunken stupor half the day.

He finished eating. He rinsed his plate and returned to the lounge, fell into a chair. His mother was flat on her back with a blanket under her chin; her skin seemed clammy, as if she had a fever; her eyelids had glided halfway up. I wish you were dead, he thought, I wish you would stop breathing right now. When you die I will clap my hands in joy, and in the middle of your funeral service I will sing and dance. And when you’re finally in the ground, I’ll visit you every night to piss on your grave.

He sent his thoughts to her in a steady, wicked stream. He liked to imagine they reached her somehow. That the hate he felt for her quietly broke her down, like a slow-working poison. He touched the army knife which hung on his belt, felt the warm metal in his hands. I will slice your eyeballs, he thought, and your eardrums. I’ll hoist you into a wheelbarrow and haul you to the woods so the foxes find you. And the badgers, and the cats.

He stood up and returned to the kitchen; he had something to take care of. Looked in the drawers and cupboards. After searching for a while, he found an old pizza box under the worktop, and a pair of scissors and a marker in a drawer. With these simple tools he shuffled back to his bedroom to make a sign.

Erik and Ellinor went to the police station together, on behalf of their mother, Gunilla. Erik Mørk was the elder of the two, already grey at the temples; his fair-haired sister was a good deal younger. You could tell there was a bond between them, a connection that had grown tight during their lives. And now that this awful thing had happened, they appeared as one furious entity. They had brought the local newspaper with their mother’s obituary.

Sejer read it.

‘She’s seventy,’ Erik Mørk said. ‘She just turned seventy, and she’s always been quite healthy. Now she’s very upset. You’ve got to find out what the hell is going on, right now, because this is offensive, I’m sure you’ll agree.’

He had worked himself up quite a bit.

‘I do agree,’ Sejer said. He reread Gunilla Mørk’s obituary, then looked hard at the two siblings. ‘If you think about her friends and acquaintances, or the rest of the family, is there anyone you would suspect? Someone who feels slighted and wants to be noticed?’

Ellinor shook her head decisively. ‘We don’t know anyone like that,’ she said. ‘Nor will you find any among her neighbours. Only decent people.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘In Kirkeby,’ Erik Mørk said. ‘At Konvalveien. She’s a widow, and she’s been alone for many years. She’s never been the nervous type, but at this point she’s tied in knots. She doesn’t know what to make of it, this thing that’s happened to her. I mean, what do they want?’

‘The only way to reassure her is to find the person responsible,’ Ellinor Mørk added, ‘so we can get an explanation of why they did this to her. Because that’s what she doesn’t understand. We don’t either. She keeps to herself, and she doesn’t draw attention to herself. She goes to the shop every day, works in her garden. That type of thing.’

‘Have you contacted the newspaper?’ Sejer asked. ‘The obituary department?’

‘No,’ Erik Mørk said. ‘I assumed you would do that.’

Sejer began to trace the edges of something unpleasant. A carefully designed plan, a soundless form of terror.

‘I’ll talk to her,’ he said. ‘I’ll talk to her today. First I’ll stop by the newspaper. If I find anything, I’ll let you know.’

Erik Mørk put his finger on the obituary. ‘Have you ever heard of this happening before?’

‘No,’ Sejer said. ‘This is really a new and very serious kind of prank. I’ve never seen anything like it. What about the little poem?’ he asked. ‘Does it sound familiar?’

Ellinor Mørk rolled her eyes. ‘That poem is unbelievably ridiculous,’ she said. ‘Our mother has never been ill. This is insane. Our phone is ringing off the hook. People are so shocked when they read that she’s dead. When we tell them it’s just a prank, they’re even more confused. It’s what he wants. Assuming it’s a man. Do you think he wants us to be confused?’

‘What should we say to Mother?’ Erik asked. ‘Somehow we’ve got to calm her down.’

Sejer thought about it for a minute. ‘Tell her she was selected at random for a practical joke which has neither meaning nor purpose. Tell her it’s a game.’

‘So that’s what you believe it is? A game?’

‘Not necessarily. But that’s what you should tell your mother.’

He found Jacob Skarre.

He looked quizzically at his younger colleague. ‘If you saw your own obituary in the paper, how would you react?’

Skarre had already heard about the fake obituary. He opened his mouth to respond, but, because he needed to think it through, changed his mind and kept quiet. What would he have thought if he’d seen these words in the paper some morning while eating breakfast? Our dear Jacob Skarre passed from us today, thirty-nine years old . Or a variation, like this: Our dear Jacob Skarre was suddenly taken from us today . Or: Jacob Skarre died today, after a long illness .

‘I’d have reacted with horror, dread and bewilderment,’ he said. ‘I probably would have laughed hysterically for a while. Then I would have thought about everyone I know who also would’ve read the notice and thought it was true.’ He turned to the inspector. ‘I presume it’s the Wolverine that’s been on the prowl?’

‘Yes,’ Sejer agreed, ‘the Wolverine. The Beast from Bjerkås, you can be sure of that. Talk about originality.’

‘What do you think his goal is?’

‘To make things happen,’ Sejer said. ‘He’s probably inadequate in many ways, deprived of experience and companionship. Perhaps his motive is fairly modest, and it’s all about a need every human being shares. He just wants attention.’

When she showed them into her kitchen, Gunilla Mørk seemed embarrassed.

‘I don’t like to be a bother,’ she apologised. ‘But Erik and Ellinor wanted me to report it. It’s rather trivial when I think about what you normally have to deal with. It’s only a silly newspaper obituary. I’d like to laugh it off, but the laughter doesn’t get past my throat.’

She paced uncertainly. She didn’t know quite how she should behave, with two strange men in her kitchen.

‘I thought I had some good years ahead of me,’ she said, ‘but when I saw the obituary in the paper, my whole world shook. I’m no longer certain of anything. I suppose all security is false security,’ she said with a faint smile. ‘Or so I’ve often thought. Because anything can happen, and it can just as well be today, and to me. I understand that rather well. We are masters of repression, but now it’s as if I can’t really do that any more. I’ve lost something. That obituary,’ she sighed, ‘it’s like a bad omen.’